Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2020 i Men's Fitness UK

At the start of lockdown (the original) – in a state of mild panic that my gym was out of bounds and, with it, the cornerstone of my fitness routine for the past decade – I baked a lovely lemon drizzle cake and bought a PlayStation. I also committed to doing ten minutes of yoga and five minutes of press-ups every single morning. It’s not a lot, but however many months on (eight? 75? Who knows.) I’m still supplementing my regular routine with that small morning ritual. The habit has formed, and I feel genuinely better for it. It’s brought physical benefits, too. Because despite my old weights programme going out the window, I feel in much better shape now than I did when I was quivering under a pair…

FEET OF ENDURANCE Ultra runner and natural lifestyle coach Tony Riddle set a new record for running the Three Peaks Challenge – that’s Mount Snowdon in Wales, Scafell Pike in Yorkshire, and Ben Nevis in Scotland – barefoot. Having set out on 29 August, donning a pair of Vivobarefoot trainers to simulate ‘natural’ running, Riddle finished his 450-mile journey in a new men’s record of nine days, seven hours and 18 minutes. “I realised if I did the climbs barefoot, I could wear Vivobarefoot on my feet for the bits in-between [Riddle ran the hundreds of miles between each mountain],” he told Men's Fitness. “That allows them to respond how nature intended – only with a 3-4mm layer to protect them.” And on the unique challenges posed by the peaks…

THINK BIG Lifting heavy won’t only add size and strength, it will also rev up your metabolism and may even boost your sex life. Big lifts increase the production of the muscle-making, libido-boosting androgen hormone and improve its flow through the body. MUSCLE FOOD For a fast-fuel pre-workout meal, try nuts, a banana and yogurt 60 minutes prior to provide protein and calcium for muscle growth, fruit sugars for energy, and potassium to prevent cramps. CURL WITH CARE Using a full range of motion during bicep curls leads to greater hypertrophy, as well as a 25 per cent increase in strength – as opposed to just 16 per cent for partial reps. DRINK IT IN A glass of water before eating prepares the body to use and fully metabolise the…

C Life Loss of muscle mass as you age can lead to frailty and reduced quality of life, so building muscle and maintaining it as you get older is a good idea – and vitamin D could help. Recent research from the University of East Anglia shows that older people who get plenty of vit C – commonly found in citrus fruits, berries and vegetables – have the best skeletal muscle mass.1 That’s because it helps to defend our cells against potentially harmful free radicals, preventing age-related muscle loss. MED CRED It’s well known that obesity significantly increases risk for cardiovascular disease. But it turns out that a Mediterranean-type diet – high in fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, with some fish and limited red and processed meat – may at least…

DYNAMIC WARM-UP Do 10 reps of each exercise. Complete 3 sets in total. 1A. ‘WORLD’S GREATEST STRETCH’   In a high plank position, step your right foot towards the outside of your right hand. Move your right elbow inside towards your right foot, then rotate and reach for the ceiling. Return to the start and repeat on the other side. 1B. REVERSE LUNGE REACH   From standing, step back with your left foot and drop down into a lunge, while simultaneously raising your left hand above your head and reaching over as far as you can – maintaining your balance. Pause, then reverse the movements and repeat on the other side. 1C. GLUTE BRIDGE Lie face up on the floor, with your knees bent and feet flat…

“The key to growing any muscle is to make it work harder,” says Adam Gethin, founder of online PT company Creating Physiques. “Beating your arms up with curls might provide a good pump, but they won’t keep growing in the long-term.” Instead, a full-body workout, with an emphasis on your biceps and triceps, will make the difference. “These exercises will stimulate your major anabolic hormones,” says Gethin, “including testosterone, growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor 1 [IGF-1], which are vital for maximal arm growth.” 1. RACK PULL REPS: 6 REST: 90 secs SETS: 4 Set the squat rack safety bars to just above knee height. With the barbell resting on the bars, bend your knees and grasp it with a shoulder-width grip. Retract your shoulder blades and look up.…

