Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2024 i Men's Health

MY ENO HAMMOCK.I PREFER TO SLEEP IN THERE MORE THAN A TENT MOST OF THE TIME.–CORI RITCHEY PATAGONIA DUFFEL/BACKPACK—KEY FOR CARRYING EVERYTHING WITH EASE AND MUCH-NEEDED WEATHER PROTECTION.–TED STAFFORD STAINLESS-STEEL MUGS TO DRINK FRESH COFFEE OUT OF IN THE CLEAN MORNING AIR.–JASON SPEAKMAN BUG SPRAY, BECAUSE I REFUSE TO DONATE BLOOD UNLESS IT’S FOR A GOOD CAUSE.–SEAN ABRAMS SUNSCREEN! ALWAYS A NECESSITY.–LEANNE MATTERN MY SONOS ROAM SPEAKER. IT SOUNDS GREAT EVERYWHERE AND INSTANTLY SETS THE VIBE.–JAMIE PROKELL MY GERBER MULTI-TOOL IS IN MY PACK AT ALL TIMES. IT’S LIKE PACKING A FIVE-INCH, HALF-POUND TOOLBOX.–CHRIS PEEL…

THE THINKING MAN’S TO-READ LIST To help fight the stress of everything, maybe it’s time to pull from our collection of the 14 best books about mental health, according to therapists. If you’re a doomscroller, try: Unwinding Anxiety, by Judson Brewer, M.D., Ph.D. Recommended by MH columnist Kier Gaines: “Dr. Brewer lays out, in great detail, how anxiety affects the brain, and useful tools to cope.” If you’re generally bummed out, try: When Things Fall Apart, by Pema Chödrön Recommended by MH advisor Avi Klein, L.C.S.W.: “This book helped me through a difficult moment in my life by showing me the rich possibilities for growth.” If you’re stuck, try: The Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks Recommended by MH advisor Gregory Scott Brown, M.D.: “I recommend this book if you are…

BENCH PRESS Lie flat on your bench; press up 185 pounds anytime your card shows clubs. Now feel the burn. CHEST FLY Grab 25-pound dumbbells, squeezing them together as you close your wingspan. Want a greater challenge? Freeman recommends using a pair of 30’s. SQUAT Start standing. Push your butt back, bend your knees, and lower your torso until your quads are parallel to the floor. LEG PRESS Push off on 225 pounds and feel fortunate that diamonds aren’t forever here. Freeman says this HIIT session is efficient on campus, on the road while recruiting, and even in a hotel room without weights (swap in pushups, situps, burpees, and mountain climbers). The best part: “It’s constant go! So now your race is against time.”…

BY THE TIME Iron Man came out in May 2008, I was already a lost cause. The Batman movies of the ’90s were fun; Christopher Nolan’s 2005 Batman Begins was maybe a masterpiece. But as soon as Iron Man landed, the energy was different—and when it ended with Tony Stark proclaiming to the world, “I am Iron Man,” it became clear that everything was about to change. For the next 11 years and 20-plus films, Marvel Studios sat atop Odin’s High Seat. Its movies grossed billions upon billions of dollars, their casts were stacked with Hollywood legends, and people like me (and probably you, too) were invested. When Spider-Man: Far from Home concluded what Marvel Studios called “The Infinity Saga”—the overarching story of its first 23 movies—it did so with the…

SINCE 2016, I’ve heard the term “election stress disorder” a lot, but I’ve only recently begun to take it seriously. The phrase was introduced by the couples therapist Steven Stosny, Ph.D., during the Clinton–Trump race to describe the effects of the heightened anxiety we feel ahead of an election. Stosny tells me he coined the term after watching an electionrelated video on his iPad. “I forget which candidate said something really stupid,” he says, “but I snapped at my wife about crumbs on the counter, which I have never done before.” He began asking his clients, couples who come to him for help with chronic resentment and anger, to pay attention to what behaviors typically preceded their arguments. Many told him that they’d been watching or reading the news before big…

