Just five? Yes, it turns out a mere five seconds is enough to defuse an argument, according to a study by researchers at the University of St Andrews.

In the study, published their findings in the journal Communications Psychology, 81 couples were goaded into conflict by engaging in a competitive game where they could blast an unpleasant noise at their partner at a volume of their choosing – yes this was a fun study. The couples participated in 30 rounds of the game, with breaks enforced at different intervals. Advanced AI and machine learning were used to analyse the couples’ emotional responses, which were captured by a 360-degree camera with onboard audio.

Just five seconds was found to be equally effective as longer breaks in defusing conflict, says Annah McCurry, a PhD candidate at the university’s school of psychology and neuroscience.

“It sounds obvious, but this is the first time anyone has experimentally demonstrated a reduction in aggression following enforced breaks,” says McCurry. “Forcing couples to have a five-second break was just as effective as a 10- or 15-second break, which shows even the briefest of pauses can help defuse an argument. This is a simple, free and effective hack to reduce negative emotions during arguments. It’s cheaper than couples therapy and can be easily integrated into everyday interactions.”

The researchers found that during minor conflicts couples tended to match each other’s level of aggression. But enforcing short time-outs broke the tit-for-tat pattern, reducing overall aggression.

While the intervention has the potential to save couples a fortune in counselling, it is intended for managing lower-level conflicts, preventing their escalation into serious rows.

“This approach does not apply to domestic violence scenarios,” McCurry cautioned. “This is about managing the mundane, everyday arguments that couples have and that can escalate.” Five, four . . .

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The post How the five-second rule could save your relationship appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University analysed how training close to failure or not impacts muscle growth and strength in the main muscles used in an exercise. The good news for those pursuing beach muscle is that muscle size – or hypertrophy – does seem to benefit from training closer to failure.

“If you’re aiming for muscle growth, training closer to failure might be more effective. In other words, it doesn’t matter if you adjust training volume by changing sets or reps; the relationship between how close you train to failure and muscle growth remains the same,” said Michael C. Zourdos, Ph.D., senior author and professor and chair of the Department of Exercise Science and Health Promotion .

In the study, researchers estimated the number of repetitions in reserve, which means how many more reps you could have done before reaching failure. They collected data from 55 various studies and ran detailed statistical analyses to see how different reps in reserve levels affected strength and muscle growth.

While aiming for failure builds muscle growth, results of the study, published in the journal Sports Medicine, found that how close you train to failure doesn’t have a clear impact on strength gains. Whether you stop far from failure or very close to it, your strength improvement appears to be similar.

The researchers suggest that individuals who aim to build muscle should work within a desired range of 0-5 reps short of failure for optimised muscle growth while minimising injury risk. For strength training, they advise you work toward heavier loads instead of pushing muscles to failure and stop about 3-5 reps short of failure.

“Training closer to failure enhances the accuracy of self-reported repetitions in reserve,” said Zac P. Robinson, Ph.D., first author and a Ph.D. graduate of FAU’s Department of Exercise Science and Health Promotion. “When people estimate how many reps they have left, this perception influences the weights they choose. If the estimation is off, they might use lighter weights than needed, which could limit strength gains. On the flip side, our meta-analysis shows that training closer to failure also leads to greater muscle growth. So, for the average individual, training close to failure may be the best option – as it seems to improve the accuracy of our perception of effort as well as gains in muscle size. Moreover, training near failure may also improve psychological factors like visualisation, which are important for achieving maximal strength.”

The bottom line: if your mission is adding size, failure is an option.

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The post Want bigger muscles? Study says push to failure appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

Runners are pounding suburban pavements, running clubs are replacing dating apps as places to meet fit, like-minded partners and Park Run heroes light up Insta.

But while running has arguably never been more popular than it is right now, there are some constants – stitches are still a thing – as well as some enduring classics, such as the Asics Gel-Kayano 31, a shoe that set the standard in running excellence long before the influx of johnny-and-jenny-come-latelys invaded the scene.

The Asics Gel-Kayano 31 is iconic among dedicated runners who trust its unparalleled comfort and stability to assuage the impact of long sessions crushing concrete. The latest edition of the shoe takes that market-leading stability to new levels, thanks to a refurbished upper, which provides additional support to your foot. The result is a shoe that allows you to run further and stay mentally fresh, unburdened by the aches and pains that can dent focus on a long run.

Specifically, the shoe’s asymmetrical medial design upper has been refurbished to create a supportive fit and a more comfortable feel. The mesh upper has also been designed to provide improved ventilation, ensuring your feet stay cool over longer distances, while also offering improved flexibility for maximum comfort with every stride.

Image I Asics

The shoe’s outsole has also been updated, with a HYBRID ASICSGRIP™ rubber material, offering better traction throughout your run. This, combined with PureGEL™ technology delivers improved shock absorption, adding further protection – let’s call it the running-on-clouds effect.

As with its predecessor, the new Gel-Kayano 31 benefits from a unique 4D GUIDANCE SYSTEM™, which works with the movement of your body to provide adaptive stability and comfort, supporting your foot when you need it most.

And you’ll be pleased to know that as well as breaking new ground in terms of technical excellence, the Gel-Kayano 31 has strong ethical credentials – its carbon footprint is 27 per cent lower than the industry average.

The bottom line here is that if you’re looking for a shoe that will help you run longer and further – surely the goal in recreational running – you can’t go past the Gel-Kayano 31. Of course, the old heads of the running scene could have told you that.

This article is brought to you by Asics. The Asics GEL-KAYANO™ 31 retails for $280. You can find out more about the shoe here.

