IAN THORPE was once so dominant in the water that it wouldn’t have surprised to see him walk on the stuff. Entering his fifth decade, he’s now searching for meaning and purpose beyond swimming.
Have your eyes been working overtime? Discover exactly what’s to blame for all that redness, dryness and blurred vision – while knowing that relief is in sight.
Love a BLT? We do, too. Because sometimes simply nothing appeals more than its sweet-andsalty promise. Here’s your plan for building the ultimate version of a classic.
Crossfit veteran Marcus Filly has a revolutionary take on high-intensity training that can help you build serious muscle without beating your body to a pulp.
SHOW OF FORCE Right now, in this galaxy, Star Wars actor John Boyega is kicking butt with his own production company, a bunch of new projects – and a resolute stance on issues of social justice.
MOST OF US have at least one body part we’re not happy with. For me, and as it turns out, LA Galaxy strength and conditioning coach Adam Waterson (p. 122), it’s our calves. Waterson admits to doing an excessive amount of calf raises to try to combat his perceived deficiency. You can hardly blame him. At the Galaxy, he’s surrounded by some of the most formidable pins on the planet. Me? I just avoid wearing ankle socks when I wear shorts, after a former female colleague once described my calves as “dainty”.
If I’m being confessional, I also don’t particularly enjoy having as many chins as a chubby newborn when caught on camera at an unflattering angle. The COVIDinduced Zoom Boom has required careful placement of my monitor on a towering edifice of old copies of Men’s Health. I’m sure there’s an irony there.
Men's Health Australia@MensHealthAU menshealth.com.au@menshealthaustralia
I could go on to detail a whole inventory of physical insecurities – my thinning and retreating hairline being the most psychologically pernicious among the indignities age is inflicting on me. But I don’t want to bore you. And the truth is I have largely come to accept these imperfections, a feat that would have gobsmacked my 20-year-old self. Thankfully age doesn’t just weary, humble and humiliate you, it also has a habit of reducing your inclination to give a f*ck.
Experience also gives you perspective. To view your body through the privileged prism of an able-bodied male and find fault is probably not a great look. So, I try to be grateful for my body and what it allows me to do (like, say, lunchtime boxing), even if I can’t quite accept all its flaws with the same fearlessness as the men who’ve embraced theirs in this month’s feature, ‘Every Body is Perfect’ (p74).
As with most things body related, we as men have followed women down this path – it was they who were first judged and made to feel insecure (and continue to be) about their bodies, before fighting back to embrace body positivity. Now it’s our turn.
Is it a little hypocritical for Men’s Health, of all publications, to jump on the body positivity bandwagon you might ask? Quite possibly. But while as a brand, self-improvement is in our DNA, so is self-acceptance. In fact, I would argue they go hand in hand. You can do countless biceps curls (or calf raises) while accepting (grudgingly if you like), the fact that you won’t ever look like the guy on our cover.
This month that’s Ian Thorpe (p.64), a man whose body was built for one explicit purpose (that he no longer actually uses it for), yet who seems to have reached a level of self-acceptance that comes only through thorough interrogation of the psyche.
Pursuing self-improvement, while embracing self-acceptance is not a form of dissonance. Nor is it a binary struggle between strength and weakness. Instead, it’s the yin and the yang, the constant push and pull of our interior lives. It’s what allows us to live with ourselves. Which is why I’m going to knock out some probably futile, but nevertheless meaningful calf raises next time I hit the gym.
BEN JHOTY
Editor-in-Chief
DANIEL WILLIAMS Deputy Editor
JASON LEE Creative Director
SCOTT HENDERSON Fitness Editor
ALISON COTTON Contributing Editor
NIKOLINA ILIC Digital Editor
JESSICA CAMPBELL Digital Content Writer
CAYLE REID Digital Content Writer
HANNAH CHAPMAN
Contributing Designer
IAN BROOKS
Chief Executive Officer
LLOYD O’HARTE Executive Director
RACHEL SULLIVAN National Commercial Director rachel@paragonmedia.com.au
CHRIS MATTHEWS
Partnerships & Integration Manager
LACHLAN COX Sales Manager
NATALIE WARD Commercial Consultant
EMILY WHITE Content Activations Coordinator
EMMAROSE GREENWOOD Content Activations Coordinator
LEE MCLACHLAN Creative Services
JULIE HUGHES Subscription Manager subscribe@paragonmedia.com.au
PARAGON DCN PTY LTD
ABN 73627 186 350. PO Box 81, St Leonards, NSW 1590 14/174 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest NSW 2062 Ph (02) 9439 1955, paragonmedia.com.au
JONATHAN WRIGHT
President, Hearst Magazines Int.
KIM ST. CLAIR BODDEN
SVP/Editorial & Brand Director
CHLOE O’BRIEN Global Editorial Brands Director
Australia, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, S. Africa, Spain, UK, US
Published and Distributed by Paragon DCN Pty Ltd by Permission of Hearst Magazines, Inc., New York, New York, United States of America. Printed and retail distribution by Ovato Limited. Published 12 times a year. All rights reserved.
Title and trademark Men’s Health © Hearst Magazines International. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission. Men’s Health is a registered trademark and the unauthorised use of this trademark is strictly prohibited. issn 13293079. © 2022 Paragon DCN.
Ben Jhoty ben@menshealth.com.auMen’s Health acknowledges the Cammeraygal people, Traditional Custodians of the land on which this publication is produced, and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. We extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
Accelerate progress
The all-electric Audi e-tron S
The first all-electric vehicle from Audi to wear the coveted ‘S’ badge, the Audi e-tron S is an artful combination of scintillating all-electric performance and stunning design.
Overseas model with optional equipment shown.
GOOD NEWS on that front: just a few minutes could make a world of difference. That’s because any movement is better than no movement. “Stretching increases your range of motion and improves circulation,” says personal trainer Dan Giordano. “If you aren’t stretching, you could lose range of motion as you age, making active things you love more difficult and painful.”
Giordano recommends dynamic stretching before an activity, followed by a sport-specific warm-up (8-10 reps held only for a few seconds each), then static stretching (lower reps held for 30-60 seconds) after an activity.
But what about for every day, even if you’re going to spend most of your time in a desk chair or on your couch – or especially if that’s your plan?
“I do a 10-minute dynamic-stretch flow every
morning,” says Giordano. It consists of a standard overhead reach to forward hinge; a walk-out to a plank and then a Spiderman lunge with rotation into a scorpion stretch. “That’s all you need. One caveat: if you feel pain, stop. Stretching should not hurt.”
If your youth is now well and truly in your rear-view mirror, it’s even more important that stretching become part of your fitness routine. Age-related losses in the proteins elastin and collagen mean there is a part of the ageing process associated with a decline in flexibility. “But as with most things, it’s use it or lose it,” says Brad Walker, author of 15 books on stretching and the Chief Stretch Advisor at StretchLab. “No matter what age you are, you can get improvements in flexibility. The older you are, the longer and harder you’ll need to work at it, but that’s the same with every fitness component.”
Okay, so how much stretching am I actually supposed to do every day? – DD
Ask the MH girls the questions you can’t ask anyone else. They’re three women who speak their mind, so don’t expect sugar-coated answers
TEXT A… PT
Can I really get strong and muscular doing only bodyweight training? – TA
Today 6:01am
I find it hard to believe.
Believe, TA. Have you tried it?
Kind of. I’ve done some push-ups and air squats.
Okay. That’s a solid start. But just as you would if you were using weights, you need to make your bodyweight program progressive.
You mean keep adding more push-ups?
Volume is one lever you can pull, absolutely. But only one. There are more push-up variations than I can list here, ranging from beginner to advanced. You can also reduce your rest periods between sets.
Yeah, but what about back? And my guns?
Look, I could give you equipment-free moves for those, too, but the best thing you can do is find a horizontal bar. You can build a thick, wide back and summer-ready guns using that.
Nik: I feel like she might not be the one for you, SK.
Jess: Maybe there’s two parts to this question, right? There’s the issue of whether this is the girl for SK, and a separate one about whether in any long-term relationship, the passion/magic will fade.
Becky: Well, my first question to you, SK, is: do you not want to get married now? If the answer’s no, my next question is: what about ever?
Nik: Totally. Because it’s one thing to have not much hope for your current relationship. It’s another thing never to want to tie the knot.
Jess: A conversation between you and your partner about how each of you sees marriage – the joys and challenges, the likely trajectory of feelings – sounds like a good idea.
Becky: What’s the difference between being together as bf/gf and being together as husband and wife that will suddenly make the magic fade?
Jess: I don’t think it’s the change in status. I assume it’s the idea of being together long term.
together, other amazing things can happen.
Jess: And not everyone’s bothered by routine. I think for a lot of people, that’s actually the good stuff. But there are also so many ways you can ensure the passion doesn’t disappear.
Nik: But have you had this discussion with her? You need to let her know how you’re feeling and see how she responds.
Becky: Call me a dreamer, but I think the best things are still to come in a relationship at 28. If
the magic being lost is your big worry about getting married, SK, then I’d be thinking about whether this is the right relo for you in the long term.
Dips on a park bench.
It’s starting to sound like a program! See you at the beach.
Becky: Sure, and long-term relationships do become routine. But have faith that as you grow
“I know my girlfriend would like us to get married, but I’m not keen. I love her, but at 28 I know the magic will fade (for both of us) and everything will become routine. Any thoughts?” – SKEd Coates-Smith is a fitness advisor and health coach
WE ALL HAVE our guilty pleasures, right? A sneaky soft drink to chase your 1pm sandwich, perhaps? Or a bag of potato chips to complement your after-work tipple? While the odd bit of junk food is all but harmless, it’s well-established that a habit in this area can be terrible for your physical health. Now, a new study has upped the ante, suggesting that ultra-processed foods are rotten for your mental wellbeing, too – regardless of how good they make you feel while you’re eating them.
The study, from Florida Atlantic University, shows that relatively high consumers of ultra-processed food are significantly more likely to show symptoms of depression and anxiety than relatively low consumers. This might be just the spur you
soft drink to chase your sandwich, after-work While the odd bit of food is all but harmless, area can terrible for Now, a new has are rotten for mental make feel from Florida Atlantic s c fo li d re m
need to find alternatives to white bread and chocolatechip muffins if weight gain and increased risk of chronic disease haven’t been enough to scare you straight. While we’ve all been taught to avoid or cut back on processed food, there’s an important distinction between ‘processed’ and ‘ultra-processed’. By definition, a processed food is simply one that’s been altered from its original form. Heated, pasteurised and canned products are all counted as processed. Some definitions even put refrigeration in the mix.
to
and increased risk of to scare you on an distinction and By definition, a food simply one that’s been altered from its Heated, and canned are all counted as Some in the mix
tend to strip them of any of the nutritional goodness they had in the first place.
Ultra-processed foods – think biscuits, sweets, Doritos –invariably contain additives such as preservatives, sweeteners and artificial colours and flavours.
any of they foods – think contain additives such as sweeteners increases number of as tend to be in added fat and salt, while minerals and
“The ultra-processing of food depletes its nutritional value and increases the number of calories, as ultra-processed foods tend to be high in added sugar, saturated fat and salt, while low in protein, fibre, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals,” said study author Eric Hecht.
that who consume a lot of food were unlikely to
food and mental health isn’t eat more make you is as a a correlation
that people who consume a lot of ultra-processed food were unlikely to report having zero mentally unhealthy days. Though the connection between ultraprocessed food and mental health isn’t entirely clear (do depressed people eat more junk or does eating junk make you depressed?), this study is being touted as a big step towards establishing a correlation.
“The data adds mental-health
Ultra-processed foods are designed to be convenient, low cost, ready-to-eat and oh-so-tempting, but the processes involved in making them
“More than 70 per cent of packaged foods are classified as ultra-processed food and represent about 60 per cent of all calories consumed by [adults].”
“The data adds important information to a growing body of evidence concerning the adverse effects of ultraprocessed consumption on mental-health symptoms,” says co-author Dr Charles Hennekens.
the processes 60 per cent of all calories consumed [adults].” my diet to look better and live would I do it to
The study showed
Ask yourself this question: if I’m not prepared to change my diet to look better and live longer, would I do it to blow away the blues?
THEY SAY in most relationships there’s a reacher and a settler – one who’s landed someone out of their league, and one who’s made do with a someone below theirs. However, a new study shows that partners who are roughly equally attractive have a better chance of staying together.
We’ve all seen movies where the nerdy guy gets the popular girl. Back to the Future, RevengeoftheNerds and Spiderman all imply that you can overachieve in the romance stakes. But research from the University of Missouri suggests that this admittedly feel-good cliché is probably best left in the cinema.
Research led by anthropology professor Sean Prall found that people of corresponding desirability were more likely to have successful, long-term relationships than, say, a flat-out 10 and a mediocre five. Prall studied the behaviour of the Himba people, a group of nomadic pastoralists in northwest Namibia. We know what you’re thinking: what does the behaviour of agrarian nomads in Africa have to do with me? Well, Pratt believes the Himba are the perfect subject group because they’re unhindered by societal pressures and norms.
“We were interested in this [topic] because much of the anthropological work on human-mating patterns is based only on people’s preferences,” Prall says. “This research focuses on people’s actions. Sure, you might say you’d prefer someone who’s deemed ‘really desirable’, but that’s heavily impacted by societal norms. What do you do in that relationship? How does it actually go? That was what we were looking at.”
In other words, there’s little point asking guys what they look for in a partner
because they’ll probably describe an unattainable babe they saw on TV the night before. Instead, Prall’s group looked at who people actually end up with, having spent five years analysing data on marriage, parenting, child health – and just how picky some of us can be when choosing a partner. It found that subjects of similar physical attractiveness more often paired up and usually stayed together longer. While the study focused on the Himba people, Prall says the information gathered can be applied in a broader context. “This was a great population [through which] to look at these questions because everyone knows each other and most date and marry within the population,” Prall says. “You can ask them how much they’d like to be in a relationship with a specific person because they actually know that person.”
The research on aspirational dating habits explains a lot. If it doesn’t help you find your next partner, it might tell us why on earth Jay-Z would cheat on Beyonce.
– LOSER
Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neill) and Gloria DelgadoPritchett (Sophie Vergara)
–
–
– KNOCKED UP
WHETHER IT’S the frosty chill of an early-morning swim in the ocean to shock you awake or an icy bath to promote recovery after a workout, the benefits of cold-water immersion are well known. But there might be an added benefit: frigid water could be a key to cutting body fat. While devoted disciples of coldwater swimming will tell you they’ve known this all along, there hasn’t been much by way of solid scientific evidence to support the claim. Until now.
Enter a major scientific review from the Arctic University of Norway, where there’s surely no shortage of ice in which to submerge yourself. The review looked at 104 studies analysing the effects of cold-water immersion, with the aim of determining whether exposure to cold water has any significant effects on human health. Let’s just say the results might give you goosebumps.
“From this review, it’s clear that there is increasing scientific support [for the belief] that voluntary exposure to cold water may have some beneficial health effects,” says lead author
James Mercer. “Many of the studies demonstrated significant effects of cold-water immersion on various physiological and biochemical parameters.”
The review probed a purported link between coldwater swimming and the activation of brown adipose tissue, a type of body fat that burns kilojoules. The authors report that “cold-water immersion seems to activate and/or transform body adipose tissue, as well as
reduce insulin resistance and improve insulin sensitivity. This may have a protective effect against cardiovascular [problems], obesity and other metabolic diseases.”
In short, cold water shocks your body, forcing it to burn fat to keep your temperature from dropping too low.
The review also found that cold-water exposure may protect you from diabetes and heart disease. How?
By increasing the production of a protein
called adiponectin, which regulates blood-sugar levels and breaks down fatty acid. Does this mean you should start every day with an ice bath or a freezing dip in the ocean? Well, not necessarily. The risk of hypothermia is still the elephant in the room when it comes to cold-water swimming. But the next time someone tells you to “toughen up” when you’re hesitating at the shoreline, you might just have to listen to them.
Coldplay: Ice baths may help get you trim.
>
No raging North Sea handy? Here’s how to engage in a touch of cryotherapy – a simple ice bath – at home
Fill your tub with cold water and add 1-3 bags of ice until you achieve a temperature between 10-15° celcius.
Easy Does It Slowly enter the water – body part by body part. Submerging too quickly can shock your system and cause you to hyperventilate. Meditating through the experience may help.
Short & Sweet Sit there for no longer than 15 minutes – and you’ll probably have to build up to that. Any longer puts you at risk of frostbite and hypothermia.
Thaw Out When time’s up, exit with care, towel o and don warm layers (which you laid out in advance) to restore normal body temp. A hot drink will help, too.
IF WE WERE to ask you to make a list of Australia’s cultural icons, you’d probably be tempted to start with the sporting arena. Names like Cathy Freeman and Shane Warne spring to mind – athletes whose talent and charm captured the heart of the nation. Elsewhere you might look to a standout politician, or in recent years to an actor like Chris Hemsworth, whose star power transcends our national borders. But what about a 36-year-old ex-con who goes simply by Spanian? Let us explain.
A career criminal turned rapper turned author turned social media superstar, Spanian sits somewhere between Ned Kelly and Chopper Read with just a hint of Russell Crowe thrown in for good measure. His life and career so far are quite literally the stuff of fiction. A drug addict in his early teens, Spanian spent the best part of 13 years in jail before finally deciding enough was enough. He took to music and achieved a degree of success as a rapper before realising his real talent was simply, well, being himself. Spanian then started a series of YouTube videos entitled Hood Logic in which he takes his fans through his past criminal escapades, featuring high-speed chases, corrupt police officers, prison brawls, stabbings – the lot. You name it, Spanian has done it –and more. Guy Ritchie would struggle to create a storyline quite so unbelievable.
But this is merely the first few chapters of the tale. It’s the next phase of his trajectory where things get really interesting. After achieving viral fame with his Hood Logic series, it would have been easy to double down and keep doing more of the same, pushing the ex-con narrative. Instead, Spanian branched out, starting what can only be described now as a budding social-media empire. There’s his podcast, The Search, a book about his life published through Hachette, one YouTube show about food called It’s All Eats, another about cars called Full Beast, not to mention his forthcoming fitness app Straight Out Training. There’s even a potential role in an upcoming film starring Ryan Gosling.
Each venture, from the podcasts interviewing criminal lawyers and UFO experts, to tasting Ghanian food for the first time in It’s All Eats, Spanian is not only pushing himself to try new things, but slowly but
surely encouraging his audience to do the same. To his devoted followers, he has become something of a mentor, a role model on how to turn your life around for the better – even if he bristles at the term.
The one common thread between all projects is Spanian and his unique brand of personality: raw charisma coupled with complete and unwavering authenticity. He’s both a publicist’s worst nightmare and a refreshing addition to Australia’s long list of national identities. He will answer any question put to him regardless of the consequences of his answer – a trait that makes his conversation with Men’s Health all the more captivating. His degree of self-reflection doesn’t so much subvert perceptions of a steroidusing ex-con as completely obliterate them, forcing you to question your entire worldview in the first place.
Condensed below, he touches on everything from his frustrations with his audience to the dangers of steroid use and why listening to a Nick Cave song forced him to rethink making rap music. It’s Spanian the only way he knows how: straight from the faucet.
“It was during my last [jail] sentence, when I thought to myself, Look, how many decades can go until you’ve lost the game?
Like, when you were a teenager, you probably got drunk, acted like a clown and smoked some pot. When I was a teenager, I broke in and stole stuff. Who cares? I went to a boys’ home. So what? No difference. I’m not really at a loss there.
But the twenties, it’s like, Alright, this is where you started a career, you had some adventures and explored parts of the world. I didn’t do that. I just stayed in jail the whole time. So that’s definitely a big loss. That’s a big step back. How many steps back until I’ve lost?
I loved the adventures and the crime and all the stuff that I lived – the fights and the violence and the money. All of that stuff can be cool as the story of my life . . . as long as I fix it and do something.
I can talk about my past and I can go, Whoa, that was crazy! But if I don’t turn it around then, it’s just a loser story. It’s just a sad story.”
“My goal is to be a superstar. I don’t see any other goal. I’m Batman. I’m The Rock. I’m everything.
It’s more of a mindset. I want to be the biggest thing on earth, and I always look at it like that because it doesn’t allow me to ever be content or happy. Because if I’m like that all the time, I’m always gonna be the hardest worker, you know what I mean?
I remember I was in jail a few times ago and there was this thing called MySpace. Then I got outta jail and it didn’t exist. And there’s this thing called Facebook. Then I got outta jail and no one uses it. And there’s this thing called Instagram. I don’t know how this stuff works, but I can almost guarantee that if I make the wrong moves now with no development, no evolution, no relevance, in three years, I’m gone. The app that I was famous on doesn’t exist anymore. There’s a new app that everyone’s using. ‘Oh, hey, remember me? I’m Spanian from the old app. Make me famous on this app, too.’ ‘Fuck off, idiot! We’re sick of you.’ I’m not dumb. I look at everything like everyone else. I get told, ‘No, bro, you are sweet. You’ve made it – you’ve got a full career in this.’ I’m like, ‘Nah, in two years these people might not care who I am’.
As long as I always look at it through that lens, like I’m on a timer, I’m gonna make the most of this God-given opportunity. It stops when I’m
forced to stop, when I’m not funny, when my talks aren’t relevant, when they’re not interesting anymore. Then I’ll look back and I’ll decide if I was happy or not. But until then, why would I ever stop?”
“I’ll give you the inside scoop. The audience is shallow. And if I talk about crime, and if I get a rapper to say something cool then I get a lot of views and I get a lot of money.
But I try to be a bit better than that. Because I believe this podcast can be something greater. It doesn’t have to just be what gets the most money. We can open people’s eyes up to different things. I try to give them things I’m interested in; to show them you can be like this, but you can also listen to important stuff, too. But I feel like I’ve unfortunately had a bit too much faith in today’s media consumer.
Because when I do something that you would say is interesting or a beneficial podcast, like China, NFTs, UFO experts, a refugee… these are cool inspirational stories but at the end of the day, bro, they don’t want to click. If I get someone to talk about an armed robbery or I get a rapper on, I’ll get up to 400,000 views. I talk about anything that’s really important in the world, I’ll get 20,000 views. So it’s unfortunate. I don’t know how long I can push it on at the cost of business.
Like, I’m not trying to be the knowledge-based Mother Theresa. I’ve gotta make a living. So I’m glad I’ve done those podcast episodes. But whether a lot of those are gonna continue or not, I don’t know.
I just don’t have the audience for it. Maybe one day I will.”
“I’m a big person, so even naturally I’ve reached weights of 125kg muscly. So I thought, Well, here we go – I’ll take steroids and I’ll be a 150kg world champion. I learned they’re not like that.
I’ll tell you what it does. I’m not even talking physically – forget all the bloody cholesterol, heart disease. Forget that shit. Because that’s the shit no one cares about.
But I tell you what, mentally and spiritually, it’s the hardest thing to bear. People only talk about the mental side, that it makes you aggressive. That’s nothing. It really changes you as a person. And I’m not just talking about your attitude. It changes your hobbies; it changes the things you care about.
It takes the art and spirituality out of all your observations. So, you know, when you hear a song and you feel the song, that can’t happen on steroids. You just don’t feel it. You become almost reptilian. It’s like that thing that makes you human, where you can look at a piece of art and say, ‘That’s beautiful’. Or, ‘That song, I’ve got goosebumps’. When it’s such a nice day and you get that cosy feeling? All of those things go.
You turn into a lizard that has some ultra focus on a very narrow thing with a complete disregard or even the ability to focus on other things in life.
So the longest I ever stayed on steroids was one time, it was supposed to be a 16-week cycle, I made it to like week 10. I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
“I have a real fear of hell. So I have this fear that when you influence people to do bad stuff, logically I think about it and wonder, Why is that not worse than doing the bad thing yourself? Influencing people on a mass scale to feel a certain negative way . . . that’s a lot of negative energy you’re putting out there.
So I believe in the afterlife, right? And it’s like, What if we don’t understand the power of influence? What if that is, like, some really bad sin? It’s one thing for me to stop crime. Okay, sweet. Now I’m out here and I’m legit. Okay. I’m semi doing good and
I’m influencing people and positively impacting people and I’m sort of like a mentor. Oh, wow, that’s really good. But then I make songs that make people feel aggressive and hatred, and these get listened to in the hundreds of thousands. So that’s a fear for me. It’s like, How long can I do that? What if I die one day and they go, Mate, you fully make murder songs? Do you know how many kids are playing your murder music? Like, you’re fucked! You’re going with the fucking monsters in hell.
So when I hear good music like that Nick Cave song or Michael Jackson music, that’s positive, I think to myself, Fuck, I’m not gonna make any more music. I’m stopping rapping now. And if I can manage to make music that doesn’t add to my list of sins, that isn’t something that I may have to answer for when I die, then I’ll make that music.
Look, I don’t know how it works. I don’t know what happens when you die. But I’m just not gambling on that anymore.”
The average daily online al
The average Aussie’s daily online time, according to a new report*. That’s almost half of our waking hours.