HOW TO: Complete 12 reps (calories for the air bike and row) of each exercise. Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes. 1A. BB BACK SQUAT Position the bar across your upper-back, with feet shoulder-width apart. Brace your core, hinge at the hips and squat down, keeping your chest up. Squat until your hips are just below your knees (breaking parallel). Drive back up through your heels, keeping your knees out and chest up. 1B. AIR BIKE When pedalling make sure your legs are slightly bent in the lower position. Use your arms as well as your feet to generate as much power as possible. 1C. BB DEADLIFT Stand with shins touching the bar. Push your hips back to engage the hamstrings, then squat down and grab the…

Disclaimer: if you soundtrack your sweat sessions with ear-blasting music, Aftershokz headphones won’t be for you. The opposite of noise-cancelling, the brand’s trademark bone-conduction technology generates mini vibrations that travel through the cheekbones. These vibrations go directly to your inner ears, bypassing the eardrums, which means surrounding noise like traffic, cyclists and runners can be heard as normal. SHOKZ TACTICS The downside, for anyone who enjoys getting lost in the music, is that sound quality is never going to stand up to the in-ear alternatives. It’s certainly not bad, but being able to hear what’s going on around you comes with a compromise. That said, for any outdoor fitness enthusiast – especially in busy, urban environments – the OpenMove is an excellent option. Beyond the safety benefits of spatial awareness,…

1. REDUCE REST TIME Sixty seconds means exactly that: the clock starts when you put the weight down. When it hits the minute mark you should have the weight in hand, ready to go. Keeping rests strict will ratchet up your fat loss by forcing you to work harder. 2. STRETCH AT HOME There’s no real need to fit mobility work (important as it is) into your limited workout time. If you’re pushed for time at the gym, get a band and foam roller for home and do your injury-prevention work when you’re less pressed for time. 3. PUT IT AWAY Social media and news updates are unnecessary time-sinks that will add nothing to your workouts. To avoid temptation entirely, leave the phone in your bag. If…

“This exercise focuses primarily on building the vastus medialis oblique (VMO), an inside quad muscle just above the knee, to improve knee stability,” says PT James Stark (pictured). While the depth of the exercise is completely individual, everyone should prioritise control to maximise quad recruitment. Start upright, standing on a box (or solid surface) on one leg. Place the other leg off the side of the box, with your foot running along the edge. Hold your hands together in front for stability and slowly pull down on the standing leg, flexing at the knee, hips and ankle. The opposite leg should stay straight, tracking the side of the box. At the bottom position, allow the heel to lift off the standing leg to put emphasis on the quad. Press your…

Now is the perfect time to pick up a ski-holiday bargain. Many resorts have dropped their prices due to the impact of the pandemic and the warmer winters are more welcoming than ever, especially to beginners and improvers. REASONS TO SKI An all-in-one activity, skiing is one of those rare sports that combines fitness, adventure and the great outdoors... Easy equipment Thanks to advances in the kit used, skiing is easier to learn now than it has ever been. “Long gone are the clumsy planks we used to handle,” says Rob Stewart, a coach with the British Association of Snowsport Instructors. “Now we have super lightweight and responsive skis designed to steer easily.” Ski shops have honed the whole equipment hire process, too, making it simpler and quicker to kit…

While trail running can be tougher and slower going than pavement pounding, your reward for the added effort is invariably a greater sense of excitement and escapism. Away from the traffic and the crowds, off-road outings are the perfect opportunity to shut off from the outside world and tune in to more natural surroundings. REASONS TO TRAIL RUN Take your running off-road to bolster both body and mind... Stress relief Running off-road – in the countryside, woods or mountains – puts you in a beautiful environment with greater variety. Research into sports psychology has shown that having this external stimulus can help runners relax and perform better, and a growing body of research is highlighting the power of ‘ecotherapy’, which can be summarised as the mind and body benefits of…

Whether you’re a road cyclist or a mountain biker, riding a fat bike for the first time will inject some fun into your two-wheeled adventures. These eye-catching off-road machines are fitted with giant tyres around 4.5 inches wide. The low ground pressure caused by the extra surface area gives you tank-like levels of traction and the balance of an Olympic gymnast. Armed with these new cycling superpowers, you can bound over chunky rocks and roots, shifting gravel, deep sand, snow and ice, gloopy bogs and marshes, or slippery riverbeds to prise open a whole new world of outdoor adventures. REASONS TO TRY FAT BIKING Combine fitness with exploration on your big-wheeled adventures… Take in wild terrain Although there are specific races and events for fat bike riders – including the…