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The post Are these the most comfortable running shoes on the market? appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

MICHAEL HOOPER’S RUGGED face is bathed in the morning light pouring through the window of an old timber shed at Belgenny Farm in Camden, an hour’s drive from Sydney’s CBD. The scars from a million mauls are hewn into his visage, his left eyebrow something of an old quarry of hits and bumps that our grooming artist is doing his best to disguise, though I think it lends Hooper a certain gravitas.

With his face on, Hooper steps over to a line of R.M.Williams boots that his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Adelaide, is curiously poking and prodding.

“Which ones should daddy wear?” Hooper asks her. “Do you think they’d fit you?”

Adelaide picks up one of the size 10s, but understandably isn’t overly concerned with what her dad wears, or what he does – or rather did – for a living. He’s just daddy. Not Michael Hooper, former captain of the Wallabies, four-time John Eales medallist, the fastest player to reach 100 test caps and one of the most effective openside flankers in the history of Australian rugby.

Chasing after or tackling – if you want to be cute about it – Adelaide and older brother Thomas, who’s two-and-a-half with a decent step on him, is Hooper’s main concern these days. The 32-year-old announced his retirement from Australian rugby – though, not the game altogether – back in June, after a failed attempt to make the Sevens team for the Paris Olympics.

You’d have to say retirement appears to be sitting rather well with Hooper, something he’s happy to confirm, though watching the Wallabies’ recent outings in the Rugby Championship, for which he did some commentary, did stir some wistful feelings in the moment. “We had some home test matches, and particularly the one against South Africa, in Brisbane, I missed it,” says Hooper, as we chat on an old picnic table on a grassy paddock that overlooks a vineyard. “The competitive juices get flowing. But then I got on a flight after the game, went home, woke up, and I was with my family the next day, and I wasn’t bruised, I wasn’t broken, and I didn’t have to think about, Was my performance up to standard, or What does next week look like?  That was new for me and it was refreshing.”

Retirement isn’t something that snuck up on Hooper, as it does for many athletes. He knew he’d miss playing the game at the highest level. Why wouldn’t he?

“I miss when the lights come on,” he says, breaking into a deep-eyed grin. “I’ll always miss that. Speaking to some ex-Wallabies, they’re 45 and they still want to play. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s not trying to live in the past. That’s part of you, and it’s part of me, but there comes a point where you think, Is the output to get there worth it anymore? You start to ask the question: Do I still have the same drive to be the best I can be?” 

Good questions – the last is one we should probably all ask ourselves from time to time. For there will always be new fields, if not to conquer, to explore. And within them, new paths to tread. 

THOMAS AND ADELAIDE are wrestling on our photographer’s light shade, as we set up a shot in the farm’s front paddock. “She’s going to be a tough one,” Hooper says of Adelaide, who appears to be quickly getting used to the roughhousing that comes with having an older brother.

Maybe Hooper empathises with his daughter – just 18 months separates him from his older brother, the two enjoying a fierce rivalry during an idyllic childhood on Sydney’s Northern beaches. “We were competitive in everything we did,” says Hooper of he and his bro’s perpetual tussles. “If it was sport, if it was surfing, if it was PlayStation, we couldn’t play together. We couldn’t play against each other, because it would just end in an argument, so we’d always have to play on the same team.” He’s quick to add that the pair are close.

Hooper’s dad, an Englishman, had moved out here at 24. By some great miracle, he didn’t infect his boys with any sense of Pommy patriotism, as he introduced them to the oval-ball game. 

“He very much supports Australia in everything,” says Hooper, who followed his brother into rugby at just five years old, playing first for the Manly Roos on the Northern Beaches and later for the Manly Marlins, as well as his school, St. Pius X College, in Chatswood.

At each level, Hooper’s goal was simple: be the best footy player he could be. Remarkably, he never looked much beyond that, even as he progressed through the representative ranks. 

“I’ve seen photos of myself as a youngster with a Wallabies ball or saying, “Go Wallabies” in family home videos, but I don’t think it was ever really a thing that I thought about,” he says of one day pulling on the gold jersey. “It was always like, I love playing, I love competing. I was good at the game from an early age, so it was always wanting to prove myself at the level that I was in, and once I did that, getting to another level and doing it there again. And that’s all the way up to the Wallabies. People ask me, ‘When did you know you were going to be a Wallaby?’ It’s like, ‘Well, not until I played’, and then felt like I played well. Then, I felt like a Wallaby.”

Hooper would feel like a Wallaby for a long time. Indeed, such was his Atlas-like role in keeping Australian rugby afloat through one its most turbulent periods, he may never stop feeling like one.

HOOPER’S INTERNATIONAL DEBUT against Scotland in Newcastle in 2012, would prove to be suitably cataclysmic, the rugby Gods perhaps heralding the beginning of a special career by unleashing a once-in-10-year storm.

“It was the first Test of the year and this storm front was coming from down south and was going to hit right at kick-off and sure enough it did,” recalls Hooper, who prior to his national call-up had made his Super Rugby debut for the ACT Brumbies in 2010. “I was a reserve in that game, and I just remember sitting on the sideline, freezing, the wind and rain lashing over McDonald Jones Stadium, and just thinking, Oh, God. But you get your cap and you just try and seek more after that.”

Right from the start, Hooper would face ferocious competition for his position. David Pocock also played openside flanker and was regarded as perhaps the best player in the world at the time. He provided a benchmark Hooper strived to reach for himself. “Dave Pocock’s a legend, great player,” he says. “That position has always been heavily battled. It makes you a little bit self-conscious, but it’s good because you have to keep staying on your game.”

