Yourself: Contest

PERFECT BODY PLAN: ACHIEVE YOUR PEAK PHYSIQUE

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ROCK HARD CHALLENGE PART 2

GUARDIANS GALAXY VO

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TEST YOURSELF HOW FIT ARE YOU – REALLY?

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CONTEST PREP TIPS TO GET YOU STAGE-READY

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MOVESYOU NEED TODONOW

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COVER STORY

46 Rise of the Guardian

Inside

Former WWE Superstar Dave Bautista, star of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, opens up about stealing cars, building confidence in the gym and gunning for acting street cred.

JUNE 2017 VOLUME 352

ON THE COVER DAVE BAUTISTA /// Photograph by Per Bernal

IN EVERY ISSUE 8 FROM THE EDITOR 30 ASK 110 SUPPS 113 SUBSCRIPTIONS

FEATURES 56 Rock Hard Challenge: part 2 The last four weeks of the 2017 RHC won’t be easy – but the results will be totally worth it. 66 The nine best exercises you’re not doing It’s time to reintroduce these muscle-building moves. 72 Your perfect body game plan How to achieve the nine most soughtafter male physique attributes. 80 Test to be your best Think you qualify as a “fit” guy? Take our ultimate self-test to find out. 88 Contest prep Facts, myths and tips to getting you looking your very best on the big day. 94 Don’t fear the pizza Hungry? Four cleaner, leaner pizzas that will satisfy your cravings but keep you looking and feeling great. 100 The sweet spot Chocolate for performance and health? Damn straight! 106 Level up: triceps Exhaust all three triceps heads from multiple angles for maximal growth.

SECTIONS 10 EDGE The Optimum Nutrition team take a tour down under; meet fitness model Zak Taylor; delve into the gym bag.

20 TRAIN Better burpees; 5 reasons your squat sucks; hex bar push-ups; post-activation potentiation for higher jumps.

36 EAT The best flour options; smart snacks; proteinpacked salad; five ways with beetroot; the better burger.

FROM THE TOP

Executive Editor Arnold Schwarzenegger Editor in Chief Shawn Perine EVP/Group Publishing Director Chris Scardino Managing Editor Brian Good Group Training Director Sean Hyson Group Creative Director Andy Turnbull Senior Editor Joe Wuebben

PUBLISHER Ian Brooks

EDITORIAL Editor Alison Turner

ART Art Director Lee McLachlan

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Body of work Fitness is about so much more than how you look.

Subscriptions Manager Dorcas Freund (02) 9439 1955; [email protected]

ADVERTISING Advertising Representative Sonja Halstead [email protected]; 0411 515 871

ADVISORY BOARD Rich Froning The reigning and four-time CrossFit Games champ Greg Glassman Co-founder of CrossFit, the world’s fastest growing fitness movement Jim Manion Chairman of the IFBB pro league and president of the US National Physique Committee Nick Mitchell One of Britain’s leading personal trainers and owner of upfitness.com Mike O’Hearn Former TV Gladiator who has titles in bodybuilding, powerlifting and judo David Sandler One of the world’s leading strength and conditioning coaches Tim Ziegenfuss Sports nutrition and exercise scientist who is chief executiove of the Center for Apllied Health Sciences

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WHAT’S YOUR MAIN FITNESS MOTIVATION? Sometimes I have to give myself a swift kick up the behind when I find myself focusing too much on how I look, as opposed to how I feel or how fit or healthy I might be. Caring only about how you look in the gym mirror can mean that you’re neglecting other key elements of a fit and functional body. As UK physique competitor Shaun Stafford tells us in “True blue” on page 12, after lifting weights for years, “I looked good with my shirt off, but if you asked me to move my body in a way that was functional I couldn’t do it. I realised I was lacking flexibility and cardio fitness.” He now incorporates sprint work, yoga, flexibility and gymnastic work into his routine, and is an all-round fitter bloke for it. So how do you stack up? Take our ultimate fitness test on page 80 and see how you fare, not only in strength but also flexibility, conditioning and power. Not as up to scratch as you might like? Never fear – we’ve also got plenty of expert advice on how to improve your results so when you take the test again, you’ll be a lot happier with the final outcome.

www.muscle-fitness.com.au Muscle & Fitness is published 12 times a year. Printed by Offset Alpine. Australian and New Zealand distribution by Gordon & Gotch. Copyright © 2017 Paragon Media Pty Limited and Weider Publications, LLC. Muscle & Fitness is published under licence from Weider Publications, LLC. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated or converted into machine-readable form or language without the written consent of the publisher. Muscle & Fitness is a trademark of Weider Publications, LLC and is used under licence from Weider Publications, LLC and may not be used or reproduced without permission from Weider Publications, LLC. Articles express the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Publisher, Editor or Paragon Media Pty Limited.

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Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer David Pecker Executive Vice President/Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Hyson Executive Vice President, Consumer Marketing David W. Leckey Executive Vice President/Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer Chris Polimeni President/CEO, Distribution Services Inc John D. Swider Executive Vice President/Chief Digital Officer Joseph M. Bilman Executive Vice President, Digital Media Operations/CIO David Thompson General Manager, AMI International & Syndication Laurence A. Bornstein Director, International Licensing Branding Marianna Gapanovich Director, Rights & Permissions Fiona Maynard Syndication Manager Maribel Dato Production Assistant Paul Miller Founding Chairman Joe Weider (1919-2013) Founding IFBB Chairman Ben Weider (1923-2008)

Keep training! Al Turner Editor

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Star-Lord and the gang are back!

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their movies hush-hush up until the release, but what we do know is that your favourite band of intergalactic misfits is back with a lot on their plate. The story revolves around Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), who meets his dad, Ego (Kurt Russell), who is actually a planet in human form (we’re confused, too). And Nebula, the unfavourite daughter of Thanos, is out for blood (again). We’re not sure how this will play out, but one thing is for sure: director James Gunn guarantees that the soundtrack will rock! In theatres April 25

FILM FR AME.©MARVEL STUDIOS 2017

Guardians of the Galaxy

MARVEL KEEPS THE DETAILS ON

HOT LIST

EDGE

PLAY

PREY

EAT

GO FOR GLUTEN ■ Not a coeliac? You might want to skip the gluten-free fad. A study in the journal Epidemiology looked at 73 people out of almost 8000 in a survey who ate a diet totally free of gluten and found that their arsenic levels were just about twice as high as non-glutenfree eaters, along with mercury levels that were 70% higher. Researchers said that toxins were higher because processed, gluten-free products usually replace the wheat content with rice flour, which has been found to suck up toxic metals from fertiliser, soil or water.

DRINK

CHURCHILL DOWNS RACETRACK (GO)

SKI

MT BULLER ■ It’s snow season, so grab your skis or snowboard and head to Mt Buller – the resort’s new Snowfactory guarantees there’ll be snow every single day. mtbuller.com.au

BREWART ■ Brew your own beer at home? Hell yes! BrewArt lets you brew 10 litres of beer at the push of a button, and you can even track your brew’s progress through your smartphone. Sure sounds like thirsty work to us!

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■ Set in space, Prey is an edge-of-your-seat thriller that has you wielding futuristic weapons to save yourself from a breed of amorphous aliens who have taken over your spacecraft. The crisp graphics, powerful soundtrack, and quality voiceovers set up Prey to be one of the most gripping first-person shooters of the year. Xbox and PS4, releases May 5

5%

■ Amount swishing with (and then spitting out) sugar water can increase your endurance by, according to researchers at the University of Georgia, US.

SOCIAL MEDIA

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EDGE

Shaun Stafford stretches before a morning beach run. 12

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ADVENTURE

EDGE

True blue The Optimum Nutrition team take a special trip to the Land Down ON-der.

RENEE OLIVER.

WHAT QUINTESSENTIAL Aussie experience would you recommend to tourists? Optimum Nutrition asked their fans this very question recently, as Team ON made preparations for internationallybased athletes to head to Australia for a special tour “Down ON-der”. Team ON athletes – England’s Shaun Stafford and Steve Cook from the US – got to experience some of the most dinky-di, true blue Aussie adventures imaginable, from eating a Vegemite sandwich to swimming with a giant croc in the Top End. M&F caught up with the guys on the last day of their tour, at Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach, where Stafford and Cook were taken through a full-on training drill with members of the Bondi Surf Life Saving Club and Sydney local ON athlete, Nick Cheadle. As well as beach flags and sand sprints, the guys took part in a 600 metre ocean swim, which Stafford says “nearly killed us”. “We had to swim out to a buoy, then 100 metres across and back in to shore,” he says. “It was a race – we had a head start on all the guys who do it every week, so we just went for it. I beat the girls out of the water, although they were breathing down my neck!” Cook also found the ocean swim to be incredibly challenging. “Ain’t no way I’m ever attempting ocean swimming ever again!” he laughs. “It’s definitely a different kind of fitness to what I’m used

to with my training. A 600 metre beach swim with a rip and massive waves is no joke.” Stafford also believes the ocean swim was one of the hardest things he’s ever done, which certainly shines a light on how fit and hardworking our surf life savers are. “It was really challenging – I was out of my comfort zone,” he says. “We don’t really go into the water in England because it’s too cold, so it was completely alien to me. But the flag game and beach sprints I loved. I could have done that all day – explosive, high intensity exercise, in a competitive environment.”

THREE FIT BLOKES While the beach swim might have been a new challenge for Stafford, Cook and Cheadle, none are shirkers in the fitness stakes. Cheadle is a personal trainer who is currently training for a powerlifting competition. Cook is an IFBB professional physique competitor, placing fifth at the 2014 Mr Olympia physique showdown competition. He’s also a personal trainer who is about to launch his Big and Lean online fitness program. Stafford is also a professional physique athlete who started his sporting career playing rugby at a national level and who has since gone on to win WBFF UK, European and Pro World Fitness Model titles. All three athletes are seriously ripped. “My main training focus is strength and hypertrophy work,”

Stafford says. “An average week in this current training phase would be back and triceps Monday, handstand/gymnastics and core work on Tuesday, legs Wednesday, more gymnastics and sprint work on Thursday, chest and biceps Friday and then yoga and flexibility on the weekend.” Stafford only recently incorporated gymnasticsstyle training into his routine. “I’ve been a bodybuilder for five, six years, and at the start of the year I felt so unfit,” he says. “I looked good with my shirt off, but if you asked me to move my body in a way that was functional I couldn’t do it. I realised I was lacking flexibility and cardio fitness. I had turned into a gym monkey rather than an athlete, so I made the conscious decision to change my split and get back to more of a fitness and athletic style of training.”

A SNAPPY TOUR When the guys arrived in Australia, they had little idea of what to expect from their tour, knowing only that ON fans had chosen “Aussie” experiences for them. While it all started out fairly harmlessly – a feast of fairy bread, Vegemite sandwiches and Farmers Union iced coffee – things soon became far more exciting. “It ramped up pretty quickly,” Stafford says. “We woke up every day not knowing what we were going to be doing – we would just JUNE 2017

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EDGE

ADVENTURE

Cook, Cheadle and Stafford with the Bondi Nippers.

get a video telling us.” A trip to Port Lincoln for a spot of shark cage diving with Calypso Star Charters was followed by a plane trip up to Darwin where the guys came up close with an 18 foot “crocosaurus” at Crocosaurus Cove. “It was surreal,” Cook says of his croc close-up. “Growing up, I was always fascinated with animals, especially big ones that were capable of killing me! I felt a little like Steve Irwin as we entered the croc’s space. I tried to keep my cool, but coming face to face with these prehistoric animals that are top of the food chain was intense.” After a flying visit to Darwin it was back to Sydney to do a Bondi to Bronte sunrise beach run followed by

MUSCLE & FITNESS

here on Bondi Beach, so it’s a pretty special place to me.” Cook also loves spending time in Australia whenever he can. “I’ve been to Australia about four times,” he says. “I always enjoy spending time here. Whether that’s in a cafe in Melbourne or on Bondi Beach, the weather and the friendliness of the people is what really makes the experience for me.” However, while Cook loves everything else about Oz, he is not exactly leaping through hoops to get his next fix of Vegemite. “I’ve had it before, but this time I had an Aussie spread it for me,” he says. “It’s actually starting to grow on me, but I’m still not ready to add it to my daily diet just yet...” While Stafford’s Down ON-der tour was an incredible experience, there was one thing that he wishes he’d had a chance to do before heading back home to the UK. “I wish I’d held a spider,” he says. “It’s my biggest fear, and I was psyching myself up for it. I think it would have been good for me to do, but luckily I didn’t have to. I did have a baby croc on my head, though.” Well, there’s nothing much more Aussie than that! Follow the journey here:

Stafford and Cook ham it up for the cameras after an AFL training session.

