Rangy yet powerfully built, tattoos fight to catch the eye on Pedro’s upper body—I can make out his beer label logo, Drink West, under his left pec, while his back is dominated by images of a samurai and a demon—representing good and evil, the fighter tells me later. His left shoulder features an image of his cousin, who was killed serving in Afghanistan, while his thighs carry traditional Samoan designs. Only his calves have escaped the needle.

Between exercises Pedro checks in on a screen at the gym’s central pillar before moving on to the next exercise. He’s working in concert with an older, heavier set man with a similar array of ink. That would be John Pedro, Tyson’s father, a man whose reputation is the stuff of MMA legend.

While father and son train side by side, they barely acknowledge each other, both carrying a steely gaze as they knock out their reps. Pedro’s daughter and nephew are mucking around on some padded boxes nearby, while his wife, Rosie, looks on. “It’s the whole Brady Bunch in here today,” Pedro tells me, as we chat afterwards in the gym’s office, a towel draped over his shoulders. He’s right, there is something wholesome about the scene: a family hard at work in the gym, kids playing around them. Very Brady Bunch, very sweet. In some ways it recalls aspects of Pedro’s own childhood. In others, though, it’s markedly different.

Back then, father and son were master and apprentice and rather than side by side, tended to clash head on. “[It was] pretty normal, except we just fought a lot,” says Pedro of a childhood you could describe as both formative and complicated. “Essentially, we’ve always been fighting. I’ve only been knocked out twice, both times by my dad. Dad just thought he was raising Spartans.”

You could argue that’s exactly what John was doing. Afterall, you don’t name your son Tyson for nothing.

Cotton knit tank, POA, and cotton pants, $380, by Venroy.

UNLESS YOU’RE AN MMA lifer, the name John Pedro probably doesn’t mean a lot to you. But MMA in Australia owes a lot to John, who helped pioneer the sport over here as owner and operator of the King of the Cage promotion. A self-described ‘hood rat’, John, who is of American Samoan descent, grew up in LA with a gangland past, running with the notorious Bloods in Oceanside.

The story of how John made it out here to Australia is an interesting one: his own father’s dying wish was that his son serve as a Mormon missionary. “In America, half my family is Mormon, half the family is on the other side of the path,” says Pedro, offering a smile that’s all the more disarming for his tattooed body and cauliflower ears.

John would meet Pedro’s mum, Karran, here in Australia. The pair had three kids; Pedro has a younger brother and a sister, who’s now married to UFC heavyweight Tai Tuivasa. Fighting was in the blood, though John chafed against the media’s perception of MMA as a ‘bloodsport’. He began teaching his son Japanese Jujutsu and Kenpō Karate when he was just four years old. “We’d always be doing weapons and we started the ground game a lot earlier than a lot of other people,” says Pedro.

The young Pedro would also box, but at his mother’s urging he tried his hand at non-combat sports, including football, league, tennis, volleyball and basketball. “My mum wanted me to do everything but fighting,” says Pedro. “She absolutely hates it. Still hasn’t come to any of my fights [in MMA]. Never watched one. Hasn’t watched replays. Nothing.” She did watch him box once at a Blacktown youth club. That was enough. “I got hit, but he [the opponent] stepped on my foot at the same time and I fell down. She screamed so loud that everyone stopped, even the ref. That was it for her.”

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Pedro’s parents would split when he was 12. His siblings went to live with their mum. Pedro stayed with John. That meant he kept doing martial arts. It also meant he kept fighting with his old man.

“It’s crazy, now, looking back on it,” says Pedro, shaking his head as he begins to recall a childhood marked by lessons in combat. “He wasn’t ready for kids, like a lot of adults at that age and he just had a different kind of switch. You weren’t allowed to make mistakes, whether it was martial arts or you spilled a drink or anything. He was just very hard and you never knew when that switch was going to get flipped.”

What happened if you made a mistake, I venture. It’s difficult to tell if Pedro is smiling or grimacing when he answers. “You’d get beaten. I try not to get him in trouble, make him look bad. My front teeth are fake. I’ve got a broken nose. I got a lot of hidings, as did a lot of Polynesian kids from that area. I think it was just passed down. They didn’t know any different.”

That shot to the mouth came when Pedro was 16 and told his dad he wanted to fight in the UFC. John told him to put on some gloves and get in the cage. John said he wouldn’t hit him, then Pedro clocked his old man. The switch got flipped. Next thing Pedro knew he was on the canvas with his front teeth missing. But the fight didn’t end there. John made his son keep fighting. Afterwards, he told Pedro how proud of him he was.

There’s another incident that leaps from the pages of Pedro family lore: the stabbing.

“That was more of a game we were playing—he used to throw a knife and try and catch it—and we were just trying to get each other to flinch and it just kept escalating and he missed the catch and it went straight into my chest,” says Pedro, pointing to his sternum. “I actually got in trouble after that for playing the game. He was like, ‘You made me play this fucking game. Don’t tell your mum’.”

To Pedro, the knife wound was just another scar. He begins patting his shoulders, chest, the top of his head. “Man, there were always scars on my head, my body. I didn’t know any different. I just thought that was how you grew up.”

How did he feel about all the hits he was taking, all the fists he was eating, back then? “Man, to be honest, I think I was just trying to maybe people please, because I was always trying to get his love, always trying to just show him that, I’m the son you wanted. He could almost do no wrong in a sense.”

What about now? Do those scars linger? Have he and his old man talked about the way things were back then? “We are starting to talk a lot more,” says Pedro. “He came from an era where you don’t talk about your problems. And it’s cool now that I’ve been training with dad so much. I drive him around and we get a lot of time to talk. He sends me messages just apologising or saying, ‘You’re my eldest son. I wasn’t ready’. And I’m like, Man, dad would never have said this in a million years. How he talks about me now almost brings a tear to my eye. It’s just cool to see him grow as a man. I think becoming a granddad, that changed him.”

Pedro feels that to this day no one has hit him as hard as his dad did. “Maybe that’s a psychological thing because I know some of these guys are definitely hitting harder,” he says. “Maybe they’re not hitting me emotionally as hard.”

And here’s the kicker: “I wouldn’t change anything because it made me who I am.”

Cotton knitted shirt, $269, and linen shorts, $219, by Calibre.

PEDRO IS UNLEASHING a kick towards the heavens, the tranquil waters of picturesque Little Bay, where I catch up with him a few days later for the MH shoot, offering an exquisite frame for an image that underscores both the sublime beauty and ferocious intent possible in martial arts.

There was never any question that Pedro would end up fighting as a career. It was just a matter of which style. It would turn out to be all of them. He would win the NSW state titles in boxing and train for the Olympics, but despite his success, he grew weary of the sweet science. He liked the complexity and range of the grappling styles, the chance to use all his limbs, unleash all his weapons. And he liked that in martial arts, you never stop learning. “Japanese jujutsu has a lot of grappling, but also has the striking,” he says. “And then I went back to Brazilian jiu-jitsu for a little bit and it’s just evolving so fast and I liked that idea of it changing so much. I still love boxing, but when you think about it, the biggest change has been from that to that in the past 100 years,” he says, inverting his fists from palms out to palms in. “So I think it’s just the evolution of MMA that I love. And you never feel like you’ve learnt it all.”

John’s legacy isn’t just a son who’s as hard as a proverbial coffin nail. It’s also one who’s a keen, and shrewd, student of combat sports. “I’ve trained at different gyms around the world and I’ll go, Oh, that works for me or that works for me. I can take a little bit of everything because I’ve never been to one gym, except City Kickboxing [Israel Adesanya’s gym], where I go, Oh yeah, that’s my whole system in one thing.” It’s the same with mentors, he says. “I’ve never seen one person where I go, I only look up to that person. I’m like, Oh, I can take a little bit from you, a little bit from you and try and make it into my own thing.”

Pedro’s entry into the UFC was perhaps ahead of schedule and came about thanks to a combination of chutzpah—after winning the Australian Fighting Championship 17 in October 2016, Pedro called out UFC president Dana White saying, “UFC I’m ready”—and good fortune. “I was literally the only fighter who was available and I’d only had four fights, so probably shouldn’t have got a call up yet,” he says. “But all the stars aligned and they’re like, ‘Do you want to fight in four weeks?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah’. They’re like, ‘Do you want to know who, where?’ I said, ‘No, if it’s the UFC, I’m in’.” It ended up being Khalil Rountree, now ranked number eight in the light heavyweight division, at UFC Fight Night: Whittaker vs. Brunson, in Melbourne.

