Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2021 i Men's Fitness UK

Whether you sweat out an eighties movie montage or reach for a plod-cast to help clock your low-and-slow cardio miles, research shows that the right audio stimulation can boost motivation, fight fatigue, make you work harder and even improve recovery. Luckily, in the past few years headphones have upped their game. Big, sweat-catching cans have been replaced by super-minimal, session-proof, true wireless earphones and lightweight, open-ear bone conductors. You can now expect crisp sounds, big battery life and workout-friendly comfort from headphones that fit in the palm of your hand. BOSE SPORT EARBUDS £179.95, bose.co.uk An improvement on Bose’s SoundSport Free, these new in-ear headphones offer a more comfortable and secure fit to go with Bose’s big sound. They’re still slightly heavier and chunkier than the likes of…

Back in 2006, James Lawrence ran his first ever four-mile fun run. Fast-forward 15 years and the 44-year-old has upped his endurance game considerably, with several Guinness World Records to his name. His crowning achievement was in 2015, when he became the first and only person to complete 50 full-distance triathlons (equivalent to the Ironman format) in 50 consecutive days, across 50 US states. Now, this endurance renegade and father of five is attempting to go one better. But he hasn’t raised the stakes to 60 full-distance triathlons, or even 80: he’s flat-out doubled it. That’s puzzling, given that there’s no one else coming even close to challenging him. So, we have to ask, why 100? “Because it was the only number that scared me,” Lawrence says. Some men are…

ROSEMARY GROW IT: This herb is easiest to grow from a cutting – and the offspring will inherit the characteristics of whatever parent you pick. EAT IT: “It prevents meat from becoming carcinogenic,” says nutritionist Madeleine Shaw. “Make sure you marinade your lamb in it before putting it in the oven.” CORIANDER GROW IT: Grow this from seed – it will flower prematurely and run to seed if you try to breed it from cuttings. And keep it indoors – it’s very delicate. EAT IT: “Chop it up and use it in salads and guacamole,” says Scott Liversedge, head chef at Redcoats Farmhouse. It eases digestion and limits dangerous free radicals. THYME GROW IT: One of the trickiest herbs to grow from scratch, so it’s better to buy a plant…

1 Carbs are bad for you Carbohydrates are often labelled as the enemy of weight loss. Let’s be clear, that is not true! Carbs are an important fuel for the brain, as well as a major fuel source for your muscles. So why the bad press? There are three different types: complex (starchy), simple (sugar) and fibre. Starchy carbohydrates require digestion and absorption, so provide a slow release of energy throughout the day. These are commonly found in bread, pasta, potatoes and rice. Sugar is a simple form of carbohydrate. It is easily absorbed and can lead to fast, large spikes in blood sugar levels. That can be very useful in certain situations, but if overconsumed, particularly for most sedentary people, it promotes fast weight gain. Fibre, on the…

1. KETTLEBELL CLEAN AND PRESS REPS 12-15 REST 45 secs SETS 4 Stand with feet hip-width apart, a kettlebell positioned between your legs. Clean the kettlebell to your shoulder by extending through the legs and hips as you pull the kettlebell upwards. Rotate your wrist as the kettlebell reaches your chest, so your palm ends up facing forwards. Press the kettlebell overhead, locking out your arm. Lower the weight to the floor to return to the start. 2A. KB COSSACK SQUAT REPS 12 REST straight into 2b Stand with your feet roughly two and a half times shoulder-width apart, holding a kettlebell upside down, in both hands, at chest height. Drop into a squat, moving your weight slowly across onto one leg until the other is straight and…

1. SUPPORT YOURSELF When sitting at your desk, ensure that your lower back is properly supported. Adjust your chair so your knees are slightly lower than your hips, with both feet resting fully on the floor. 2. LEVEL OUT Keep your screen as close to the line of your eyes as possible to avoid neck strain. 3. MOVE MORE Regular movement is key to maintaining a strong posture. Sitting down for prolonged periods can lead to back pain, stiffness in the hips and weakening of the muscles in your lower body. Take a short movement break at least every hour – half an hour if possible. 4. STAND UP If you’ve got the budget and the space, investing in a standing desk might just be the…

BOBBY PALMER has written about everything from male stripping to East London wrestling. His assignment this issue is less colourful but no less revealing, as he uncovers what’s best: weighted or bodyweight training. SAM CLARK is a journalist interested in the psychology of ultra-endurance events. On page 42 he delves into the mindset required to bounce back from sporting failure, citing some high-profile examples. MIKE SAWH is a journalist with a particular interest in wearable and fitness tech, as well as one of the co-founders of The Run Testers YouTube channel. Read his feature on esports on page 55. CHRIS BABER is a chef on a mission to make good grub accessible to all. On page 70, Chris proves comfort food can be both tasty and nutritious with a collection…