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a jet boat tour of Sydney Harbour and an AFL game, where the Optimum Nutrition-sponsored Port Adelaide Power beat reigning grand finalists the Sydney Swans. The guys had also enjoyed a training session with Carlton Football Club’s strength and conditioning coach earlier in the tour on a trip to Melbourne. After being put through their paces by the Bondi Surf Club squad on the tour’s last day, the guys had a chance for payback, taking the squad through a weights workout at the club gym. Then it was time for another Aussie pastime, beach cricket. “I love it here in Australia,” Stafford says. “This is the third time I’ve been here. I actually found out my wife was pregnant with our son

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EDGE

Model behaviour Fitness model Zak Taylor on changing lives, training hard and what it’s really like behind the scenes of a comp. LOOKING GOOD ON STAGE takes a hell of a lot of hard work and sacrifice, particularly in the weeks leading up to a competition, but reaching your goals can take years. Musashi GenNext athlete Zak Taylor knows this first-hand – the fitness model has been competing for four years, finally placing first as Australian Natural Bodybuilding Overall Male Fitness Model in South Australia last year. Taylor, who is also a personal trainer, began training at the age of 15, influenced by his father 16

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and grandfather, who were both bodybuilders. “They inspired me to get into the gym,” he says. “We started training together and I learnt the ropes from my dad, and then I started taking it to the next level as I grew older.” Taylor’s first show was a bodybuilding competition. He placed third, but won best posing routine, which led him to move more towards fitness modelling, which calls for a greater stage presence. He then went on to come second in his category three times at the Asia Pacifics.

THE NITTY GRITTY Taylor trains six days out of seven, doing up to nine sessions a week in the lead-up to a competition. “I’ll do six weights sessions a week, then abs and high intensity cardio three mornings a week,” he says. “My split changes as I progress towards a competition, but usually I would train legs twice, then chest and back, then shoulders and arms and then repeat that, then have one day of rest.” As well as training heavily, it’s also essential that Taylor’s diet be as clean and structured as possible. “The dieting is very strict,” he says. “It’s more important as you get closer to a competition. I track my macros the whole time, keeping it

PROFILE quite linear – the same foods and the same calories every day – then I slowly bring down the calories until I’m about three weeks out. Then three weeks out I do carb cycling, where I do maybe three days really low carb, then one day high carb.” Taylor is also sponsored by Musashi, which means he has access to their range of high-quality supps. “I use their Lean WPI protein and Bulk Extreme, as well as Essential Aminos. I also use creatine, multivitamins and a glutamine,” he explains. “Musashi have been a big help – they’ve been providing me with products to help me train a lot harder and help me with my recovery. They flew me to South Australia for the comp last year and put me up in a hotel and drove me to and from the competition, and they also helped with the tanning. It all makes a huge difference – it wouldn’t have been possible without them.”

GETTING PERSONAL Preparing for a competition is a very personal thing. While everyone sees

you up on stage on comp day, no one really sees the days and weeks of hard training and strict dieting that goes into that end result. “Competing is great, but it’s more about putting yourself through the day-to-day struggles and challenges of preparing, and progressing so that you’re better than the last time you competed,” Taylor says. “It’s definitely a personal thing for me.” While some might expect fellow competitors in such an event as physique or bodybuilding to be fiercely competitive and ego-driven, Taylor’s experience has shown it to be quite the opposite. “There’s a friendly rivalry, but it’s been really good in my experience,” he says. “Most of the guys know how hard it is just to stand on the stage, and to go through the weeks of intense training and all the sacrifices you have to make to get there. So once you get there, all the hard work’s been done and everyone’s up there enjoying themselves and congratulating each other on looking so good.

EDGE

“I know sometimes you see things like Generation Iron or something where people are quite nasty with each other and there’s a lot of ego involved, but from my experience with Australian guys, everyone is quite charming and quite complimentary to each other, so it’s a good experience. You’ve been through so much to get there – at the end of the day you don’t need that kind of negativity.” Taylor also gains great satisfaction out of his other career as a personal trainer. “I know it sounds clichéd, but I really enjoy being able to change people’s lives and make them feel good about themselves,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of success stories. I’ve had a couple of clients lose 40 to 50 kilograms – people who couldn’t tie their own shoes and then within a year and a half they’re running a half marathon. That’s a huge achievement, and when you talk about changing lives, that’s a massive change for them. It feels like I’m making a really big difference.”

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BUILD MUSCLE, BURN FAT, PERFORM BETTER Switch it up

Subjects who did a diverse workout routine, as opposed to just lifting, saw great results.

TRAIN

VARIETY IS KEY

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GETTY IMAGES

■ Researchers from Skidmore College, US, created a diet and exercise plan dubbed PRISE — Protein-pacing, Resistance exercise, Interval sprints, Stretching and Endurance exercise. For 12 weeks, subjects consumed modest amounts of protein throughout the day (hence, “protein-pacing”) and performed a diverse workout routine consisting of weight training, interval sprints and yoga four days per week. At the end of the program, all subjects had healthier blood vessels, more upper-body strength and endurance and better core strength.

FITNESS NEWS

TRAIN

BELONG

JOIN A GYM

FOCUS

STOP PHONING IT IN ■ Researchers at Hiram College in the US analysed 45 college students as they worked out while texting, talking or listening to tunes. A separate control group did calisthenics and/or cardio without phones. Unsurprisingly, swiping right mid-workout makes it harder to focus on your push-ups and burpees. Texting also reduces “postural stability” — the egghead term for how well you can stay balanced — by 45%, the researchers found, and talking on the phone mid-exercise hurts balance by 19%.

■ Exercise researchers at Iowa State University, US, used data on more than 400 subjects to compare those who belonged to a gym with those who didn’t. The results found that 75% of the gymmembership holders met the US recommended physical activity guidelines, while only 18% of non-members met that standard. Gym-joiners also had a smaller waist and a lower resting heart rate (by five beats per minute).

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MINUTES OF EXERCISE ■ Researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine, US, found that just one 20-minute bout of exercise — in this case, running at a moderate pace on the treadmill — was all that was needed to boost your immune system by 5%.

CARDIO

TAKE THE STAIRS SIMON-MCDERMOTT JOHNSON; GETTY IMAGES (3)

■ Scientists at McMaster University in Canada had subjects perform two different 10-minute workouts three times per week. The first phase had subjects go all out on a StairMaster for three sessions of 20 seconds each. The second experiment had them run one or two flights of stairs in the same manner, but for three 60-second periods. Both protocols increased peak oxygen uptake, by 12% in the first phase and by 7% in the second, indicating that just 30 minutes of stair climbing can improve cardiovascular health.

LOWER RISK OF DEATH ■ A WORKOUT PER DAY… Scientists at the University of Sydney analysed a mass of data on more than 60,000 people and discovered that active adults — those who logged 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week — had about a 30% lower risk of death from all causes than adults who never got off their lazy arses. JUNE 2017

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TRAIN

MOVE OF THE MONTH

What the hex? The hex bar can be used for more than deadlifts, including jointfriendly push-ups.

QUICK TIP

There are countless ways to execute push-ups, so if the hex bar’s wider grip causes shoulder discomfort, abandon this version. Listen to your body.

BY ANDREW GUTMAN MOST PEOPLE SAVE

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HOW TO DO IT Place a 20-kilo plate on each side of the bar. Get in a push-up position with your hands in the middle of each handle.

1

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Allow yourself to stabilise, then lower yourself, keeping your core tight and your back straight, until your arms break parallel.

2

Explode back up, working to keep the bar from tilting forwards or backwards.

3

EDGAR ARTIGA

GROOMING BY ALEXA GOULD

the hex bar – aka the trap bar – only for deadlifts. A smart move, considering that its hexagonal design and elevated handles allow taller lifters to pull from a more comfortable distance, with the weight sitting at their sides, as opposed to in front, which is more mechanically natural. But the hex bar can be used for more exercises than just the deadlift, such as floor presses, farmer’s walks, bentover rows and push-ups. With push-ups, adding plates to the hex bar causes the bar to tilt forwards and backwards, forcing you to stabilise yourself, leading to “increased activation in your core and triceps,“ explains trainer Eric Pellini. What’s more, the neutral grip (palms facing each other) helps alleviate wrist pain compared with the discomfort someone might experience when doing standard push-ups with the wrists flexed. Performing push-ups on your knuckles or parallette bars will also allow for a neutral hand position, but you won’t achieve the same level of core activation.

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TRAIN

CROSSFIT INFUSION

Burp it up Burpees suck, but they’re unmatched when it comes to ramping up your metabolic rate. BY JOE WUEBBEN

CROSSFIT DIDN’T INVENT the burpee (screw whoever did), but countless WODs feature this awkward, labour-intensive and painful exercise. Although it’s universally despised, the burpee should at the very least be sprinkled into your regimen. “The burpee is a total-body movement that will have you burning calories much more efficiently than jogging or walking,” says CrossFit athlete Brian Strump. “With each rep, you’ll work your 22

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arms, chest, legs, glutes and core. Burpees can be done anywhere, require zero equipment and can be added to any workout when your goal is to incorporate a conditioning piece.” There’s some debate about how to perform a burpee. CrossFitters perform theirs for time, so the form may appear wonky, but it’s good to do them with picture-perfect form (as shown above). At the end of the day, a burpee is a burpee, so suck it up, because they do.

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Burpees*

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*Directions: complete 100 burpees as quickly as possible. Rest as needed. This can be done as a conditioning “finisher” after a lifting workout or on its own as a high-intensity cardio session. If you’re a beginner or are unaccustomed to doing burpees, perform 50 for time instead of 100 and increase the reps as your stamina improves. EDGAR ARTIGA

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POWER

PAP it off

PAP TRAINING

To reap the benefits of PAP, the first exercise must work the same muscles as the second, and the weight must be moved as quickly as possible.

Post-activation potentiation will help you jump higher and sprint faster BY DR CARWYN SHARP MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE that speed and jumping proficiency are natural abilities that can’t be enhanced. They’re wrong. By employing a technique known as post-activation potentiation (PAP), you can add more to your vertical leap, reduce sprint times and boost your explosiveness. WHAT IT IS PAP is a phenomenon in which heavy preloading of a muscle group results in a short-term increase in power. So, if you perform a heavy lift and then jump or sprint, you’ll jump higher or sprint faster. HOW IT WORKS Performing an initial heavy lift recruits more fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibres, increasing your rate of force development (RFD). Recruiting more muscle fibres more quickly increases power and explosiveness.

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POST-ACTIVATION POTENTIATION Three PAP combos for explosive strength:

SQUAT + JUMP

Back squat: 3x3 at 80% of 1-rep max (1RM) Rest 1 minute Depth jump or Box jump: 3x5

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PUSH + SPRINT

Sled push: 3x10 yards (load sled with at least 1.5 times your body weight) Sprint: 3x20 metres (do not rest between moves; let go of sled and begin sprinting)

PRESS + PASS

Bench press: 3x2 at 85% of 1RM Rest 1 minute Medicine ball chest pass (3x5) or Plyo push-up (3x3)

SHUTTERSTOCK

BUT KEEP IN MIND… The first movement must mimic the second. You must lift the weight as quickly as you can. Don’t lift to failure; doing so will take away from your ability to perform well on the second exercise. Lastly, use minimal rest between movements.

TRAIN

FORM CHECK 1

SQUAT STUMBLES 1

5

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HOW TO BRACE

Before you squat, take a “belly breath” and tighten your abs and lower back. Imagine you’re tucking your ribs into your shorts.

5 reasons your squat sucks

Even if you’re an all-star squatter, keep a lookout for these five common blunders. BY BRAD BALDWIN

COMMONLY REFERRED

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WRONG GRIP 2 THE Your grip could be the

difference between a personal record and a missed lift. Place your hands as close to your shoulders as possible while still being able to pull your elbows down towards the floor. This creates a stable base and keeps your torso upright.

YOUR BUTT WINKS

A butt wink – when a lifter’s hips dip down and in at the bottom of a squat – is caused by poor hip mobility, decreasing force production and risking injury of your lower back. Try the pigeon stretch: on all fours, rest your left leg behind you, bringing your right leg in front of you and rotate it so that it’s flat on the ground at a 90-degree angle. Lean forward to increase the stretch. Hold for 90 seconds per side.

3

VALGUS 4 KNEE Knee valgus – when the

knees cave inwards as you explode out of the hole – is common for guys with weak hips and glutes, as they’re not able to keep the knees rotated outwards. You won’t be able to lift as much weight, since your form is off, and you’ll risk injury in your ligaments. Wrap one mini band around your knees, and then walk laterally, keeping your feet apart. Do this before every squat workout.

TOO SLOW 5 YOU’RE Increase power by

focusing on moving any load less than 60% of your onerep max as fast as you can during the warmup sets of your squat workouts.

GETTY IMAGES

to as the king of leg exercises, the squat is a go-to for building strength, power and mass. But it’s important to give yourself a form check every so

often with such a taxing move since even the slightest screw-up can lead to major injury. Here are five problems you didn’t know you might have and how to fix them.