Pedro would beat Rountree, before going 3-3 in his first six fights in the UFC. In the last of these bouts, against Maurício Rua in 2018, he would injure his knee. He didn’t know it at the time but he wouldn’t fight again for four years. For a man who’d grown up fighting, it would be too long.

Swim shorts, POA, by Tommy Hilfiger.

AS PEDRO PERFORMS a head turning, head flip on the sand at Little Bay, his lithe, supple limbs betray no evidence of the crippling knee injuries that very nearly ended his career.

The first knee reconstruction went well, he says. He worked out at Ethos every day with trainer, Meer Awny. “I was like, Let’s go. I got this. Then the second one I was like, Oh man, this is getting pretty tough. I think we were about two years in at that stage. The third knee injury was the killer. I was like, Fuck this.”

With hope of a return to the Octagon disappearing, Pedro would blow out to 110 kg from his fighting weight of 93 kg. With no fights on the horizon, money started to become an issue. People around him told him to retire. “It was getting to the stage where they’re like, ‘Man, you’ve got to give up your dream’.”

Without a fight to prepare for, life can get complicated for Pedro, whose motto is ‘peace through violence’. “When I’m in the Octagon I just get this tunnel vision and it’s serenity in there,” he says. “You’re not thinking about anything else. No problems, no dramas. It’s very easy. As soon as you come out, there’s always problems.”

Ironically perhaps, the nadir would come when the finish line was in sight. Pedro began drinking just before he was due to go into camp for his return fight. “I was watching Tai’s fight,” he recalls. “That’s where it started. I just started on the beers and just kept drinking.” It would turn into a multi-day bender in which he went missing from his family. The 32-year-old refers to it now as a nervous breakdown. “I signed the contract and I just felt overwhelmed with the idea of coming back for the fight, the reliance on money for the family. Everything had to succeed now because I’d got everyone to believe in me for four years. So, I almost felt like I was just running away from the bigger effort.”

It was John who pulled him out of it. He’d been in New Zealand but flew straight home when Rosie called him. “He picked me up and just said, ‘Let’s go. Let’s get to work’. And I was like, ‘Alright, sweet, let’s go’.”

Pedro’s return to the Octagon at UFC 278 against Harry Hunsucker in August 2022 was as euphoric as it was emphatic. He stopped Hunsucker with a front kick to the body and ground and pound. “That was, again, overwhelming,” he says. “I remember after I won that fight, I was still on and still wanting to fight the ref, fight everyone because there was just so much adrenaline going through me. I remember walking out the back and we sat down for a second and then it just flooded me and I started bawling my eyes out. It was too much for one moment.”

Anorak, $249, by Calvin Klein.

WHILE FIGHTING MIGHT be his life, Pedro knows he can’t do it forever. During his four years out he started a number of side gigs, including Drink West, his beer label with Tuivasa and Penrith Panthers’ skipper Nathan Cleary. He’s been a sought after collaborator for major fashion labels and recently landed a role in a feature film set in the MMA world that’s due to shoot this year. He also hosts The Halfcast Podcast with Tuivasa, will star in Channel 10’s reboot of Gladiators, launching this month and after our chat he has a meeting about setting up a children’s foundation.

If that weren’t enough, there have been offers in the past to turn his and John’s lives into a movie. Pedro also wants to write a book, but at the same time, is conscious of not getting distracted from fighting. Besides, he says, his story isn’t finished, a reason he gives for not yet having gone on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. “There are a couple of things I want to tick off the list before I go on there.”

Like what? He smiles. “I’d rather just show everyone.”

The ‘show’ will begin with his next fight. Pedro is currently in the process of adding weight ahead of fight camp. He’s at 104 kg, aiming to get to 106 kg, before cutting to 93 kg for a fight, likely to be in the first quarter of this year. Getting to that weight involves a lot of pies and pizzas.

“It’s pretty shitty,” says Pedro. “Last camp my nutritionist was making me eat pizzas and burgers in between my meals because I was just cutting weight too fast. I was dropping three kilos a session and having to eat just to get it back on.” Of course, the boom-bust extremes of preparing for a bout mean that once you do begin your cut, those same pizzas you were almost gagging on a week ago, suddenly loom large in your mind’s eye. “I follow a lot of food pages,” says Pedro, with a chuckle. “When I’m cutting weight, I’m like, I’ll have that one and that one and that one.”

Adesanya’s camp at City Kickboxing in New Zealand is brutal, he says. “Most gyms are like two [workouts] a day max, but they’re doing four or five sessions a day sometimes.” Outside of camp, Pedro does strength and conditioning at Ethos in the mornings and either jujutsu or boxing in the evenings. “That’s my staple. Going back into camp, that’s all I do. It’s not too hard on the body. I try not to do too much wrestling or too much kickboxing.”

Camp is a physical and mental crucible designed to break a fighter down and build him back up again, to push the mind and body to breaking point, to sharpen instincts like a blade on stone and, ultimately, fortify the spirit for battle. By the end Pedro will be ready.

“I feel like I unlocked a new mentality in the last fight [against Anton Turkalj at UFC 293 in Sydney] where I went full monk,” he says of his fight prep. “Normally I take my computer and do a lot of other things while I’m in fight camp. That last one I did nothing. I just sat in my room journalling, meditating. I did everything perfect and it was weird but I got to the last page of my journal and where normally I can see all my goals, I couldn’t see anything past it [the fight] and I felt like I was ready to die in that fight. It gave me this sense of freedom. I was able to just flow. It was the freest I’ve ever felt in there.”

Finding freedom in the cage is the result, he says, of unlocking your alter ego, something Pedro’s been working on with Adesanya’s mental performance coach, David Niethe. “Tyson Pedro has a lot of flaws, a lot of weaknesses,” Pedro says. “Through camp we undergo this transformation so that by the time you enter the cage you’re ready to unleash your alter ego.” An idealised, optimised expression of who you are: your best self.

Who or what is Pedro’s alter ego? A rōnin, he says. I nod. A martial inspiration makes sense for a fighter, though perhaps this one is open to some narrative interpretation. In feudal Japan, a samurai becomes a rōnin after the death of his master, or after the loss of his master’s favour. Pedro, you could argue, did the opposite. He earned his master’s favour. His respect, love and approval, too. Yes, he had to fight tooth (literally) and nail, for them. But he’s his own man and master now.

Tyson Pedro’s MMA gym workout

Pedro uses this workout to build the total-body strength and stamina required to go five rounds in the Octagon. Use it to fortify your physique.

>Hang clean shrug – 4 x 4

>Single-leg dumbbell depth landing – 3×5

>Barbell hip thrust off box – 4 x 8, 8, 6, 6

>KB swing – 3 x 8

>DB wrist extension – 3 x 12-15

>DB Seal Row – 4 x 8

>Cable side bend – 3 x 12

>Half-kneeling cable serratus punch – 3 x 8

Above: Swim shorts, $109, by Calvin Klein. Opening image: Tank, $69, and shorts, $119, by P.E Nation.

Photography: @stevenchee

Styling:@grantpearce.inc

Skin:@moniquejonesmakeup

Social: @ariellekatos

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The post Tyson Pedro and the search for your best self appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

Whether it’s for a loved one or yourself, give the gift of health and fitness this holiday season with a present that will help you start the new year the right way. We’ve rounded up some of the best available gifts that are the perfect companions across all categories of fitness. From dieting and eating well to exercise and training, these will help you start the year the right way and power you into reaching all your goals.

Suunto 9 Peak Pro – RRP $759

The new Suunto 9 Peak Pro is their most powerful multisport watch to date. The 9 Peak Pro is designed to be the perfect companion for rigorous outdoor adventures and activities. With all the necessary toughness and durability you need to get into a new training routine to start 2023. Utilising a stainless steel metal construction, 9 Peak Pro is built for a purpose: to withstand anything you throw at it. Despite it’s strength, 9 Peak Pro is also the thinnest watch made by Suunto, with a sleek design that doesn’t sacrifice style for quality. The 9 Peak Pro offers a range of route finding options, turn-by-turn guidance and advanced training tools. The watch also has an insane battery life, capable of lasting for up to 21 days before needing to be recharged. The 9 Peak Pro is the ideal fitness companion for 2023.