Running in silence leads to better body awareness, which can improve your pace, breath control and movement efficiency. Try tuning in, not out, on your next 5K.
Community is king. Studies show a weekly group-fitness class can improve emotional wellbeing and reduce perceived stress more efficiently than a solo effort*.
If your stats cause you stress, remove the watch: a Colorado College study found that just hearing negative feedback about your sleep habits can trigger mental fatigue.
Men who trade Technogym’s finest for outdoor cardio sessions end up logging an additional half hour of exercise each week, found one report*.
More than two thirds of studies into the effects of fitness trackers note a positive increase in activity levels*.
The stamina boost you get from your Spotify playlist is not to be dismissed. Music can reduce perceived fatigue by 10 per cent – and it’s more potent when you’re mentally drained.
But virtual friends have benefits: a study* found live-streamed workouts led to bigger improvements in mental health and exercise motivation than pre-recorded sessions.
Data’s fun to have, but a Spanish review saw no significant boosts to stamina or power when participants used heart-rate variability stats to guide workout decisions.
In a Michigan State University study, cyclists who competed against a virtual partner whose progress they watched on a screen lasted twice as long as solo riders.
Don’t get us wrong – we love our tech. But it’s best viewed as a cool accessory, not relied upon as a crutch. Our prescription? Aim to go screen/app/data-free for one workout a week to focus on how your body feels. And don’t sweat the small stats.
uts raining. in the offline domain?
Thin strips of packaged bacon are easily overpowered by the bread and tomato. Seek out smoked, black-peppered slab bacon that you can cut into very thin slices. Many butchers carry the stuff; if it’s not peppered, just grind some on later. About 450 grams will make four sandwiches.
Panfrying bacon can turn it too brittle. Instead, place the slices on a high-rimmed sheet pan and slow-roast them in a 120°C oven for about two hours. The bacon’s fat will render slowly, resulting in tender, meaty strips that are slightly chewy. Yes, it’s worth it.
You want the bacon warm when it hits the sandwich, so organise everything else. Slice 1 large heirloom tomato the same thickness as the bacon, for balance. Then thinly slice ½ head iceberg. Cut 8 slices of sourdough, each moderately thick, and toast them till golden brown. Finally, break out your best mayo, which will have the right acidity, sweetness and creaminess.
The order: bread slice, bacon, tomato (sprinkled with salt and pepper), lettuce, bread slice (slathered with 1 Tbsp mayo). The theory: biting into the bread, you’ll first taste the glory of the bacon, which prevents the lettuce from spilling and the tomato from slipping. And as the mayo melts, it lightly dresses everything.
e mato. Seek b bacon that peppered, 50 ttle. h-rimmed sheet pan ven for about two hours. meaty it’s worth it t hits the so arge for balance. Then slices of them till t mayo, will and creaminess mato with ice with 1 o the bread, first h
And as the ything
Blend ½ cup roasted pistachios and a little salt and sugar; drizzle in canola till smooth. Spread onto bottom slice.
“It’s a palate cleanser,” says Markert. Flavour doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a spear (to get that crunch). Eat on the side.
Markert says the sweetness plays o the saltiness of the bacon. A lager works well, too. Sip on the side.
At the right time, in the right context, few things taste better than this classic sandwich. It’s worth making properly
ght context, few g his classic sandwich. ly ySARSAPARILLA
Various cultures claim yogurt as their own creation, but the 8,000-year-old food’s health benefits are not disputed: Fermentation can spawns hundreds of millions of beneficial bacteria, like probiotics, in your body.
But providing good bacteria for your gut isn’t the only benefit of this creamy concoction: the calcium and protein available in yoghurt are key when it comes to post-workout nutrition. Supporting tissue building and repair, growth, and maintenance of muscle mass, as well as the maintenance of normal bones thanks to its protein content. As for the calcium in yoghurt (necessary for normal teeth and bone structure, as well as normal nerve and muscle function), it can contribute to normal energy metabolism, and the normal function of digestive enzymes.
Harnessing the power of yoghurt, all while adding a sweet 20 grams of muscle-building protein per serve, YoPRO’s Perform range of high protein yoghurt’s are a good source of calcium and contain naturally occurring BCAAs - and boast no added sugar, artificial sweeteners, artificial flavours or preservatives.
Yep, you’re no longer limited to bland chicken breasts when it comes to fuelling up on protein. YoPRO’s Perform range is making protein tastier and more interesting while retaining the key benefits. The six flavours are available in yogurt pots that can be easily eaten on the go, or added to your favourite smoothies and muesli, providing a balanced protein hit without any compromise on taste.
In 2021, ANGEL ROMERO didn’t want to hit age 50 with 15 extra kilos and diabetes running his life. That’s when he bought himself a continuous glucose monitor (CGM). A sensor on his arm checks his blood sugar and sends info to his phone. “It has allowed me to live and feel so much better,” he says. In a year, he took his hemoglobin A1C level from diabetic to prediabetic. His tips:
BY MARTY MUNSONRomero used to believe that cutting carbs required eating plain chicken, no sides. That wasn’t sustainable for a guy whose Mexican-Armenian heritage meant rice, beans and tortillas. Based on data from his CGM, he learned what kinds of carbs worked for him. He swapped rice for a blend of cauliflower rice and quinoa and switched from flour tortillas to low-carb versions. “I generally recommend 50 per cent of calories from carbohydrates, 15 per cent from fat and the rest from protein,” says Dr Sandeep Dhindsa.
“Before, it was almost like I was on an island without feedback after a meal,” Romero says. The CGM showed him details such as how frozen custard didn’t affect his blood sugar but ice cream did. And it taught him to appreciate moderation. “When I see what two bites of a food does to my blood sugar, I’m able to stop there when I need to,” he says. If too many bites start to move his blood sugar out of his usual 3.9 to 10 mmol range, he now blunts the effect by taking a walk.
“Before this, my family couldn’t comprehend my disease process or how certain foods would affect me,” Romero says. But when the CGM app clearly showed that everything he did had an impact on his glucose, his family understood. Now they take walks with him and make sure to have diabetes-friendly foods around the house.
do the bes insurance cost, whic $400
Your doctor will o er advice on the best CGM for you. Health insurance may cover part of the cost, which may run as high as $400, plus sensors and app fees.
Some CGMs check blood sugar all the time (Dexcom, January ai, FreeStyle Libre 3); others read it when you hold your phone to the sensor.
If you have type 1 diabetes, a CGM can be paired with an insulin pump to deliver the right amount of insulin without you even intervening.
The ECCO design team has reimagined the laid-back cool of the classic Nordic Sandal to create the next-generation premium comfort ECCO 2ND COZMO SANDAL. These leather sandals will provide you with all-day comfort at home, the city park, the beach, your office – and anywhere in between. Visit au.ecco.com
The TAG HEUER
CONNECTED
CALIBRE E4 delivers ultimate elegance and sporting performance. A pioneer in this space since 2015, the luxury Swiss watch brand offers the larger 45mm model, offering a striking, redesigned, sporty look. The smaller 42mm model offers a more slimline look built primarily for elegance.
Visit tagheuer.com
Combining timeless elegance with advanced GMT functionality as part of the Wilton Automatic range, this sophisticated design celebrates Bulova’s traditional style and innovative technology without sacrificing accuracy while travelling the world. Experience dual time at a glance with this 42-hour power reserve timepiece designed for travellers and watch enthusiasts alike.
Bulova Wilson GMT 97B210; $1,199 Visit au.bulova.com
MUSASHI 100% WHEY, featuring an all-new salted caramel flavour, is a superpremium blend containing a synergistic combination of whey protein concentrate and whey protein isolate. The result is a delicious formula that mixes with ease.
Use code HEALTH30 for 30% off at musashi.com
The Group has partnered with a grower-owned collective to celebrate Australian grape growers and showcase high-quality reds from McLaren Vale and Adelaide Hills, perfect for your next dinner. Try ‘The Shadow’, their sleek & delicate Pinot Noir or ‘The Quiver’, their silky, smooth Grenache. Visit thegroupwines.com.au
Anthogenol® is an unmatched antioxidant supplement that offers tangible results. Its unique formulation contains a patented grapeseed extract –MASQUELIER’s® Original OPCs, with researchbacked benefits for collagen formation and maintaining skin, hair and nail health.
Visit anthogenol.com.au
Juan Leija, 38, had a problem: he was a personal trainer and a serious lifter whose elbow pain prevented him from doing some of the most fundamental lifts. “I’d been dealing with tendinitis for a year,” he remembers, “but it had been extreme for about six months. It felt like there was something broken in there.”
Just as Leija was starting to worry about his ability to train, a friend of his who owns a wellness clinic told him about something called BPC-157. It’s an injectable peptide compound that, his friend said, could do for Leija’s elbow what a year of conventional and alternative therapies couldn’t: make the pain go away.
“I went home and looked it up,” Leija says. Evidence was scarce, but enthusiasm wasn’t. Satisfied users – athletes, fighters, soldiers and gym rats among them –referred to it as the Wolverine peptide for its healing powers.
BPC-157 is part of a growing list of compounds called peptides gaining interest in fitness, wellness and antiaging circles. The buzz comes from their supposed potential to help you build muscle, cut fat, sleep better or, with peptide PT-141, rekindle sexual desire – all without the side effects of riskier, more powerful options like testosterone and synthetic growth hormone.
Some peptide names, like MK-677, sound like secret mind-control experiments. Others, like sermorelin, look like they exist only to trip up 12-year-olds in a spelling bee. But what are peptides? Why are so many people suddenly promoting them? And do they even work?
“Peptides are short chains of amino acids,” says Ryan Greene, the chief medical officer of Monarch Athletic Club in West Hollywood, California. Your body actually produces more than 7000 of them, all with specific duties: regulating your metabolic health, your appetite, your body’s natural growth hormone.
There’s a perception now in gym culture that injecting peptides, albeit ones made in a lab, is a safer way to go about getting gains than taking human growth hormone (hGH) and/or anabolic steroids. But the sales pitch isn’t new. Antiaging clinics have been pushing the same promise of looks and performance since the late 20th century.
What’s new is the price, says Dr Graham Simpson, a physician with Opt Health, a telemedicine clinic that offers peptides. For instance,
instead of paying more than $1000 a month for shots of growth hormone – the original fountain of youth – you’d pay more like a couple of hundred a month for peptides that stimulate your body to release its own growth hormone. Or you’d pay for peptides believed to stimulate tissue-healing cells.
The appeal is so strong that people are injecting the stuff daily or a few times a week. Simpson regards these treatments as “reasonable things we can do to [increase] our health span and life span.” Dr Jeremie Walker, Simpson’s colleague at Opt Health, agrees: “They’re mimicking what your body already does but with more specificity. It’s the difference between using a hammer and a scalpel.”
In Australia, certain peptides can be obtained legally only with a doctor’s prescription and therefore can’t be advertised. For all the supposed benefits of these peptide injections, the FDA in the US hasn’t approved any of the ones we’ve
mentioned to improve sexual function, enhance healing or slow aging. The World Anti-Doping Agency has banned BPC-157 and any growth-hormone-releasing peptides, too, which means no athlete competing in a drug-tested sport should go near them. WADA’s ban suggests that they could confer an advantage – which also means there just may be something to them.
Yet when you go looking for the scientific research, you don’t come up with a lot. One study on BPC-157 showed accelerated healing in rat tendon tissue.
Another study, on MK-677, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, showed it boosted growth-hormone levels in real live older folks to the normal range found in young adults. But the kind of large-scale clinical trials you depend on to know whether something’s worth it? Not there yet.
Proponents argue that peptides are relatively low-risk. They’re made of amino acids; the theory is that if your body doesn’t need them for a specific use, they can be broken
down and used for something else, Greene says.
But low risk doesn’t mean zero risk. If you’re constantly stimulating your body over time to produce its own growth hormone, Greene ponders, “is there a potential risk for something similar to what you see with synthetic growth hormone? I think yeah, absolutely.” Known side effects of taking synthetic hGH on its own include increased risk of certain cancers and diabetes.
And beyond the possible health risks, the peptide industry is a target-rich environment for scammers. “The current state of affairs is pretty messy in the peptide world,” Walker acknowledges. “I kind of liken it to what we’re going through with cryptocurrency and the legacy financial system.” Opt Health doctors use phrases like “buyer beware”, “nascent industry” and “kind of rogue right now”. In the US, peptides prescribed by wellness clinics are made and sold by compounding pharmacies with minimal standardisation.
If that sounds scary to you, you’re not alone. Take endocrinologist Karl Nadolsky. He’s
a former NCAA Division I wrestler and a self-described “meathead in the gym, but with a focus on health”. He cautions: “I would never personally take or suggest anyone take any of these peptides without clear clinical evidence for benefit in treating a disease,” he says. Greene says that if you do take them, you should do so only under a doctor’s supervision so they can do regular check-ins and blood work.
Which brings us back to Juan Leija, the personal trainer who turned to BPC-157 to deal with his worsening elbow pain. Consistent with
Greene’s advice, he went to a doctor for a prescription.
And it worked. “I would say within two or three weeks, the pain in my elbow started going away,” Leija says. “Five weeks in, it wasn’t there anymore.” He’s been using it ever since, injecting the peptide in his abdomen five days a week. He considers the cost of the treatment to be money well spent.
Obesity specialist Spencer Nadolsky, on the other hand, had a very different experience with the same peptide. For all the scepticism he shares with his endocrinologist brother, Karl, he bought BPC-157 from a
compounding pharmacy in an attempt to alleviate his own tendinitis. And? “I didn’t get shit for results.”
Anecdotes won’t stop a lot of guys. “Many bodybuilders consider themselves on par with lab rats,” says Rick Collins, a lawyer who specialises in cases involving steroids and dietary supplements. “They have a much different threshold from the average person. If they’re hurt now, they can’t wait for FDA approval.”
But popularity shouldn’t be mistaken for a prescription. Only evidence can fill that.
These four popular peptides promise quick fixes. But there are other, science-tested ways to go about getting their benefits
PT-141
ACCELERATES HEALING AND WORKOUT RECOVERY.
If you’re not recovering from a workout quickly, Greene says, “my first question is, ‘Why?’ How’s your hydration, how’s your sleep?’ If all those things are on point, it could be age or the type of training you’re doing.” For tendons, platelet-rich-plasma therapy, in which your platelets are concentrated and injected to promote healing, is pricey but proven.
MUSCLE MASS AND REDUCES FAT.
Lift consistently, progressively and with enough effort to get bigger and stronger. Eat protein-rich meals to give your body what it needs to build and repair muscle. Supplementing with creatine may also help.
SEXUAL FUNCTION AND AROUSAL.
THE HOPEDO THIS INSTEAD PRESERVES MUSCLE TISSUE AND SLOWS DOWN SIGNS OF AGING.
Keep blood flow strong by eating a hearthealthy diet, exercising regularly, quitting smoking and, of course, trying pharma (Viagra, Cialis, Levitra and other ED pills).
You can increase natural-growth-hormone production by fasting, getting a good night’s sleep (growth-hormone levels are highest when you sleep), working out (high-intensity exercise seems to work best), losing excess body fat and limiting sugar and other refined carbs.
In an era of data overload, forgetfulness can feel inevitable. But scientists say there’s no such thing as a ‘bad’ memory – only an untrained one. Here’s how to tone up your grey matter
BY GINNY GRAVES ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDMON DE HARO
ALEXANDRA NICOLE TRELLE, a memory researcher at Stanford University, is explaining why dozens of research centres in the US are feverishly trying to understand the most effective ways of improving our powers of recall. “There are huge studies in parts of Europe too, so the scope is really . . .” she says, leaving dead air where more words should be. “International?” I fill in. “It’s an international effort,” she says.
Trelle’s inability to come up with the word ‘international’ is a minor lapse – nothing like the time I blanked on my next-door neighbour’s name when introducing her to a friend. But the fragility of memory is precisely why so many scientists are seeking effective ways to protect and even augment what is one of the brain’s most vital functions.
There’s some seriously Black Mirror stuff in the works. Neuroscientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have completed a human trial of an implant that delivers targeted electrical pulses to the brain, enhancing recall by 37 per cent. Researchers at both MIT and the French National Centre for Scientific Research have successfully put false memories into the brains of mice. Even more sci-fi, companies such as Synchron Inc and Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp are trying to build brain-computer interfaces that might one day allow our minds to merge with digital memory banks.
The scientific frenzy is driven in no small part by an everyday mystery that, odds are, worries you, too: why do so many of us who almost certainly don’t have diagnosable memory problems forget the name of the film we watched last week, or wander into the living room only to stand there, awkwardly, unable to remember what we came for?
My search for answers led me to the Stanford Memory Lab, where Trelle, 32, who has been studying memory for a decade, agreed to show me around.
Over the past 20 or so years, hundreds of study subjects have completed hours of memory testing while lying inside the lab’s high-res MRI machine, allowing scientists to peer into their brains and watch what happens as they form, and then try to retrieve, memories. “We can see very distinct neural signatures when people successfully remember versus when they forget,” says Trelle, the study’s lead postdoc. By watching memory lapses in action and comparing people’s performance over time, Trelle and her colleagues aim to identify early signs of memory decline and its causes, as well as clues about how to prevent it.
It’s unsettling to imagine scientists peering at one’s brain as it flounders. “What causes those lapses?” I ask Trelle. “Why can’t I remember the name of the restaurant I went to last week but can still recall the look on my friend’s face a decade ago when she told me she was getting divorced?”
It’s fairly simple, she says. “One factor that underlies a lot of memory lapses is distraction or lapses of attention. Memory and attention are inextricably linked.” If you’re only half-heartedly attending to new information, it doesn’t get deeply encoded in your brain, so it’s more likely to blow away like loose topsoil on a windswept plain. We also tend to recall more easily events that are emotionally charged.
Little lapses are to be expected. They happen to everyone, from hyper-organised PAs to actors with three-hour scripts to recite. There’s a vast range of normal for memory, but wherever you
are on the spectrum, you can make it better. Scientists like Trelle go as far as saying that unless there’s a real problem – ie, you are suddenly forgetting a lot more than you used to – there’s no such thing as a ‘bad’ memory; there are just trained and untrained ones.
That training, however, can prove challenging. We live in a world where apps, emails and adverts are relentlessly vying for our attention. Our cultural distractibility may be the main reason many of us have the disquieting sense that our memory is failing. So, if better recall ultimately comes down to paying attention, how do we block out the noise?
Some of the greatest insights are being revealed at the Stanford Memory Lab, where researchers devote considerable time to seeing if and how modern life – specifically, media multitasking – is messing with our memory.
“The human brain, by design, can only focus on one thing at a time,” says Dr Anthony Wagner, the Memory Lab’s director. Think you’re a proficient multitasker? That’s like saying you’re a good drunk driver. Sure, it feels like you’re masterfully managing two or more things at once. But your attention is simply flitting, like a hummingbird, from one thing to another. Wagner and his team at Stanford discovered that heavy
media multitaskers score lower on tests of working memory, the brain’s temporary scratch pad, where we store information about things we’re doing in the moment. Habitual multitasking may also interfere with the ability to encode and retrieve long-term memories.
Scrolling through Instagram while watching television isn’t the only reason your conversation is peppered with phrases like “what’s his name” and “that movie with Chris Hemsworth as an F1 driver”. Indeed, there’s a growing list of ways in which our digital tools may subtly chip away at our recall.
Simply knowing that you can check Google for information you’ve just learned, for instance, makes you less likely to remember it. Typing notes instead of writing them may reduce your ability to recall the material. And reading text solely on screens, which we tend to skim more loosely than printed copy in, say, a newspaper, may undermine your capacity to remember it. There’s even some evidence that taking pictures of an experience blurs your memory of it. Call it the Selfie Effect. “There’s mounting evidence that when we engage with technology while we’re trying to experience something, it short-circuits the memory-encoding process and diminishes our ability to recall later,” says Jason Chein, director of Temple University’s Brain Research & Imaging Center.
“Readingtextsolelyon screensmayundermineyour capacitytorememberit”
Most of us have the ability to remember far more than we actually do. Ultimately, we need to adapt our use of technology to our brain, rather than the other way around. That can mean using meditation apps such as the Headspace App or Calm to retrain our ability to focus. But it can also be simpler than that.
“You can dramatically improve your attention 10 to fifteenfold,” says Dr Murali Doraiswamy, director of Duke University’s Neurocognitive Disorders Program. “After 25 sessions of cognitive training, 40-year-olds may outperform untrained 20-year-olds – but it takes effort,” he says. By effort, he means turning off your devices when listening to someone, challenging your intellect on a regular basis and spending hours immersed in a single task such as reading a (paper) book or practising a skill. Yes, you’ve heard that before, but experts such as Doraiswamy keep repeating it because we’re not getting the message.
Training your attention is a big piece of the remember-more equation. If you sit in a meeting without making a conscious effort to retain what’s being said, roughly half of what you hear will disappear in a day or two, he estimates. The same goes for books, films and conversations. To remember something,
you need to remind your brain frequently what’s important. Take notes after meetings or when you finish a book. Explain interesting things you’ve picked up during the day to others. At the very least, think through information after you hear it. By giving it as much richness and context as possible, pieces of it are more likely to be distributed throughout your mind’s memory network –the neural equivalent of hitting your brain’s save button.
Deep memory encoding works best when you relate the information to existing memories or knowledge in a meaningful way, says Trelle. Which explains why my friend’s divorce is still so vivid and why everyone remembers where they were on 9/11. So the next time you meet someone you want to remember, don’t just repeat their name. Find a shared interest. Make a connection. You’ll encode the name more deeply into your brain’s existing web of memories and it’ll become part of your personal lexicon. “In the memory world, we call this depth of processing, but it’s really just being curious and interested about new people or places or ideas or information,” says Trelle. And being curious and engaged does more than just bolster your memory. It makes you better at life.
Unsure which of today’s purported memory-booster’s genuinely work?
Dr Doraiswamy weighs in CAFFEINE
A shot of espresso before an important meeting could help you absorb key facts.
16:8 DIET
Going hungry may release brain chemicals that protect memory networks.
SLEEP
Your brain’s like a librarian at night, archiving the day’s events so they’re easier to find.
These can help you recall words, but won’t improve recollection more generally.
SUGAR
A hit of glucose provides a shortterm boost if you’re low on mental energy.
COCOA Memory improvement has been measured with 500mg of cocoa extract – not milk chocolate).
FISH OIL
Omega-3s in fish help build grey matter, though whether that aids memory isn’t clear.
hs in a , s e . OA ory has ith coa ilk ) BD bis d y
CBD This cannabis extract can aid anxiety, but it likely won’t help – or hurt –your memory.
GINKGO BILOBA
Might impact laterlife dementia, but there’s no evidence it benefits younger people.
Humans have a long history of telling stories and creating deities to account for the unknown. In our response to severe anxiety, OSHER GÜNSBERG sees a disturbing parallel. But he’s also discovered a smoother path to inner peace
IN A TIME before science, we gave human qualities to natural phenomena as a way to explain them and manage our fear of them. In our world, humans were the only entities that made things happen deliberately – and without knowing what physics or thermodynamics were, the only way we could make sense of nature was to conclude that a human-like being was behind it.
Lightning is a perfect example.
It’s an enormous, terrifying bolt of blinding light that comes from the sky along with a noise that shakes you to your bones. It can set a whole forest alight, explode your cows and kill your aunty, who’s just going about her business out the back.
We didn’t understand lightning at all, other than that it was immensely destructive and could bring death.
The only other thing we knew of that brought that kind of death were warriors who carried weapons. So we invented thunder gods, who were mostly all warriors that carried weapons.
You’re probably familiar with the god of thunder from Norse mythology: Thor (not the one from Byron Bay whose massive pipes and shining smile are often on the cover of this magazine, but the actual hammer-wielding god of lightning, thunder and storms.
If you were on the shores of ancient Norway with your Viking family and you heard thunder, you’d be shouting, “Kids! Thor’s angry! He’s gunna hit that hammer and shoot death from the sky! Get inside!”
If you heard thunder in ancient Greece, you’d shout, “Kids! It’s Zeus! He’s going to throw his lightning spear any second and that’ll kill you dead. Get inside!”
In ancient Hindu and Buddhist mythology, Indra shows up wielding a thunderbolt and riding a white elephant. In Buddhist iconography, the elephant has as many as five heads. You could be just hanging with your family one arvo when…BOOM BOOM BOOM…
“Dad, what’s that?”
“That’s Indra and his five headedelephant coming this way quick sticks, and it sounds like he’s about to throw that thunderbolt. Kids, get inside!”
Here, in Australia, the Gunwinggu people of west Arnhem Land believe in the ancestral being Namarrkon. He speaks with thunder as his voice, rides a storm cloud from place to place and throws lightning bolts at humans who are failing to observe good behaviour or pass down culture and history to the uninitiated.
“What’s that giant cracking sound, Dad?”
“That’s Namarrkon – and he sounds angry. Kids, get inside!”
After a few thousand years of this, we started to figure out that maybe it’s not a cloud-based Norseman with a hammer or an angry god on a five-headed elephant after all.