OVERARCHING

While your back will never be entirely neutral during a squat, overarching creates instability in your lumbar spine, lessening your ability to handle heavy weight. This often stems from not bracing your core.

FUEL

Nutrition 101 Understanding energy and you. CALORIES ARE A WAY TO MEASURE THE energy in food and the energy released in the body. Although the technically correct name is kilocalorie, most people tend to use the word “calorie”. Energy can be measured in either joules (J) or calories (cal). One calorie is equivalent to 4.184 joules. You expend about one calorie per minute when sitting relaxed. That’s about the same amount of heat released by a candle or a 75-watt light bulb. The body needs energy for a range of physiological functions. Energy fuels your body’s internal functions; repairs, builds and maintains cells and body tissues; and supports the external activities that enable you to interact with the physical world. Energy is provided by the diet (food and drink) in the form of carbohydrates, protein, fats and alcohol. The amount of energy made available to the body by carbohydrates, proteins, fats and alcohol varies: gram of carb (starch and sugar) = 4 kcal • Per Per of protein = 4 kcal • Per gram gram fat = 9 kcal • Per gram ofof alcohol = 7 kcal • As you can read from the above, carbohydrates and protein give you the same amount of kcal as each other and are less than that of fat and alcohol. As a result, to hit your daily calorie requirements, a greater volume of food can be consumed by eating foods lower in fat and by avoiding alcohol. The macronutrient requirements and the ratio of carbohydrates to protein to fats for performance and physical improvements is a complex formula that requires an in-depth knowledge of nutritional science, human physiology and biochemistry. Therefore, if you wish to obtain your training goals you should consult a sports dietitian or a sports nutritionist and not rely on “bro science”. I would love to hear what topics you would like covered in next month’s article. Drop me a message on Facebook to have your question answered or follow me on Periscope @tonyattridge for more information.

Tony Attridge is a level 3 strength and conditioning coach, sport psychologist, sports nutritionist and exercise scientist. He’s also the owner and CEO of the College of Health and Fitness. See more at tonyattridge.com and thecollegeofhealthandfitness.qld.edu.au

TRAIN

Got the brawn? Let us help develop the brain! Health and fitness is a lifestyle choice. Regardless of your goals – whether it be to compete, for enjoyment or to extend your abilities – the more knowledge you havve about training, the better ha your results will be. I have been in the industry, both working and studying, since 1988 and I have been educating professionals and the general public in health and fitness for over 24 years. If you really want to improve your mind and body, come and train with us and master the knowledge to get you there. Tony Attridge Did you know that during 2015-2016, Australians were expected to spend $613.6 million on weight-loss counselling services and related low-calorie foods and dietary supplements? Our Certificate IV in Weight Management, a nationally and internationally accredited online training course, can help you start a holistic career or business in the weight management industry. Train with us and get a world class education and be part of a community of like-minded professionals. Be the best you can be! Mention Muscle & Fitness magazine and get 20% off our advertised prices!

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www.thecollegeofhealthandfitness.qld.edu.au

TRAIN

RECOVERY

Keep rollin’ Fascia training for activation and recovery. PEOPLE ONCE THOUGHT of strength being just muscles, and that fascia (connective tissue) was just useless white stuff surrounding muscle groups and connecting them. But recent research shows that fascia is much more than that. “Fascia is the biological fabric that holds us together, the connective tissue network,” says Tom Myers, author of Anatomy Trains and co-author of Fascial Release for Structural Balance. “Humans are made of about 70 trillion cells – neurons, muscle cells, epithelia – all humming in relative harmony. Fascia is the 3D spider web of fibrous, gluey and wet proteins

KNOW BEFORE YOU ROLL

Allow extra time before and after your workout to roll out your entire body.

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that binds all cells together in their proper placement and also enables them to communicate to each other.” Just as with most systems, the better the communication and flow within the system, the less effort is required to fulfil a task and so the system is less stressed. The better your fascial system works, the better you’re able to perform movements and tasks. A trained fascia may also improve proprioception, body tensions and posture. Therefore it’s beneficial to complement your training with fascia rolling. “When we roll, we apply mechanical pressure to the body,” says Leigh Whitehead, head of

training at BLACKROLL® Australia. “We cause a cellular response which is converted internally to electro or chemical signals. These signals could be to increase or decrease fluid to the area, causing better slide of fascia and muscle, or to pull fluid, speeding up recovery, and increasing brain/body connection and cellular communication by increasing nitric oxide levels.” Using a foam roller or other associated accessories may be a way to increase your fitness and performance and reduce your risk of injury. Try rolling before training for an activation of the neuromuscular system, distribution of soft tissue fluids and an increase in nitric

RECOVERY

TRAIN

oxide levels, priming the body for intense work. Use during or after training as a way to target areas in functional fascial lines that become overloaded or where discomfort is present. Roll after training for better recovery as well as deep tissue and fluid manipulation. Include deep breathing for a parasympathetic nervous system response (relaxed state) and to bring your body down. For best recovery results fascial roll six to eight hours after training or competition.

HOW FAST? “In my own teaching I have had good responses when replacing that with, ‘slowest possible continuous rolling movement’ and the added remark that a super slow speed of 2.5 to 1.5 centimetres per breath could be a great start,” says Dr Robert Schleip, a leading fascia researcher.

HOW HARD? “We recommend a discomfort rate of no more than three out of 10,” says Whitehead. “This leaves it up to the individual to gauge, but if it’s too painful the body can tense up, which makes the process counterproductive. For best effects rolling should be performed in a relaxed muscle state.”

WHICH TOOLS? When it comes to choosing the right fascia training tools it mainly comes down to what you would like to achieve. The first and foremost criteria should be that you’re using an effective tool that is specifically targeting the fascia.

DENSITY You need quite a hard tool in order to really be able to influence the fascial structures. BLACKROLL offer three roller densities: soft (still harder than most common foam rollers) for beginners and in medical rehab applications; standard (the go-to density for pretty much everyone from beginner to athlete); and pro (for professionals with a lot of fascia training experience who can never find a hard enough tool).

SHAPE Fascia training tools come in all sorts of shapes. A fascia roller is probably the most versatile tool in the bag since you can do pretty much everything with it, rolling over larger areas and muscle chains like legs, back and arms as well as specifically targeting hot spots (sore points) which you find along the way. Balls are to really target hot spots and trigger points which need more attention and pressure. Hot spots are usually dry spots in the fascia with adhesions between the fascia layers. Applying external pressure to dry spots increases fluid circulation in the area. A mini roller is perfect to work on your plantar fascia (sole of the foot) while standing barefoot on the roller, or it can be used to roll your arms on a table or against a wall. A duoball has the perfect peanut shape for

the upper and lower back areas to target the areas on both sides along your spine without putting pressure onto the spine itself.

SURFACE Research suggests that a smooth roller is better for most applications as you can make sure you’re rolling with the same constant pressure across all the areas you want to target. You also have more control on where you apply pressure. BLACKROLL recommends using rollers with grooves for activation. The grooves create a slight vibration during rolling which helps to enhance blood circulation in the area, which is useful for warming up. Grooves are usually a bit more painful, but enable a more targeted rolling approach.

SIZE The best fascia tools are the ones that are at hand whenever you need them. So a practical size and lightweight tool with longevity that can come with you wherever you go gives you the most benefit. A 30cm long roller gives you all you need to perform most fascia training exercises. Keep it simple, small and practical and you’ll get the most out of it.

For more information and to purchase products, head to blackroll.com.au JUNE 2017

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IT’S A TRAP YOU SUPPLIED THE QUESTIONS, WE E FOUND THE ANSWERS

Are there ways to train traps other than shrugs? – KYLE W

A:

1

A GREAT

way to train the traps is with Olympic lifts, like snatches and clean and jerks. They’re the most explosive versions of shrugs that you can possibly do, and chances are you’ll probably be using more weight to do them. They also recruit more fast-twitch muscle fibres, which contribute more to the growth of your muscle.

DUMBBELL SNATCH

This variation of the Olympic move will build serious trap size and upper-back strength.

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MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

MARC ROYCE

ASK

2

3

BE PREPARED

Work is nuts. How can I keep my diet on track?

A:

– JACOB T

HAVE A PLAN. Write down what you’re going to have for meals before the week begins and stock up on those foods. And when you have time, prep healthy food so it’s ready when you walk in the door. Make larger portions of soups, grilled chicken or chopped vegetables.

THE SNATCH: PLACE A dumbbell between your legs. Squat down and firmly grip the weight.

1

MOLLY MORGAN wrote Drink Your Way to Gut Health.

KEEP YOUR back straight and pull the weight up to hip level. Drive your hips forward.

2

SO CHEESY

Can I eat cheese and still be fit? Please say yes.

A:

– HAL D

CHEESE CAN be part of a healthy lifestyle when it’s unprocessed and eaten in moderation. In fact, cheese has lots of nutrients, like bonebuilding calcium and protein – Swiss, cheddar and mozzarella have 7 to 8 grams per 30g, which can help pack on muscle. Hard cheeses can also lower blood pressure – especially Grana Padano, a study has found.

AS THE weight travels up, keep your arm straight and lift it until it is fully overhead.

3

LEE BOYCE

is a strength coach based in Toronto, Canada.

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ASK

LIFTING SHOES

Should I invest in weightlifting shoes? – BILL F

A:

WEIGHTLIFTING SHOES, which slightly elevate your heel, can increase your range of motion on the squat. However, they’re more than $100. Too expensive? Opt for shoes with a flat, sturdy sole – the original Chuck Taylor All-Stars are always great.

CHRIS FINLEY is a personal trainer and owns Chris Finley Fitness.

ON THE BALL

What workouts help build stability? – WARREN M

A:

I have a lower-body injury that prevents me from performing my normal cardio routine. How can I work around it? – MARTIN P

A:

FIRST OFF, make sure you’re evaluated by a professional. With that said, you can almost always find something that will allow you to maintain your fitness level. If you have access to a pool, swimming or deep-water jogging offer up challenging cardio that’s

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MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

super joint-friendly. Even simply incorporating more walking into your daily routine can help boost your daily calorie burn.

MICHAEL CONLON is a physical therapist.

STABILITY EXERCISES are designed to help support your entire body through all phases of movement. They focus on core, hip and shoulder engagement, plus stability and balance. There’s no need to devote an entire workout to stabilisation, though – instead, try to incorporate movements throughout your routine. For example, do shoulder presses and/ or raises while standing on one leg, or perform single-arm dumbbell chest presses lying on a stability ball instead of a bench. You can also try standing on a Bosu while doing biceps curls or triceps kickbacks, or lift one arm or leg while doing planks. Adding in just a couple of these stability movements will go a long way towards keeping your core, shoulders and entire body working more efficiently.

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WHAT’S IN THE FRIDGE THIS MONTH

Eight is enough A new study says that eating eight fruits and vegetables a day keeps the doctor — and the grim reaper — away. FOR YEARS MUM TOLD YOU how great

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MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

VEG OUT

7.8 million deaths worldwide could be prevented each year if people ate more fruits and vegetables.

GETTY IMAGES

fruits and vegetables are for you. But you may not have realised just how great. According to a comprehensive new study by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, eating 800 grams of fruits and vegetables a day — or eight servings — reduces your risk of premature death by almost a third, and your risk of heart disease by about a quarter. Translation: keep the spinach and asparagus coming!

NEWS

EAT

MENTALI

BRAI BOOS ■ New rese from the University of Otago in New Zeala discovere that eating lots produce es only help you lose we t, strength heart and a you all-around healthier but may also help improve your personality and outlook on life. Participants reported increased motivation and vitality.

EAT LESS TO LIVE LONGER

F R O M T O P R I G H T: A N N A B E L L E B R E A K E Y/ G E T T Y I M A G E S ; T I T OVA VA L ER I A / G E T T Y IM AG E S; S T O C K F O O D/ G E T T Y IM AG E S

■ A new study out of Brigham Young University, US, found that rodents that didn’t eat as much showed sloweddown ribosome activity — the molecular function that manufactures protein in cells. And because the ribosomes aren’t spending as much time cranking out proteins, they’re self-repairing instead, thus helping to slow down the ageing process.

Portions matter

Half your plate should be made up of fruits and vegies.

NUTRITION

PARENTING

SKIP FAST FOOD, EAT AT HOME

DAD’S THE WORD

■ A recent study from the University of Washington School of Public Health, US, confirms that the more you prepare food at home, the healthier you’ll eat. The results showed that those who ate at home three times a week scored an average of 67 out of 100 on the Healthy Eating Index scale, while those who cooked at home six times a week scored an average of 74 on the scale. Moral of the story: skip the drive-thru.

■ Want smart sprogs? Lay off the energy drinks. A new study from the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases has found that the father’s diet influences a child’s mental fitness, or cognitive skills. Scientists found that if male rodents are fed a diet rich in folic acid, methionine and vitamin B12 – “methyl donors” which are found in high concentrations in things like energy drinks and supplements – their offspring don’t perform so well in memory tests.