LOG OFF AND CHILL TROY IWATA, The Daily Show correspondent YOU ARE allowed to not watch everything; you are allowed to not read everything. We think that if you don’t know, therefore you don’t care, which is not true. There is no shame in logging off and taking time to have fun and be happy, even with the world the way it is. Sometimes I just need to get an iced coffee, go for a walk somewhere I can see trees and water, and listen to some Audra McDonald singing Sondheim. Watch Patti LuPone read that and go insane. Patti LuPone reads Men’s Health, right? GET SOME PERSPECTIVE JOSH JOHNSON, The Daily Show correspondent I’M READING a great book called Outrageous, by Kliph Nesteroff, about the history of comedy and cancel…

LONG BEFORE Younghoe Koo was kicking clutch field goals for the Atlanta Falcons, he was a middle school soccer player in Ridgewood, New Jersey. His approach then was simple. “It was just ‘see ball, hit ball,’ ” he says. Then everything changed. After kicking for the Georgia Southern football team, Koo missed two potentially game-winning kicks as an undrafted rookie for the Los Angeles Chargers in 2017 and was cut. “When the field disappears, what’s your go-to?” he says. “That’s when I kind of figured out the mental part. It’s more preparation, having a process.” When Koo, who’s just the fourth Koreanborn player in NFL history, returned to the league, he arrived with greater mental strength in the clutch. His ability to erase distractions has fueled his ascent: Now 30,…

KETTLEBELL PLANK DRAG • Get in pushup position, a kettlebell just outside your right hand. Grab the bell with your left hand; drag it to just outside your left shoulder. Reset in pushup position; repeat on the other side. (Garrett does this with 54-pound bells.) Do 3 sets of 8 to 10. LANDMINE ROTATION • Place an end of a barbell on the floor (in a towel), a weight plate on the other. Kneel and hold the weighted end with both hands at your right hip. Press overhead with both hands; lower back to your hip. That’s 1 rep; do 3 sets of 10 per side.…

NOT SURE HOW TO TELL whether someone close to you is just making big gym gains or whether they might be getting a boost from trenbolone? For all the hype around this era’s steroid du jour, it has some very real (and very noticeable) side effects. Watch for these. TREN COUGH This well-known side effect is a cough so bad that users may struggle to breathe or speak. It usually occurs shortly after a tren injection, likely because part of it was accidentally introduced into the circulatory system, making its way into your lungs. ZIT ATTACK You’ll wind up with pimples—but not just an ordinary breakout. “Purple, giant, puffy pimples all over your face,” says Israetel. “All over your back. I had a friend who started tren; he got pimples…

BEHIND THE SCENES WITH THE EXPERTS, ADVISORS, AND READERS WHO BRING MEN’S HEALTH TO LIFE. I’ll go with Bo Jackson. He had elite power, speed, and balance. @michael.rogers Steve Weatherford. Dude was a punter, into fitness to an obsessive level. @cbarry23 I thought a lot about Walter Payton and the workouts he put himself through all year long. @chris.bernaky Jim Thorpe–multi sport athlete that excelled in all. @Luis.Rivera Darrell Green. He was among the league’s fastest players in his late 30s and you rarely see anyone athletic enough to play corner at that age. @alek.bee Ed Reed. Looks like he can still play. @marc.lassman…

THE SUN BEATS DOWN, stadium jams from Skrillex and Imagine Dragons blare, and hordes of scantily clad people throng around me—stretching instead of dancing. It’s the first day of June, and I’m at Manhattan’s Pier 76 along with more than 5,300 other competitors for Hyrox, the racing phenomenon and new new thing in fitness. I’m working up a sweat just weaving through the masses to reach the warmup corral inside a giant hangar next to the Hudson River before my 11:30 heat time. We’ve signed up to tackle a series of eight movement stations connected by one-kilometer runs, a competitive mashup of a CrossFit event, a half marathon, and an urban obstacle race. There’s a mixture of cardio work (SkiErgs and rowers), strength challenges (sled pushes and pulls and farmer’s…

