Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2022 i Men's Health

BRAIN HEALTH: P. Murali Doraiswamy, M.D. CARDIOLOGY: John Elefteriades, M.D. Foluso Fakorede, M.D. David Wolinsky, M.D. DERMATOLOGY: Brian Capell, M.D., Ph.D. Corey L. Hartman, M.D. Adnan Nasir, M.D., Ph.D. EMERGENCY MEDICINE: Jedidiah Ballard, D.O. Italo M. Brown, M.D., M.P.H. Robert Glatter, M.D. ENDOCRINOLOGY: Sandeep Dhindsa, M.D. EXERCISE SCIENCE: Martin Gibala, Ph.D. Mark Peterson, Ph.D., C.S.C.S.*D Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D., C.S.C.S. GASTROENTEROLOGY: Felice Schnoll-Sussman, M.D. INTEGRATIVE HEALTH: Brenda Powell, M.D. INTERNAL MEDICINE: Keith Roach, M.D. MENTAL HEALTH: Gregory Scott Brown, M.D. Thomas Joiner, Ph.D. Avi Klein, L.C.S.W. Drew Ramsey, M.D. NUTRITION: Dezi Abeyta, R.D.N. Chris Mohr, Ph.D., R.D. Brian St. Pierre, R.D., C.S.C.S. PAIN MEDICINE: Paul Christo, M.D., M.B.A. SEX & RELATIONSHIPS: Debby Herbenick, Ph.D., M.P.H. Shamyra Howard, L.C.S.W. Justin Lehmiller, Ph.D. SLEEP MEDICINE: W. Christopher Winter, M.D. SPORTS MEDICINE: Michael Fredericson,…

EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT among the more than one in three Americans with prediabetes, it’s smart to try to keep your blood-sugar level steady. Spikes from quickly digested sugar and carbs, plus the crashes that follow, can tank your energy and predispose you to diabetes. If you have the disease, it can do all kinds of damage to your nerves and organs. Here’s how endocrinologist GREGORY DODELL, M.D., 41, works to prevent the disease he sees in the patients he treats all day. FIND YOUR TENSION—AND BUST IT. There’s a list of nearly 40 things that affect blood sugar, and stress is one of them. I’ve learned that I hold stress in my right glute—I get this clenched-up, tight feeling. So if I’m stressed and anxious because I have a…

WHAT IT IS There’s no real plan with CICO; you just consume fewer calories (calories in, or “CI”) than you burn (calories out, or “CO”) every day. And, honestly, any diet—be it keto, paleo, Whole30, or otherwise—can be a complicated method for consuming fewer calories than you burn. CICO attempts to simplify everything. THE PROMISE Run a calorie deficit and you’ll start to drop pounds. All you have to do is calculate your current calorie needs, activity level, and target weight. Websites like niddk.nih.gov/bwp and apps like MyFitnessPal can do this. Their formulas will spit out a lower total number of calories—your new goal for daily intake. WHAT YOU CAN’T HAVE Everything is on the table. So if you wanted to drink beer and eat wings every day, you could—as…

1 IF YOU LIKE CAMPING… GO WOODSY Sandalwood and cedar are cologne mainstays, but they can often leave you smelling like a smokehouse. Try Tom Ford Ébène Fumé ($263), a well-balanced scent that builds its base from palo santo—a lighter wood that brings a little smoke and a whole lot of mystery. LESS WOODSY: Gucci Guilty Parfum pour Homme ($125) MORE WOODSY: Ermenegildo Zegna Javanese Patchouli ($250) 2 IF YOU LIKE TRAVELING… GO SPICY Warm, spicy colognes are the olfactory equivalent of the open road—primed with potential. Acqua di Parma Oud & Spice ($285) is about as adventurous as it gets: deep, musky oud mixed with cinnamon and clove. LESS SPICY: Byredo Mumbai Noise ($190) SPICY AND WOODSY: Burberry Hero ($78) 3 IF YOU LIKE GARDENING… GO FLORAL Scents from this style often…

