Iskkska2

©2020 S-VC, Inc. GATORADE and the G BOLT Design are registered trademarks of S-VC, Inc. ©2020 NBA Entertainment. Photo by Scott Cunningham/NBAE/Getty Images. All Rights Reserved.

THE BEST

ARE FUELED BY

THE BEST

HOME WORKOUT HQ! 30 + TOTAL-BODY, NO-BS MOVES

Everyday

Strength

Guys Real Workouts ❯❯ The Best Fitness Gear ❯❯ Real

at Every Price

Liam Hemsworth

Back in Action DO YOU EVEN CRYO? 6 NEXT-GEN

RECOVERY TIPS

EAT THIS, GET FIT

toyota.com/highlander

The all-new Toyota Highlander Hybrid with a best-in-class EPA-estimate of 35 mpg combined.1 Go the extra mile with Highlander Hybrid. Go in confidence with standard Toyota Safety Sense™ 2.0. Go where you want, when you want. Most of all, go with a whole new perspective on how far an SUV can take you. Let’s Go Places.

Prototype shown with options. 1. 2020 Highlander Hybrid AWD 35 city/35 hwy/35 combined mpg EPA-estimates. Actual mileage will vary. 2020 Highlander Hybrid vs.

2020 competitors based on data at www.fueleconomy.gov as of 2/18/20. Actual range will vary depending on refueling practices, driving conditions, and how you maintain your vehicle. ©2020 Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.

05.2020

“I’M REALLY TOUGH. I CAN TAKE ANYTHING.” —LIAM HEMSWORTH, p. 74

FEATURES

74 THE REBUILD

Liam Hemsworth’s 20s ended with his house burning down and his personal life in the spotlight. But with a new training plan and streaming series, the 30-year-old is feeling stronger than ever.

BY SCOTT HENDERSON

80 EVERYDAY STRENGTH

For these 11 guys, strength isn’t forged at the gym. It’s built in the real world, whether that’s by placing steel beams or performing brain surgery.

90 EVERYTHING TO GAIN

Maynor De Leon is on an epic quest to lose 500 pounds. Does he have the discipline to do it?

BY BRYAN SMITH

96 THE STRENGTH DIET

Plenty of diets might help you lose weight, but only one is designed to help you gain muscle, power, and vitality. This one.

BY PAUL KITA

102 ARE YOU ARMY STRONG?

Civil rights legend John Lewis talks fear, cancer, love, and getting into “good trouble.”

Kidney disease cut short Major Carpaccio Owens’s deployment to Iraq. Instead of retiring, he trained harder and earned a perfect score on the new Army fitness test. See how you rank.

BY BEN COURT

BY ANDREW LAWRENCE

88 WARRIOR

On the cover and this page: Liam Hemsworth photographed by the Riker Brothers exclusively for Men’s Health. Styling by Paris Libby. Grooming by Brant Mayfield. On the cover: T-shirt by For Days; jeans by Nudie Jeans.

This page: Tank by Rawganique; pants by Everlane.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

3

70 THE 2020

FITNESS AWARDS The best new gear for strength, speed, and play.

LIFE 35 Healthy, easy-

to-prep, and even delicious meals hiding in your freezer aisle.

40 30/10: Grill this fish for a protein feast.

42 Wine and craft beer, delivered to your door.

44 Step up your

layering game with bold, versatile jackets.

48 Prevent painful

razor bumps with these painless upgrades.

50 Men’s Wealth: The NBA’s CP3 on $$$.

SNAPPER’S DELIGHT

52 Cool Dad: The Kid

Mero on keeping calm in the bleachers.

No man should live on grilled chicken alone to meet his protein needs.

This red snapper meal has more than 30 succulent grams. (See page 40.)

54 The right way to

cope with rejection in the dating game.

MH WORLD

BODY

9 Feats of strength, sports fanaticism, one man’s massive physical transformation and comeback from addiction, and tons of stuff you’re pumped about this month.

15 Cryotherapy.

Massage guns. Infrared saunas. Recovery is hot.

Here’s what’s actually worth trying.

18 6 A.M.: How Pete

Alonso, the Mets slugger, builds bigleague muscle in a barn.

22 Workout: Three

bodybuilder supersets to help you pack on muscle and move better, too.

4

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

I’m not attractive. How do I ask her out?

24 Want to boost your immunity? Here’s how much vitamin D you really need.

26 How gross is your gym? A special MH investigation.

28 How to describe

pain to a doctor, beyond the 0-to-10 scale.

32 A cardiologist’s guide to his (and your) heart.

MIND 62 Special Report:

How to stay healthy and happy at work—from optimizing your office space to navigating the five circles of work hell and banishing stress.

+ 108 And Another Thing! Five LifeChanging Books

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTOPHER TESTANI

Food styling: Michelle Gatton/Hello Artists. Prop styling: Carla Gonzalez-Hart.

60 Ask Her Anything:

CL

KN

Flavor, like degrees, takes time and effort.

K E EN T

IT TAKES EIGHT YEARS TO MAKE A DOCTOR. IT TAKES NINE TO MAKE KNOB CREEK.

CR O BE R M O

Richard Dorment

Jack Essig

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

SVP/PUBLISHING DIRECTOR

Jamie Prokell Creative Director

Chris Peel Executive Director, Hearst Men’s Group

EDITORIAL Ben Court, Mike Darling Executive Editors Ben Paynter Features Editor Nojan Aminosharei Entertainment Director Jordyn Taylor, Spencer Dukoff Deputy Editors Marty Munson Health Director Paul Kita, Josh Ocampo Senior Editors Ebenezer Samuel Fitness Director Brett Williams Associate Fitness Editor Melissa Matthews Health and Nutrition Writer Evan Romano Associate Editor Joshua St. Clair, Temi Adebowale Editorial Assistants

ADVERTISING SALES NEW YORK (212) 649-2000 Caryn Kesler Executive Director, Luxury Goods John Wattiker Executive Director, Fashion & Retail Doug Zimmerman Senior Grooming Director Kim Buonassisi Advertising Sales Director Kyle Taylor East Coast Automotive Sales Director John Cipolla Integrated Account Director Brad Gettelfinger Sales Manager, Hearst Direct Media CHICAGO (312) 964-4900 Autumn Jenks, Justin Harris Midwest Sales Directors LOS ANGELES (310) 664-2801 Patti Lange Western Ad Director Anne Rethmeyer Group Sales Director, Auto SAN FRANCISCO (510) 508-9252 Andrew Kramer Kramer Media DETROIT (248) 614-6120 Marisa Stutz Detroit Automotive Director DALLAS (972) 533-8665 Patty Rudolph PR 4.0 Media

ART Leslie Xia Associate Art Director Eric Rosati Designer Matthew Montesano Digital Imaging Specialist HEARST VISUAL GROUP Alix Campbell Chief Visual Content Director Fabienne Le Roux Executive Visual Director Sally Berman Visual Director Justin O’Neill Contributing Visual Director Amy Wong Senior Visual Editor Sinikiwe Dhliwayo Associate Visual Editor Giancarlos Kunhardt Visual Assistant FASHION Ted Stafford Fashion Director Adam Mansuroglu Senior Style & Gear Editor COPY Janna Ojeda Assistant Managing Editor John Kenney Managing Copy Editor Alisa Cohen Barney Senior Copy Editor Connor Sears, David Fairhurst Assistant Copy Editors RESEARCH Jennifer Messimer Research Chief Darren Reidy Research Editor Nick Pachelli Assistant Research Editor CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Dan Harris, Garrett Munce, Lauren Larson, Michael Easter, Naomi Piercey VIDEO Dorenna Newton Executive Producer Tony Xie, Elyssa Aquino Video Producers Mariah Oxley Social Video Producer Ericka Paparella Associate Producer HEARST MEN’S FASHION GROUP Nick Sullivan Fashion Director Alfonso Fernández Navas Fashion Assistant MEN’S HEALTH INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS Australia, China, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latin America, Middle East, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, UK

Samantha Irwin General Manager, Hearst Men’s Group Karen Ferber Business Manager Paul Baumeister Research Director Alison Papalia Executive Director, Consumer Marketing Chris Hertwig Production Manager Aurelia Duke Finance Director Everette Hampton Executive Assistant Zoe Fritz, Toni Starrs, Jake Heffez, Annie Merrill, Erica Miller, Samantha Wolf, Olivia Zurawin Sales Assistants PUBLIC RELATIONS Nathan Christopher Public Relations Executive Director Lauren Doyle Associate Director, Public Relations MARKETING SERVICES Cameron Connors Executive Director, Head of Brand Strategy and Marketing Stephanie Block Integrated Marketing Director Jaclyn D’Andrea Marketing Coordinator Alison Brown Special Events Director Jana Nesbitt Gale Executive Creative Director Michael B. Sarpy Art Director CIRCULATION Rick Day VP, Strategy and Business Management PUBLISHED BY HEARST Steven R. Swartz President & Chief Executive Officer William R. Hearst III Chairman Frank A. Bennack, Jr. Executive Vice Chairman Mark E. Aldam Chief Operating Officer HEARST MAGAZINES, INC. Troy Young President Kate Lewis Chief Content Officer Debi Chirichella Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Catherine A. Bostron Secretary Gilbert C. Maurer, Mark F. Miller Publishing Consultants Simon Horne SVP, General Manager & Managing Director Asia & Russia Kim St. Clair Bodden SVP/Editorial & Brand Director Chloe O’Brien Deputy Brands Director Shelley Meeks Executive Director, Content Services

HOW TO REACH US: Customer Service: To change your address, pay a bill, renew your subscription, and more, go online to menshealth.com/customer-service, email mhlcustserv@cdsfulfillment.com, or write Men’s Health Customer Service, P.O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593-1500. Editorial offices: 300 W. 57th Street, New York, NY 10019. Feedback: mhletters@hearst .com. Licensing & Reprints: Contact Wyndell Hamilton, Wright’s Media, (281) 419-5725, ext. 152, hearst@wrightsmedia .com. Absolute satisfaction guaranteed. Scent-free subscription available on request. From time to time we make our subscriber list available to companies that sell goods and services by mail that we believe would interest our readers.

If you would rather not receive such mailings by postal mail, please send your current mailing label or exact copy to: Men’s Health, Mail Preference Center, P.O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593-0128.

Men’s Health carries the latest health, fitness, and nutrition reporting to provide you with useful information about your health. But every body is different; individual diagnoses and treatments can come only from a health care practitioner. Printed in USA.

6

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

Men’s Health is a registered trademark of Hearst Magazines Group, Inc.

MEET THE MEN’S HEALTH ADVISORY PANEL We know a lot about health and fitness, but we don’t know as much as the doctors, scientists, and trainers who keep us honest and up-to-date.

BRAIN HEALTH: P. Murali Doraiswamy, M.D. David Perlmutter, M.D.

CARDIOLOGY: John Elefteriades, M.D. David Wolinsky, M.D.

DERMATOLOGY: Brian Capell, M.D., Ph.D. Adnan Nasir, M.D., Ph.D.

EMERGENCY MEDICINE: Jedidiah Ballard, D.O. Robert Glatter, M.D. Travis Stork, M.D.

ENDOCRINOLOGY: Sandeep Dhindsa, M.D.

EXERCISE SCIENCE: Martin Gibala, Ph.D. Mark Peterson, Ph.D., C.S.C.S.*D Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D., C.S.C.S.

GASTROENTEROLOGY: Felice Schnoll-Sussman, M.D.

INTEGRATIVE HEALTH: Brenda Powell, M.D.

INTERNAL MEDICINE: Keith Roach, M.D.

MENTAL HEALTH: Thomas Joiner, Ph.D. Avi Klein, L.C.S.W. Drew Ramsey, M.D.

NUTRITION: Chris Mohr, Ph.D., R.D. Mike Roussell, Ph.D. Brian St. Pierre, R.D., C.S.C.S.

PAIN MEDICINE: Paul Christo, M.D., M.B.A.

SEX & RELATIONSHIPS: Debby Herbenick, Ph.D., M.P.H. Justin Lehmiller, Ph.D.

SLEEP MEDICINE: Mary Carskadon, M.D. W. Christopher Winter, M.D.

SPORTS MEDICINE: Michael Fredericson, M.D. Dan Giordano, D.P.T., C.S.C.S. Bill Hartman, P.T.

TRAINING: Mike Boyle, M.Ed., A.T.C. Ben Bruno, C.F.S.C. Alwyn Cosgrove, C.S.C.S.*D David Jack David Otey, C.S.C.S. Don Saladino, NASM

UROLOGY: Elizabeth Kavaler, M.D. Larry Lipshultz, M.D.

WEIGHT LOSS: David Katz, M.D., M.P.H., FACPM, FACP Jeff Volek, Ph.D., R.D.

Every day, waiting patiently for the zombie hordes to come. They mostly come at night . . . mostly. @JoshRobinson

Uplifting others, encouraging better habits, empathize with those who Carry out struggle. C the same attitude you give/put in the gym. @1988GHOST

PROVE YOUR

Being the household resident jar opener.

STRENGTH

@robbie.anderegg

Strength outside of the gym is carrying all the grocery bags inside in one trip.

Helping people with things they physically can’t do themselves, while expecting nothing in return . . . maybe a beer or two. @HermanShank

@ben.meldrum

Being able to resist donuts in the office kitchen.

Being in your best physical shape for everything you do outside of the gym, living a longer, healthier life.

@fox.chiho

Trunk Archive (man). Getty Images (box).

@dalton.crews.5891

It means you can still install heavy air-conditioners in your windows without having to hire someone to do it for you! @randy.learn.1

Farmer’s walking the groceries up four flights of stairs, sprinting a block to the bus, doing a few WWE-style matches with your kids: We explore the benefits of functional fitness on page 22. But we wanted to hear from you— what does it mean to be strong outside the gym?

Give twice as much focus to your family as you do obsessing over your abs. @erik.tolles

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

9

WORLD

CALL & RESPONSE

Q+A WITH THE E.I.C.

WHAT DOES

it mean to be MASCULINE in 2020?

—jafet_thetraveler

SO I SHOULD STATE from the jump that

I’m the wrong person to ask about the meaning of masculinity or manhood or What It Means to Be a Man™, and not because I’m uninterested or uninformed but because I don’t think there’s any one way that any one person, least of all some random journalist in New York, can define it.

It used to be a little different. In 1976, two social scientists named Deborah David and Robert Brannon set out to identify the major benchmarks of American manhood.

mine.) Whether it was rejecting anything feminine, projecting a take-charge attitude, bottling up the feels, or dispensing all manner of hell, this was what some very smart people thought being a man was all about.

Cut to 2020: Dwayne Johnson and Brad Pitt talk openly about depression. NBA powerhouses get real about anxiety and panic attacks. The lead singer of Metallica recently postponed a tour so that he could concentrate on therapy. And in a recent poll on MensHealth.com, 63 percent of respondents said their primary reason for exercising is for the mental-health benefit rather than to get in shape.

Now, explaining how we got from Sturdy Oak to ohhhhhhm in two generations would require a semester’s worth of textbook reading, but the point is: There are many, many ways to be masculine today, and we’re past the point where it can be boiled down to a few catchphrases that would be of any use to my nine-year-old son. He’s mostly just working on being a good brother, a good friend, and a good basketball player, and, well, two out of three ain’t bad.

Which brings me to the theme of the issue.

I’ve been thinking about the idea of Everyday Strength for a while—how we practice and perceive strength not only at the starting line or the squat rack but in the push and pull of getting through the day. Throughout the issue, you’ll meet all kinds of men (and a few women) who use physical and mental muscles in all kinds of ways. You’ll meet people who lift very heavy things all day, every day. You’ll meet one of the fittest soldiers in the U. S. Army, as well as Representative John Lewis, the great civil-rights leader and a personal hero, who talked to us about spiritual strength, battling cancer, and the power of love. Strength, like masculinity, contains multitudes, and it’s up to us to figure out what it means. Don’t let anyone (even the editor of Men’s Health) tell you different.

tips that a father could pass down to his son as easily as he might a Swiss Army knife: No Sissy Stuff, Be a Big Wheel, Be a Sturdy Oak, and Give ’Em Hell. (Their words, not

10

ASK MEN’S HEALTH Q. Should I still be wearing cuff links?

—JASON, Raleigh, NC

A. Unlike your high

school class ring, cuff links are still cool.

They’re a nice way to formalize your look for a wedding or a big anniversary without going overboard. That doesn’t mean you can’t go overboard. I always recommend finding a simple steel or gold link— either works well with any formalwear. You can go more personal, but remember that there’s a fine line between knot-style cuff links because you’re really into sailing (classy) and flaming-dice cuff links because you went to Vegas once (not so much).

—TED STAFFORD, MEN’S HEALTH FASHION DIRECTOR

Men’s Health looks even better on your front steps. Subscribe at subscribe.menshealth.com.

Follow, tweet, comment, like, respond, and tag us. You could be featured in MHWorld.

Instagram & Twitter @menshealthmag

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

YouTube & Pinterest /menshealthmag

Facebook /menshealth

On the web menshealth.com

And send us your feedback at MHletters@hearst .com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

Mike Garten

We’re on all your favorite platforms.

Have a question for Rich?

Tweet us at @MensHealthMag with the hashtag #AskMHRich and ask away.

LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? Richard Dorment, Editor-in-Chief

WHERE TO FIND US

+

Nurture their loving hearts with IAMS™ Large Breed

©2020 Mars or Affiliates.

WORLD

#GOALS

MEANWHILE,

ON INSTAGRAM . . .

TRANSFOR-NATION!

Our Instagram account isn’t always all @EBENEZERSAMUEL23 biceps workouts

and Dwayne Johnson gym selfies.

Sometimes we throw it back. Way back.

MIKE CONNOR STATS AGE: 54 LOCATION:

Clovis, California OCCUPATION:

Owner of cannabis farm

Make Really want to get ripped? oat ttic pe sure to wear your best to the gym. #tbt

@steveconnolly43 A gentleman dresses appropriately for the gym dear boy. Now where is my monocle?

@jacquesmotiff I think that is a young Chuck Norris on an early version of the Total Gym

@yoorfatfriend @jacquesmotiff fake news, a prebeard Chuck Norris has never existed

@jeepseas Same outfit used to swim the breaststroke distance

@bluechipcoffeeofficial Bowflex ain’t got shit on this machine

12

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

HE SURVIVED A31-FOOT FALL, 108 BROKEN BONES,AND EIGHT SURGERIES. NOW HE HAS A“WARRIOR MIND-SET.” The Recap Longtime Men’s Health readers might recognize Mike Connor—he appeared in the magazine in September 2015, after he had moved from bed rest into a wheelchair. Connor’s fall (a work-related accident) resulted in the loss of an arm and a leg. He told us back then: “Being in a wheelchair hasn’t stopped me from training to meet all the fitness benchmarks set by my recovery team.

My new motto is ‘If you can move, you can exercise.’ ”

The Setback Doctors put Connor on the highest dose of oxycodone to deal with the pain, and he felt like the drug restricted him mentally and physically.

“I wasn’t going to sit around and watch Judge

Judy and pop pills every day,” Connor says.

walking for increasingly longer periods of time on his own.

The Comeback (Part 2) It took him six months, but Connor managed to detox off the oxycodone with the help of medical marijuana and a newfound commitment to fitness. At first, he defined working out as simply putting his natural weight on his legs.

Then, after developing enough leg strength to move to floor exercises, he began focusing on his core strength, working up to 600 crunches a day.

“I would leave everything on the gym floor; I was exhausted every day,” he says. Eventually, he started doing something doctors told him he’d never do: walking. Although Connor still primarily moves via wheelchair, he’s now

The Reward Connor not only started working again; he also founded his own cannabis farm in California (where, of course, growing the stuff is legal). Between his day job and his rigorous physical therapy, he volunteers at Break the Barriers, a group that works with veterans who have suffered setbacks.

“Most guys just need tough love. You need to get your body to do what it does naturally–and that is kick ass,” Connor says. “You’re in charge of your life. You have all the potential. So you’ve been handed a shitty hand— that’s reality. How do you make it better?”

Courtesy Smithsonian Libraries (vintage exercise machine). Courtesy Mike Connor (Connor).

menshealthmag

FUN WITH POLLING

WORLD

THIS MONTH IN THINGS YOU’RE

EXCITED ABOUT WHICH SUPER-HYPED UPCOMING VIDEO-GAME RELEASE WILL SUCK UP YOUR FREE TIME? The Last of Us Part II vs. Iron Man VR Based on 354 responses to @MensHealthMag.

THE BIG QUESTION

Sony Interactive Entertainment (The Last of Us Part II, Iron Man VR). Getty Images (telephone, egg and toast, tulips, gift box, Mero). FX Networks (Archer). Comedy Central (South Park). Fox Media (Family Guy, The Simpsons).

47.7% Not really a gamer

37.3%

15% Iron Man VR

The Last of Us Part II

Sports Fanaticism The Kid Mero, one half of comedy superteam Desus & Mero, wrote about parenting and his lifelong allegiance to all New York sports teams (page 52). Or, as he puts it: “Bleacher creatures like me live and die with our teams (figuratively!).”

It got us thinking: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done to show your support for your favorite team?

HOW DO YOU USUALLY CELEBRATE MOTHER’S DAY? I call vs. I take her out for a meal vs.

I buy her something nice vs. Oh, I go BIG Based on 786 responses to @MensHealthMag.

30.8% I take her out for a meal

30.8%

I stayed home, and quietly whispered “Good game, boys” when they won.

I buy her something nice

@Kevin.Jeffrey.31

Didn’t wear the color red all season! didNT work but F*** it #GOBLUE @eric.labaki.1

6%

32.4% I call

Showed up without a bag on my head to a Cleveland Browns game. @DJHale1

I once put my Beagle in a Flyers jersey . . . thinking it would help ’em win the cup.

It didn’t work. @josh.shensky

ARCHER RETURNS FOR ITS 11TH SEASON ON ADULT SWIM THIS MONTH. HOW DOES IT STACK UP AGAINST OTHER LONG-RUNNING ADULT CARTOONS? The Simpsons, always vs. Family Guy, forever vs. South Park is still king vs. Archer

11.6% Archer

THE MEN’S HEALTH TWITTER POLL

There’s stress at work, and then there’s stress at work.

Although unemployment hovers at historic lows and take-home pay is creeping upward, workers are reporting more stress on the job. See how our followers responded to a recent @menshealthmag Twitter poll, then check out tips on managing your own mental health at work on page 62.

32.5%

22.6%

The Simpsons

South Park

33.3% Family Guy

16.6% 40.1% 28.8% 14.5%

I don’t I deal with the consider work same amount stressful. of job BS that Honestly. everyone else does.

Let’s say I’m “highly stressed.”

I’m ready to quit.

Like now.

Based on 930 responses to @MensHealthMag.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

13

*Same electrolytes as regular Gatorade. ©2020 S-VC, Inc. GATORADE and the G BOLT Design are registered trademarks of S-VC, Inc.

ALL THE ELECTROLYTESz

ZS UE GRA OR

GET MORE OUT OF ZERO.

BODY

22

........... SEVEN NEW MUSCLE MOVES

24

........................

26

................... THE

28

........................................

A R E YOU GETTING ENOUGH V ITA MIN D?

NASTIEST GER M HOT SPOTS IN YOU R GY M DEATH TO THE PA IN SCA LE!

S New advances in recovery science offer you more (and pricier) ways to bounce back from workouts. The key is figuring out what your body needs—and when to use it.

BY LINDSAY BERRA

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KRISTA SCHLUETER

AL TOBIA, 30, a small-business owner who works in Little Falls, New Jersey, wasn’t sure exactly what he needed when he hobbled into ChillRx in Montclair. All he knew was that months out from the 2019 New York City Marathon, his right hip was screaming. Three minutes of whole-body cryotherapy and 30 minutes of pneumaticcompression-boots treatment later, the screaming was gone, and Tobia was hooked. He went to ChillRx for the next 14 days straight and eventually ran a 4:26 in his first marathon. “Without the recovery,” he says, “I would have died.”

Exaggeration aside (no, Sal, you wouldn’t have died), it was a success story for the emerging, tech-infused recovery industry, which claims it can help you

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

15

BODY

bounce back from workouts and injuries with infrared this, massage that, and air-pressure pods that look like they were designed for Elon Musk’s Mars transport system.

For decades, exercise helped people push their body to its limits, but the only recovery tools were protein shakes, stretching, and ice.

Today’s recovery industry comes in a host of packages. There are boutiques like Nordic Edge, a New York–area chain that packs cryotherapy, infrared-sauna treatments, and more into one building, and Salt + Sweat, which features infrared-light therapies and salt rooms, where you inhale salt to clear airways.

CrossFit boxes and group-fitness studios are offering services on-site, and chains like Equinox provide compressionrecovery boots, foam-rolling workshops, and other treatments at select locations.