Hooper would become the second-youngest player to log 50 Test caps and fastest to 100 caps, an incredible feat in a game in which men weighing upwards of 120 kg crash into each other for two hours. There’s no doubt you need a certain amount of luck to stay on the paddock, something Hooper acknowledges. 

“There’s an element of luck in any sportsman’s career,” he admits. “The thing that coincides with luck is being ready to take your opportunity when it comes, and fortunately for me, I don’t think I would have [played as much], had Dave Pocock not got injured. He was at the top of his game, and he gets injured and that opens the door for me. At that point in time, I was confident, I was fit, I was all these things. So, when that position opened, I was ready to go.”

Hooper attributes his incredible durability to “doing the little stuff”, as well as pointing to something a little more surprising: going all out, all the time. “I think going all-out with that intense effort helped me,” he says. “I found that sometimes when you’re at training and you’re not quite switched on, you get bumped and you get caught. I found going hard was actually a bit of an injury prevention [tactic], weirdly enough, and probably coinciding with that, I trained with a similar intent to how I wanted to play.” 

He learned that, he says, from those who came before him, singling out Adam Ashley-Cooper as a mentor. “I saw that the guys that trained really hard, that made them durable for the game and because they were doing it a lot, their body was hardened and battle ready.”

Hooper’s availability, along with the standard of his play, was perhaps a factor in him being given the Wallabies captaincy at just 22. It was too young, Hooper says now, though to be fair, it’s a job in which you never stop learning.

“I had no idea what I was doing,” he says. “You’re still trying to work yourself out. Your mates are out doing whatever they’re doing, and you’re trying to lead a team, and I probably wasn’t equipped for how to do that as well as I could. But right until even the last couple of years, I’d still say I had plenty to learn. I think that was the realisation. When you realise how little you know, it’s probably like, Oh, God, whereas when you’re young and dumb, you’re like, We’ll be right, and then you kind of go, Oh, are we? and you’ve got to go to the well and start learning.”

What he lacked, Hooper says, was a recognition and appreciation of the dimensions and layers required to lead a team comprised of men at different stages in their lives and playing careers. In the absence of that understanding, he largely sought to set the standard and hope the team followed.

“I was much more of a by-actions person,” he admits. “You turn up, train hard, do whatever you need to do, then do it again the next day. But I didn’t understand that there’s different levels to how people need to get there. What’s different for a dad, with a heap of other things going on in his life to turn up and empty the tank and train, is very different to what it takes for a 22-year-old. I didn’t understand, and that’s why I say I wasn’t equipped. I didn’t have the empathy to see the different needs and dynamics of the team.”

His advice for anyone taking on a leadership position, particularly a younger person, is straight forward: ask for help, something Hooper himself worried would count against him in the early days of his captaincy. “I was offered help early on in my career and you kind of don’t want to look like you don’t know what’s going on, so you don’t utilise that as a resource,” he says. “You don’t have to be a silo. You’ve got to make a stand on some things, but you can certainly vet your opinions and your decisions by just asking for help from somebody who’s done it before.”

HOOPER’S BICEPS ARE rippling out of the sleeves of his T-shirt, as he hauls a log around in front of the farm’s old shearing quarters. He hasn’t lost too much in terms of size and definition in the month or two he’s been out of the game.

But while Hooper’s physical style of play was a hallmark of his career, he admits the mental demands of the game and the responsibilities he shouldered as captain gradually wore him down. In 2022, Hooper sensationally left the Rugby Championship in Argentina, 24 hours out from kick-off. The question everyone asked at the time: why?

“I was going through some changes in my life,” he says. “We had recently found out we we were pregnant again. I was away from home. Leaving home was hard. It grew even harder with having kids at home and wanting to be around. I was more uptight, more anxious than I’d been. There were a few more things that I didn’t quite understand going on for me, and my head wasn’t focused. What’s anxiety? Anxiety is worrying about what’s in the future. I was worried about my health, how my family’s coping at home, what the next couple of years look like. All that stuff.”

Very normal stuff, I point out. “Very normal stuff,” he agrees. “But I didn’t know that and it just became a loop. I was wound up tight because of those things and the environment. You’re like, I’ve got to put this away, but your body’s telling you, Hey, you’ve got to deal with this stuff.”

Years of pushing his body to the limit were also catching up with him, he says. “I’d been treating my body a certain way and working at that upper end of burning the candle,” he says. “My issue was I wasn’t replenishing myself in other ways or understanding these new feelings that had come into my life. I was like, Okay, well, I’m not wanting to play. I wasn’t in the right position to play and play well and lead a team. I needed to go away and see if that was something I wanted to get back.”

Quitting the tour was both a hard decision and an easy one, he adds. “It was a hard decision because I love representing my country and the team, but it wasn’t, because I wasn’t going to give my best performance and I’ve always been a believer that you’ve got to be 100 per cent into it.”

Upon his return to the team, in October 2022, Hooper was very clear that he wasn’t “cured”, an acknowledgement that mental health, for all of us, is something that fluctuates.

“I see it like an injury now,” he says. “If I’d rolled my ankle that week at training and gone home for a month, I don’t think it would’ve been a big moment but because it’s mental health, it seems to be a big deal. But I don’t see them as any different. Physio is the same as going and speaking to someone. It’s just harder to quantify.”

Hooper’s face may carry the physical scars of a career marked by visceral levels of physicality. But the bumps and bruises you can’t see, those we all bear at different times in our lives, they need tending too. 