YOU KNOW THE GUY: He’s up at 5:45 A.m., runs a quick 10K before making Instagram-worthy breakfasts for his kids, is working on launching another company, and spends his evenings checking on the craft beers he’s brewing in the basement. And yet he’s the opposite of exhausted. Meanwhile, there are too many days these days when you’re stuck in a rut or unable to get things in gear while watching other people speed by you, and you can’t quite work up the power to do whatever it is you really want to do. No matter where you think your drive is—or isn’t—right now, these simple steps can rev up your motivation. 1. DO SOMETHING—ANYTHING DRIVE ISN’T something that only lucky people have, like good hair or fast feet. Anyone can…

JOSEPH BAENA, the son of fitness culture’s greatest icon, is on a quest to become an actor, build his best body, and be the strongest version of himself, one rep a time. As the camera rolls, Baena wrestles the weights onto his lap, lies down on an incline bench, kicks the weights into position, and executes eight dumbbell presses with expert precision. “Go for a stretch at the bottom,” he instructs as he pumps the weights up and down. “Come all the way up and squeeze.” The way he sells it, you’d almost believe that holding a few hundred pounds of steel over your face, then lowering and raising them until the fibers of your pectoral muscles feel like they’re going to separate from your sternum, is the most fun…

TOM STOLTMAN HAS seen it happen over and over again. The 408-pound strongman, a co-owner of Stoltman Strength Centre in Invergordon, Scotland, will watch some gym bro walk into his facility and instantly expect to lift a 200-pound Atlas stone. The guy might talk up how he deadlifts 300 pounds and bench-presses 225 umpteen-million times. Then he’ll grab at the Atlas stone—essentially an oversized, rounded piece of rock—and barely get it to budge. “Many people will come into our gym and think that because they can easily deadlift 200 pounds, they can lift a 200-pound Atlas stone,” says Stoltman. “It’s so much harder and weirder than people think.” Most real-world lifts are harder than you think, even if you’ve spent years and years honing your strength and power in the…

FOLLOW THESE THREE CUES TO PERFECT YOUR BEAR CRAWL. If you’re wondering why stability matters, get on all fours, shins off the ground, and start crawling. This exercise, known as a bear crawl, is trainer Joseph Sakoda’s go-to. Better known as Da Rulk, Sakoda, 47, earned a stellar reputation working with elite military units, and his bear crawl is an underrated core move, especially when done outside the gym. Crawling along varied terrain challenges your hips, abs, and other muscles to work together to fully stabilize your torso. Da Rulk himself hasn’t quit crawling. When the Californian needs a quick workout, he frequently heads to the beach near his house and just starts crawling. In the process, he’s exposing his body and mind to the unique stressors that come from…

EVEN IF GUYS aren’t exploring ethical nonmonogamy (aka open relationships) in droves, a bunch are at least curious. Trying it could have benefits: Men who took up ENM during the pandemic report increased sexual and romantic satisfaction. Of all the guys doing ENM right now, 43% started exploring it during the pandemic. IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN TRYING ENM BUT HAVEN'T, WHAT’S HOLDING YOU BACK? 46% ARE NOT SURE HOW TO BRING IT UP WITH A PARTNER. 41% ARE AFRAID OF JEALOUSY. 32% ARE WORRIED ABOUT STIs. CURIOUS ABOUT ENM? HIT THE BOOKS. “Don’t just go on a chat room and see what they’re saying,” Howard says. “Get some real professional advice from people who are actually in sustainable, ethically nonmonogamous relationships.” She recommends these reads: OPENING UP, BY TRISTAN TAORMINO…