The home-recovery market is also booming: Netflix-and-relax your sore muscles in your own living room with a massage gun, vibrating foam roller, or electricalstimulation unit.

The issue: The road to optimal muscle recovery isn’t linear, and it certainly isn’t easy to understand. The recovery industry is innovating faster than researchers can study it, so science can’t reliably claim that, say, cryo healed Tobia’s hip. That doesn’t stop boutiques from charging big money. Do you really need all this after a 20-minute run?

Massage guns are great, but do they do anything a foam roller can’t? “The normal person, they’re not training hard enough to need all these recovery strategies,” says muscle researcher Brad Schoenfeld, C.S.C.S., Ph.D. But while you may not be pummeling your body like a pro athlete, you are doing plenty to damage it, says Kara Shull, D.P.T., C.S.C.S., of New York City’s Movement2live. And unlike a pro, you aren’t getting the recovery that comes with regular movement. “The common person who is sitting at a desk all day almost needs it more,” Shull says.

You’re not being battered by two-adays, but in an always-on world, you are constantly being peppered by stressors that hot-wire your sympathetic nervous system. That’s a problem, because your body can’t heal unless you’re in a parasym16

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

Drink at least a liter of water before entering the infrared sauna (above) so you don’t dehydrate. The secret to the massage gun (right): Be gentle.

pathetic state. (Grossly simplified, one state is alert, with your brain, heart, and internal organs optimized to fight or flee; the other is relaxed, with a slower heart rate and organs doing maintenance.)

“Whatever you can do to get your body relaxing, even if it’s a placebo, will help you heal,” says MH advisor Dan Giordano, D.P.T., C.S.C.S., of Bespoke Treatments.

But what will help you heal? Experts preach mastery of the basics first. (See “The OG Rules of Recovery,” right.) They make few blanket statements about the next-gen recovery revolution, since what helps one body doesn’t work for another.

So gauge things yourself, using what phys-

ical therapist Kelly Starrett, D.P.T., calls the Golden Recovery Rule: Performance is the judge. “Good recovery isn’t about how you feel now,” he says. “It’s about how you feel during your next workout.”

Not sure whether your muscle-optimization plan (heck, or ours) was effective?

Track your performance in your next workout and let that be your litmus test.

“You know a treatment is working for you if it allows you to perform higher amounts of work more often,” says Starrett.

Not every therapy will do it for you, but these strategies are a starting point for navigating an ever-changing (and sometimes overhyped) recovery landscape.

THE OG RULES

OF RECOVERY

The latest in cryo-infraredvibrational-massagecompression tech won’t relax your sore muscles if you ignore these basics.

SLEEP “The basic foundation of all recovery efforts should be sleep,” says Winsper. Make whatever shut-eye you can get (ideally eight hours around the same time each night) count: Eliminate light, and sleep in a 60 to 67 degree room.

Chillax If You’re Gonna

Get in the Red Zone

Your average cryotherapy session has you spending up to three minutes in a booth cooled to around -160 degrees with nitrogen gas. Proponents claim it improves sleep and spikes metabolism, and several small studies support this.

One deep-dive review of six studies involving 257 rheumatoid-arthritis patients also showed it reduces pain. The catch? Consistency: Studies observed benefits after seven or more straight days of cryo. One session a week won’t help. Can’t make it daily? Find at least some regularity, going two or three times weekly for three weeks.

Far-infrared saunas heat up using farinfrared light instead of steam. They’ll get you to sweat, and studies show they’ll also up blood circulation. Just hydrate before entry; you’ll leave drenched. If you want even more infrared benefits, search for near-infrared studio booths. New science has found they can boost energy and stimulate mitochondrial activity. Added advantage: You won’t sweat as much.

Schedule a Booty Call Pneumatic-compression boots and sleeves like NormaTec’s zip onto your limbs, then use air pulses to push fluids. In theory, that improves blood flow, although a recent study of cyclists couldn’t link boot usage to improved performance. Still, pro athletes love them, and Paul Winsper, Under Armour’s VP of athlete performance, believes in them, too—as long as you don’t rush into them after your sweat sesh. Postworkout soreness, he says, is critical for gains. That’s when the body releases inflammatory cytokines, which repair tissue. “This is essential to stimulate the positive adaptation to training,” Winsper says. Wait at least an hour after your workout to slip on compression boots.

Gun It Gently Who doesn’t love a pulsating massage gun digging into their achy quads and forearms, right? Sure, your foam roller can do the same thing for a fraction of the cost, but the massage-gun surge continues. If you’re going to use one, just don’t dig in too much. Pressing the gun into your skin can bruise lymphatic vessels, delaying— not accelerating—recovery. “Float it,” says Giordano. “If you’re pressing, you’re already going too hard.” Just 120 seconds of gentle gunning will relax tight muscles.

Hyperice’s Hypervolt Plus ($399; hyperice.com) is your best option.

Chase Spasms Electronic muscle stimulation has been around for decades, but it’s never been more affordable, with portable units from Marc Pro, Compex, and PowerDot going for as little as $200. Physical therapists use these same units to rehab injuries, and athletes who train hard

MOVE To circulate blood and decongest tissues, “walking is our best technology,” Starrett says. Your body is designed to move, so pack at least 12,000 steps into every day, whether you’ve already worked out or not.

FUEL “Don’t eat like shit,” says Giordano.

“If you’re crushing your body with processed junk foods that cause inflammation, none of the other treatment options will benefit you.”

And hydrate, people. Your muscles can’t rebuild without water.

ROLL Massage guns are great, but oldschool rollers can promote blood flow, which may help break up soft-tissue adhesions and release fascia. Spend ten minutes rolling tight muscles before bed. But take it easy; bruising is bad.

(think cyclists, runners, and bodybuilders) swear by them after a workout.

Aim for Compex’s Mini Wireless ($250; compex.com) if you can. Whatever the unit, dial up the power until you feel a muscle contraction or see your muscle pulsing. Then leave it at that setting for 15 to 30 minutes. Technically, you can stim for up to 23 hours but . . . yeah, good luck with that.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

17

BODY THE 6 A.M. WORKOUT W/

The Home Run King

1

Forget six-pack abs. Mets star PETE ALONSO rises early to supercharge his power swing.

BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S.

P

ETE ALONSO won’t lie: He’s always wanted abs. He almost had them once, too, as a freshman at the University of Florida in 2014, when he dropped weight on the coaches’ advice—then suffered through the worst baseball campaign of his life. “I got down to 215 pounds,” he says. “I didn’t hit with very much power.”

Six years later, the New York Mets’ first baseman has achieved something more meaningful. He’s Major League Baseball’s reigning home-run champ, thanks to 245 pounds of country muscle and light-tower power. And right now he’s busting out a 5:30 A.M. off-season workout in a barn (yes, barn) in swampy Odessa, Florida, a rack of dumbbells on one side and a pile of medicine balls on the other.

Alonso is grunting his way through an hour-long sweat session with trainers Danny Wood, C.S.C.S., and Ryan Rigau.

There’s no heat or A/C, no TVs, and no kettlebells—just one overworked speaker blaring overtrebled Metallica. It’s chilly out, but steam rises from Alonso’s head and shoulders.

Workouts like this one helped the slugger play 161 games as a rookie and actually get stronger as the year went on, crushing a league-best 11 homers in September. But this isn’t just about dingers. He does it all in the same gym he’s used since his senior year of high school. Wood and Rigau run their training business, Athlete’s Retreat, here. “I love the barn,” Alonso says, and he also loves the early workouts. “It’s time to go,” he says of morning training. “I’ve got a job to do. We’re getting after it.”

The best part: The trainers help him build the strength he needs without any fancy equipment. “The reason I keep coming back is because every year,” he says, “I get better.”

18

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

2

1. The ability to rotate your torso is key to a baseball swing—and to everyday strength, too. The wood chop is an Alonso favorite.

Start by holding a cable attachment at your hip, then pull it across your body to your opposite shoulder. Do 3 sets of 10 to 12 reps per side.

STAT PACK! Pete Alonso, Mets 1B Age: 25 Vitals: 6' 3", 245 lb 2019 Stats: 53 HRs, 120 RBI, .260 avg

3

2. Alonso starts every workout by walking across a four-footlong mat covered in small rocks. Called a rock mat and available on Amazon, it loosens tight foot tissue. “Think of your body as a building,” Alonso says. “Without a strong foundation, it won’t cooperate.”

2019 Awards: • NL Rookie of the Year • NL All-Star • HR Derby champ

3. Strong glutes help Alonso finish every swing with a homerun uppercut. He does bodyweight back extensions to build that strength. Do 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN LOOMIS

BETWEEN SETS

4

What is strength to you?

Strength is not just control of your body; it’s what you can output. I’ve seen people cut up, ripped, not be able to get as much out of themselves as me.

I’m winning.

Best part of working out in a barn?

We play in 30 different cities. There are 30 bigleague teams, all different climates. You can’t control the weather.

I don’t care if it’s 100 degrees, 30 degrees.

Here, you gotta lock in and just grind.

Do you ever see any animals out there?

We’ll see a red-tailed hawk fly by. There are some raccoons. There are some foxes running around.

And the lake here is full of largemouth bass.

5

4. Your lower body starts a baseball swing, but your upper body finishes it.

Alonso mimics that with a unique move, the depth-jump-to-broadjump med-ball throw.

To do it, stand on a small box with a med ball at your chest. Step off it, then leap forward. As you do, throw the med ball hard. Do 3 sets of 3 reps. “Quality over quantity,” says Wood.

5. All this strength only helps if Alonso can move his body explosively. He builds that power with 3 sets of heavy tire flips across a 20-yard turf field near the barn.

6. The workout takes about 90 minutes, and Alonso enjoys it all. Sort of.

“During? You’re like, ‘Fuck this,’ ” he says.

“You love it afterward.”

This is a Florida swamp!

Ever see an alligator?

I haven’t seen a gator here.

If I did? I’d just kinda say, “Oh, that’s cool.”

6

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

19

BODY 30 DAYS TO STRONG

Whole Body Muscle Moves Classic biceps curls might help you build big muscles, but they don’t always hone the everyday strength needed to, say, pick up your toddler. Trainer Marcus Filly has a fix: functional bodybuilding, which has you do muscle moves (think shoulder presses) from positions that challenge your whole body (like the Z press below). Try it in this 3-days-a-week workout. Rest a day between sessions.

BY MARCUS FILLY AND EBENEZER SAMUEL, C.S.C.S.

(b)

THE WARMUP Do 1 set of this warmup, focusing on moving with control.

Do 3 rounds of this superset.

1a

Sit on the floor, legs straight and core tight, a kettlebell held in your left hand at your shoulder (a). Keeping your core tight, straighten your left arm, pressing the kettlebell overhead (b). Pause, then slowly lower it back to your shoulder, taking 3 seconds to do this. Keep your elbow close to your torso as you do.

That’s 1 rep; do 8 to 10 per side.

(a)

(a)

(b)

Cossack? Do bodyweight lateral lunges instead.”

(a) (c)

(b)

(d)

Inchwork to Perfect Stretch Start standing (a), then bend at the waist and put your hands on the floor, bending your knees slightly.

Tighten your abs. Walk your hands forward until you’re in pushup position (b). Pause, then step your right foot to your right hand and your left foot to your left hand, straightening your legs and raising your butt high (c). Bend your knees, squatting low (d). Reverse the movements to the start. That’s 1 rep; do 10.

22

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

1b

Single-Arm Kettlebell Z Press

Front-Rack Cossack Squat

Stand holding kettlebells at your shoulders, core tight, elbows close to your body (a). Step to the left with your left foot, shifting most of your weight to your left glute and thigh. Keep your right leg straight as you do this and allow your right toes to come off the floor. Sit back on your left glute (b). Press back to standing. That’s 1 rep; do 8 to 10 per side.

YOUR MUSCLE MASTER

Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S., Men’s Health fitness director, is a certified strength and conditioning expert who has trained with professional and Olympic athletes.

SUPERSET 2 Do 3 rounds of this superset.

(a)

(b)

2a

FEATURED TRAINER Marcus Filly is a six-time CrossFit Games competitor. He founded Revival Strength, focusing on programs designed to build strength and aerobic capacity without ever leaving you gasping for air.

Glute Bridge Bench Single-Arm Press

Lie with your shoulder blades on a bench, core tight, a kettlebell in your right hand, held directly over your chest. Squeeze your glutes and abs so your torso is parallel to the floor. This is the start (a). Bend at the elbows and shoulders, lowering the kettlebell to your chest (b), then press it back up.

That’s 1 rep; do 8 to 10 per side.

2b

Cross-Body Romanian Deadlift

Stand holding a kettlebell in your right hand, core tight, feet about hip-width apart (a). Bend your knees slightly, push your butt back, and slowly lower the kettlebell.

Keep it close to your body as you do so, and move it across your body, toward your left foot (b).

Stop when you feel tension in your right hamstring or you feel your lower back begin to round, whichever comes first. Stand back up, squeezing your glutes. That’s 1 rep; do 8 to 10 per side.

(a)

(b)

EB SAYS:

“Aim to take 3 seconds to lower the weight on every rep, and focus on feeling this in your glutes. Feel it in your back? Lighten the weight.”

SUPERSET 3 Do 3 rounds of this superset.

3a

Single-Arm Incline Row

Set an incline bench to a 45 degree angle and lie with your chest on it, core and glutes squeezed. Hold a kettlebell in your right hand, arm hanging naturally (a). Squeeze your shoulder blades and row the kettlebell to your rib cage (b). Pause for a moment, then lower it back to the start. That’s 1 rep; do 8 to 10 per side.

3c

Grooming: Deepti Sadhwani. Kyle Hilton (Samuel).

(b) EB SAYS:

“You’ll be tempted to arch your lower back as you do this. Avoid that by squeezing your glutes.”

(a)

Side Plank

Lie on your right side, legs straight.

Squeeze your abs and prop yourself up on your right forearm, creating a straight line from shoulders through feet. Do one 30-second hold per side.

TANK TOP BY FOURLAPS; SHORTS BY REEBOK; SNEAKERS BY UNDER ARMOUR.

BODY

M H/RDA

1,000 IU OF Various experts recommend different amounts of this essential nutrient.

Here’s the exact dose you need every day.

BY JULIE STEWART

WHY VITAMIN D MATTERS

It’s the workhorse vitamin, reinforcing your bones, bolstering your immune system, and tamping down inflammation. “The strongest evidence suggests vitamin D may reduce respiratory infections, autoimmune diseases, and even risk of dying from cancer,” says Edward Giovannucci, M.D., a professor of nutrition at Harvard.

WHAT THE FDA RECOMMENDS

The agency suggests 600 international units (IU) daily for healthy adults. About 40 percent of Americans are deficient, and if their deficiency is severe, they run the risk of developing symptoms such as muscle weakness, fragile bones, and bone pain, according to the National Institutes of Health. (Your doctor can check your level with a simple blood test.) Considering this . . .

24

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

Up it to 1,000 IU daily. While 600 IU may protect you from deficiency, a little more may help you build up your blood level of vitamin D so that you can tap its full diseaseprevention powers, says Dr. Giovannucci.

HOW DO I HIT THE TARGET?

Enzymes in your skin can convert UV rays to vitamin D, but the amount generated depends on your skin color, where you live, and the time of year. So stick with food. Fish like canned sockeye salmon (716 IU in three ounces), cooked trout (648 IU in the same), and swordfish (564 IU) all push you toward the goal. A half cup of portobellos tacks on 316 IU, a glass of milk has 100, and an egg has about 40.

SO . . . SHOULD I SUPPLEMENT?

If you can’t work a swordfishand-’shrooms diet, sure.

But know that foods rich in vitamin D carry additional disease-prevention benefits that a supplement doesn’t. If you’re short of the goal, choose a supplement that’s certified by an independent third party like NSF, such as dotFIT Vitamin D-3, or like USP, such as NatureMade Vitamin D3.

You could down 20 four-ounce flutes of fortified milk a day to hit your daily dose of vitamin D. But why do all those dishes?

PHOTOGRAPH BY BOBBY DOHERT Y

Food styling: Michelle Gatton/Hello Artists. Prop styling: Mat Cullen/Lalaland. Chris Pyper/the Noun Project (cow).

VITAMIN D

WHAT WE RECOMMEND

BODY

26

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

ILLUSTRATION BY RODRIGO DAMATI

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

27

ALL WRONG? On a scale of zero to 10, how outdated is the way we describe and document our discomfort? Enough to make some very smart doctors very worried. BY MEGHAN RABBITT 28

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

A

Adam Voorhes/Gallery Stock

ARE WE TALK ING ABOUT

S A 20-YEAR-OLD college student, Kevin Boehnke just wanted to play ultimate frisbee to unwind. But over the course of several months, he developed a stabbing pain in his hands and wrists that made it hard—and unpleasant—to play. Soon he couldn’t even play beer pong without the intrusive hurt.

So Boehnke did what you’d probably do, too. He went to a doctor and got it diagnosed. Tendinitis, they said. Yet after several weeks of ibuprofen and physical therapy, he was still in agony. When pain started radiating into his elbows, shoulders, back, and neck, Boehnke visited other doctors for more opinions.

Each one had the same numerical approach toward gauging discomfort: “Where do you fall on a scale of zero to 10?

Zero being no pain and 10 being the worst you’ve ever experienced.” And no matter what he said, no one could pinpoint a cause.

You might well find yourself in a similar predicament at some point (if you haven’t already), given how America’s collective health is trending. About 50 million American adults now suffer from chronic pain, most commonly neck and back aches. Some suffer every day. The longer you live, the higher your odds of discomfort. Weight gain, accidents, cancer treatments, and sports injuries can all have uncomfortable complications.

To gauge—and hopefully assuage—the hurt, many medical professionals have been asking some version of the pain-scale question since at least 2001, when the Joint Commission introduced the idea of pain as the fifth vital sign—a metric that should be tracked alongside blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and breathing rate to certify normal health.

Pain, after all, is a symptom of real trouble somewhere in your body. Assess it better, the logic went, and our pain problem could be treated more precisely.

That hasn’t happened. (See: opioid crisis.) Like a lot of other Americans, Boehnke kept seeing doctors and saying numbers. The higher the number, the more stressed he got about his situation, which only made him feel worse. In 2009, after 13 months of suffering, Boehnke finally landed in the office of Dan Clauw,

INSIDEOUT

EVENTS & PROMOTIONS

RUGGED MANIAC - BIRDS OF PREY

LOOK FOR IT ON DIGITAL & BLU-RAY™

GET 15% OFF RUGGED MANIAC OBSTACLE RACE! Scan to see more!

Join the fun and SAVE 15% at ruggedmaniac.com with the code 15INSIDE through 5/31/20.

TM & © DC. © 2020 WBEI.

m

HIGH HIIT

DOWNLOAD ALL OUT STUDIO for the

BODY

M.D., medical director of the Chronic Pain & Fatigue Research Center at the University of Michigan Medical School.

And Dr. Clauw asked him some questions he hadn’t heard before. Instead of focusing on sheer pain level, he wanted to know how Boehnke was living with it.

What was his pain preventing him from doing? What had he tried that made him feel better or worse?

Boehnke was intrigued. All of a sudden, he was talking about his pain in a new way.

He was explaining not just how much it hurt his arms and back but also how it hurt his life and his ability to deal with it. And that opened the door to effective methods of managing it. Not only had Boehnke discovered how to communicate about this better, but Dr. Clauw was also able to determine the true culprit, fibromyalgia, a chronic-pain disorder.

More doctors, nurses, and scientists are feeling Boehnke’s pain and speaking up about the problems that stem from using a simple numerical pain scale in clinical practice. “Merely answering the pain scale keeps most of us from talking about pain in more useful ways,” says Mark Hutchinson, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at the University of Adelaide in Australia. “And our reliance on it is likely keeping us in pain.”

HOW THE SCALE ROSE THE ORIGINAL zero-to-10 scale wasn’t

intended to diagnose your pain at all.

It was designed for something far more specific: to assess how well treatments are working in clinical trials. And it’s still good at that. The problem is that in the early 2000s, hospitals, urgent-care centers, and doctors’ offices adopted it as a sort of better-than-nothing shorthand, and it continued to spread. “There are no language barriers with the numeric pain

THE PAIN SCALE 2.0

30

The number scale is particularly fraught for men, who often downplay how much things hurt. scale, and a number is something you can get over the phone,” says John Farrar, M.D., Ph.D., a pain specialist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Easy is one thing; helpful is another.

Part of the issue isn’t even the scale itself; it’s our human response to picking a number on it. Pain is so relative that two guys with the same backache might rate it totally differently, even though neither of them can sit at a desk for an hour at a time. And the difference between saying something is a 4 and a 6 can change the treatment you receive. Many docs deem a score of 5 or higher as the point at which meds are given for acute pain.

The number scale is particularly fraught for men, who often downplay how much things hurt. One study found that men tend to underreport their pain to female practitioners.

Technology may eventually be able to pick up some of the slack. Researchers are working on next-generation methods to help doctors objectively quantify pain.

That includes Hutchinson, who is developing a blood test that could track chemicals that are released when the body’s hurting.

It could measure the severity of someone’s discomfort within minutes. Other inventions are looking at how our pupils respond under stress, or how brain-wave frequencies can shift. “Doctors don’t just ask someone if they have a fever; they use a

thermometer,” says Dave Thomas, Ph.D., a member of the NIH Pain Consortium.

“We need to get a better biological picture of pain so we can treat it better, and I think we’re pretty close to bringing technology that does that into clinical settings.”

Until these are ready for the real world, you can still use the pain scale: It can be a convenient way to communicate change quickly. But also try the following strategies to take the discomfort out of the whole pick-a-number conversation.

Say what your pain prevents you from doing. “A lot of us are moving toward asking pain patients two or three things they can’t do because of their pain that they’d like to do, whether it’s playing a round of golf or picking up their kid,” says Dr. Clauw. If your doctor doesn’t ask, volunteer the information. “When we can get people to focus on those things, it’s more likely to inspire them to try different therapies and be okay with steps in the right direction. It’s a lot more motivating than getting their pain score down from a 6 to a 4.” Or trying to get to the mythical zero.

Shifting the focus to how you can get back to what you enjoy doing may also stop pain from stopping you. That’s what happened with Boehnke, now 33, who learned to ditch the “I’ll always be in agony” frame of mind. “I went from rushing around trying to manage a high pain-scale number

Don’t just rate the hurt; rate how it’s affecting your life.

0

1

2

3

4

5

PAIN-FREE

VERY MILD

DISCOMFORTING

TOLERABLE

DISTRESSING

VERY DISTRESSING

6 INTENSE

7

VERY INTENSE

8

UTTERLY HORRIBLE

9

10

EXCRUCIATING/ UNIMAGINABLE/ UNBEARABLE UNSPEAKABLE

NO PAIN

MINOR PAIN

MODER ATE PAIN

SEVERE PAIN

You’re living life as per usual.

Pain doesn’t limit your activity; you’re still living a normal life with a little bit of pain added in.

Your pain is somewhat disabling—you might avoid activities that exacerbate it.

Your pain is extremely disabling.

It has drastically affected your quality of life and is always on your mind.

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

WHAT ELSE TO MENTION WHETHER YOUR doctor asks you or not, you should provide an answer to this question, says Sean Mackey, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the Division of Pain Medicine at Stanford University:

Adam Voorhes/Gallery Stock

What do you believe caused your pain? In the typical doctor-patient scenario, the patient isn’t usually encouraged to hazard a lot of guesses about this.

to paying attention to what was helping me have fun with my girlfriend or play ultimate frisbee again,” he says. “I also learned to check in with myself and adjust what I do on a given day based on how I feel.

That helps me set realistic expectations, which in itself tends to lessen my pain.”

Shifting away from numbers also helped Boehnke avoid looking for a homerun solution and instead “hit singles” with a mix of therapies, which for him include acupuncture, massage, yoga, and medical cannabis.

So eye-opening was Dr. Clauw’s approach that Boehnke is now working in his lab, aiming to better understand how cannabis might be useful for chronic-pain management.

Describe your pain throughout the day. “The pain scale gives us a pointin-time reading, whereas tracking symptoms across a day or week gives us a more complete picture of what you’re up against,” says Dr. Clauw. That gets doctors closer to a diagnosis and treatment plan.

In the category of annoying but potentially

really helpful: Download an app like My Pain Diary that prompts you to record your symptoms daily. Then all you need to do is show your phone to the doc to indicate how your pain waxes and wanes.

Discuss which treatments you’ve already tried. If you have a chronic condition, it’s important to track and share with your doc everything you’ve done so far— from acupuncture to steroid injections to yoga. “Talking about the stuff that failed redirected me toward treatments and therapies that ultimately worked better,” says Boehnke. “And talking about the things that did work, even if they felt like very small wins, helped me stay hopeful and stress less.”