HOOPER IS WALKING up Belgenny Farm’s dirt driveway dressed in a trench coat and holding a bag, as if he’s returning from a day’s work in the city. His wife, Kate, is approaching from the opposite direction with Thomas and Adelaide, who upon seeing their father, run down the driveway to greet him. Our stylist had planned a different set-up to shoot the kids, but as Hooper scoops the pair up, the moment is too cute to resist. The photographer duly clicks away.

I ask Hooper how disappointed he was to miss out on competing for Australia as part of the Rugby 7s squad in Paris. “It was going to be a cherry on top,” he says. “So, it was cool because I’d never thought about going to the Olympics. I thought I’ll try and rebuild my body.” He’d had some calf issues in 2023 and had more while training for the Sevens. After he was cut from the squad, Hooper announced his retirement from Australian rugby, but not the game altogether. He’s keen to play in Japan, sooner rather than later.

“I’ve had a good break now, so I’d be open to going next year. But getting to the right club, right place, is going to be tricky.”

While he waits to see how that pans out, I wonder how not playing is sitting with him. How does this period of shadow retirement compare to the notions he had in his head of what his post-international career might look?

“Your mind sort of tells you different narratives, mine certainly did. Retirement’s never going to come. Then, you get in hard times in your career, and you’re like, Oh, I just want nothing more than to not have these problems and these issues, and you forget about some of the great stuff that rugby gives you. Then, there’s that excitement of doing something else. What else could I do? It [rugby] is only one part of life. There’s so much out there that’s exciting.”

He knows he wants to stay connected to the game he loves and has done so much to keep alive in this country. He’d like to help the next generation realise their dreams and to further develop the leadership skills the game has given him. “I love that about rugby,” he says. “I love that I had to try and learn and become better and I still think there’s plenty to learn in that environment.”

Yes, he’ll miss the moment the lights come on, but he’s thought carefully as to how to deal with their absence. “I put a bit of time into understanding what the things are that you miss,” he says, before telling me there’s four “buckets” that rugby ticks off that he’s looking to fill in new ways. “It has your schedule lined up for you, but it has your mates – you’ve got no need to text anyone. There’s training, so that’s your social element. There’s a physical element, you’re getting fit. Then, there’s what I call the spiritual, or the drive to be your best, to try and win a World Cup or something else. That gives you motivation or passion. You want to keep learning and growing and striving to get better at something.”

As the shoot wraps and I watch Hooper head back up the dirt road with his family, I’m conscious that we’ve caught him today between life stages. You get the feeling he’ll never stop seeking to learn and to grow. Those too, are things you can’t quantify, but perhaps you can see, or get a sense, of something else there in Hooper’s battle-hardened face: wisdom.

Michael Hooper is an R.M.Williams friend of brand.

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Michael Hooper’s training regimen

Hooper is keeping himself close to playing shape by training 5-6 days a week in short sharp sessions of Maximal Aerobic Speed (MAS) running. What’s MAS? Put simply, it’s the lowest running speed at which VO2 max occurs and is typically referred to as the ‘velocity at VO2 max’. Hooper’s goal is to be fit enough to take on a challenge, like a triathlon, without too much notice. “I want to be fit and healthy, so that if someone said to me, ‘Let’s do a triathlon’, not an Ironman, but like a Noosa triathlon, I’d be ready,” he says.

Here’s a breakdown of Hooper’s training sessions:

MAS running

• Run 54m, rest 10 secs x 12
• Repeat 4 times, resting 2 mins between rounds

Conditioning circuit

• 500-metre row
• 25 burpees
• Barbell high pull at 40 kg x 10-15 reps
• X 4

Weights

• Bench press x 5 at 100kg or 2-3 x 120kg
• Chin-ups to failure
• Shoulder raises x 10 on each side
• Single-leg box squat x 10 each side

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Editorial Director: Christopher Riley

Photography: Steven Chee

Creative Director: Grant Pearce

Head of Social: Arielle Katos

Grooming: Kristyan Low

Art Direction: Evan Lawrence

Video: Jasper Karolewski

Location: Belgenny Farm, Camden, NSW

The post Michael Hooper is in a good place appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

“I can get angry within games,” says the premiership-winning captain, six-time All-Australian representative and lululemon ambassador, who thankfully is in a very pleasant mood as I chat to him today after a shoot in Melbourne’s Glen Iris. “But I try to make sure that I’m peaking on game day, which means the other six-and-a-half days of the week I try and show no aggression, almost the complete opposite. I’m a little bit calm day-to-day. It’s all about peaking for two hours.”

The reason Gawn needs to turn into the Hulk for two hours each week makes some sense when you take into account the position he plays in Aussie Rules. The ruck is one of the most physically and mentally exacting occupations in all of sports. “You have to stay aggressive,” Gawn says. “We have upwards of 100 contests per game, which is definitely the most out of any position and you’re going up against another 110-kilo animal. You have to be aggressive from minute one to minute 120.”

Image I lululemon

If a ruck contest is akin to two rhinos bucking on the savannah, durability is understandably critical to succeeding in the position, says Gawn. “You have to be able to play long minutes, get hit a lot and play every week,” he says. “So that’s the durability, which can really test you, especially early on in your career when your bones and muscles aren’t quite grown up.”

To cope with the immense physical load of his position, Gawn prioritises muscular endurance in the gym. “I’ve had to learn how to enjoy weights,” he admits. “Especially in my position, it’s something that I’ve had to become pretty good at. Any mix of cardio and CrossFit is better, for me, than doing a heavy set of bench.”

On the track, Gawn and the rest of the Dees naturally do a lot of interval work to prepare for the relentless nature of a game predicated on short, intense efforts. “I love running. I’d love to just go for long runs,” Gawn says. “But we’re probably not doing anything further than 500 metres straight. It’s a lot of interval running, a lot of get up, tackle, bump, do a rep contest and go for a 200-metre run, then do it all again.” In preseason, Gawn says, sessions might last up to four hours. In season, he does 5-6 km of short efforts in an hour on the track.