GUT CHECK WHOLE GRAINS BOOST IMMUNITY ■ Those who ate a whole grain-heavy diet had more of the acids produced by beneficial bugs and less of a type of bacteria known to cause inflammation, according to a trial of 81 people published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

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EAT

CLEAN EATING

One-stop chop Here’s a protein-packed salad that will fill your gut and get you cut.

BIG TUNA

One 140g can of tuna packs about 24 grams of protein.

SURE, EATING HEALTHY whole foods is the first step toward burning off your belly. But to lose fat you simply must create a calorie deficit — that is, take in fewer calories than you burn. Fortunately, low-cal meals, despite the diresounding name, don’t have to be the bane of your existence as you try to shred. This salad (yes, a salad... bear with us) is loaded with delicious whole foods like potatoes, eggs, beans and tuna, which will keep you full — for less than 500 calories. Call it sorcery, nutrition savvy or fitness smarts. Just don’t call it a diet.

NIÇOISE SALAD SERVES 4

VINAIGRETTE ½ cup lemon juice ¾ cup olive oil 1 tbsp fresh minced thyme leaves 1 tbsp fresh minced basil 2 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp Dijon mustard SALAD 6 small red potatoes, quartered 3 eggs 85g frozen green beans 2 medium heads lettuce 3 cans tuna 1 cup quartered grape tomatoes

NUTRITION PER SERVING

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414

67g

8g

11g

CALORIES

PROTEIN

CARBS

FAT

SAM KAPLAN

FOOD STYLING BY SUZANNE LENZER

1. Place vinaigrette ingredients in a shaker cup and shake to mix. 2. Place potatoes in a pot and cover with water. Boil 15 minutes. Drain and set aside. 3. While the potatoes cook, place the eggs (don’t crack them) in another pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and then turn off heat and let stand 12 minutes. Rinse eggs in cool water and peel, then cut into slices. 4. Place green beans in a microwavesafe dish and add ¼ cup water. Cook in microwave on high 7 to 10 minutes. 5. Rinse lettuce and tear into small pieces. Add to a bowl, then add other ingredients (except eggs) and toss. Place eggs on top. Add vinaigrette to taste.

EAT

Feed your face Smarter snacks for the discerning dude. M&F READERS HAVE A pretty good grasp on what to eat in order to get and maintain a lean, muscular physique. Meal times are easy: protein galore, smarter carbohydrate choices, plenty of vegies and fruits and the right supps. But it’s what you eat between those meals that can make or break your build. Take in the right snacks and you continue to power your body through to the next meal. The wrong snack, or mini meal, can bring your metabolism to a crashing halt and leave you struggling to catch up for the rest of the day. Here are a few of our favourite snack options. Stash a few in your desk drawer or gym bag, and you’ll always have a healthy snack on hand when the munchies bite.

SMART SNAX POWER Serving size: 25g 158 calories, 4.9g protein, 3.6g carbs, 13.5g fat Why we like it: this high protein blend of nuts will fill you up and keep you full till your next meal. 38

MUSCLE & FITNESS

KETTLE POPCORN SEA SALT Serving size: 25g 118 calories, 2.3g protein, 13g carbs, 6g fat Why we like it: lighter than chips, but tasty enough to squelch your savoury hankerings.

SNACKS

EAT

SNACK-DOWN!

The worst snack foods – eat at your own pudgy peril.

PORK CRACKLING More than half the calories in this porker of a snack comes from fat, and a teeny 25g packs 15% of your entire RDI of sodium.

1

OATEIN SUPER COOKIE Serving size: 75g 307 calories, 16g protein, 30.4g carbs, 12.2g fat Why we like it: the blend of low-GI oats and natural proteins, including whey and pea, will satisfy and keep blood sugar levels steady.

SAFCOL TUNA MEAL Serving size: 110g 133 calories, 11.3g protein, 12.7g carbs, 4g fat Why we like it: a mini meal that you can devour on the run, with slowburning carbs and a protein punch.

BODY SCIENCE HIGH PROTEIN LOW CARB BAR Serving size: 60g 206 calories, 19.5g protein, 3.9g carbs, 5.9g fat Why we like it: so yum it feels like a treat, but the hefty serve of protein will fuel your muscles and fill your belly.

KRISPY CREME An original glazed doughnut weighing only 52g is clogged with 16.5g fat and 12.3g sugar. Diabetes in a convenient hand-held pastry.

2

ICED COFFEE DRINK One piddly 250ml serve contains a staggering 22g sugar – that’s 5.5 teaspoons – only a few grams less than a can of Coke.

3

JIM’S JERKY X50 BROCCOLI CHIPS Serving size: 40g 41 calories, 1.5g protein, 25g carbs, 2.4g fat Why we like it: it’s a super tasty way to sneak some extra vegies into your day, plus it’s reduced sodium and vacuum (not deep) fried.

Serving size: 50g 155 calories, 27.6g protein, 2.6g carbs, 3.8g fat Why we like it: it’s made using 100% Aussie premium topside steak – literally slabs of steak, hand crafted with top quality spices and naturally dried.

BANANA BREAD Calling this “bread” hides the fact that it’s really just a great slab of sugary cake, with one 130g slice packing 407 calories, 16.5g fat and 30.3g sugar.

4

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EAT

1 FOOD, 5 WAYS

1 RAW Grate them, slice them or use a spiralizer and turn raw beetroot into beetroot “noodles.” Raw beetroot can be enjoyed on salads, mixed into pasta dishes or solo. For a quick, easy salad, try tossing them with sliced cucumbers and feta cheese and topping with a little olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Beetroot

This nutrition powerhouse is packed with fibre, antioxidants, folate and a ton of flavour.

2 ROAST Set oven to 200°C and line a baking pan with baking paper. Cut the greens off the top of the beetroots, scrub them clean and slice thin (either leave the skin on or peel prior to slicing). Lay slices on the baking pan and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper or a salt-free garlicand-herb-blended seasoning. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

3 SMOOTHIE

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MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

In a blender or food processor, place ½ cup extra virgin olive oil, ¼ cup pine nuts (or sunflower seeds), 1 small beetroot (raw or pre-cooked), 1 garlic clove, ¼ cup shredded parmesan cheese and 1 cup packed basil leaves. Blend and pour on top of fish, poultry or wholemeal pasta.

5 PANCAKES This will add colour and more nutritional value to carb-heavy pancakes. In a blender, place ½ cup raw oats, 1 scoop protein powder, ½ medium raw beetroot (washed, peeled and cut into small pieces) or 1 pre-cooked beetroot and 1 tbsp water and blend well. Add blended contents to a bowl. Mix in 1 egg, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 2 tbsp almond milk, a pinch of cinnamon and ½ tsp vanilla extract. Mix well and pour onto greased pan. When the edges start to look dry, flip and cook another minute or two on the other side.

CHEW ON THIS

Relax, man. Consuming one glass of beetroot juice has been shown to lower systolic blood pressure by 4 to 5 points.

AMY NEUNSINGER/GETTY IMAGES

To start your day strong or power through an afternoon slump, place ½ cup coconut or almond milk; ½ cup water; ½ cup baby spinach or kale; ½ medium beetroot (raw or pre-cooked), cut into small chunks; ½ cup blueberries; ¼ frozen banana; 1 tbsp chia seeds; and ice in a blender. Blend and drink.

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EAT

FOOD ID

Flour power Sub in these five healthy alternatives for sugar-spiking plain flour for a bigger nutritional punch. BY MEAGAN DRILLINGER

2 CHICKPEA FLOUR

BROWN RICE 3 FLOUR

4 SOY FLOUR

B U Y E R B E WA R E :

B U Y E R B E WA R E :

B U Y E R B E WA R E :

B U Y E R B E WA R E :

B E S T F O R : while wholemeal flour still spikes your blood sugar, it’s a good sub for plain white flour. It’s richer in essential nutrients like iron, which helps make red blood cells, and fibre, which will leave you feeling full (and help you do your business). And with 16 grams of protein per cup, it’s a great addition to protein pancakes.

Toby Amidor, nutrition expert and author of The Greek Yogurt Kitchen, warns that baking or cooking with only wholemeal flour will make a dish dense and tasteless, so combine it with plain white flour. 42

BEST FOR:

boasting 21 grams of protein per cup, 25% of the daily recommended dose of iron and a whole lot of calcium, this flour is a muscle and bone builder. For best results, replace up to half the amount of plain flour in a recipe with chickpea flour, but mix it with other flours like rice flour and bean flour.

for athletes who are counting carbs, chickpea flour contains 53 grams per cup.

MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

BEST FOR:

brown rice flour provides 50% of the daily recommended amounts of key vitamins and minerals like B-complex vitamins, which convert food into fuel, and three times the daily recommended amount of manganese, which helps the body form connective tissue and bones. It’s best used as batter and to thicken sauces.

like chickpea flour, this is another carb-heavy choice. According to Amidor, one cup of brown rice flour contains 574 calories, 121 grams of carbs and only 11 grams of protein.

BEST FOR:

relax, soy won’t give you moobs. Which is good news, as soy flour is a great alternative for cooking and can be used to replace up to 30% of plain flour. It’s packed with 29 grams of protein per cup and is also a rich source of calcium, B-complex vitamins and vitamin K, which is essential for bone strength and heart disease prevention.

the American Nutrition Association says raw soybeans contain several antinutrients that can damage your ability to absorb protein, which processing helps reduce but doesn’t eliminate.

5 COCONUT FLOUR

BEST FOR: this grainless flour has the lowest score on the glycaemic index — a scale of 0 to 100 that measures how drastically food spikes your blood sugar — with a score of 45. (Below 55 is considered low.) Coconut flour is also gluten-free. You should use it to replace up to 20% of the flour called for in a recipe. B U Y E R B E WA R E :

you’ll want to sub in coconut flour for grain-based flours in a 1-to-1 ratio, as it’s dry and needs to be used with plenty of eggs or puréed fruits for moisture. If using it for frying or sautéing, also employ a 1-to-1 ratio.

CL I V E WAT K INS/ SHU T T ERS T O CK ; ER M A K OKS A N A / SHU T T ERS T O CK

1WHOLEMEAL FLOUR

FAST FEAST

EAT

A better burger This healthy burger dish is packed with protein, not carbs or calories. BY CARLO FILIPPONE BURGER AND VEGIES SERVES 4

BURGERS 570g lean beef mince 1 tsp finely chopped red onion 1 tsp finely chopped red chilli 1 tsp finely chopped green chilli ½ tsp finely chopped fresh parsley Juice of ½ lemon 3 pinches of sea salt 2 pinches of black pepper

VEGIES 6 2 1 ¼ ¼

stalks asparagus portobello mushrooms yellow zucchini, sliced cup olive oil cup balsamic vinegar 1 tsp chopped garlic 2 pinches sea salt 2 pinches black pepper

F O O D & P RO P S T Y L IN G BY S U S A N O T TAV I A N O

1. Prepare half of a charcoal grill for direct high heat or turn on one side of a gas grill to high. Mix all the burger ingredients in a bowl and then wet your hands with cold water and shape meat mixture into four patties. For the vegies, place all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. 2. When the grill is ready, brush the grate with oil and place burgers on the grill over direct heat, cooking for 4 minutes on each side for mediumrare. Remove vegies from the marinade and place on the grill to the side of the burgers. Brush the vegie marinade over them as they cook. Remove when tender and slightly charred all over and serve with the burgers.

CHEW ON THIS

An 85g serving of lean beef mince contains 14% of your daily dose of iron.

NUTRITION PER SERVING

427

39g

5g

28g

CALORIES

PROTEIN

CARBS

FAT

BRIAN KLUTCH

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EAT

FOOD ID

To tea or not to tea? Here’s why a cup of tea should be your cup of tea. BY MEAGAN DRILLINGER MIKE TYSON DRINKS TEA. So you can tell Iron Mike that it’s a drink reserved for old biddies and English blokes. But you’d be wrong to do so: all teas, from white and green to black and oolong, can boost metabolism, lower cholesterol, increase mental

BLACK

44

source,” says Hausler. Consider buying loose tea leaves instead of tea bags, which often contain the “dust” of broken tea leaves. Once the leaf is broken it loses most of its essential oils; loose leaves that you purchase from tea shops don’t. Also, steep the tea in boiling water to unleash more of its beneficial nutrients. Here’s a look at five top teas.

MIINT

WHITE TEA W

Min nt tea is technica ally not a tea, as it isn’t derived from the Camellia sinensis plant. (It’s just dried mint leaves brewed in hot water.) Still, its medicinal benefits are legit. According to Hausler, mint tea has cooling properties that are useful for treating cold symptoms, like red eyes, sore throat and fever. It clears and opens up the head and is said to help the liver function better. There are no true cons to mint tea, unless you’re living in an igloo, as cooling down the body isn’t useful at that point.