Eventually, we came to understand that lightning is an electrostatic discharge between two charged points – one on the surface, the other in the atmosphere. There’s about a gigajoule of energy discharged, along with a huge amount of light and heat. The heat causes an air-pressure shockwave that makes a colossal noise, which we call thunder.
We figured out that it’s not a god, but it’ll still kill you. So, we figure out ways not to get hurt by it.
For one, go inside. (The old people got that bit right.)
Stay away from lakes, pools, trees and towers. Keep away from electrical equipment. If you’re in a group, stand further apart from one another. And get off any high ground.
There you have it.
Not so scary now, eh, Thor?
With knowledge and actionable steps to take, I am now more powerful than the gods.
When it comes to our mental health, it’s kinda the same thing.
If you don’t know what an anxiety attack feels like, and you start to experience one, it is so terrifying that you could absolutely believe you’re
about to die. The pain in your chest, the feeling of being gripped around your throat, your heart beating so hard that you can hear it in your ears, your hands shaking, your breath coming short and sharp . . . it could very well make you call an ambulance.
I certainly did. When I was about 18, I was working as a roadie in Brisbane. After driving home from work at about 4am (and enjoying a delicious shower beer) my eyes were itchy so I took an antihistamine. I swallowed it down with the rest of my Milton Mango and only then read the packet which warned: “Avoid alcohol”.
In those days I was a very, very anxious person and I plummeted into a terrifying panic attack, convinced that I was going to overdose and die. Convinced that death was imminent, I called an ambulance and waited to be rescued on my front step.
When the ambos showed up, I was puzzled as to why they didn’t give me oxygen nor put me on a stretcher. Instead they just got me a glass of water, calmly explained what was happening to me, and helped me to breathe slowly for a while.
After about 10 minutes my most concerning symptom was embarrassment.
But there was nothing to be embarrassed about – I just hadn’t known what was happening.
Anxiety is so scary that if you don’t know what it is, it feels like it could kill you. But once you know what it is, and then learn ways to deal with it, it becomes just a problem with a solution.
Say you’re in a meeting at work, and something triggers an anxiety attack. If you can realise, Oh, my heart is beating really fast, my breathing is shallow, pretty sure I yelled the last three things I said…Aha! This is an amygdala hijack, my body’s in fight-or-flight mode, and I probably don’t need to be ready to bite and claw my way out of this room.”
That realisation in itself frees you
For more of Osher’s insights into self-acceptance, fulfilling your dreams and getting the most out of life, listen to his bi-weekly (every Monday and Friday) podcast, Better Than Yesterday
from acting with that panic fuelling your choices. It evaporates the scariness of it all.
Now you know what it is, you can use tools to help you in that situation. First and foremost, breathe. Think of your inhalation as the accelerator and the exhalation as the brake. Breathing in a 1:2 ratio where you breathe out for twice as long as you breath in is like putting the brakes on your body’s fight-or-flight response. Start with three counts in, six out; work up to five in, 10 out (not while driving, please). Nobody around you can tell you’re doing it, and after about a minute your vagus nerve (the one you’re stimulating with the long exhales) will have started to slow down your body’s anxiety responses.
That’s just one of many tools to use in that situation. If you keep finding yourself in a state of panic, talk to your GP about another tool – working with a therapist to help unpack why this sort of thing is happening.
Importantly, knowing what’s going on and knowing the tools works only if you use those tools. Otherwise you’re essentially on the 3rd fairway at Indooroopilly Golf Club at 4pm in the Queensland summer, holding your 5-iron above your head as the first thunderclap of the afternoon booms out.
Use your tools. Get inside.
Your eyes have been working overtime. Discover exactly what’s to blame for all that redness, dryness, fuzzy vision and general burnout and how you can find relief
BY ALICE OGLETHORPE
More than 50 per cent of cars have these bulbs, which are brighter and sharper than ever. Oncoming cars with LEDs can make your vision skip a beat. “Your retina photoreceptors get washed out, which takes some time to recover from,” says Dr Theodore Leng, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
The Fix: Until the newly approved “smart” LED lights (they adjust to oncoming cars) are prevalent, glance slightly down and to the right of the road until the bright beams pass. Also, “dry eyes can be more sensitive to light,” says Dr Thomas Steinemann, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, so point air vents away from your face.
Before you throw down for vision-correcting eye drops (newly approved in the US), know this: a bottle lasts only about a month, and “the drops make your pupils tiny, so the world may look darker,” Steinemann says.
We now use our digital devices 60 per cent more often than we did prepandemic. Because you blink less frequently and fully when viewing a screen, your eyes aren’t well hydrated. “When your tear film breaks up from dryness, it isn’t just uncomfortable – you also don’t see as well,” says Dr Richard Gibralter, an associate professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at Montefiore Medical Center. And focusing
VISION-ENHANCING TREATMENTSTHESE DAYSCANBEEYEPOPPINGLYGOOD.
for hours at close range leads to eye fatigue, headaches and blurred vision.
The Fix: Ideally, follow the 20/20/20 rule: every 20 minutes, look 20 feet (six metres) away for 20 seconds. But even eye doctors admit that’s hard to do. At least try to close your eyes for a few seconds or glance down a hallway or out a window as often as you remember. (Now is good.) For immediate relief, use lubricating eye drops – look for the words “artificial tears” or “lubricating” on the label, as on Systane and Refresh brands.
Pizza, energy bars, chips – these grab-and-go goods can spike your blood sugar. If you have diabetes or prediabetes, elevated glucose can damage the tiny blood vessels in your retina, says Dr Leng. This can potentially lead to blurring, distortion and vision loss.
The Fix: “Levelling out your blood sugar is the healthiest thing you can do for your eyes,” says Steinemann. The best way to do it is with a well-balanced diet high in fibre. A more radical approach: intermittent fasting. Refraining from eating meals outside of an eight- or ten-hour window has been shown to lower glucose levels, according to a review paper in the International Journal of Endocrinology
Climate change is making pollen seasons longer and more intense – one reason your eyes may feel more irritated and itchy and look redder than ever before.
The Fix: Pick the right allergy eye drops. Skip redness reducers and reach for a product that contains an antihistamine, such as alcaftadine. Antihistamines block your eyes’ receptors for histamine, a chemical your body makes in response to an allergen. Equally good are “mast-cell stabilisers,” products that block histamine from being released in the first place. Look for the ingredients ketotifen or olopatadine. Trial and error is the main way to know which works better for you. No need to rush out for contact lenses that contain an antihistamine – the drops work fine, and if you’re not used to contacts, these can just add “a layer of complexity and hassle into your day”, Steinemann says.
When Australians get laser eye surgery to correct their vision, most go with LASIK, since it’s a household name and promises fast recovery. The trouble: dry eyes are significantly more prevalent with LASIK than with other surgeries, and I’ve only seen that increase with more screen time. PRK and ASA (advanced surface ablation) shape the cornea without a cut, resulting in far less damage and dryness. Use these strategies before you sign up for any laser visioncorrection surgery.
– Dr Craig MoskowitzThe right visioncorrection surgery must reflect the patient’s lifestyle. If you have a job where clear vision –especially at night – is important, then the halos, haze and starbursts that can appear after LASIK spell trouble. If you play contact sports – or have a baby – an accidental poke to the eye can dislodge the corneal flap left by LASIK. If your doc isn’t willing to recommend alternatives, find a new doc.
Ask the doctor how many times they’ve corrected prescriptions similar to yours. You never want to have the highest prescription that a surgeon has ever operated on. Your surgeon should recognise the limitations of laser eye surgery for very high prescriptions.
Go preservative- free. Preservatives can be irritating, says Dr Mina Massaro-Giordano, at the University of Pennsylvania Scheie Eye Institute. Nopreservative drops come in bottles now, not just in tiny, expensive vials.
Don’t obsess over ingredients. There are small differences in how lubricating drops form a protective layer over your eye, but there’s no bottom-line rule for which is better for whom.
They’re all soothing, Massaro-Giordano says.
Pay attention to percentages. The higher the percentage of the lubricating ingredient, the thicker the eye drop is going to be and the blurrier it can make your vision. Go with a lower percentage in the day and higher at night.
Make sure your doc is clear that PRK and ASA require a longer recovery period because the corneal surface needs to heal. LASIK’s is almost immediate, but you live with the effects of the flap cut.
– Moskowitz is the founder of Moskowitz Eye Care in New York City.
NOWADAYS, THE BIG guy who’s just appeared on my computer screen, who’s talking to me in his mellifluous voice, is a symbol of composure. But he wasn’t always thus. Like the time he flipped his lid in a New York diner.
“I always get embarrassed when I talk about my pre-mindfulness days,” says Kessonga Giscombe, a mindfulness and meditation teacher with Headspace App. But since he’s previously called it a turning point in his life, I insist he retell the diner story. Don’t worry, I add – we’ll make it clear you’ve evolved.
Okay, he chuckles. Well, then, quite some time ago, when Kessonga was in his twenties, he and his wife went into this diner so he could get a milkshake. “I’m a fan of ice cream,” he says. The guy behind the counter made the shake and filled the cup and was about to toss the surplus shake when Kessonga spoke up, asking the guy to put the leftovers into a separate cup.
“No,” the guy said – with “attitude”, according to Kessonga.
The request was repeated, for the same response, and Kessonga could feel himself tensing.
“Okay, you know what? I don’t even want the milkshake anymore. Just give me my money back,” he told the guy.
There was some back-and-forth yelling and then, Kessonga says, the diner guy used the ‘N’ word, at which point Kessonga “lost it”, sweeping his arm across the counter to send a bunch of cakes and pastries
crashing to the floor. “And straight away,” he says, “it was, Oh shit. What did I just do?”
Kessonga and his wife fled the scene, convinced the law would soon be on their tail. As they sprinted towards the subway, Kessonga grasped the peril he was in: a Black man running through the streets having damaged property?
In the US, even an unarmed man of colour in those circumstances is in mortal danger. “It could have been disastrous, but seen as justified because of my actions,” he says. “And all because of a milkshake!”
BY DANIEL WILLIAMSLike most of us to some degree, Kessonga had anger-management issues. He traces his to his childhood in the Bronx and Harlem, where kids and adolescents tended to settle disputes with their fists. “The environment was volatile . . . and that tension, that alertness, that readiness to pounce, I hung onto that at a subconscious level,” he says. “Even now, I live in Chapel Hill in North Carolina – it’s a safe little bubble, a college town – but I still find myself with my head on a swivel.”
Shortly after the diner incident, Kessonga’s wife came home from work one evening and handed him a book. This might be something you’ll like, she told him. Check it out. The book was a doorstop of a tome by Jon Kabat-Zinn called Full Catastrophe Living, a manual for achieving greater calm and contentment through a
About that anger – even the rage –you often feel welling up inside of you: is there a way to quell it, for good?SETTLEINTOA “DIGNIFIEDPOSTURE OFAWARENESS”.
technique called MindfulnessBased Stress Reduction (MBSR). The following night, Kessonga started reading – “and straight away, something clicked,” he says. He finished the 650-page book in three days and promptly began meditating each morning on the floor of his bedroom.
Full Catastrophe Living resonated so strongly with him, Kessonga says, because “it showed me there was another way of moving through this life journey”. It elevates moment-tomoment living, nonjudgmental absorption in the present, rather than constant mental time travel – both backwards and forwards – to wallow in or induce regret, yearning, sadness, resentment, fear, anxiety or various other unhelpful emotions that destroy the possibility for pure, soulful experience.
“I wholeheartedly believe we’re all born as mindful beings,” says Kessonga, who asks me to think about how babies are forever present, absorbed in whatever it is they’re seeing or doing in the moment. Alas, as we grow up and life becomes more complicated, we lose touch with what he calls our “mindful centre”. The good news? “It never disappears. It’s still there. It’s just a matter of getting back in touch with it.”
For Kessonga, so profound was his awakening that within a few years he wanted to spread the word about mindfulness. At the time a licensed acupuncturist with a practice in Raleigh, North Carolina, he began introducing his clients to the art and possibilities of mindfulness while receiving formal training from multiple universities. Today, he’s an adjunct mindfulness instructor at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine and teaches through his company Mindful Explorations, LLC, hosting workshops, seminars and retreats. Headspace App recruited him two years ago –and he’s still “pinching himself”, he says, for he can now reach some 30 million people in 190 countries with advice flowing from a conviction that
“if everyone practised meditation, the world would be a better place”.
I ask Kessonga about the nature of anger, about what’s at the root of it. Different things for different people, he says. In some cases, he allows, it could be love, which can generate or intensify other emotions. Or an expression of deep, repressed sadness.
“Sometimes, though, it’s pure anger – a feeling of being disrespected,” he says. “When there’s oppression and discrimination, that’s pure anger . . . maybe some hopelessness and frustration, too.”
Through meditation, he says, you can identify your anger’s first cause.
The effect of meditation on Kessonga’s temperament was less like flicking a switch than pruning trees and cleaning windows to reveal a soothing mountain view. “But what I did notice from the beginning was a sense of ease that I felt while meditating,” he says. Gradually, he was able to carry those feelings with him through the day. When stuff happened that would once have whitened his knuckles, he found he was far more capable of staying zen.
Think of meditation as practice for game day, Kessonga says –game day being life. While meditating, you’re training your mind to react differently to life’s pressures – and eventually, at
With a voice like warm honey and a compelling backstory, Kessonga is a great fit for Headspace App, through which he can spread the benefits of mindfulness to millions around the world.
crunch time, it does. Importantly, he adds, if your problem is anger, a heightened capacity for mindfulness won’t kick in only when something’s grinding your gears. “You’ll be moving differently in everyday life and with that can come a greater sense of joy, a greater awareness for sure, and a greater sense of self-love and self-compassion,” Kessonga says. “All those benefits, I was noticing and cultivating.”
We’re never – not in a hundred years of forest bathing – going to eliminate all stress from our lives. But what we can do to create a more peaceful life, Kessonga says, is to stop resisting the stressors so forcefully. To clarify, anger is a form of resistance. So are avoidance and procrastination. Resistance is anything that empowers the stressor to affect your equilibrium.
Kessonga recites a formula: suffering = stress x resistance. Now, even if the stress factor is one million, he explains, if your resistance to it is zero, your suffering equals zero. Zero resistance might be a pipedream,
but you take his point, right? Stress doesn’t mean inevitable suffering; you can toss water on the flames instead of petrol.
In this post-mindfulness phase of his life, I wonder, does Kessonga still feel anger but no longer launches from it? Or has the meditation subdued the anger itself – turned a lion into a kitten?
“I always say that one of the biggest misconceptions around mindfulness and meditation is that you develop this constant sense of tranquillity and calm – just floating through life, right? It’s not like that. It’s not like that at all. You’re still going to experience anger, sadness, fear, jealousy, anxiety . . . they’re all still going to arise. But meditation teaches you to create that space between the stimulus and how you respond. And in that space is where you’re able to gain some clarity and even wisdom for a more measured response.”
We return to the episode in the diner. Were the same scenario to unfold tomorrow, Kessonga says, he’d still be angry but there’s no way he’d trash the joint. “What I’d do is, I’d take a deep breath and say, ‘Let’s just go home’.”
No need to adopt the classic, cross-legged yogi pose. Not everyone can strike it – at all or for very long. “I understand – I’ve got tight hips myself,” says Kessonga.
In his classes, where attendees traverse the age spectrum, some people will meditate while seated in chairs.
Kessonga’s tip: “Assume a comfortable and dignified posture of awareness”.
Kessonga’s a fan of the KISS principle – but prefers KIS because he doesn’t see the need to call anyone stupid. Meditation doesn’t require adornments.
If you’re having trouble getting started or finding the time, treat the moment your feet hit the floor of a morning as the start of a 3-5-minite session from the edge of your bed.
“I would say that three minutes every day is better than one hour on Tuesdays and Fridays,” says Kessonga. “Mindfulness is not just techniques and exercises you use when stressed. It’s a way of being.”
Think of meditation like brushing your teeth: it’s not something you forgo if you’re busy. You just do it. Without fail. Every day.
Mindfulness is about suspending judgment – and that includes of yourself. “There is no right or wrong with meditation,” Kessonga says. “Oftentimes your thoughts race and you might finish a session and think, Oh, man – that session sucked . . . what a waste of time. But no. That was your experience – and it’s fine.”
Kessonga’s top four tips for effective meditation
Your prostate! Your heart! Your hair! Is there anything pumpkin seed oil can’t help? The research says . . . we need more research
Supp traders say their pumpkin seed oils and extracts support prostate health, improve heart function and even reverse male-pattern baldness. Incredible, right?
The prostate stuff. Men who took 360mg of pumpkin seed oil twice a day had fewer symptoms related to their enlarged prostate, a 2021 study found. The oil didn’t work as well as the drug (tamsulosin) used in the study, but men on the oil did not report side effects.
This month, we hit up US Men’s Health nutrition advisor Chris Mohr
If you have an enlarged prostate, pumpkin seed oil may help. “Take note of the dose used in the 2021 study: 360mg twice daily. Make sure the dose meets what’s been shown [effective] in studies,” says dietitian Chris Mohr.
“And always buy a brand that is verified by a third party” – such as ACS.
Yes, a 2014 study found that men with male-pattern baldness who took 400mg of a pumpkin seed oil supplement daily for 24 weeks regrew hair. Except the oil was just one ingredient in the supplement. We need more evidence.
Supplement companies argue that pumpkin seed oil is good for your heart because it’s high in essential fatty acids. Data shows that a diet rich in these fats is beneficial, but hardly any human studies link pumpkin seed oil with a healthier heart.
Can hot sauce really fire up your metabolism?
There’s some science suggesting the hot chemical in may cause a temporary increase in body temp, which boosts kilojoule
So chug hot sauce, lose weight?
That might be a bit aggressive. One study showed adding hot sauce to slows eating, so you might eat fewer kilojoles, but you’ll benefit more from regular and
BY PAUL KITA PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAOLA + MURRAY
I FIRST MET MY son through a stack of papers. Jason was 10 years old, the papers read, and I owed his mum back payments for childcare.
I was shocked, but I complied. I knew his mum. (Yes, I’m gay, but don’t try to tell me all 15-yearolds don’t go through times of self-doubt.) I wouldn’t say that I was ready to be a dad back then, but I was ready to move on from the self-destruction of my early 20s, a time that consisted of near-constant late-night partying, alcohol and drug abuse, and simply not dealing with my own emotional challenges.
Soon after I met Jason, I agreed to take custody of him. Three years later, I did the same
for his half brother, Chris. I’m 41 now (Jason is 25; Chris is 22), and at no point did I see any of this coming. But honestly, regardless of who you are as a parent, you never see anything coming.
Like right within that first year of raising Jason, he started giving me the dreaded one-word “fine” after I’d ask him how his day was at school. And I believed him because he would come home and be funny and engaging, and I would walk around the house thinking that my son was the most confident kid in the world. But then I began getting reports from school. Jason is struggling. Jason is having issues with anxiety. Basically, Jason wasn’t “fine”.
Taken off guard, I initially made Jason’s struggles all about me. I was heartbroken that he wasn’t sharing things with me. Was I not open enough with him? Not present enough? Or, worse still, not cool enough? But then I acknowledged my feelings and came up with a plan. My son wasn’t having the best experience at school, and he needed help. My sister was a counsellor, so I asked for her advice. I used my heartbreak to push myself past my anxiety (and you wonder where he gets it from) and tried to create a safe place for my child.
It took some discussion, but we got to the root of it. Back in my day, it mattered if you didn’t have the latest pair of Jordans. Now it’s the latest iPhone. If I didn’t get my hair cut for a month when I was 10, big deal. If Jason went a week without one, who would like his Instagram pics? It came down to cash: we didn’t have much money; other kids did. So we talked about comparisons and inadequacy and – yeah, okay, okay – I started to take him to the barber more often.
Before I had kids, I always thought surprises had to be something big. Like deciding I wasn’t going to university anymore. Or shaving off my hair. Or, ha, finding out I had a son. But when you’re a dad, almost every day holds at least one micro surprise. When the kids are younger, it’s seeing them develop some new skill. When they’re older, it’s watching them successfully (or unsuccessfully) navigate social or professional situations.
But I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a bad surprise, whether it’s macro or micro. And I’m only ever really surprised if I’m setting an expectation. When my kids defy those expectations, I could resent them for doing so – or I could do what’s actually more helpful: grow with them. Because there are all the times your kids surprise you, but then there are the times you surprise yourself and your kids help you become a better human being.
It’s like getting a fresh new pair of Jordans – or an iPhone 14 – but for your soul.
“Whenyou’re adad,almost everyday holdsatleast onemicro surprise”
I WAS LITERALLY SITTING on the toilet one morning when the alert came through from Red Bull that Defiance entries were open for the 2021 race. I don’t know if it was the vulnerable position I was in but I immediately messaged my best mate, Ed, and said, “Should we enter?”
I expected him to laugh off the suggestion but he replied, “Sure, why not”. Before I had time to think of reasons not to do it, I signed up. BANG, we were officially adventure racers. Unfortunately, the spicy cough meant we had to delay our new adventure-racing careers, but somehow we managed to maintain our enthusiasm to compete in this year’s event.
I’ve done triathlons, marathons and trail runs before but I’ve never tackled anything like Defiance. At 38, I like the idea that I’m challenging my body to do things it hasn’t done before. I know it’s a cliche but the idea of testing my limits is a big part of signing up.
I’ve got a two-year-old son, Mack, and a six-year-old daughter, Quinn, who’s just started school. My wife Alana and I both work full-time jobs (as much as me talking into a stick Monday to Friday and watching footy on weekends can be classified as work). The tricky part of Defiance is that you need to train for multiple disciplines and, realistically, you probably need to be allocating multiple-hour blocks to get a feel for what it’s like to spend two days running trails and riding bike tracks. Those blocks just don’t exist in my week.
So, I implement a routine whereby three times a week,
IMPULSIVELY, TRIPLE M RADIO HOST LIAM FLANAGAN AND HIS BEST MATE, ED, DECIDED TO TAKE ON ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S MOST ARDUOUS ADVENTURE RACES RED BULL DEFIANCE. AS THEY FOUND OUT, WHERE THERE’S A WHIM, YOU HAVE TO FIND A WAY
after I’d drop my daughter at school, I head to Burleigh Beach or Nerang National Park for a 60-90-minute run. The other window of opportunity to train is once the kids have gone to bed, usually after 8pm. This is where a Zwift account and the stationary bike trainer in the garage get a workout, as I attempt to build some endurance on the bike, again aiming for 60-90 minutes at a time.
It isn’t much and I know we haven’t trained enough, particularly for an event with such an imposing name. This lack of training will surely come back to bite us. The only question is when.
I fly into Cairns with the family in tow on the morning of the race ‘prologue’. We pick up a rental car, take a quick detour to pick up the bikes we’ve hired for the race, getting the bloke at the bike shop to explain how they work (probably not a great sign), and then head south for Mission Beach.
We arrive about 10 minutes before registration closes so are rushing around like headless chooks. The mild panic only gets worse when I realise I haven’t packed a multi-tool, one of the mandatory pieces of equipment. But what follows is why I love the world of
adventure racing and outdoor fitness. Within two minutes of asking other teams for help, a couple of legends called Benny and Hannah from Sydney throw me their spare and our registration is complete. WE
The prologue is a relatively simple 1.5km beach run and a 1.5km kayak to determine our starting order for the Day Two rafting. Ed is nervous I’m going to get overexcited and sprint off during the run but I keep a lid on it so that we hit the kayaks together.
Unfortunately, Mission Beach then witnesses perhaps the worst display of kayaking in history. We are out of rhythm, neither of us possessing sufficient core strength to actually sit upright. Ed is brutally honest about the sub-par job I’m doing steering the kayak. But we make it back to the beach and cross the line. We’ll be starting in Boat 12 on Day 2. We walk back to our accommodation with our Red Bull singlets on, nervously giggling about what the next two days might hold for us. Then we smash a massive bowl of pasta that Ed’s wife Tori has whipped up, before packing our bags and laying out our clothes for the next day like a couple of 12-year-olds getting ready for school camp. As we’re about to find out, however, this is not going to be anything like camp.
The alarm goes off at 4am but I’ve tossed and turned for most of the night in anticipation so I’m wide awake anyway. Ed’s prepared our agreed breakfast of porridge, banana and honey, before Alana drives us to the pick-up point for the 4:50am bus. Once we arrive at Tully Gorge we get sorted with our rafting gear, find the two other teams we’ll be rafting with and nervously joke about how we’ll be the blokes at the back of the raft not doing any paddling. Next thing, GO! We’re off through the Red Bull arch and running down to our raft.
The next hour is, in hindsight, the most fun we have during the whole race, paddling rapids, trying to chase down boats in front of us, forgetting the instructions our guide gave us and doing all of it in some amazing scenery. But the whole time I know the tough stuff is ahead of us. We jog to the transition, load up our backpacks, coat our inner thighs in Vaseline (chafing is our biggest fear) and set off on the 24km trail run.