Despite all the work, in a sport as attritional as AFL injuries are inevitable; you almost need to factor them into your training plans. This season saw Gawn sidelined with a lower leg injury for two weeks. Without a structured plan, these setbacks can be mentally sapping, Gawn says.

Image I lululemon

“There are a couple of different things I use for this,” he says. “One is my household. I’ve got two kids who couldn’t care less if I’m injured and they rely on me to be a fully fit dad so there’s no real excuse there. It’s like getting told to harden up without getting told to harden up, by your own kids.”

He also likes to remind himself that he gets to train and look after his body for free, in fact, he’s paid to do it. “I got injured earlier in my career and one of the mindsets I always had was that if I wasn’t playing football, I’d be paying 50 bucks a week membership at Fitness First and I’d be training at 5 am,” he says. “Here I get to do it in the best facility, getting paid to do it at a reasonable hour while watching my mates train. That mindset has always held me in good stead.”

His latest injury, a hairline fracture at the base of his right fibula that occurred in the Demons’ Round 17 win against West Coast, was easier to deal with than, say, a hamstring strain, he says. “With the injury I had this time I couldn’t do anything about it,” he says. “It was a broken bone, it was an impact injury. I’m getting older, there’s no hiding away from that. But anything soft tissue, you almost blame yourself a tiny bit. You wonder if you could have done something different. The fact that this time was a broken leg, my mindset was completely different. I was like, ‘Ah, well I couldn’t do anything about it. I’m fully fit. It’s just a bit of bad luck came my way’.”

At 32, Gawn is conscious he doesn’t have too many more seasons ahead of him. Of course, he’d dearly love to add another premiership to the one he and the Demons won in 2021. But he also wants to prioritise family in this last chapter of his career. “I don’t know when my retirement’s coming, if it’s one year, if it’s two years, in that case I’d like to win two more premierships,” he laughs, when I ask him about his remaining goals. “But I’ve always been keen, ever since I got elected captain, to leave the club a better place by the time I leave. And I’ve now got a three-year-old who can really start to enjoy being involved. So, to bring smiles to those people near and dear to me is the goal for the next three years.”

Max Gawn is a lululemon ambassador

Image I lulelemon

Max Gawn’s ruckman workout

• Bench press x 10 at 80 per cent 1RM
• Bench press x 10 at 60 per cent IRM
• Ski-Erg – 15 cals
• X 5 rounds

Max Gawn’s game-day eating plan

BREAKFAST

• Bacon and eggs/Bircher muesli

LUNCH

• Sandwich

PRE-GAME

• Fried rice and coffee
• A mandarin and shot of beetroot juice
• Collagen supplement
• Handful of lollies

HALF-TIME

• Mandarin: “This is almost my favourite thing of the game to be honest. My dietitian peels it for me. It’s a beautiful gesture. I walk into a peeled mandarin and I just sit there for five minutes while catching my breath and thinking about the first half.

POST GAME

• Watermelon juice
• Protein shake: “Ideally, I’m getting some sort of protein in. The wetter the food, the better.”

 

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The post AFL star Max Gawn on training, family and getting angry at the right time appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

DYLAN ALCOTT, you could say, has an aura. Irrepressible, charismatic, with a healthy sliver of Aussie larrikin spirit, as he wheels his way into Men’s Health’s shoot at One Playground in Sydney’s Marrickville, he informs our stylist that he’s going shirt-off on the cover today. “I didn’t work this hard to hide anything,” says the 33-year-old, 23-time Grand Slam winner, four-time Paralympic gold medallist and 2022 Australian of the Year.

Soon he’s on the floor with his trainer, Jono Castano, who’s holding his legs, as Alcott knocks out some pre-shoot push-ups, before he grabs some dumbbells and launches into a series of biceps curls and shoulder presses. Once we start shooting, Alcott offers suggestions to the photographer on composition and camera angles, making it clear how important it is that his wheelchair is highlighted front and centre.

Alcott has trained for 12 weeks for this moment, but the truth is, today is not the realisation of a lifelong dream – as Alcott explains, when he was a kid, the idea of someone with a disability being on the cover of Men’s Health wasn’t something to which he believed he could even aspire. Instead, it’s the latest achievement in a life dedicated to pushing through perceived obstacles and challenging perceptions of what a person living with disability can do.

“I used to read Men’s Health when I was a kid,” Alcott tells me after the shoot wraps.  “I never saw anybody like me doing anything like this. Anyone with a disability at all really. And that would’ve been pretty life-changing for me when I was really struggling with my own self-worth, my body image, getting bullied about my disability. It would’ve been incredible. I don’t have abs, I’m a paraplegic – it’s really hard to get abs. I didn’t used to love my body. I still have moments where I don’t, but I was like, ‘You know what? Lets go kit off on the cover’. It really pushed me.”

By taking on this challenge and putting his body on display in perhaps the most public way possible, Alcott confronted, head on, long-held insecurities about his physique and his self-image. “I learned that I can really do it and be proud of how I look and not be embarrassed about my body, my stomach,” he says. “It’s important to really have that self-worth and love yourself before anyone else can love you.”

But as well as seeking to inspire, Alcott also sought to educate. “I want to remind personal trainers, people that own gyms, that you need to be accessibly inclusive for our community,” says Alcott, who among his many projects since retiring from tennis, is an ambassador for KIA Australia and Longines and has founded the Dylan Alcott Foundation, helping young Australians living with disability overcome the barriers of entry to sport. “I wanted to train, to show them [trainers] that we can do it. But also, to show people with disability who might’ve had an accident or have never done this, that you don’t have to train like an able-bodied person, you just have to train in your own way. You have to figure out what works for you.”