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Vitamix Ascent A3500i Blender – RRP $1,699

Exercising is only part of making the necessary transformation to fulfil your new years resolution’s. Just as important is eating well, and the Vitamix Ascent will help you do just that. The Ascent A3500i can turn any fruit or vegetable into a healthy liquid blend. Meaning you can eat well without needing to force down the vegetables. Beyond smoothies, the Ascent A3500i can be used to deliver delicious juices, hot soups, dressings and dips. The innovative A3500i makes it easy to eat healthy, meal-prep and get fit.

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Belkin Magnetic Fitness Phone Mount – RRP $49

If you’ve ever gone for a long bike ride, or have spent an extended stint on an exercise machine at the gym, you most likely understand the struggle of firstly trying to wrangle your phone from your pocket, and then trying to multitask a workout with sending a text. Belkin’s magnetic phone mount provides on-the-go flexibility for all types of fitness training. One magnet seamlessly attaches to your phone, the second latches onto magnetic surfaces without budging if it takes a hit. A strap also allows the phone mount to attach to handlebars, treadmills, and a wide range of other equipment.

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V-Fitness Tracktivity GPS Smart Watch – RRP $99

The V-Fitness Tracktivity watch provides all the benefits of top-of-the-line smartwatches without doing damage to your wallet. The Tracktivity watch is designed to monitor your daily movements and exercise. Making it a great fitness companion with a range of features created to suit your lifestyle. Sleep tracking, heart-rate monitoring and a built in GPS are some of the many features that will help you reach all of your fitness goals in 2023.

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Wiltshire Glass Bottle – RRP $18

Hydration is the key to effective exercise. So, a water bottle that caters to your daily needs is essential. Whether you’re pumping iron in the gym, getting adventurous on a mountain hike, or pushing through some off-the-track cycling, a Wiltshire glass bottle is the hydration beacon you need. Wiltshire’s innovative glass design lets you enjoy only the cleanest tasting water. It also helps the planet and protects your health by reducing the prevalence of single use plastic bottles and their associated microplastic risks.

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T2 The Gift of Energy Wellness Pack RRP $55

Improving your health isn’t all about training and diet. Wellness is a key facet of achieving your health goals. Luckily, T2 has designed a set of tea’s specifically designed to help you jump out of bed feeling better and prepared to take on whatever the day throws at you. T2’s Gift of Energy pack comes with a double walled glass and infuser, offering two energising tastes to help you wake up feeling right. The Gift of Energy pack helps you fuel up for a busy day with guarana, yerba mate and black tea.

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JISULIFE FA12 Bladeless Neck Fan – RRP $45

When you’re pumping out the last set of the day or pushing through a sprint to the finish, wouldn’t you just love a cool breeze on your neck to give you the extra kick? JISULIFE’s FA12 neck fan will keep you cool while on the go. The lightweight and almost noiseless fan provides calming comfort whenever and wherever you want. With a rechargeable battery, the FA12 bladeless fan is exactly what you need to keep striving to accomplish all your fitness goals.

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TCL NXTPAPER 10s – RRP $499

With the TCL NXTPAPER 10s, we return to the importance of feeling well. The tablet is purposefully designed to protect your eyes. It’s super-lightweight and paper-like display design uses 10 protective layers to create natural colours and save your vision. The cutting edge technology reduces harmful blue light through the screen by 73%. Meaning you can enjoy the clear display without the worrying visual side effects. With an added anti-glare feature, built in PC mode, folio keyboard and a long battery life, the result is the ideal tablet for creativity, safety and entertainment.

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ATIVAFIT 25kg Adjustable Weight Dumbbell Set – RRP: $241

Give the gift of gains this year with this adjustable weight dumbbell set. Ask any dedicated gym junkie and they’ll likely tell you the same thing: dumbbells are the most versatile and reliable means of chiselling out sculpted muscles. This set is suitable for all levels of fitness, with weight increments ranging from 2.5kg to 25kg, and is the perfect addition to any home gym.

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TRX All-in-One Suspension Training System – RRP: $319

The Covid pandemic taught us that you don’t necessarily need to venture to the gym six days a week to get your fitness fix. A suitably buff physique can be acquired entirely from the comfort of your own home, but to do so, you’ll need the right gear. TRX’s suspension training system can deliver the full-body workout you’ve been searching for. With a simple set up, an endless range of exercise possibilities and a slew of on demand classes available, this all-in-one system is nothing to balk at.

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Hacienda Portable Pedal Exerciser – RRP: $60

For the fitness enthusiast who can never stop moving, this portable peddler is a godsend. We all know that guy who walks home after a night out so he can “get his steps in”. Why not ease his burden with a far superior solution to daily fitness goals? This peddler is easy to use, effective, and can be taken just about anywhere.

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Cold AF Portable Ice Bath – RRP: $200

Equally important as the workout itself, recovery is a vital aspect of a holistic fitness routine. The benefits of ice baths are far-reaching, and they have the science to back them up. With this portable ice bath, you can take recovery into your own hands, whenever and wherever you want.

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Theragun Mini – RRP: $349

On the topic of recovery, there are few better ways to ease muscle tension and stress than with a quality massage gun. The Theragun Mini takes all the soothing power of a regular Theragun and packs it into a compact, uber-portable frame. Don’t hesitate on this one, it even has Bluetooth.

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Hyperice Venom Go – RRP: $250

Technological innovations continue to change the way we workout. Now, recovery starts before the workout has finished. The Venom Go is a heated, vibrating wearable that soothes aches and pains as you go. With nine distinct combinations of heat and vibration, the Venom Go can be placed just about anywhere and deliver lasting results.

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Beats PowerBeats Pro – RRP: $279

A quality soundtrack can be the secret to workout enhancement, but to unlock the power of music, first-rate earwear is a must. PowerBeats Pro is purpose-built for top-notch performance during high-intensity sweat sessions. With an ergonomic design, water—or more appropriately, sweat—resistance, and a battery life lasting up to nine hours, PowerBeats Pro has the stamina to outlast you.

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The post The Best Xmas Gifts To Help Reach 2024 Health And Fitness Goals appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

“It was probably the first time that I had an opportunity to fix a massive problem in my life,” says Rowston, who’s chatting to me today inside his glass box of an office overlooking the gym floor at Lockeroom on Bligh St in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. “I was like, I want to gain weight and be stronger and look like these guys [Men’s Health cover models]. So being able to pour time and energy into it felt really good.”

After a successful career as a CrossFit athlete and gym owner, Rowston and his business partner, Raph Freedman, are now seeking to solve problems for a very exclusive clientele comprising corporate executives, CEOs and entrepreneurs, some of whom I can see working up a sweat through windows of Rowston’s office.

The gym, together with the original facility on Bridge Street, is an immaculate study in black and chrome, with the kind of state of the art equipment and luxe finishes you’d expect to find in a Manhattan-style health club—a daily laundry and towel service, Aesop bathroom products and canned water by Calm & Stormy, are some of the upscale amenities on offer. The clientele are distinguished by their wealth, power, status and age. To make it in the door they’ve been vetted, passed a two-stage referral process and perhaps most importantly, haven’t blinked at fees that can reach up to $365 per week.

Ultimately, though, they too are people with problems—high stress, poor diet, no time, lack of sleep, muscle imbalances, too much sitting, excessive drinking—the usual culprits. At Lockeroom, Rowston aims to ensure they find a solution.

Lockeroom Bligh Street.

INSIDE MANY A gym rat there’s often a former teenager who struggled with body confidence. In Rowston’s case the realisation that he wasn’t as big as his friends caused him anxiety and he began assiduously lifting weights in his backyard with equipment supplied by his dad, a sports nut who imported American sporting goods for a living. He also used his high-school gym at lunch times. “I was probably a similar height [190cm] to what I am now, but 65 kilos, whereas I’m about ninety-five kilos now,” says the 30-year-old, who grew up in Neutral Bay. “I was pretty much the only person in my entire grade that did weights with the purpose of trying to gain weight, coming to school with Tupperware containers and chicken that I’d cooked up.”

He began to bulk up and the progress he made spurred him to seek out a career in training. After school he began working as a PT at a gym in Mosman before discovering CrossFit, which he liked “because it was like a sport”. “It wasn’t like headphones on, sweating in the gym by yourself,” he says. “There was camaraderie, you’re doing workouts together.”

CrossFit would become Rowston’s life over the next five or six years, as he competed individually and then as part of a team with his friend and now business partner, Freedman. In 2014, the pair opened a CrossFit gym in Marrickville (which later became part of business called Creature Fitness), though, as Rowston admits now, at the time competition rather than growing the enterpise was the primary focus.