I did quite a bit of trail-run training so I feel quite comfortable. But it soon becomes apparent Ed hasn’t hit the trails hard enough in his preparation. Soon I’m feeding him salt tablets like they’re Tic Tacs in an attempt to stave off cramp in his calves. We’re trying to act like responsible adults in these early stages: running within ourselves, keeping our nutrition and hydration up and keeping the chat up. The ascents are brutal and, at times, we’re literally pushing one another up sections, but after almost four hours we jog into the transition for the mountain-bike stage. Again, we show maturity, taking our time, fuelling up on food and water before we throw on our padded bike shorts (a godsend in hindsight), put on our helmets and mount our bikes for what will be the hardest five hours of my life.
We spend the first couple of kays figuring out how to change gears on our bikes and how the seat-raiser works before settling into some nice, easy, flat kays. Then, things go up. How I wish I’d spent at least some time training on an actual mountain bike. We quickly come to the realisation that our lack of training on bikes, combined with the muddy tracks and wet conditions, mean we’ll be dismounting and pushing rather than riding our bikes up any inclines. And there are lots of inclines. Up and up and up and
up and up. The only interruptions to the trudge are so I can feed Ed more salt tablets and we can laugh about how we thought this would be a good idea. We eventually hit some downhill portions of track and this is where our maturity finally dissolves. Happy to be finally riding the bikes as opposed to pushing them, we take off downhill like we’re teenagers whose bodies will bounce if we crash – and we definitely go close a couple of times.
My darkest moment arrives during one particularly long march uphill before Ed snaps me out of it by uttering our race motto: “Just keep grinding, keep moving forward”. Throughout all this we’re seeing the same group of teams around us and are constantly sharing words of encouragement mixed with profanities about how “fucking hard” this is. After a little over five hours on the bikes on muddy trails, we finally hit an 8km stretch of road that will take us to the finish line . . . or so we think.
We rack our bikes and jog around the corner to be met by a stack of hay bales that apparently we have to climb over. Given I’m five foot nothing and Ed has little to no energy left, I can’t really remember how we manage to get over them, but we do, crossing the line some 10-and-a-half hours after we started, muddy, cold and spent. The bus ride home is silent. The car ride back to
There’s no ‘I’ in team . . . but there is in ‘give up’.
The cycle leg’s a breeze until the ascent. Funny that.
the accommodation is silent. The fifteen-minute steaming hot shower is silent and we eat dinner in silence. We are both absolutely wrecked. And then we laugh, somewhat deliriously, because we realise we have to pack our bags and get everything ready for Day 2.
There is good news and bad news for Day 2. The good news is that we don’t have to be at the start line till 6:30am, so we have something of a sleep-in. The bad news is that because of the weather, we won’t be taking on the planned course of a 14km paddle and run around Dunk Island. As the race organiser from Red Bull explains, “We can’t ask you to paddle to something that you can’t see”. She’s right, too –you can’t see Dunk Island from the beach. So, an abridged race plan is devised that still end up taking us a touch over five hours to complete while cruelly exposing our lack of kayaking technique.
There is more running, more riding, more kayaking and more repetition of our unofficial team motto “Just keep grinding, keep moving forward”. The only respite and, indeed, my favourite moment of the whole event comes during the first beach run when Quinn, Mack, Alana and Ed’s family all cheer us on from the sand.
I struggle badly on the bike and aren’t helped by my last-minute decision not to put on my padded bike
shorts. But Ed is riding well and drags me through the same terrain that I’d dragged him through the previous day. As a team, we race together with nothing but encouragement and positivity – at least until the final 4km of the race.
There, after feeding Ed yet more salt tablets to stave off his cramp, I finally feel cramp coming on in my own legs and ask Ed where the salt tablets are. He assures me they’re in his backpack. They aren’t in his backpack. He then casually tells me he must have left them at the last transition. I hadn’t realised I had the energy left to swear as loud as I do at this point. But Ed just repeats our team motto and so, after a few more profanities in his direction, I keep grinding and keep moving forward. One final, not insignificant hurdle emerges: having to run downwind of Ed, who’s discovering that two days of eating nothing but Cliff Bars, Jelly Beans and Red Bull wreaks havoc on your digestive system. But suddenly we’re in the final kilometre of this epic adventure we’ve talked about for almost two years. The excitement we experienced on the start line returns. We cross the line and hug each other, laughing at the fact we’ve actually finished something we signed up to on a whim.
That night, with our families along for the ride, we enjoy a great feed and a few drinks at the South Mission Surf Life Saving Club while the real racers accept their trophies. As we sit there and share stories with other racers, Ed, who’s been chatting with runner-up Courtney Atkinson, turns to me and says he’s decided we need to sign up for an even bigger adventure race in New Zealand called Coast to Coast and this time, he vows, we’ll train properly. He’s hooked, as am I. There’s no turning back now.
For more information on Red Bull Defiance visit defiance.events
“IHADN’TREALISEDI
FOR THE LONGEST TIME, hot hatches have been the car for the man who doesn’t have everything. Uppermost on that list of things he doesn’t have is the huge vats of money required to buy a proper, truly frightening sports car.
A hot hatch, of course, has always been more affordable, more practical and yet designed with the goal of being almost as much fun as a Porsche.
The French were among the first to get the idea, with Renault and Peugeot making some absolute craquers over the years, but, of course, the Germans had to step in and throw their Teutonic weight around, arguably perfecting the breed with the Volkswagen Golf GTI and, later, the even more wondrous Golf R.
Today, though, it seems the hot hatch is crossing over, stepping up and clearing its throat with a deep, burbling bellow as it shoulders its way into the paddock filled with serious sports cars. It’s also had to ditch the ‘affordable’ tag to reach those heights.
Meet the Audi RS3, a hatch so hot it looks like it’s caught fire while parked next to a factory making bright-green jelly, which has then swathed its muscular flanks in look-at-me, I-glow-in-the-dark paint (they call it Kyalami Green - I call it Hulk Smashed).
There’s no doubt that it will get you the kind of attention that far more expensive machines usually garner because its design is wildly over the top, and strangers will gather to look at the giant rear carbon wing on the roof, and to debate whether it has any point beyond causing debate.
Personally, as long as I was wearing protective eyewear, I liked the RS3 a lot, although it was definitely more pleasant from the hugely comfortable, and gripping, driver’s seat. From there your hands fall on a delectable, Alcantara covered wheel, which gives you access to the kind of steering feel – light yet muscular, pointy enough to cut holes in a corner, talkative to the point of deafening – that you’d expect to find on one
of this car’s more distant cousins, made by Lamborghini (Audi effectively owns the Italian super car brand).
The RS also surprises with the sheer whack of its unusual 2.5-litre five-cylinder, turbocharged engine, which makes 294kW and a hefty 500Nm of torque. If that sounds like a lot of grunt for a hot hatch, it is, so much so that it will fire you to 100km/h in 3.8 seconds. Seriously, anything under four seconds was considered a super car not that long ago, and even today it’s faster than a base Porsche 911.
So, yes, the Audi RS3 is every bit as fast as it looks, and that unique five-cylinder layout makes it sound gruff and serious as well. My only criticism is that I wish it was even louder, because the cabin is typically Audi, refined and sound proofed.
This kind of burning-hot hatch performance is going to cost you a little more, of course, and the RS3 hatch starts at $91,391 (with a very attractive four-door sedan also available for $93,891).
With its colossal grunt and acceleration, the AUDI RS3 is taking the hatch into a whole new realm. Just try not to make it angry
BY LUKE BENEDICTUS
IT’S AN UNHAPPY TRUTH of life that there simply aren’t enough days in the weekend. You slog your way through Monday to Friday, straining to meet your deadlines and appease your horrible boss. The days inch by until (finally!) you clock off on Friday, a little frazzled but elated to have gone the distance once more. The real question, though, is what happens now? How do you maximise this fleeting window of freedom? And can you stop this initial buzz of “school’s out” euphoria from fizzling into anti-climax yet again?
The American writer John Shirley was grimly familiar with this scenario. “Weekends are a bit like rainbows,” he wrote. “They look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them.” Nor is this particularly surprising. Your life responsibilities, after all, do not suddenly vanish away from work. Inevitably, there are still errands to run, lawns to mow, groceries to buy, houses to clean, kids to take to swimming lessons and DIY chores to attempt and disastrously bungle before seeking professional help.
But these life logistics aren’t the only thing on your weekend agenda. After a long and stressful week, you could probably do with some well-earned rest to recharge. Except that you also want to have some fun – go for a surf, perhaps, or catch up with mates for a beer or a barbie. Faced by so many competing demands, it’s easy to get paralysed by indecision. The next thing you know, you’ve been sucked down a social-media wormhole that spits you out into the familiar dread of the Sunday-night blues.
That risk is graver than ever at a time when weekends are increasingly losing their definition. Many of us now work from home – some of the time at least – so our professional lives have become entangled with our domestic worlds. The ping of work emails never stops, making it harder than ever to switch off. The onus is on you to erect some boundaries and regain control. But you need all the help you can get.
Which is why we’re advocating the idea of the weekend watch. Essentially, what we’re talking about is a highly visible cue to nudge your head in the right direction and capitalise on your precious time off. You know how you occasionally scrawl a felt-tip note on the back of your hand saying, “FFS, Don’t Forget The Milk”? Well, this is a similar principle.
As an added bonus, it also tells the time, is strapped to your
wrist and will fire you up to seize your weekend. One word of caution: your smartwatch may have the functionality to do dozens of clever-clog things, from tracking your blood-oxygen levels to sharing your photos. But it’s ill-suited to weekend-watch duties due to its endless stream of notifications. You don’t want to be relaxing at the beach and idly glance at the time, only to be greeted by a terse email from your passive-aggressive colleague that yanks your mind back into the very snake pit of office politics that you’re meant to be having a two-day reprieve from. Nope, when it comes to the functionality of a weekend watch, less is very much more.
Rather than bringing you back to work, what you want here is a watch that will hammer home to your brain that you are very much off duty. Think of it like a Hawaiian shirt for your wrist. That means a watch that employs a bit of colour and fun, whether that consists of a perkier dial, a bolder bezel or an eye-catching rubber strap. It’s a watch specifically chosen to short-circuit any thoughts of spreadsheets and that tricky client presentation next week that could conceivably derail your career.
A weekend watch may sound like an extreme measure but, quite frankly, these days you need extra ammo. Recent data harvested from Microsoft 365 users show that, since the pandemic kicked off, after-hours work is up by 28 per cent and weekend working by 14 per cent.
All work and no play, as we all well know, makes Jack a dull boy – and leads to a disgruntled wife and a nervous tic. It’s time to reclaim your weekend.
Sitting Pretty: Thorpe has been sure to build his post-swimming life on multiple pillars.
For many of us, it feels like yesterday when a teenaged swimmer named IAN THORPE was toppling world records, seemingly at will. Yet that precocious soul has just turned 40 – and is ready now to peer both backwards and forwards on a remarkable life, one punctuated by great achievements and profound personal challenges. These days, something that speaks eloquently to Thorpe’s complexity and the costs imposed by a life in the spotlight is the nature of his most heartfelt yearning: to be able to see the world again through the eyes of a child
BY DANIEL WILLIAMS AND SCOTT HENDERSON
he tall man who arrives bang on time for the Men’s Health photo shoot is unmistakably Ian Thorpe: recently 40, he’s changed little since his days of gliding up and down the pools of the world as though born to the water. There is something different about him today, however, apart from the beard. It might be a hint of nervousness he seldom betrayed at his competitive peak.
Since his mid-teens, he’s been snapped a million times. Yet today he seems faintly ill at ease in front of the lens and wants no part of appraising the images that appear on the monitor. Perhaps he’s a touch insecure; perhaps he doesn’t care enough to fuss; or perhaps he wants simply to get on with things. Regardless, he’s cordial and professional, prepared to strike poses but nothing extravagant; prepared to smile but only occasionally.
It’s later, while talking, while looking back on his life and especially his swimming days, that Thorpe comes to life. For all its associated pressures and controversies, he reflects on that heady time with a palpable fondness. And surely with pride, as well, for what a time it was. What a magnificent, glorious show Thorpe put on for the rest of us.
Let’s start with the numbers game. At the 2000 and 2004 Olympics combined, Thorpe won five gold medals across four events, the equal-most by any Australian in history (that tally having been matched in Tokyo last year by Emma McKeon). Between 1998 and 2004, he claimed a further 11 gold medals at world championships. World records? He set some 23 of those.
But Thorpe – the Thorpedo – was so much more than an amasser of prizes. In his prime – which began when he was a floppy-haired 15-year-old from Sydney’s southern suburbs – he exuded the quality of invincibility reserved for the chosen few. To see him on the blocks was to know he would win. In his pet event, the 400m freestyle, he beat all-comers for six years at every big meet, swimming in a way best summed up by fellow Olympic champion Duncan Armstrong: “He caresses the water, but when it’s time to be brutal he’s like a raging bull”.
For me, the race that defined Thorpe was not an individual event but a relay –the 4x100m freestyle on the first night of Sydney 2000. You know what happened, right? On the last lap, Thorpe, a middle-distance specialist, trailed the American hotshot Gary Hall Jr, a pure and lethal sprinter, yet overhauled him to win by a hand-length. It shouldn’t have been possible. Shouldn’t have happened. But that was Thorpe.
What made him so great? Supreme technical efficiency? Enviable physical strength? Cartoonish elasticity? A long frame and colossal feet? An iron will? Nerves of steel? All those things applied. But athletically speaking, completeness was his outstanding trait. Thorpe had it all.
Out of the pool, he charmed everyone with his maturity and decency. People saw in him, observed his late biographer, Greg Hunter, “a kind of instinctive understanding of what it is we’re all supposed to be doing in this life. There is in the collective unconscious the idea that some among us are old souls – people who seem to have been here before, people who have such an understanding of things that they can see the big picture before the rest of us, and act accordingly. It’s not just a matter of intelligence . . . it’s more about wisdom, aligned with moral courage.”
Thorpe retired from swimming in 2006 aged 24, before making a comeback five years later when the magic had faded. Since then, we’ve heard him on TV as a commentator and seen the reports on the various ups and downs in his life, one that’s been inevitably complicated by the void of post-sporting greatness, challenges arising from his sexuality (Thorpe came out as gay in 2014), and the sadness and cynicism which settles on the highly intelligent whenever they look too closely at a flawed world.
Men’s Health:What role does swimming play in your life nowadays?
Ian Thorpe: Well, I don’t swim. I had shoulder-replacement surgery [in 2015], so I can’t really swim. I can do enough to catch a wave, but not a lap in the pool. I knew before the surgery that would be the case. Looking back, I think I romanticised what swimming was and is.
IT I forgot about all the freezingcold mornings and being in agony after sessions. Look, I can still meditate in the pool if I feel like it, but repetition is where the beauty comes from in swimming.
MH Minus swimming, then, how do you train nowadays?
IT I go to the gym two or three times a week for weights, and some of that is rehabilitation [and prehab] work. I do that with a physio who happens to be a bodybuilder.
MH Do you still feel connected to the Ian Thorpe who competed on the world stage?
IT No. It’s more like I train for a healthy lifestyle. The only cardio I do now is walking, at a pretty quick pace, just to reach the right heart rate for me. And I don’t listen to music when I walk.
IT Yeah. Everyone thinks it’s a bit odd. For me, music’s a distraction from being mindful. When I’m walking, I’ll try to notice something that’s different. I’ll be like, “Oh wow, these apartments have water views – I wouldn’t have known”. And then, “Oh, I should have worked that out because the cars are parked out the front – that makes sense”. When you’re walking, always look a little further ahead than you think you should. That’ll get your posture right, as well.
MH What does your diet look like these days? Are you fastidious?
IT I have to be. It’s too easy to gain weight otherwise. I’ll compromise on portion sizes sometimes with meals that I really enjoy eating but
aren’t all that healthy. But I still get to enjoy things. When I go out for dinner, which is probably twice a week, I’ll eat what I want except . . . unless it’s your favorite dessert in the world – a panna cotta, say – it’s not worth eating for me. [Snacking], I’m the kind of person who’ll eat mixed nuts and seeds if I feel I’m losing my energy. I’ll go to that rather than something sweet. I also use supplements, like Anthogenol [anthogenol.com.au] and magnesium and calcium for recovery if I’ve had a big session.
MH Do you have any habits aimed at managing your mental health?
IT That’s part of the walking thing for me. That’s my time to freshen up. And I know if I’m struggling a little bit with my mental health – because it fluctuates – you try to find that motivation to get outside and go for a walk. Because it starts to clear your mind a little bit. People would know from lockdown that being stuck in a house is not good for you. I regularly see an expert as well, probably quarterly. I look at it as outsourcing any problems.
MH Like seeing a trainer?
IT Well, it is. You see an expert in every other field, so I see an expert in this field. And a lot of it is, again, preventative – just checking where I’m at and how I’m going. For me, it’s also a bit of a safety net. We usually speak to them when we’re at a crisis point . . . when it’s gotten to a point where you really need them.
MH You’re turning 40 in October. [Thorpe turned 40 on October 13, after he did this interview.] How are you feeling about that?
IT I think it’s the first proper birthday. The first, yeah, real birthday. I’d prefer if I wasn’t [laughs]. I’d prefer to be turning 30. But I’m actually okay with it. Most people are surprised that I’m
turning 40. They assume I’m either older or much younger. It’s one or the other. And I’m actually starting to judge myself a little bit on the 40 thing. So, if I come up with something spontaneous, I think, Is this because I’m turning 40? Is that why I’m thinking like this?
MH A potential mid-life crisis?
IT Yeah. So, I did a show – I did This Is Your Life – and I was like, I’m not halfway through my life. Why are we doing this now?
MH What was that like, reviewing your life in that format?
IT It was odd, because I would’ve rather have spent the time with my friends and the people who appeared and had someone else [as the focus]. That would’ve been my preference. But the following day, I caught up with all of the swimming guys – which was cool. We don’t get to see each other all that often. Not often enough.
MH Looking back on your swimming career, what qualities made you so good?
IT It was a combination. If you listen to a physiologist, they’ll tell you it’s to do with your heart rate or the composition of your body. If you listen to a physio, it’ll be about your flexibility and your ability to rotate. If you speak to a psychologist or psychiatrist, they’ll say it’s your mental strength. What I say is, it’s none of those but the combination of all of them. And it’s also having talent and then working extremely hard at that talent while not setting a limit on what you can accomplish. Because if you say, I want to win a gold medal, you’ve already limited yourself. And just because no one has accomplished something before doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. What I’ve seen in sport is there’ll be someone – the pioneer – who’s able break through a brick wall that no one thought could be smashed. And then a decade or two later, everyone’s swimming at that level. Everyone’s caught up
and then we’re waiting for the next person to break through.
It’s also having, I think, a childlike mentality. I think that helps.
MH Anything’s possible?
IT Anything. And you really have to believe that. And I tell people that goals are something that you can set out to accomplish. If you work hard at it day in, day out, you will get there. But if you keep on getting there, you’re setting your goals too low. The dream . . . that’s the loftier ambition. That’s the thing you’re a little ashamed to say out loud. It’s like being a kid and saying, “I want to be an astronaut!” Now that’s a dream and that’s how it should feel. In sport, having the innocence of a child in how you perceive the world is definitely advantageous. But then what happens – and this is part of growing up – people start to plant seeds of doubt in your mind. It doesn’t hit you straight away, but this doubt starts to build up. I was told by a coach at the Sydney Olympics, “If you can conserve energy in this first race [the 400m freestyle] for the [4x100] relay . . . you should think about that”. And everyone’s like, Okay, so you don’t even have to try to your fullest. Which was pretty messed up, I have to say.
MH What was your parents’ contribution to producing a champion?
IT So, we had a rule. My sister [Christina] used to swim a bit as well, and the rule was we had to wake up our parents [to take us to practice and meets]. So, you would set your own alarm and wake them. Another rule: no matter what sport we were doing as kids, we had to commit to a season. So, if I said, “I want to play soccer this year”, it was like, “Great, you can do soccer – it’s through to the end of the season”. It was the same with swimming. And at the end of each season, we had a break from our sport before working out if we wanted to do it again. My parents [Ken and Margaret] are quiet. They’re humble people.
So as for my accomplishments, whether at school or in the pool, they were never overplayed to me. My parents are the opposite of typical ‘tennis parents’ – or ‘swimming parents’ for that matter. And that helped.
MH Was there a pivotal moment in the juniors when you knew swimming was something you were going to pursue and conquer?
IT The only thing I can think of, I can remember hearing my father telling one of his friends how good I was. He would never say that in front of me. I’d never hear that. So, when I heard him speaking to his friend, I was, Oh,
okay – I’m really good at this. But I always thought I might be a child prodigy who’d never make it at the elite level – which is something I’ve seen happen so many times.
MH What was your most exhilarating moment in swimming?
IT Look, if I could pick a night, it’s the 400 and then the 4x100 relay in Sydney. And then, if I look at Athens [2004], it’s the 200m freestyle there, and defending my 400m Olympic title was nervewracking for me. I was swimming that race with a lot of emotion, which is not a good way to swim a race. And then there’s some
IT’S HAVING TALENT AND THEN WORKING EXTREMELY HARD. JUST BECAUSE NO ONE HAS ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING BEFORE DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN’T DO IT”
[races] that people haven’t seen. Like, some of the things that have been most exciting for me, it was only my squad and my coach who saw them. No one else.
MH Do you still find yourself reliving moments or rivalries?
IT Not really. It’s only when people bring stuff up, like when I’m doing a speech somewhere in the world and the organisers will show clips. I just won an award in Italy, and they played all my Olympic wins. And it was funny because I’d never seen footage with Italian commentary before. And when I watch those old races, I usually end up smiling because I’m still correcting things. I’m still, Hmmm, that could have been better
MH What was the most challenging part of professional swimming – training, travel, injuries, stress?
IT Let’s go with stress because there are certain things that you can change and certain things you can’t. For me, when it came to retiring, it had nothing to do with swimming whatsoever. I had got to a point where I could not handle the amount of attention that was on me and some of the circumstances. No one can teach you what it’s like to have stalkers. Knowing that when I walked into a pool, I needed proper security, that there was a direct and indirect threat against your life at that event. I never thought of this when I was young – being followed by paparazzi . . . all of that. People having an opinion on my life. The context of swimming had become entirely different to what it was when I was a kid looking at the sport with wide eyes.
MH You’ve alluded to your retirement, in 2006. Do you think, in hindsight, you may have retired prematurely?
IT No. I had to. Even after the Sydney Olympics, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do another Olympics. I’d achieved my dreams. It was, Do I just move on? I’m a 17-year-old – do I move on with my life now? That was what I was
thinking for a little while. But it changed. I was, No, I’m not done yet
MH All athletes who achieve success must deal with The Void. And generally, the greater the success, the deeper the void. Tell us about your transition from swimming champion to not-so-ordinary citizen.
IT So, I work with a youth mental health service called ReachOut, and I chair the AIS Athlete Wellbeing Advisory Committee, and these days we know a lot more about athletes than we used to.
We prepare people to perform [but] we often don’t prepare them to succeed. I was reading a study around [retired] English Premier League players. They’d been so connected to one world their whole lives that they’d disconnected from their families. They had something [their sport] that defined them as people and then that disappears. They don’t have the adulation anymore, so it’s almost like you go through a process of mourning. And I don’t say that lightly. Something elite athletes should be doing is what we call ‘de-training’ . . . it’s starting to prepare for life as though you’re about to stop your sport, adjusting to what your routine will be post career. That’s something that we’re doing with the AIS. We’re looking at athletes pre, during and post, and if we get the pre part right, we’re hoping the transition out will be a lot easier.
IT We think from the beginning because the reality of sport is that your career can be over at any moment. You can have an injury and that’s it. You have to prepare for Plan B. People say, “Plan B? Shouldn’t they just be focusing on sport?” But that’s a very simplistic way of looking at sport and quite antiquated, really. We find that athletes have more success when they have a balance to their lives, when your self-worth isn’t based solely on sport. It’s kind of like a stool. If you sit on a stool and you think there are four legs on it, you
can sit on it for a very long time. You take away one leg and it will start to wobble, but you can still kind of sit on it. If there are two legs, you’re going to struggle. And with one, it’s impossible. A life built on one thing is precarious. You’re headed for a fall.
MH And what makes up the legs of the stool you’re plonked on these days?
IT For me, it’s work. It’s hobbies. It’s relationships. And then it’s giving back, which is the philanthropy work that I do. There’s exercise in there as well. I have five [legs].
MH That’s a sturdy stool. What are those hobbies? What gets you out of bed excited?
IT I like sailing. I wanted a sport I could do for the rest of my life. Creative pursuits as well: I love working on brands and helping people out to start off brands on an entrepreneurial level. I’m a bit of a US politics nerd, as well.
MH Looking back on the past 40 years, what was the happiest period in your life?
IT I think when I was a kid and when I first started [swimming], because I started travelling when
WHEN IT CAME TO RETIRING, IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH SWIMMING. I COULD NOT HANDLE THE AMOUNT OF ATTENTION THAT WAS ON ME”
Venroy
Favourite gym exercise? Squats.
Least favourite exercise? Squats.