Here, in his own words, Alcott breaks down his 12-week challenge, something we at Men’s Health usually call a ‘transformation’. In this case, that might not suffice. Alcott’s journey is bigger than that; more far-reaching and likely more impactful, a potential pillar in a long overdue reckoning in how those with a disability in our community are perceived. Dare to dream, goes the saying. Alcott’s message: dare to do it.

I’VE ALWAYS LOVED sport, but I couldn’t really access it as a kid. I played with my brother in the backyard, but I was always the timekeeper or the manager. I got bullied a lot and hated my disability. I was embarrassed about it. When I looked at Men’s Health, I never saw anybody like me, not even close. And that’s hard, to be honest. If I could go back and tell that little kid that you’re about to be nude on the cover of Men’s Health, that kid would not have believed it.

I do like to think he was a good kid, but the truth is, he wasn’t a happy kid and he wasn’t a confident kid and he wasn’t going to the gym. He was eating pizza on the couch and playing video games.

What really saved my life was finding Paralympic sport. Not just the physical benefits and the mental health benefits I got from it, but finding my community, my tribe, other people with disability who were happy, who were thriving – not just surviving – who were having a crack. I’m very lucky for that, I really am.

I wanted to pursue sports just because I wanted to be like my brother and like everybody else. We live in a sporting culture. And I’d be lying to say that as soon as I started, I had a lot of people telling me that I was good. I was like, Wow, I love this. Did I think I was going to win gold medals and Grand Slams? Absolutely not. I just loved pouring my effort and competitive nature into something. I couldn’t get enough of it.

The reason I loved it was because it made me feel free. Free of my own lack of self-worth, free of getting bullied. I was out there having a crack. It was just amazing. When I was 14, I started playing wheelchair basketball. When I was almost 16, I was like, Oh my god, I could go to the Paralympics when I’m 17 for either basketball or tennis. I had to pick one. I picked basketball, we won the gold medal, great choice. And then I was off to the races from there.

I AM COMPETITIVE but not against my opponents. I know that sounds weird. A lot of athletes get drive from, I want to beat that guy or I want to beat that team. I never hated anyone that I played against. I didn’t even think about them that much. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. That’s how my mentality worked. But I also wanted to prove to society that you should watch Paralympic sport because it’s entertaining, because it’s elite, that was my driver. My purpose was changing perceptions around disability. I put a lot of pressure on myself to prove that.

Later in my career I didn’t do that because I put too much pressure on myself. I realised I didn’t have to prove anything to anyone. I just had to go out there and enjoy myself and try my best. And that was why I ended up winning everything, rather than trying to prove something to Australia or the world.

I’m competitive with myself to want to do my best but when I lost big tournaments, I never got angry. I was just sad that I’d missed an opportunity for myself. When someone else beat me, I was pumped for them. I lost my last match. I don’t even think about it. I could not give a shit now. People say, “How many Opens have you won?” And I go, “I forget”, because I don’t count them. It’s more about the mission and what it meant for me.

WHEN I STARTED this challenge, I was far from my athletic peak. When I won Australian of the Year, I spent 245 days on airplanes that year, with 370-odd engagements and I didn’t give a shit. I was just like, You’re retired. So, I blew out. I probably put on 15 kilos, but I didn’t mind too much. But I realised that by not being active, it was really affecting my mental health, because as an athlete you get the benefits of being active for your mental health, for free. So, I was like, Why am I so grumpy and tired? It was because I wasn’t being active. And I also saw myself on TV and I had about four chins and I went, Alright, let’s change that.

I think what was in my favour with this challenge was that Jono, my trainer, and I live in different states. It was quite funny; I was sending him nude photos – well, I had my underwear on – every couple of days to show my progress. And my girlfriend’s like, “Who are you sending sexy photos to?” I said, “That’s just Jono”.

But what really worked in my favour was having the ability to smash myself in the gym without somebody there pushing me. That’s a really hard skill, if you’re not an athlete. So, with the sessions with Jono it was easy because he’s like, “Now, do it”. When I’m in Melbourne in a cold gym in my garage going, I don’t want to do this, I had that internal drive to do it because of my athletic background, but also because I wanted to show the world that people with disability can be sexy and ripped on the cover of Men’s Health. I had that purpose behind me, not just ‘I want to look good’. That wasn’t my purpose in this. My purpose was bigger than that.

When people train me, because I’m disabled, sometimes they’re scared of breaking me or hurting me. So, I stupidly said to Jono, “Man, I know I’m in a wheelchair, don’t go soft on me, you can smash me”. That was the dumbest decision that I ever made because from day one he smashed me and I was like, Am I going to be able to do this for 12 weeks? But I loved it. It was so awesome. He really took into account changing some exercises to be accessible for me, being inclusive in the gym but not shying away from some things. He was like, “Can you do this? Let’s figure out a way to do this”. Not, “I assume you can’t do that”.

It’s hard when you’re a paraplegic, you can’t really get abs. I used to worry about my weight. Fuck weight. It’s about how you feel. I know it [weight] is kind of a good benchmark, but really, it’s about how you feel. So, what I was really worried about was feeling good and looking good. Those were my benchmarks.