Over the past 13 years, Boehnke has figured out how to talk about his pain— both to his doctors and to himself—and he says it’s been key to helping him feel relief. “I started out just trying to defeat my pain,” he says. “Now my goal isn’t to get to a zero.” It’s to have a full life. It may include pain sometimes, but then again, that’s life.

But here’s why it’s important to mention: If you have back pain that you think is caused by a disc protrusion and you’re concerned that if you move, you’ll become paralyzed, you need to bring it up and the doctor needs to pay attention, Dr. Mackey says.

This mind-set could affect your willingness to try movement-based treatments like physical therapy, even when those therapies may be recommended and safe. A doctor has to know your perspective so you can work through it together.

And that’s key when it comes to pain. Feeling like you’re collaborating can go a long way.

There’s some evidence that if you believe in your treatment and in the doctor prescribing it, you’re better able to tone down or manage the hurt.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

31

BODY FRONT LINE

A Doctor’s Guide to the Heart Young cardiologists are doing things a little differently now. Here’s how CHRISTOPHER KELLY, M.D., 35, takes care of his heart.

U

S E D TO B E THAT DO CTO RS could plausibly

claim ignorance and indulge in bad habits with a clean conscience. My grandfather would smoke a pipe while seeing patients—and he was a pediatrician. Now, however, my colleagues and I can’t

ignore the evidence that good habits help keep us from ending up in the same worrisome place as our patients.

So we do the usual—eat whole foods, emphasize vegetables, exercise daily, and try to get enough sleep. But as millennials, we go a little further. Here’s what else I do.

1. COUNT BEATS, NOT STEPS Though most of the world fi xates on step counts, my cardiologist friends and I know that heart fitness really benefits from getting our pulses pounding.

You should exercise hard at least 75 minutes a week.

During medical training, we’d compete to see who could survive longest on the treadmill stress test.

(I still track my performance—14 minutes!) If your endurance drops, you may need to increase your aerobic exercise.

2. AIM FOR BALANCE Nearly half of doctors have at least one symptom of burnout, and depression in the U. S. is widespread. Both increase the risk of heart disease. In response, many young physicians are prioritizing work-life balance. It’s not always possible to detach from your job, but take every opportunity to try. Spend time with friends and family, and commit to not checking your phone when you’re with them. As I’m often reminded at the hospital, none of us knows how much time we have left.

3. CONSIDER OFF-LABEL STATINS Doctors prescribe statins when your LDL cholesterol is over 190 mg/dL, since that level greatly raises your risk of a heart attack or stroke. You’ll also get an Rx if you’re older than 40 and have either diabetes or a ten-year risk of cardiovascular disease at or above 7.5 percent. But many of my colleagues self-prescribe statins even if they don’t strictly meet the usual criteria, since the benefits are so large and the side effects fairly uncommon.

32

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

4. DON’T BE LURED IN BY FAD DIETS If you’re prepared to do keto or paleo indefinitely, go for it. But incremental changes are more likely to be sustainable. My own diet overhaul started when I jettisoned soda for seltzer. Once I did that, I was ready to ditch red meat and ultraprocessed foods. I’m now mostly vegetarian and try to avoid indiscriminate meat intake.

ILLUSTRATION BY SCIEPRO/SEBASTIAN

Christopher Testani (inset photograph)

BY CÉLINE BOSSART

Y

OU HAVE TO take food endorsements by athletes with a grain of salt, but it’s hard not to get sucked in by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson’s infomercials on the Instagram account for Performance Kitchen, a new brand of microwavable frozen meals. “I’m doing everything I can to eat clean and eat right, and that way I can live long and play long,” says the 31-year-old Super Bowl champion, who adds that he grew up eating

PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFFREY WESTBROOK

cheap fast food and lost his dad at 55 to diabetes. You can see him tossing spirals, hustling across a grassy field, and wolfing down a bowl of cauliflower mac ’n’ cheese. Wilson wants “a healthy option that’s quick and easy” for himself, his kids, and probably even his R&B-superstar wife, Ciara. And he isn’t alone. The brand’s parent company, Luvo, counts New York Yankees icon Derek Jeter and Olympic swimming medalist Natalie Coughlin as brand reps.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

35

LIFE

“W

ELLNESS” IS a big shift in a

category that began as a way to offload surplus Thanksgiving turkey, according to Swanson company lore. The first prepackaged turkey din-

36

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

ners were created in 1953. Other companies later identified the true advantage of the all-in-one tray: It makes cooking and cleanup easier, especially for that era’s men, who might not have wanted to do either. The trade-offs are that frozen foods go gooey when nuked and taste mostly of added sugar and salt.

By the mid-’70s, Swanson was targeting men specifically with its Hungry Man line, tempting diners with massive portions of fried chicken. Later, commercials with burly NFL stars like Rocky Bleier and Mean Joe Greene pushed the idea that eating a frozen meal was macho.

Next came the Hungry Man–sponsored NFL highlight films, which gave diners another reason to stay seated.

Hungry Man continues to be one of the top-selling brands. But the cheap-butunhealthy stigma caused frozen-meal sales to cool a few years ago, says Jeremy Moses, an analyst for the research firm IBISWorld. “To counteract this, frozenfood manufacturers are trying to promote their products through popular trends around food, including tying them to wellness and fitness,” he says.

Brands like Amy’s, Healthy Choice, the FishPeople, Salt & Sky, and Love the Wild are making their own wellness pitches, albeit not fitness-forward ones.

And consumers have responded: Sales of frozen food rose 3 percent from 2016 to

2018. That represents nearly $2 billion in new revenue for a $57 billion industry, according to a 2019 joint report by the American Frozen Food Institute and the Food Marketing Institute. Simply put: There’s a lot of cold, hard cash to be made.

I

NITIALLY, LUVO, which was founded

in 2013, sold frozen meals under its own name, with most totaling between 300 and 400 calories. (At Fit Kitchen, the calorie count is about the same.)

But Luvo rebranded its meals under the Performance Kitchen banner because it realized it had to sell fitness harder to distance itself from the competition.

“Images promoting an active lifestyle are key to signaling the nutritional support we need to lead our busy and active lifestyles,” says CEO Christine Day. While competitors may sell, say, an “organic vegetarian” item that sounds healthy, the meal itself might not be nutritionally balanced for high protein, high fiber, and low sodium. That’s true for protein-rich meals, too.

For example, Hungry Man’s boneless fried chicken and waffles has 26 grams of protein (that’s good) but also 58 grams of sugar and 1,240 milligrams of sodium (that’s bad). Performance Kitchen dishes have between 10 and 20 grams of protein, less than four grams of sugar, and less than 500 milligrams of sodium.

None of that matters, however, if Russell Wilson can’t convince you how good that cauliflower mac ’n’ cheese tastes. “I think every person will love it, and kids will love it, too,” he says in a spot dedicated almost entirely to the dish.

One reason that may be true is that frozen-food companies are employing a technology to make their meals taste better. It’s called individual quick freezing (IQF)—basically using a nitrogen blast instead of a typical freezer to seal in flavor and nutritional value at the molecular level, so they don’t degrade on store shelves.

A British study found higher betacarotene and lutein levels in some frozen foods (IQF’d or otherwise), including broccoli, carrots, and Brussels sprouts, versus those that had spent three days in a refrigerator. Frozen cauliflower,

Previous page: Prop styling: Megumi Emoto/Anderson Hopkins.

Performance Kitchen also uses glamour shots of everyday people acting sporty, alongside photos of the seemingly delicious food and the sort of nutrition-stat porn often reserved for energy bars.

The roasted cauliflower mac ’n’ cheese bowl, for instance, advertises 11 grams of protein, half a cup of vegetables, and five grams of fiber.

And here’s the best part: You nuke it—in a microwave—for about four and a half minutes, and the roasted vegetables don’t suffer in the nuking. It’s like an old-fashioned microwave dinner, only actually good, and maybe even actually good for you.

To be taken seriously, however, fitnessfocused frozen-meal companies like Performance Kitchen and its main competitor, Fit Kitchen (a line from Stouffer’s that offers bowls in masculine red-andblack packaging with supersized callouts to their protein content), will need to upend the generations-old idea that TV dinners are for couch potatoes. But do these companies have what it takes to lure men back to the nutritional tundra of the frozen-food aisle?

THE BEST NEW FROZEN MEALS FOR MEN CHIC

BEEF

ER DINN

SEAF

O

NNER OD DI

VEGE

LEAN CUISINE LIFE CHICKEN ENCHILADA BOWL

BEETNIK SHEPHERD’S PIE WITH GRASS FED BEEF

SALT & SKY LOBSTER MACARONI & CHEESE

This filling meal in Lean Cuisine’s new line has a whopping 24 grams of protein and six grams of fiber for 350 calories, with no added sugar.

Most frozen meals don’t disclose the quality of their meats. Beetnik prides itself on it. This dish supplies 19 grams of protein and a whole bunch of flavor.

Okay, maybe it’s a little indulgent. But that’s kind of the point. Hunks of lobster contribute to the 19 grams of protein.

S

Courtesy brands

KEN D

INNER

HIE M O OT

EGG-B

AS

EAK ED BR

FA S T

DAILY HARVEST ACAI AND CHERRY

EVOL SPICY CHIPOTLE CHORIZO MORNING BOWL

Yes, there’s kale, but also bananas, raspberries, blueberries, and acai berries. Just pour the contents of the container into your blender, blend, and gulp.

Eggs and sausage provide 14 grams of protein.

Roasted potatoes, black beans, and bell peppers sneak in a few vegetables.

blueberries, and spinach also had significantly less nutritional degradation.

According to an industry report, companies using IQF include Conagra (which makes Healthy Choice, Evol, and Frontera) and Birds Eye. Keep the food fresher, the logic goes, and you don’t need so much sodium. But if you want a healthy frozen meal, look beyond the marketing

E LU OFFIC

NCH

T

DIN ARIAN

NER

HEALTHY CHOICE POWER BOWLS FALAFEL AND TAHINI

Big orbs of plant protein nestled in a bed of greens and grains. There are ten grams of fiber in here, which is a lot for any frozen meal.

CL

DIN C I S S A

NER

STOUFFER’S FIT KITCHEN MOROCCANSTYLE CHICKEN

PERFORMANCE KITCHEN STROGANOFF PASTA WITH CHICKEN MEATBALLS

White-meat chicken, couscous, raisins, chickpeas, and tomato sauce deliver 24 grams of protein and a hearty 11 grams of fiber.

Sixteen grams of protein.

Six grams of fiber. Only two grams of sugar.

Satisfying. Delicious.

to make sure balanced nutrition is below the ice. “There’s still plenty of frozen junk out there, but there are more healthy and delicious products appearing on the market,” says Jessica Cording, a registered dietitian in New York City.

So far, Performance Kitchen’s playbook seems to be working. The company claims that about 60 percent of its cus-

tomers are men. A Fit Kitchen spokesperson reports that men are also more likely to buy its meals. Wilson’s only regret is that the glacier of terrible frozen options didn’t melt sooner. He considers Performance Kitchen to be almost his new superfood. If he’d had it when he was 18, he says, “I wonder . . . how much further I could go.”

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

37

ON THE GRILL!

If you eat 30 grams of protein and 10 30 grams of fiber at 10 every meal, you’ll optimize muscle building and weight loss. This month, find your protein in a grilled-fish feast and your fiber in sides that are jammed with something baked chicken and steamed broccoli don’t have: tons of flavor. BY PAUL KITA

10G

C OOK IT

BU Y IT Ask the person behind the counter to “scale, gut, and clean” the fish, but leave the head on for presentation value. Fresh fish should have a clear eye, a clean (not fishy) smell, and no slick of slime on the skin.

Skin-on fish is notorious for sticking to grill grates and generally making a mess. Prevent all that with a technique called reverse searing, in which you cook the fish with indirect heat first, then crisp the skin over direct heat.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED 1

WHOLE WHITEFLESHED FISH (ABOUT 1½ LB), SCALED, GUTTED, AND CLEANED ¼ CUP SOY SAUCE JUICE FROM ½ ORANGE 2 TBSP SESAME OIL 2 TBSP MINCED GINGER 2

GARLIC CLOVES, MINCED

2

TBSP BROWN SUGAR 1 TBSP SESAME SEEDS 3 SCALLIONS, THINLY SLICED

UPGR A DE IT

5

Fish with Orange Sauce

MINUTES

1. Preheat your grill to high. Oil and season the fish inside and out with salt and pepper. In a small bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients except for the scallions.

2. Place the fish on a well-oiled grill over indirect heat and close the lid.

Cook until the flesh is cooked through, about 10 minutes, flipping halfway with a large metal spatula.

Then move the fish to direct heat and cook until the skin on both sides is crispy, 3 to 5 minutes per side.

3. Carefully transfer the fish to a serving platter, top with the scallions, spoon on some sauce, and serve with more sauce on the side.

Feeds 6

with 2 Tbsp gochujang and 1 tsp soy sauce. On a medium-high-heat grill, place 4 Japanese eggplants, halved (or 2 small regular eggplants, quartered), and cook, turning and basting with the butter, till charred, about 7 minutes. Cover and cook till tender, about 5 minutes. Plate and top with ¼ cup each peanuts, pomegranate seeds, and cilantro. Feeds 4 Per serving: 206 calories, 6g pro-

PER SERVING:

232 calories, 28g protein, 7g carbs (1g fiber), 9g fat

If you have the extra time, here are three ways to elevate this recipe to extra-special status.

20

MINUTES

1

HOUR

brown jasmine rice with 1¾ cups vegetable stock. In a large pan, heat 2 Tbsp canola oil over medium high. Add 1 lb sliced mushrooms and cook till browned, about 10 minutes. Add 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced, 2½ cups thawed shelled edamame, 1 tsp soy sauce, 1 Tbsp fresh thyme, and pepper to taste.

Mix with the rice. Serve. Feeds 4 Per serving: 427 calories, 18g protein, 62g carbs (9g fiber), 12g fat

LIFE

MAIL YOU A DRINK? Booze-based subscription services are basically a party in a box. We sampled wine, beer, spirits, and cocktails from stacks of options (on different nights), decoded our notes the day after, and settled on the four that really deliver. BY CAREY JONES FOR WINE

2

Winc

F O R C O C K TA I L S

Saloonbox

IT’S PANDOR A FOR VINO, taking all the

TURN YOUR LIVING ROOM into a speak-

befuddlement out of wine by asking you . . . not about wine. Do a six-question survey (How do you take your coffee?) and Winc ships you four full-sized bottles to sample. It then adjusts its algorithm based on your ratings. So if you favor bold, juicy reds, you might find that you love Spanish tempranillo and Sicilian Nero d’Avola as much as merlot. From $13/bottle; winc.com

easy (hold the suspenders): Pop open one of these boxes, pull together a cocktail from the premeasured ingredients provided, and repeat with a second cocktail. Sample drinks: the Antidote (spiced rum, pineapple, coconut cream, nutmeg) and the Birdsong (brownsugar bourbon, elderflower, marionberry, black pepper). From $49/month; saloonbox.com

3

FOR SPIRITS

Flaviar TO KEEP YOUR liquor cabinet minimalist, Flaviar sends you only one full bottle of a spirit you enjoy (though from a brand you haven’t tried) and a themed sampler of three 50ml bottles to let you branch out. So a box may have a full bottle of limited-release Madre mezcal and samples from three boutique cognac distilleries, with three totally different flavor profiles. From $95/quarter; flaviar.com

42

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

4

FOR BEER

Craft Beer Club MICROBREWING IS still largely a local phenomenon, so if you live in L. A., it’s hard to score beers from Boulder or Asheville. This company ships rare and coveted releases from small U. S. brewers. Styles rotate, but past 12-packs have included porters from Rad Brewing Co. in Indianapolis, brown ales from Back Forty in Birmingham, and Pilsners from Hinterland in Green Bay. $42/month; craftbeerclub.com

A BOOZE BOX— WITHOUT THE BOOZE!

SHAKER & SPOON

Three cocktail recipes from three mixologists, and all the mixers, bitters, and syrups required to make four drinks of each. (You just need to supply the booze.) The box’s ingredients are nonalcoholic, which means Shaker & Spoon ships to all states.

You’ll know in advance which spirit you’ll need, so all you have to do is pick up the alcohol and invite your friends over. From $40/month; shaker andspoon.com

Courtesy of brands

1

LIFE

STORMY

THE SUPERCHARGED SPORTS BLAZER Wrinkle-resistant and stretchy, this Calvin Klein two-button can bounce from Monday’s 9:00 A.M. meeting to Friday’s happy hour without a crease in sight.

Jacket ($350) by Calvin Klein, available at macys.com; track jacket ($125) by Polo Ralph Lauren; pants ($170) by G-Star Raw; sneakers ($90) by Nike; watch by Audemars Piguet.

44

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUCO

Styling: Ted Stafford. Set design: Dustin Reugger. Hair: Vince Garcia. Makeup: Neicy Smalls/the Holloman Group. Tailoring: Yelena Travkina. Production: Crawford & Co.

LIGHT &

The weather this time of year is seriously UNPREDICTABLE. Handle whatever nature throws your way with these killer SPRING JACKETS.

$'9(57,6(0(17

HEALTH

NO LESS PAIN NO STILL GAIN Everyone feels the hurt as you age, but CBD can help you deal with it.

LIH UHDOO\ GRHV À\ E\ %HIRUH , NQHZ LW P\ V KDG DUULYHG DQG ZLWK WKHP FDPH VRPH QHZ JLIWV IURP GHDU RO¶ 0RWKHU 1DWXUH²IUHTXHQW NQHH SDLQ VWUHVV ORZ HQHUJ\ DQG VOHHSOHVVQHVV 1RZ ,¶P D UHDOLVW DERXW WKHVH WKLQJV , NQHZ , ZDVQ¶W JRLQJ WR EH \RXQJ DQG UHVLOLHQW IRUHYHU %XW VWLOO ZLWK ³PLGGOH DJH´ QHDUO\ RQ P\ GRRUVWHS , FRXOGQ¶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¶W FRQWDLQ WKH DPRXQW RI &%' VWDWHG RQ WKHLU ODEHOV $QG DV D FRQVXPHU WKDW¶V WHUULI\LQJ ,I , ZDV JRLQJ WR GR WKLV , QHHGHG WR WUXVW WKH VRXUFH WKURXJK DQG WKURXJK 0\ WZR IROG UHVHDUFK SURFHVV QDWXUDOO\ OHG PH WR =HEUD &%' )LUVW , GLG D TXLFN RQOLQH SROO²DQG E\ WKDW , PHDQ , SRVHG WKH &%' TXHVWLRQ RQ P\ )DFHERRN

L

SDJH &DOO PH ROG IDVKLRQHG EXW , ZDQWHG WR NQRZ LI WKHUH ZHUH SHRSOH ZKRP , WUXVWHG PRUH WKDQ DQRQ\PRXV WHVWLPRQLDOV ZKR¶YH KDG VXFFHVV XVLQJ &%' EHVLGHV P\ EXGG\ 7KDW LV KRZ , IRXQG RXW WKDW =HEUD &%' KDV D ODEHO DFFXUDF\ JXDUDQWHH ZKLFK DVVXUHV FXVWRPHUV OLNH PH ZKDW LV VWDWHG RQ WKH ODEHO LV LQ WKH SURGXFW 6HFRQGO\ , ZDQWHG FROG KDUG IDFWV 'LYLQJ GHHS LQWR WKH ZRUOG RI &%' UHVHDUFK DQG FOLQLFDO VWXGLHV , FDPH DFURVV (PLO\ *UD\ 0 ' D SK\VLFLDQ DW WKH 8QLYHUVLW\ RI &DOLIRUQLD DW 6DQ 'LHJR 8&6' 0HGLFDO 6FKRRO ZKR LV UHVHDUFKLQJ WKH HIIHFWV RI &%' 'U *UD\ ZURWH ³HDUO\ UHVXOWV ZLWK &%' KDYH EHHQ SURPLVLQJ DQG ZH KDYH D ORW RI UHVHDUFK XQGHUZD\ QRZ ,¶YH KDG VHYHUDO SDWLHQWV XVLQJ &%' ZLWK JRRG VXFFHVV ,W¶V LPSRUWDQW WKDW \RX NQRZ \RXU VRXUFH RI &%' DQG KRZ WR XVH LW SURSHUO\ =HEUD &%' SURGXFHV WRS TXDOLW\ SURGXFWV ZLWK HDV\ WR XVH LQVWUXFWLRQV ´ $IWHU KHDULQJ LW IURP WKH GRFWRU¶V PRXWK , UHWXUQHG WR P\ RQOLQH SROO DQG ZDV DPD]HG E\ WKH QXPEHU RI FORVH IULHQGV DQG IDPLO\ ZKR ZHUH DOUHDG\ RQ WKH &%' WUDLQ $SSDUHQWO\ , ZDV WKH RQO\ RQH ZLWKRXW D FOXH $QG IXQQ\ HQRXJK D FRXSOH RI IULHQGV ZKR FRPPHQWHG ZHUH XVLQJ WKH VDPH EUDQG DV P\ EXGG\²=HEUD &%' 7KHUH ZDV QR FRQVHQVXV DV WR ZK\ WKH\ ZHUH XVLQJ &%' EXW WKH WRS UHDVRQV JLYHQ ZHUH IRU PXVFOH MRLQW GLVFRPIRUW PRRG VXSSRUW VOHHS VXSSRUW VWUHVV DQG KHDGDFKHV DV ZHOO DV VXSSRUWLQJ RYHUDOO KHDOWK ZHOOQHVV (YHQWXDOO\ HYHQ WKH PRVW VNHSWLFDO RI WKH EXQFK

FDQ EH ZRQ RYHU :LWK D WUXVWHG &%' VRXUFH LQ PLQG , GHFLGHG WR WU\ LW :KHQ , YLHZHG =HEUD &%'¶V VHOHFWLRQ RQOLQH , ZDV LPSUHVVHG E\ LWV DUUD\ RI SURGXFWV LQFOXGLQJ &%' RLOV FDOOHG WLQFWXUHV WRSLFDOV FKHZDEOH WDEOHWV PLQWV DQG JXPPLHV $IWHU UHDGLQJ RQ WKHLU ZHEVLWH WKDW DOO WKHLU SURGXFWV DUH PDGH ZLWK RUJDQLFDOO\ JURZQ KHPS , RUGHUHG DQG LW DUULYHG ZLWKLQ GD\V 7KH ¿UVW SURGXFW , WULHG ZDV WKH UXE 1RZ WKLV VWXII ZDV VWURQJ ,PPHGLDWHO\ DIWHU UXEELQJ LW RQ P\ NQHH WKH VRRWKLQJ HIIHFWV NLFNHG LQ ,W KDG WKDW IDPLOLDU PHQWKRO FRROLQJ HIIHFW ZKLFK , SHUVRQDOO\ ¿QG YHU\ UHOLHYLQJ $QG WKH EHVW SDUW LV DIWHU WZR ZHHNV RI XVLQJ LW P\ NQHH SDLQ QR ORQJHU DIIHFWHG P\ GDLO\ PRELOLW\ 7KH =HEUD 0LQW 2LO RQ WKH RWKHU KDQG KDG D GLIIHUHQW EXW HTXDOO\ SRVLWLYH HIIHFW RQ P\ ERG\ 7R WDNH LW WKH LQVWUXFWLRQV VXJJHVW KROGLQJ WKH RLO LQ \RXU PRXWK IRU DERXW VHFRQGV 7KLV ZDV VLPSOH HQRXJK DQG WKH PLQW WDVWH ZDV ZHOO PLQW\ $IWHU DERXW PLQXWHV D VHQVH RI FDOP FDPH RYHU P\ ERG\ ,W¶V KDUG WR GHVFULEH H[DFWO\ LW¶V GH¿QLWHO\ QRW D ³KLJK´ IHHOLQJ ,W¶V PRUH OLNH DQ RYHUDOO VHQVH RI UHOD[DWLRQ²D FKLOO IDFWRU 1HHGOHVV WR VD\ ,¶YH UHDOO\ HQMR\HG WKH RLO :KLOH LW KDVQ¶W EHHQ D FDWFK DOO ¿[ WR HYHU\ RQH RI P\ KHDOWK LVVXHV LW KDV HDVHG WKH OHYHO DQG IUHTXHQF\ RI P\ DFKHV $QG LW VXUH GRHVQ¶W VHHP OLNH D FRLQFLGHQFH KRZ PXFK FDOPHU DQG PRUH IRFXVHG , DP $OO LQ DOO &%' LV RQH RI WKRVH WKLQJV WKDW \RX KDYH WR WU\ IRU \RXUVHOI $OWKRXJK , ZDV VNHSWLFDO DW ¿UVW , FDQ VD\ WKDW ,¶P QRZ D =HEUD &%' IDQ DQG WKDW , KLJKO\ UHFRPPHQG WKHLU SURGXFWV 0\ V DUH ORRNLQJ XS $OVR , PDQDJHG WR VSHDN ZLWK D FRPSDQ\ VSRNHVSHUVRQ ZLOOLQJ WR SURYLGH DQ H[FOXVLYH RIIHU WR 0HQ¶V +HDOWK UHDGHUV ,I \RX RUGHU WKLV PRQWK \RX¶OO UHFHLYH RII \RXU ¿UVW RUGHU E\ XVLQJ SURPR FRGH ³Health10´ DW FKHFNRXW 3OXV WKH FRPSDQ\ RIIHUV D 1R +DVVOH 0RQH\ %DFN *XDUDQWHH <RX FDQ WU\ LW \RXUVHOI DQG RUGHU =HEUD &%' DW =HEUD&%' FRP

THE PACKABLE, CRUSHABLE, UNKILLABLE WINDBREAKER One hundred percent nylon yet super breathable, this ultralight Nike jacket is made to travel— and it won’t wrinkle when you scrunch it up in your carry-on.

