Men's Health Australia March 2020

their winning ways

I’m writing this before we do a final ballot count and crown the winner of the first Men’s Health People’s Choice Cover. We’ve created two covers ready for the printers – because at last check there’s still no clear winner. Luke and Bobby are two of the forces behind Chris Hemsworth’s training juggernaut, Centr, and their camaraderie has made for compelling viewing. The truth is I’m quite enjoying living in blissful ignorance, in a world where either Luke or Bobby could end up on the cover of Men’s Health and neither of them hates me. In the halls of MH we have a strictly enforced test for cover-man selection: he who graces the cover must be inspirational yet still a bloke you’d want to have a beer with. I’ve been lucky enough…

ask mh

THE BIG QUESTION How can I stop sweating through my shirts after my morning workout? GC Your post-gym shower is a waste of time if you return to your desk soaked through. Put sweat on ice with the help of thermoregulation expert Mike Tipton 0 MINUTES Keep your shower just below body temperature. Too hot and it adds to your heat load (obviously), but icy blasts are only a short-term win: blood vessels near your skin will shut down, trapping heat inside your body to trigger an outpouring of perspiration. +2 MINUTES This is no time for compression gear. You need loose, light and preferably cotton clothing to let sweat evaporate. Leave your shirt untucked until you’re at the office for extra benefit. +20 MINUTES Still struggling to keep your cool? Stem the flow of sweat by holding…

dream your way to hero status

FOR CENTURIES, scientists and philosophers have pondered the purpose of dreaming. While some have dismissed our nightly visions as neurological garbage, that theory seems unlikely. Applying Darwinian reasoning, dreaming is a vulnerable state – natural selection would have eliminated it unless it had compensatory benefits. New research out of the Sleep and Cognition Laboratory at the University of Geneva has lent weight to the idea that your dreams – specifically the scary ones in which you’re fleeing fire or eyeballing a zombie – are meant to prepare you for white-knuckle situations when you’re awake. After all, there’s nothing as valuable in a crisis as a cool head borne of experience. The Swiss researchers analysed 18 people and pinpointed which brain areas were activated when subjects experienced fear in their dreams. It turns…

put the squeeze on depression

THE NUMBERS AROUND men and depression continue to make for troubling reading. One in eight will experience it in their lifetime, and of those, just one in four will seek help, reports the Black Dog Institute. That’s despite depression having become the No. 1 cause of disability in Australia. While antidepressant drugs can help a proportion of sufferers, they’re also associated with a range of side effects. All of which makes the latest news from the frontline most welcome. A study led by the University of Southern Queensland found you can slash depression risk by tweaking the way you train. In short, you want to be heaving and pushing as well as huffing and puffing. The USQ study found people who engaged in high levels of both cardio-based exercise and resistance training…

turn up the volume

MONDAY 30-min brisk walk in the morning; another 20min at lunch. Pre-dinner: five sets of push-ups; five sets of table pulls. TUESDAY 30-min jog in the morning; 20-min walk at lunch. Pre-dinner: five sets of bodyweight squats; five sets of crunches. WEDNESDAY 30 min on the rower, treadmill or bike; 20-min walk at lunchtime. Pre-dinner: 5 sets wall-handstand holds; five sets of diamond push-ups. THURSDAY 30-min walk, jog or swim in the morning; 20-min walk at lunchtime. Pre-dinner: five sets (each leg) of lunges; five sets of planks. FRIDAY 30-min walk in the morning; 20-min walk at lunchtime. Take the evening off. SATURDAY 50 min of your favourite sport. Optional: a super circuit of push-ups, table pulls, squats, crunches, lunges, diamond push-ups and plank. Use Sunday to rest. You’ve earned it.…

eat like a caveman to render fat extinct

WHEN YOU’RE ON the hunt for reliable dietary advice, it can be hard to know where to turn. From eliminating ingredients and restricting your meals to specific “time windows”, there’s more than one way to skim the fat. Helpfully, scientists have crowned the true OG of eating plans the most effective. It’s time to take nutrition back to basics. A review of 11 separate studies by researchers at Ceará State University in Brazil found that a Palaeolithic diet led to significantly more weight loss (3.5kg on average) than going Mediterranean or Nordic. Paleo – also known as the caveman diet – is nothing new. After all, it’s supposed to follow the example of our Stone Age ancestors. However, its simple formula of choosing whole, unprocessed foods has modern scientific backing, and…