“We opened a gym, but we didn’t start a business until probably three years after,” he says. The pair lived and breathed WODs and metcons and ate accordingly. “There was a cafe chain’s warehouse down the road and when the food was about to go off, the manager would call us and be like, ‘Hey guys, there’s sweet potato if you want to come get it’ because we were just training like athletes. We would cook it in the microwave, no preparation, no cleaning, just a block of butter. That was how we survived.”

The pair slept upstairs above the gym in a space with “no aircon and about a thousand mosquitoes”, playing rock, paper, scissors to see who’d get the physio table and who got the floor. Fun times and the hard work saw them become one of Australia’s leading CrossFit teams, ultimately missing out on qualifying for the CrossFit Games in Los Angeles in 2017 by one spot.

The bathrooms at Lockeroom.

After that Rowston was done with competing and instead turned his attention to making the gyms–he and Freedman had expanded to locations in Edgecliff and Bondi Junction–viable as a business. Looking back he believes they missed the peak of CrossFit. “The day we opened our CrossFit gym [in February, 2014] was the exact day that for the first time since CrossFit started on Google, the trend line started going down,” he says. “That was the apex. And so we caught the other side of that.”

Rowston quickly grasped that the market had changed and with the rise of F45 and the entry of a number of US fitness franchises like Barry’s Bootcamp and Orange Theory into the Australian market, competition in the group training space was suddenly fierce. “There was all these new chains and I was like, I don’t think we can compete anymore. People are coming in with a better product at a lower price.”

The pair began selling off pieces of the three-gym Creature Fitness business and in 2019 conceived of Lockeroom. “We just felt like, What’s an untapped market? What are all the problems we have with running gyms at the moment? How can we fix it with a new model?”

At the same time, there was interest among their existing clientele for something more bespoke and premium. “Some of our clients were similar to Lockeroom clients,” says Rowston. “They might work in a hedge fund or be a managing director or own their own business. They would always ask us, ‘Hey, can you help me with my nutrition? Can we do some personal training sessions?’ Basically, ‘can I spend 250 to $300 a week with you?’ At some point we started thinking, what if we built a gym that was just for these clients?” They also entertained the idea of targeting celebrities, “until we realised that Australia doesn’t really have many celebrities and they don’t want to pay.”

They decided to focus solely on corporate clients and began investing in the Lockeroom brand. Launching during Covid would throw up all sorts of challenges but the concept was solid and once the CBD began to open up again and workers returned to the city, the brand took off, first on Bridge St and more recently in their new Bligh St location, with plans for up to four CBD sites. So, what’s so special about the concept and its members?

Rowston and Freedman.

A BIG PART of building an exclusive brand is creating demand through careful positioning. Lockeroom launched with a 100-member cap and a vetting process befitting of an underground gentleman’s club. It has relaxed the cap slightly—Rowston says the current client list is around 150 per gym. “It worked really well [the 100-member cap] and we filled up really fast and then we got to a hundred and we realised if we stayed there, we’d be losing money every day,” says Rowston. “The more high-end clientele, executives, business owners that are in the gym, the better it is for everyone. As long as they still get the same service delivery, they still get the results.”

Rowston admits the gym’s pricing, which starts at $240 and can reach $365 per week depending on the desired package, does a lot of the vetting for them. “It’s going to cut a lot of the people initially,” he says. An affluent client list is generally an older one and Lockeroom targets these customers with services such blood work screening, vitamin and supplement recommendations, physiotherapy, pain management and rehabilitation.

A two-member approval process in which existing clients from the same company must vouch for a prospective member also helps ensure a good cultural fit. But while the client list is exclusive, Rowston insists it’s also diverse. “What you imagine a really successful CEO to be is nothing like what you see on TV,” he says. “It’s everyone: men, women, older, younger. They’re not necessarily a certain type of person, but if they have one characteristic in common, it would definitely be that they know what hard work is. They’re under no illusions. And when they don’t get a result, then it’s like, ‘My fault’. They take responsibility.”

Lockeroom Bridge Street.

They also understand their limits, he says, something that’s not always the case with younger gym-goers. “They’re very honest about who they are and what’s going to work for them,” says Rowston. “Whereas I think when people are a little bit younger, they might have some false beliefs around how good they’ll be on their own. Our clients are like, ‘Look, I’m happy to invest money because I’m shit by myself and I’ve got no accountability to myself and I eat like crap’. That self-awareness piece is really good.”

Clients are naturally data driven and results focused, something Rowston initially tapped into by giving them a WHOOP band as part of their membership. The gym is now revamping its ‘Concierge Medicine’ offering for even deeper and more comprehensive insights, but Rowston is adamant that data can only take you so far.

“They [clients] often want it to be some magic pill or injection,” he says. “But ultimately, they’re never going to feel as good or lose as much weight or be as pain-free as they are just doing the basics. And it’s very easy to get off course with the basics over 30 years. There are a lot of bad habits in place: too much alcohol, not enough sleep, no outlets for their stress, not enough steps. Those things over a long enough time can result in pretty poor health.”

Rowston behind the mic on The Mind Muscle Project.

A SUCCESSFUL CAREER in CrossFit and a thriving boutique fitness business would be more than enough for most people, but in the background of all of this Rowston and Freedman have been running one of Australia’s most successful health and fitness podcasts, The Mind Muscle Project, launched way back in 2014.

“I think Joe Rogan was on episode 200 or something,” says Rowston. “He’s on episode 2000 or something now. I remember pitching our first advertisers and having to explain what a podcast was. That’s how early it was.”

The podcast now averages around 150,000 downloads a month, with two shows a week attracting a global audience—only around 30 per cent of the audience is Australian. Rowston credits the podcast’s success to getting in early and consistency. “We’ve always put up at least one episode a week.” And since Covid, the pair only interview guests in person, necessitating a lot of travel, including one US trip in which they interviewed 14 people in 10 days. “After doing three or four years of Zoom podcasts, you just get over it,” says Rowston. “It’s just not the same. But being able to have a conversation with someone that we really respect or idolise in person, we’re able to get a much better product.”

As hosts who are both business partners and friends, Rowston and Freedman have inbuilt chemistry. Their background as CrossFit athletes and gym owners also gives them credibility in a crowded market, much like ex-athletes who offer analysis on TV sports broadcasts. “The fact that we own a separate business together validates it a little bit more than other people whose only job is to create content,” says Rowston.

It’s perhaps worth noting that Rowston’s favourite book is Yuval Noah Harari’s bestseller, Sapiens. “I like books that explain human nature,” he says. “The best book for me is something that blends evolutionary psychology and patterns in society and human nature with business. Just learning about how humans behave and the patterns that we have, it helps you learn more about yourself and honestly, it makes you a bit more forgiving of yourself. It also helps you predict the future a little bit. And in business, the better you can predict the future, the better decisions you can make.”

What Rowston hopes to achieve with Lockeroom is that the particular cohort of humans who join the gym for its targeted, elevated fitness experience, never leave. “I view it from the client’s perspective, which is when you find a doctor or a dentist or an accountant you like, you don’t really want to change,” he says. “And that is the same with how people think about their bodies. If you find a really good personal trainer that gets you great results, you are healthier because of them being in your life and you don’t want to change.”

The impediment, says Rowston, is often due to trainers moving on to other gyms, or because the client and trainer become friends and the accountability is no longer there, or as is common among executives, travel interferes with their training progress, something that feeds into Rowston’s ultimate ambitions for Lockeroom. “If I could solve that problem by putting more Lockerooms all over the world, then no matter where the clients are, no matter what business they’re doing at the time or what city they’re in, they can literally pick up exactly what they’re doing here and just continue it over there.”

It’s a grand ambition. And for Rowston, another problem to solve.

The Lockeroom Workout

Use this workout to build a body that can fill out a suit.

Plyometric warm up:

• A1: single leg vertical jump and land 3 x 3/side
• A2: seated vertical 3 x 3
• A3: Low to high banded rotation chop: 3 x 10/side

Strength:

• B1: Neutral grip Bench Press (multi grip bar) 5 x 6-8 @22X1
• B2: Wide Grip Pull Up: 5 x 8-10 (weighted)

Accessories:

• C1: Cable lateral raise 3 x 15/side
• C2: Cable reverse Fly 3 x 20
• C3: Side plank 3 x 60sec/side

Rowston in action on the gym floor. (Supplied)

LOCKEROOM

Address: Shop 2/38-42 Bridge St / 4-6 Bligh Street, Sydney, NSW.