Day one, in the gym I had to get 30 cal on the Ski-Erg. It took me three-and-a-half minutes. By the end of it, yesterday, I did 40 cal on the SkiErg in 2.50. I’m also back to my athletic best in chin-ups, all that kind of stuff. I would say I am close to as fit as I was at my peak as an athlete. I think my fighting weight when I was playing tennis was about 65 kilos. When we started this, I was about 70 kilos and today I’m a bit under 62.9 kg. I lost about 10 per cent of my body weight.

THE HARDEST PART of this challenge was the travel. Across the 12 weeks, I had a trip to America, I had 10 days in Southern Africa and a week in the south of France, all for work. Safe to say there weren’t as many gyms where we were in South Africa. I was doing push-ups in car parks, doing hill sprints, just trying to find a way to train. And I think the biggest thing that I learned, and I love educating people about, is that when I retired from sport, if I didn’t have an hour-and-a-half to train, I didn’t bother because as an athlete, that’s how long you need.

When you’re not a professional athlete, you’ve just got to do something, just for your mental health as much as anything, and then the physical health benefits will come.

You just need 45 minutes to get out there and have a crack. Do some hill sprints. If you’ve got a gym, do a session, whatever it is. I had a day where I started in Brisbane, flew to Melbourne and ended up in Perth. I was wrecked, right? But you get to the hotel, you do half an hour or something in the gym. Afterwards, I just felt better.

When I landed in France, the first thing I did was a session. Why? Because I felt better. It helped with my jet lag. I told myself I was doing it for Men’s Health, but really, I was doing it for me so that I felt good. It’s so easy to eat room service, not go to the gym, have a nap, and you’ve just got to make sure you get out there and do something. It really does help.

I WANTED TO take on this challenge, not only to normalise disability but to change perceptions. I would tell people I’m doing the cover of Men’s Health. They’d be like, “What do you do in the gym?” Genuinely. It’s like, “Great question. Let me show you”. Imagine if we inspire a young trainer to want to know more or a young person with a disability to get out there and have a crack. That’s what it’s about.

I often get called an advocate and role model and that’s lovely. But I don’t wake up going, How am I going to advocate today? Or What angle am I going to push? I just get up and be myself and that’s hard enough as a person in the public eye. I’m authentic and vulnerable when I feel I need to be or want to be, but I also look after myself on that as well. I really don’t try too hard and think too much about how I want to sculpt my brand. I’m just being myself.

When I was 12, I met Adam Gilchrist. I love Gilly. He came up and he goes, “Hi, I’m Adam”. And I went, Fucking, of course you are”. Why is he saying his name’s Adam to me? And I was like, Oh, because he’s just Adam, he’s a person. When people come up to me, they go, “Oh, my God”. I say, “Hi, I’m Dylan”. They go, “I know”. I go, “Yeah, but what’s your name?” I think it disarms people and that’s what I want because I’m equal to them no matter what we both do.

My number one priority in life is just being a good person who enjoys my life. I’m a smart ass, self-deprecating, a dickhead really, in a good way, like anybody else. And I think that’s really important. A lot of people, when they get in the public eye, they portray something they think society wants. That’s really tiring and hard work and I couldn’t do that. But also, when I started in the media, I was a bit self-conscious about my disability. I was trying not to talk about it, not show it. It’s like, No, no, it’s a part of who I am. So, I waved all that away and guess what happened? Everything started becoming real, and I was like, Oh, they actually don’t care that you’re in a wheelchair. They care about your personality, if you’re a good person, if you can take a joke.

You see me on TV, I’ll make a joke about my wheelchair. You’re allowed to laugh. I think that humour is a really good way to normalise disability, so I’m always going to be myself. Life’s about living and I just get out there and have a crack.

MY ADVICE TO anybody who wants to change something in their life, is four-fold. Firstly, there’s power in authenticity. Saying you want to change something because you genuinely do, is so important.

Secondly, the power of vulnerability. If you want to change something, the best way to do it is to ask for help. Don’t try and do it yourself. I learned that young, when I was really struggling with my mental health. I didn’t tell anybody because I felt like a burden, an embarrassment. It was silly. It’s okay to ask for help.

The third one, which sucks; you’ve got to work hard to change things. You’ve really got to put the time and effort in.

But the most important thing, have a crack. Just start. We always talk ourselves out of everything. Just go, I want to do that. You’ll be horrible at it when you first start, and that’s okay. It’s okay to be bad at things. You get better over time.

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Dylan’s 12-week training regimen

Alcott worked out with trainer Jono Castano, founder of Acero Gym, who gave him a classic push/pull split routine with a cardio session. Use this routine to build a shredded upper body, because as Alcott says, “Leg day is overrated”.

 PUSH SESSION

• Ski-Erg x 30,25,20,15,10,5 calories
• Shoulder press x 20
• Push-ups x 20
• Triceps push-downs X 20 

PULL SESSION

• Ski-Erg x 5,10,15,20,25,30 calories
• Chin-ups x 12
• Curls x 12
• Lat pulldown x 12

CARDIO BOXING SESSION

• Bag work x 1min
• Throws to sky x 1min
• Battle ropes x 8 rounds

PAD WORK x 6mins

• Jabs x 20 secs
• Hooks x 20 secs
• Uppercuts x 20 secs                                                                                                    No rest

PUSH AND PULL SESSION

• 1A Ski-Erg x 1 min
• 1B DB lateral raise x 12
• 1C Face pulls x 12
• 1D DB hammer curls x 12                                                                                              X 5 sets

• 2A Ski-Erg x 30secs
• 2B Arnie Press x 12
• 2C DB Frontal Raise X 12
• 2D Pronated cable rows x 12                                                                                       X 5 sets

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Dylan’s nutrition plan

Alcott’s diet plan was a simple high-protein, complex-carb regimen that allowed him to build muscle while shredding fat:

• Prepackaged high-protein meals x 2 per day
• Protein shakes x 2 per day.                                                                                                   
  

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Editorial Director: Christopher Riley

Photography: Michael Comninus

Styling: Grant Pearce

Grooming: Max Serrano

Head of Social: Arielle Katos

Art Direction: Cathryn Zhang & Evan Lawrence

Video: Jasper Karolewski

Transport: KIA Australia

Shot on location at One Playground, Marrickville (cover) and Acero Gym, Kensington, NSW.  