1. Gotham Gym Sweatpants After taking a boxing class at Gotham Gym in New York City, Uzi fell in love with the sport—and the gym’s sweats. “They’re really comfortable, and they’re pretty stylish,” he says. $40; gothamgymnyc.com 2. Vaseline Intensive Care Cocoa Radiant Lotion Like most guys, Uzi works up a sweat during his training sessions, and Vaseline’s cocoa lotion has been his go-to for staying moisturized after a post-exercise shower. $3; target.com 3. Chanel Chance Parfum Uzi previously used drugstore body sprays until he found Chanel’s warm and spicy fragrance. Now he keeps at least two of these bottles on hand wherever he goes. $130; nordstrom.com 4. Polo Ralph Lauren Jersey Crewneck T-Shirt When it comes to gym shirts, Uzi likes to go simple with this roomy tee from Polo…

BEHIND THE SCENES WITH THE EXPERTS, ADVISORS, AND READERS WHO BRING MEN’S HEALTH TO LIFE, AND THEN SOME. IF YOU COULD BE ANY SUPERHERO, WHO WOULD YOU BE? Goku: Always improved his status with hard work and a kind soul/heart. @soulprime Hulk. That way I have the brains of Banner and the strength of Hulk when I get angr y. I’ve always wanted that. @storm.becker Can touch books and absorb knowledge. Yes please. Meteor Man. @treestopper Black Panther: dude is king, richest person on earth, cool as hell, peak human ability, most advanced fighting skill, and the list goes on. Sohail Khilji The Punisher, like a Native American version. @Kyle.beeg Superman… can fly, incredible strength, practically indestructible. practically indestructible. @nick.colin1 MEN’S HEALTH MVP members have access to some of the…

DIRECTIONS: Complete the warmup, then do the exercises in order. Rest 60 seconds after each movement. WARMUP REVERSE LUNGE TO REACH AND ROTATE Start standing, arms at your sides, then step back with your right leg and lower into a reverse lunge. Let your back knee touch the floor. Reach both arms overhead, stretching your back and chest (a). Then put your hands together and rotate your shoulders as far to each side as you can (b). Stand and repeat on the other side. That’s 1 rep; do 3 sets of 5. SHIRT BY FABLETICS; SHORTS BY FOURLAPS; SHOES BY NIKE. WORKOUT 1 SINGLE-ARM SPLITSTANCE SNATCH Start standing, holding a dumbbell in your left hand. Push your butt back slightly and bend your knees. Explosively stand, squeezing your glutes and jumping…

NO MATTER WHAT you need in the next minute or ten—sheets, coffee, razor blades—there’s a sleek-looking start-up promising to have the best product, the easiest ordering process, and the smoothest delivery. But should you really be clicking on all those ads in your social feeds for free medical consults and cheap, easy meds? “It’s good and bad… it’s complicated,” says Ateev Mehrotra, M.D., an associate professor of health-care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School. Consider this before you click. THE PERKS FIRST, THE BIG ONE: If you don’t have a doctor or don’t have time to wait around to see the one you have, a click on these sites promises to take care of that. You’ll have an easier time finding potential treatment for health problems—especially those that carry…

YOU’LL FIND HIM on a park bench. It’s a virtual park bench, but that’s the point. He’s always there, every day, like a benevolent NPC waiting to give you advice on your gaming quest. Or better still, a male version of The Matrix’s Oracle. His name is Nathan; he lives inside the Internet; and even though he’s only a bot, he just might save your life. Nathan stems from a collaboration between the CDC and the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors, brought to life by Kognito, a tech firm that specializes in virtual interactions. “Talking” with him on your computer screen or smartphone is largely multiple choice—no fancy AI yet—but when you pick and click, Nathan answers in a warm, genial tone. “We wanted to offer a tool that…

WATCHING PEOPLE PLAY video games has existed ever since man first huddled around a Pong cabinet. But watching people play video games on a global scale, via social networks built for the purpose, as they compete for purses of up to $40 million—this is relatively new. E-sports are huge, and if you’ve been ignoring them because you don’t think they qualify as a sport, or you think this is (yet another) weird teen thing, or whatever, stop shaking your fist at a cloud and open a Twitch account, because e-sports are exactly the refuge you need now. The universe of e-sports is vast. There are the intense tactical shoot-outs of Rainbow Six: Siege, the old-school fighting of Street Fighter V, the cartoony battles of Overwatch. Few games, however, match the…

