Men's Fitness South Africa October 2016

ANY TIME River Rafting PA RYS As relaxing and enjoyable as a gentle river cruise is; there’s an ever growing group of people who prefer the thrills and excitement of a rough, adrenaline packed white water rafting trip. South Africa is host to many rivers that can get your adrenalin pumping this summer. Head off to Parys, the Kogelberg Nature Reserve, Umkomaas or Blyde River to experience this thrilling ride. sa-venues.com/ activities/white-water-rafting ANY TIME Otter Trail KNYSNA For those who enjoy getting back to nature and breathing in fresh air, the Otter trail is a five-day and four-night hiking trail on the Garden Route, Knysna. A total of roughly 45kms will be covered in this hike, with day four being the longest hike at an estimated six hours. This is…

Just stepping into a sauna could lower your risk of ticker trauma. A recent Finnish study published in JAMA Internal Medicine reported that, among 2 315 male subjects (followed for more than 20 years), men who visited a dry sauna (80 to 100°C with only 10 to 20% humidity) four to seven times a week, lowered their chances of dying of heart problems by 48% - compared with men who went only once a week. Men who went two to three times a week lowered their risk by 23%. Also, those who sauna’d for 19-plus minutes per session had a 52% lower chance of sudden cardiac deaths than those who steamed for less than 11 minutes. “The changes in heart rate during a sauna mimic the effect of exercise”, says…

Runners like to scoff at weightlifters’ “cardio poor” routines. But as it turns out, lifters who use kettlebells are actually getting a great cardio workout. A study of university soccer players showed that adding a simple; dynamic, high-intensity kettlebell snatch routine (15-seconds on, 15-seconds off for 20 minutes) to their workouts increased their VO2 max by about 6%. This was an improvement over a control group doing the same free-weight and body-weight circuit exercises, but without kettlebells, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research reports. “Kettlebells are an awesome conditioning tool”, says study head J. Asher Falatic, MS. “Basic swings with moderate to heavy weight would be a great way to ease kettlebell training into your workout”. RUNNING YOURSELF INTO THE GROUND? Jogging may be better for you if you…

Here’s one trend we hope to see hop-the-pond. The UK’s never been known for terrifically healthy (or, for that matter, tasty) cuisine. What with all those dishes of girdle sponges (fried sponge cake), spotted dicks (suet pudding), and fit-less cocks (oatmeal with chopped onion) clogging the Isles. But there’s one area where the Brits may really be on to something: They’ve developed a serious crush on red cabbage. Last year, red cabbage sales went up 50% in Great Britain; a fairly shocking increase. But then, why not? Prepared properly, the versatile, nutrient-dense veggie isn’t just good-tasting (again, not necessarily a pre-requisite) but also great for you; with ten times the vitamin A of regular cabbage and twice the iron. (Granted, red cabbage was also used as a treatment for trench…

Tweets can predict heart health Twitter posts can predict a region’s risk of heart disease, a study in Psychological Science reports. Emotionally negative tweets signal that a county’s citizens are at high risk of cardiac problems, while happier tweets link to a lower risk. “The people tweeting aren’t necessarily) the ones dying from heart disease”, says lead author Johannes C Eichstaedt, who matched tweets with health data from about 1 300 counties. “Rather, they’re ‘canaries’ for the community. They tell us what it’s like to live in a place”. Even after you take income and education into account, areas where people show anger and hostility have higher rates of heart disease. So if you rage-tweet a lot, maybe it’s time to chill. NEWS F LASH: SMOKING STILL SUCKS Cigarettes will…

Yagotta love the brain. While you’re enjoying weekend pizza marathons and slamming back some beers at a rugby game; your brain is valiantly trying to tell your body to take all that bad fat, and turn it into something you can actually use. “When the hormones leptin (an appetite suppressant made by fat cells) and insulin interact; they turn on neurons in the brain that tell all the white energy-storing fat in your body, to turn into brown energy-burning fat”, researchers at Australia’s Melbourne, Monash University say. Though there is no practical use for this knowledge, researchers believe that targeting leptin and insulin will help them figure out new and novel weight-loss approaches. Till then, keep your face-stuffing pizza and beer fests to once a month. Stick it to your…