Men's Health Australia November 2022

I DIDN’T EXPECT The Rock to teach me about humility. While giants of the silver screen aren’t always easily reduced to flesh and blood, some are more immutable than others. At least you expect them to be. Take The Rock, or Dwayne Johnson, to use his marginally less imposing given name. The associations formed over a two-plus decade career in Hollywood and his background as a WWE star loom large. The colossal physique, the booming, instantly recognisable voice, the light-up-a-city-block-wattage charisma, and yes, the famous fanny pack and skivvy combo, are firmly imprinted on the collective consciousness. It would be easy to be overwhelmed by it all and yet the moment Johnson opens his mouth something remarkable happens. Somehow, he makes you feel like you’re just two guys chewing the…

I DIDN’T EXPECT The Rock to teach me about humility. While giants of the silver screen aren’t always easily reduced to flesh and blood, some are more immutable than others. At least you expect them to be. Take The Rock, or Dwayne Johnson, to use his marginally less imposing given name. The associations formed over a two-plus decade career in Hollywood and his background as a WWE star loom large. The colossal physique, the booming, instantly recognisable voice, the light-up-a-city-block-wattage charisma, and yes, the famous fanny pack and skivvy combo, are firmly imprinted on the collective consciousness. It would be easy to be overwhelmed by it all and yet the moment Johnson opens his mouth something remarkable happens. Somehow, he makes you feel like you’re just two guys chewing the…

THE BIG QUESTION Q Settle a debate: can I PACK ON serious muscle MASS without lifting heavy? – IM We’re not sure which way you were betting, IM, but in a word: yes – if you’re smart about it. “In health and fitness, there’s often an obsession with hard rules,” says Laura Hoggins, a personal trainer, brand and marketing director at The Foundry gyms and Fiit app coach. “But few things are black and white. If any PT tells you there is only one right way of doing something, I suggest you get a new one because there are many routes to every goal.” When it comes to building muscle, she says, there are some basic principles at play: you need to create an adequate stimulus through training to stress the muscles, fuel…

THE BIG QUESTION Q Settle a debate: can I PACK ON serious muscle MASS without lifting heavy? – IM We’re not sure which way you were betting, IM, but in a word: yes – if you’re smart about it. “In health and fitness, there’s often an obsession with hard rules,” says Laura Hoggins, a personal trainer, brand and marketing director at The Foundry gyms and Fiit app coach. “But few things are black and white. If any PT tells you there is only one right way of doing something, I suggest you get a new one because there are many routes to every goal.” When it comes to building muscle, she says, there are some basic principles at play: you need to create an adequate stimulus through training to stress the…

YOUR MONTHLY DOWNLOAD OF THE LATEST LIFE ENHANCING RESEARCH FEW FOODS have been quite so unfairly maligned as the humble potato. If you want someone to blame, you can point to the two physicians who, in 1981, invented the glycaemic index (GI) – a system that rates foods according to the impact they have on blood sugar. Spuds do not score well, landing near the top of the chart. Today, we know this measure is over-simplistic – that it’s the overall balance of your macros that makes a difference, and looking at single ingredients in isolation offers limited insight. Yet proper pub chips continue to get subbed out by health-conscious eaters in favour of supposedly superior sweet potato wedges or modish zucchini fries. The latest research strikes a blow against the clean-eating crew.…

BETWEEN 1940 and 1966, the great featherweight boxing champion Willie Pep fought 241 bouts, winning 229. But after earning the title twice, Pep began to slow down. Even long-haulers aren’t immune to ageing. He described it like this: “First your legs go. Then you lose your reflexes. Then you lose your friends.” Another thing to add to that list is muscle mass. On average, we lose as much as five per cent of it per decade after hitting 30. As we age, it’s a problem that typically leads to diminished mobility and a heightened risk of falls, not to mention a knock to our egos. To keep muscle decline at arm’s length, it’s important to train consistently – and, it seems, to maintain a healthy gut microbiome, too. The link between gut…