Pump-up tune? Oh, any bad 2000s, Euro techno crap.
Favourite cheat meal? I don’t really have them. It would be a burger if I did.
Last time you cried? I can’t remember.
Last book you read? Peril (by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, about the end of the Trump presidency).
Motto? Ask the question, not the answer.
Your hero?
I don’t have a hero. I have multiple. My hero in swimming growing up was Alex Popov.
I was 12. So, my world went like this [stretches his arms wide] very, very early. And so, that was my education: I was studying on planes and then also experiencing what the world is like. And that has shaped my perspective on what you can do. The experiences that I’ve had are . . . well, they’re extraordinary. They’re not normal kinds of things and so they shaped me. And then, after coming out, after being out for about a year, it was like when I first got my license. You felt that amazing sense of freedom!
MH Like looking at everything with fresh eyes?
IT Yeah. Even though everything is familiar, there’s something different about all of it.
MH Why was your 2014 interview with Michael Parkinson the right time for you to come out as gay?
IT Look, I don’t know if there’s . . . I think it’s different for everyone. But I first came out to my family. Actually, no, I came out to a couple of my friends first, and then I told my sister. And then I was going to tell my mum and then I was going to tell my father. That was kind of the order that I’d worked out in my head. And my sister said to me, “Whatever you do, don’t tell Mum before you tell Dad”. I was like, Shit! I thought, I’ll have to tell them together. So, I sat them down and told them. That interview was something I knew I had to do, and I thought, I’ve already told the people I care most about; now I may as well tell the world. I rang my agent and said to him, “Look, I’m gay, and I want to say this in the Parkinson interview”. And he goes, “Okay”. My parents said to me, “Do you want to get used to it before you come out to the world?”
And I was, “I’ve been in the closet for so long now, I’m not taking a step back in”.
MH When you agreed to that interview, coming out wasn’t part of the plan?
IT No. So, I spent some time with Parky’s family near where he lives.
And about two days before the interview, I told him that he should ask me if I’m gay. And he went, “Okay”. And I said, “Because I will tell you that I am”. And he goes, “Okay, thanks for telling me”. So, he then had to work out how he was going to approach that, which couldn’t have been easy, and I thought he managed to do it in a really thoughtful and sensitive way.
MH How far do you think we’ve come as a society since then in terms of the acceptance of human differences?
IT Well, that depends on how you look at this. We’re getting better. It’s around 70 per cent of people who support marriage equality. If we look back to 2004 – for me, the time of the Athens Olympics – that number was just under 35 per cent. So, it’s doubled since then, but then there are also some scary stats out there [in terms of what people think should happen to gay people]. And when I look at the youth-suicide statistics . . . how many more people in the LGBTIQ community [have taken their own lives] and how many more are susceptible to taking their own lives. We haven’t done enough there. What the marriage-equality [vote] did . . . it was a starting point for conversations about what can happen [to improve society]. In schools, for example – what should be taught is that marriage is between two adults, two consenting adults. This is what the Australian government now recognises. We know with young people, the first place they go [with questions and concerns about sexuality] is their family and friends – which is great. The next place is the internet, so the internet needs to be well resourced. And this relates to part of the work I do with ReachOut.
MH Do you think it would’ve been easier for you to come out in today’s environment?
IT Absolutely. See, I got asked by a journalist if I was gay when I was 16. That would never happen now. But this journalist was told that their job was on the line – or that
was my understanding, anyway . And it would be the exact opposite right now – you would lose your job if you did the same thing today. Also, back then, the language around this issue . . . it was said I was being accused of being gay. So, you’re thinking about this in a negative sense. You never thought there was a great side to being who you are. You want to hide something away. And when I was talking to you about the pressure that I was under and how I stopped competing because I couldn’t manage that . . . this was another thing I had to manage. That’s how I felt, and I didn’t think that I was ready to add this on top. I was also thinking at the time, How much does it actually matter? How much does my sexuality affect me as a human being? Is it the thing that defines me? I don’t think it is. So, I didn’t realise how important it was for me to find my authentic self. You realise all this in hindsight. But when I look back on my career, we’d have training camps in places where it was illegal to be gay, so if I’d have come out earlier, I may not have been able to train with the rest of the team or compete at certain places. I’d probably have been booed as well. And as a young person, that’s not what you want. I wanted to fit in with my peers and even around the celebrity side of what I did. I just wanted to be part of the group. I didn’t want to be the one sticking out.
MH What do you imagine your future to be?
IT That’s a huge question. Look, I’ve learned with life that there are destination points that you want to get to – they can be specific – but the way you get there is not a straight path. And some of the best adventures and times of life happen while you’re getting sidetracked along the way. My goals are less short term and more medium and long term. It’s being able to look back and see a collective piece of work that I’m interested in. When I’m 70 or 80, that’s the time I want to be able to reflect and say it was a very full life.
And the reason I’m a little bit lofty and a little ambiguous with this is that I never expected my life to be how it is right now. It’s kind of quite bizarre. I happen to be a successful athlete who has then had these experiences in the world that few people get to have and not many athletes get to have. The fact I’m asked by people, “Do you want to go into politics?”, or, “Do you want to turn up and model eight different outfits today?” And the invitations that I receive and the people I meet who are the very best in their professions inspire me. I had a career that was quite rigid, and I love the structure that it had, but I’ve realised that isn’t what I want for the rest of my life. I look at everything now and I like to have fingers in many pies. A week ago, I just finished a commentary stint; now I’m shooting for a magazine; and after this I’m going to a charity board meeting. So, it’s all mixed up. None of my two weeks look similar at all.
MH Is there anything specific you still want to achieve?
IT Yeah, there is. You know what? I want to live life like I did when I was a kid. I want to have that feeling in my life that I get excited by what I do and feel like everything is . . . just limitless in what I can do. So, in terms of what I do with my business interests, how do you create success there? People would go, “Well, it’s to make a certain amount of money”. But that isn’t what motivates me. So the question becomes, what does? Reshaping how business operates might be something . . . how it engages with the consumer. And what it does in the social space – social responsibility. That part is more interesting for me. The other thing is finding the right person to settle down with. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a goal or not, but it’s something that I would be happy with because at times it feels as though it’s the only thing that’s missing from my life that I’d like to have. And most of the things that I would like to have, I usually have.
There’s a segment of physically active men we don’t hear from enough – on social media, on TV, in the pages of this magazine. Men who seem to have figured out the balance between striving and satisfaction. They may care about those puffy fat folds around their armpits. Or love handles that won’t go away no matter how much lat work they do. Or dimples on their arse.
BY MH EDITORS PHOTOGRAPHY BY CELESTE SLOMAN
But they’re not letting concern about these issues hold them back. They’re proudly strolling the beach. They’re comfortably changing in the locker room. They’re confidently playing skins at Tuesday-night hoops. They know you can be strong in more ways than one.
There’s nothing wrong with pushing to be your best self, building muscle and strength. But strength comes in many different forms. This is the message the men on the following pages want you to hear. From Martinus Evans, a 157-kilogram man who runs
marathons, and physical therapist Ilya Parker, who escaped jokes about gender and weight as a youngster to become a fitness-inclusivity advocate for heavier people, to Cody Young, a self-described body-hair ambassador, and bodybuilder Jim Arrington, 90 years young and still lifting weights daily.
They’re not preaching acceptance of your body, necessarily. They’re saying it’s okay for you to want your body to look different in whatever way you want it to look different. It’s okay to care more about how your insides function than your outsides look. It’s okay to care more
about the walls of your cardiac arteries than the ripples of your abdomen. (It’s also okay to care about those things equally.) It’s okay for you to care about your man boobs and not your triceps.
There’s a concept in Zen Buddhism called “big mind”. It means you expand your outlook enough to see the good and the bad as they are, so that you can make fully informed decisions. When it comes to health and fitness, it means seeing your blood pressure for what it is. Your pecs. Your heart rate. Your weight. Your calves. The way you feel when you get up in the morning. The
way you feel after 30 squats. It means knowing what those things mean to you. They’re not inherently “good” or “bad”. They just are.
You can change them or not change them, but the point is not to achieve a certain goal or look a certain way. The practice – working out, meditating, eating good food, getting stronger – is the point.
We’re not “before and after” projects. We’re all on a journey. We’re all perfectly imperfect, and no matter how much or how little we work out, we always will be.
I WAS A chubby kid who didn’t take my shirt off at the beach. When I considered what a man was supposed to look like, especially a gay man, I did not see myself reflected at all. I could never picture myself with six-pack abs. I went from 230 to 180 pounds [104 to 82kg], and I was trying to fit the mould of a “perfect” body. But I really focused on working out more when I moved to New York.
Then COVID hit and I thought, The world is ending. I’m going to eat ice cream. It was an interesting shift for me. After the world opened up, I was at the beach and someone said, “I love your belly”. I had to relearn how to be confident in this new body that was getting a positive reaction. It was a surprise, but at the same time, I’m attracted to other bodies that aren’t gym-perfect. For some reason it’s harder to put that mindset on yourself.
The body-hair ambassador thing started as a joke. It wasn’t until my mid-20s that I stopped shaving my back hair. I was sick of the maintenance. I thought if someone liked my chest hair, they wouldn’t care if I had hair on my back. So I decided to promote on social media all forms of body hair –chest, back, shoulder, unibrows, whatever. I’ve received enough validation on it to last a lifetime, but what has helped me most is people messaging me things like “I’ve always been ashamed of my back hair, and following you has made me feel better about it”.
JIM ARRINGTON
90, 170CMWHEN I WAS about 14, I saw this muscle magazine at the drugstore and I couldn’t believe it – even their forearms were big! I mailed away for Molding a Mighty Chest, a 25-cent book by George Jowett, a Canadian strongman. My dad had a couple of steel balls that were about three pounds each, and I started training with them.
My goal was to be Mr. America. But after five years, I saw I didn’t really have the genetics. I learned the secret to bodybuilding back in 1974 from Ken Waller, Mr. Universe in 1975. He told me to do what works for you. I thought, Well, thanks a lot. But that is essentially what you’ve got to do – experiment to see what works for you.
At my age, your body’s more fragile. In the past five years, my left biceps broke loose and I had a tear in my right biceps, too. It’s disheartening, but it’s important to keep soldiering away. I’ve entered the IFBB Pro League Legion Master Reno in October.
AS TOLD TO GREG PRESTO FITNESS
“I hope owning my differences inspires other people to own their differences”
I WAS RIDING a dirt bike when I was 14 near my home in San Juan Capistrano, California, and got T-boned by a car. I had to have my lower right leg amputated. High school was difficult because kids would stare at my prosthetic. I wore long pants every day because I felt insecure about it. Sports was my identity and I started to run track, and in college I really started to accept myself and feel more comfortable in my own skin. I have a bunch of prosthetics, for daily wear, sprinting, jumping, water –I surf – and the biggest challenge is keeping the socket comfortable, because even a slight weight change can cause blisters and pain.
One of my goals is to win gold at the Paris 2024 and LA 2028 Paralympic Games. I’ve learned to focus on the process of training, on the things I can control and can improve, and not judge myself on the results. I journal after every training session and write down what I learned, any tips my coach said, and what I want to improve –basically, I judge my process. Since I’m an amputee, my disability is visual, my struggles are obvious, but everybody has something they’re going through. I hope owning my differences and embracing my uniqueness encourages and inspires other people to own their differences, because we’re all different and all unique.
MY FITNESS JOURNEY was sparked by my need to attain gender-affirming medical care in my late 20s. My gender designation has never aligned with the truth I feel internally. Living in a rural, conservative state resulted in few doctors able to care for transgender patients. My physician told me I had to lose weight, which wasn’t based on any medical diagnosis. The personal trainers I talked to also didn’t support me. They said things like “You’re always going to be a woman; you’re just fat”. With my background in physical therapy, I decided I could do it on my own.
So, in 2014, I started a mobile personal-training service called Forseca Fitness. The goal was to help reshape the world of fitness for transmasculine people –particularly Black folks. That expanded into Decolonizing Fitness, a resource centre for people when they first start training. I try to show people that it’s the world pushing down on you. It’s not necessarily something you’re doing wrong or that your body is wrong. Societal expectations of how a body should look and move are hard, including assumptions based on race, size, height and gender.
I’m more at peace with my body now because of what I know, how I’ve been able to support people. I always enjoy working with my clients, because I witness them develop a more healing connection to movement and their bodies.
“My body is a beautiful, layered, complex reflection of all that humanity can embrace”–JESSAYMARTIN BILL LYONS 78, 178CM
I’ve always been very confident and accepting of my body. But I was also celibate for 10 years. Joining the Old Gays and finding out that people thought I was hot surprised me. It makes you think that all the hard work you did was worth it. And it is hard work! I used to do yoga twice a week religiously, but now all the exercise I do is dancing and learning the steps. I only read the positive feedback. The negatives we get are so tiny compared to the positive things that they don’t bother me at all. There’s a jerk in every crowd.
JESSAY MARTIN 69, 178CMI started cancer treatment a month before COVID, and then I had leg and foot surgery. I gained weight. I used to go to the gym three times a week, but now I’m happy as a cat just walking. Showing my body is difficult. I have cried many times, but I’m learning to just be me. You see people of different body types and you give them a story – but you don’t know what they’re going through. The Old Gays has taught me to love everybody. It’s easier to say than to do, but I don’t give a fuck what people think of me.
ROBERT REEVES 79, 182.5CMIn high school and college, I was not very physical. When I moved to San Francisco in 1980, I became intensely body aware and went to the gym five days a week. There was so much pressure to look the best you could. I moved to Palm Springs and continued to work out, because the inclination in the desert is not to wear clothes most of the time. There are so many sexy daddies around Palm Springs, you have to look your best. That pressure is still there, but how critical physical health is to longevity is becoming more important to me.
I trained with a gay former Olympic weightlifter named Jim Morris at his gym in LA in the ’80s. Then, as now, there was body pressure. After all, this is southern California. It can mess with you, but I used it as motivation to reach the next rung on the ladder to perfection. After turning 60, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. My body is at war with itself. I have painful neuropathy in all four of my limbs. Now I take each day as it unfolds. Some days I rest. On days that feel good, I push it!
“We are not all alike, and that’s good”
MY WHOLE LIFE, I was the smallest one in my class. That was an insecurity that I had. Growing up, I heard the stereotype that Asians are always going to be small and weak. I even heard that from my mum.
Before I left the house, she’d tell me I had to wear a jacket because I could catch a cold. I would tell her, “My friends don’t catch colds”, and she’d tell me, “Oh, trust me, Asians are just weak like that”. It was almost as if my mum told me, “You’re born with a disadvantage, and this is what you have to do to get stronger”. It was almost like empowering shit-talking!
When I was 15, I started lifting with my friends to put on size. I would see these swole-ass Asians who are tatted up and all big, and I would
think, Oh, Asians can get big if they want. By my senior year, I had been training for three years, and I would look at myself in the mirror and think I was starting to have a man shape. Then I joined the Marine Corps.
You’re in a platoon of 80 to 90 different dudes. You’re showering and seeing all sizes and shapes. You see how things that look like a perk could also be a disadvantage.
You see a guy that’s six-foot-three [190cm] trying to climb into a tank and getting stuck. Then the guy that’s five-four [163cm] is perfect for that. The Marines helped me understand how there are pros and cons to all shapes and sizes.
Now I’m a competitive powerlifter and I understand a lot about fitness.
I’ve wanted to squat over 500 pounds
[227kg] for a long time, so I just started really focusing on my squats. How I looked didn’t matter. I ended up squatting 515 [234kg] a few months ago, but as soon as I did that, I was like, “Okay, I don’t look my best. I need to burn this weight off.” I felt stiff and heavy. If my five-yearold wanted to run around, I’d think, I can’t be running. I’m going to blow my knees out. Now I want to be as well-rounded as possible.
My message is that your body is amazing. From someone who has swung back and forth in weight, trust that your body can do amazing things regardless of your weight. The most fun part is the journey, maximising every step and having fun.
“Your body
do amazing things regardless of your weight”
ALL MY LIFE, I had to fight. From when this girl in first grade told me my titties were bigger than hers up until my junior year in high school when I played football, it sucked to be big. But once I started playing football, my body became a commodity for sports. But taking my shirt off still made me self-conscious. Deep down, I believed that being fat meant I was worthless.
In June 2012, when I weighed nearly 400 pounds [181kg], I visited a doctor about a hip injury. The doctor told me I needed to start walking and to lose weight or I’d die. When I told him I was going to run marathons, he laughed. I trained 16 weeks and ran the Detroit Marathon in October 2013. When I crossed the finish line, I was euphoric. I felt unstoppable, finally able to acknowledge my body’s strength.
One day in 2017, I livestreamed a run on the treadmill on Facebook. I was sweaty, so I took off my shirt. People freaked out. Metaphorically, I crossed another finish line and started no longer to see my body as something disgusting but instead as something beautiful.
I started an online running club called Slow AF 2018. We’ve reached close to 9000 people worldwide. To other people, my weight and body are tied to my identity. For me, my identity is more tied to running and providing joy and inspiration to people who’ve been told they can’t do it.
– AS TOLD TO KEITH NELSON JR.“I went from being big fatty to big sexy”
WHEN I WAS 21, I was working with a therapist, and I realised I saw myself as a cisgender man in the wrong body. After beginning my transition, I started to put on more muscle and create a body I felt more comfortable in. While I still have the biological organs of a female, I am a man now. One of the things I was self-conscious about was having breasts. I would go to the gym and wear multiple shirts. I was never big-chested, but trying to do a flat-bench chest press was very uncomfortable. Last year, I was fortunate enough to have top surgery. The scars are big – they give me such an appreciation for what my body has done for me.
With social media and within the wellness industry as a whole, it’s all about comparison. I fall into the comparison trap like everyone else. But as I’ve become familiar with the trans community online, they are not competitive. I truly love working out. The gym is a place I can trust. I love that a 10-pound dumbbell is always going to weigh 10 pounds; it’s never anything else. We should not seek perfection from our bodies. We should instead work to find peace within ourselves. That, to me, is perfection.
“We should not seek perfection from our bodies. We should instead work to find peace within ourselves”BY ANNA KATHERINE CLEMMONS PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW HETHERINGTON
NO PLAYER TOOK more of a pounding last season than 23-year-old Jonathan Taylor. The 178-cm, 103-kilogram Indianapolis Colts running back carried the ball 332 times (the second-highest total in football since 2015) and rushed for 1811 yards (552 more than any other player). And Taylor didn’t miss a game. This season, he’ll be expected to do the same thing.
Taylor knows this won’t be easy. He – and the rest of the NFL – is well aware of the workhorse-running-back abyss, the way players like him inevitably break down after just a few seasons of big hit after big hit. From Giants star Saquon Barkley, who started his career with back-to-back 1000-yard seasons but hasn’t played a full season since, to Carolina’s Christian McCaffrey (remember him?), big-time running backs in today’s NFL don’t last long. Then again, Taylor’s never been broken, not in three years at the University of Wisconsin (where he twice ran for 2000-plus yards) and not in two seasons with Indy. And he doesn’t plan to let that change, which is why he’s borrowing from the NFL’s original innovator of wellness, Tom Brady, and rethinking his training plan. Bigger, stronger and faster have long been the goals most players have had in the off-season – and they’re the traits that draw the most attention at every training camp. But five years ago, when Brady released his best-selling TB12 Method book, the league began to change. Instead of just training till exhaustion to make quick fitness gains, Brady chased
longevity, focusing on band and core work to stabilise and strengthen injury-prone joints and emphasising recovery. This shift in training has been duplicated across the league (and in all of sports, really), with more players prepping with long-term goals in mind.
Taylor was paying attention, and his take on longevity has him chasing a quality that increasingly eludes those who play his position: long-term durability. “We all know the sport we play – injury rate is 100 per cent,” he says. “So being able to be flexible, be mobile, you hope everything you’re doing in the off-season, all the work you do, mitigates your chance of injury as much as possible.”
On this warm morning, Taylor is seated on a massage table at a gym in Weston, Florida. He takes a deep breath, then twists his torso, rotating his chest to the left. He holds for five seconds, then returns to the centre and repeats the motion on the other side. Taylor barely blinks during the entire process. “He doesn’t have an emotional response,” says Jermaine Gordon, Taylor’s massage therapist. “JT knows what we’re doing.” It was Taylor who prompted Gordon to work this movement into his training. Early in the off-season, Taylor had approached the therapist to discuss his core muscles. Gordon discovered that there was room for improvement in the superstar running back’s ability to rotate his torso. And Taylor was excited to address this. So trunk-rotation training became a summer point of emphasis. Says Gordon: “JT knew exactly what he needed”.
Don’t worry: this story isn’t all about trunk rotations. Because Taylor’s bulletproofing summer involves more. It’s 7am, three hours before trunkrotation time, and Taylor is on a turf field on an extra-humid 28° day that’s only going to get hotter.
Part of his pursuit of longevity involves maintaining the unique breakaway speed and strength he already has. So for about three hours a day, six days a week, he trains. There are classic weight-room sessions that have him benching as much as 170 kg and plenty of sprint drills to help him preserve
(and maybe even improve) his electric 4.39-second 40-yard-dash speed.
The length of Taylor’s sessions seems to run counter to his objective of durability, especially in this fitness era. More and more, trainers encourage clients to work through shorter sessions and focus on recovery to make their greatest gains. But Taylor’s trainer, Adam Boily, sees training duration differently. On Sundays, Taylor will take to the field for three to four hours. His body needs to understand those rigours.
Taylor and Boily have revamped his three-hour sessions, though. Increasingly, they spend time helping the running
back’s body recover. “Back in the day, we trained hard, we were out in the sun, we were doing three hours a day, then recovery, then medical, then nutrition,” Boily says. “Now the workouts are getting more efficient. But that should only mean you have more time to do more work.”
Taylor doesn’t mind. Clad in a longsleeved windbreaker, he starts with a 25-minute (yes, that long) warm-up that includes barefoot footwork drills and sled drags to hone his running technique. He finishes with movement prep: six small yellow squares are lined up, with the corners touching to form a circle. Every few seconds, Boily points to a square.
Taylor must quickly step one foot into the square, then back to the centre, all while continuing to shu e his feet.
The drill, which Boily calls the “in-place, multidirectional edge work” exercise, represents another innovative shift in Taylor’s training. Yes, plenty of players do footwork drills, but few do them as frequently as Taylor does. Boily’s program has him taking them on several times weekly – and with them, he’s accomplishing more than honing his agility. Whenever he pushes off his foot, he’s teaching his ankle muscles and tendons to absorb the force of his body at a different angle, insulating a key joint against injury.
Taylor does this near flawlessly for three 30-second rounds. In between, Boily watches Taylor’s three training partners slip during the demanding sequence, which serves as a reminder that the Colt is a special athlete. “His body is biomechanically set up for athleticism,” says Boily. “The way his
feet and ankles are, the way his hips and bone structure are . . . the structure of the way he’s set up is built for power and speed.”
Taylor knows he needs more – and he has known that since he started working with Boily three years ago. Boily prides himself not merely on working out players but also on educating them. That jibed with the curious Taylor, who wants to understand every adjustment his trainers make. Boily enjoys focusing on the little things, too, so he has happily worked with Taylor to correct his oblique imbalance. He has also worked to improve Taylor’s ankle mobility, teaching him to dorsiflex, or upwardly flex his feet, more effectively. This just might make Taylor harder to tackle this NFL season – and it’ll help safeguard his ankles against injury, too. “Ankles,” Boily says, “are of the utmost importance to athletes.”
These are the tips that Taylor appreciates, the adjustments that can
Hamstring pulls are common in the NFL, which is why Taylor spends extra time working his hammies, relying heavily on this 2-move superset. Do 3 sets once or twice a week
Lie with your torso on a stable bench, legs hanging off the bench, arms tightly holding it, a light dumbbell held between your ankles. Keeping your legs straight, squeeze your glutes and lift your legs so they’re in line with your torso. Lower slowly. That’s 1 rep; do 10.
simultaneously keep him healthy and help him squeeze a little more athleticism out of his already optimised body. And after three years with Boily, he’s learned plenty of others. When there’s a lull in the session, Taylor talks about his love of bodyweight isometrics, like push-up holds and squat holds. They’ve helped him strengthen his “end range of motion”, he says, essentially ensuring that his muscles and joints can maintain stability when, say, his knee is bent to its max or his shoulder is stretched overhead at an awkward angle.
Taylor slips into full-on trainer-speak when explaining his final speed drill, the overspeed sprint. He straps a band to his waist and hands one end to Boily, who lines up ten yards away. Boily starts running away from Taylor, as fast as he can, practically dragging the player behind him. Taylor starts sprinting all out, faster than ever thanks to the momentum Boily’s created. “It allows you to run faster than you necessarily can on your own,” Taylor says, “but it trains or programs the body to get used to that speed. So now, you do it with enough repetitions, your body is like, ‘Oh, I can move that fast’. ”
Three sprints later (with plenty of rest in between), Taylor changes shirts, then hits the weight room, working through heavy bench-press reps. Once he’s done with that, he saunters over to the training table so Gordon can put him through those trunk rotations and several other stretches. And, as always, Taylor asks Gordon questions the entire time. “He’s a student of his body and willing to try new things,” Gordon says. “Yes, there are players like that, but I’d say usually later in their career.”