LIFT WITH YOUR legs, not with your back. It’s a cue many trainers use anytime you bend down to lift something heavy. It makes sense, too, since conventional wisdom holds that rounding your back with heavy weight leads to injury. But if you look closely at a strongman like Tom Stoltman hoisting a 300-kilogram (661-pound) Atlas stone, you’ll notice that his spine isn’t ramrod straight at all. Instead, he’s almost hunching forward, curling his entire spine around the stone. And if you scroll fitness social media long enough, you may come across an exercise called the Jefferson curl, which asks you to stand holding a light barbell, then lower the barbell while simultaneously rounding your back as much as possible. Truth is, rounding your back when you lift can be safe,…

AMID ALL THE debate around body positivity versus weight-loss drugs, science keeps finding that obesity puts your health at risk. At age 35, musician Amandi Brown weighed 400 pounds and had a pins-and-needles feeling in his legs and feet. “It was a sobering moment when the doctor explained it was a consequence of my weight and unhealthy lifestyle choices.” So were his diabetes and high blood pressure. Now 42, he’s cut his weight in half and no longer needs blood-pressure or diabetes meds. Here’s how he got there. SWAP OUT, DON’T TAKE OUT YOU DON’T NEED to give up everything you love. I used to prioritize convenience over health. Then I flipped it. First it was picking better options wherever I was, like kale crunch salad and grilled nuggets…

FOR ADVENTURE LUMINOX FIELD WATCH This features a heavy-duty Carbonox case and a durable nylon strap that’s comfortable enough to wear for hours. $445 FOR WEEKENDS VICTORINOX I.N.O.X. AUTOMATIC CARBON 41MM The carbon case defends against all weather, and the watch’s impressive 38-hour power reserve outlasts any fall hike. $1,375 FOR EVENTS TUDOR PELAGOS FXD CHRONO The black-on-black carbon case pairs well with sport coats or full-on suits, and the dials are easy to read. $5,275…

Canopy Filtered Showerhead This gadget strains chlorine, heavy metals, and other gunk from your water. ($150, with filter subscription) Renée Rouleau Back & Body Buffing Towel It’ll help you clean hard-to-reach areas of your back without your resorting to yoga moves; it also gently exfoliates. ($15) Tweezerman Sole Smoother Antibacterial Callus Stone Keep this in your shower to smooth crusty calluses. ($21) Ampere Shower Power This waterproof Bluetooth speaker installs directly onto your showerhead and runs on the water itself. ($99)…

EEVERY OFF-SEASON for the past seven years, Christian McCaffrey, the San Francisco 49ers’ All-Pro running back, has met up with Brian Kula, C.S.C.S., a trainer he’s worked with since eighth grade. They talk about any injuries and any niggling pain from the previous season, do a battery of strength and movement tests, and then create a program “to turn CMC back on.” What they’re turning on is primarily strength and speed and, when combined together, power. “We try to hit everything on the force-velocity curve,” explains Kula. “On one end, you’re emphasizing force—think slower moves, like heavy deadlifts and sled pulls and pushes. In the middle, it’s plyometrics, sometimes with weight, and on the top end it’s sprint drills without weights.” For each touch point on the curve, there are…

UPSTAIRS FARMER’S CARRY • Stand in front of a staircase holding heavy dumbbells at your sides. Walk up 10 to 12 steps. Turn around and walk back down. That’s 1 set; rest 60 seconds. Do 3 sets, blasting forearms and core and building underrated back muscle, too. BARBELL REVERSE LUNGE • Stand with a loaded barbell held across your mid-back, abs and glutes tight. Step back with your right foot, then bend at the knees and hips, lowering into a lunge. Press back to standing. Do 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps per side. HANGING LEG LIFT • Yes, Metcalf trains his abs, too! Hang from a pullup bar with an overhand grip, abs and glutes tight. Tuck your knees toward your chest. Lower with control. Do 3 sets…