Courtesy brands (still lifes)

Packable jacket ($180) by Nike ACG, available at nordstrom.com; shirt ($70) by Calvin Klein, available at macys.com; jeans ($215) by AG.

MORE GREAT SPRING JACKETS! 46

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

THE ULTIMATE ACTIVEWEAR

THE UPGRADED RAINCOAT

Gym wear has never looked so sharp.

Rhone’s retro-flavored coach’s jacket ($118) has elastic cuffs on the sleeves and an adjustable draw cord at the hem, leaving you dry in the drizzle.

On wet mornings, Mack Weldon’s Stormchaser jacket ($198) keeps you dry, but it’s breathable enough that you won’t overheat when the rainy weather blows through.

LIFE

FAST LOOKS

F9’s Tyrese Gibson on looking fresh and sharp.

TYRESE GIBSON has a lot going

THE CAN’T-MISS, ALL-WEATHER PARKA With a detachable hood and inner vest, Lacoste’s water-resistant parka is a combination three-inone jacket, ideal for when you’re not sure where you’re going but you’re excited as hell.

Water-resistant jacket ($415) by Lacoste; cardigan sweater by Michael Kors; T-shirt ($72) by John Elliott; pants ($198) by Citizens of Humanity; sneakers ($80) by Adidas Originals.

THE NEW WORKDAY UNIFORM

THE STYLISH MAC

Up your suit-y quotient with Rowing Blazers’ cotton-twill varsity blazer ($295). Its breathability will get you through the workday without breaking a sweat, but it also shields you from cool breezes.

Pair Banana Republic’s timeless mac ($160) with a thick sweater or basic tee and you’ll add a layer of protection and sophistication.

on—and not just with his bold, bright style. He’s got the ninth installment of Fast & Furious (and his sixth in the saga) on the way. He’s dipping into the Marvel universe, costarring in Morbius, the upcoming comic-book adaptation about a scientist turned rabid vampire. Offscreen, Gibson still tours as a musician and is working on a follow-up album to 2015’s Black Rose. And he keeps himself busy on social media, posting motivational messages for his 40 million followers.

Splitting his time between L. A. and Atlanta, the 41-year-old says his clothes are a reflection of the moment and largely depend on his mood. That could swing from casual sports jackets and slacks to super-relaxed tracksuit tops and bottoms. Before he was famous, Gibson admits, he didn’t know what worked for him, but with the success of his 1998 debut album (Tyrese) and his first Fast & Furious appearance, he had much more to choose from.

“When you go from living in the ghetto to finally making money, you want to go to Louis Vuitton and Gucci and spend a whole lot of money on bullshit,” he says.

These days the actor’s taste is less about flashy brands and more about versatility: what fits and moves well, what’s comfortable and fresh. “I’d rather wear a great-fitting regular suit from a brand no one’s heard of than put on a Tom Ford suit,” says Gibson.

“I’m a simple guy.” —Josh Ocampo MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

47

LIFE

Ouch.

Eek. Yikes.

BY GARRETT MUNCE

WHAT ABOUT KELOIDS? 48

PREVENT

Follow a few simple shaving rules from dermatologist Joe McGowan, M.D.: Shave right out of the shower, when your skin is still soft; use an anti-inflammatory shaving cream, like Ursa Major Stellar Shave Cream ($24); and always shave with the grain. If you use a multiblade razor, consider switching to a single-blade or electric one instead. If all else fails, try Magic Cream Shave ($5), a hair-removal cream.

TREAT

Apply 1 percent hydrocortisone cream ($5) to reduce the inflammation, says Dr. Ciraldo. Usually an ingrown hair will go away on its own after a month, but you can speed up the process by exfoliating the area with Fur Ingrown Eliminator ($18) and using spot treatments like Skyn Iceland Blemish Dots ($22). If the problem recurs, see a dermatologist, who can inject cortisone into the bump and dissolve the hair.

2. Rub a salicylicacid product, like Clean & Clear Advantage Acne Spot Treatment ($7), on the bump to help soften and open the skin. Wait another ten minutes.

3. Sterilize a safety pin or needle with rubbing alcohol and use it to gently puncture the middle of the bump. When the skin is open, you should be able to see the hair caught inside. If you can’t, don’t dig deeper—try another small puncture from a different angle.

4. Once you see the hair, use a sharp-tip tool like a Tweezerman Splintertweeze ($12) to pull it out.

5. After removing the hair, apply Aquaphor or Hero Mighty Patch acne stickers ($7) to the area to help it heal.

Many men who are prone to ingrown hairs are also prone to large, thick, raised scars called keloids. “We don’t really understand why some people get keloids,” says dermatologist Charles Boyd, M.D., except that African-Americans have a predisposition to them. Keloids often need to be surgically removed, so prevention and early detection are key. If you suspect you have keloids, talk to a dermatologist.

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

Trunk Archive

If shaving is causing ingrown hairs, here’s how to switch up your technique, products, and gear. known as ingrown hairs, are the bane of every man who has ever picked up a razor. You might think it’s a zit, or a hellish case of razor burn, but the subdermal ache tips you off that you’ve cut your stubble too short and a hair has gotten caught under your skin during regrowth. “The hair is acting like a splinter in your face,” says dermatologist Loretta Ciraldo, M.D. “Your body thinks it’s a foreign entity and reacts with inflammation.” That’s when bumps form.

They don’t look great, and they can be painful and may lead to larger problems if not treated. Use these tips to banish them.

5 TIPS FROM DENDY ENGELMAN, M.D., TOP DERM

1. Apply a warm compress, like a microwaved washcloth, to the area for ten minutes.

Escape Razor-Bump Hell.

RAZOR BUMPS, technically

READ BEFORE TWEEZING

LIFE MEN $ WEALTH CP3: The first major purchase Paul made after signing with the Hornets was a BMW 750Li. “To me, a BMW was the nicest car to have, because my dad had a BMW. So what did I do? I went out and bought the biggest BMW you can get.”

LOTTERY WINNERS and NBA

C.F.P.: “Americans tend to overspend on cars,” says Weston. Can’t afford the finest? Buy one that’s two to three years old. “Let the first owner take that big depreciation hit.” Then drive it until it breaks.

CP3: With his $25,000 signing check, Paul went to the mall. Gift for his girlfriend. His friend. His friend’s girlfriend. Then dinner at TGI Fridays . . . on Paul. That $25K went fast.

Later he bought himself a fancy watch. “I had a Cartier watch. You almost couldn’t tell time on it, it had so many diamonds.”

C.F.P.: There will always be a markup on jewelry, so think of it as a status symbol, says Weston. Even diamonds don’t tend to appreciate in value. What does? A diversified portfolio of stocks, like a fund pegged to the S&P 500.

But if you’re on track with retirement savings, have the spare cash, and don’t have credit-card debt, Weston notes, go ahead and buy some bling.

50

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

“Once upon a time, it was things. Jewelry.

Clothes. Watches. Now it’s experiences. My kids won’t remember what I got them three Christmases ago. But if I take them on a trip, they’ll remember it.”

C.F.P.: Balancing priorities is the point of financial planning, Weston explains. “It’s to make sure your money goes where it has the biggest impact.” And though some people want everything, as Alicia Keys once said, “everything means nothing if I ain’t got you.”

$300 The amount you should expect to pay hourly for certified financial planning.

CP3: With big contracts came the realization that he needed help. How Paul negotiates: “I make sure I’m not the smartest one on my team.”

C.F.P.: Just be certain you’re getting “fiduciary advice,” meaning the advisor has to put your interests first.

Look for C.F.P. or C.P.A. credentials.

85% The portion of the average charitable donation that goes to the cause.

CP3: “What I’m passionate about is trying to help with historically black colleges and universities.”

C.F.P.: Find your niche like Paul: Focus on one cause you care about to avoid the processing costs of multiple charities.

Getty Images

$87,336

What $25,000 invested in 2005 in a fund that tracks the S&P 500 would be worth now.

$1,308

rookies: They both know about overnight riches, and when the Hornets drafted Chris Paul in 2005, his salary jumped from zero to $3 million. He proceeded to spend it as any newly minted 20-year-old millionaire would: on toys. Paul, who now plays for the Thunder, has learned a whole lot about money since then. Here he talks the big numbers, which we then vetted with Liz Weston, C.F.P., a finance expert at NerdWallet. BY JOSHUA ST. CLAIR

It’s Not JUST What You Eat. It’s WHEN You Eat.

Go to MensHealth.com/IFGuide to Learn More!

15751

The Ultimate Guide to Intermittent Fasting!

LIFE

KID HAS BLOWN FOUR LAYUPS IN A ROW STOP PASSING!!! MAKE HIS BIG GOOFY ASS SET THE PICK!!! THAT’S AN EASY BUCKET!!!!! THEY CAN’T GUARD YOU, FAM!!!!!,” I motion all these things with my hands. Because the only thing worse than my kid getting cooked by a kid with a fauxhawk while his overbearing dad sits next to me screaming, “YEAUGH!! GIVE IT TO ’IM, BLAKE!!” is me getting into a fight with that dad.

COOL DAD

When Daddy Is a Bleacher Creature I love my four kids. I’m a die-hard sports fan. When the two collide? SHIIIIIIIII— BY THE KID MERO I AM, AND WILL BE until the day I die, a Knicks fan, a Giants fan, and a Yankees fan—27 rings, bro! (Heavy Staten Island accent.) I grew up in a household where our lives and schedules involved, and sometimes revolved around, watching these teams. And when my kids were small, that’s how it was—every Sunday, Daddy would sit on the couch with the fam and eat $5 pizza. But then my kids started growing up and they began playing sports. That’s when I knew I’d have to set some ground rules—for myself.

son, seven, and youngest son, five, are different. They see me get animated watching sports and they want to play sports.

Then I get swept up in their excitement.

If they want to practice dribbling, I’m setting up cones and doing the first demo.

If we need to buy a ball specifically made for my five-year-old, I’m ordering it with two-day shipping. My daughter isn’t old enough to play sports yet, but when she’s ready, if she’s ready, so am I. I tell my kids that I’m cool with whatever they want to be in life and I will support whatever they do, except if they want to be a YouTuber.

RULE #1: THEY PICK WHAT TO PLAY.

As a Dominican, I am obligated by the constitution to get all my kids to play baseball. But so far, it looks like that’s probably not going to happen. My oldest son is nine years old. He likes to read. He plays soccer and anything else other kids are playing, but like me, he loves watching sports more than he loves playing them. My middle 52

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

RULE #2: I DON’T YELL (OUT LOUD).

I mean, I yell all the time. On Twitter. At the TV. But as noted poet Meek Mill once said, “There’s levels to this shit.” I feel that pressure, though. So instead, as Dominicans do, I try to talk with my hands.

For example, instead of yelling, “YO!!!

CALL FOR THE FUCKIN’ PICK THAT

RULE #3: I KEEP MORALE UP. Kids don’t understand “moral” victories or covering spreads, and losing is very demoralizing.

Sometimes playing and watching sports is entertaining, and sometimes someone gets violently juked/dunked/homered on. Parents talk all the time about how winning isn’t important. What they don’t talk about is how important losing is.

Losing may make you want to quit, but every loss has some teachable moment.

And if I can’t find one, thank God for YouTube’s inspirational treasure trove of INCREDIBLE NY SPORTS MOMENTS, or that video I have of Mero III hitting a runner in the lane over an 11-year-old that looks cool as shit.

RULE #4: THEY CAN QUIT. If my kids

want to stop playing a sport they chose to play, and I haven’t embarrassed them with my crazy hand gestures, and best-of clips aren’t cutting it, they can stop. It’s on me to let go, too—because I love them. I’m not saying that because it’s “the right thing to say.” I also love my wife very much. Same goes for my mom; my dad; my brother, Tito; and my sister, Ingrid. But there’s one major difference between my kids and the rest of my family: I will most likely never be in a gym, standing on bleachers, waving maniacally for my mom to get back on defense after hitting a reverse layup. As a dad, I have a responsibility to place the fanaticism I have + for my children The Kid Mero (aka Joel over the fanaticism Martinez) is one half of I have for sports. the comedy duo Desus & Mero. Their late-night Plus, I would never show is in its second do that to my mom, season on Showtime, because my mom is and they just released a playmaker with a their first book, GodLevel Knowledge Darts. high motor.

ILLUSTRATION BY OBI ARISUKWU

THE COCKTAIL PARTY YOU CAN HAVE AT YOUR DESK

JUST A LITTLE BIT FANCY © 2020 Tyson Foods, Inc.

LIFE

YOU GUYS

Say Yes to No Everyone gets rejected, but some guys are better at dealing with it than others.

LAUREN LARSON explains what to say when she’s just not that into you.

CROCODILES OFTEN SWALLOW rocks,

which can then tumble around harmlessly in their stomachs for years. A bellyful of rocks may even help crocodiles control their buoyancy and digest prey.

(There’s a point to this, I promise.)

There live among us people who take romantic rejection very well: I call them super-rejects. Like the rocks in the belly of the crocodile, rejections can pile up inside these super-rejects without causing any damage, until they are passed into the riverbed, unnoticed.

When you turn down one of these super-rejects, they do not send you a multi-text dirge. They do not spiral or throw themselves into the stiff, unrewarding embrace of whatever rom-com 54

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

is playing on TBS. They experience a healthy moment of woe, and they move on.

The chillness of the super-reject often awes me, and then instantly unsettles me: Did he want me to break it off? But there have been a few times when I’ve turned down a guy after a few dates, or even after a slurred pickup attempt in a bar, and he’s gone off. The opposite of the super-reject is a guy I barely know who just can’t let it go. That can be really scary. Like many women, I think about the day in 2014 when a young man killed six people and injured 14 more near the UC Santa Barbara campus to “punish” women for not being attracted to him. I think about a man I read about in November who used an app he’d installed in his ex-girlfriend’s car to stalk her—the

app also allowed him to control the car’s stop-and-start function.

Granted, it’s just as scary when a scorned woman overreacts. Last year, a woman in New Jersey burned a man’s house down after he reportedly bootycalled her at 4:00 A.M. but fell asleep before she arrived. (The woman was “intent on having a hot date anyway,” wrote a New York Daily News reporter.)

Female stalkers are almost as likely as male stalkers to threaten physical violence against their victims.

But men are far less likely to be stalked.

According to the latest National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey from the CDC, one in 17 men says he’s felt fearful or believed that he or someone ILLUSTRATION BY GARY TAXALI

YOUR EXPERT

Kyle Hilton (Larson)

In this column and on MensHealth .com, Lauren Larson writes about the evolving dynamics between men and women—from hooking up to . . . everything else.

close to him would be killed as a result of stalking, but one in six women has, and some women are even more likely to be stalked. According to the Department of Justice, 28 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced stalking, compared with 16 percent of white women.

That’s why a super-reject is such a relief. A man who takes rejection in stride, or even one who pretends to take rejection in stride, is so attractive that it often makes one want to unreject him.

(Of course, that should not be the goal of a rejection response—the goal should be freeing yourself from a cycle of shame and self-judgment.)

I once had the pleasure of rejecting a super-reject. After two dates, I sent him my go-to: “Hey!!! I had fun hanging out with you, but I just don’t feel a spark here.

Sorry!!!” (I always gag at the earnestness of a “spark,” but there really isn’t a less Bachelorette word.) Then I held my breath.

He responded about 30 minutes later: “Nooo!!!! Thanks for letting me know, I had a really great time as well. No worries!”

I bet that when he doesn’t get a job, he writes an email like that and they hire him a year later. Maybe we’ll get married down the line. First, he nodded to his disappointment, which is cathartic for the reject and flattering for the rejecter, and he did it in a funny way. (“Nooo,” I should point out, is very different from “NO.”) When he said that he’d also had fun on our dates, I stopped imagining him seething in a basement over the hours of his life that I, a tease, had wasted. He used a lot of exclamation points, which made him seem completely nonthreatening. “No worries” let us both off the hook. It is the breeziest, most final sign-off.

His was a particularly magnanimous response, but responding to a rejection like that doesn’t just soothe the rejecter.

An explicit rejection is an opportunity to reclaim your dignity. Some people

“

Rejection is bad, but there’s no reason to make it even more painful by piling on embarrassments.

can do that by not responding at all, but I think it’s helpful for everyone involved to acknowledge receipt. Here’s how to handle several hypothetical rejections like the self-assured and laissez-faire super-reject we know you can be: YOU GOT GHOSTED.

Everyone maintains the right to ghost until, say, date four. But it is the cardinal dick move, because it denies the ghostee the chance to politely, generously accept the rejection. The only way to keep your dignity when you get ghosted is to cut your losses and remain silent, because literally anything you say will appear mournfully desperate. Especially a 900word rant about “UGLY B****ES who think they can just GHOST men like ME.”

”

a stranger isn’t inherently a bad choice; it’s just the inability to accept a rejection that gets people into trouble.

YOU RECEIVED A “NO SPARK” TEXT AFTER A FEW DATES.

Use the formula of the super-reject’s text above. First, briefly and cheerfully acknowledge your disappointment (“Bummed to hear that!”). Thank the rejecter for being honest and, implicitly, for not ghosting you. Then deliver a final-feeling sign-off: “Good luck with [that thing she talked about for three hours]!” Delete her number, then spend the next 15 minutes cataloging her faults in your mind. Watch an episode of King of the Hill. Move on.

YOU HIT ON SOMEONE IN A BAR, AND THEY WEREN’T INTO IT.

YOU TWEET AT KUMAIL NANJIANI A LOT, BUT HE STILL LOVES HIS BEAUTIFUL, FUNNY WIFE AND STILL HASN’T NOTICED YOU.

The near certainty of immediate rejection is what makes flirting with a stranger so bold. If you take your shot in a bar and get rebuffed, just say, “Sorry, have a good night!” Do not approach her again. Do not say, “Come find me later if you change your mind.” Do not say, “But I bought you a drink.” If she darts to the bathroom, don’t follow her to tell her how unconcerned with the rejection you are.

Just disappear into the night. Hitting on

[long, pitying silence] Rejection is bad, but there’s no reason to make it even worse by piling on embarrassments. Nobody has ever regretted not sending an angry missive in response to a ghosting or a disappointing text. Be the mighty crocodile. Fill yourself up with rejection rocks until you can digest an entire capybara in a single day. Take a tenuous metaphor to its logical conclusion!

Just don’t send that indignant text.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

55

LIFE YOUR EXPERT

Naomi Piercey answers your questions about sex and relationships that Google can’t.

they’re embarrassed to request what actually feels good, worried they don’t look “cute” when they climax, or some other reason.

Maybe she wanted to impress you in the early days of dating, and now she’s showing a more realistic view of her climax cadence.

Also, preferences change.

Keep asking her what she likes, and mix things up if she wants something new. (If she still takes longer to climax? Big deal.

Your goal is to make her feel great—not to break the world record for fastest orgasm.)

MY FIANCÉE WANTS LIP INJECTIONS. I DON’T THINK SHE NEEDS THEM. HOW DO I TELL HER WITHOUT SOUNDING CONTROLLING? —FELIX, Sedona, AZ

I’m not conventionally attractive, and I have a hard time getting dates. What qualities can help tip the scales when women consider you “not that good-looking”?

—AVERY, Queens, NY

Sir, I think what you’re looking for is a little thing the Internet likes to call Big Dick Energy. You need the understated confidence of a guy who knows he’s spectacular in bed, regardless of what you’re packing.

(Google “Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande” for a visual.)

When you’re on a date, wear that quirky outfit you secretly love. Talk proudly about your dorkiest habit or offbeat taste in music. You’ll be surprised how many women are drawn to a guy who’s comfortable in his own skin.

60

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

I HAD AN STI SIX MONTHS AGO, BUT I’M FULLY HEALED. DO I STILL NEED TO TELL NEW SEX PARTNERS, EVEN IF I’M WEARING CONDOMS? —JACOB, Portland, OR

When you say “fully healed,” I take it to mean you had a curable STI like gonorrhea or chlamydia and you successfully completed a full course of treatment. If so, there’s nothing you have to tell new partners, condoms or not. But if you mean something else, like a case of herpes that’s currently dormant (or any other incurable STI), you do need to say something— again, condoms or not.

MY GIRLFRIEND IS TAKING LONGER AND LONGER TO ORGASM. AM I DOING SOMETHING WRONG? —SEAN, Hoboken, NJ

You might be. Or maybe she’s finally being real with you. I hear of women faking orgasms all the time, whether it’s because

MY WIFE WANTS ME TO ROLE-PLAY AS A POLICE OFFICER, BUT I LAUGH EVERY TIME. HOW DO I GET INTO IT? —CONNOR, Cincinnati, OH

The trick is to warm up before the performance. Wait until you’re well into foreplay and too turned on to be embarrassed.

Throw out your first line as a whisper between kisses: “Ma’am, I had to pull you over.

You were going well above the speed limit. What do you have to say for yourself?” If you still laugh, blame it on yourself and not on her desires. It’s great she’s into trying new things in bed!

Spencer Lowell/Trunk Archive (frog). Kyle Hilton (Piercey).

ASK HER ANYTHING

It’s her body, so ultimately, it’s her choice. If it makes you feel better, lots of people are getting them and the process isn’t invasive: It takes only 20 minutes, and the results wear off in a few months. Try not to disparage the procedure (“It looks super fake”), because you won’t be able to unsay it if she turns the key.

Instead, tell her you like her lips just the way they are.

ADVERTISEMENT

“The Ultimate” Grass fed whey protein shake Advice on how the right Protein Shake can help Lose Weight and build Lean Muscle

BY CHRIS HANSEN

B

eing a trainer, bodybuilder, and nutrition expert means that companies frequently send me their products and ask for my stamp of approval. Most of the time I dive into research, test the product out, and send the company honest feedback. Sometimes, however, I refuse to give the product a try, because frankly, the ingredients inside aren’t real food. And I’d rather drink diesel fuel than torture my body with a chemical concoction.

Like my father always said, “What you put inside your body always shows up on the outside.”

One protein shake that I received, that will remain nameless, was touted as ‘the next big shake’ but really had a list of gut destroying ingredients. Everywhere I read I saw harmful artificial ingredients, added sugars, synthetic dyes, preservatives and cheap proteins; the kind of proteins that keep you fat no matter how hard you hit the gym, sap your energy and do nothing for your muscles.

Disappointed after reviewing this “new” shake, I hit the gym and bumped into my favorite bodybuilding coach. This guy is pushing 50, has the energy of a college kid, and is ripped. So are his clients.

While I firmly believe that the gym is a notalk focus zone, I had to ask, “Hey Zee, what protein shake are you recommending to your clients these days?”

Zee looked at me, and shook his head.

“Protein shakes are old news and loaded with junk. I don’t recommend protein shakes, I tell my clients to drink INVIGOR8 Superfood

Shake because it’s the only all natural meal replacement that works and has a taste so good that it’s addicting.”

Being skeptical of what Zee told me, I decided to investigate this superfood shake called INVIGOR8.

Turns out INVIGOR8 Superfood Shake has a near 5-star rating on Amazon. The creators are actual scientists and personal trainers who set out to create a complete meal replacement shake chocked full of superfoods that—get this—actually accelerate how quickly and easily you lose belly fat and builds even more lean, calorie burning muscle.

We all know that the more muscle you build, the more calories you burn. The more fat you melt away the more definition you get in your arms, pecs and abs.

The makers of INVIGOR8 were determined to make the first complete, natural, non-GMO superfood shake that helps you lose fat and build lean muscle.