Lockdown was all about getting back to basics. Some started baking sourdough; others rediscovered the joys of jigsaw puzzles. And many, deprived of being able to go to the gym, turned back to press-ups to keep in shape. It makes sense: press-ups were man’s go-to bodyweight exercise long before dumbbells were created, with fans ranging from soldiers in the Ancient Indian army to the Roman emperor Constantine. Yet with all the recent advances in fitness tech and gym equipment, the press-up had fallen by the wayside in favour of bulkier weights-focused options. With some scientific evidence and plenty of professional expertise, however, you can turn this unassuming bodyweight exercise into the lynchpin of a total-body transformation. So take a moment to consider the power of the press-up – you might…

Since the turn of the century, the fitness world – this magazine included – has been fixated on fast and furious fat loss. HIIT is the neatly packaged, time-efficient alternative to hour-long cardio sessions. It’s quick, accessible and guaranteed to leave you sweaty and sore. Its popularity has boomed and it’s easy to understand why. But when things sound too good to be true, they usually are… Because while high-intensity interval training, done right, is an essential tool in any elite athlete’s armoury, the ‘HIIT’ most of us are sold is watered down and ineffective. Sure, bashing out burpees until your red-faced and wheezing is going to burn a few calories, but if you want your sweat sessions to go beyond simple calorie-crunching – to make you fitter, stronger and…

Huel’s new Hot & Savoury product is a ‘nutritionally complete’ vegan meal – just add hot water to a couple of scoops of the dry mix – which packs 24g of plant-based protein, as well as all 26 essential vitamins and minerals, per serving. Aimed at the health-conscious but time-poor, the new release – available in spicy Thai Green Curry, and Tomato and Herb – sounds like good news for anyone sick of lunchtime sandwiches. But is it any good? KEEP IT REAL “I would always recommend getting your nutrients from whole, ‘real’ foods, rather than anything processed,” says dietitian Tabitha Ward, “because nutrients in their natural form are more readily absorbed and more likely to leave us feeling satisfied. That said, if you’re short on time and prone to…

1. VEG OUT All fruits and veg contain health-enhancing nutrients. But while the five-a-day mantra is good at encouraging people to eat more fresh produce in general, if you want to get the most out of your training, and support your fat-burning and muscle-building efforts, you need to be a lot more specific about your intake. For a start, some fruits are very high in fructose, a type of sugar that plays havoc with blood sugar levels, making you far more likely to store fat. Vegetables, on the other hand, contain no fructose but are just as – if not more – nutrient dense. Green vegetables in particular are a good choice, as they’re an excellent source of slow-release carbs. Eat as many servings of green veg as possible…

Leading multi-sports brand Dare 2b has announced that former Formula 1 champion Jenson Button is to be the new face of its upcoming AW20 menswear range, launching 30 September 2020. Dare 2b has tapped Button to front its new men’s Autumn winter lifestyle, ski, active and mountain ranges dropping throughout the season. The collection is designed for the ultimate outdoor adventurer, featuring technical outerwear jackets, essential base layers and winter accessories – created and inspired by pieces from Dare 2b’s archives. Men’s Fitness caught up with Button to find out why Dare 2b was the perfect fit for him… Jenson, what sets Dare 2b apart? “It started last year. We were looking to work with someone in the adventure world, because I was doing the Baja 1000, which is the…

BEAT FATIGUE Listening to upbeat music will help you recover between bouts of exercise, according to a study published in the journal of the American Psychological Association. The research compared the recovery of men who listened to ‘stimulative’ music, with those who listened to sedative music and those who listened to no music at all. It found that listening to up-tempo tunes helped recovery, leading to blood lactate clearance and improving subsequent exercise performance. 170 BPM Studies have shown music that maintains a steady 170 beats per minute or above will goes some way to distracting your mind from feelings of exertion and fatigue during intense workouts. FLOWER POWER Researchers studying so called ‘nootropics’ – drugs that enhance cognitive functions – say that eating the leaves of the pond plant…