Hours: 24/7

VISIT

Related:

The Hemsworth vs Momoa biceps beef is threatening to boil over

Khan Porter on staying positive when you’re injured

The post Meet the man behind Australia’s most exclusive gym appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

Surrounded by his Croatian family, each meal would involve food piled high in the middle of the table. And if you didn’t eat fast, you didn’t eat. “If you were talking, everyone’s gonna take the food and you’ll miss out,” he explains. “So everyone in my house was like: Fill up your plate!”

It’s perhaps little surprise then that Webb grew up to be Australia’s most accomplished competitive eater, dubbed by Major League Eating as the “undisputed Champion of the Southern Hemisphere”. But it all started with a roadtrip to Hunter Valley. His partner wanted to do a wine tour and as Webb doesn’t drink he agreed to go on the basis that they would also do a food tour, sampling all the best culinary creations along the way.

“You can bribe me to do anything if you feed me,” he laughs. 

On the way to the wineries, the plan was to visit the chocolate factory then the fudge factory, followed by some cheese tasting. But first up was a visit to a local pub.

“They had a photo on the wall of this burger. I thought it was Photoshopped, it was so huge! I made a joke saying, Can I eat that burger?”

Turns out, it was part of a food challenge: pay $80 and if you finish it – which no one had successfully managed to do – you get your money back and win a jackpot that increases each time the challenge is attempted. After signing a waiver and with the rest of the pub now watching on with anticipation, the owner hit the stop watch and Webb started making his way through the mountain of burger and fries. 

“I finished the whole thing in 27 minutes,” he says. He even had time for desert: two servings of cheesecake topped with extra whipped cream. To the astonishment of those watching on, Webb took his prize money and went on his way – presumably to the chocolate factory. It was what happened next that changed the course of his life.

“The next morning, my mum called me and was like, What’s going on? You’re on the news!” 

The owner of the pub had filmed the whole thing and sent it to the local paper which in turn got the attention of radio hosts Fitzy and Wippa. After seeing Webb’s display of mastication (which, for the uninitiated, means chewing by the way), the pair invited Webb into the studio to attempt a dumpling eating contest: first to 100 dumplings wins. With Webb making light work of Fitzy and Wippa, they decided to open the airwaves to listeners to see if they had any advice to share. It caught the attention of a private Facebook group dedicated to Australia’s small but growing community of competitive eaters. With his burger story going viral, Webb was practically famous. “You’ve got a gift,” they told him.

Which brings us to today. Three years and a whole lot of burgers since that fateful pub visit, we’re sat at Sneakies Kitchen in Homebush, known for its burgers, pizzas and pasta. Except what Webb has in front of him isn’t on the menu. As part of his training as a competitive eater, Webb’s about to attempt a ‘pizza burger’, consisting of four beef patties, two fried chicken fillets, salad and two pizzas. Tripods are set up to film so Webb’s hundreds of thousands of fans on social media can see him perform. 

The owner of Sneakies, Baz, hits the stop watch and Webb hunches over the plate piled high in front of him. Without looking up or, it seems, even taking a breath, Webb inhales the pizza one enormous bite after the other. He doesn’t so much chew as he does forcefully gulp down each bite before moving quickly onto the next. Finishing the entire thing in two minutes, four seconds, a whole five minutes better than the previous best, Webb calmly takes a sip of water and stops the recordings. 

This is a typical day for Webb now. Having quit his job in sales, he takes part in sanctioned competitive eating events for prize money, food challenges like this one that he mainly uses as ‘training’, as well as social media management for food venues and other brands. His schedule revolves around preparing for the competitive eating season both here in Australia and in the States, where the prize money and fame is at its peak. With 30-40 sanctioned events across America, the season culminates at the iconic Nathan’s Hotdog Eating Contest on July 4th in Coney Island, Brooklyn. It’s the holy grail for all competitive eaters like Webb, and has long been dominated by the biggest name in the sport, Joey Chestnut. (“He’s a legend and the nicest guy you’ll meet,” says Webb who competed at Nathan’s for the first time last year.)

“My plan is to go over in June and compete all the way into July,” says Webb. “I want to qualify for Nathan’s, so I need to practise. In America they’re the best eaters in the world so to compete over there, you’ve gotta be conditioned. For half of them, it’s their full-time job. So I need to train. I do my food challenges, my contests and on my off days, I’ll make sure I’m eating at least one like stretch meal a day. ” 

Sorry… stretch meal?

“I’m trying to keep expanding my stomach as big as I can so I can eat more,” he says. “There’s different techniques for stretching your stomach. Some guys chug water because they don’t want the calories. To me that’s disgusting. I prefer to eat. I would rather be bloated from food than gluggy like a hot water bottle. I love food. It’s fun for me to go to a buffet and sit there for two hours. I actually enjoy that.”

When he isn’t setting up camp at a local buffet or taking part in a contest, Webb heads to Woolies and fills his trolley full with whatever is on special. “Chicken, sausages, bread, rice, pasta… whatever. I love Tim Tams so when they go for $2 each, I’ll pack up the trolley. Because I know I’m gonna eat it, whether it’s today or tomorrow, the next day… I’m gonna eat it.”

In total, Webb can consume up to 10kg, or 15,000 calories, of food per day. In order to do so, he says there’s a series of rules you need to stick by. First off, a technique called “bite push”. 

“You’re trying to eliminate chewing. So you’re essentially biting and then swallowing. You bite and then you use the next bite to push it down your throat. It takes time and practice,” he laughs.

Next, take into account your posture, says Webb.

“A lot of eating competitions are done standing up. When you’re hunched over, your stomach is compacted. If you open up, you can move the food around and it kind of pushes it down. That’s why I use Coke Zero. The carbonation helps you burp and push the food down.”

Finally, and perhaps most importantly: temperature. 

“The food comes out piping hot,” says Webb. “Now you don’t wanna burn your mouth cause then you’re screwed. But if you let it go too cold, things become hard to eat. Cold cheese, hard to eat. Cold fried chicken, hard to eat. So with today’s pizza burger for example, I smashed the fried chicken side first. It comes out hotter, but it cools down quicker. So the first few bites will hurt but then the hardest part is done.” 

When it comes to hot dogs and competing at Nathan’s, Webb explains to Men’s Health the tried and tested technique that enables competitors to eat up to 70 hot dogs in just 10 minutes. 

“The technique is you separate the hotdog from the bun and you put the hotdog in your mouth. As you’re huffing down the hotdog, you put the bun in the water, squeeze it like a sponge, and you use the wet bun like a drink to push it down. If you eat the hotdog hole, you are too slow. You can’t get ’em down quick enough.”

Mmmm. Hot dogs in water and fried chicken hot enough to burn your mouth. Not exactly our idea of a perfect dinner party. Is it actually any fun?

“Yes!” says Webb emphatically. “I love what I do. People say, oh, you can’t taste the food and stuff. You can, you learn and you adapt. And it’s all relative. We all eat at a speed that you’re normally accustomed to. Look, the food is one side of it. I love food. I love pizza. I love burgers. That’s not a question. But the fact that I can promote a venue and help someone like Baz out, that’s what it’s about. Before I worked with Sneakies on social media, I came here to eat. I genuinely love this place and I want other people to see this place. So the fact that I can broadcast it across my 960,000 plus followers, that makes me happy.” 

So far, it seems to be working. Not only has Webb grown a huge social media following and travelled the world, he’s become something of a celebrity. He recently travelled to Turkey for a series of challenges and was being mobbed in the streets by fans.

 “I couldn’t even get a cab at 2AM without being stopped for a photo. That was crazy. What an experience.”

It’s a lifestyle that involves discipline, though. Part of what makes Webb so intriguing is his physique; he’s hardly the stout figure you might expect of someone who shoves burgers down his throat for a living. The man is shredded. And we’re not talking about an impressive gun show, we’re talking veins popping out of his calves and pectorals the size of melons.

“I live and breathe the gym,” he says. “I wake up in the morning at 5AM and I cannot wait to hit the gym. To be fair, eating like a dick has motivated me more. I promised myself, if you ever want to eat like an idiot, you gotta train otherwise you’re gonna have problems. I don’t wanna become this sloppy slob that just eats burgers or pizzas all day. No, I want to be fit. I love feeling fit. I love feeling good. So for me it’s fun balancing the two lifestyles.” 

So where to from here? He’s conquered Australia’s competitive eating circuit and now aims to do the same in the United States. How far can he take this?