WHEN YOUR TEN-YEAR-OLD sits on the top bunk of his bunk bed, looks at you, and yells, “Eff you!” then refuses to stop no matter how many privileges are revoked or threats are leveled, you have a lot to think about. But not very much time to do it. School starts in 20 minutes. No one is fed, no one is dressed, and the dog still needs walking. Plus, cursing is a bright-red line. A real effing bright one. So up the ladder you scramble as your son freezes and in his eyes you see a look between terror and defiance, because this isn’t the first time you’ve gotten angry or grabbed his spindly wrist and dragged him down from his perch. But that’s the look you’ll remember through the…

SUPERSET 1 EZ-BAR SKULLCRUSHER Lie on a bench, a loaded EZ bar held directly above your shoulders with a shoulder-width grip. Bend only at the elbows and lower the bar toward your forehead. Pause, then press back up. That’s 1 rep; do 10. Then, without resting, do the next exercise. CLOSE-GRIP BENCH PRESS Lie on a bench, a loaded EZ bar held directly above your shoulders with a shoulder-width grip. Bend at the elbows and shoulders, lowering the bar toward the bottom of your chest and keeping your elbows close to your torso. Press back up. That’s 1 rep; do 10. ROPE CABLE CURL Stand near a cable pulley with a rope attachment. Grasp it and tighten your abs and glutes. Keeping your elbows close to your torso, curl the…

50% “One metric some sex researchers have used to categorize sexual interests and behaviors as ‘common’ is whether they are shared by more than 50 percent of the population,” Lehmiller says. THE POPULARITY of interests varies between groups. For instance, RECEIVING BUTT PLAY WOULD BE NBD for 18% of white men, 12% of Asian American men, and 11% of Black men. MH advisor Howard says the act can be linked to “being gay” in Black communities, which may lead to underreporting. “BUTT PLAY HAS NO SEXUAL ORIENTATION,” she says. “A BUTT IS A BUTT.” WHAT’S HOT AND WHERE TO FIND IT YOUR REGIONAL GUIDE TO KINK. METHODOLOGY: Men’s Health surveyed 1,229 men in the U. S. from November 16 to 17, 2021, using SurveyMonkey. Data is nationally representative in terms of race and…

In the video, from September 2011, trainer Jeff Cavaliere explains that the dumbbell fly doesn’t actually “stretch” your pecs the way bodybuilders claim. Your chest, it turns out, can’t stretch much more than it already does when you do dumbbell presses. When you try to stretch it beyond that, as many do when performing dumbbell flies, you actually take tension off your chest. You begin to stretch other muscles and tendons (part of the pain I’d feel), and you open the door to injuries. It was a take I’d never heard, and yet it made sense. I haven’t done a traditional dumbbell fly since then, and yet my chest is bigger and stronger. I’m now the Men’s Health fitness director, but once a week I giddily transform into a student,…

SITUPS AND PLANKS are fine, but there are far more dynamic and effective ways to train your core. It has a clunky name, but the Half-Kneeling Kettlebell Snatch to Windmill is a smooth, fast flow that will work your abs while redlining your heart rate and building critical back and shoulder muscle, too. “This is a total-body move masquerading as a core move,” says MH fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S. “If your core is weak, you’ll really struggle to complete the flow.” The more you do it, however, the stronger your core will become—and it’s a helluva lot more fun than another 90-second plank. WHO’S THIS GUY? TYRIEK TAYLOR is a New York City–based trainer who first fell in love with fitness while in college after battling an eating disorder.…

CUREX HOW IT WORKS: Not sure if that stuffy nose is due to ragweed or your pup? Curex will mail you an allergy-test kit to find out. Just prick your finger, take a blood sample, and mail it in for analysis. Then chat with one of Curex’s clinicians to go over the results and get any meds. Note: This type of test detects only indoor and outdoor allergens (so you won’t discover a shellfish allergy, for example). THE COST: $129 for the kit; meds start at $65 per month with a three-year plan. KNOW BEFORE YOU TRY: The results can be misinterpreted. “A positive test may not mean you have that allergy,” says Jay Portnoy, M.D., at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. That might be okay if…