The post Dylan Alcott can’t be stopped appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

The 25-year-old defeated Russian world no.6 Andrey Rublev, 6-2, 6-4, becoming the first Australian to win an ATP Masters 1000 title since Lleyton Hewitt in 2003.

Popyrin’s path to the final was an arduous one – Rublev was the fourth seeded opponent Popyrin has defeated to claim the title, after previously beating Hubert Hurkacz, Grigor Dimitrov and Ben Shelton.

Popyrin was ranked 30 going into the match, and has now beaten five top-20 opponents in succession, helping push him to the brink of the top 20, behind compatriot Alex de Minaur, who’s ranked 10.

The win is also good news for Popyrin’s bank account, which received an injection of $US1,049,460 ($1.6m AUD).

“It means so much, it means the world,” Popyrin said after his victory. “All the hard work that I’ve put in over the last few years, [and] all the sacrifices I’ve made – not just me, but my family, my girlfriend, my team, everybody around me. They’ve just sacrificed their whole lives for me, and for me to win this for them is just amazing.”

Alexei Popyrin at Wimbledon I @alexeipopyrin

Who is Alexei Popyrin?

Popyrin was born in Sydney to Russian parents. At 8, Popyrin and his family moved to Dubai for two years, before moving to Alicante in Spain, where fellow Australian Alex de Minaur was his neighbour.

After turning pro in 2016 aged 16, in 2019 Popyrin began to make his presence felt on the ATP tour, making the second round or beyond in all four Grand Slams, including the third round at Wimbledon and the US Open. He won his first ATP title at the Singapore Open in 2021.

This year is proving to be a banner one for Popyrin, who made the third round of the Paris Olympics, beating Nicolás Jarry and Stan Wawrinka, before losing to former Olympic champion Alexander Zverev.

Popyrin’s victory at the Canadian Open catapults him to no.24 in the ATP rankings.

How does Alexei Popyrin train?

According to Tennis Australia, Popyrin likes to practise playing points. “Any drill that we do, we try to implement a points structure to it,” he says. “That way I subconsciously raise my level and intensity.”

Popyrin generally trains at 10 or 11am and if he’s doing two-a-days, again at 3-4pm. Not a huge fan of cardio, Popyrin has turned a potential weakness into a strength, conscious a strong endurance base is essential to his ability to progress to the second week of grand slams.

What are Alexei Popyrin’s strengths?

At 196cm, Popyrin has a booming serve, backed up by heavy groundstrokes. He moves well for a big man, his long reach allowing him to run down drop shots or cover lobs. The 25-year-old has also been praised for his even temperament, with frequent Federer comparisons – always nice.

Related:

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Looking to level-up your tennis? Check out this cross-training workout from celebrity trainer Luke Zocchi

The post Why Alexei Popyrin could be our next big tennis star appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

Launched in March 2020 in the US and hitting Australian shores last month, Teremana Tequila became the fastest premium spirit to sell one million nine-litre cases within a 12-month period in US history.

Image I Teremana Tequila

Finishing the day with a nip of the agave spirit is probably forgivable when you own your own distillery, though it contributes only modestly to Johnson’s gargantuan but dull, 5,000-calorie daily intake.

“My diet is pretty boring,” says Johnson. “Chicken, fish, steak, complex carbohydrates, some greens in there, protein shake. Boring. Disciplined, but boring.”

Similarly boring, but undeniably necessary, says Johnson, was the workout he did this morning. “I did chest and cardio,” he says. “Nice and boring.”

Having got the dull stuff out of the way then, it seems pertinent to ask Johnson about something closer to his heart, his family, specifically his daughters. Johnson’s got three, Tiana, 5, Jasmine, 8, and Simone, 22, a trio whose first two initials – TI, JA, SI – spell the word TIJASI, embossed on the bottom of every bottle of Teremana Tequila.

So, what has a man who epitomises an outsized, overtly rugged sense of masculinity, learned from raising daughters?

“I’ve learned to be less selfish,” says Johnson, 52. “I’ve learned to be less judgmental and I have learned the powerful fact that when you’re a father to girls and you’re their daddy, every man that they meet, [for] the rest of their life, will be measured against you and how you treat them. So, what an awesome, incredible responsibility for us as men to remember that.”

He’s right, it’s a responsibility that’s implicit, if largely unspoken, in being a girl-dad. Johnson won’t let himself forget it.

“That’s a conceit that I really protect,” he adds. “I’m a proud girl-dad, and I’ve made mistakes along the way. I’ve tried my best to learn from those mistakes and try to be the best dad that I can, while always remembering that my role as their father, is yes, to discipline them, to love them, to protect them, but also just to remember that every man they meet, they’ll be measured by how I treat them.”

That’s a hell of a standard, I’m sure you’ll agree. You can only pity the poor, unfortunate partners of TIJASI.

Find out more about Teremana Tequila here.

Image I Teremana Tequila

Related: 

School Of Rock: Life Lessons From Dwayne Johnson

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s Complete Workout Routine and Diet Plan

The post Why Dwayne Johnson is the ultimate girl-dad appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.