“Look, becoming the next Joey Chestnut would be class. But that’s only one avenue. I want to have multiple avenues. I’m really working on my YouTube right now. Whether I end up with a TV show like Man Vs Food, or maybe a radio show, I don’t know. I love to talk. I love marketing. I love people. So however I can use my platform to give attention to something, that’s what I will do. In the past year I’ve been on the radio, I’ve been on TV, I’ve held charity events, I’ve been invited to kids’ birthday parties.” 

“So honestly at this point wherever the road takes me is cool.”

Update: Webb’s hard work pays off

Webb’s punishing training regimen has paid dividends. Returning to the competitive eating stage at the 2023 Nathan’s hot dog eating contest, Webb Cemented his place in the competitive eating history books through a combination of sheer determination and his bizarre, tried and true hot dog submersion technique. James snapped up 3rd place in this year’s contest,
in front of around 35,000 fans who had gathered at Coney Island to witness the iconic Fourth of July tradition.

Webb, the only Australian participant, outdid himself at the event. Devouring 47 hotdogs, Webb crushed his previous total of 41 and shared the podium with legendary eating champ Joey ‘Jaws’ Chestnut.

Taking to Instagram only hours after the competition, Webb made his elation with the result known. “Yesterday, I came third, but it feels like I came first. The reaction has been insane… Nathan’s is the pinnacle, and I truly loved every minute of this year’s experience,” he said. A sign of things to come, Webb promised fans he’s not satisfied yet. “Onto the next and onto hitting 50.”

Webb’s dominant eating was on full display once again in the November LA Donuts Contest. This particular contest challenges all competitive Australian eaters in an oddly specific undertaking—to be the first to finish eating a dozen glazed LA ‘OG’ Donuts, naturally. Despite the day’s sweltering heat and the typical chaos of the competition table, Webb polished off his dozen glazed doughnuts in just two and a half minutes—don’t try that at home—ultimately taking out the title with ease. “I really wanted to finish this year with a win, it was great to have all of Sydney’s ranked eaters participating and, of course, some new eaters at the table,” Webb said.

Webb is currently ranked fifth in the Major League Eating ranks, a phenomenal achievement, but we wouldn’t be surprised if the Aussie climbed even higher.

The post A Deep Dive Into The Life Of James Webb, Australia’s Best Competitive Eater appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

Well, times change and memories fade or they crumble into elusive fragments coloured by nostalgia that bear little resemblance to actual events. Perhaps you become your own unreliable narrator. My stint in Seoul has always carried the fantastical elements of a fever dream. Upon returning home after two-and-a-half intensely formative years I felt lost. With no one to share the memories with, it was almost like my time in the Land of the Morning Calm never happened.

Over the years I’ve asked myself if that day on the mountaintop was really as good as I remember it. Was my whole Seoul experience a neon-blasted acid trip, shot through with the pungent aromas of chilli, barbecued meat and the throat-tightening residue of soju? What would happen if I went back? Would the city live up to its billing in my mind? Or would my memories be eroded and exposed by the passage of time and the force of the here and now?

This and thoughts like them are fizzing through my mind as I desperately try to recall the trail up Bukhansan mountain almost 20 years later. I’m accompanied by a fellow journalist, Peter, who as spontaneously as I had two decades earlier, accepted my invitation to “go for a hike”. Peter and I have already began hatching a plan for him to return to Seoul as an English teacher. We’ve also got lost several times, as my recollection of the route, relying as it does on long-dormant brain circuitry, escapes me. It’s 10am on a cold and misty weekday morning as we navigate increasingly steep and rocky terrain towards the summit. Our journey will take only 45 minutes or so but as we struggle upward through the fog, I feel like I’m climbing back through the very mists of time.

LOST SEOUL

Upon touching down a couple of day’s earlier at Incheon Airport, roughly an hour outside of Seoul, I’m hit by a heavy pang of nostalgia. As our bus makes its way through the city to our digs at the Novotel Ambassador at Dongdaemun, we face an onslaught of concrete, iron and garish neon signage in the Hangul alphabet. Greater Seoul is home to 25 million people. Bisected by the Han River, the north of the city is older and more traditional, distinguished by ancient gates and the palaces of Gyeongbokgung and Changdeokgung. South of the river is the new, more modern Gangnam neighbourhood, a glitzy area famous for the country’s most famous export, K-Pop, as well as high-end shopping boutiques. It’s all served by one of the best subway systems in the world, a sprawling spider web of a network, that’s fast, clean and efficient and features public wi-fi at least three times as fast as anything in Oz.

To be honest, Seoul by day is a rather drab onslaught of relentless concrete high rises. But by night, the neon lights twinkle, throwing a glittering cloak over the city that lingers in your mind’s eye. In my memories of the city, it’s always night-time.

After a good night’s sleep, I decide to join a walking tour to reacquaint myself with the city’s attractions. It’s below zero as we set off from Gwanghwamun station, situated on a mighty 12-lane boulevard. A statue of King Sejong bestrides the boulevard like a colossus. Beyond that lies Gyeongbokgung Palace, originally built in 1395. Suitably grand, heck perhaps even grandiose, it’s distinguished by its luminous wooden awnings. The changing of the guard is a riot of colour, cloth and pageantry, even if the booming drums and fake beards lend it a slightly pantomime air. Behind the palace lies the heavily guarded Blue House, home to the President, while close by is the Korean Folk Museum, which showcases traditional clay dwellings and clothes from the Chosun era. Our tour concludes in the charming Bukchon Hanok Village, where alleyways and awnings provide a quaint backdrop for locals in traditional dress to take snaps. It’s only a short stroll from here to Seoul’s most touristy neighbourhood, Insadong, a warren of winding alleys, teahouses, cafes and souvenir shops. You can easily lose an afternoon here.

After the tour winds up a group of us make our way across town to Gwangjang Market, stopping to take a snap in front of the school where I taught English – essentially explained idioms – to businessmen and university students back in 2000. Gwangjang offers a barrage of street food, from ubiquitous kimchi in large silver pots to topoki stands serving fat, gelatinous noodles in a sweet, tangy red sauce. There are also chickens’ feet, pigs’ trotters and a market stall run a by woman made famous by the Netflix series, Street Food: Asia.

After a short rest back at our hotel we head out for some Korean Fried Chicken, a modern delicacy Korea has made its own, before stumbling across a batting cage on the ninth floor of a department store, where we proceed to swing and miss at a virtual pitcher. As always in this chaotic city, the possibility of random adventure is always lurking around the next corner or up a flight of nondescript stairs.

ADD SPICE

Peter’s brow is glistening in sweat as tears well in his eyes. He’s a victim of a fiery broth called Kimchi-jjigae and, rather unwittingly, he’s confirming a stereotype Koreans have long held of foreigners – that our delicate palates can’t handle spice.

We’ve stopped for lunch in the heart of the Myeong-dong fashion district – an area filled with cosmetics shops and boutiques specialising in quirky fashion, a little bit like Tokyo’s Harajuku neighbourhood. Korea has the highest rate of cosmetic surgery in the world, with a reported one in three women going under the knife. I opt for the softer option of a caviar-infused facemask.

Later that evening our party (read: other journos) take a food tour. Once again it starts at Gwanghwamun station before following a man-made canal through the neon jungle of the Jongno district. The canal was not around 20 years ago and I’d have to say it’s a welcome addition to the cityscape.

The tour takes in the hyper-coloured ‘youth street’ of Jongno, then we grab some chicken sticks at a market stall in Insadong, before winding up at the beautiful Jogyesa temple, home to three gigantic gold buddhas. Morsels of street food have whet the appetite for something more substantial, so we retire to a BBQ joint specialising in samgyeopsal. This is pork belly, traditionally seasoned with salt, although tonight we’re given a spread that includes flavourings like curry and ginseng. It’s all washed down with shots of soju we are encouraged to drop into our local Cass beers and skoll. Some things don’t change.

Needless to say, I wake the next morning a little hazy. It’s appropriate for the city is again covered in fog and once again my memory is similarly cloudy. I decide to hunt down a café that has become a hit on Instagram called Café Yeonnam-dong 239-20, in which the interior is designed to look like an illustration. I arrive on the stroke of 11 and have the place to myself to take some selfies, becoming an illustrated character in my own animated wonderland. It seems fitting; the contours of my memory have proven similarly fluid and abstract these last few days.

NEW HORIZONS

Back on the mountain, Peter and I step carefully onto Bukhansan’s bare, rocky summit.  I look around, barely able to make out the rooftops of high-rise apartment buildings below. Sadly, the rest of the city remains hidden beneath the blanket of fog, a far cry from the sun-kissed hue of my memories. But, as was the case 20 years ago, that sense of whimsical adventure remains, this time provided by Peter, who removes his shirt (unprompted!) and begins striking poses on the rocky summit, his muscular torso an imposing, if slightly confronting image that will soon light up insta and possibly do wonders for him on dating apps.