THERE ARE bone-crushing sacks that leave QBs eating turf. And then there’s what the Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett did before halftime against the Colts last year, speeding past Indy turnstile (we mean offensive tackle) Blake Freeland, then shoving Gardner Minshew so hard he lost control of the football and rag-dolled to the ground. For Garrett, a six-foot-four, 272-pound defensive end/force of nature, plays like this aren’t about total-body strength or his 585-pound bench press or his viral 58-inch box jump. They’re about core strength. He understands how to powerfully use his abs and core to deliver extra oomph into helpless linemen and QBs. “The way my body is able to react and turn and counter the forces that are being applied to me helps me stay in my rush,” Garrett…

THE EXTREME STUFF ANABOLIC STEROIDS WHEN ARNOLD ruled the Mr. Olympia stage in the 1970s, steroid use was basic and legal. “You took one or two doses at a time, and the total amount most guys used per week was significantly less than it is today,” says Mike Israetel, Ph.D., a competitive bodybuilder and cofounder of RP Strength. “Today, bodybuilders often stack several different steroids, layering and overlapping them in cycles that focus on competitions and stretch as long as a year.” Anabolic steroids function similarly to testosterone: They bind to your androgen receptors to help regulate libido, sperm production, bone building, and muscle growth. The federal government designates anabolic steroids as Schedule III substances and has approved only a small number for human use. (Doctors may prescribe some steroids…

Just over a year ago, Kekoa Lansford watched from a hilltop as the Maui wildfires incinerated his hometown. While others fled to safety, he ran into the flames to save as many lives as he could. Today, the scars from that blaze—one of the deadliest in the U. S. in more than a century—remain. Where do Kekoa and the rest of the survivors go from here? THE PUNGENT STAIN of a stranger’s burnt flesh seeped into the passenger seat of his Toyota Tundra as Kekoa Lansford drove toward his girlfriend’s apartment on the dark early morning of August 9, 2023. He parked and stumbled into her living room, wearing shorts, a Hawaiian Special Forces tank top, and melted flipflops. She lived in a safe zone, six miles north of the inferno…

SINGLE-LEG STEPUP Hyrox’s 50-meter sled push decimates quads, glutes, and core. Train for it with single-leg stepups: Holding dumbbells at your sides, place your right foot on a bench, step, or chair. Drive into your right foot as you stand tall, then lower with control. Repeat for 8 to 10 reps. Switch legs. Do 2 or 3 sets on each side. ROMANIAN DEADLIFT The 50-meter sled pull that follows isn’t rocket science: You’re pulling something heavy. Deadlifts ready you for those big pulls—and blast your forearms, too. Stand holding heavy dumbbells at your sides. Push your hips back and lower your torso until it’s at a 45 degree angle with the floor. Drive through your hips to stand, squeezing your glutes. Do 2 or 3 sets of 6 to 8…

FAVORITE EXERCISE? “Bench. It’s good for the ego. It’s probably the exercise that I’m strongest at.” LEAST FAVORITE EXERCISE? “Squat. I’ve had a couple of meniscus tears and some surgeries. It hurts, but it’s one of those things that when you’re done, you feel like you accomplished something.” DREAM WORKOUT PARTNER? “The Rock. To be a WWE wrestler, an actor, a father, and a husband at his age and to look the way he does, you can tell he challenges himself.”…

YOU MAY THINK that you won’t have to deal with hearing loss for another 20, 30, or even 50 years. But maybe you’ve found yourself turning up the volume on The Bear more often, or leaning closer to friends at a noisy bar. Or maybe you’re like Ibrahim Dabo, now 41, who couldn’t hear his lectures when he was in college, so he’d wait until class ended to copy notes from the whiteboard. “I was embarrassed when I’d ask my friends, ‘Can you repeat that?’ two or three times,” says Dabo. “I felt incompetent. I stayed away from social interaction. I stopped going to movies with friends, because I would be lost.” An estimated 15 percent of American adults—that’s about 38 million people—have some level of hearing loss, according to…