RIGHT AROUND THE time my three-year-old son started having behavioral problems—kicking, hitting, biting—at daycare, I stupidly took him to the comic-book store for the first time. That’s when, rifling through back issues of Batman, I realized that my favorite childhood superhero was kind of an asshole. Even though the Bat vows never to kill anyone, he does do almost everything I was trying to teach my son not to—using violence to solve problems, holding in his emotions, and employing an elderly butler my wife and I clearly couldn’t afford. Regardless, I bought my son a few books that day, and I told him that it’s all pretend. His behavior did not improve—maybe because I was too late. Fifteen or so years ago, superhero worship was a subculture confined to those…

YOU KNOW THAT cannabidiol (CBD), a compound derived from marijuana, won’t get you high. You also know that CBD is now in everything, including drinks, snacks, creams, and dog treats. But what you may not realize is that even though the FDA can clamp down on companies selling CBD illegally, it has approved only one CBD-derived product to treat a disease or condition. That leaves you on your own—and that’s why we’re here to help. Our team searched for third-party-certified products, then a small army of us tested everything to see if each delivered what’s advertised: deeper sleep, less pain, or a chiiiillll vibe. Here are our 15 favorites. BEST FOR SLEEP CHARLOTTE’S WEB CALM SPRAY This fast-acting spritzer combines CBD with another cannabinoid called cannabigerol (CBG) to promote sound…

AQUIL ABDULLAH, 48, rower Missed the Olympics by 33/100 of a second. MY REGRET: FOR PRETTY MUCH all of 1999 leading up to the Olympic trials in 2000, it was looking like I was going to the Olympics. I was the fastest person competing in the single sculls. I was poised to become the first African American male to represent rowing at the Olympics. Then, during the selection trials in Camden, New Jersey, I lost the final by 33/100 of a second. If I had lost by a large margin, I wouldn’t have had so much regret about the way I trained. I felt like I could have controlled something that could have changed the outcome. Did I eat the right thing? Did I lift enough? Did I put in…

ONSCREEN, Sam Heughan is used to living in uncertain times. After all, the 41-year-old actor leads Starz’s hit series Outlander, on which he plays an 18th-century Scottish warrior who falls in love with a 20th-century time traveler (Caitriona Balfe). It’s a bodice ripper of a show that’s probably your aunt’s not-so-guilty pleasure. But off-screen, filming the show’s sixth season (premiering March 6) during lockdown, in the middle of a freezing Scottish winter, was a challenge. “At least we were able to work, so we just feel really fortunate,” says Heughan. “[Working] got me through the pandemic.” His hustle these past two years is paying off. Beyond Outlander, he launched an award-winning whisky (the Sassenach), released two best-selling books and a travel show about Scotland, expanded his online wellness program (My…

80% OF GUYS DESCRIBE THEIR SEXUAL INTERESTS AS MAINSTREAM—BUT HERE’S WHAT THESE SUPPOSEDLY VANILLA GUYS ARE REALLY WILLING TO DO. (THE BIGGER THE WORD, THE MORE GUYS WHO SAID THEY’D BE OPEN TO IT.) AGE PLAY USING A SEX TOY WITH A PARTNER SEXTING PLAYING WITH BODY FLUIDS THREESOME OR OTHER FORM OF GROUP SEX ORAL SEX BUTT PLAY (GIVING) TRYING A NEW SEX POSITION COMBINING FOOD AND SEX USING A SEX TOY ALONE ROLE PLAY BDSM DIRTY TALK BUTT PLAY (RECEIVING) 50-SOMETHINGS ARE THE FREAKIEST GUYS IN THEIR 50s are more likely than those in any other age group to be down for using a sex toy with a partner (39%), BDSM (18%), and receiving butt play (23%). They’re also more likely to be doing ENM right now (10%). Howard…