It’s at this point that a thought occurs to me. Attempting to recapture the past or wind your way down the curling alleyways of your faltering memory is something of a fool’s errand. Better to live in the moment and be open to possibility and adventure. Just as Peter did today and I’d done twenty years before. Now, thanks to Peter, I have a brand new, wholly-original, if retina-scorching memory of Bukhansan and indeed, a whole new bank of memories of this amazing city to cherish. Or to forget, as the case may be.

FLY

Jetstar flies to Seoul three times a week. Jetstar.com

EAT

Restaurants serving staples like galbi, dolsot bibimbap and samgyeopsal are ubiquitous. Try Gwangjang Market for a sensory experience.

SHOP

Dongdaemun Market is a shoppers’ paradise with floor upon floor of clothing bargains.

HIKE

Two of the best hikes in the city are Bukhansan and Suruksan. Also try Namsan Tower for views over central Seoul from a revolving restaurant.

The post Why Seoul Is A Great Place To Lose Yourself Or Find New Perspective appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

In a nutshell, semaglutide works by inducing satiety – a feeling of being satisfied or full. And when you’re not hungry, you eat less. “Semaglutide works by mimicking the role of a natural hormone, called GLP-1 (glucagon like peptide-1),” writes study author Emma Beckett, for The Conversation. The body naturally produces this hormone as a response to nutrients when we eat.

“GLP-1 is part of the signalling pathway that tells your body you have eaten, and prepares it to use the energy that comes from your food.”

But here’s the kicker: plenty of foods are exceptional at triggering that very same appetite-suppressing hormone. Macronutrients like simple sugars (monosaccharides), peptides and amino acids (from proteins) and short-chain fatty acids can all trigger GLP-1 secretion, and choosing foods high in these nutrients may help bump up levels of this weight-busting hormone.

“This is why high-fat, high-fibre and high-protein diets can all help you feel fuller for longer.”

While weekly jabs of prescription-only medications like Ozempic and Wegovy might sound simpler to some, there are potential side effects to contend with that don’t come along with a macro-packed diet. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, bloating and issues in vital organs can all come hand-in-hand with semaglutide – not to mention, when you stop taking it, the feelings of fullness fade (meaning many people begin to feel hungry at their old levels again).

What to eat

Okay, so what should you be stocking up on next time you’re at the supermarket if you want to bump up those GLP-1 levels – minus the meds?

Beckett suggests “foods with good fats, like avocado or nuts, or lean protein sources like eggs, and foods high in fermentable fibres, like vegetables and whole grains, feed our gut bacteria, which then produce short-chain fatty acids able to trigger GLP-1 secretion.”

Other protein-packed foods that have been shown to increase GLP-1 levels include whey protein and yoghurt, and taking probiotics may also help boost the appetite-suppressing hormone (though more research is needed).

The post These Foods Offer The Weight-Loss Benefits Of Semaglutide – Minus Side Effects appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

I do know this, though: you’re more inclined to think about these things after meeting Alex de Minaur, who at time of writing was ranked the 24th best tennis player in the world. Twenty-fourth. Impressive.

But such is the way many people view sport, 24 can make you an also-ran. It can make you a journeyman. For the record, de Minaur himself is dissatisfied with 24. 

Does he deserve to be ranked higher? By the hard maths of the ATP rankings, no. You’re ranked what you’re ranked. But what about by other measures – measures you can see, feel and admire but not calculate? Yes. By these other, vaguer criteria, I believe de Minaur deserves better.

Before we go on, you need to know when this piece was written. It’s 24 January, the morning after de Minaur played Novak Djokovic in the fourth round of the Australian Open. In the media, there’d been a big and breathless build-up. De Minaur, the last local hope, was in form, and while Djokovic is Djokovic, there was meant to be something wrong with his left hamstring, so decent judges were giving the Australian, 23 at the time, a fighting chance. 

But Djokovic didn’t just beat de Alex de Minaur, he embarrassed him in a prime-time clinic. Made him look like a work-experience kid. Now, de Minaur has a vast capacity for positivity. But in the hours after the slaughter, surely even his world would have turned black. Not because he’d been trounced, but because Djokovic gave him a two-hour look at the unattainable. It felt like Djokovic, looking more than ever like a perfectly proportioned, imperious tennis maestro, performed at a level to which de Minaur (and just about everyone else for that matter) can only aspire.

So, if you’re Alex de Minaur, what do you do next? Well, for starters, you don’t give up – even though nothing about his professional life is about to get any easier.

When good is not enough

Exactly a month before the Djokovic whipping, I’m sitting courtside with de Alex de Minaur at an all-but-empty Ken Rosewall Arena at Sydney Olympic Park. He’s just flown in from somewhere far-flung place to prepare for the tour’s Australian swing, and though he’s weary, he’s ready to talk. The sleeves of his long-sleeved T-shirt are pushed up and I note the prominent veins of his forearms, a sure sign of high-level fitness.

I’d spoken with de Minaur once before, in late 2019 when he’d held a similar ranking to now, but back then he was more the hot prospect – the up-and-comer who’d split his childhood between Australia and Spain and benefited from exposure to two contrasting systems of tennis development. Today, I suggest to him there are two ways to view his current ranking: one, that it’s impressive how he’s managed to hold his own for three years on a ridiculously competitive tour (he reached a career-high No. 15 in June 2021); or two, that it must be frustrating to have hovered around the same spot for so long.

“Yeah, well, I think you’ve described it very well,” says de Minaur, who looks at you when he’s talking to you and exudes not a trace of egotism. “I’ve been happy with the performances I’ve been putting in to stay in that spot, but part of me is never satisfied. That’s the way I am.”

His quest for improvement is relentless and includes trying to alter his body shape – to build muscle that will, in theory and practice, allow him to hit the ball harder and shorten points so fewer of his matches devolve into battles of attrition. When you’re as agile, disciplined and consistent as Alex de Minaur is, you can win most of those battles when you’re in your early 20s, but eventually they’ll take chunks out of you and shorten your career.

“Since 2019, I’ve put on 4-5 kilograms, and I’ve definitely noticed it,” he says. “We [his team] have put in a lot of work in the gym. Preseasons are huge for us, because we want to make sure I’ve built that muscle and I have a little bit more power in my shots, but at the same time I don’t want to lose what makes me myself, which is my speed and movement.” (De Minaur’s nickname, Demon, is a shortened version of Speed Demon.) When you’re naturally slender, the task of keeping on muscle when you’re routinely running yourself ragged could drive a man spare. Your only chance is to eat up and squeeze in workouts between tournaments, even though you’re invariably dealing with soreness as well as bouts of disappointment ranging from mild to crushing. As much as de Minaur may prefer to float in the hotel pool or binge on movies, his willingness to move heavy iron in these circumstances sets him apart.

“Yeah,” he says, “I hit it hard. I’ve been lifting a lot more weight, combining that with a lot of cardio. It’s
a constant grind of trying to get better, trying to keep improving every day. For me, a big thing is that if I’m feeling physically fit, then mentally, I feel like I’m ready to go against anyone.”

Which is how he would have felt before facing off against Djokovic, after which, you would hope, in time, once he’d picked up the shattered pieces of his morale, he would have found a new story to tell himself, so that the grind didn’t feel pointless for too long.

A matter of attitude

It would be nice to write a story about de Minaur without mentioning Nick Kyrgios, but I guess this isn’t the one. On court, Kyrgios has weapons that de Minaur lacks, and something else too – his supporters would call it charisma; his detractors something else – that few would attribute to the younger man. I think it would be safe to say that, offered a choice between watching Kyrgios or de Minaur, most people who have only a passing interest in tennis would choose Kyrgios every day of the week.

If you play a bit of tennis, though, and understand its challenges and frustrations well enough, it’s more likely that you feel a greater kinship with de Minaur, who does nothing besides go about the business of trying to win, picking fights with no one, finding nothing to complain about, nothing to erupt about, nothing to be a victim of. 

De Minaur’s Davis Cup captain, Lleyton Hewitt, has offered this passionate character assessment of de Minaur: “The kid is a sponge. His willingness to learn is something I admire, and his dedication to Australia is why this country has fallen in love with him. Every time he steps onto that court [for Davis Cup], I know that he will go that extra distance for me. It’s not the results that make me proud, it’s knowing that when he plays, he’s not just doing it for himself, he’s doing it for me, the coaches, his teammates, his country and everyone else behind the scenes. That’s the quality of the person he is.”