GIANT SETS WHAT: Multiple sets of different moves done back to back with little or no rest. In contrast to supersets, which often target antagonistic (opposing) muscles, giant sets are usually composed of four or five moves targeting one part of the body. WHY: Giant sets willkick-start stubborn muscles into growth, but also burn some fat because of the high work rate. HOW: • There are different protocols, but one of the most effective is to follow a power move with a heavy strength move and then a pair of smaller moves. • For example, jump squat, heavy back squat, dumbbell squat, dumbbell lunge. GVT WHAT: German Volume Training is a system popularised by the renowned strength coach Charles Poliquin, It uses a couple of moves per workout for very…

STRENGTHEN YOUR BODY Like all sports, ski fitness has its own special requirements. To avoid serious pain after your first day on the slopes, work on your core, lower back and leg muscles before you travel. LEARN THE ROPES You might want to have some lessons on a dry ski slope before you fly to the mountains. Doing so will allow you to progress much more quickly once you’re on the real snow. DON’T OVERDO IT A full week of skiing can be too much for a beginner, even if you have a good fitness base. Consider going for a long weekend instead. RENT BEFORE BUYING As a beginner, it’s not worth buying skis, boots and a helmet until you know you’re hooked. “Ski hire shops often stock the very…

HIRE A BIKE “I advise people to begin by renting a bike in a fat biking centre, or attending a demo event,” says fat bike rider Gilles Morneau, who has written a book about the sport. “That way you can see if it’s suitable for you before you spend a lot of money –  and make any mistakes on someone else’s bike!” THINK TRACTION “When it comes to setting up your bike, traction is the key if you want to have fun, especially when conditions are soft,” says Morneau. “I advise people to have large tyres – 4.5 inches or more – and to not pump them up too much. Low pressure allows the tyre to become distorted at the bottom, increasing the width of the traction patch. More traction…

In the summer of 2014, Jamie Douglas-Hamilton – grandson of the first man to fly over Mount Everest – was in a spot of bother. Floating in the middle of the Indian Ocean, he and the rest of the six-man rowing crew were battered, beaten and bereft of energy. After setting off from south-west Australia, they had endured vicious storms, equipment loss, a mid-ocean rescue (after one of the crew suffered serious boiling- water burns), and even a collision with a blue whale. Now, with over 1,000 miles still to row before they would reach their destination of the Seychelles, fatigue, tension and hallucinations were taking their toll. Until, that is, a moment of seeming madness turned the expedition around… Jamie, talk us through the origins of Actiph Water. “This…

At the age of 16, Aldo Kane passed one of the hardest fitness tests in the world to become a Royal Marine. “People use the term ‘functional fitness’ a lot, but whatever that function is will be different for everyone” Since then, he's had a career as a Commando Sniper, completed 13 world-first expeditions, moved camera crews in and out of some of the world's most hostile locations, trained anti-poaching units in Africa, and tracked down tiger traffickers in South East Asia. Oh, and he was part of the five-man crew that rowed the longest route across the Atlantic Ocean in record time. Driven by adventure and with 26 years’ expedition experience, Kane is an expert in the extreme. Men’s Fitness: Why were you first drawn to the world of…

ROUND 1 1A. AB CYCLE REPS: 20 REST: Straight to 1b Lie on your back, extend your legs and hover them about an inch off the floor. Place your fingers on your temples. Bring one knee up towards your chest and twist your torso so that the opposite elbow comes over. Lower both your torso and leg at the same time, then repeat on the opposite side, keeping the movement continuous and smooth for all reps. 1B. LYING SCISSOR KICK REPS: 20 REST: Straight to 1c Lie flat on your back with arms by your sides and your legs stretched out next to each other – keep your lower back touching the floor throughout. Bring one leg up towards the ceiling, then lower it with control and repeat…

On 19 July 2018, Polish ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel left base camp on K2 – the second highest and arguably most dangerous mountain in the world – for an expedition that would redefine modern mountaineering. All previous attempts by elite free skiers to summit and then ski down K2 had ended in disappointment, or death. With no supplemental oxygen, he began a gruelling four-day ascent on the 8,611m peak high above the Pakistan-China border. When he did so – an incredible feat in itself – he clipped on his skis and began the ‘impossible’ descent. Bargiel credits his mountain rescuer brother, Grzesiek, for getting him into ski mountaineering when, as a child, he swapped a pair of table tennis bats for his first set of skis. “Grzesiek taught me the…