I THINK IF parents are being honest, none of us know what we’re really doing. The best that you’ll get out of us, maybe, is that we’re trying to protect our children from whatever wounds we may have suffered as kids. We’re course correctors. I know that I don’t know what I’m doing. And my navigation map has a big cosmic hole in it. I was raised by a single mother of three, so what Dad meant to me was absence. Like most kids, I asked a lot of questions, which my mom answered if she somehow found the time. But I don’t remember anyone asking me anything deep or important. When my first wife and I had a son in 2014, I was 41 years old. And I still…

THE GLADIATOR An alpha who needs to convince you they’re right SOUNDS LIKE: “I’m going to straighten you out on politics.” YOUR RESPONSE: Head things off (“Let’s not go there”), or try friendly banter (“That was a good one!”). If you engage, find agreement first (“Things are really a mess”), then explain your point of view with an “I” statement (“From my perspective …”). Disengage without criticizing (“Looks like we see this differently; maybe we should leave it there for now”). Keep interactions short to avoid an endless loop of them trying to convince you they’re right. THE DEFENDER Prevents you from making a point by tackling what you say SOUNDS LIKE: “So you want XYZ to happen” … and misrepresenting your opinion. YOUR RESPONSE: Acknowledge what they said, calmly…

3D LUNGES • CMC does a lunge series in eight directions, but doing three variations that target multiple planes of movement—forward and back, side to side, and transverse—is a good start. First do a forward lunge, then do a lateral lunge. Follow with a transverse lunge: Open your hip and step diagonally back to the right, leaning into your right foot. Do 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps for each variation on each side. ANIMAL FLOWS • To train his core as well as foot and hand grip, McCaffrey does dynamic animal movements like bear-crawl jumps and donkey kicks, sometimes on a trampoline. A good place to start is with an inchworm-bear-crawl flow: From standing, bend over and touch the ground, then walk your hands out until you’re in…

OFFENSE RB CHRISTIAN McCAFFREY 49ers, 5'11", 210 lb NFL’s NFL’s leading rusher deadlifts 500—and does gymnastics. QB JOE BURROW Bengals, 6'4", 217 lb Brains (career 98.6 QB rating) and brawn (see skater squat). RB DERRICK HENRY Ravens, 6'3", 247 lb Churns out 3.32 yards after contact, thanks to a 500-pound squat. TE GEORGE KITTLE 49ers, 6'4", 250 lb The 2023 tight end receiving-yards leader deadlifts 555. OT LAREMY TUNSIL Texans, 6'5", 313 lb Four-time Pro Bowler benches 225 34 times. OT PENEI SEWELL Lions, 6'5", 335 lb One sack allowed in ’23. Thirty bench-press reps at 225 helps. WR AMON-RA ST. BROWN Lions, 6'0", 202 lb Benches 365. Also has three 90-plus-catch campaigns. OT LANE JOHNSON Eagles, 6'6", 325 lb His 705-pound farmer’s carry showcases endurance. C CREED HUMPHREY Chiefs,…

1. Vivobarefoot Primus Lite III With minimalist 2mm outsoles, they’re a 180 from the overstuffed sneakers he used to wear. “Finding these has changed everything, giving me better posture, and now my feet feel great,” he says. $160; vivobarefoot.com 2 Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell In his downtime, Timbaland listens to book excerpts online and reads on his phone.He says he recently connected with Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule and has been studying it since. $14; amazon.com 3. Louis Vuitton Discovery Backpack MM “I travel a lot and I don’t want to be carrying around all of this luggage,” Timbaland says. “I make sure that everything I need fits into a backpack.” $2,850; louisvuitton.com 4. Ethika Crew Socks You can usually find the producer head-to-toe in Ethika gear. “I just love how their…