The result is a shake that contains 100% grass-fed whey that has a superior nutrient profile to the grain-fed whey found in most shakes, metabolism boosting raw coconut oil, hormone free colostrum to promote a healthy immune system, Omega 3, 6, 9-rich chia and flaxseeds, superfood greens like kale, spinach, broccoli, alfalfa, and chlorella, and clinically tested cognitive enhancers for improved mood and brain function.

The company even went a step further by including a balance of pre and probiotics for regularity in optimal digestive health, and digestive enzymes so your body absorbs

the high-caliber nutrition you get from INVIGOR8.

While there are over 500 testimonials on Amazon about how INVIGOR8 “gave me more energy and stamina” and “melts away abdominal fat like butter on a hot sidewalk”, what really impressed me was how many customers raved about the taste. So I had to give it a try.

When it arrived I gave it the sniff test.

Unlike most meal replacement shakes it smelled like whole food, not a chemical factory. So far so good. Still INVIGOR8 had to pass the most important test, the taste test.

And INVIGOR8 was good. Better than good. I could see what Zee meant when he said his clients found the taste addicting.

I also wanted to see if Invigor8 would help me burn that body fat I’d tried to shave off for years to achieve total definition.

Just a few weeks later I’m pleased to say, shaving that last abdominal fat from my midsection wasn’t just easy. It was delicious.

Considering all the shakes I’ve tried I can honestly say that the results I’ve experienced from INVIGOR8 are nothing short of astonishing.

A company spokesperson confirmed an exclusive offer for Men’s Health readers: if you order INVIGOR8 this month, you’ll receive $10 off your first order by using promo code “MEN10” at checkout. If you’re in a rush to burn fat, restore lean muscle and boost your stamina and energy you can order INVIGOR8 today at www.DrinkInvigor8.com or by calling 1-800-958-3392.

MIND

SHIFT YOU R WOR K V IBE

64

...........

66

........................

67 69

....................

LIGHTS! PL A N TS! ACTION!

YOU R FI V E BIG GEST H A NG -U PS—SOLV ED

.............................

MOR E BR E A KS, LESS FOMO

OFFICE SPACE (YOUR NEW HAPPY PLACE!)

The best place to work in America? It might just be where you are right now, and if it’s not, you can change that. Here’s how to manage your mental health and promote well-being—no overtime required!

42% 71%

W

E’RE LIVING in the Golden Age of Work, and even if it feels like our daily lives are a grind, consider the facts: The average worker spends less time at their desk than they did just five years ago. Work shifts have dropped from around ten hours a day to more like eight and a half, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Bonus: America’s low unemployment rate means companies are eager to keep you, and there’s plenty of techfueled flexibility for when, where, and how we work. (A recent Gallup poll shows that a record-high number of Americans feel engaged with what they do.)

All of which raises the classic watercooler question: How is your day going?

To find the honest answer, Men’s Health surveyed more than 1,000 men about their mental well-being in the workplace.

Turns out, more than 70 percent of us feel that our jobs are more good than bad, or at least somewhat neutral. In terms of TV tropes, most people compared their office to either Parks & Recreation or Friends, as opposed to Game of Thrones.

All that sounds pretty good, but only because it’s not so bad. The truth is that just less than 20 percent of guys really love their job. It appears four in five of us have simply settled. Roughly three quarters of men say they currently work to live, trading time for the almighty paycheck. And yeah, there’s record-high engagement, but the vast majority of Americans still say they aren’t fully satisfied.

Obviously, there’s plenty of room for

72%

feel that their job is pretty much okay

Our days at the office seem more positive than negative, or at least fairly neutral. That’s a far cry from being great.

When’s the last time you settled for doing things “just okay,” anyway?

MANAGING EXTREME CONFLICT NAME: SERGEANT RICH WEINER AGE: 49 OCCUPATION: SWAT HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR, COLUMBUS, OHIO

Courtesy subject (Weiner)

BELIEVE DISCUSSING MENTAL HEALTH AT WORK SHOULD BE OKAY

In fact, more men find that doing good work just leads to either more work or total crickets.

But when stressed out, most men say their first impulse is to hide it. Less than half have ever taken a mental-health day.

1 in 5 surveyed loves their job It appears four in five of us have just settled. Around three quarters of men say they currently work to live, not live to work.

45%

work-culture improvement. For instance, only 42 percent of MH survey respondents feel like they’re recognized when they crush it at their current job. Only 45 percent feel they have the power to change the things they don’t like. While most of us believe it should be okay to

HOW I MAKE IT WORK:

THE MAJORITY OF THE TIME, we bring hope and a calm voice to someone on undoubtedly the worst day of their life, decreasing their stress level and reducing the potential for violence. But sometimes you believe you’re making progress only to have the subject take their life, kill a victim, or, God forbid, kill a member of your team. What helps us keep doing it is that we debrief after every incident, identifying what we did right and what we can do better. The next step is to rely on each other for support. The third is not to forget what we’ve accomplished. —As told to Joshua David Stein

ILLUSTRATION BY DOUG CHAYKA

FEEL THEY’RE RECOGNIZED WHEN CRUSHING IT AT THEIR JOB

feel they have the power to change the things they don’t like

Some stress is natural if you’re being challenged and growing. If you feel stressed and unheard?

Time to switch things up.

discuss our mental health at work, most also say that the first impulse when experiencing stress is to hide it. Here are two stats that clearly highlight a Golden Age blind spot: Most of us would not feel comfortable sharing mental-health issues with our managers, and most of us haven’t ever taken a mental-health day.

All of which should raise another question. You probably don’t compromise in your relationships, your workouts, or even what you eat for dinner. Why should work be any different? It doesn’t have to be. And changing that doesn’t have to be stressful, either. In the following pages, we share both how to change your literal office space to encourage more happiness and more productivity and how to reframe your interactions with coworkers and un-woke bosses to counter burnout and create your own bonuses.

Any job can be a dream job, if you manage it correctly. —BEN PAYNTER MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

63

MIND 2

e z i g r e En Your e c i ff O

1

SMART LIGHTING The Dyson Lightcycle lamp glows with daylight-like brightness to cut glare that can cause eye strain. It syncs with an app so that you can choose different levels of illumination based on how calm or energized you’d like to feel. ($599; dyson.com)

ASPIR ATIONAL ART The elements in this wall mosaic were curated from the Men’s Health archive. Dorment chose images from stories that inspired him and sent them to Framebridge, an online company that lets you design your own layout. It then resizes, frames, and ships the pictures along with a wall map. ($950; framebridge.com)

lace setp k r o w r u o Shifting y an prime you to . c up really ere’s our blueprint succeed.GHINSBERG IE

BY MAGG

1

YOU SPEND ALL DAY IN YOUR OFFICE, so why not let that work to your advantage? By setting up your workspace right, you can actually boost your mood and productivity. To prove it, Men’s Health editor-in-chief Rich Dorment asked the world’s top office-design and productivity experts to remake his drab outpost in the Hearst tower.

The result is sleek but comfortable, playing into what Verda Alexander, a cofounder of Studio O+A who’s worked with both Slack and Nike, calls “positive friction.” The best offices keep you feeling motivated and efficient but don’t trick you into staying any longer than you have to. Skip the shiny foosball table and try these evidencebacked strategies.

2

3

4

3 FUNCTIONAL FURNITURE Alexander leans into versatility and likes to pair a round center table for meetings with a small side desk for your computer. Dorment’s office is surrounded by communal spaces, so he chose a modular desk ($699; article.com) with cabinets that can be shifted as needed ($429 each).

The setup lets him greet visitors and look out his window without ever turning his back to either.

64

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

4 CALM CARPET Mohawk Group’s ChillD carpet looks ultramodern but mimics Mother Nature’s inherent fractal patterns, which are repeated in everything from plant fronds to seashells and snowflakes. So you’ll subconsciously tap into the emotional benefits of being in nature. That’s cush.

(Prices vary; mohawkgroup.com)

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MIKE GARTEN

OFFICE SPACE (YOUR NEW HAPPY PLACE!)

6

6 ScienceBacked Tips for Scene Setting

PLANT POWER The lounge area allows Dorment both natural light (go, circadian rhythm!) and a serene view. This Nearly Natural Fiddle Leaf Tree ($195; amazon.com) in a West Elm standing planter ($179; westelm.com) is fake but has real scientific benefits. (See sidebar.)

Making work feel easier is an actual job. Here’s what tactics experts like Studio O+A’s Alexander; psychologist Sally Augustin, Ph.D.; and Uyhun Ung, from the nonprofit design firm Ideas42, often deploy.

5 ART AND MUSIC These sleek noisecanceling headphones ($595; montblanc.com) look like an art piece alongside “Pasta Man,” a prop from an MH photo shoot. Dorment doesn’t put up family photos—he prefers to leave on time and see his family IRL.

7 EXERCISE EQUIPMENT The yoga mat, yellow sneakers, handgrips, and kettlebell scattered around this office are functional, not just decoration. Yes, they really get used.

CREATE AN EPIC VIEW Stanford researchers found that people who viewed pictures of jaw-dropping natural wonders like the Grand Canyon felt time slow and reported more patience.

Position your own photos or images so you can zone out for a minute. A 60-second video clip also works.

POWER UP WITH PLANTS Looking at green foliage (even if it’s fake!) can enhance creativity, increase calmness, lessen irritability, and restore mental energy. Cornell researchers found that indoor plants prevent fatigue during demanding work.

WIN WITH WOOD Wooden furniture can create a naturally soothing effect, say Japanese researchers.

Shoot for covering about 45 percent of a room’s surfaces. Too much wood actually increases anxiety.

ADD MORE AMBIENCE Playing natural noise like a babbling brook is both mentally refreshing and soothing, according to Brighton and Sussex Medical School researchers. More research says ambient coffee-shop sounds may boost creativity.

THE OPTICAL ILLUSION

SMELL LIKE SUCCESS Scents like lemon and cinnamon may elevate cognitive performance. (One corporate study even showed fewer typing errors.) Try an unlit but still fragrant scented candle.

Dorment’s ergonomic chair features a wooden back and is made from eco-friendly, chrome-free leather ($4,300; humanscale.com). It faces a framed diptych of palm fronds that makes it feel like you’re seeing part of a scene out of two windows, even when there aren’t any. ($410 each; minted.com)

SHOW YOURSELF Displaying a few photos of loved ones or trips can improve your mood, provide motivation, and signal your values to coworkers to build what Wharton professor Sigal Barsade, Ph.D., calls a positive “emotional culture.” Curated personal items work, too.

9 8 FINAL TOUCHES Dorment’s Bluetooth sound system looks like a vintage radio ($299; tivoliaudio.com), and the large candle has an invigorating woodsy scent ($340; diptyqueparis.com). His shelves hold a bulletin announcing his first promotion (he wrote it himself) and tribute books—one to Muhammad Ali, another to sneakerhead fandom. “They’re little things that make me smile,” he says.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

65

MIND

5 Ways to Optimize the Open Office

Don’t hunch over your laptop.

Elevating it to eye level will save your back and neck. Then you’ll need a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

(Our picks: Roost Laptop Stand, $80; Logitech’s K380 keyboard, $40; M720 Triathlon mouse, $50)

MAKE YOUR OWN NOISE Ambient sounds can boost creative cognition, University of Illinois researchers say, but too much is distracting. Control the volume with noise-canceling headphones. You can zone out or cue up a playlist.

(Our pick: Bose 700, $399)

SHIELD YOUR SPACE Too much eye contact can cause stress or distraction. Add privacy and clear the air with peace lilies or snake plants. Lab tests show that each helps filter toxins from plastic products and paint, respectively.

(Our pick: Costa Farms 3-Pack, $29)

HOW I MAKE IT WORK:

RUNNING A HISTORIC BUSINESS NAME: WILSON TANG AGE: 41 OCCUPATION: RESTAURANT OWNER, NEW YORK CITY

NOM WAH TEA PARLOR is the oldest dim sum restaurant in New York, and aside from dealing with the challenges of a century-old building, we have a large menu and a tiny space with a thousand moving parts and a legacy to uphold. I wish I could do three things at 90 percent, but I’m doing ten at 30 percent.

It’s exhausting, but seeing the dining room full of people having a good time, and knowing the opportunities we’ve given team members, energizes me. I don’t think the day-to-day will ever not be a headache, but I try to remember to pick my head up, pause for a moment, and reflect. —J. D. S.

66

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

GIVE PEOPLE CHOICES Surveys show that most workers do better when they have some control over their environment. Rolling chairs and tables? Good. Standing desks add even more flexibility and encourage good blood flow. (Our pick: VariDesk Pro Plus 36, $395)

LIGHTEN UP University College London’s Living Lab raised productivity in its own workspace by 20 percent in part by installing circadian-stimulating lighting. Try your own daylight-mimicking smart-bulb lamp. (Our pick: BenQ LED desk lamp, $189)

The Ultimate Workplace Hack Sometimes you can’t change anything about where you work except your own behavior. If so, it’s best to utilize your right to exercise before work, or even on a short break. Bristol University researchers found that employees who exercised every other day reported having better workdays on the days they worked out. They scored higher for concentration, motivation, and, most important, clocking out on time.

You don’t have to go hard—just go.

Courtesy brands (office accessories). Courtesy subject (Tang).

SS SPAC E! M OR E PE OP LE IN LE ections! Workplace nn co Saved costs! More promises of the open synergy! These were the different. Harvard office, but the reality is rchers reported that Business School resea percent drop in facesome firms faced a 70 er switching to an to-face interactions aft sking (a phrase mean open floor plan. Hot de le op ) also stresses pe ing “just sit anywhere” Zealand study, and w out, according to a Ne by management. they feel less supported dney researchers When University of Sy , ices around the globe surveyed 300 open off re mo d nte yees wa nearly half of the emplo : All that is totally ws ne od go e privacy. Th up walls again. Here’s fixable without putting r Alex George, editorwhat open-office thrive chanics, suggests. in-chief of Popular Me

OFFICE SPACE (YOUR NEW HAPPY PLACE!)

Make Office Hell Your Heaven . . .

Five days on, two days off: The typical workweek sounds a lot like a devil’s bargain. Even at the best places, there are always points of stress between bosses and coworkers, long hours, and different expectations that have to be met. That endless cycle of tiny burns can feel more than a little hellish. In fact, we’ve identified five very specific circles of office hell—they’re a lot like Dante’s nine, except, you know, restructuring—and worked with experts to create a cheat sheet for rising above them. —Anna Maltby

LIM B O

YOU’RE DISTR ACTED or just totally bored.

That’s not eternal torture, but it makes it pretty hard to get good work done. Productivity expert David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, says the real problem is “ambient anxiety,” a low-level dread that comes from feeling stuck and unfulfilled. “You have this sense that things just ought to be better,” he explains.

GET IN THE ZONE

STAY WITH THE FLOW

SPOT THE TRUE STRESS

Allen says people are happiest and do their best work in the “flow state”—a hyperfocused time during which you’re engaged enough that hard work feels easier. First, you need a challenging task—ask for one.

Made the ask? Got the new task? Then silence all notifications, make a pit stop, and grab coffee (in that order only!).

Then pop on your headphones (the universal “do not disturb” signal) and set Slack to “in a meeting” (if you can).

In moments of irritation, ask yourself what you wish were true in the absence of that annoyance. Would your coworker’s hamhanded typing bother you if you already felt productive? Not likely, so time to refocus.

HOW I MAKE IT WORK:

GREED You work; they pay. Fair deal?

Not when your employer asks for more than you’re able to give—or lets you take on too much. Beat burnout with these tips endorsed by Josh Cohen, Ph.D., the author of Not Working: Why We Have to Stop.

DON’T BE THE FIRST ONE TO SLACK

Being “always on” sounds great, until someone decides to one-up you. Then everyone’s workday just keeps starting earlier. Same with after-hours emails. If you are working late, schedule them for the A.M. TAKE A REAL MENTALHEALTH DAY

Plan ahead. Look forward to that plan. Then tell your boss you’re taking the day off for all those extra hours. (See page 68 for how.) Don’t have that kind of boss? “Family emergency” works, too. Just write down which relatives you’re using.

TRY LUNCH EXPEDITIONS, NOT DESK SAMMIES

If you buy lunch, you have no excuse not to head outside, because you have to leave the office. If you packed one, congrats: You’ve got even more free time! Walking in the sunshine will make you feel happier.

DON’T WORK SO MUCH ON VACATION! SERIOUSLY.

You can check your email or make a quick call, but try to only redirect things. Make the most of your off time to come back refreshed. Just remember: You’re teaching your colleagues to remain productive without you!

DOING AN EXTREMELY EMOTIONAL JOB

Courtesy subject (Camp)

NAME: J.T. CAMP AGE: 23 OCCUPATION: GRAVEDIGGER, ROCKMART, GEORGIA

MY DAD, David Camp, started Camp’s Grave Service, and I’ve been digging graves my whole life. There ain’t a gravedigger or a funeral director out there who is used to death. The job is emotional all the way around. But it makes me pay attention to what’s important. All that materialistic stuff, you can lose that. But death is more powerful than anything, and it’s an honor for us to be able to help put grieving families at ease.

We’re the last ones they’re going to see. We can’t wear suits, but we wear a nice pair of jeans and a shirt with our slogan: “Treating each family like our own.” —J. D. S. Office heaven this way

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

67

MIND HOW I MAKE IT WORK:

DEALING WITH DEHUMANIZATION NAME: SPENCER COX AGE: 33 OCCUPATION: FORMER AMAZON WAREHOUSE WORKER, SHAKOPEE, MINNESOTA

THERE’S NOT A LOT to love about packing boxes in an Amazon fulfillment center.

Our scan rates were displayed over our lane. If your name was in red, you weren’t fast enough. People were constantly competing against each other, so I tried to subvert the idea of competition. I’d load bigger boxes or help someone with plastic wrapping, which takes time but offers no extra credit. If I saw someone crying, I’d talk to them. Since you’re treated like a robot, showing humanity was tremendously helpful. No longer with the company, I’m now writing a dissertation on dehumanizing jobs and mental health. —J. D. S.

you, and there appears to be no limit to the overwhelming variety of things that it wants you to do. To survive the heartburn, you’re forced to react instead of plan ahead—and it’s exhausting. But you can still digest all this in a healthier way if you just rethink how you load your plate. Try these two tips from Darcy Gruttadaro, director of the Center for Workplace Mental Health.

MANAGE MANAGERS

FIX FRUSTRATIONS

CREATE YOUR ORDER

Make sure your supervisor is aware of all your to-dos with something like: “I just want to be clear about my understanding of what you’re asking of me.”

Follow up with emails that list projects and confirm priorities. If your boss can see how scattershot the list is, it’ll be a starting point to ask for more support.

“Frustration comes from expectations minus reality,” Gruttadaro says. So if your ideal is to work your way from A to B to C but your manager serves alphabet soup, you may have to just eat it. The truth is that some people really refuse to change. But you can still change how you react to them.

Making lists helps you stay strategic amid chaos.

“If you’re trying to keep more than four things in your head at one time, you’re screwed. You’ll be driven by what’s latest and loudest,” Allen says. Try managing lists with an app like Evernote, he says, which can sync to your Gmail calendar.

You want to say: “I’m at the end of my rope. I need a mentalhealth day.”

They could hear: “I stayed out way too late last night and need to go nurse my hangover without using a vacation day.”

Say instead: “You know [insert company goal or effort here] has been a lot trickier than any of us expected, and I’ve been here late every night for the past week. I’m worried that if I don’t step away for a day, I’m not going to be able to keep doing a great job and may get sick.”

You want to say: “I never hear about the good things I’ve done, only when I’ve screwed something up. Motivate me!”

They could hear: “I’m a millennial snowflake and need a gold star.”

Say instead: “I love working on this team, but I’ve realized I should have been honest about something that helps me feel motivated. I’m not looking for a party, but when I do something that stands out to you as a great contribution, could you take 30 seconds and just let me know?”

Courtesy subject (Cox)

YOUR COMPANY has laid out an all-you-can-eat buffet of tasks for

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

You’ve had it. You’re sick of being micromanaged, tired of all the criticism, done staying late, and mad at yourself for letting it happen. To avoid being misunderstood and actually change things, think about how to rephrase your asks, says Justin Hale, who teaches communication techniques through the corporate-training company VitalSmarts.

You want to say: “I need flexibility. Can I work from home once a week?”

They could hear: “I want to binge-watch Mr. Robot in my sweats.”

Say instead: “It’s really important to me to ensure I’m doing my best work and contributing as much as I can to the team.

I’ve noticed that on days when [insert semi-regular event here], things get a little chaotic.

I’m curious whether I’d be able to contribute more if I worked remotely those days.”

GLUT TO N Y

68

A NGER

OFFICE SPACE (YOUR NEW HAPPY PLACE!)

F R A UD

NOT ALL SCREWUPS ARE EQUAL. As the

classic managerial logic goes, there are big mistakes and there are bad mistakes.

You can make a big mistake and you can make a bad mistake, but you cannot make a big, bad mistake. “The person who says they’ve never made a mistake is probably not taking enough risks,” Gruttadaro says.

“And taking risks is how we get ahead.”

Here’s Hale’s guide to maintaining your dignity amid the mea culpas.

Courtesy subject (Caparas). Courtesy Sad Ghost Club (ghost). Courtesy Bashea Williams (text). Courtesy Elizabeth Earnshaw (conversation).

LEVEL OF CULPABILITY

THE APOLOGY MATRIX

“This was my fault. I should have done [X easy task] before [Y bigger problem]. I apologize.”

“I wanted to talk about what happened. My role in the situation was [X honest answer].

I’m not clear on the impact. I’d like to know what happened from your perspective and how it affected you.”

part I played in [X silly mistake]. We messed up. I apologize for that.”

Your Guide to Insta-Therapy Even a short midday socialmedia break can fill you with FOMO and bad feels. Why not follow licensed therapists for free counseling and affirmation? Here are three mentalhealth influencers with great perspective. —Spencer Dukoff

“This was completely my fault, and I want to take ownership of that.

I should have done [X obvious thing], but instead I did [Y dumb thing]. And I’m so sorry that the huge fallout caused you a lot of pain and frustration.

What can I do to make this right?”

The Sad Ghost Club @officialsadghostclub A whimsical cartoon ghost goes through some deep stuff in a way that isn’t scary.

I played in [X costly mistake]. I messed up when I suggested [Y dumb idea]. I know this must be causing you a lot of stress. I’m sorry I contributed to that.”

LEVEL OF SCREWUP!

Elizabeth Earnshaw, L.M.F.T., C.G.T. @lizlistens Learn to express your wants and needs with calming images and quotes.

HOW I MAKE IT WORK:

FOCUSING INTENSELY EVERY MINUTE NAME: ROLANDO ”RALLY” CAPARAS AGE: 58 OCCUPATION: AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL MANAGER, ATLANTA

EVERY DAY, WE NEED to move 2,700 flights in and out safely, securely, and efficiently.

A delay affects people, cargo, and millions of dollars. Generally, stress builds throughout the day because we don’t have the luxury to step away, just like a firefighter can’t just walk away from a fire, but you remind yourself that you can decompress when you’re done. Even when efficiency can’t be maintained, I know we operate in a way that is safe and makes sense [given the circumstances]—I have a huge sense of accomplishment.

Then I go to the gym and spend two hours burning off all that extra energy. —J. D. S.

Paul B. Williams, L.C.S.W.-C, L.I.C.S.W. @basheawilliams Advice on being a better father, partner, and person, especially for black men.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

69

BEST STRENGTH TOOL

STRONGER , GET FASTER —AND HAVE FUN DOING IT — WITH THIS YEAR’S FINEST WORKOUT GEAR. GET

BY THE EDITORS OF MH

Onnit HydroCore Bag Dumbbells and barbells are so 2019. Challenge your abs and forgotten stabilizing muscles while doing everything from biceps curls to cleans to squats with a constantly shifting load. Fill the HydroCore with a half gallon of water and even the most basic moves become tests of total-body strength. MH fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S., uses it for this finisher: 40 seconds each squats, swings, and presses. Rest 60 seconds.

Repeat for 3 rounds total.

$110; onnit.com

THE

2020 BEST TOTAL-BODY WORKOUT

FITNESS AWARDS

Concept2 SkiErg The company that made rowing hot returns with a machine that simulates the cardio hell of Nordic skiing, and the SkiErg is experiencing a moment. Just five hard minutes crush lats, abs, and legs all at once— and it’s easier than ever to track that thanks to the smartphone connectivity.

$770; concept2.com

BEST GYM BAG XD Daily Errand Bag XD’s near-indestructible errand bag has five compartments for storing your gear (and keeping sweaty stuff sealed away), extra-large zippers for quick and easy opening and closing, and a Kevlar exterior shell that protects valuables like your phone. $50; xdfit.com

BEST WEIGHT VEST TRX XD Kevlar Weight Vest

BEST RESISTANCE BAND

Add instant challenge to three-mile runs and pushups alike with this ultra-durable weight vest. Preloaded with 40 pounds, it fits snug but still manages to be comfortable. $180;

Jaybird Vistas

Jeffrey Westbrook (HydroCore Bag, Gorilla Bow). Prop styling: Megumi Emoto/Anderson Hopkins.