W White tea is the least processed tea leaf; p the leaves are simply withered and dried. w White tea also has the highest content o L-theanine, an amino acid found almost exclusively in tea. “It’s a compound that does a number of things but specifically helps the body produce a lot of feel-good hormones, like serotonin, dopamine and GABA [gammaaminobutyric acid], a neurotransmitter that inhibits the activity of neurons,” says Hausler. “This is the thing in tea that makes you feel relaxed.”

MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

GREEN Green tea has the highest concentration of EGCG, a catechin that acts as an antioxidant, which may help prevent some types of cancers. Green tea is also one of the least processed teas. There are almost no downsides to drinking green tea, Hausler says, but if you have a sensitive stomach you’ll want to be careful to not oversteep the tea, as it can become bitter and harsh on the stomach.

Oolong teas are the least studied of the teas. But they have their own set of antioxidants, with many cancerpreventive properties. And while all teas have GABA, GABA oolong – an oolong-specific tea – has the highest GABA concentration because the leaves are put in a chamber that removes the oxygen. Need to chill? This is your tea.

F R O M L E F T: F E I G & F E I G / S T O C K F O O D ; P H O T O A LT O / A L A M Y; FEI G & FEI G / S T O CK F O OD; OL I V ER BR ACH AT/ S T O CK F O OD; T H F O T O/ STOCKFOOD

Black tea is heavily processed, which strips many of the health benefits, including less epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and vitamin C. According to Hausler, most black teas we drink come from subpar commercial farms. However, when brewed and sourced properly, black tea’s benefits are in line with the other teas in terms of antioxidants and relaxation properties. Also, it often has a bit more caffeine than the others.

awareness, aid digestion and stabilise blood sugar, says Lucas Hausler, a licensed acupuncturist and consulting partner at Mad Monk Tea in California, US. Keep in mind that quality varies. “No matter what type of tea you drink, find yourself a good, clean

TEA FACT

Green tea helps with weight loss. How? It contains catechins, antioxidants that stimulate thermogenesis, or fat burning.

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MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

RISE OF THE GUARDIAN

> Dave Bautista, one of the stars of Guardians of the

Galaxy Vol. 2, opens up about stealing cars, building self-confidence in the gym, chasing wrestling dreams and gunning for actor street cred. B Y S H AW N D O N N E L LY /// P H O T O G R A P H S B Y P E R B E R N A L

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DAV E BAU T I STA

THE BALLAD OF BAUTISTA, PART I:

AWKWARDNESS H E WA S G A N G LY. No, really,

the guy you see on these pages – the man who now plays the hulking, lovable character Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, hitting theaters May 5 – was a gangly teen. Tall and skinny. Lanky. Shy. Super shy. Awkward. Painfully awkward. Didn’t feel like he fit in. Almost ever. But the one place he wasn’t awkward, the one place where he always fit in, was the gym. It was his safe haven, his sanctuary, his nest. Growing up in Washington DC in the ’80s, Dave Bautista

EXPERT LIFTER Now 48, Bautista has been throwing around weight in the gym since he was 17.

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always felt at home in the weights room. Like he belonged. “I was a gym rat,” says Bautista. “I was a really shy, skinny, gangly, unhealthy kid. Working out helped me build confidence. I really wanted to look more muscular and not so lanky.” At 15, the half-Filipino, half-Greek kid started messing around with his dad’s plastic weight set, doing bench presses and curls. Two years later, after his dad kicked him out of the house to make room for a baby he was having with his second wife, Bautista would cut class to lift weights. Well, sometimes he would cut class to steal cars, taking them for joyrides and selling off their wheels and radios, but usually he would cut class to lift weights. “I went to school when I felt like

going to school, and most of the time I didn’t,” says Bautista, who ended up renting a room at a friend’s place for his final two years of high school. “By 17, I didn’t have to answer to anybody. I was on my own.” Instead of studying calculus and social studies, he was spending most of his time at the big bodybuilding gym in the area, Olympus Gym. A friend got him a job there, so when he wasn’t lifting, he was working. “I just fell in love with it,” says Bautista. “I practically lived there. It was a second home.” Then he moved out to San Francisco for a while to reconnect with his mother and got a job as a personal trainer. But he didn’t exactly love showing others the correct way to squat. His clients frustrated him. “I couldn’t really

DAV E BAU T I STA

relate to people who didn’t put in the same effort that I did,” says Bautista. “Sometimes I tried to force them to. It kind of turned people off.” So what is a big, muscle-bound guy without a university education who doesn’t enjoy personal training supposed to do? Be a bouncer, obviously. He got his first gig bouncing at 17. He started in a few bars. In his early 20s, he bounced at a huge dance club called Lulu’s. Then he progressed to VIP rooms at parties around town. He had the

I needed to find a real job or some other way to make money. It was like, ‘What am I qualified for?’

image that club promoters coveted – the huge, intimidating guy. Back then, he was even bigger than he is now. Much bigger. “Like 350, 360,” [159-163kg] he says. “I was huge.” Occasionally he would get arrested. “When I was bouncing, I had a few assault charges,” he admits. “I was always in a lose-lose situation. Whether I was in the right or not, the cops would show up and I looked like I did, and I was in a fight and somebody was bleeding and I wasn’t. I usually went to jail.” But it was a life. “I loved bouncing,” says Bautista. “You get spoiled by it. It’s easy work. You’re kind of hanging out most of the

time. You have your days free to do whatever you want. You train, eat, sleep and go to work. You get off work, you go back to the gym, you go home and sleep all day. And 10 years later, you got nothing to show for it.” Did he save any money? Ha! He laughs at the question. “I worked to make it through the week,” he says. “I wasn’t concerned about putting a stash away. I was Forrest Gump-ing my way through life. My whole life

was kind of accidental.” The lowest point was one Christmas. By then he had children, and he had no money to buy them presents. He was forced to ask for an advance from a club promoter. “That was when I decided that I needed to do something,” says Bautista, who was closing in on 30 at the time. “I needed to find a real job or some other way to make money. It was like, ‘What am I qualified for?’ ” JUNE 2017

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THE BALLAD OF BAUTISTA, PART II:

PRO WRESTLING H E C A L L S T H E decision to try

his hand at professional wrestling a “process of elimination”. “Wrestling was really smoking hot at that time,” Bautista recalls. “It seemed like all the guys on TV were huge. I thought I could fit that mould.” Soon he found himself in Minneapolis, trying out for World Championship Wrestling. And failing miserably. The guy holding the tryouts ran him into the ground. At the time, Bautista was 193cm, 147 kilos and super ripped. This guy was maybe 178cm, 95 kilos. “I think he took offence that I was huge and jacked and he was not,” recalls Bautista. “I think he thought, ‘This is another big guy who can’t wrestle, and he’s going to come in here and take another spot just because he looks like that, and I’m not going to let it happen’.” The guy’s efforts worked – momentarily. “I was going to go

MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

THE WRESTLER Bautista, a WWE star, had one MMA pro fight. He won.

notice and offered him a low-paying developmental contract. Now he was getting paid to learn how to wrestle – not that he felt like he was on his way to greatness or anything. “I thought it could be over any day,” says Bautista. “Because there were a lot of guys who were on the payroll one day and they were off the next. But I’m really big at seizing opportunities. If you give me an opportunity, I’ll be all over it.” Bautista grabbed his chance with the WWE and never let go. He made his professional wrestling debut in 2000 under the ring name Leviathan. A couple of years later, he made his televised WWE debut on an episode of SmackDown as a villain named Deacon Batista. The “Deacon” moniker didn’t last, and he soon began to operate simply as Batista. Within a few years, he became one of the biggest stars of WWE, winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship four times and the WWE Championship twice. But still he didn’t feel like he’d “made it”. “I was multi world champion and I still went through times where I thought, ‘Man, I’m going to lose my job, they’re gonna fire me, I know they’re gonna fire me’, ” says Bautista. “I went through that my whole career.” Was it paranoia? Bautista says it was more like taking nothing for granted. “My feeling is, just never be comfortable,” he says. “Never get too comfortable.” So is that still the case? “Oh, for sure,” he says. “Even with acting. It’s a constant argument that I have with my agent. I don’t like coming off a job and not knowing when my next job is. I want to know what I’m doing next. Because I got into this really late. And where I fit in this business is even smaller than where I fit in wrestling. There’s just not much room for ageing actors that look like gorillas.”

J. SHEARER/GETTY IMAGES

50

back and try again after I got into better cardio shape,” says Bautista. “But then I started exploring other avenues.” He reached out to WWE (known then as the World Wrestling Federation), and they suggested he go to a wrestling camp, which is how Bautista wound up in Pennsylvania for a year, using borrowed money to enroll at the Wild Samoan Pro Wrestling Training Center. He suffered a few injuries, but over the next 12 months he learned the craft – everything from body slams and suplexes to developing a persona. Once he obtained all the tools to perform, WWE took

DAV E BAU T I STA

GALACTIC FORCE Bautista reprises his role as Drax in Guardians Vol. 2, alongside Baby Groot (right).

THE BALLAD OF BAUTISTA, PART III:

HOLLYWOOD T R A D I T I O N A L LY, T H E R E

©MARVEL STUDIOS 2017

might not have been much space in Hollywood for 40-something thespians built like oak trees, but Bautista is making room, one successful role at a time. In 2014 he starred in Guardians of the Galaxy, a funny, irreverent, thrilling film that takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) about a group of intergalactic criminals who must save the universe. It was a rare comic-book movie that made you laugh, cheer and possibly even tear up a little. Bautista played Drax, a guy who takes everything he hears literally, and who also witnessed the brutal murder of his wife and daughter.

In seeking revenge for their deaths, he delivered some of the movie’s funniest lines – but he also showed he was capable of being vulnerable and generating empathy. The movie was a surprise box-office smash, raking in $773 million worldwide, the third-highest grossing film of the year. And Bautista’s Drax was a major reason why. It was his chance to show he could be more than, as he puts it, “Tough Guy No. 1” – and he crushed it. “Guardians made my career, and it changed my life,” says Bautista. “It opened so many doors for me in Hollywood, it’s ridiculous.” One of those doors led to him starring as Hinx, a villain in the 2015 James Bond movie, Spectre. Overall, Bautista had an incredible experience. (“I still get the giggles that I’m actually in a Bond film,” he says.) But there was one aspect that frustrated him. When – spoiler

alert – he is launched off a train at the end of a long fight scene with Daniel Craig, his character, who had been silent the entire film, delivers one line: “Shit.” The line was actually taken from a dubbing session that Bautista did after the original shoot – in which he had sounded, according to the filmmakers, “too American.” Bautista was less than thrilled with the scene’s finished product, especially considering a line that Daniel Craig says after Hinx’s demise – “God, I thought that guy would never shut up” – was removed. “I wasn’t crazy about the voice-over, and I was really upset that they cut out the punch line to that whole thing,” says Bautista. “I wish they would’ve just left me silent. The character was like an homage to a throwback James Bond henchman.” On the bright side, Bautista has far more lines in the upcoming Blade Runner reboot, Blade Runner 2049. It was a role Bautista had to fight hard for, because the director, Denis Villeneuve, initially thought he was wrong for the part. While in Atlanta for Guardians Vol. 2, Bautista screen-tested for the project and convinced Villeneuve JUNE 2017

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DAV E BAU T I STA

he was the right man after all. He’ll also have a bigger part in the second installment of Guardians. “It’s a straight comedy role for me,” says Bautista, adding that audiences shouldn’t expect a repeat of the first movie. “There’s really a different vibe to this film. People will get to know the characters a little more. I hope people love it. I’m sure they will. It’s testing off the charts.” But he’s not done with Drax, who will be a large part of the superhero battle royal that is 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War (and who knows how many more sequels by the time the MCU’s Phase 4 films debut in 2020). And, to his delight, Bautista will be sneaking in the occasional independent film, like the upcoming Hotel Artemis opposite Jodie Foster.

“I’m really fortunate now because I have big franchise stuff I can fall back on,” Bautista says. “But at the same time, I’m still after the juicy acting roles.” All in all, things do not suck for Dave Bautista these days. In addition to the acting work, he has an endorsement deal with Muscle Monster energy drinks. Most of Muscle Monster’s athletes are MMA stars like Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey, Rampage Jackson and Tyron Woodley, but the company made a special place for Bautista in its line-up just because it likes him so much. “He’s a pivotal piece of the Muscle Monster program,” says Hans Molenkamp,

an athlete rep at Monster. “He’s a big part of the Monster family.” He’s doing well in love, too. In 2015 Bautista married Sarah Jade (pictured below), who was Miss Pole Dance America in 2016. Yes, that’s right, his wife is the best pole dancer in the country. Jade recently retired from competition and is putting the finishing touches on her own pole dancing studio in Florida. And speaking of construction, Bautista thinks it’s time he breaks down and builds his own home gym. As much as he likes the energy of the big public gym – his sanctuary for some 30 years now – it’s getting harder for him to get in his workouts. “It’s not like fans are asking me for pictures and autographs,” he says. “It’s just because I’m gone for months, so when people see me, they want to catch up. And when I’m at the gym, I want to work out. I’m on a mission.”