Kneel on your shins and have a friend tightly hold them in place. Squeeze your glutes. Keeping your torso in line with your thighs, slowly lower yourself towards the ground. When you can no longer lower yourself with control, place your hands in front of you and “catch” yourself. Press up from the ground to return to the start. That’s 1 rep; do 4-6.
But for Taylor, the chase for longevity means asking those questions now. Because trunk rotations and ankle dorsiflexion are just as important as speed and strength work. “Some guys are crazy good and talented, even without all those things that can benefit them,” he says. “Then imagine them doing all these things. It’s insane to think about.”
Or it’s Jonathan Taylor, circa 2027 – and still the best running back in the league.
ANNA KATHERINE CLEMMONS isanassistant professor of media at the University of Virginia. She writes about sports for ESPN, Fox Sports and The New York Times.Brady now prefers using heavy resistance bands over weights, a jointfriendly approach that lets him push to fatigue. Brady does a single set of a critical exercise, as many reps as he can, then squeezes out a few more by reducing the range of motion as he tires. Try it with the deadlift: start standing with your feet on a band, hands grasping its ends. Do as many good-form reps as you can. Next set, lower your torso only halfway; repeat until you can do no more reps. Finish by doing 3 reps, lowering your torso just 6-10cm. Do this once a week
HE’S 38 YEARS OLD and has survived 16 years in the trenches where linebackers roam. Despite that, Packers tight end MARCEDES LEWIS has missed just one game over the past five seasons. His secret: ditching heavy and hard lifts for these three rules
▶
Lewis typically hits the weight room in the morning, but he is never focused on PBs. He concentrates on single-leg exercises that challenge his balance under duress. His favourite is the med-ball skater lunge. Stand on your left foot, holding a medicine ball at your chest, then leap to the right, landing on your right foot, knee bent. Leap back to the left. That’s 1 rep; do 3 sets of 8-10 twice a week.
LONG BEFORE all players obsessed over cutting-edge fitness and nutrition techniques, TOM BRADY was writing the book on them. Literally. And sure, his advice was wild (avocado everything, right?), but it worked: he will play the entire season at age 45. To prepare, he recently made a few changes to his routine. His longtime body coach (and TB12 cofounder) Alex Guerrero walked us through the key innovations
“You can’t make aging athletes faster,” says Guerrero, “but you can make them quicker.” That means teaching Brady to react and change direction quickly. The key to that is cone drills: set up 3 cones (or any 3 objects) 1.5 metres apart. Start at the middle cone, dash to the left cone, then immediately dash to the right cone. That’s 1 rep; do 3 per side once a week.
During the off-season, Lewis also adds an MMA workout nearly every afternoon, working through drills, hitting the bag and sparring for about an hour. The practice challenges his breathing and footwork and refines his cardiovascular system – and it reminds him to stay athletic, too. “It’s held me accountable to take care of my body,” he says. Don’t want to do MMA? No problem: play a different recreational sport at least once a week.
▶
Yes, Lewis has the latest Normatec air-compression boots, but he doesn’t pointlessly chase recovery tech. “It’s more about the routine of doing things like that,” he says. He works to integrate some form of recovery nearly every day, often keeping it simple. He loves contrast therapy, alternating between 1½ minutes in the cold tub and 3 minutes in the hot tub for 4-5 rounds before a practice session.
THE
ARE
supposed to be 140 kg. They don’t typically have 13 per cent body fat. How does the 147kg Eagles offensive tackle LANE JOHNSON pull off the combo?
By sticking to the Vertical Diet. The meat-heavy protocol helped Johnson earn second-team AllPro honors last year. And it includes two servings of this shake every day
IN 2020, Tampa Bay Buccaneers assistant defensive-line coach LORI LOCUST became the first female position coach to win a Super Bowl, the crowning achievement in an unconventional career. As one of a handful of women in the NFL coaching ranks, she knows she must gain the trust of players and colleagues. She discovered four tactics at key moments in her career to aid in that process
Nutrition:40gprotein,111gcarbs, 38gfat,3870kilojoules
As a high school assistant coach in Pennsylvania, Locust heard Meek Mill, an artist she loved, in the locker room. She used that as a conversation starter with players. “They’re like, ‘You’re open to where I’m at’,” she says. “That builds trust.”
Locust’s first NFL gig was a defensive-line internship with the Baltimore Ravens, and her workdays were packed. There are no five-minute breathers in the NFL. Locust’s fix is a before-work routine: she walks her dog and uses that time to mentally prep for the day ahead.
When Locust landed with the Bucs as assistant defensiveline coach, she needed to learn a new playbook. Her plan: study exactly what she needed for the next week instead of mastering the whole book. “I’m thinking, Next opponent, next week, next season.”
THE NEW COVID and the arrival of a superstar QB led the Bucs to revamp, well, everything. Meetings were held on Zoom, and scheme terminology changed. Locust didn’t just learn the new stuff: she forced herself to love it. The result: a Super Bowl ring. – Amanda Lucci, NASM-C.P.T.
▶ STEP 1: PROCESS,
IT’S EASY TO overthink big losses and overglorify big wins. But SHAUN TYRANCE, the Kansas City Chiefs’ team clinician, specialises in helping you find something else: equilibrium. Adopt his method to bounce back from your worst losses
“Our goal is: we have the game, win or lose . . . we come in after the game, we hug or we cry, and then we flush it out of our systems between the end of the game and Tuesday,” Tyrance says. Practising this readies you for the next challenge.
VIKINGS RECEIVER JUSTIN JEFFERSON is one of the league’s best deep-ball receivers. But his gym focus isn’t about pure speed; instead, he zeroes in on balance. “Trying to take those little hits, when I can still be running and getting those extra yards, that’s just doing different balance exercises,” he says.
Jefferson’s Go-To Move: the Single-Leg Hold Grab a weight and hold it at your hip in your right hand. Lift your right leg off the ground. Hold for 30 seconds. Do 2-3 reps per leg. “That’s a huge part of your balance,” he says. “I like to do the balance work holding weight, mostly. I feel like that’s harder on the body and gives the body more strength.”
▶
“Regardless of whether you’ve won four in a row or lost four in a row,” says Tyrance, “we try to keep everyone committed to the ultimate goal, which is winning.” That means jumping right back into hardcore practice and preparation.
▶ STEP 3: REDISCOVER ROUTINE
And stick to that routine, despite any new pressure. This keeps you ready for what’s to come. “One thing we do is we treat every game and week exactly the same,” says Tyrance. “Our Super Bowl week looks exactly like week 1, week 5.”
SQUATS ARE STAPLE moves on any leg day. But Titans running back DERRICK HENRY also needs agility and quickness, which is why he and trainer Melvin Sanders rethought his leg day. Try their workout for strength and athleticism
Stand in a loaded trap bar, feet on a resistance band that has its ends looped around the bar. Push your butt back and lower your torso to grasp the trap bar. Stand. Do 4 reps, then do 4 box jumps. Do 4 sets, building explosiveness.
Hold a weight at your chest. Keeping your left leg straight, shift your weight to your right leg. Push your butt back and bend your right knee. Lower until your right thigh is parallel to the ground. Return to the start. Do 4 sets of 8 per side.
Henry can’t go heavy all the time, so he mixes in iso holds. Stand in a split stance, right leg in front. Bend at both knees and lower your torso until your right thigh is parallel to the ground. Hold for 60 seconds. Do 4-5 reps per side.
It’s time to take your cooking out of the frying pan and into the fire pit.
There’s a lot more to flame-grilling than charred snags and burgers. Learn how to make fire an ingredient in its own right and revitalise your barbecue game with these innovative, nutritious dishes from three masters of the blaze
PEOPLE HAVE BEEN cooking with flames for around two million years. Aussie blokes in suburban backyards have been wielding the tongs with relish for generations. And yet it’s taken a while for the international food scene to catch on. Many of the 20th century’s finest culinary artists would toil with convection ovens, gas stoves and bratt pans, or later microwaves and even water baths. But it wasn’t until fairly recently that commercial kitchens began utilising the most versatile and sophisticated cooking source of all: fire, and by extension, smoke.
It was Andre Blais’s Bodean’s, the first branch of which opened in London’s Soho in 2002, that brought the wonders of gnarly cuts of meat, smoked low and slow, to a modern palate that associated barbecue with the taste of lighter fluid and the texture of leather. But it took a young Welshman by the name of Tomos Parry, first as head chef at Kitty Fisher’s and then with his own restaurant Brat, to show the breadth of cooking with fire. Inspired by the food of the Basque Country, cooked over flame or in the asador, Parry proved with signature dishes such as whole grilled turbot that fire and refinement need not be mutually exclusive.
Now some of the most exciting food in the world is being scorched over charcoal or flavoured with wood smoke – and it’s not just hunks of meat, either. From the Berber-influenced fare at The Barbary (salmon blackened over embers and burned eggplant syrup) to the innovative use of the flame at Manteca (smoked shiitakes, charred hispi cabbage, grilled onions), this is cooking that brings a new dimension to foods we thought we knew well.
“Cooking with fire is primal,” says David Carter, co-owner of Manteca. “Whether using smoke and indirect heat to cook, grilling directly over fire or even on top of smouldering embers, the options are endlessly exciting. It’s Stone Age stuff and no induction hob will ever be as fun. Plus, the flavour is unrivalled. It’s not clean and it’s not supposed to be. But a lick of flame on the right ingredient can be game-changing. You won’t even need tomato sauce.
1 In a bowl, mix all the marinade ingredients (which are loaded with antioxidants, incidentally) and set them to one side.
2 Barbecue the eggplant directly over burning coals for 5 mins, then rotate it 180° and cook for 5 mins more. Once the eggplant is soft to the touch all over, transfer to a board and leave to cool.
3 Peel off the skin then put the whole peeled eggplant into the marinade and leave it to soak for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.
4 In a bowl, combine the softened butter with the miso, mirin, gochujang and rice vinegar. Meanwhile, on a low heat, toast the cashews in a pan with a tablespoon of butter until golden brown, then tip them out on to a plate lined with kitchen paper to drain.
5 To finish off, lift the eggplant from its marinade and place in a roasting tin, then spread liberally with the miso butter. Barbecue with the lid down for 10 mins, until hot all the way through, then transfer to a plate. Crumble over the feta for a modest punch of protein, top with the toasted cashews, balsamic reduction and spring onion, then serve.
By Daniel Alt, Head Chef at The Barbary (thebarbary.co.uk)
INGREDIENTS
(Serves 4)
For the lamb:
• 8 Lamb chops, Trimmed
• Lemon and salt to taste
For the marinade:
• 40g Harissa paste
• 1 tbsp Lemon juice
• 30g Runny honey
• 5g black lime powder
For the yoghurt dressing:
• 200g Greek yoghurt
• 1 Lime, zest and juice
• 3g Ground cardamom
• Seasoning to taste
1 Blitz all of the marinade ingredients with 20ml of water in a food processor until smooth, then drench the lamb chops, cover and refrigerate for 24 hrs. The marinade can be kept in the freezer for up to a month. Mix together the ingredients for the dressing at the same time to allow the flavours to infuse.
2 Cover the exposed bones with tin foil to keep them from burning. (Remove the foil before serving.) Sear on a grill over a high heat from all sides, then continue to cook over indirect heat – that is, away from the fire. Grill a total of 4 mins for rare, 5 mins for medium rare and 7.5 mins for medium.
3 Let the chop rest for at least 5 mins, then season with sea salt and lemon juice. Place the chop on top of the lime yoghurt and finish with a drizzle of olive oil, for a dish that serves up roughly 40g of protein per plate
2:3 ratioTheaverageofsaturated tohealthierunsaturated betfatinporkbelly– far terthanmostpeople think.It’salsorichinB vitamins,forenergy metabolism.
(Serves 4)
• 1 Pork belly
For the barbecue sauce
• 1 Onion, sliced
• 2 Garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 tsp Red chilli flakes
• 1 tsp Cumin
• 120ml Cider vinegar
• 120ml Apple juice
• 20g Dark brown sugar
• 3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 250ml Tomato sauce
• Seasoning to taste
For the pickled cucumber
• 100ml White wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp White sugar
• 1 Cucumber, thinly sliced
• 1 pinch Coriander seeds
• 1 pinch Mustard seeds
• 1 pinch Pink peppercorns
1 Season the pork belly with salt and pepper and cook in the oven at 130°C for 3-4 hrs until the meat reaches 85°C and it’s soft to the touch. Chill the pork belly overnight.
2 Now make your sauce. Sweat the onions and garlic; toast the spices for 2 mins. Add the vinegar and reduce to a syrup; add the apple juice and reduce again. Add the sugar and Worcestershire and let it cook for 2 mins before adding the tomato sauce. Warm through on a low heat for 20 mins to allow the sauce to come together nicely.
3 For the pickled cucumber – a good way to add low-kilojoule flavour to meaty dishes – place the white wine vinegar, 200ml water, sugar and spices into a small pan and bring to the boil. Once the sugar dissolves, take the pan off the heat and allow it to cool. Chill the mix, then add the cucumber and allow it to sit for 1 hr.
By David Carter4 Cut the pork belly into individual ribs and grill on each side for 2 mins. When browned, glaze with your barbecue sauce and grill on each side for a further 6 mins, rotating and glazing every 60 secs. It should have a mahoganybrown char on the outside. Serve with the pickled cucumber on the side.
1 In a bowl, season the mushrooms with salt and a very small amount of oil to gently coat. In a metal sieve, toss the mushrooms over hot coals until they begin to soften and smoke. Once they’re cooked, add them to a bowl and marinate in more olive oil with thyme, chopped garlic and balsamic vinegar.
2 Slice the onions – full of healthy plant flavonoids, so don’t just view them as a garnish – and cook over the hottest part of your barbecue. When they’re caramelised and slightly blackened, take them off the grill and toss them through the marinated shiitakes. Season everything to your liking. Serve with torn mint and basil, and finish the dish with some black pepper.
1 For the syrup, burn your eggplants over a naked flame, then put in a pan and cover with 2L of water. Boil for 10 mins and then pass through a fine sieve into another pan. Discard the solids. Add the caster sugar and chilli flakes to the eggplant liquid, then reduce on a high heat until the mixture is syrupy. Season with lemon juice and salt and leave it to cool.
2 Cover your salmon steaks with most of the syrup and marinate in the fridge for anything between 1-2 days. Meanwhile, make the ultra-nutritious dukkah by adding all the spices to a baking tray, spreading evenly and roasting in the oven for 10-15 mins at 150°C. Once toasted, allow the spices to chill and then blitz them using a food processor. Chop the nuts, add them to the spices and mix well by hand.
3 Set up your barbecue for indirect grilling and wait until your coals are glowing nicely. Place the salmon on the grill, skin side facing up, 15-20cm above the embers. Cook for about 20 mins until nicely caramelised on the outside.
4 Scatter some of the dukkah on to your serving plates, then the remaining eggplant syrup, and place the fish on top. Season to taste, add some thinly sliced spring onion and finish the dish with lemon juice and a good olive oil.
•
•
•
•
1 Peel away the firmer, darker leaves from the hispi cabbage, then quarter. Blanch the cabbage in salted boiling water, then when the water comes back to the boil, cook for 1 min. Drain and press the cabbage quarters under a tray in the fridge to help get a good char colour when it’s on the grill.
2 Soften the butter to room temperature and mix through with the miso paste for gut-benefiting probiotics.
3 Light your barbecue and wait until your coals are glowing. Season the chops with fine salt and, at a cooler part of your grill, place them fat-side down over a gentle heat to let it render. Then cook the chops at a higher heat so that they get a good colour all over. Remove them when the internal temperature reaches 48°C.
4 Brush the hispi cabbage with oil and fine salt. Place it cut-side down on the grill until you have a good colour all over. When the hispi comes off the heat, brush it with the miso butter, ensuring it gets between the leaves, then serve with the rested chops.
Transform your greens into a show-stopper.
The modern fitness influencer is a conundrum: spreader or debunker of misinformation? Unscrupulous product-pusher or credible contentcreator? Relatable or unattainable? Whether or not you ‘like’ the idea, influencers are now our main source of health and fitness info. But how did we get here? And does everyone deserve a platform?
BY JAMIE MILLAR
If you do the perfect lunge and nobody views it, did it really happen?
Chang’s fitness influences when growing up were Arnie and Sly, Bruce Lee and Jet Li. Chang admired their confidence; meanwhile, working out helped him build some of his own and – in a rough suburb of Houston, Texas – feel safer. He started lifting weights at 11. By 18, he was working in a gym doing bits of unofficial training, but mainly selling memberships. He also sold newspaper subscriptions door-to-door for years, learning to hide his self-doubt when talking to people, but also to ask himself, What are they looking for?
Working in real estate, Chang met a guy who understood internet marketing, which was a novel concept a decade ago – as was selling digital products, such as workouts or diet programs, with no manufacturing or shipping costs. And where an offline trainer can coach only so many people, Six Pack Shortcuts was easier to scale. From the co-founders’ bedrooms, the company grew to an office of 60 employees, including copywriters crafting iconic clickbait – such as the “revolutionary new” fast track to abs discovered by “scientists in China” that enticed over four million YouTube subscribers.
Chang doesn’t blame those who have accused Six Pack Shortcuts of scamming because, at times, he concedes, the aggressive marketing “pushed across the line”.
Looking back, he says, there were things he and his colleagues could have done differently. “But, equally, I think we created a massive amount of impact.” They also created a massive amount of money – $13m a year, with plans to scale to $500m. But after a spiritual awakening involving psychedelics nearly eight years ago, Chang exited Six Pack Shortcuts and embarked on a journey into his consciousness that took him, eventually, to Bali. There, now pushing 40, muscles less jacked but abs still crazy, he runs a community called Flow Tribe
combines strength training, stretching, breathing, meditation and tap massage.
Years after leaving Six Pack Shortcuts – now SixPackAbs.com, still with over 4m subscribers –Chang receives messages from people who clicked the ads, watched the free workouts and ‘changed their lives’. On one YouTube video by another fitness influencer, who Chang says is “absolutely
full of shit’ and “should be in jail”, commenters almost uniformly praise Chang as the person who got them into exercise, the “true OG of YT fitness”.
Social media has democratised content creation and platformed previously unheard voices. Where before you had to buy a book, magazine or DVD, a Zuckerbergian wealth of knowledge on health and fitness is now available at no cost – other than your personal data to target the accompanying ads. According to market research firm Mintel, fitness influencers have become UK consumers’ main source of healthy-living information; studies repeatedly show that, compared with other types of advertising and traditional celebrities, influencers are perceived as more informed, credible and trustworthy – the more followers, the more reliable. But for every influencer creating relatable, nuanced content, there’s a Liver King – real name Brian Johnson – who preaches the benefits of raw offal and bull testicles alongside a dose of his “ancestral supplements (link in bio)”. In this wild west, it can be hard to discern the cowboys and native ads.
Indeed, social media has emerged as “the most exploitative frontier of late-stage capitalism”, according to journalist Symeon Brown’s recent book, Get Rich Or Lie Trying: Ambition And Deceit In The New Influencer Economy. An influencer, in Brown’s definition, is someone who converts “the new type of currency”, influence – in the form of social-media following – into the old type of currency, money. (The UK Advertising Standards Authority, for example, defines anyone with over 30,000 followers as a “celebrity”.) The ensuing “dogfight for followers, fame and, ultimately, fortune” is, writes Brown, “warping human behaviour both on- and offline’; deception is “lucrative and becoming increasingly extreme”.
In the sphere of fitness, Brown’s book calls out Shredz, a supplement
Top: Mike Chang now offers more holistic health and fitness tips.
Right: Thomas Powell flexes for his followers
Far Right: Arnie’s body influenced men long before instagram.
that
rainers hated Mike Chang. At least, according to the online ads for Six Pack Shortcuts, the company Chang co-founded and fronted, they hated him. And his “crazy” abs. In the early 2010s, both ads and abs were inescapable. “Try this one weird trick and get ripped!”
brand that grew rapidly through influencer marketing – or, in the words of a former employee who recruited them, “people who were just fit on Instagram”. But some Shredz athletes were later accused of tweaking their physiques via photo manipulation. One, Devin Physique (né Zimmerman), apologised in a video he later deleted for touching up his images. Even though, he claimed by way of mitigation, everyone in the industry did it.
Photoshop isn’t the only means by which some fitness influencers surreptitiously enhance their physiques. Already in cover-model shape, Tom Powell says he didn’t take steroids until after his 2016 appearance on reality TV show Love Island. His profile duly raised, Powell found himself rubbing deltoids with the influencers he idolised growing up as a fitness-mad lad in South Wales. According to Powell, conversations confirmed his suspicions that “everyone in the industry” was on gear. “I was like, ‘Shit!’” says Powell. ‘“If I want to compete in this industry . . . if I really want to be a fitness influencer, I’ve got to take it, too.’”
Now an online coach, Powell underwent an operation in April for gynaecomastia – enlarged male breast tissue, one of the side effects of his steroid use – at Signature Clinic, a cosmetic surgery group that has also treated fellow online coaches Jay Gardner (of Geordie Shore fame) and Jake Lawson – although their own reasons for undergoing the procedure are unclear. All three procedures were videoed for YouTube by Signature. Photo manipulation and steroid use are, of course, old fitness industry and media tricks: Arnie has admitted using steroids during his bodybuilding career; Sly was busted by Australian customs in 2007 with human growth hormone –not a steroid, but not exactly whey protein either. Of course, not every fitness influencer is on steroids. But some are. Others profit from transparency, openly advising on steroids and SARMs (selective androgen receptor modulators). Some influencers claim to reveal the old type of media’s trade secrets, touting Hollywood stars’ supposed steroid cycles for certain roles – which, even if true, probably wouldn’t be known to a random guy on TikTok.
%
of adults in a YouGov poll say they compare their bodies to those of fitness influencers
of those who engage with fitfluencers say they try to hit the gym “as often as possible”
Influencers get a bad rap, but the fitness industry has long been economical with the truth – for economic gain – and under the sway of magnetic personalities with attractive physiques. Bodybuilder Charles Atlas (real name Angelo Siciliano) didn’t get his body via the ‘dynamic tension” system he developed in the 1920s –dubbed “dynamic hooey” by one rival – and the US Federal Trade Commission ruled that it wouldn’t work for others, either. Yet Atlas – and his ad exec business partner – built a mail-order empire around the workouts that transformed the former weakling into “a complete specimen of manhood”. Plus, Atlas received letters, even after his death, from satisfied customers of dynamic tension. So was he a legend or a scammer?
Eugen Sandow, the father of modern bodybuilding, made his name (or stage name – he was born Friedrich Müller) by exposing Victorian strongmen who’d break trick chains or invite audience members to try to lift sand-filled barbells that would then be secretly drained. While genuinely strong, Sandow demonstrated that looking strong was more marketable, parlaying his six-pack abs into a chain of upmarket gyms, a magazine and home-workout equipment.
Formulated in the 1950s, social comparison theory holds that we seek to evaluate ourselves based on how we stack up against others. Upward comparisons to those we view as above us can serve as motivation for self-improvement, but can also lead to body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. Both social and traditional media – including magazines – have been associated with such negative effects. But beyond its sheer volume of content and round-the-clock accessibility, social media is “particularly insidious”, explains Marika Tiggemann, a Matthew Flinders distinguished emeritus professor in psychology at Flinders University, and a leading expert on media effects. This is because social media is “the domain of peers”, says Tiggemann. “Influencers still present as your friends.” Social comparison occurs primarily with those we see as being similar to us; Hollywood actors can be dismissed as unrealistic ideals. Because of its relatability, researchers suggest, social media can slip past our defences – especially fitness content, Tiggemann warns, because we think it’s “good and healthy”.
Scott Fatt is an academic at Western Sydney University and co-author of the first study to focus on men and fitspo. In his research, looking at fitspo itself wasn’t significantly correlated with poor self-image. But men who viewed fitspo were more likely to compare themselves with others, and Fatt and his co-authors cited “a growing body of research . . . that fitspo is more tightly linked with the appearance of health, rather than health itself”. Similarly, a 2019 study, published in The Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research, found that
muscular PTs were perceived to be smarter and more competent than their less-muscled peers.
A recent study by the Paris School of Business found that watching fitness influencers on YouTube did increase motivation to exercise – but only for those who already exercised, making cause and effect harder to pick apart. Influencers’ habits and bodies might be seen as more attainable – and therefore more motivating – than those of, say, elite athletes. Even so, the researchers noted that many fitness followers did not exercise and viewed content primarily as a form of entertainment.
A former carpenter and roofer respectively, John Chapman and Leon Bustin christened themselves the Lean Machines when they started what was perhaps the first UK fitness channel 11 years ago, because the prominent, predominantly American, influencers the pair looked to, including Chang, were “probably double the size of us”. At that time, “everything was about six-packs, everything was topless”, says Bustin. “Still is, to be honest.”