Courtesy brands (other products).

resistant. They can handle anything and every-

$180; jaybirdsport.com

BEST TRAINING SHOE Nike Air Zoom SuperRep With extra Zoom Air cushioning and stability in the heel, the SuperReps are built to let you move laterally and battle through burpee after burpee. $120; nike.com

BEST AT-HOME TRAINING WEIGHT Bowflex SelectTech 840 Kettlebell Six kettlebells rolled into one, the 840 can

$150; bowflex.com

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

71

Orca Openwater SW It combines a

$400; orca.com

Stance Wool Crew Run Socks

BEST RUNNING STROLLER Thule Urban Glide 2

BEST TRAIL RUNNER BEST GRAVEL BIKE Evil Chamois Hagar 700 x 50c Blending the size and comfort of a mountain bike with the

Salomon Sense Ride 3 With an anti-debris mesh keeping dirt out and an extra-grippy sole keeping you on the trail, these kicks help you get into the wild. $120; salomon.com

Sporting extra-large 16-inch back wheels, plush suspension, and a swiveling front wheel, this lightweight aluminum stroller zooms along, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

THE

2020

1

FITNESS AWARDS

2

HECOstix

35; hecostix.com

3

Reliever

Hyperice Hypervolt Plus

can last for days.” $400; hyperice.com

BEST NEW DRIVER TaylorMade SIM Max Driver With an asymmetrical sole design, this dynamics to help you swing faster and

tagheuer.com BEST BUDGET WATCH:

Ironman GPS R300 sports a 25-day Smart battery life—and still tracks your heart rate! $120; timex.com BEST RUN COACH: 3. Garmin fēnix 6 Grade- adjusted pace guidance helps you find a running cadence to hit all your marks; there’s also sensitive heart-rate monitoring and built-in GPS. $900; garmin.com BEST FITNESS TRACKER: 4. Fitbit Charge 4 The Active Zone Minutes feature helps you stay in your target heartrate zone, and GPS lets you map every run.

$150; fitbit.com

Adidas Harden Vol. 4 Rockets star James Harden’s latest signature shoe is built for stop-and-go ballers, with a grippy rubber outsole and a textile upper that stabilizes your foot while you’re changing direction.

$130; adidas.com

BY

PHOTOGRAPHS BY

THE RIKER BROTHERS

SCOTT HENDERSON

THE

Liam Hemsworth’s 20s ended with his house burning down, surgery for a kidney stone, and the tabloids descending on his personal life. But with a new streaming series and training plan, the Aussie is feeling stronger than ever.

May 2020

74

MEN’S HEALTH

LIAM HEMSWORTH

Men’s Health: So about the rebuilding.

The past year—actually, the past decade— has kept you pretty busy with both the good and the bad. What are some of the lessons from your 20s that you’re excited to bring into your 30s?

Liam Hemsworth: Appreciating the little things. It’s something I always try to remind myself to do, especially in times that maybe things aren’t going the way I planned or the way I wanted things to go.

Appreciating what I do have and searching for things that make me happy and things that make me a better person and . . .

76

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

Walsh, who owns Rise Nation in West Hollywood. We do high-intensity stuff, a mix of calisthenics, sled pulls, sled pushes, and lots and lots of free weights.

MH: Has your diet changed?

LH: I was vegan for almost four years, and then February of last year I was feeling lethargic. Then I got a kidney stone. It was one of the most painful weeks of my life. I was doing press for Isn’t It Romantic. But I had to go to the hospital and get surgery.

MH: Jeez!

LH: It’s all good now, thankfully. But once you get one kidney stone, you have a 50 percent chance of getting another one if you continue eating the way you were eating. Well, my particular kidney stone was a calciumoxalate kidney stone. It forms from having too much oxalate in your diet. Oxalates are really high in a lot of vegetables, specifically spinach, almonds, beetroot, potatoes.

Every morning, I was having five handfuls of spinach and then almond milk, almond butter, and also some vegan protein in a smoothie. And that was what I considered super healthy. So I had to completely rethink what I was putting in my body.

MH: Why did you go vegan? For health reasons? Or env ironmenta l ones?

LH: Health for sure. I go from one extreme to the other. My mom always makes fun of me. She’s like, “If you could just find a happy medium in between all these things you do, then you’d probably be better off.” It was right before I started shooting Independence Day: Resurgence. The first two years, I felt great. My body was strong, my cardio was high. What I say to everyone is “Look, you can read whatever you want to read. But you have to experience it for yourself. You have to figure out what works best for your body.” And if something works well for a period, great, keep doing it. If something changes and you’re not feeling great, you’ve got to reassess it and then figure it out.

MH: Are there other ways you’re experiMH: What have you found in that search?

LH: Honestly, the past six months . . . I’d say menting to look and feel great? exercise and fitness is a big thing for me to LH: For the past year and a half, I’ve been doing a lot of ice baths and watching these just feel balanced and levelheaded.

Wim Hof YouTube videos and doing the MH: A very Men’s Health answer!

LH: I went into a job [Most Dangerous breathing. When I’m working out really Game] at the end of last year that was hard, if I’m including an ice bath among all extremely physical. I spent most of the that, my recovery is better. When you come out of an ice bath, your body project running and getting Previous page: feels electric and your senses beaten up. It was just brutal.

T-shirt by COS; pants by are heightened. We were doing I leaned out a lot. Running is Outerknown. Opposite: Tank by Rawganique; it when I was back in Australia so jarring. Your knees, your pants by Everlane; polo and I was staying with Chris, ankles, your lower back. After shirt by COS; jeans by and we’d do a cycle from the that I teamed up with Jason Outerknown.

Styling: Paris Libby. Grooming: Brant Mayfield.

is nearing the end of an unpaved trail at the top of the Malibu hills when he first rebuffs an offer to borrow my shoes. He’s barefoot. He’s been barefoot for the past 45 minutes of our hike, and as I glance back at the trail behind us, and I look around at the ash staining the surrounding undergrowth—the result of the 2018 blaze that scorched nearly 97,000 acres, including the earth on which we stand and the actor’s nearby home—I can’t help thinking the man has earned some rubber-cushioned relief. Nope. “I’m really tough,” he says, displaying what even a casual moviegoer might recognize as the Hemsworth family grin. “I can take anything.”

He’s joking, kind of, but given the events of the past 18 months, he’s also kind of not. His house went up in flames and burned to the ground along with almost everything he owned. He spent some time in a hospital with a painful kidney condition. And just a week before our hike, he officially ended a decade-long relationship amid extremely invasive tabloid coverage. (He’s open to talking about the first two setbacks, but not the third, and we don’t blame him.)

I ask him straight up if he’s in rebuilding mode. “Rebuilding?”

Hemsworth leans back and laughs, turning the word around in his mind. “Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.”

He was only 19 when he left Australia and arrived in Los Angeles, and it didn’t take long for success to arrive for him. “I was here for three months before I got a job,” he says. “And from then on, I sort of jumped from fi lm to fi lm.” The Hunger Games franchise. The Independence Day sequel. Some misses amid the run of blockbusters, projects that weren’t well received by critics, fans, or even Hemsworth himself. And through it all, there were comparisons to his older brother Chris, who beat him out for the role of Thor and with whom he shares a natural likability, extremely blue eyes, and a close friendship.

Hemsworth is 30 now, a rocky stretch of road behind him, and he’s starring on an action thriller called Most Dangerous Game that’s streaming on Quibi, the new video platform built around short episodes. On the day we meet, he’s battling the flu, but high above the California coast, he’s still the picture of health, so much so that he doesn’t bother to put his shoes back on after ditching them for a photo shoot. He’s happy to feel the grit and gravel beneath his feet, and as we talk and hike, and hike and talk, he opens up about strength, pain, fire, happiness, ice baths, spinach, family, and what the future holds.

sauna to the ice bath. We’d just do that a MH: Do you have a project that stands couple times, and we’d come out just so out that you’re most proud of? happy: “Ah, how is this life? How is this?”

LH: I’ve worked really hard on every film I MH: You’ve already been part of huge fran- do. I enjoyed them all for different reasons. chises, like The Hunger Games and The MH: On the f lip side, are there any Expendables. Who do you look up to in the that you wish you could redo? industry? Who do you want to work with?

LH: Yeah, there are a couple. [Laughs] I’m LH: I really look up to my brother Chris. I’ve not going to say which ones. Something worked with a lot of people that have been in that everyone in this town says is “Nobody really great positions in the past 11 years, knows which films are going to work.” You and Chris has a stronger work ethic than can have a perfect script, an amazing cast, most. He’s so focused. I’m thankful that I a fantastic director, and the film can still have him and am able to use his resources turn out terrible. So it’s always a gamble. and his knowledge. I call him all the time MH: Changing the subject, it’s been about scripts and get his opinion. “Should about 18 months since the California I do this? Should I do that?” We’re looking wildfires. What was that like? to do a film this year together, which is like LH: I was shooting a film in Alabama and a big action-comedy thing. then had come back just by chance that MH: I didn’t include any Chris questions, weekend to Malibu, not knowing that there because I wanted it to be about you, but . . . were fires. And then Friday morning, the LH: I love my brother Chris. I don’t mind fires started heading toward Malibu, and talking about him. my brother Luke called and said, “Get MH: Was there ever any doubt in your ready, they’re going to issue an evacuation.” mind that you’d make it in Hollywood?

The whole time that I was packing up these LH: I had a really naive confidence. I got animals, I had moments where I’m like, flown over to do a screen test for Thor. So I “It’s not going to get this far; this is a waste had some confidence, and I was doing audi- of time, and my house isn’t going to burn tions as much as I could. I was cast in the down.” And of course it did burn down, and first Expendables film, and then the script it was a shitty thing to live through. got rewritten and they cut me out of it. My MH: What adv ice would you give to parents always said, “Have a backup plan.” p e ople de a l i n g w it h t h at k i nd of Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was emotional turmoil? like, “I’ve probably got to do a trade, be a LH: I wouldn’t want to tell anyone how to builder or landscaper.” But also, I feel. But I was able to appreciate was like, “I’m going to make this the fact that I got all my animals Opposite: happen.” And acting was what I out, and pretty much everyT-shirt by For Days; set my mind on. thing that I had in my house that pants by COS.

Ben Mounsey-Wood (illustrations)

JACK UP YOUR RIG

3-WAY ISO-HOLD CURL

Stand holding a barbell at your hips. Curl it up slightly; hold for 10 seconds. Curl halfway up; hold for 10 seconds. Curl to the top; hold for 10 seconds. Do 1 rep.

burned down is replaceable to a point.

There’s a select few things that hold a little bit more sentiment that I’ll never get back.

And I also acknowledge that a lot of people didn’t have insurance, and they don’t have anything else to fall back on. I have insurance and it’s a frustrating process, but I’ll get taken care of, so I’m thankful. Life is the most important thing, and hopefully your animals and the people that you’re with got out safely. I’m more conscious these days of how short life is and how things can change so quickly.

MH:Your life’s constantly under a microscope. How do you deal with that?

LH: For a long period of time, it was very stressful, and it really got to me. Yeah, look, there are times when you want to lash out and say something . . . because from my point of view, the majority of the time things that are written about me are completely false. There are times when you want to speak up and there are other times when it’s not worth it, because you’re just going to draw more attention to it, and then it’s better to just not think about it and let it all wash away. These days I don’t want to invest any more time in worrying about that sort of stuff. I remind myself of what to appreciate now and to enjoy every moment as much as possible, whether that be working or with my family or whatever I’m doing. Just trying to find a positive in it all and enjoy life as much as possible.

SCOTT HENDERSON is the editor in chief of Men’s Health Australia.

When he’s in L. A., Liam Hemsworth trains with Jason Walsh at Rise Nation. This bodybuilderstyle circuit helped him build up his rig (Aussie for arms and chest). Do 3 rounds twice a week.

ALTERNATING DB CURL

Stand holding heavy dumbbells at your sides, core tight. Squeeze your right biceps, curling the dumbbell up; lower it.

Repeat on the other side.

That’s 1 rep; do 8.

LYING CABLE CURL

Lie on your back, grasping the handle of a cable machine. Squeeze your biceps, pulling the handle toward your shoulders. Return it to the bottom. Do as many reps as you can for 30 seconds.

PLATE PUSHUP DROP SET

Get in pushup position with 2 weight plates on your back. Do as many pushups as possible.

Remove 1 plate. Repeat.

Remove the other plate.

Repeat.

2-WAY CABLE PRESSDOWN

Stand in front of a cable column, grasping a cable attachment with a shoulderwidth grip. Straighten your elbows, pulling it down; do 10 reps. Narrow your hands; do 10 more reps.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

79

EVERYDAY

STRENGTH THE

STREISSUE N GTH

80

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

WE SCOURED AMERICA to find men for whom MUSCLE—both physical and mental—is critical to doing a great job. Whether it’s a BRAIN SURGEON in North Carolina finding his second wind six hours into an operation, an ASTRONAUT bracing his entire body to adapt to zero g’s, an ECOLOGIST burpee-ing his way up 380-foot California redwoods, or an IRONWORKER placing steel beams 70 stories above Manhattan, a slip in concentration or a moment of weakness can have fatal consequences. Use these strategies from 11 EVERYDAY STRONGMEN to power up your life.

BY MICH A EL E A STER; A NDR EW HEFFER NA N, C.S.C.S.; A NDR EW GU TM A N; A ND M A RT Y MUNSON PHOTOGR A PH BY ETH A N SCOT T

THE GENERAL CONTRACTOR DEUS SCOTT, 35, Los Angeles IN 2018, no city had more construction jobs than Los Angeles.

That means general contractor Deus Scott, who starts work at 4:00 A.M., often hustles between job sites. He’s laid foundations for high-rises and rebuilt Hollywood homes. Each day resembles a makeshift CrossFit competition: One moment Scott might lug a pair of 60-pound table saws a few hundred yards; the next, he’s balancing a 100-pound air conditioner on his burly shoulder and climbing a six-foot ladder so two men can grab it from him. When he’s not lifting, he’s challenging his mobility, squeezing his 6'2", 190-pound frame into crawl spaces to redo electrical wiring. “I’ve had extremes of working 36 hours straight,” he says. The last time that happened, he went home, slept six hours, then went back to work.

CARRY LIKE A CONTRACTOR You’ve done farmer’s carries but not like this: Grab 2 dumbbells or kettlebells and hold them overhead, core and glutes tight. Walk as far as you can, then lower to shoulder height and repeat. Then lower to your sides and repeat.

Start light and try to work up to 50-pound bells over time.

200

Number of crunches Meza will do daily in the winter so that he doesn’t lose core strength.

THE ROLLER-COASTER WALKER

JAIRO MEZA, 37, Coney Island, New York

THE GOLDEN RULE of balance has nothing to do with your feet or legs.

Instead, when Jairo Meza is 115 feet above the ground, walking along the slippery rails of Coney Island’s vertigo-inducing Thunderbolt roller coaster, he focuses on his core, squeezing his abs. “When you walk any track, you tighten your abs and back in a way that your core is like a fifth limb,” he says. “That gives you extra stability.”

The Thunderbolt is 2,233 feet of track with a full corkscrew. Meza walks it with his head on a swivel, just a light harness to catch him, looking for broken sensors and light bulbs.“You have to become one with the structure,” he says. That starts with several deep breaths before tightroping. “You need a clear mind when you’re up there.”

THE REDWOOD CLIMBER

BALANCE LIKE A COASTER WALKER

ANTHONY AMBROSE’S office commute always feels like a few hundred burpees. Such is life for a forest ecologist who climbs to the top of California’s redwoods and giant sequoias to study the effects of climate change on trees. To get from the forest floor to the canopy of a 300-foot-tall, 3,000-year-old giant tree and not damage it, Ambrose straps himself into thick rope rigging and attaches a harness and mechanical ascenders to the rope. From there, it’s squat and leap, squat and leap, until he’s at the top. All while carrying a backpack filled with 50 pounds of gear.

“You’re using your whole body,” Ambrose says, “engaging your core, your legs, and your arms.” That daily routine has sculpted Ambrose’s 5'11", 180-pound frame while prepping him for other challenges 300 feet above ground. He spends most days with his legs constantly flexed, wedged between a tree trunk and thick branches as he battles winds and measures photosynthesis rates, tracks water status, or takes leaf samples.

It’s an eight-hour balancing act that leaves little time for a serious lunch.

So Ambrose munches on apples, nuts, protein bars, and “salty stuff,” which replaces the electrolytes he loses while sweating in the sunlight. His favorite days involve reaching the “office” before the sun has come up. “We watch the sunrise from the top,” he says, “and it’s just amazing, beautiful, breathtaking, and humbling. I feel grateful for that every time.”

CLIMB (WELL, SORT OF) LIKE A FOREST ECOLOGIST Three hundred of Ambrose’s assisted burpees are roughly equivalent to 100 regular ones.

Try it: Set a timer and do 100 burpees as quickly as possible, trying to finish in 5 minutes. (Ambrose’s morning commute typically takes about 15 to 20 minutes.)

82

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

380

Height, in feet, of Hyperion in Redwood National Park, the world’s tallest timber.

Wendy Baxter (Ambrose). Courtesy subject (Wooten).

ANTHONY AMBROSE, PH.D., 50, South Lake Tahoe, California

Try resistance-band plank marches. Tie a looped resistance band to a pullup bar. With your back to the bar, grab the ends of the band. Step out for tension and extend your arms overhead. Tighten your abs and alternate lifting your feet off the ground. Work for 30 seconds, then rest 30 seconds. Do 3 sets.

THE

THE NURSE

STREISSUE N GTH

Number of times during an average shift that Wooten will have to move a patient from one bed to another.

GEREMY WOOTEN, 34, Atlanta area

CLAD IN navy hospital scrubs, Geremy Wooten was making the rounds in the ICU at the Wellstar Douglas Hospital in the Atlanta area when he heard an alarm down the hall. He sprinted into the room just as a heart patient who weighed more than 500 pounds was rolling off a bed. “I caught him in a half-squat position and just held him there,” he says. Ten seconds passed, then 20. He spent easily a half minute maxing out before help arrived.

Such feats aren’t uncommon for the 5'10", 195-pound clinical nurse leader. Wooten works up to ten-hour shifts hoisting people too hurt or sedated to move from bed to bed.

PHOTOGRAPH BY NATHANIEL WELCH

8 to 10

It’s not all muscle, either. “If you’re going to last in this work, you have to know body mechanics and leverage,” Wooten says. Typically, it takes two hospital workers to move a patient. They line a bed up with the patient’s cot and stand on opposite sides to grasp the sheet beneath the patient.

Then they lift a few inches, slowly shift the person over, and gently set them down.

Core strength is paramount, especially when one worker leans over to nudge the patient to the new bed. Wooten’s way to build it: 4:00 A.M. workouts full of HIIT, dynamic lifts, kettlebell exercises, and yoga in his garage gym.

“I have to practice what I preach,” he says. And be ready for anything.

LIFT LIKE A NURSE Place a heavy sandbag on the floor and straddle it. With a flat back, squat and grab the bag around the middle with both hands. Thrust your hips forward and stand, flipping the bag backward onto your right shoulder. Reverse the move, lowering the bag to the floor, and repeat, lifting the bag to your left shoulder. Work up to 3 sets of 6.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

83

THE

STREISSUE N GTH

30,000 Pounds of trash that Reali and Carini pick up every night.

THE CLEANUP CREW RON REALI, 56, and BOBBY CARINI, 33, San Francisco FIVE NIGHTS A WEEK, from 8:45 to 3:30 the next morning, Ron Reali and Bobby Carini, a sanitation-crew tandem for the past six years, drive a tipper garbage truck through San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, the nation’s filthiest neighborhood. Their job: pick up 96-gallon toters, massive trash barrels that, when full, weigh 160 to 200 pounds (or more).

Working together, while one guy mans the truck, the other jumps out, runs down a 14-step entryway, grabs a toter, bear-hugs it, then hauls it to the back of the truck, leaning it against the frame. Then he squats down, grabs the can from the bottom, and stands, tipping it into the truck bed and emptying its contents. The upside: Most trash bags are curbside. Downsides? They explain:

CARINI: The most important thing is stretching. I’ll get to work early and do that, leg stretches. As soon as you get out there, you’re working. This isn’t like a bench press where you start slow. No warmup!

REALI: And people, they overload their cans! They bust a toilet up and put a porcelain toilet in there, and you get those unexpected heavy ones.

CARINI: We do a lot of SROs, singleroom-occupancy places, with entrances down a staircase. They sneak in the toilet, and we’re stuck heaving it up a bunch of stairs in the dark. Then the toter is off-

balance, too. The bottom is light. Top? Nope. It’s hard to carry.

REALI: The physicality of bringing any toter upstairs, I think it’s hard! Take somebody my height and weight who was pretty strong and they’d definitely be sore the next day. Half the battle is having a good partner.

CARINI: Ron’s been doing this a lot longer than me. Older guys are more injury-prone.

REALI: But I love it. People ask when I’m going to retire. But what am I going to do for seven hours a day? Go to the gym?

This is my gym.

DEADLIFT LIKE A SANITATION WORKER Sanitation work is all about lifting awkward objects. Master the skill by taking on the Jefferson deadlift: Straddle a loaded Olympic bar, left foot in front. Squat down, using a mixed grip on the bar (left hand over, right hand under). Flatten your back, tighten your glutes, and stand.

Lower it to the ground. That’s one rep. Do 4 sets of 6 to 8, alternating your forward leg each set.

84

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CODY PICKENS

THE BRAIN SURGEON

NANDAN LAD, M.D., PH.D., 40, Durham, North Carolina

AS A TOP neurosurgeon at Duke Health with a specialty in deep-brain-stimulation surgery, Nandan Lad is used to doing six-hour operations during which you can’t miss by a millimeter. He also can’t freeze on emergency calls.

Hours in If there’s a trauma patient Dr. Lad’s longest with bleeding inside their surgery. skull, he sometimes has less than 15 minutes to prep.

“You have to have a calm mind and think clearly and move quickly,” he says.

For Dr. Lad, that means putting aside worldly distractions. “When you’re operating on someone’s brain, that is your complete focus,” he says. “Everything else can wait.”

Here’s how he zones in:

12

180

THE IRONWORKER

Most iron beams that Darcy has bolted into place during an eight-hour shift. An average ironworker’s workload: 40 to 50.

BOGAN DARCY, 38, Point Pleasant, New Jersey

Courtesy subjects (Darcy, Lad)

THE WEIGHT OF the giant iron beam never matters to Bogan Darcy. All he knows is this: He’s anywhere from two to 70 stories up, balancing on a beam just inches wide. And when a crane lowers the beam toward him, he has to turn and face it, legs tense and core braced, hands outstretched, as if about to receive a massive metal football.

His job (and he does it about 50 times a day): “Catch” the beam with the help of a partner. Then the 5'10", 190-pound Darcy manhandles the piece into position against another, squatting low to inspect its placement before bolting it into place. “I think it’s the hardest job in the world,” he says.

Over the course of two decades, Darcy’s helped build stadiums and Manhattan high-rises, handling everything from 1,000-pound beams to 100ton metal columns. Do it wrong and the consequences can be dire. He learned this 17 years ago, when a partner slipped off a beam and fell to his death. A few years ago, Darcy fell one story himself, breaking a wrist and tearing his ACL. That’s why he rises at 4:00 A.M. daily for kettlebell circuits that build strength and push his endurance. “Eight hours a day, five stories up, it’s a long time to focus,” he says. You can’t slack with more steel incoming.

MUSCLE UP LIKE AN IRONWORKER Darcy’s favorite workout builds the total-body strength and endurance he needs to dominate a full shift. Repeat this circuit as many times as possible over a full hour, resting as needed: Run for 3 minutes, then do 8 pullups, 20 pushups, and 20 kettlebell swings. Darcy’s record: 8 rounds.

HYDRATE, DON’T CAFFEINATE Dr. Lad avoids caffeine because he says it can lead to hand tremors. His move: a glass of water in the morning, another as soon as he’s at work, and one between surgeries when he can afford bathroom breaks.

MEDITATE FOR FOCUS You aren’t born calm; you work on it. Dr. Lad piles up his focus reps at home by doing daily meditations with the Calm app. Sound boring? Recruit a friend. His wife, Nora, joins in his ten-minute sessions. “I believe strongly in the mind-body connection,” he says.