CUTE COUPLE In 2015, Bautista married Sarah Jade (right), a worldrenowned pole dancer.

My feeling is, never be comfortable. Never get too comfortable.

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DAV E BAU T I STA

THE BALLAD OF BAUTISTA, PART IV:

THE FUTURE S I N C E 2 0 0 3 , B A U T I S TA has

been collecting vintage lunch boxes. He currently owns more than 250 – and about 80 that he really loves. He even gifted lunch boxes to some of the cast when they wrapped Guardians 2. (Chris Pratt received a Knight Rider lunch box; Zoe Saldana, a Charlie’s Angels lunch box.) So when Bautista is asked if there’s anything in this world that he doesn’t yet have that he wants, he does not hesitate. “A 1970s Underdog lunch box.” It’s a funny answer. But in truth, there are other, less jokey things he wants. Doing stage acting – particularly Shakespeare – is still on his bucket list. One last run with the WWE is still a possibility, though nothing is planned. He loves spending time at home with his wife and his three big dogs, so he’d like to do more of that. He loves being able to lift weights three days on and one day off when his schedule allows. And he wants to keep searching for those projects that will let him express himself – and perhaps convey some of those emotions that were swirling around in him as an awkward youth. “Now I’m after that acting street cred,” says Bautista. “I want to be respected by my peers and have them know that I’m an actor.” Could this former gangly kid one day win an Oscar? We wouldn’t put it past the big fella.

Built like Bautista F O R T H E P A S T Y E A R , Dave Bautista has been doing more weightlifting. It has a lot to do with his role in Guardians 2. “With Drax always being shirtless, there’s no room to hide any fat,” says Bautista. “I really focused on being in better shape and more muscular.” When he’s not filming, Bautista likes to train three days on, one day off. “I still do a lot of cross training, a lot of boxing and grappling,” he says. “But I did gear a lot of my training towards weights this past year.” He also loves to cycle, but it’s been tough recently due to his schedule – and his size. “I’ve kept my weight up, right around 275 pounds [125kg],” he says. “Long-distance cycling, when you’re that heavy, it gets uncomfortable.” Foodwise, Bautista eats a lot of poultry, fish and eggs. And recently he ate more red meat to pack on a little muscle for the M&F photo shoot. “I play with my diet a lot,” he says. “During the

day, I am all protein and fats. And then at night, I’ll usually have one very low-carb meal. But I change things up depending on what I’m preparing for.” Unlike most guys, he says he hasn’t found it more difficult to stay lean as he gets older. “I think it’s because I’m in this for the long run,” he says. “I don’t let up.” His advice for others? First, make sure your diet is on point. “You can’t leave a gym and go eat like shit,” he says. “You just can’t do it. So diet is always going to be a huge factor.” Second, be consistent. “Some people get all fired up and they want to get bigger arms, and they go in and work themselves out till they’re so sore they can barely move. And then they get burned out and they don’t go for two months. And it just doesn’t work like that. It’s got to be a lifestyle thing. Whatever you choose to do to be active – whether it’s cycling or weight training or MMA – it has got to be part of your daily life.”

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Be consistent. Whatever you choose to do to be active, it has got to be part of your daily life.

DAV E BAU T I STA

DAVE BAUTISTA’S CHEST WORKOUT EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

REST

1-5

5-8

30 sec

Dip

5

8-10

90 sec

Incline DB bench press **

5

10-12

90 sec

Hammer strength chest press

4

10-12

-

4

To failure

45 sec

Cable crossover *

SUPERSET WITH

Push-up (with intention) ***

*“These are done extremely light and not taken to failure,” says Joe Bennett, Bautista’s trainer and a hypertrophy coach. “These are a warm-up. We just go until Dave feels mentally and physically ready to work — sometimes one set, sometimes five. Also, there is a four-second pause and squeeze at the top of each rep during the peak contraction.” **“Dips and dumbbell presses are done with a twosecond complete pause at the bottom,” says Bennett. “This is the point of the range of motion [ROM] where both exercises are most taxing. So we spend some extra time there. The pause also eliminates bounce on direction changes. We would typically use a little more weight on these two exercises, as long as tempo and form are still on point.” ***“Both of these are done with a slow tempo, as the exercises have pretty consistent tension through the entire ROM,” says Bennett. “Each rep should take four to five seconds to complete. The ‘intention’ pushups have the added challenge of trying to drive your hands together — without actually moving them — the whole time you push up. This drastically increases tension throughout the exercise.”

B E N N E T T A D D S : “Because Dave and I have only been working together for a relatively short period of time and because of Dave’s specific injury history, we are in an overhaul phase to the way he trains, completely rebuilding his form and execution for every body part. We make his workouts extremely challenging by manipulating the time component, or tempo, of the exercises. This helps with the learning curve that comes with new form, but also keeps the workouts extremely challenging, specifically by spending more time with the muscle under tension during the specific point of ROM where the exercise is most difficult.”

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ROCKHARD CHALLENGE > THE LAST FOUR WEEKS OF THE 2017 RHC

WON’T BE EASY — BUT THE REWARD OF NEW MUSCLE AND A CHISELLED PHYSIQUE WILL BE TOTALLY WORTH IT WORKOUT BY CJ MURPHY /// PHOTOGR APHS BY EDG AR ARTIG A

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2017 RO C K H A R D C H A L L E NG E PA RT I I

IF YO O OU’VE BEEN GR GRINDING it outt in the gym for the past four kss, you’re probably starting to week p noticcee your abss peeking through strength. Hopefully, and ne newfound strength your life you aalso have realised that t o a halt while doesn’t have to come to uit off a si six-pack. you’rree in pursui w How wever, this deep into a program we w ouldn’t bllame you if you were wo hunggrry for a ch hange of pace. We anticcip pated thaat, which is why, to keep things t freesh, we’re switching you o ovver to higgh-intensity circuitstyle l training i i to incinerate the last few kilos of fat, while still building mass with a highvolume approach. As for nutrition, your only job is to stay the course. Whether you’re trying to build muscle or lose fat, you probably notice that you feel better if you’ve stuck to our menu of nutrient-dense, whole foods. We also provide a sidebar that will help you get into peak condition for any event, like a beach party or for your final “after” photo. To write it, we recruited Don Saladino, a celebrity trainer who has helped celebrities such as Ryan Reynolds get cameraready, to supply the same strategies for you to follow at home. The workouts and diet will be challenging, but you’ve come this far, so continue to go after it. Think of it this way: you’re only four weeks away from your best physique yet.

TRX pendulum Adjust the straps so the e hand dles are a few centimetres from f the floor. Place a foot in each foothold and get into o a plank position. Keeping you g ur torso straight, swing your legs from sid ide to side, generating momen entum from your hips and core.

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RHC DIRECTIONS We kept the same three-day split so that time management doesn’t become an excuse. You’ll do each workout (Day 1, 2 and 3) once per week, resting a day in between sessions. And you’ll still lift heavy for the first exercise to retain strength and mass, with a descending rep scheme week to week. There are no percentages listed, but you should select a load that is heavy

relative to the number of reps you have to perform. For example, you may want to stick to 60-65% of your one-rep max when performing four sets of 12 reps – too heavy and you won’t finish, but too light and it may not be challenging enough. For sets of four to six reps, lift closer to 8085% of your 1RM. As the reps lessen, the weight should increase but not be taken to failure. Leave one or two

2017 RO C K H A R D C H A L L E NG E PA RT I I

DAY 2

WEEK 5

EXERCISE

DAY 1 EXERCISE

reps in the tank for each set. You’ll make steady progress but won’t burn out. Make sure that you’re getting an adequate amount of rest between sets of the main lift. However, once you’re done with those sets, the intensity gets jacked up during your accessory work. Compound movements for brutal straight sets are still a staple, but now they’re supersetted with exercises like pull-ups and hammer curls to add more volume to pump up your trophy muscles. The newest implement is the TRX, which will finish off whatever muscle fibres managed to survive the onslaught, as using a suspension trainer recruits more muscles to stabilise your body.

Back squat

SETS

REPS

4

12

Dip

Overhead press

4

18, 6, 5, 5

Stepup

3

12-15, 10-12, 8-10 3

1

50

Pull-up

3

Pull-up

*

3

Paused incline DB bench

3

Back raise

1

80

SUPERSET WITH

Pull-up

*

3

Hanging leg raise

1

60

SUPERSET WITH

SUPERSET WITH

Pull-up

3

One-arm DB row

3

12-15, 10-12, 8-10

12-15, 10-12, 8-10

SUPERSET WITH

SUPERSET WITH

Band pushdown

1

20

Battle rope**

10

15 sec on, 15 off

Pull-up

3

DAY 3

*Complete three reps every time you take a break. **Alternate between slams, alternating slams, and waves.

DIRECTIONS: complete 12 reps of each exercise for four rounds without resting.

Get into a plank position, with a foot in eac hold. Bend ch footh at the hips a and brin ng your feet to you your chest. Slowly lowly lower yourself back k into a straigh ht line and repeat ffor the prescribe ed number off reps.

REPS

SUPERSET WITH

FINISHER

TRX pike e

SETS

EXERCISE

TRX push-up Kettlebell swing TRX row TRX pike TRX pendulum

EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

Deadlift

4

4

Barbell row

3

12-15, 10-12, 8-10 8

SUPERSET WITH

Hammer curl

3

Walking lunge

3

Hammer curl

3

12-15, 10-12, 8-10 8

Towel pull-up

*

35

Lateral raise

**

8

Jump rope***

4

2 min

SUPERSET WITH

SUPERSET WITH

*Rest as needed to complete all reps. **Complete eight reps every time you take a break. *** Alternate between 10 seconds of hard skipping and 20 seconds of slow skipping.

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2017 RO C K H A R D C H A L L E NG E PA RT I I

WEEK 6 DAY 1

DAY 2

EXERCISE

Back squat

SETS

REPS

4

8, 6, 5, 5

EXERCISE

Overhead press

DAY 3 SETS

REPS

EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

4

8, 6, 5, 5

Deadlift

4

4

CIRCUIT DIRECTIONS: complete three rounds, with no rest between rounds, taking each exercise one rep short of failure. EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

CIRCUIT

CIRCUIT

DIRECTIONS: complete three rounds of

DIRECTIONS: complete three rounds of eight reps for each exercise, with no rest between exercises.

eight reps for each exercise, with no rest between exercises or rounds.

Dip

EXERCISE

EXERCISE

Pullup

Step-up

Barbell row

Hanging leg raise

Pull-up

Hammer curl

Back raise

DB bench press

Walking lunge

DB row

Lateral raise

Battle rope*

8

30 sec on, 15 off

*Alternate between slams, alternating slams and waves.

FINISHER DIRECTIONS: complete 15 reps of each

exercise for five rounds without resting. EXERCISE

TRX push-up

Tate press

Kettlebell swing

Lie down on a flat bench, holding a dumbbell in each hand d overr your chest as if you wer ere about to t bench press u s s. Keep your upper arms stationary and lower the weight, elbow unt until the hinging at your elbow, weights are touching yo our chestt. Keep your elbows out and an slow owly lift the weight back up, recruiting iti your triceps to lift the weight back up.

TRX row

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MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

TRX pike TRX pendulum

SETS

REPS

5

2 min

Tate press Jump rope*

*Alternate between 15 seconds of hard skipping followed by 15 seconds of slow skipping.

2017 RO C K H A R D C H A L L E NG E PA RT I I

TRX row Set the straps to o mid-length h and with each hand, grab a handle w with your fee et fully extended in front of you. Allow Al w yourselff to hang freely. Now squeeze your gether and shoulder blades tog row yourself up, leading th he pull ome to with your elbows. Co o a dead hang at the bottom of each rep.

Band pushdown Loop a resistance band over a pull-up bar or the top of a squat rack. Grip both sides of the band and perform a triceps extension. Ensure that you’re keeping continuous tension on the muscle, as these won’t feel too heavy.

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2017 RO C K H A R D C H A L L E NG E PA RT I I

CIRCUIT

WEEK 7 DAY 1 EXERCISE

Back squat

SETS

REPS

4

12, 10, 8, 8

DIRECTIONS: complete four rounds, taking each exercise one rep short of failure. SETS

REPS

SETS

REPS

5

3 min

Hammer curl Walking lunge Lateral raise Tate press

Dip

Jump rope*

Pullup

*Alternate between 30 seconds of hard skipping followed by 30 seconds of slow skipping.

Hanging leg raise Back raise Kettlebell swing*

10

30 sec on, 15 off

*Alternate between slams, alternating slams and waves.