Biceps versus triceps. Press-ups versus pull-ups. Chocolate protein powder versus strawberry. Certain fitness debates just never go away. Yet of them all, one particular argument has been raging since the day man first picked up a dumbbell. Weighted workouts or bodyweight sessions: which is better? With the last year’s lockdown-enforced gym closures, the question has become much more than a hypothetical. Those who train have been forced to ask not just whether weight training can trump the bodyweight equivalent, but whether the latter can ever replace the former without all your well-gotten muscle gains turning to dust. Finding a scientific answer is difficult. But if you wanted one, trying each method out on a pair of identical twins would be a good way to find it. That’s why, when lockdown…

• Two teams of five players and up to five substitutes, using a size 4 standard rugby ball. • Played on a hard surface, ideally 18-22 metres wide and 40-45 metres long. • The object of the game is to score tries by putting the ball to ground over the line. • Conversions are scored by punching the ball over the mini-posts from a tee. • Tackles are made in the same way as tag rugby: by pulling off the attached tag. • As in rugby league, five successive tackles are followed by the handing over of possession. • Offside, knock-on and in-touch rules all apply, just like in the running version of the game.…

Simeon Panda is one of the biggest names – equipped with one of the best physiques – in the bodybuilding world. With a social media following in excess of 13 million, he was voted one of the top ten fitness influencers on the planet by Forbes. Building a body like Panda’s requires a fair amount of heavy lifting, clearly, but since the coronavirus lockdowns he’s also been proving that weights aren’t the only way to get in shape – by way of hundreds of minimal-kit and bodyweight workouts on his YouTube channel. Pre-pandemic, Panda regularly judged physique and bodybuilding competitions around the world, and he recently teamed up with boohooMAN to launch a new activewear collection. Although he grew up in London, the 34-year-old has lived in Los Angeles for…

HUNGRY FOR EXERCISE Ever got back from a tough run or workout, hit the shower, then thought, Shouldn’t I be starving by now? If so, you’re not alone, as many people find their appetite is lower on the days they train than on their rest days. And a new study published in Health Psychology explains the phenomenon by showing that exercise can in fact quell appetite. The researchers suggest it’s likely down to two reasons: the release of hormones after exercising that supress hunger, and the post-exercise mood and self-esteem boost, which can improve your intrinsic motivation to avoid overeating. VETO KETO? Low-carbohydrate diets like keto have been shown to be effective for short-term weight loss. But the National Lipid Association has recently released a scientific statement that several studies…

Chris Baber is a chef on a mission to make good food accessible to all. In lockdown, he launched a live cooking school on his Instagram @chrisbaber that demonstrates his easy recipes. Try a few for yourself with the following dishes. CHICKEN BURGERS WITH SLAW INGREDIENTS (SERVES 4) - 4 chicken breasts - 4 buns - Lettuce - 4 tbsp plain flour - 2 handfuls cornflakes, crushed fine - 1 egg, beaten - Mayo, to serve FOR THE SPICE MIX - 1 tsp garlic powder - 1 tsp smoked paprika - ½ tsp cayenne pepper - 1 tsp thyme FOR THE SLAW - ½ white cabbage, finely sliced - 1 red onion, finely sliced - 2 carrots, cut into thin matchsticks - 2 tbsp yogurt - 1 tbsp mayo -…

The focus of this session is to learn how to flex and extend your hips to maximum effect. Mastering this is key to improving your performance and increasing your chances of growing solid muscle. And although attention is on the lower body, keep your shoulders back and chest up throughout. 1A. DUMBBELL DEEP SQUAT REPS 15-20 REST Straight into 1b Stand holding a dumbbell in each hand, palms facing. Your feet should be just wider than shoulder-width apart with your toes pointing outwards slightly. Squat down until your thighs are at least parallel to the floor. Drive back up through your heels. 1B. DB SPLIT SQUAT REPS 15-20 REST 60 secs, then return to 1a SETS 4 Stand holding a dumbbell in each hand, with your palms facing.…

At the end of 2019, I stepped onto the scales and weighed in at 21st 6lbs – that’s about the same weight as a baby elephant. My life was in a rut: barely employed, hardly happy and scarcely motivated. All my struggles had a single denominator: my health and wellbeing. Six years ago, I was a gym nut. I lived a healthy lifestyle and plugged away at making improvements. I was more than content with my physical condition. But the following half-dozen years were disastrous, both physically and mentally. I was diagnosed with a ‘severe social anxiety disorder’ and spent each year losing and gaining weight for special events. It was the epitome of a yo-yo diet. It needed to change. So I decided enough was enough. I opened up…

92% The amount of healthy goals which fail, according to the University of Scranton, proving that willpower alone is not enough to make positive changes. 45% of our daily behaviour –  almost half of our daily activity –  is performed out of habit, according to research out of Duke University. 5 University College London found that people who were given habit-formation advice lost five times more weight than others, as their healthy habits became ‘automatic’ over time. 10 Research in the British Journal of General Practice suggests healthy changes can be cemented into ingrained habits with just ten weeks of repetition.…