STRETCH AND UNWIND Dr. Lad is in surgery for hours, arm muscles tense, torso frequently hunched over his patients at awkward angles. To uncoil, he does yoga once a week. After every surgery, he’ll spend a few seconds in the warrior II pose. Try it: While standing, lunge forward with your right leg, arms extended to your sides. Rotate your torso to the left, then reach your right arm high. Hold for 3 seconds, then reverse the movements and repeat on the other side.

THE ASTRONAUT

LIEUTENANT JONNY KIM, M.D., 36, Houston

FACED WITH zero gravity, a young, healthy adult in space can lose up to 20 percent of their muscle mass in five to 11 days. That’s the hell that awaits U. S. Navy Lieutenant Jonny Kim, who recently completed NASA’s astronaut-candidacy training for his potential first trip to the final frontier.

To figure out how he’ll adapt, Kim spends workdays in the Johnson Space Center’s zero-g simulator, the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, a 6.2-million-gallon pool. Underwater lies a mock-up of the International Space Station, which will be Kim’s home if he’s sent to space. Training in the pool in his rigid spacesuit mimics the movement struggles of space.

Kim calls his water time “a six-hour marathon.” He was a Navy SEAL in Iraq, and he began his residency in emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital as a Harvard Medical School graduate. None of that prepared him for this. To train for NASA, he says, you have to make sure “the pain, the suffering, and the fatigue is as close to real as possible.”

In his pressurized suit, even small hand motions, like making a fist, require serious muscle. And he’s constantly using his hands to climb across handrails on the station’s exterior, a unique way to build meaty guns.

“The muscles that Percentage of bone density an get smoked the most average healthy are my forearms,” he male can lose per month in space. says. He compensates Elderly males on by rising at 3:30 each earth lose 1 to 1.5 morning to work out— percent of bone density per year. which almost always i nc lu de s fa r mer’s carries, a key grip-strength move. His other go-to: heavy barbell squats. “There’s nothing more important than squatting for getting my whole-body strength up,” he says.

WORK OUT LIKE AN ASTRONAUT Warm up. Then do 5 sets of 5 heav y back squats, resting at least 2 minutes between sets.

Next, grab the heaviest dumbbells that you can walk 100 feet with and perform 5 sets of farmer’s carries. Rest 1 minute between each.

86

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

Robert Markowitz/NASA (Kim). Getty Images (Gordon). Thomas Chadwick (Deportago-Cabrera).

1

THE HOT DOG (GET YOUR HOT DOG!) GUY HAL GORDON, 32, San Francisco

8,340

Estimated number of steps Gordon takes in a regular game-day shift at the Oakland Coliseum.

ALL S U M M E R , from Thursday through Sunday, Hal Gordon (aka Hal the Hot Dog Guy) hits the stairs at the Oakland Coliseum. And he does it toting an extra 53 pounds: Strapped to his neck is a full hot dog buffet, loaded up with 36 weenies, metal canisters with a variety of mustards and ketchup, and an array of standard toppings (relish, onion, kraut).

There’s nothing like constantly hoisting that buffet to teach proper lifting form, either. In between running up and down concourses, he’s bending down to pass dogs to seated patrons. That’s a lot of squats. “You have to lift with your legs,” he says.

The Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, has been doing this for 15 years, doling out grub for the White Sox, Cubs, and Nationals before joining Oakland four years ago. He knows the exercise gets easier the harder he works. “As you start selling, the metal hot dog buffet gets lighter,” he says. Here’s more perspective on surviving the, er, dog days of summer.

ON PLAYING IT SAFE “Sometimes I’ve worn a back brace to remind myself to not jerk when I’m pulling stuff up.” (He also sports kneepads to safely take a knee when needed.) “You have to take care of yourself.”

THE

STREISSUE N GTH

ON STAYING COOL “I’ll drink two or three liters of water during a game. Between every load of hot dogs, I’ll walk into the freezer where they keep the ice cream and just stand there for five minutes to recover.”

ON KEEPING THE FUN “I started making baseball cards of myself last year. If somebody goes, ‘You’re my favorite hot dog vendor,’ I’ll [give them one].

With little kids, it’ll make their day.”

TRAIN LIKE A HOT DOG (GET YOUR HOT DOG!) GUY Build hip mobility and quad strength with the kneel-to-stand.

Kneel on your shins, core and glutes tight. Lift your right leg and put your right foot on the ground. Shift your weight to the right leg and place your left foot on the ground. Stand. Reverse the moves to the start. That’s 1 rep; do 3 sets of 8 to 10.

THE BIKE MESSENGER

320

Average number of miles Deportago-Cabrera rides in a week.

NICO DEPORTAGO-CABRERA, 36, Chicago IMAGINE whipping down Chicago’s Michigan Avenue on a bike, threading between buses, cars, pedestrians, and the odd coyote. Then imagine a winter storm pelting your helmet with hailstones and gluing your hands to the bars. Then imagine being hardcore enough to do it on a fixed-gear bicycle, a stripped-down street bike with zero brakes.

That’s just an average day at work for Nico DeportagoCabrera, a 12-year veteran of the city’s bike-courier industry, who starts his days at 5:00 A.M. and ends eight hours later after a nonstop sprint session that exhausts his quads, glutes, and lungs.

Deportago-Cabrera will carry anything that fits into

his boxy, extra-large backpack. And he’s always in a rush. “People always want things yesterday,” he says.

Deportago-Cabrera discovered his video-game-like knack for navigation and car dodging in 2008, when— with a flagging music career, a suspended license, and a pack-a-day cigarette habit to his name—he wandered into Apex courier service, hunting for a job.

The following year, still chasing stardom, he entered his first North American Cycle Courier Championships. The competition is basically the Olympics for bike messengers, who race to make multiple drop-offs in neighborhoods throughout Brooklyn. He won, then repeated the feat in 2016

to earn sponsorship from Red Bull.

Deportago-Cabrera needs leg strength, lung capacity, and quick reflexes for his daily grind. He preps in his spare time by doing yoga to keep his legs pliable and using kettlebell swings to build lower-body power.

STRETCH LIKE A BIKE MESSENGER Cycling (or even riding a desk) can cause sore quads and hip flexors. Try the wheelbarrow: Kneel with the balls of your feet on the floor, then grab your heels.

Push your hips forward, squeeze your glutes and shoulder blades, and tip your head back. Hold for 5 to 10 seconds. Do 3 sets daily.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

87

When I was growing up in Alabama in the 1950s, I heard my mother say over and over again, “Don’t get in trouble.” But I was inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi to get in what I call good trouble. When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, it’s my philosophy that you have a moral obligation to get in trouble, to make some noise, to point people in a different direction.

FAC I N G D E AT H On occasion in the whole struggle for the right to vote, we were arrested, we were jailed, we were beaten. In the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, we were attacked. I thought I was going to die. But when the heat of the conflict had passed, I had an executive session with myself. I decided to keep looking ahead, to keep believing that those of us in the movement would one day prevail. We did get a Voting Rights Act signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.

FO RG I N G ST R E N GT H Strength is the will, the desire, and the ability to continue, to press on. Strength comes in different forms. It’s more than physical. There is mental

88

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

strength that enables us to say we can do it, we must do it, and we will do it. There is spiritual strength that leads us to say a little prayer. Sometimes you might ask for determination. That is spiritual strength.

OV E R C O M I N G F E A R I didn’t want to get killed, but as a Freedom Rider fighting for lunch-counter integration in 1961, I came to the conclusion that this may be the price that I have to pay to a people and our movement, to move this nation closer to a society based on justice that values the dignity and the worth of every human being. We had to do what we could to redeem the soul of America.

TA P P I N G “S O U L F O R C E ” Your ability to match physical force with soul force, as Dr. King would say,

M A K I N G D E M O C R ACY We have overcome so much in America.

But we have not arrived at the end of the journey. We are involved in an ongoing struggle, an ongoing fight. I like to say that democracy is not a state; it is an act, and each generation must act. They must stand up and contribute to our society to make things better for all humankind. We can do it, and we must do it. We will do it.

FIGHTING CANCER I was not surprised because sometimes I could feel something on my left side.

Through the tests, it was discovered that I had cancer. I said to myself that I would not let cancer keep me down. One medical attendant encouraged me. She said, “Congressman Lewis, you’re a fighter—you must fight.” I assured her, “I will. I will not give in.” I don’t feel like I’m 80. I feel much younger, and I try to carry myself that way. I am optimistic that no matter what happens, everything will all work out.

BEN COURT is an executive editor at Men’s Health.

This page: Danny Lyon/Magnum Photos. Opposite: Anthony Geathers/Redux.

MAKING NOISE

Rep. John Lewis, civil-rights giant and the congressman for the Fifth District of Georgia. Below left: Lewis being arrested in Selma, Alabama, on October 7, 1964, after he helped organize Freedom Day, an attempt to register residents to vote.

Maynor De Leon

is on an epic quest to shed

500

pounds.

What’s it gonna take?

By Bryan Smith

Photographs by Nolis Anderson MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

91

WAS JUST A MIRROR.

Hung on a wall in his family’s apartment. It had been there so long it was just another piece of furniture, as uninteresting as a table lamp.

Except for him. For him, it almost glowed. It radiated a kind of menace. It taunted him. Look at me. That’s what I thought. You won’t. You afraid.

Shit. In his west Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen, fear was a luxury that could get you killed. Even if you felt it, you didn’t show it, didn’t admit it, even to yourself. Afraid? Look at him. He was big. Huge. More than 700 pounds.

Afraid? Say something. Call him a name. Call him fat. Then get ready.

They didn’t. Not anymore. They had learned that if they did, he would shut them down real quick—either with fists or through a roast that would leave their cheeks burning.

The mirror, however, didn’t play that. The mirror knew his soul. That he was afraid. That he was ashamed.

And it knew his darkest secret: that he despised himself. Who he was. How he’d let himself get to this point. On the rare occasions he allowed himself a glimpse, those things would crash over him like a wave, so that eventually when he would pass by the mirror, any mirror, he would ignore it, recoil from it, turn away from it—anything but look into it.

B

EFORE HE WAS an unlikely Instagram star with 170,000 followers and a deal with Nike, Maynor De Leon was big. For as long as he could remember, he dwarfed his friends and, in girth at least, his three older brothers. By first grade, he was wearing size 10 “grown man” shoes.

Kid shoes were fine lengthwise but way too narrow. Within days of getting a new pair, the sides would blow like an overfilled tire.

92

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

could be shy and “soft,” as small as possible, at least with his personality, or he could do the opposite, become bigger, tougher, defiant in his heaviness. He wouldn’t wait for someone to call him fat—he would do it first and dare anyone to take it further: “Yeah, I’m fat. I can lose weight, but you ugly and stupid and that don’t never go away.”

It didn’t help that he lived in a food desert, with few grocery stores offering fresh fruit and vegetables. Instead, it was filled with fast-food places and corner stores.

What’s more, the junk food was far cheaper.

For breakfast he’d often eat a couple cinnamon buns washed down with three or four juice boxes. Far from discouraging Maynor, his family celebrated food, at least in his early years. His mother was from Mexico and his father from Guatemala—and meals, particularly during the holidays, filled the house with the aroma of tamales and empanadas. His nickname, gordito—little fat man—was used with affection: “Mira, gordito, ven a comer un poco de este pollo!” (“Hey, chubby, come have some of this chicken!”) As he grew older, Maynor’s most cherished memories involved food set out for holiday meals. It represented warmth and love and happiness. Family. Everyone eating, laughing. Food was home.

But by the time he reached high school, food had become, in effect, a comforting drug, one supplemented by a more common form of escape: alcohol. He had started drinking beer at age 13. By high school, he would pour vodka into his Gatorade in the THE START Maynor De Leon, age 24, in Chicago in morning. When worry crept in over 2016, when he was at his heaviest, over 700 pounds. his drinking, he would default to nihilism: What does it matter? I’ll be dead side his home. He ran to the window when by 25 anyway. Might as well enjoy myself.

When he graduated, the five-foot-nine the gunfire rang out and watched the kid bleed out. His brothers, father, and friends Maynor weighed more than 600 pounds. shrugged it off—life in the ’hood. For him, He had high blood pressure and severe sleep apnea. He could no longer rise from the moment was profound, frightening.

Maynor’s appearance only compounded the couch without help. To get out of bed, he the need he felt to come off as hard, espe- had to heave himself to a sitting position, cially when gang members would stop and slowly swing his legs over the edge, then try “check” him—ask who he was affiliated to stand. Such struggles made him more with. “No one,” he would answer. “I’m just depressed, which he covered up with more a kid wearing baggy clothes.” At home, he food, which made him more depressed still. clashed with his father, his attitude one He was trapped and, worse, both in denial of rebellion fueled by anger. His mother and stubborn. He was the big guy no one ached for her son and tried to make peace messed with, a star in his own way, made so by his extraordinary size and his “I don’t between the two, with little success.

Once he entered high school, Maynor give a fuck” facade. He thought he would realized he could go one of two ways. He carry this weight forever.

Courtesy Maynor De Leon

IT

To make the adult shoes work, he stuffed the front ends with socks. As for clothes, he stuck to triple-XL shirts and sweatpants.

In elementary school, he would have loved to be invisible. But his size not only made that impossible; it made him more conspicuous, a target. He wasn’t just bigger than everyone else. He looked older. At age 12, people assumed he was 16 or 17. “Damn, you fat” was the least cruel thing he would hear, but it wounded him every time.

Deep down he was a thoughtful, smart, empathetic kid who loved people. But on the gang-thick city blocks where he lived, you didn’t dare cop to such things—not if you didn’t want to be laughed at, bullied, or worse. One of his earliest memories was of a teenager being shot and killed right out-

O

NE DAY IN 2015, however, Maynor noticed he’d developed a leg infection. His parents took him to University of Illinois Hospital, where a doctor said he needed surgery to determine the extent of the infection. “If it’s in your bloodstream,” the surgeon explained, “we would have to amputate so it doesn’t go to your heart.”

Wheeled into surgery, Maynor started to panic after a breathing tube was inserted.

At that moment, a sedative began to take effect. He kept thinking, I’m so sleepy and I can’t breathe. I’m so sleepy and so fucking . . . tired. He’d accept whatever came next. If I die, his last thought went, I die.

Maynor was swimming. Up through pa in, t hroug h sa dness a nd a nger, churning, fighting, up and out of unconsciousness, a diver pulling his way to the surface. When his eyes fluttered open and the details of where he was slowly sharpened, he felt a tube in his throat. He looked around, at the bed, the IV pole, the green lines oscillating on a screen a few feet away. Directly above him was a light fi xture with a reflecting panel. There was no way to avoid looking at it. The thing he would be staring at for the next ten days as he recovered: his own image.

At first, he was angry. Angry that he was in a hospital bed that he couldn’t get out of, angry that he could not eat to cover up those feelings, angry that he wasn’t the person he wanted to be. Rage became depression; depression became despair. Maynor wasn’t a crier. He wouldn’t let himself be vulnerable like that. But several days into his hospital stay, he broke, and all the emotions, the fear, and the self-hate that he had numbed with food over the years flooded out.

His mother, who had come to see him each day, was worried. His dad had stayed at the hospital with him for the first six days, round the clock. They had never seen Maynor so down. The biggest part of his depression welled from how much he despised himself. It had fed his acting out, his rebellion, especially against his father.

The two had gone after each other hard.

Maynor was not sure what to expect when his father—“my old man,” as he calls him—said he wanted to talk. Averting his gaze, Maynor listened as his dad uttered words that were as healing as any medication dripping into his veins. “No matter what we go through from here,” he said, “you are still my son. It doesn’t matter what you weigh. I love you, and I got you.”

THE WORK Trainer David Carson says Maynor is seriously strong, in part because he had to carry around 700 pounds of weight every day.

The ten days he spent in the hospital were the worst and best days of his life. “If I would have died right there and then, no one would have went, ‘Oh, damn, that’s a surprise. Maynor’s fat ass died,’ ” he says.

“I realized I had a second chance.”

A couple months after he was out of the hospital, on April 30, 2016, Maynor sat down on a couch in his home, propped up his smartphone, and tapped the video app.

“I am a little over 700 pounds,” he said in a somber yet warm voice. “I know I need to make a change, because if I don’t, my weight is going to kill me. I have a long and harsh road in front of me.”

Maynor couldn’t stand social media.

Bunch of trolls and haters. Why would people want to put themselves out there to be roasted? But what if he did it differently,

created an Instagram account that was raw and revealing, one in which he admitted his struggles as well as celebrated his successes? Yeah, people would hate, but so what? This was his journey, and social media was a way for him to tell his story rather than have people look at him and make up their own. It would also be a way to hold himself accountable. He started going to a local gym, then to a boxing gym, walking on a treadmill, hitting the heavy bag. He began posting at @thatbigguy700. His goal was hugely ambitious: losing 500 pounds Ten followers became a hundred. A hundred became a thousand. Viewers responded. Not with the hate he expected but with support. “You inspire me.” “I’m fat, too, and I want to do this.” “Man, you have a lot of courage. Much respect.”

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

93

As it happened, another trainer shared it for him, telling Maynor all about Carson’s accident, his journey, his sincere desire to help. Maynor was stunned when he heard about Carson’s depression. He called the trainer shortly after that first workout and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?” Carson apologized and then added something that echoed what Maynor’s father had once said: “I want you to know that no matter what, whether you regain a few pounds or struggle, I got your back. We’re in this together—not just as trainer and client but as friends helping each other.”

For their partnership to work, Maynor would have to be patient, in it for the long haul. Reality shows I T H H I S sculptlike The Biggest Loser were fine as ed, six-foot-sevfar as they went. Contestants did en body and a indeed quickly shed hundreds of client list of top pounds and looked and felt draathletes, trainer David Carson matically better. But in many appears to personify success. But cases, they put the weight back he has endured his own dark jouron after the season ended. Losing ney. As a college basketball player weight rapidly significantly lowers at Purdue University Fort Wayne a person’s resting metabolism, so with NBA aspirations, Carson they have to eat less and less. At the was driving home to Chicago from same time, hormones are batterIndiana for his graduation party ing the brain relentlessly, signalon June 5, 2010, when he was hit head-on by a woman trying to kill THE JOURNEY Carson and Maynor working out at On Your ing a feeling of hunger.

If Maynor really wanted this, he herself. She died.

Mark. First they focused on movement; now it’s strength. would have to change everything Carson, however, was cut out Clients flocked to him, not only because about his life—his diet, his sleep habits, of his car by emergency workers. He had suffered a broken arm, a broken leg, a frac- of his skills as a trainer but also because of his workout regimen—and continue his tured sternum, and eight dislocated toes. his ability to connect with those who were emotional growth, including confronting “You were lucky,” one rescue worker told struggling, an empathy he admits was the demons that had led to his overeating him. Lucky? he thought. I was driving born only from the crash. Carson opened in the first place. It would be the hardest along minding my own business and, in 24Life, housed in a hangar-sized gym on thing he’d ever done, and it would require a flash, my entire world is turned upside Chicago’s hot Near North Side. His ethos: more strength than he ever thought he had.

But he would also have to be realistic.

“Your health is more than the hour or two down. My career is over. I’m lucky?

Carson sank into a deep depression. you spend in the gym. Health encompasses Carson was not perfect, and neither was Nightmares tortured his sleep. He couldn’t your entire life. How well do you eat? Do you he. And that was okay. That said, Carson was not going to baby him. “I want to train be in a car—either as a passenger or as a positively affect your community?”

Nike originally made the recommenda- you like I train an Olympic athlete,” he told driver—without fighting panic attacks. He was irritable. He had been on the brink of tion that Carson and Maynor work together, Maynor. It would be a four-year plan. The possibly playing in the NBA, his lifelong but friends had also pointed the trainer to initial goal, he said, was for Maynor to be dream. That was now dead. Why me? he Maynor’s story. He immediately knew: “I able to “own his weight”—that is, be able to want to work with that guy. I want to help.” carry himself with balance and strength, asked himself over and over.

Carson stopped working out for several But their first session, in June 2019 at Car- get his body to cooperate when he is given months—only resuming when his mother, son’s gym, went poorly. To Carson, Maynor various exercises. Lots of planks, squats, who was dealing with health problems seemed not just wary but put off. To Maynor, step-ups, and walking. That would take the brought on by being overweight, asked if Carson came off as too super-trainer guy, all first year. “I want to get to a place where if her son could help her. He did. After work- platitudes and workout-speak. Carson was you lose your balance,” Carson said, “it isn’t ing with him, she lost 150 pounds in one so eager to work with Maynor that he forgot ‘Oh, shit’ but ‘All right. I’m strong enough what worked for him: sharing his own story. to balance on one leg.’ ” The reason, he year. Carson had found his calling.

After a few months, Maynor had built a following of 70,000.

When the inevitable troll would weigh in—“Why you such a fat ass”—Maynor didn’t even need to respond. His fans would do it for him, bombarding the person with angry blasts.

Nike took notice and used him in a short “Just do it” video that went viral. Suddenly he had trainers pleading to work with him, though he got the sense that they weren’t really in it for him and didn’t understand him. Maynor had lost some weight, but he needed help. He needed someone good and someone who got him.

W

94

May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

on weight loss. In fact, they no longer do weekly weighins. “We’re looking for strength gains in the deadlift and squat,” says Carson. “If we hit the strength goals, we’ll get there with the weight, because muscle burns more calories than fat. His metabolism will do HE WORKOUT the work.” space On Your May nor feel s b et t er Mark is a masphysically, of course, but sive landscape the payoff doesn’t end at of weightlifting machines, walking tracks, heavy bags, THE FUTURE Maynor is 60 percent of the way to reaching his weight- his increased mobility and strength. Through social and benches. On a Wednesloss target. When he hits it, he already has a next goal: run a marathon. media, he has developed a day morning in January, Maynor, now 27, is in the middle of it, as he is isn’t here to front—to strut around the gym group of close supporters who have become five days a week now. He’s bright, confident, or stand around shooting the shit. His Ins- more than just fans—they are friends. Carquick to smile. He hoists a heavy canvas tagram video for today won’t be filmed from son is one of his best. When the two aren’t ball over his head and slams it down with flattering angles to make him look better. working together, they have long talks—not a guttural “HUMPH!” five times, over and He’s here, as he puts it, to “get dreams and about new exercises or progress but about over, the impact echoing through the gym. get there by being uncomfortable,” and in life, where each of them is emotionally.

Boom! Boom! Carson, as usual, stands by order to do that he has to be real—with himhis side, spotting, correcting, encourag- self and his followers.

Maynor still loves food. He says his greating. In between sets with the ball, Maynor F TE R A REC E NT workout, steps laterally, up and over, back and forth, est struggle is resisting the temptation to May nor felt something eat. When he feels hungry he asks himself, between two yellow hurdles. strange. He ran his hand “Ten seconds,” says Carson. “Give me ten Am I really hungry? Or stressed? Now he over his left arm, then his seconds.” Maynor marches back and forth, monitors all his meals, following a plan right. Were they lumps? Nah, on both arms, pulling his knees up, setting his feet down. that emphasizes satiating proteins and in the same spot? Standing nearby, Carson Back to the ball. “Give me five more. Let’s fiber-rich vegetables. He’s replaced juice watched, smiling. “You’re starting to get go.” Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! boxes with water. His daily target is 2,750 definition,” he said. “Muscles.” If, in that Back to the hurdles. “Ten seconds. Start- calories. He batch-cooks for the whole moment, Carson had walked up to Maynor ing in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .” His face shining with week: ground chicken stir-fry with mixed and held out a lottery scratch card worth a sweat, Maynor marches, Carson touching peppers, peas, and broccoli; salmon cakes million dollars, Maynor would have been his shoulders to help him maintain balance on red cabbage and green beans; a bean more excited about hearing those two words bowl with black beans, chickpeas, bell pep- used to describe him. Muscles. Definition. in what looks like a workout dance duet.

Next, Maynor pounds the heavy ball into pers, and tomatoes.

“Get the F out. Me?” Maynor has had his share of setbacks. a nearby wall, flinging it with thudding “It’s true. Go look.” force, five on the left, five on the right. “Two The difference is that if he can’t catch Before he realized what he was doing, more.” Seconds later, with a Kanye West himself, he will at least make the food Maynor found himself standing in front track thumping through the gym, Maynor he eats healthy. Gone are the Big Mac of his old enemy, facing his old monster, pulls the handle on a cable, doing biceps binges—instead, he’ll grill some chicken that which he’d avoided for so much of his curls. And on it goes, for an hour. Maynor and vegetables. If he has an ice cream life. He allowed his eyes to drop to his body. is dripping with sweat by the end as he lifts sandwich, it will be one he made out of There, in the mirror, he could see that he a water bottle and gulps. Carson gives him high-protein waffle mix and low-fat fro- was still big. He was still a long way from his a light shoulder tap and points. “Good job.” zen yogurt. And he remembers that he ultimate goal. But hell if his trainer, now his Smiling through the perspiration, Maynor will have to cop to the backslide on Insta- friend, wasn’t right. Maynor could see outnods, then claps, then throws back his head gram—although, again, that makes his lines of muscle. He looked back up and saw story more relatable, meaning he wins his own face, still round but less so. It sudand shouts, “YEAHHHH!” It isn’t glamorous. After some of his sets, more support, which motivates him more. denly hit him: He was staring into a mirror, Four years into his journey, and after one and it was fine. And then he knew. It wasn’t Maynor bends at the waist, looking up, sweat streaming, only to have Carson in his year working with Carson, Maynor has lost ever about the mirror. He looked back at his ear, urging him on. None of the exercises nearly 300 pounds and now weighs 414. changing body, and then he did something are easy. Pushing a sled, as Carson rides on He has 215 pounds to go. The weight fell he never thought he’d do. Maynor flexed. it, shouting at him, is a particular dread. off quickly at the start, but it’s slower now.