DAY 2 EXERCISE

Overhead press

SETS

REPS

4

12, 10, 8, 8

CIRCUIT DIRECTIONS: complete three rounds of eight reps for each exercise, with no rest between exercises or rounds. EXERCISE

Step-up Pull-up DB bench press One-arm DB row

FINISHER DIRECTIONS: complete 15 reps of each exercise for six rounds. No rest between rounds. EXERCISE

TRX push-up Kettlebell swing TRX row TRX pike TRX pendulum

DAY 3 EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

Deadlift

5

3

62

EXERCISE

Barbell row

CIRCUIT

EXERCISE

DIRECTIONS: complete three rounds of eight reps for each exercise, with no rest between exercises.

MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

TRX push-u up Set the strap to o midleng gth and get into push up position with push-up w a han ndle in each hand. Slowly lo ower your y, focusing on stabi bilising ur body, yourself. Keep y your core e ttight and push yourself back b p. up

2017 RO C K H A R D C H A L L E NG E PA RT I I

PEAK IN A WEEK If you’ve followed our nutrition guide in Part I, then you should be pretty lean at this point in the RHC. And if you’re hovering close to 10% body fat, you’re in a prime position to get that shredded look. But achieving that polished, fitness-model physique requires an extra level of precision and detail, which is why we had celebrity trainer DON SALADINO outline the five strategies he employed to get Ryan Reynolds into superhero shape for Deadpool. Allow seven days to peak, and at the end of the week your skin should tighten up and your abs will have more of that protruding look. 1) WATER LOAD To clean out your system, you need to flush it with H20 and then taper your consumption to slowly, but safely, draw the water out between your skin and the muscle. The result is a dry look, which showcases the finer details of your abs. Let’s say you start on Sunday. Begin by drinking 11 litres of water daily up to Wednesday. Then cut your intake to 9 litres, and then cut it again on Thursday to 6.5 litres. On Friday, take in 2.8 litres, and then have no more than 475ml of water on Saturday. Sip it throughout the day to keep you sane. On the day of your event, keep water intake to a minimum until you snap the pic. 2) FIGHT THE BLOAT “For the last week you have to cut out all dairy, gluten and legumes,” Saladino says. Foods like these contain allergens, which will cause you to bloat and retain water – not a good move when you’re trying to make sure your abs are popping at the end of a week. 3) GET A MASSAGE To look good, you have to feel good,

according to Saladino. When you’re stressed out, cortisol – a hormone produced by the adrenal gland that spikes in high-stress situations – can negatively impact your bloodsugar levels, halting your body’s fat-burning ability. “You want to feel relaxed throughout this final week,” says Saladino, who suggests meditation, sleeping seven to nine hours and getting a sports massage to improve circulation, put you in a good mood and keep your hormones in check. 4) TIME YOUR CARBS “Save your carbs for after your workout and before bed,” says Saladino. “Stick with vegies and lean protein in the morning so your blood sugar doesn’t spike, which stops your body from using fat for fuel.” Consume the bulk of your carbs after your workout so those carbs are put to use, and then another 20 to 30 grams at night for a better quality night’s rest. 5) CUT THE FAT “A lot of people are talking about high-fat diets nowadays, which are fine. But if you want to get extra lean, extra fat isn’t going to help,” says Saladino. Fat packs nine calories per gram, so eat only grilled chicken and white fish as your fat sources during this week. JUNE 2017

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2017 RO C K H A R D C H A L L E NG E PA RT I I

Hamme er curll

WEEK 8 DELOAD

CIRCUIT

DIRECTIONS: perform all main lifts

at 75% intensity

DAY 1 EXERCISE

Back squat

SETS

REPS

EXERCISE

3

5

Step--up

CIRCUIT DIRECTIONS: for Round 1, use weight for five reps; for Round 2, complete 10 reps with your body weight. EXERCISE

DIRECTIONS: complete three rounds of eight reps for each exercise, with no rest between exercises.

SETS

EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

DB bench press

Deadlift

3

5

One-arm DB row CIRCUIT

FINISHER DIRECTIONS: complete 10 reps of each exercise for four rounds. No rest between rounds.

Pull-up Hanging leg raise

DAY 3

Pull-up

REPS

Dip

Hold a d dumbbell in eac ch hand, with your palms facing yo our y. Squeeze body. ee your ur shou ulder ether an blades toge nd curl one dumbbell up p, allow wing your avel slig elbow to tra ghtly in front of your body y. Curl until the weight touches your shoulder, and then slowly lower.

DIRECTIONS: complete three rounds of eight reps for each exercise, with no rest between exercises or rounds. EXERCISE

Hammer curl

Battle ropes

TRX push-up

Walking lunge

Kettlebell swing

Lateral raise

TRX row

Tate press

DAY 2 EXERCISE

Overhead press 64

SETS

REPS

3

5

MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

TRX pike TRX pendulum

Jump rope*

5

3 min

*Alternate 15 seconds hard, 45 slow.

GROOMING BY CHRISTIE CAIOLA

EXERCISE

15 sec on, 15 off

REPS

Barbell row

Back raise 10

SETS

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THENINEBEST EXERCISES YOU’RE NOT DOING > These muscle-building

moves have been absent from your workouts for too long — maybe forever. It’s time to be reintroduced.

B Y J O E W U E B B E N /// P H O T O G R A P H S B Y P A V E L Y T H J A L L

SOMETIMES THE BEST exercise is the one you’re not doing. And why is such a great move not part of your training? Probably for one of two reasons: 1) you don’t know it exists, or 2) it’s so challenging that you’d rather skip it and do something easier.

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The following nine exercises are ones we feel every physique-conscious guy should practise. Some you’ve heard of but are ignoring, and others are so unique, we bet they’ve never crossed your mind. Either way, it’s time to add these moves to your repertoire.

1 How to do it In a power rack, place the bar across your front deltoids with your forearms crossed in front of you and your hands gripping the bar. Unrack the bar, step back and begin the set with your feet about shoulderwidth apart and your elbows pointed straight ahead, not downwards. Keeping a slight arch in your lower back, squat over your heels, keeping your elbows up, until your thighs are parallel with the floor. Press up through your heels until your knees are extended but not locked out.

FRONT SQUAT

(LOWER BODY, CORE)

WHY YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT “Front squats have really helped my quad development, especially when I was preparing for the Ironman,” says six-time Mr Olympia winner Phil Heath. “Most people don’t do front squats because they’re uncomfortable and there are easier alternatives, but to really add size to the quads, they’re a must.”

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D O T H E SE E X E RC I SE S

THE OTHER EXERCISES YOU’RE NOT DOING 3. CRUSH-GRIP DUMBBELL BENCH PRESS (UPPER BODY)

2 How to do it Drape a neutral-grip cable rowing handle over a pull-up bar. Grasp the handle with both hands and start from a hanging position, arms fully extended. Pull your chest towards the handle while also lifting your hips up and letting your head travel back so that at the

top of the rep, your chest touches your hands and your torso is roughly parallel with the floor.

ARCHED-BACK PULL-UP

(UPPER BODY)

WHY YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT “This exercise involves both a vertical and horizontal pull from the upper body — most pulling moves involve only one or the other,” says Martin Rooney, the founder of trainingforwarriors.com. “It maximises core and abdominal recruitment. So the arched-back pull-up hits about as much total muscle as any lift.”

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WHY YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT

“ ‘Crushing’ the dumbbells together while slowing the tempo increases the tension across the chest, shoulders, triceps, and upper back,” says strength and conditioning coach Jim Smith. “More time under tension will immediately increase the muscle-building and natural hormonerelease effect.” HOW TO DO IT

Lie back on a flat bench with dumbbells over your chest and arms extended, with the insides of the dumbbells touching. As you lower the weights towards your chest, press them together as hard as possible. When they reach your chest, lift the weights back up, still pressing them together. Keep the rep speed slow.

D O T H E SE E X E RC I SE S

4. WIDE-GRIP UPRIGHT ROW (UPPER BODY)

WHY YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT

Wide-grip upright rows can be a great deltoid builder if used correctly, says trainer and bodybuilder Justin Grinnell. “Doing them with the wider grip will take the traps out of the movement,” he says, “and you’ll hit the delts better than you would if you were using a narrow grip.” But if you have shoulder impingement issues, proceed with caution.

OVERHEAD SQUAT

(WHOLE BODY)

WHY YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT “The overhead squat is not an exercise you should be skipping,” says CrossFit athlete Brian Strump. “It combines functional strength, flexibility, and core and shoulder stability. Thus, the overhead squat elicits a hormonal response that builds muscle and burns fat.”

5

HOW TO DO IT

Grip a barbell with a wider-than-shoulderwidth grip. With your knees slightly bent, pull the bar straight up your body, bending your elbows, until it reaches chest height. As you lift the bar, don’t let your shoulders shrug up; keep them depressed to maintain tension in the delts. Hold the contraction at the top for a one-count, then lower back down.

How to do it Grasp a relatively light Olympic barbell in a power rack with a very wide, overhand grip (AKA snatch grip), with your feet shoulderwidth apart, your back flat, and your chest out. Push press the bar overhead so you’re in a standing position, arms fully extended, shoulder blades squeezed together. The bar should be slightly behind your head, not directly over or in front of it. Maintaining

6. BICEPS LADDER

this bar position, slowly squat down as if sitting on a stool, keeping your chest out, until your thighs are parallel with the floor. Press through

(UPPER BODY)

WHY YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT

On top of the crazy pump you’ll get, the ladder has a host of other benefits.

your heels to stand back up to the start position. JUNE 2017

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D O T H E SE E X E RC I SE S

“The biceps ladder is a great mass builder,” says industry expert Dr Jim Stoppani. “First, it allows you to go heavier than you could with standard curls [by using your own body weight]. Second, you’re focusing on the negative of each rep, which will further stimulate growth. And finally, the ‘ladder’ aspect of the lift functions like a dropset, increasing your total number of reps to maximise blood flow to the biceps. One trip up the ladder and your biceps will be screaming.”

7

HOW TO DO IT

How to do it Sit on a low-back seat or bench and hold an EZ-curl bar overhead with your arms extended and an underhand grip (palms and forearms facing behind you) inside shoulder width. Keeping your upper arms stationary and your elbows in tight, bend your arms to slowly lower the bar until your elbows reach 90 degrees of flexion. Contract your

triceps to extend your elbows to full lockout at the top.

SEATED REVERSEGRIP OVERHEAD TRICEPS EXTENSION

8. (TRICEPS)

WHY YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT “The long head of the triceps tends to get neglected,” says strength coach Ray Wetterlund. “It responds best to heavy loads and overhead movements, which people often leave out. This is why, when it comes to the long head, the seated overhead extension is my go-to move.”

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Set a bar in a power rack or Smith machine just above arm’s length from the floor. Grab the bar with a shoulderwidth underhand grip, with your body hanging underneath it in a straight line from head to toe. Starting with your arms fully extended, curl yourself up as high as possible, bringing your forehead to the bar. Do as many reps as you can, then raise the bar one setting and repeat. Keep raising the bar until you reach failure.

SEATED ROTATION (LOWER BODY, CORE)

WHY YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT

“Life and sport happen in the transverse plane, like when you put on

D O T H E SE E X E RC I SE S

How to do it

your seat belt or swing a bat,” says celebrity trainer Gunnar Peterson. “You need to train that way in the gym. Keep crunching, but add in some side-to-side rotation to do everything better.”

Stand with feet hip- to shoulder-width apart, holding a relatively light barbell across your upper traps. Keeping your back flat and knees slightly bent, slowly bend your hips back to lower your torso towards the floor. When your torso is parallel with the floor, reverse the motion to return to the standing position.

HOW TO DO IT

Sit on the floor, holding a weight or medicine ball with both hands in front of you, elbows slightly bent. Start with your knees bent 90 degrees and feet on the floor. (Advanced trainees can raise their feet off the floor.) Rotate the weight from one hip to the other in a continuous side-toside motion, following the weight with your eyes and allowing your shoulders to rotate. Try to keep your legs from swaying side to side. It’s not just difficult in terms of coordination, but it will also give your stabilising muscles a ton of extra work.

9 GOOD MORNING

WHY YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT “Good mornings target the larger posterior chain muscles [glutes, hamstrings and paraspinals],” says bodybuilder Guillermo Escalante, “which can help you improve your strength in lifts like the deadlift and squat, as well as decrease your risk of lower-back injury.”

DAY 1

JUST DO IT

UPPER BODY EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

3–4

8–10

Barbell bentover row

3–4

8–10

Arched-back pull-up

3

6

Crush-grip dumbbell bench press SUPERSET WITH

SUPERSET WITH

Incline barbell press

3

6

3–4

10–12

Seated reverse-grip overhead triceps extension

4

10–12

Biceps ladder

1

Up the ladder to failure

Wide-grip upright row

(LOWER BODY, CORE)

Want to get after these nine great exercises all at once? Try this upper-body/lower-body two-day split for a full-body blitz your muscles will never see coming.