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has made an important change to its exercise advice, which has gone largely unnoticed by the world’s media amid the Covid chaos. In its freshly updated Guidelines on Physical Activity, the minimum recommended exercise time – which was previously ten minutes – has disappeared. That’s because new research has shown that ‘exercise snacking’ – completing short, micro-bursts of fitness activity throughout the day – can combat the negative effects of a sedentary lifestyle and protect heart health. The WHO still recommends we aim for 150–300 minutes of moderate exercise, or 75–150 minutes of vigorous activity, each week. However, it says the length of each session is less important: even a 30-second blast is good for you. “Moderate to vigorous physical activity bouts of any duration…

This is a one-hour session, split into three 20-minute sections. 1. PREP AND FULL-BODY HEAT “Make yourself a better athlete via movement and mobility training,” says Tidmarsh, “working the key joints with yoga postures and free-flowing movements. All the things I call a ‘buy-in’ to the workout, to get your body prepared.” 2. QUALITY STRENGTH WORK “For your weights work, stick to your bigger compound movements, done well. Deadlift, front squat options, and potentially your big pushes and pulls, such as overhead push-presses and bent-over rows.” 3. BODYWEIGHT GIANT SETS “Spend the final 20 minutes creating that stimulus using your bodyweight, with different tension methods. Negative press-ups, into some kind of pull-up or TRX suspension training option – or L-sits if you’re at home.”…

SAVOUR THE STRUGGLE While sweating out next to your sofa is far from an ideal set-up, it is a chance to find out what you’re made of – and just how committed you are to achieving your goals. “These are testing times,” says Panda. “These are the times when you find out what you’re made of, and whether you’re serious about getting in shape. You need to train even when it’s not the most enjoyable. Even on the days when I don’t want to, that’s when I know I have to do it. The key to reaching your goals is consistency, and that includes training when it’s not fun.” MAKE AN EFFORT If you’re trying to smash out a high-intensity circuit, Peppa Pig in the background probably isn’t going to…

1A. PRISONER SQUAT REPS 15 REST Straight into 1b Touch your fingers to your temples and keep your elbows flared out to the sides. Keep your back upright and knees in line with your feet. Squat as low as you can without sacrificing form. 1B. PRESS-UP REPS 15 REST 30 secs, then repeat 1a SETS 2 Position your hands underneath your chest. Your body should form a straight line from the top of your head to your heels – think straight-arm plank. Stay ‘tight’ throughout: clench your glutes and tighten your abs, as if you’re about to take a punch to the stomach. ‘Screw’ the heels of your hands into the floor. Doing so will stabilise your shoulder joints and give you more strength. 2A. JUMPING JACK…

1A. PULL-UP REPS 8 REST Straight into 1b Grasp a bar with an overhand grip so your palms are facing away from you and your hands are twice shoulder-width apart. Contract your upper back muscles to pull your sternum towards the bar, then lower under control. 1B. PLANK WITH DUMBBELL LATERAL RAISE REPS 8 each side REST 45 secs, then repeat 1a SETS 3 Start in the top of a press-up, gripping two dumbbells under your shoulders. Keeping your core braced to control rotation and your arm straight, lift one dumbbell out to the side until it’s level with your shoulder, then lower under control. Repeat on the other side. 2A. DB PRESS-UP REPS 12 REST Straight into 2b Assume the same position as the plank with…

For many of us, the nine to five requires hours spent sitting at a desk and staring at a screen. That’s good news for your social media presence, but less so for your posture and general mobility. Fortunately, while reducing desk time simply isn’t an option for most, there are some quick-fix stretches you can do – on a daily basis and alongside regular movement breaks – to prevent all that sitting from causing too much damage. 1. CHEST OPENERS Leaning forward over your keyboard can shorten the muscles in your chest and restrict your breath, affecting both mood and energy. This exercise aims to open the chest and encourage deep abdominal breathing. Relax your arms down by your sides. Bend your elbows at a 90-degree angle and rotate…

On a good day you might knock out 100 press-ups, eat an apple instead of a chocolate bar, and hydrate with eight glasses of water. But the hard part is turning that kind of healthy behaviour into a regular routine. Willpower is like a muscle: it gets fatigued from overuse. And motivation rises and falls with our daily moods. But what if you could turn healthy daily activities into automatic, ingrained habits? That’s the question Dr B.J. Fogg has been researching for decades. Drawing on exciting research in psychology, neuroscience and behaviour change, he has developed a successful habit-building formula which he has shared in his book, Tiny Habits. ON AUTOPILOT Habits are incredibly powerful neurological weapons. Whereas willpower is vulnerable to fluctuations in our mood, habits are automatic modes…