Then PTs at a gym in their native Norwich, Chapman and Bustin filmed content from 10pm,
after it closed. They didn’t, says Chapman, view YouTube as an earner, much less a career – just a way to give people advice and maybe win some extra clients. The pair felt that going topless would devalue their knowledge, so they wore branded vests for about six months before they caved to the imperative for growth. Tops off, the love picked up, but so did the hate, which affected Chapman more when he was younger. The savagery, he’s learned, often reflects where people are in their lives; he’s DM’d harsh commenters who’ve turned out to be suicidal. Since then, Chapman has had a shift in priorities, away from bodybuilding to CrossFit and calisthenics, while Bustin has got into ultras.
Harder for Chapman than going topless was selling himself, which didn’t come as naturally to the Brit as it did to the Americans. In the early days, low viewing numbers would detrimentally affect his mood. While social media has, for him, been hugely positive overall, it’s “extremely hard”, he says, to make a career of it without being affected negatively. (Chapman’s brother, Jim, and sisters, Sam and Nicola, are all successful non-fitness influencers, while Bustin’s wife, Carly Rowena, is a fitness influencer.) In creating content to cater for
Left: YouTube fitness duo the Lean Machines.
Bottom Left: Tyler Saunders inspires his followers.
Below: British CrossFit athlete Zack George.
an audience, not yourself, you can, says Bustin, become “a character”.
When the Lean Machines started getting bigger and landed a book deal, they stepped away from coaching for a few years to focus on social media. With 430,000 YouTube subscribers and 104k Instagram followers, they’ve now decided to spend more time doing IRL coaching at their home gyms. Their online coaching is, says Chapman, “close to PT”, and gives clients more support than they’d get in an hour at a gym. Appointed last year to the MH Elite coaching team, the Lean Machines also sell non-personalised programs. Sponsored by Nike, equipment manufacturer Wolverson Fitness and sports drink Nocco, they host retreats with CrossFitter (and fellow MH Elite member) Zack George.
Over the years, the Lean Machines, now in their mid-30s and balancing fitness with fatherhood, have dialled down the toplessness and upped the debunking of misinformation. Their delivery style is comedic, says Chapman, and so exposes more people to good information that alone is “not sexy” (a fair description of most research papers). But the pair say they’re careful not to put others on blast, as some myth-busting fitness influencers do, sometimes viciously. Such self-styled saviours are, says Chapman, really boosting their own credibility by standing on others, which can be “a little bit close to bullying”. “There are people I really like as people,” says Bustin. “But I don’t like their method on social media.”
These days, more fitness influencers are posting about important topics, such as mental health, body image and self-acceptance. They’re honest about the fact that results like theirs take time and consistency. But some, says Bustin, are really just putting up topless shots under a cloak of wokeness in order to chase engagement – and, in at least one instance he knows about, having “an internal meltdown about how they live”.
The Lean Machines also post less topless stuff now because they’re conscious that, while not as lean – or jacked – as some, they’re still “far above” a normal body, says Chapman. And a normal body is, says Bustin, “so unique and individual”: a balance of physical, mental, nutritional, social and environmental health that looks different for everyone. Body pressure arises, says Chapman, when one (exceptional) type of physique is made to appear the norm.
A child of the 1980s who was born with one leg, Tyler Saunders didn’t see anyone like him in his (offline) social networks, the media, anywhere: “I [was] the only disabled kid in the village”. Growing up in Hounslow, west London, he threw himself as far as possible into sports at school but had no disabled role models challenging themselves physically; he wasn’t aware of the Paralympics.
“Because it’s so relatable, fitspo can slip past our defences”
The absolute game changer for Saunders was a BBC TV ident featuring three wheelchair basketball players.
After being drafted into Team GB’s wheelchair basketball development squad, then playing in Germany for three years, Saunders returned to the UK and qualified as a PT. Working at a gym, he met a guy who owned a video production company. “He was like, ‘Mate, the things you do, there are people with all their limbs, full health, and they’re making excuses. What’s my excuse?’” To garner online attention, the pair changed Saunders’ Instagram handle to @oneleggedninja and filmed him performing first-rate human flags off statues in Trafalgar Square.
Now @iamtylersaunders, Saunders tries to put out content that uplifts his near-27,000 followers, to show every bit of his life (including being a dad), to educate via evidence and to inform while remaining impartial, because what’s worked for him won’t necessarily work for everyone. There’s so much information on social media, he says, that people don’t know who to listen to.
Social media didn’t invent bro science, defined by actual scientist Alan Aragon on Urban Dictionary as “the anecdotal reports of jacked dudes . . . considered more credible than scientific research”. But image-driven social media has made bro science more scalable, crowding out more authoritative, less jacked voices.
Saunders admits developing an impressive physique was one of his reasons for getting into the gym. Having grown up wanting to fit in, fitness has helped him feel better about himself. He doesn’t mind going topless now, but doesn’t a lot so as not to fall into that image-driven bracket or trigger people. A couple of years ago, he culled a tonne of bodybuilder accounts that weren’t making him feel empowered. “If there’s a negative shift in your state after looking at that content, unfollow them,” says Saunders. If someone’s in great shape, cool: maybe they’re training hard and eating well, or maybe they’ve got a stash of photos taken when they were in peak condition that they’re drip-feeding.
Because of his disability, Saunders has spent most of his life “thinking I didn’t really have much impact or influence”. He still battles with the term fitness influencer and the responsibility of being a role model. But he wants to be the person he didn’t see when he was younger – “as cheesy as that might sound” – and inspire people not to let their self-imposed limitations stop them leading a more active life.
The messages Saunders receives hit home because they show his content is reaching people – maybe even another kid with one leg, battling low self-esteem and lack of confidence, wondering what they can do.
If Saunders can motivate just one, he says, he’s “done a good job”.
A fitness and disability advocate who can do whatever you’re idly thinking about – climb a mountain, skydive, get through a Hyrox – on one leg. And he doesn’t preach ‘no excuses’ either.
The Sydney-based (Acero) trainer has transformed the bodies of umpteen A-listers and become a magnet for commerical partners without ever losing his everyman persona.
@theandrew.tracey
We’re not biased, just happy to have him. Wherever you are, whatever you’ve got, UK MH fitness editor and podcast host has a workout for you. You’re in a DIY shop car park? Result.
Her physique screams power; but her POD in fitness is vulnerability: to get where she is she’s fought o doubt and other demons that would’ve floored a less resilient influencer.
The US MH nutrition adviser’s Research Review has long been required reading for anyone who wants to understand actual – not bro – science (although he is pretty jacked).
Group fitness coach at London class-based studio Sweat by BXR (and an MH Elite member), Mr Positive Mental Attitude is also representing for Muslims in the fitness industry.
Recently 40 and fitter (and more jacked) than ever, the MH cover regular’s fitness advice comes from years of practising chiropractic. A benchmark for the sensible pursuit of excellence.
A widely respected, misleadingly surnamed strength coach, MH contributor and massive geek – both literally and figuratively. “Because heavy things won’t lift themselves.”
Massively successful Aussie PT who looks great (and all that) while distinguising herself with a balanced approach summed up thus: “The best thing you can be is strong and happy”.
Recommended to MH by a researcher on fitness influencers and body-image issues. A legit, mostly shirted online coach, Morgan started his site rippedbody.com to expose industry scams.
Follow Freely
Not all of these men and women would necessarily welcome the tag of ‘fitness influencer’
– but they’re in the industry, they have an audience and they get the Men’s Health blue tick of approval
A self-proclaimed ‘fat marathoner’ and creator of the Slow AF Run Club, Evans encourages followers to take charge of their fitness without centring their goals around weight loss.
“Get fitter, stronger, leaner and smarter” with the PTs, MH Elites and OGs of YT fitness in the UK. There’s nothing mechanical about their relatable output.
@bradschoenfeldphd
A researcher, professor of exercise science and titlewinning natural bodybuilder “widely regarded as one of the leading authorities on muscle development and fat loss” (by T Nation, no less).
An award-winning PT from London’s The Foundry, ‘Biceps’ – as Hoggins is also known – was into strongman before it was cool. You can also catch her on the Fiit app and, often, the pages of MH
In serious shape as a bodybuilder – body double for Usain Bolt and Anthony Joshua – but also a “big fan” of creating mega-LOL skits skewering (some) fitness influencers’ ridiculousness.
A cell and metabolism PhD, Dr Roberts prescribes both pro and recreational athletes’ eats. Somehow, she still finds time for CrossFit – and educating her growing followership.
In 2015, starred on Australian Bachelor but has achieved a more substantive fame as the owner of 28 By Sam Wood, showing clients what works in the pursuit of health and fitness.
Running coach, Apple Fitness+ trainer, inclusivity champion, “good vibes guide”, the founder of west London cardio crew Track Mafia has influenced in parliament and Buckingham Palace.
Solid food guidance. In the words of UK MH fitness editor Andrew Tracey: “Treads the line perfectly between ‘Being lean isn’t the be-all and end-all’ and ‘It’s okay to still have goals’.”
CrossFit veteran (and former surf lifesaver and rugby player) who combines a brutal approach to his training with a softer, mindful streak that lends compassion to his voice.
“Social media has made bro science more scalable”
HIGH IN THE manicured hills of Pomona, New York, a bucolic suburban town in a galaxy far, far away from bustling Manhattan, is where you’ll find John Boyega quietly idling next to an infinity pool. For the better part of a five-hour photo shoot, Boyega has been “on”, flexing his newly won biceps and striking poses with a billowing parachute. “I feel like I’m in an Adele video,” he jokes at one moment, crooning “Helloooo” and serving up bluesteel gazes from the driver’s seat of a Day-Glo-orange McLaren GT. When he’s not dancing to Burna Boy, he’s switching in and out of Gucci tank tops and gam-hugging hoochie-daddy shorts by Dior.
He has indefatigable energy and is downright silly, which comes as a complete surprise to those of us who know him only from his sober turns in an epic franchise and several critically acclaimed indies. You would never guess that he’s fresh off a flight from London, sleep-deprived and starving. In fact, when I ask him how he’s feeling, he flashes the type of winning smile that makes knees buckle and hearts skip. “I feel sexy,” he declares. “I can’t lie. I feel very, very sexy.”
Days later, when Boyega talks about the feel-good vibes he emanated on set, the 30-year-old grows philosophical. “You have two options as an artist,” he says. “Fixate on your fatigue or acknowledge that you’ve arrived and express your extreme gratitude. When I was broke and no casting director wanted to see me, if someone said, ‘We’re going to fly you out tomorrow, take care of your hotel, shoot a Men’s Health cover, then fly you back’, I would’ve cried with joy. Yeah, I just got off a flight, but that’s what the rappers sing about. I’m living it.”
These are indeed the moments Boyega, the British-born son of Nigerian immigrants, dreamed about as a lad in Peckham, a working-class community in London. Back then, he regularly practised being late-nightshow charming in his bathroom for future interviews, which helps explain why he’s so affable when chatting about how this year promises to be a big one for him. He’s part of a new wave of actors of African descent who are storming Hollywood – Daniel Kaluuya, Lupita Nyong’o, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Damson Idris, to name a few. West African culture –Nollywood movies on Netflix and Afrobeat on the radio – is also enjoying an unprecedented level of visibility. Boyega has three major films hitting cinemas in the coming months: Breaking, The Woman King and They Cloned Tyrone. Then there’s his work with his
company, UpperRoom Productions, which has already inked development deals with Netflix and ViacomCBS.
Boyega’s returning after an emotionally crippling rough patch in 2017 that found him contemplating quitting acting. No time off between back-to-back projects – Star Wars: Episode VII, Pacific Rim: Uprising and the stage play Woyzeck (in which he played the title role) – left him feeling “exhausted, frantic, and paranoid”, he says. “You’re tired by your own dream, what you love.” He took a hiatus to recharge and to work on building a better version of himself, one who was stronger physically, mentally and spiritually and ready to embrace leading-man status and the high visibility that comes with it. During a break on set, he stands in front of a monitor and stares at images of himself in a yellow windbreaker. He’s traded his signature cornrows for a clean fade, and the actor who was once described as “being built like a bullet” has leaned out considerably, as evidenced by his prominent cheekbones and sculpted frame. He’s impressed. “That’s real Black-boy joy,” he says gleefully. “Blackboy joy!”
Boyega hasn’t always felt so great about his own body, he admits while on a road trip the day after the shoot. We’re driving from New York City to test-drive the 1965 Chevrolet Corvette he’s just purchased from Motorcar Classics in Farmingdale, on Long Island. He already owns a Lamborghini Urus that he keeps in London and a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon at his home in the Caribbean. His newest whip will stay in America.
Boyega is upbeat on this overcast day, as giddy as a kid on Christmas morning. He’s in a sharing mood and riffs about his childhood. His family, whom he’s always been extremely
close to, grew up “without money”. Peckham was filled with fast-food chains and liquor stores, and Boyega was “chunky as hell”, he says. “Not fat fat, but I hated being topless because I had a little bit of a hanging belly. I gained weight in the most awkward of places while everybody was looking athletic, ripped and lean.”
Proud of his Nigerian heritage, the actor has an autobiographical sleeve tattoo on his left arm, beginning at his shoulder with an image of Africa (highlighting his homeland) and winding down to two beautifully rendered depictions of his parents just above his wrist. They immigrated to England in the 1980s. “My mum and dad will always be my heroes, because at the end of the day, man, they made the fundamental choice moving from Nigeria, coming over to London,” he says. “If they didn’t make that choice, I don’t think any of us would be here.”
Amid the elaborate ink tableau is an image of a lion that Boyega says represents his duelling spirits. “I like to fight and I like to cuddle,” he says, before bursting into laughter. His father, Samson, a Pentecostal minister, and his mother, Abigail, a caregiver, have been married for 35 years, and he has two sisters, Grace and Blessing. They’ve championed his work ever since he first appeared onstage in an update of the African folktale Anansi the Spider in primary school. “I used that as an opportunity to crack jokes and flirt with the girls – it was cool.”
He enjoyed the attention and the crowd’s
positive reception. Soon, Samson was taking his son, born John Adedayo Bamidele Adegboyega, to kiddie auditions at local performing-arts centres in London. In those formative years, Boyega learned to deliver Shakespearean monologues, tap-dance and plié, and he perfected his American accent by studying rom-coms like The Best Man and Idris Elba’s portrayal of Baltimore drug dealer Stringer Bell on The Wire. He honed his quick-wittedness at Westminster City School, a state-funded secondary academy for boys. “Every other morning, [classmates were] cussing the size of your head, the size of your ears. If you don’t know how to snap back, you might end up in some sadness. You have to take a joke, too, know how to laugh at yourself and understand why people may be laughing at you, and then be like, ‘You know what, if I wasn’t me, I’d probably be laughing at this shit, too’.”
Femi Oguns, Boyega’s drama teacher
turned agent, first observed his talent at Identity School of Acting, an academy Oguns founded for talent from marginalised communities in 2003. Having worked with Boyega for more than a decade, he says, “It was very evident that he was somebody that had a maturity at a very young age but also had a wonderful openness to the craft. There’s a truth that he brings to everything he does.” Boyega is drawn to scripts that inspire a visceral reaction. He knows he’s found the right one when his chest begins thumping and “I can visualise the film. The concept is clear; the intentions are clear. I’m going through each page and wishing I could read it in five seconds.”
Director J.J. Abrams loved him enough as the precocious alien fighter in 2011’s sci-fi comedy Attack the Block to cast him in his Star Wars update years later. Boyega – a huge Star Wars fan – auditioned for nearly a year before landing the part of Finn in Abrams’s
trilogy. It was a life-changing opportunity that would ultimately prove bittersweet. Yes, it made Boyega rich and gave him access to front-row seats at Burberry runway shows, but it also put him in the crosshairs of racist Internet trolls who could accept a world filled with Ewoks and Wookiees but couldn’t fathom a stormtrooper of colour.
The actress Moses Ingram, who stars on Disney+’s Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries, recently endured a similar backlash, but she’s been publicly supported by her castmates, and Lucasfilm execs were forthcoming about the online abuse she could face. Was Boyega similarly forewarned? “Hell no,” he states.
“I’m the one that brought this to the freaking forefront.” He says he was blindsided by the racist vitriol hurled at him, and at times it made him question if he even wanted to be part of the sci-fi juggernaut. Boyega has consistently voiced his frustrations about how his character was underdeveloped
“The intelligent investor, by Benjamin Graham.”
Last time you cried?
“On the plane over, I watched [Respect]. It was the scene where [Aretha Franklin] was exhausted and said to her family, ‘If I’m not good, y’all can’t eat.’ And their reaction was like, No. They covered her basically.”
“Moon Knight. My boy Oscar [Isaac]’s got a British accent in it. He’s quite all right, know what I mean?”
“I’ve only cooked one meal like that, and it was pasta bolognese, garlic bread and a Greek salad. I went on Youtube and asked my sister for recipe tips.”
“I don’t have one. Sex.”
Tank by Adidas X Gucci; shorts by Dior Men; sandals by Aldo.and ultimately marginalised. He remains vocal about feeling unsupported in those days, which he hopes has compelled execs to become more accountable to actors of colour. “At least the people going into it now, after my time, [they’re] cool,” he says. Lucasfilm is “going to make sure you’re well supported and at least you [now] go through this franchise knowing that everybody is going to have [your] back. I’m glad I talked out everything at that time.”
His sister Grace says he’s been outspoken since childhood. “Whatever John believes in, he’s going to stand by it.” His speech at a Black Lives Matter rally in London in 2020 wasn’t planned. That day, he and Grace had intended to quietly protest about the death of George Floyd. However, one of the march organisers handed the actor a megaphone and invited him to speak from his heart. He did. In his nearly five-minute monologue, he was angry, raw and breathtakingly honest about the trials of being Black in a world that rates him as a second-class citizen. “I need you to understand how painful it is to be reminded every day that your race means nothing,” Boyega declared in his speech, which immediately went viral and cemented him in the annals of activist artists.
“Any of us keeping our mouth shut at this point, it doesn’t really feel too comfortable,” he tells me. “Because even if you’re British, [you’re] working in the States; the gun’s going to go off before your accent does.” His message for people still bothered by his bluntness and unapologetic embrace of the BLM movement? “Our empowerment is not your demise,” he says. Did he experience any backlash? “Of course there’s backlash. Seen and unseen,” he says cryptically. “It’s just how it goes. You’ll see who’s for you and who’s really not....[But] this is who I am. I’m going to speak about what I believe in and make sure that whatever I do is aimed at supporting the people.”
Reaching this level of self-acceptance came at a cost for Boyega. “Ambition is my battery power,” he tells me. At age 19, he decided he wanted seven figures in his bank account before age 25. “I was a millionaire by probably 22 or 23.” He purchased a new home for his parents with one of his first big cheques. But that ambition drove him to feel like he “had to say yes to everything” on his way up. “It’s tiring and it’s stress, and then dealing with the fact that you eventually have to perform,” he says. “There are many different ways careers can exhaust you, but the artistic way is unique.”
The physical part of Boyega’s post–Star Wars
rebuild involved working out for 90 minutes five or six days a week with London-based trainer Tim Blakeley. His fitness regimen, a mix of cardio, weight training and yoga, is as effective as it is excruciating. “Leg day is the worst day,” Boyega says. “All the training that I do is about detail, posture and getting the most out of each rep.” I ask if he listens to Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and the other ratchet rappers who currently fuel my gym workouts. “I’ve got a confession,” Boyega says, leaning in conspiratorially. “I rarely listen to music with lyrics in the gym. I listen to movie scores.I love Hans Zimmer. I love Harry Gregson-Williams.” Epic, orchestral soundtracks from films like Gladiator, Inception and The Dark Knight are his go-tos. “It’s harder to run on the treadmill when Drake is talking about being on the jet,” he jokes. “The workouts I do [are] hard. I need me some motivation.”
Of course, Boyega also reworked his diet. Ditching sugar was a “massive” game changer. “That’s my enemy,” he says. “Doughnuts, chocolate, candy, pie, sodas...the stuff that kills you. I had to get rid of that habit.” His diet now consists of Grace’s nutritious, home-cooked meals. Lots of lean chicken and brown jollof rice, a Nigerian dish made with tomato paste, onions and spices.
Resetting mentally was perhaps the most difficult challenge. Boyega tells me he found guidance from fellow franchise star Robert Downey Jr., who has struggled with his own challenges. “I am very interested in people who go to dark spaces and are able to flip that,” he says. Downey told him, “They’re not going to know what to do with you when you come into the industry; they’re going to be like, ‘Oh, let’s just make him well-spoken and nice’. That’s kind of the filter. You’re going to go through some turbulence. You’re going to try to find who you are within this. It might be rocky, but you’ll come out the end with a solid
identity. That’s literally what happened to me,” Boyega says.
He learned to surround himself with trusted friends and family. “You choose your circle in which you can accept how you express yourself. Once you feel that acceptance, they can help you, help motivate you. That’s your safe place as a celebrity. So you can actually complain. I still want to say that shit. Like, this is petty, but I want to tell my sisters, ‘Oh, this is just how I feel’. And they’re going to be like, ‘This is petty, but yeah, I hear you’. Whereas in the world it’s going to be like, ‘You’re a fucking millionaire, you idiot. You know what I had to do this morning, and you’re complaining about that?’ Let me just chill and complain to the people that understand that I’m not trying to be evil. It’s just today, I’m sad. I’m experiencing [this phase of my career] as a more balanced person who is willing to improve. I know it’s a weird, random thing to say, but I’m willing to say sorry.”
There are two main things that Boyega wanted to achieve upon entering the business. “To disrupt the industry and also to make history, and nothing has changed,” says Oguns. “For John, it was never about trying to fit into the box. He wants to be the outline of the box.” That’s why Boyega has sidestepped playing enslaved people or drug dealers and appearing in clichéd sports movies, his agent explains: “For John, it’s all about accountability. He doesn’t want to be defined by any stereotypical roles.” But there are rumours that Boyega has secretly joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “That’s not in the vision for me now,” he says. “I want to do nuanced things.I want to donate my services to original indie films that come with new, fresh ideas, because I know it’s real hard to top Iron Man in that universe.”
Boyega describes one of his upcoming films, They Cloned Tyrone (out December,
“
I’M GOING TO SPEAK ABOUT WHAT I BELIEVE IN AND MAKE SURE THAT WHATEVER I DO IS AIMED AT SUPPORTING THE PEOPLE”
30), as a “unique and strange story that blew me away”. I admit that I’m confused by the film’s premise and ask him to make it plain. He can’t, really. “Pimp. Prostitute. Try to uncover a mystery in the ’hood. That’s all I’m giving you,” says Boyega, who plays multiple clones ranging in age from 28 to 78 and costars with Jamie Foxx, who, unsurprisingly, went a long way towards making it the most fun he’s ever had on set. “We were filming all over Atlanta, so you can imagine the energy. We in the strip clubs, we in the streets,” Boyega says. “It was a joy.”
Flexing a different kind of dramatic muscle alongside Viola Davis in the historical thriller The Woman King, Boyega plays King Ghezo, a conflicted ruler in late-19thcentury West Africa. Due in cinemas in Australia on October 27, it tells the story of the Dahomey warriors, a fearless band of female fighters who battled European colonisers. When he’s asked why he said yes to this project, Boyega’s eyes light up. “The fact that I would be able to speak in my father’s accent, in my native tongue, and portray something that’s different from what I’ve done before, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m coming. I want to be a part of that big-time.’”
In his third major project of the year, Breaking (release details for Australia were unclear when MH went to press), Boyega stretches yet again. He shines as a diminished man abandoned by his country and fighting to maintain his dignity in the film – based on the true story of a Marine veteran whose PTSD leads him to stage a botched bank robbery. His performance is already being compared to Al Pacino’s virtuosic turn in the 1970s
classic Dog Day Afternoon. The movie gave him an opportunity to act opposite one of the titans he used to watch on The Wire, Michael K. Williams, who plays a hostage negotiator. Working with Williams, who died of an accidental drug overdose in 2021, was “phenomenal”, he says. “And when I met him, it was a full-circle moment for me.” Williams gifted him a cologne from a small Blackowned business during their first days on set. “It’s finishing, and I feel sad about it,” he says. “I always say that Michael K. Williams is the nicest-smelling man in the industry. His smell is ridiculous.”
During our nearly two-hour journey to the car dealership, Boyega has been amusing me with tales of his newly adopted roller-skating hobby – “I’m bloody freaking good. The way I turn these corners, it don’t make no sense” – as well as his search for the perfect companion. His parents’ long marriage and egalitarian partnership have been hugely inspirational. “My dad would plait my sisters’ hair while my mum was cooking,” he says. “They’re inseparable
at this point.” He, too, wants a ride-or-die woman who’s curious, quick to laugh, and spontaneous. And, he adds, grinning slyly, “I like them thick and brown.”
Boyega and I have finally arrived at Motorcar Classics, where sleek rides lovingly restored to their youthful glory preen like pageant queens. We check out ’70s Stingrays and tricked-out ’80s Ferraris. Plus, of course, Boyega’s Corvette, a silver beauty with sumptuous red-leather interior.