He hates it because it sucks. And he loves Carson says they have adjusted their weekly BRYA N SM I T H is a features writer at it precisely because he hates it. Because he goals to focus more on performance than Chicago magazine.

continued, is that “people have a fear of falling, so they protect themselves, but that self-protection prevents them from progressing.”

“I’m down,” Maynor said.

“Let’s do this.”

T

A

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

95

THE STRENGTH DIET THE

ISSUE

HOW TO

FUEL UP, SLIM DOWN, AND BUILD MUSCLE AND POWER WITH EVERY FLAVORPACKED MEAL. BY

PAUL KITA SALMON BURGER WITH WASABI MAYO >>

PHOTOGRAPHS BY

CHRISTOPHER TESTANI

DIETING IS FOR LOSERS. KETO, PALEO, WHOLE30: America

loves itself a fad diet, and some of them may even help you lose weight.

Except that weight loss is only one of many reasons to eat a healthy diet.

The other reasons include fighting disease-stoking inflammation, keeping your cholesterol in check, fortifying your immunity, staving off (or blunting the effects of) diabetes, nourishing your brain, elevating your energy, and building strength.

For people who are serious about getting in shape and building muscle, that last word is critical.“Diet is a key piece of building strength,” says Brian St. Pierre, C.S.C.S., R.D., director of nutrition at Precision Nutrition, a company whose clients include the Carolina Panthers and the San Antonio Spurs. “Without adequate calories, macronutrients, and micronutrients, you will not be able to maximize strength, adequately recover, or perform at your peak.” And that kind of strength doesn’t just apply to your workouts but to everything in between: at work, with your family, during downtime. Will you likely lose weight on this program, too? For sure.

Will you gain muscle? Absolutely— although a strength diet considers not just mass but other factors in overall health. The true strength of the Strength Diet is less about what you lose and more about what you gain: vitality, longevity, and simplicity.

It takes just four steps.

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

STEP

1

SAVORY OATMEAL BOWL >>

DIVERSIFY YOUR FUEL Crash diets slash certain foods and burn entire food groups as a way to calorie-shock your system into weight loss. To strengthen your entire body, you have to eat a range of nutrients, says St. Pierre. Specifically, these nutrients. (Fear not, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll turn these into delicious meals later.)

PROTEIN It helps your muscles recover, which leads to enhanced strength.

Especially:

ZOONUTRIENTS

(nutrients, such as creatine, that occur only in animal foods, to further stoke muscle power and strength)

QUALITY CARBOHYDRATES They help you work out longer and harder, and keep your hormones in check.

Especially: PHYTONUTRIENTS

(nutrients that occur only in plant foods, with distinct colors signifying different types, to boost health and manage training-induced inflammation)

Especially: MYCONUTRIENTS

(nutrients that occur only in mushrooms and other fungi, to avoid deficiencies that hamper physical function and strength)

HEALTHY FATS They lower inflammation, improve immunity, and boost your health.

(So you never miss a workout.)

THE

ISSUE

STEP

2

CALCULATE HOW MUCH OF THESE FOODS YOU SHOULD EAT DAILY It involves (a very little bit of ) math. The rest is way, way more delicious. Promise.

S ET YOUR CALO RIE S If you want to maintain your current bodyweight but add strength, your total daily caloric goal should be about 15 times your current bodyweight. So if you weigh 150 pounds, that’s 2,250 calories daily (150 x 15).

PRIO RITIZE PROTE IN The Big P builds muscle and fills you up.

The oft-cited target of eating about 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight is the gold standard. So if you weigh 150, that’s 150 grams of protein, spread throughout the day.

WHAT’S “HEALTHY” FAT?

DELICIOUS. Turn to salmon, eggs (and egg yolks), pistachios, hummus, mackerel, almonds, coconut, and sunflower seeds.

FILL IN YOUR FATS You need at least 20 percent of your calories to come from fats in order to maintain your hormone levels, says St. Pierre. (We do the math for you on the following page!)

AD D CARB S

Start with a base of 20 percent.

Pierre recommends diversifying the carbs you eat, making sure to include phytonutrients and myconutrients. You may want to tinker with this percentage as you adapt the diet to suit your tastes and needs.

E XPE RIM E NT You’ll notice you have some calories left over, about 750. From here, how you allocate those nutrients is up to you. St. Pierre says to play around with adding more fat or more carbs until you find a balance that satisfies your stomach and your taste buds.

(If you’re not sure where to start, split the remaining calories into carbs and fat and see how that feels.)

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

STEP

3

APRICOT PORK CHOP WITH K ALE- CHERRYQUINOA SALAD >>

TURN MATH INTO FOOD!

THE

ISSUE

Eating grams is boring. On the Strength Diet, eating should be enjoyable. Here’s how to take the numbers you calculated in step 2 and turn them into a plan for really tasty daily meals.

Three Guys,

Three Plans 150 LB

GUY Daily needs

2,250 cal

PROTEINRICH FOODS

(meat, poultry, fish, eggs, Greek yogurt, tofu, seitan, etc.)

NON-STARCHY CARBOHYDRATES

(spinach, peppers, snap peas)

6

fist-sized portions

STARCHY CARBOHYDRATES

(beans, whole grains, fruit, starchy tubers, etc.)

FAT-RICH FOODS

6

palm-sized portions (180g protein)

(extra-virgin oils, nuts and seeds, nut butters, avocados, cheese, etc.)

6

cupped handfuls (combined 180g carbs)

6

thumb-sized portions (85g fat)

180 LB

GUY

2,700 cal

7

palm-sized portions (215g protein)

7

fist-sized portions

7

cupped handfuls (combined 240g carbs)

7

thumb-sized portions (100g fat)

210 LB

GUY

3,150 cal

8

palm-sized portions (240g protein)

8

fist-sized portions

8

cupped handfuls (combined 275g carbs)

8

thumb-sized portions (115g fat)

An App for Your Meals At precisionnutrition.com/nutrition-calculator, just plug in your data and choose “Body Recomposition” as your goal. Select your eating style and customize your macros (balanced, low-carb, low-fat, etc.). The formula will spit out a plan to maximize your strength.

Food styling: Michelle Gatton/Hello Artists. Prop styling: Carla Gonzalez-Hart.

4

STEP

BUILD YOUR MEALS How yo u cho o s e t o e njoy yo u r Streng th Diet is up to you. But here’s what a typical day might look like for that soon-to-be-strongas-hell 150-pound guy.

Breakfast: Savory Oatmeal Bowl 2 soft-boiled eggs; 2 cups sauteed spinach; 4 cremini mushrooms (quartered); and 2 slices torn prosciutto (sizzled) over 1 cup cooked oatmeal, drizzled with olive oil and topped with freshly ground black pepper.

NUTRITION: 449 calories, 30g protein, 38g carbs (7g fiber), 21g fat Snack:

3 large pieces beef jerky

NUTRITION: 246 calories, 20g protein, 7g carbs

(1g fiber), 15g fat

Salmon Burger with Wasabi Mayo

Lunch:

PROTEIN OR POWDER? WHENEVER POSSIBLE,

try to eat your protein in the form of real food. That’s because real food, unlike protein powder, contains other vital nutrients.

For instance, salmon has protein but also heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Most protein powder has none. That said, protein powder is cost-effective and requires less preparation.

4 oz cooked salmon tucked inside a whole-grain burger bun and loaded up with 1 cup pea shoots, ½ avocado (sliced), and 1 Tbsp mayo mixed with ½ tsp wasabi powder. Serve with a ripe Asian pear.

NUTRITION: 618 calories, 37g protein, 47g carbs (14g fiber), 33g fat

2 scoops protein powder in water

Snack:

NUTRITION:

220 calories, 48g protein, 4g carbs (0g fiber), 1g fat Dinner: Apricot Pork Chop with Kale-Cherry-Quinoa Salad

4 oz pork chop seared with ½ red onion (quartered) and 3 apricots (pitted and quartered). Serve with 1 cup cooked quinoa mixed with 1 Tbsp olive oil, 1 cup kale (finely chopped), 1 Tbsp apple-cider vinegar, ½ cup cherries (pitted and halved), and salt and pepper to taste.

NUTRITION: 653 calories, 39g protein, 76g carbs (11g fiber), 23g fat

Target:

Actual:

2,300 cal, 180g protein, 205g carbs, 85g fat

2,186 cal, 174g protein, 172g carbs, 93g fat

MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020

HE EARNED A PERFECT SCORE ON THE NEW ARMY FITNESS TEST. HE’S FIGHTING CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE. HE ALSO TRAINS CIVILIANS FOR FREE. BUT JUST HOW STRONG IS MAJOR CARPACCIO OWENS?

BY ANDREW LAWRENCE

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEFF VALLEE MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020 103

IT’S NOT YET 4:00 A.M. IN

FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA, WHEN MAJOR CARPACCIO OWEN S E AS ES HIS TAN GERINE TOYOTA COROLLA INTO AN EMPTY STRIP-MALL PARKING LOT. WITH A SMALL DUFFEL SLUNG OVER HIS SHOULDER AND A TEN-POUND MEDICINE BALL UNDER HIS ARM, OWENS—“PACE” FOR SHORT—STRIDES THROUGH THE GLOOM TO THE LOCKED DOOR OF A TRUFIT GYM. The 43-year-old lingers there, swaying in the stillness, his sculpted five-foot-nineinch, 209-pound frame shrouded under charcoal sweats and a black hoodie. He tells me an animated story from his days playing semipro football, before he joined the Army 19 years ago. When he makes it to the punchline—how he discovered his franchise was going out of business when he was evicted from corporate housing because the team’s founder was caught embezzling—his deep belly laugh pierces the quiet. “After that, I was like, I really need to get my life together,” Owens says.

Finally, an attendant opens the door.

Once inside this all-but-deserted gym, Owens springs into action. He goes around the room snatching up dumbbells and weight plates and scatters them across the green track that loops around all the gym’s workout equipment like a moat. As he reconfigures the space to his liking, more 104 May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

people trickle in, until there are about 20 in all. They vary in age, race, gender, body shape, and walk of life: Jayson Leach, Ed.D., a 41-year-old school principal who has lost 300 pounds over nine years training with Owens; Tanisha Melvin, a 39-year-old mom of three who’s seen her overall strength and endurance increase under Owens’s tutelage; Dennis Shurin, a 71-year-old retired shift manager and former military, who wears braces on both legs to manage arthritis but who still walks for an hour on the treadmill every day before this Morning Crew workout.

None of these normos look like they belong in a gym with Owens. Now that all the lights are up and his hoodie is off, he resembles a real-life G. I. Joe. Still, every weekday, the Morning Crew shows up here at this ungodly hour for a sample of his Army-inspired functional fitness. “When it comes to strength, it’s really about build-

ing the person from the inside to master the outside,” Owens says. “Most things that come physically start mentally. We come together to support one another.”

Over the next 50 minutes, Owens pushes these nice people through a nasty strength-and-stamina-blasting circuit.

Today is a light day—Fri-Yay—but you wouldn’t know it from the curses and sweat flying. Only Owens looks relaxed.

He gently encourages some people and finishes sets with others, cajoling a little extra effort out of each person. “It’s humbling,” he says. “You see the potential in people that they don’t see in themselves.”

And before you presume that Owens’s highly personalized approach must come with an appropriately high hourly rate, know: These sessions are free. In fact, this strength experiment started eight years ago with Owens trying to squeeze in a workout ahead of a full day of grad-level public-health classes at East Carolina University and work at Fort Bragg, where he is a paratrooper in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. A day at the base could involve anything from training recruits to overseeing security to shooting at the range.

His workouts were a slack-jawed spectacle

for TruFit’s early-bird crowd, until one guy sidled up and worked up the courage to ask, “Hey, brother, are you training for something?” When Owens said he wasn’t, the man asked if he could join in. And he stuck with it. Soon one became four, became 20—became this bunch now huffing and puffing behind Owens.

It’s only recently that the Morning Crew learned a surprising truth about Owens— that this apparent paragon of vitality is in the third of five stages of chronic kidney disease, with his kidney function having crashed to 50 percent and his long-term health at risk. And it’s not as if he told them. (That’s not his style.) They learned it from news websites and social media, which reported that Major Carpaccio Owens (their Pace!) had achieved the all-but-impossible, even for the strongest and toughest soldiers in the strongest and toughest military force: He’d earned a perfect score on the Army’s new fitness test.

OWENS’S PROBLEMS STARTED in 2007 when he was given a series of rabies vaccinations ahead of his second deployment to Iraq. He noticed that his face was puff y FIT TO SERVE Far left: Major Carpaccio Owens stands at attention as the flag is raised at 6:30 A.M. at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Clockwise from left: Owens performing various exercises in the Army’s new fitness test, including the deadlift, drag, leg tuck, and standing power throw.

and he began feeling tired all the time. One morning in the shower after deploying, he saw that his legs had swelled up. He was transported by ambulance to Kuwait. He arrived in kidney failure and with 26 pounds of extra water weight creeping perilously close to his lungs. Following an intense round of diuretics, he was airlifted to Germany and then home.

After several weeks, Owens had recovered enough to compete in an Army-sponsored combat tournament. But then his vitals spiked again. He was referred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a scarring of the kidneys that causes chronic kidney disease, which is progressive and incurable. He was denied additional term life insurance based on this preexisting condition. It was devastating for the divorced and remarried father of two.

“As an athlete, if I pulled my hamstring or broke a bone, it’s like, okay, the body heals itself,” he says. It took Owens three days to process his health downturn. “To finally understand that your body’s not going to heal and this is your new normal was crushing. It was like my identity was taken from me.”

An Air Force brat and lifelong gym

rat who started strength training at age 12, Owens says he has always been defined by his physical presence. After the diagnosis, he felt something that he’d never felt jumping out of airplanes: vulnerable.

When breaking the news to his young daughters, he simply said that Daddy’s “kidneys were sick.” In general, Owens doesn’t dwell on mortality. There’s no space for that in his line of work. “You just come to the realization that you might die here or on a foreign land,” he says. “So why harp on it? I’d rather be the person increasing morale than decreasing it.”

Instead of yielding, Owens dug in. “I can’t be a hypocrite telling others to push through and give up,” he says. “You start going down this hole, but then you gotta shake that off and say, ‘You’re thinking about something you can’t control. What can you control now?’ ” What he could control was his diet and his workouts. When protein stopped showing up in his urine, a telltale sign of kidney malfunction, Owens started on a keto diet, thinking that MEN’S HEALTH

/ May 2020 105

eating fat and protein in greater quantities could make his kidneys more efficient at processing them. As a result of the diet, Owens was able to reduce a drug-treatment cocktail of ACE inhibitors, diuretics, and anti-inflammatories to one combo pill.

He credits his superior conditioning—the result of consistent training—with helping to decrease the inflammation, bloating, and fatigue of kidney disease. Although his condition was stable, it was something he’d have to worry about his whole life. But rather than slow him down, the diagnosis just steeled his discipline Owens, who wears red dog tags to alert medical personnel to his condition, was soon back to his frenetic schedule. He earned a personal-trainer certification, and when he wasn’t whipping the Morning Crew and the 82nd’s soldiers into shape, he was training on his own not merely to pass the existing Army fitness test, but to crush the harder test in the works. Anything less, he felt, simply wasn’t gonna fly.

FOR ALMOST FOUR DECADES, the fitness test for soldiers was simple: Complete as many situps and pushups as possible in two minutes (with a brief rest in between), followed by a two-mile sprint.

The point was to measure muscular endurance and cardio fitness in a way that could be replicated easily anywhere.

But in the past decade, the Army brain trust realized that the test wasn’t a true gauge of functional fitness and combat readiness. The Army—like America—is facing a fitness crisis. More soldiers are overweight, and at least half of all soldiers suffer an injury annually.

The U. S. Army Center for Initial Military Training has been developing a new test since 2013, consulting hundreds of military and civilian exercise experts. In October 2018, the center started a pilot run, which is scheduled to end this October, 106 May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

when the test becomes official and every base will have the necessary equipment to run it. The new test represents “a cultural shift,” says Colonel Kevin Bigelman, the center’s director of holistic health and fitness. Its goal is not only to improve combat performance, but also to reduce preventable injuries and their associated troop attrition and to enhance mental toughness and stamina. It includes six events to be completed in 90 minutes: deadlifts, standing power throws, pushups, a shuttle run, leg tucks, and a two-mile run.

The idea is to replicate the tasks a fighter might face on a battlefield. The top score

is 600, and there’s no curve for gender or age. “High-intensity training requires a dedicated program and cyclical attention to progression and recovery throughout the year,” says Whitfield East, Ph.D., the center’s research physiologist. Active-duty soldiers must take the test twice a year, and their scores inform their training schedule.

After training for a month—focusing on the leg tuck, a fierce ab burner—Owens took his first crack at the new test late last summer (right after his leg-day workout, incidentally) and wound up scoring a 585.

He had another go at the test on November 6, 2019. “Everything just kinda lined

ARE YOU ARMY STRONG? The Army Combat Fitness Test is an excellent challenge of functional fitness. Do the six events in the following order (with a five-minute rest period before the two-mile run).

Owens lifted 340 lb

Owens threw 13 m

3-REP MAX HEX-BAR DEADLIFT

STANDING POWER THROW

TESTS: Raw strength

TESTS: Explosive power

Push your hips back and bend your knees to grab the handles.

Maintain a flat back as you stand, pause, and then return the bar to the floor. Do 2 more reps.

RANGE: 140 to 340 pounds.

OWENS’S TIP: “Take a small hop. That’s your natural posture.

Take a deep breath, brace your core, push through your feet, and lift with all your strength.”

Hold a 10-pound medicine ball, squat, and throw it over your head as far backward as you can. Repeat. Measure the distance in meters.

RANGE: 4.5 to 12.5 meters.

OWENS’S TIP: “Practice with kettlebell swings. It’s the same movement—power from legs and hips. Then focus on arc and distance versus height.”

THE MORNING CREW

Ben Mounsey-Wood (illustrations)

For eight years, Owens has trained a group of roughly 20 civilians at the TruFit Gym in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

up for me that day,” he says. He was fully rested and blasted through the first five challenges, scoring off the scale on most of them. “At that point, I knew I was on a perfect score,” he says. “I needed a roughly six-minute pace for two miles. I focused on my stride and relaxed.” He finished in 12:40, becoming one of the first people to notch a perfect 600. “Literally a week before, I was denied additional life insurance,” says Owens, who felt as if he were taking the test for anyone who, at one point or another in their life, had felt less-than.

“I felt validation, accomplishment.”

Owens is not resting on his laurels. This

March, he enrolled in Ranger School. His health is still stable, but he’s aware of what looms in his future long-term and has heard from his doctors about stents and vein splicing and dialysis. But he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. “Right now,” he says, “I’m just living for today.”

That’s a maxim the Morning Crew often hears from Owens. Earning that perfect test score, despite his diagnosis, has been an extra source of strength for them as well. For Jeffrey Blue, a 48-year-old FedEx worker who has lowered his blood pressure and cholesterol, Owens shows that you can do more “than just take your meds,” that

“[I can] maintain my health as a whole.”

For Deidre Furlong, a 41-year-old teacher, Owens provides accountability: “There’s no way I would be consistent by myself.”

For others, like Leach, the camaraderie of this group provides a unique energy.

“Somebody might be stronger or weaker than you,” he says, “but the energy is what pushes you.” It goes the other way, too.

“The Morning Crew has helped make me a better person,” Owens says. “They lift my spirit and give me strength.”

At the end of the final workout each week, Owens awards the Morning Crew various accolades to stoke their motivation. This Friday morning, Melvin wins a heart-shaped glass bauble, the prize for “showing the most heart.” One coveted trophy, a replica WWE championship belt, goes to Furlong for “getting shit done.” She will keep it for a week until the next winner is announced. It’s a reminder that you don’t have to nail a perfect score on a fitness test to prove your strength.

ANDREW LAWRENCE lives in Beaufort, South Carolina, and has written for Sports Illustrated, The Atlantic, and other publications.

Owens ran it in 1:22

Owens ran it in 12:40

Owens did 60 Owens did 22

HAND-RELEASE PUSHUPS

5 X 50-METER SHUTTLE

ABDOMINAL LEG TUCK

TWO-MILE RUN

TESTS: Upper-body endurance

TESTS: Anaerobic endurance

TESTS: Grip, arm, shoulder,

TESTS: Aerobic endurance

Start in prone position. Do a pushup, then lower yourself to the floor. Lift your hands. That’s 1 rep. Go for max reps in 2 minutes.

RANGE: 10 to 60.

OWENS’S TIP: “Keep your core tight and glutes as tight as you can. Try to do 35 to 40 in the first minute, so that you only need 20 in the second minute and it’s easier.”

Do 5 reps of a 25-meter outand-back: a sprint, a 90-pound sled drag, a lateral shuffle run, a carry with two 40-pound kettlebells, and another sprint.

RANGE: 3 minutes to 1 minute 33 seconds.

OWENS’S TIP: “Pace yourself.

The drag is exhausting, then you have the carry. You see guys with ‘baby legs’ . . . almost falling down.”

and core strength From a hang, flex at the elbows, hips, and waist, and raise your knees to touch your elbows.

That’s 1 rep. Return to a hang. Go for max reps in 2 minutes.

RANGE: 1 to 20.

OWENS’S TIP: “It’s all core and grip. Progress from dead-man hang to hanging knee raise to belt to then knee to chest.”

and grit Run a flat 2-mile course as fast as possible. Record your time in minutes and seconds.

RANGE: 21 minutes to 12 minutes 45 seconds.

OWENS’S TIP: “Pacing is key.

Wear a watch so you can check your progress. Talk yourself up— say, ‘You got this!’—and you will run faster with less effort.”

AND ANOTHER THING!

Life-Changing Books Reading Twitter: soul sucking. Reading books recommended by a few of our favorite literary legends: enriching! We picked a mind-blowing book; the author of that book did the same. Then the author of that author’s pick followed suit, and here’s your new to-read list.

BY PAUL KITA

MEN’S HEALTH RECOMMENDS . . .

RECOMMENDS. . .

IAN MCEWAN RECOMMENDS. . .

Men’s Health (ISSN 1054-4836) Vol. 35, No. 4 is published 10 times per year, monthly except combined issues in January/February and July/August and when future combined issues are published that count as two issues as indicated on the issue’s cover, by Hearst at 300 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. Steven R. Swartz, President & Chief Executive Officer; William R. Hearst III, Chairman; Frank A. Bennack, Jr., Executive Vice Chairman. Hearst Magazines, Inc.: Troy Young, President; Debi Chirichella, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer; John A. Rohan Jr., Senior Vice President, Finance; Catherine A. Bostron, Secretary. Copyright 2020 by Hearst Magazines, Inc. All rights reserved. Men’s Health is a registered trademark of Hearst Magazines, Inc. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 507.1.5.2); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: Send address changes to Men’s Health Customer Service, P.O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593-1500. IN CANADA: Postage paid at Gateway, Mississauga, Ontario; Canada Post International Publication Mail (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 40012499. Postmaster (Canada): Send returns and address changes to Men’s Health magazine, P.O. Box 927, Stn Main, Markham ON L3P 9Z9 (GST# R122988611). Mailing Lists: From time to time we make our subscriber list available to companies that sell goods and services by mail that we believe would interest our readers. If you would rather not receive such mailings by postal mail, please send your current mailing label or exact copy to: Men’s Health, Mail Preference Center, P.O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA, 51593. You can also visit preferences.hearstmags.com to manage your preferences and opt out of receiving marketing offers by email. Customer Service: Visit service.menshealth.com or write to Men’s Health Customer Service, P.O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593-1500.

108 May 2020 / MEN’S HEALTH

Jeffrey Westbrook (books). Ulf Andersen/Getty Images (Buford and Wolff). David Levenson/Getty Images (Rushdie and McEwan).

BILL BUFORD