Is de Minaur simply a calmer soul compared to Kyrgios? Maybe. Or maybe his suffering is more internalised.

We get to talking about the various areas in which he’s searching for improvement, coming eventually to off-court matters. Is he happy away from tennis in a way that might help his game? Does he have balance? Love?

I prepare for a defensive response, but instead de Minaur becomes pensive. 

“Look,” he says, “I think that’s something that’s been a big focus recently. There was a stage where my life was basically… [consumed by tennis]. I was applying a lot of pressure to myself. Basically, my off-court life was a direct image of my results on the court. If things were going well, then it was all happy days. But if they weren’t… look, I didn’t have anything off court, or I wasn’t paying enough attention to off-court interests, to stabilise myself.”

De Minaur’s long-time coach, Adolfo Gutierrez, had been telling his charge for years that the player’s mental state was excessively tied to his tennis fortunes. But how often in life do you change purely in response to another’s words? Rarely? Never? We’re wired to learn stuff the hard way, changing only when we see truths for ourselves.

What de Minaur realised is that playing tennis on the ATP Tour is not what you might call a normal job, and thus the standard rules of workplace cause and effect do not apply to him. If you hold a normal job, he argues, getting ahead is a relatively straightforward matter of working hard and purposefully. Likewise, he adds, “in school, if you buckle down and finish an assignment on time, you’ll get a good grade”.

In the realm of elite tennis, however, things aren’t so simple. There, you can do everything right in terms of preparation, but nothing you do will guarantee a certain outcome. There are simply too many unknowns, too many variables, too many factors beyond your control, beginning with the talent of the guy on the other side of the net. Unfortunately, that guy is not a prop in the story of your life, any more than you’re a prop in his.

“You can’t control everything in life and that’s what I find the hardest,” de Minaur says. “You put a lot of sacrifice in, you want to get that success. But a lot of times in tennis, you work very, very hard and don’t get the grade you want. It’s part of the tennis life and something I’ve had to learn to deal with.”

And now?

“I’ve just learnt to enjoy life a lot more, spending time with family, and it’s about to be three years with my girlfriend [British player Katie Boulter]. I’m just trying to take it easier. What I’ve learnt is that I’m my own biggest enemy, in that nobody else is going to apply more pressure or anxiety. Because I expect the most. I know the hard work I put in. I know all the hours I put in. And I’m a person who expects results. But it’s also realising that I’ve played my best tennis when I’ve been at ease.”

Recently, de Minaur made a change to his coaching arrangement that reflects this dual desire to move ahead with a certain lightness of being. Guiterrez isn’t going anywhere (“I’ve been very blessed with Adolfo,” de Minaur says; “he’s been like a second father to me and is one of the most positive guys there is, and he’s had to deal with me for a very long time”) but he’ll share the coaching duties with former Australian Davis Cup player Peter Luczak – “another insanely positive guy who’s always in a good mood”. In addition, de Minaur will consult, according to need, with a psychologist he’s been working with for the last five years, and try to spend at least a few extra days at home this year in Alicante, Spain – he managed a total of just 15 in 2022.

The big squeeze

For well over a decade, the Big 3 so dominated men’s tennis that subsequent generations have struggled to make an imprint in the record books. At last, with Roger Federer retired and Rafael Nadal seemingly (I stress seemingly) slowing down, there looks to be a wider opening for guys like Alex de Minaur to start winning majors. Of course, life never stands still, and there’s upward pressure coming now from a batch of fresh-faced players, led by the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, who became the world No. 1 last September at the age of 19. 

That’s right: de Minaur had been paying his dues and licking his wounds for five years, and then Alcaraz came along, won a major (the US Open) and reached No. 1 before half the world knew who he was. How, I ask de Minaur, did that turn of events make him feel? Dispirited, perhaps?

He won’t hear of it.

“Everyone wants [the top ranking] and that’s the beauty of it,” he says. “Ultimately, you don’t want to be up there because others aren’t playing. You want to be up there because you’ve beaten the best in the world.”

Encouragingly for de Alex de Minaur, he held two match points against Alcaraz on clay in Barcelona last April before the match slipped away from him. His intention for 2023 is to keep putting himself in those winning positions against the best guys and go one better on the back of hard-earned experience and smarter choices under pressure. “I’m at the stage now where I can’t use as an excuse being a newbie on tour,” he says, “and this is probably the time for me to do some damage on the tour and not really be content around the 20-odd [ranking] mark. You know, really push it… push that 10 mark.”

Just maybe the loss he suffered to Djokovic in January deflated de Minaur for longer than a few days, but chances are, it didn’t. He’s just not the type to dwell. He’s the type to pick himself up, hit the practice court, and resume the hunt for answers, before leaving it all out there at the next big tour stop. (Just before this issue went to press, de Minaur beat world No. 5 Andrey Rublev in Rotterdam.)

You seem as motivated as ever, I tell him – not at all like someone worn down by the grind.

“The way I see it is that I haven’t achieved what I want to, so I’ve still got the carrot in front of my face and I’m going to keep running until I get it,” de Minaur says. “I don’t have the game style where it’s going to come easy, but the struggle is going to make it that much sweeter when it does come. I’m very stubborn. I don’t have a doubt in me that I will get there. It’s just a matter of when.” 

The post Alex De Minaur On Setbacks, And Doing Whatever It Takes To Fulfil His Potential appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

Last month, Kerley headed down under for his first races of the 2023 season. His face-off with Australian athlete Rohan Browning was touted as the biggest sprint battle this country has seen in years. Kerley didn’t disappoint. The 27-year-old blew away his competition in the 200m at the inaugural Maurie Plant meet in Melbourne. Before a scintillating performance at the Sydney track classic in the 400m saw him finish nearly two full seconds ahead of his nearest competitors.

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The sprinter isn’t done there. As he declared to Men’s Health, he’s feeling great and is positive he’ll retain his 100m title at this year’s world championships. “Winter training has gone well and I’m in a very good place overall.” Kerley said. “I’ll continue working hard for the next few months to try to arrive at the World Championships in Budapest in the best possible shape.”

Kerley doesn’t shy away from backing himself. When I asked if his goal for the next Olympics was to win a gold medal, he was clear in his response, and upped the ante further. “I would love to win 4 golds,” he said. That would be a record medal haul. Even the legendary Usain Bolt never captured more than three medals at a single Olympics, but Kerley promises he’s up to the task. He added that he expects to win these medals in the 100m and 200m individual events and the 4x100m and 4x400m relays.

Kerley is certainly confident in his own abilities. Being the 100-metre world champion will add that element to your bravado. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t training like hell to accomplish his goals. When he’s back home stateside, Kerley’s training days start at 6:30am. He alternates between track and grass for his priority workouts. And follows those sessions up with strength and conditioning training in the gym. Not one to take recovery lightly, Kerley performs a full warm up and cool down before and after his workouts, followed by physiotherapy treatment in the afternoon.

Hard work and commitment to being the best doesn’t just start in training. If you ask Kerley, he’ll tell you nutrition is just as important. “In my sport, milliseconds can make a huge difference. I have to make sure I fuel my body correctly to maximise my performance and recover quickly from hard workouts.” A big believer in eating wholesome, natural food, Kerley loves gardening. And he often shares his passion on social media.

Kerley garden coming along nicely pic.twitter.com/FPCYU9hHcG

— Fred Kerley (@fkerley99) March 29, 2022

Running is a high-performance sport. Sprinters are known to focus on all the minutiae to give themselves an edge. Kerley admits that there is a secret to his success – it’s all about the right gear. “We need the best product to run fast and stay injury free,” he said. “I partnered with ASICS this year and am extremely happy with this choice.” For Kerley, his ASICS spikes are what has propelled him to victory while in Australia. “The 200m in Melbourne was my first race in the new ASICS spikes and it was good to confirm where I was at in my training.”

Kerley will get his opportunity to put on a show and defend his world title at the World Athletics Championships in Hungary later this year. If you take his word for it, he’s certain to light up the track yet again and take home even more medals.

@bksports1122 Congrats to all Aussie sprinters in the race! #fyp #fypシ #シ #foryou #viral #xyzbca #athletics #olympics #fredkerley #australia @Athletics Australia ♬ original sound – BK

The post World’s Fastest Man Fred Kerley Is Ready To Put On A Show “I Want To Win Four Golds” appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.