But it’s the Aston Martin, with its significant pedigree and the license plate JB 007, that causes the actor to stop in his tracks. Coincidence? Or could it be subtly announcing that he’s appearing in another iconic franchise soon, trading lightsabers for shaken martinis, perhaps?
No, Boyega says with a wishful glint in his eyes. “But you know if they give me that call, I’ll be there.”
– Lola Ogunnaike has written about culture, art and design for The New York Times, Rolling Stone and Architectural Digest.
Whether he’s prepping for a role or not, John Boyega hits the gym at least five days a week with trainer Tim Blakeley, who’s worked with him since 2019. The goal, Blakeley says, is to avoid having to “cram” training just before a film. It’s paid off for Boyega, who’s built serious muscle
Hang from a bar with an underhand grip, hands wider than shoulder width. Pull your chest to the bar. Lower. That’s 1 rep; do 3 sets of as many goodform reps as you can.
Hold a barbell with an overhand grip, then push your butt back and lower your torso so it’s at a 45° angle. Pull the bar to your ribs; lower with control. That’s 1 rep; do 3 sets of 8-12.
Sit at a lat-pulldown machine and grasp a V-shaped handle. Squeeze your shoulder blades and pull the bar to your chest. Pause, then return to the start. That’s 1 rep; do 3 sets of 8-12.
Start with a dumbbell in your right hand hanging down and your torso nearly parallel to the floor. Row the dumbbell to your right hip; lower. That’s 1 rep; do 3 sets of 8-12 per side.
“I’M BLOODY FREAKING GOOD [AT ROLLER-SKATING].
THE WAY I TURN THESE CORNERS, IT DON’T MAKE NO SENSE”
MARCUS FILLY doesn’t want you pounding out rounds of EMOM thrusters until your shoulders can barely move, and he doesn’t want you going so hard during Murph that you’re a quivering mess when you finally finish. Yes, the former CrossFit Games contender (that’s him, left) knows pile-driving past fatigue is a CrossFit staple, and he understands why you think the secret to building muscle and strength is always just to work harder. But the veteran coach has other ideas.
FILLY doe roun thrusters until your s move, he you so hard d a qu when you fi Cro contender him pa CrossFit s
Sure, you have to push your limits in your training. But CrossFit – and, more broadly, the fitness dogma of no pain, no gain – has long pushed you well past exhaustion, often leaving you to peel yourself off the ground after every workout. And Filly has seen what that leads to: it may blast kilojoules and help you build muscle in the short term, but it can lead to diminishing results over the long haul. It usually causes burnout. From running to bodybuilding, too much of the fitness industry pushes you to chase fatigue above all else. “Blow through all your mental, emotional and physical resources in your workouts and you’re not going to have the same capacity for your job, wife, husband or other interests,” says Filly, a California-based coach. You’re seeking better health, but you’re actually robbing yourself of it, he says.
The solution is what Filly calls Functional Bodybuilding, and it’s a kinder, gentler version of classic HIIT that still helps you build muscle – but doesn’t leave you feeling (and fearing) every moment of every workout. It’s an approach that’s gaining attention: Filly has nearly 860,000 Instagram followers, and his Persist workout program has about 10,000 subscribers. He even has an exercise, the Filly press, named after him.
The protocol itself is born of Filly’s own experience. Six years ago, he was one of CrossFit’s strongest, in part because
of a regimen of three-a-day workouts. Yes, three a day! Each session was exactly what you’d expect: Filly took on WOD after WOD, lifting heavy and scoring many reps as he carved six-pack abs and forged elite strength, building to a 250-kg deadlift.
The approach earned results, propelling Filly to a 12th-place finish at the 2016 CrossFit Games. The downside: his mind and body were wrecked. Days after the Games, he struggled to find a reason to go to the gym. Even worse, all those reps of power cleans, pull-ups and burpees left him battling constant soreness in his shoulders, hips and “places I’d never dealt with in the past”. “I was toast,” he says. “I went from feeling like the fittest to the least-fit person in the room.”
Filly wound up quitting the gym entirely for two full months (an eternity for today’s no-days-off runner or strength-training fiend), but his mind was never far from fitness. Done with CrossFit, Filly, who’d majored in molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley and started med school before turning to the program, rethought his entire training plan, searching for ways to build strength without wearing down his body with heavy weights and huge reps.
When he returned to the gym, he’d built his own workout style, one that maintains a strong focus on form during EMOM and AMRAP challenges, increases recovery time,
and lets you work with lighter weights. And the three key tenets of his style can be applied to any workout you do – CrossFit or not:
Filly knows all about the classic CrossFit pull-up stereotype, the athlete’s entire body flailing in midair as they rip through reps. He understands it, too. “In competition,” he says, “you’re trying to do the minimum that you can get away with. That means performing each rep in a way that just barely clears the bar for the acceptable standard of execution.”
There’s a good chance you’ve done this in your
own workouts, too, rushing through extra reps of biceps curls or push-ups. Those rushed reps with shaky form invite injury.
Filly’s programs use two tricks to break that habit. The first: strict tempo. During the lowering portion of any exercise, count to three seconds. Pause for one second at the bottom of an exercise. Then aim to lift quickly. This tempo keeps each exercise focused on the muscles you’re training, sparing your joints pain and injury.
The second: focus on form. One way to do this is by integrating one-and-aquarter reps, which can be used during most strength-based exercises. Filly does it often in the cyclist squat. You’ll set up in goblet-squat position, your
heels on a weight plate, then bend at the knees and hips, lowering slowly into a squat (for three seconds). Instead of standing back up, you’ll go one fourth of the way up, lower back down, then stand up. Try it for three sets of 8-10 reps.
When you follow Filly’s first rule, you’ll inevitably have to use lighter weights than usual. That doesn’t mean you won’t challenge every muscle. He ensures that your entire body gets a workout by using offsetload moves, which have you lifting weight with one arm or leg at a time.
And no, that’s not as easy as it sounds, because offset-load moves require your abs and glutes to kick
//Filly began searching for ways to build strength without wearing down his body
into overdrive to stabilise your body. Don’t believe him? Think back to your last time lifting a heavy suitcase into the overhead locker before a flight. Harder than a lateral raise, right? Filly knows why: “That’s a one-arm lift with a twist and a slight lunge,” he says. “All one-sided moves.”
Offset-load moves can challenge your whole body even more if you hold weights in both hands while performing reps on only one side. That’s the idea behind the Filly press, a shoulder-press variation named for the coach. To do it, stand holding a kettlebell in your left hand at your shoulder. Hold a dumbbell at your shoulder in your right hand. Keeping the kettlebell close to your chest, press the dumbbell overhead, then lower.
Do three sets of 8-10 reps per side. And expect it to be harder than you think: the midback muscles on your left side work overtime to keep the kettlebell stable.
Yes, it’s tempting to fixate on packing on muscle or getting an exercise (think deadlift or bench press) superstrong or dominating every morning run. After all, most athletes focus on specific traits (endurance, speed, strength). Filly knows it, too. “That was true of me in my competitive days,” he says. “The marketing message we hear is that if you reach an elite level of fitness, you’ll naturally look and feel healthier. But that’s completely inaccurate.”
Truth is, overfocusing on a few gym ideas can be antithetical to your health. You may want to build a massive chest, but if you never hone your flexibility or cardio, you’ll struggle to haul a bag of groceries several blocks home or to reach the top shelf at the supermarket pain-free.
500
Repeat for 3 rounds.
As
Soccer’s glamour club, LA Galaxy is a desirable post-prime landing spot for some of the biggest names in the world game. David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Ashley Cole have all completed high-profile stints at the club.
But while big names bring fans through the gate and line club coffers, they sometimes bring something else: big egos. And the person who often has to manage them? It’s not the head coach or the CEO, it’s the unassuming bloke with the stopwatch and clipboard asking a marquee name to get down on the floor and give him 20 burpees. At Galaxy, that would be Adam Waterson.
“You’d think training professional athletes, they
would be the best of the best and do whatever you ask of them,” says Waterson, 40, a Herbalife Nutrition advisor, who’s speaking to me today from the Galaxy’s headquarters in Carson, LA, after a mid-week training session. “But with success comes ego. Some players may think they’re above what you’re asking them to do.”
Waterson cites decorated former England left-back Ashley Cole as a prime example. “Ashley Cole played 200 games for England – he was probably one of the best left backs in the world,” Waterson tells me. “And he’d never lifted a weight in his career. He would say to me, ‘I’ve won a World Cup. I’ve won a Champions League. Why would I do this when I’ve never done it before?’ And
when he says that in front of the group of players, it’s quite challenging to come back and say, ‘Well, I think it’s for the betterment’. So, I just said, ‘Ash, do me a favour. You can just go in the gym, sit on a mat and stretch. As long as you’re in the gym, you’re creating an example for the other guys to get in and do their work’.”
The truth is the S & C coach is often the most unpopular guy at a football club. “You’re the one telling them to do all the hard work,” Waterson laughs. “And some players just don’t like that, so you’ve got to have thick skin.”
Waterson, who prior to joining the Galaxy in 2018, cut his teeth in the A-League at the Newcastle Jets and Western Sydney Wanderers, says he developed the requisite
impenetrable hide as an intern at the old NSL club, Parramatta Power, back in the early noughties. “The best thing I ever did was that internship [at Parra Power], when I’d just got out of uni and was standing in front of a group of 25 men who were probably five to 10 years older than me,” Waterson recalls. “I’m telling them, straight out of uni, ‘I need you to run. I need you to lift’. And you just learn from that. You get confidence when you see your instructions put in place and followed.”
These days Waterson expects to be challenged and is usually ready with a rejoinder. “You know what’s coming, you almost expect these comments,” he says. “So, you almost have an answer for them before they throw it at you.”
While football has been Waterson’s domain for nearly two decades, prior to joining the Galaxy, he broadened his training horizons with a stint working with the NSW Police Force. It turns out getting police officers in shape to take down crooks is just as rewarding as preparing pro football players – and the odd prima donna – for match day. “It was almost refreshing in a way,” says Waterson, who trained officers rehabbing injuries, as well as members of the tactical operations unit. “The tactical ops guys were really, really good athletes. They were alpha males. They were ready to run through brick walls. I was able to do a lot of the professional lifting that I’d do in an elite environment with these
guys because they were strong, they were capable, they had a fantastic work ethic.”
Waterson had to be careful not to overload officers with volume, though. Unlike football, with its weekly schedule of games, in tactical ops you never know when it’s going to be show time. “If I had a session with a lot of volume on their legs, an hour later they might get called out to the Lindt Café siege and have to spend five hours in an active-shooter environment where they’re going to be heavily fatigued and taxed from the gym session I just did,” he says.
Somewhat ironically, perhaps, football is the more regimented field, Waterson says. At the Galaxy, he gets only a six-week preseason to prepare his players and even then, there’s usually only a week before friendly and trial games commence. That means he needs to monitor players in the off-season, giving them only a two-week break before hitting them with a program.
“We give them a GPS to take home. We’re constantly monitoring what they’re doing so that when they come back in for preseason, they’re already
at a certain level. I don’t need to waste time developing aerobic capacity.”
Once the season starts Waterson focuses on achieving speed and strength gains “to challenge them to exceed the limits they could get to just by playing football,” he says. A typical 75-minute training session includes 50 minutes of pure football, with 20 minutes targeting speed, agility and plyometrics, he says.
A father to young children, Waterson is happy with the work/life balance LA offers. “I often think to myself, Yes, the incentive to go and challenge myself at a big club like Manchester United or Barcelona is
definitely there, but maybe if I was five years younger, or in five years’ time, when the kids are a bit older,” he says. “I figure, right now, I have a really good balance with the Galaxy.”
That’s something Waterson has learned to prioritise in a high-pressure job and urges those who might aspire to work with pro sporting teams not to let the job take over your life. “Try not to get too high with the wins and too low with the losses, because I really did ride that roller coaster earlier in my career,” he says. “When I’d go home, I wasn’t present. I was constantly thinking about the job. And you’re so easily disposable. If a coach comes in and wants to bring in his guy, you’re going to lose your job no matter how damn good you are.”
Waterson has survived four head-coaching changes at the Galaxy so he must be doing something right. He believes his role, aside from physically preparing players to perform on the pitch, is to help build a winning culture. “Culture, for me, starts at the top with the GM, the CEO, the head coach, but
they’re match fit..
we’re the ones in front of the players day in and day out,” he says. “We build relationships with the players because they confide in us. When they’re having a fight with their girlfriend and they can’t train on a certain day, they tell us – they don’t tell the head coach. So, we really do build that network of trust throughout the playing staff and the playing group.”
Favourite exercise?
Barbell push-press. Least favourite? Bulgarian split squats. I just nd them bloody painful. Cheat meal? Beef pad see ew.
Strangest training habit?
Calf raises. I probably do an excessive amount. Wildest injury?
Broken leg. Playing state league, 18 years old, bad tackle. I was out for nine months.
How does a top-level S & C coach train his body? Hard. Waterson does 45-minute full-body sessions in the gym before players arrive, five days a week. “As I’m getting older, it’s more higher reps and less load,” says Waterson. “But I try and keep the intensity high.” That could mean three sets of 12-15 reps in a circuit-style workout. After training he’ll then do a 15-minute interval session with a 20-second on, 10-sec rest protocol. He may also run with a player in a rehab session or join them in the gym. “To be honest, I can do a three-hour workout on some days.” These are Waterson’s go-to gym moves:
At a time when action heroes and fitness idols are being reduced to mere influencers, few true icons remain. One of these is Sylvester Stallone, who’s still thriving more than four decades after first donning Rocky’s gloves and about to star in a new crime-drama TV series, Tulsa KIng. His secret? Acting his age
BY SCOTT HENDERSON“SUPER STARDOM’S close to post-mortem.” Prophetic words from poet Marshall “Eminem” Mathers, penned 20 years ago as part of his career-defining ‘Lose Yourself’. It seemed an unlikely prospect back then, when the cult of celebrity was at its peak and there was no hint that social media was set to disrupt the hierarchy of fame. Yet here we are edging 2023, amid the hyper-diversification of media platforms, and if the post-mortem on “super stardom” hasn’t quite been written, the concept is certainly on its last legs. Gone are the days when we had a handful of TV channels to choose from. With an ever-expanding range of streaming and social media platforms vying for our attention, each spawning its own micro-celebrities, it’s simply impossible to attain the omnipotent brand recognition previously achieved by the musicians, athletes and action heroes of the ’80s and ’90s.
There are, as usual, a few notable exceptions – relics of yesteryear and reminders of a time before TikTok’s Khaby Lame and YouTube’s PewDiePie. These exceptions come no larger than the great Schwarzenegger, Van Damme or Ford. By comparison, modern-day action superstars don’t measure up. Marvel Studios has tried valiantly to close the gap, providing us all (MH included) with a surfeit of single-use, CGI-enhanced protagonists. But none has imprinted himself in the culture in quite the same way as the classic 1980s action hero.
While Schwarzenegger and others have all but hung up their tank tops,
there exists one big-screen mega-drawcard who continues to carry franchise after franchise on his oversized shoulders: Sylvester (Sly) Stallone.
It’s been 46 years since the muscled actor from Hell’s Kitchen, New York first stepped into the ring as Rocky. Now 76, he continues to work and train just as hard as he did when he was an aspiring actor. As his career evolved, so too did his workouts.
Stallone had to keep up with the increasing physical demands of the characters he portrayed; he also had to defy the ravages of age.
Seeking workout inspiration? The complete oeuvre of Stallone can provide a blueprint for any man at any age, regardless
of training goals. Whether you’re pursuing lean athleticism or guerrilla-style muscle, following a Stallone program will ensure your fitness stays firmly pre-mortem for decades to come.
Like that of his alter ego, Stallone’s real-life journey to playing Rocky Balboa is the tale of an underdog come good – albeit with fewer sprints up the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and minimal rounds with a frozen carcass. Inspired by the 1975 championship fight between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner, Stallone apparently penned the boxing flick in just three days. After shopping the script around, multiple
studios were interested but all wanted an established, big-name actor to bring Balboa to life. Insisting he play the title role, however, relative unknown Stallone held out – successfully – as Rocky became one of the most bankable franchises in cinematic history.
After the commercial and critical success of the first installment (Rocky won the Best Picture Oscar in 1977), Stallone knew he needed to up his game for the sequels. Impressive though he was in the original, he continually sought to improve Balboa’s onscreen athleticism and muscularity, reaching a shredded pinnacle in Rocky II (1979) – only to top it in Rocky III (1982).
“I wanted to look like Tarzan – sleek, tight, almost catlike,” Stallone said of his turn in Rocky III in a 2017 Instagram post. “I wanted to forget the bulk and go for well-developed muscles. I wanted the movie to be about change – how people have to adapt to different challenges because, if they don’t, they will be conquered. I will always believe that adaptation is the key to survival and that’s what this story was all about.”
To reach fighting weight, Stallone trained much like he did for the first two installments – high volumes of resistance work and conditioning – while his diet underwent an overhaul. “I was on a very highprotein diet,” Stallone
recalled. In addition, “I only ate very small portions of oatmeal cookies made with brown rice [and I drank] up to 25 cups of coffee a day with honey.”
The resulting physique, while striking, proved physically and mentally challenging for Stallone, who felt drained for most of the production. “I may have looked pretty good on the outside, but inside it was a very dangerous thing to do.” Stallone said he would get lightheaded between rounds as the strict dieting cut his body-fat percentage to “a really dangerous” 2.9.
Stallone’s crash diet for Rocky III stands as a cautionary tale, and its ill-effects prompted him to pursue a more rounded physique for subsequent films. However, were it backed by a sound nutrition plan (read: more kilojoules) the training program for Rocky through to Rocky III can provide a blueprint for a fight-ready body.
Opt for a summer, beach-based circuit that will target your whole body and leave you more cut up than one of Rocky’s
For the 1985 sequel to First Blood, Stallone farewelled his Tarzan-body ideas and stacked on muscle to fill Rambo’s muscle tank. His extra size coincided with the making of Rocky IV, in which Stallone unveiled a stronger version of the character – necessary to face the Apollo-slaying Soviet behemoth Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren).
To help him get bigger, Stallone recruited the Italian bodybuilding legend Franco Columbu, a two-time winner of the
Mr Olympia title and former Schwarzenegger training partner. “I had to charge Sly a good amount for the training because he wanted to train full out, just as if he were preparing for the Mr Olympia contest,” Columbu said of the eight-month period he devoted to creating the Rambo body. “That meant two workouts a day, six days a week. I had to drop almost everything else to concentrate on getting him in the best shape of his life.”
In the mini-documentary The Rambo Workout, some
of Stallone’s co-stars can be heard lauding his dedication to training: “That guy re-moulded his entire body – I’ve never seen anybody do that,” says Charles Napier. Stallone was up at 5am to hit the gym before a full day’s work, followed by another gym session. In a clip, Stallone – wearing his Rambo headband and voluminous ’80s hair –says: “It was about eight months of training, four hours a day, to toughen myself up.” He describes taking advanced courses in
SWAT combat, archery and survival.
Above all else, though, it was the addition of hypertrophy training (and surplus kilojoules) that resulted in the creation of a stronger action hero that would be his go-to for years – decades – to come.
STILL PUNCHIN’
Gerald Ford was the US president when Stallone first gloved up as Rocky, and while the franchise lives on in the Creed movies, Stallone’s career at times has been, well, a little rocky. The past decade, however, has seen a resurgence in his fortunes and fitness. You could call it a career reboot, or the Stallonaissance: Rocky and Rambo have both made their big-screen comebacks, while the addictive Expendables
franchise has been very big business.
Though Stallone won’t be appearing in the upcoming Creed III, he hasn’t let his boxing training slip. The actor is still sharing workout routines with his followers on Instagram, including more than occasional fist-throwing sessions with celebrity trainer Gunnar Peterson, the man behind Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine body.
The training has been necessary for Stallone’s latest work, the Amazon
Prime series Tulsa King, in which he plays Dwight Manfredi, a mobster sent to Oklahoma following a 25-year prison sentence. According to Stallone, the project – a hybrid mobster/ Western from the makers of Yellowstone – has been “so much fun” but also one of the hardest-working experiences of his life.
“What we came up with is something extraordinary and life-changing for me.”
Even in his 70s, Stallone won’t stop working with weights – and with good
reason. According to research published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, strength training (4-5 sessions per week) can lead to significant gains in muscle mass (and counter age-related atrophy or sarcopenia) in men over the age of 60.
“Sly wants to get in, get after it and get out,” said Peterson in an interview with Men’s Journal. “There are so many demands on his time right now.”
Peterson has put Stallone
You’ve taken your share of blows, but you’re not about to be counted out just yet. Be sure to warm up – Stallone jogs to the gym with his dog
Do 10 rounds of 15-metre sled pushes followed by push-ups, reducing the number of push-ups each round.
• Round 1 = 10 Push-ups
• Round 2 = 9 Push-ups and so on
Working at around 60 per cent of your IRM, each of the following exercises should be performed in isolation for 3 x 8-12 reps. Take 45 seconds rest between sets.
• Barbell Bench Press
• Single-arm Overhead Kettlebell Press
• Dip (with heavy chains around your neck if you’re Stallone)
• Cable Lat Pulldown
• Incline Press
• Pull-up (with 20kg plate if you’re Stallone)
• Jog home
(Don’t forget the dog!)
on a plan that includes free weights, cables and sled.
“One of our usual rounds is having him push the sled, then pump out a bunch of push-ups.”
And though it’s Peterson calling the shots, Rocky’s onscreen trainer Duke said it best in Rocky VI when explaining what a mature man can still achieve in the gym: strength! The kind that produces “heavy duty, cast-iron, pile-driving punches that will have to hurt so much they’ll rattle his ancestors”.
//
[WHEN IT’S TIME FOR THE GYM], SLY WANTS TO GET IN, GET AFTER IT AND GET OUT
DATE:
February 27, 1994, 5.31pm
NAME: MARK BOSNICH
FEAT:
A young goalkeeper pulls off a penalty-shootout masterclass to become an Aston Villa hero
PENALTY SHOOTOUTS are strange as a goalkeeper. Obviously, you can’t let yourself get daunted by the occasion, but you can’t become overconfident either. I was playing for Aston Villa against Tranmere Rovers in the second leg of the League Cup semi-final at Villa Park. We’d started the tie as heavy favourites to go through as we had a good team with Dean Saunders and Dalian Atkinson upfront, Paul McGrath at the back and Ray Houghton in the middle. But we lost the first leg 3-1 at Prenton Park and suddenly we were heavy underdogs. Luckily, we managed to finish that second leg 3-1 so, after extra time, the tie went to penalties. As I walked towards the goal, I remember saying to myself: “This is a real opportunity. Now you’ve got to take it.”
The penalties took place in front of the Tranmere fans. Both sides scored their first two, but on Tranmere’s third, I dived full stretch to my bottom right and managed to get a glove to the ball and save it. The next two pens both went in, so then our big, young centre-back, Ugo Ehiogu, had the chance to seal the win and send us through to Wembley. Unfortunately, Ugo banged his shot straight into the crossbar. And now it was sudden death.
I was 22 – which is young for a goalkeeper – and I’d only broken into the team the season before when we’d just missed out on winning the Premier League. At the start of the season I’d lost my place as I was banned for a while after retiring from international football and I’d only just got back into the first team due to Nigel Spink getting injured. So I was desperate to make a real breakthrough and establish
myself. I knew this could be my chance.
As a goalkeeper, I had a theory with penalties. When the player was running up, I’d always look at where the non-kicking foot was pointed. If they were running up as a right-footer and their left foot pointed to the goalkeeper’s right, generally the ball would go to the right. The run-up itself was another thing I’d scrutinise. If they’d run straight, normally the ball would go to the goalkeeper’s left. If they curled their run, it’d normally go to your right. But to catch any of those details, you’d have to slow yourself down and wait until the last minute to dive.
In sudden death, Villa had the first penalty, only for Kevin Richardson to belt it miles over the bar into the Tranmere fans. They were now just one kick away from Wembley. Liam O’Brien stepped up to take it for them – he was a player I’d basically grown up with at the youth team at Manchester United – but he hit it to my right and I saved it. Tony Daley nailed the next penalty for us, so Tranmere had to score to survive.
Before that penalty, I knew this could a defining moment for my career. It was an opportunity to get Villa to their first final for seven years, but also a chance to become a hero from the supporters’ perspective and make myself a fixture in the team. But I had to deliver. Ian Nolan was taking the penalty for Tranmere, but even as he walked towards the spot, I could feel something guiding me to dive to my left.
Nolam took this long run up that was very straight. I dived to my left and I saved it.
Afterwards, I just remember running towards my teammates on the halfway line to celebrate. A lot of the crowd ran onto the pitch, too – everyone was going mad. What I felt was a mix of utter delight but also relief.
I knew it was a big moment for the club, but also for my career. A lot of the boys went out to celebrate, but I had to go home – I was just deathly drained by the sheer intensity of the experience. Plus I knew we still had one big match ahead us at Wembley. That final against Manchester United would prove to be my first major trophy.