DAY 2

LOWER BODY + CORE EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

Overhead squat Good morning Lying or seated leg curl Seated rotation

4 3 3 3 3–4

6–8 8–10 10–12 12 15–20

Hanging leg raise

3–4

12

Front squat

JUNE 2017

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YOUR PERFECTBODY GAME PLAN

> The nine most sought-after

male physique attributes — chiselled V-cut abs, the bulging triceps “horseshoe”, the above-the-knee “teardrop,” among others — and how any man can finally achieve them.

BY PETER KOCH /// PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARIUS BUGGE

LET’S NOT KID EACH OTHER: as much as we hit the gym to feel awesome, live longer, compete with our mates, relieve stress and, of course, have a damn good time slinging giant pieces of steel, it doesn’t hurt that working out makes us look good, too. Which means that, if you’re a bloke seeking to round out your sex appeal, you’re probably more than familiar with all the coveted (admittedly superficial) physical attributes that constitute a “perfect male physique” — the ones even hardcore gym rats have trouble achieving. These include the well-defined arm “horseshoe” (see: Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter), ridiculously chiselled V-cut abs (see: Brad Pitt in Fight Club) and the giant wingspan of a well-carved upper back (see: Hugh Jackman in any film in which he sprouts metallic claws). So, with the help of some of the world’s best trainers, strength coaches and strongmen, we’ve laid out in exhaustive detail everything it takes to achieve them. If you’d love a physique even Michelangelo’s David would be envious of, we’d advise you to start here. JUNE 2017

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BU I L D T H E PE R F E C T B ODY

GOAL NO.1

THE TAPERED

TORSO ● “YOU CAN DO ALL the gym work in the world,” says strength and conditioning coach Zach EvenEsh, “but if your body’s covered by a layer of fat, nobody will know.” Which is why getting yourself on a strict, clean diet – with the right balance of proteins, fats and carbs – is the key to transforming your flabby torso into a perfectly cut, tapered midsection. But how do you do it? “The first order of business is to get your maths in order, and that means calculating what your overall calorie intake needs to be,” says sports nutritionist and strength coach C.J. Murphy. So if pure fat loss is your goal, you need to be ingesting roughly eight to 12 calories per 500g of your body weight per training day, depending on how active you are and how much fat you need to shed. If you’re already fairly lean and you just want sharper muscular definition, you’re allowed 12 to 15 calories per 500g of body weight. (Though, start on the low end and see how it goes.) So if you’re a 100-kilo guy looking to get lean, you’re looking at roughly a 2000-calorie-a-day diet. And Murphy recommends a simple high-protein carb-cycling program, with which you eat more carbohydrates on your strengthtraining days and less on days off, creating a caloric deficit that torches fat. So let’s start with strengthtraining days. First, you’ll need lots of lean protein. “That includes anything that swims, runs or flies,” says Murphy. Meaning: steak, chicken, fish, turkey and beef mince. Eggs and protein powder are good, too. As a rule of thumb, Murphy calculates 74

MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

When eating to get lean, it’s best to confine your carb intake to pre- and post-workout or the evening.

meats at 7 grams of protein per 30 grams. “Different foods have different values, yes, but if you’re eating a wide variety of meats you’ll still be in the ballpark.” All told, that means roughly 1g of protein per 500g of body weight (at 4 calories per gram). Then there are carbs: sweet and white potatoes, white rice and fruit are all good carbs to power your workouts. Those carbs should make up 35-45 percent of your daily calories, calculated at 4 calories per gram. The remainder of your calories each day can be made up of vegetables and healthy fats, like nuts, nut butters, olive oil and avocado. (Calculate fats at 9 calories per gram.) On non-strength-training days,

you should cut carbs up to 50 percent and increase fat to 20-30 percent of total calories to help fill you up, reduce hunger pangs, and increase your likelihood of sticking to it. And remember: timing is important, too. “Earn your carbs,” says Murphy, who suggests ingesting carbs directly pre- and post-workout. Also, save the bulk of your offday carbs for the evening, which prevents you from bingeing at night and gives you a little more energy (in the form of stored glycogen) to carry into the next morning. “Carb cycling isn’t the only way to put on lean muscle mass, but it’s the simplest,” Murphy says. “It’s easy, and it’s hard to screw up.”

BU I L D T H E PE R F E C T B ODY

GOAL NO.2 BROADEN YOUR

CHEST

● NOBODY LIKES a chicken chest. If you want to project an image of strength and power, a broad, chiselled chest is one of the oldest, most time-honoured ways of doing it. But there are better ways to build pecs than the bench press. “The bench does work the chest,” Murphy says, “but it also works a bunch of secondary muscles, like the deltoids and triceps among others.” With these other exercises added to your once-a-week pec workout, you’ll have a “chest you can balance a beer on” in no time. Murphy first suggests the under-

rated decline dumbbell press. “It activates more pec fibres than any other exercise,” he says. “It’s almost all pec because the range of motion is so short that your delts and triceps don’t do a ton of work.” The angle also allows you to use heavier weights, which equates to more work and a bigger chest. (Use a weight that allows 10 to 12 reps on your first set, perform five sets, pushing each one until you’re one rep shy of failure.) Then it’s on to flyes. Murphy advises using bands or chains to put less wear and tear on the shoulders. (When the weight unloads as you go down on chain flyes, your shoulders will be safer at the bottom and you’ll get a more powerful pec contraction at the shoulder.) With bands, you can loop an exercise band around each hand and behind your back

GOAL NO.3 GET THE TRICEPS

HORSESHOE ● NEWS FLASH: biceps may be cool, but triceps make up the bulk of the upper arms. Growing big arms and – even more impressive, carving out a detailed triceps horseshoe – means working every part of the muscle. “You need to make sure you hit all three heads of the muscle – long, medial and lateral,” says trainer Noah Bryant. “While you can’t completely isolate them, you can do exercises that emphasise each one.” Add these three moves to your routine as much as twice per week – on chest day and shoulder day. The first exercise, which hits your triceps’ “long head,” is the EZ-curl bar French press. To do it, sit on a bench and grasp the EZcurl bar with a pronated grip. Start with straight arms and the bar directly overhead. Lower the bar by bending at the elbows. Go as far as

The triceps muscle has three “heads”: long, medial and lateral. The lateral is key to the horseshoe.

you can while keeping your back, neck and upper arms straight and perpendicular to the ground. It’s important to perform the full range of motion if you want better results. Slowly return the weight to the overhead starting position. Then the triceps dip is Bryant’s top choice for hitting this deepdown part of the triceps. Set up on

before picking up dumbbells. (Do four sets of 15 to 20 reps.) Finally, “dips are like the squat for the upper body,” says Murphy. “They’re a great way to increase pec mass.” They press the muscles fully and also hit stabilising lats and abs hard when done with proper technique. (Perform 50 dips in as few sets as possible.) But to really stimulate growth, try suspension trainer flyes, which utilise full-body tension. “Plus, it’s done from an angle that you hardly ever use when doing presses,” Murphy says, “which creates a new stimulus that causes your nervous system and muscles to work differently.” To do it, maintain a strong plank position through each flye. Perform 40 total in as few sets as possible, with your body at a 45-degree angle.

a dip bar as you would for normal dips, only this time you’ll keep your body straight up and down (perpendicular to the ground) and your feet under you rather than crossed behind. Lower yourself until your forearm and upper arm make a 90-degree angle, then push back up. To hit the lateral head, Bryant suggests straight-bar cable pushdowns. “The lateral head is the one most responsible for the ‘horseshoe’ shape of the triceps,” Bryant says. “Working it is extremely important to get that look.” Any movement that pushes weight down will hit the lateral head, which runs on the outside of the arm, but this is his favourite. Start with the bar about chest level, your elbows in tight to your body and your upper arms pointing straight down to the ground. Keep your elbows tucked tightly in to your body and push the bar down while keeping your upper arms static. Feel your triceps moving the weight – and your horseshoe getting more and more cut. JUNE 2017

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Performing strongmanstyle carries works more than just your grip – they hit your whole body.

GOAL NO.4 GROW YOUR

GLUTES ● TO REALLY FILL OUT A PAIR of jeans with an amazing rear, coach and personal trainer Lee Boyce put together this stand-alone workout you should add to your routine up to two days a week. Stick with the order described here – from most isolated to most dynamic – so you start with the heavier lifts. That way your body will recruit more fast-twitch fibres, which is key to building strength. But a few ground rules to ensure you’re doing them right: 1) Always maintain a neutral spine, and don’t round or arch your back; 2) Press through your heels; 3) Make sure your hips are always the pivot point; 4) Start light, and make small progressions. First: the barbell hip thrust, a building-block exercise that helps train the hip-hinge movement without having to coordinate other joints for an effective workout. To do it, sit on the floor and roll a loaded barbell into your lap. Lie back with your shoulders against a bench, bend your knees and plant your feet on the floor. Then drive through your heels so you raise your hips off the floor to full extension. Next: sumo deadlift, a deadlift variation that uses a wider stance – with toes rotated further out – to better activate the glutes. Be sure to use a narrow grip (inside your legs), push your hips back and lean slightly forward to grab the barbell. Keep the barbell close to your body as you lower it back down. Finish with the dumbbell step-up, which works the posterior chain even harder. Start by standing behind a bench that brings your thigh parallel to the floor when your foot is on top. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and step up onto the bench, but leave your trailing leg hanging off. Return to the starting position. 76

MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

GOAL NO.5 GET A WIDE UPPER

BACK

● A STRONG, WIDE UPPER back doesn’t just look great, says Jeb Stuart Johnston, a US-based Strongman. It opens up your shoulders and improves posture. You stand taller and appear more confident. To get there, Johnston recommends hitting the upper back with some of the same full-body functional movements that are central to Strongman competitions. Loaded carries force every muscle in the body to work together to lift and stabilise heavy odd objects, and much of the load is placed on the upper back. They also provide tremendous cardiovascular benefits. “Any of these would be great as a finisher on back day,” he says, “or try pairing them with sled pulls and car pushes to make your own ‘Strongman Saturday’.” The first is the farmer’s walk, a Strongman staple that works the whole body, developing powerful legs and hips, increased core strength and grip strength, in addition to making your back stronger and more stable. To do it, simply grab the heaviest dumbbells or kettlebells you can comfortably carry (half your body weight in each hand is a good starting point) and do it. “Also, nothing taxes your posterior chain and your lungs quite like sandbag carries for distance,” says Johnston. “Simply pick up your sandbag and walk for as long as you can without dropping it.” Finally, there’s the snatch-grip deadlift, a deadlift that puts you at a mechanical disadvantage with a wide grip that engages the lats and rear deltoids and keeps them engaged. To do it, set up as you would for a regular deadlift, but take an extra-wide grip on the bar. Always lower in a controlled manner, keeping the back flat through the entirety of the movement.

GOAL NO. 6 GET WELL-DEFINED V-CUT

G R O O M I N G BY M AT T H E W T U O Z Z O L I /AT E L I E R M A N A G E M E N T U S I N G D I O R H O M M E .

ABS

● EVER SINCE CELEBRITIES started showing off those V-shaped cut lines that start below their abs and disappear into their pants, girls have been lusting after them and guys gunning for them. Even if you have six-pack abs, though, the V itself is very hard to sculpt for one simple reason — it’s not a muscle. “The V is formed by the inguinal ligaments,” says personal trainer Ryan George, “and that’s hard to build.” We all have inguinal ligaments, which originate from the hip and run into the pubic region, but most of us have a layer of fat covering it. “If you really want the V-cut to be prominent,” George says, “more important than anything is eating clean so you can achieve really low body fat.” We’re talking eight percent (for help with that, refer back to No. 1). That’s the bad news. The good news is that there are exercises that target the obliques and transversus abdominis that can indirectly engage it and cause it to grow more defined. For this George recommends the cable woodchop because it engages the obliques and is a functional movement; the seated medicine ball trunk rotation, which also targets the obliques and – bonus – can be done anywhere, no machines required; and, finally, the kettlebell windmill, which engages the entire trunk. In the case of the kettlebell windmill, remember to start with a wide straddle stance and aim to touch your toes with your free hand while keeping that kettlebell up to the sky the entire time. Repeat these three exercises 12 to 15 times, then start the circuit over. Perform three rounds two to three times a week, taking care to rest your core in between to up your chances of carving out your V-cut.

It takes more than crunches for rippling abs. You need to attack them from multiple angles with a barrage of exercises.

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GOAL NO.7 BUILD BIGGER

BICEPS Hammer curls work the arm’s underlying muscles to make them look fuller, bigger and veinier.

GOAL NO.8 TEASE OUT YOUR

TEARDROP ● THE VMO, OR VASTUS medialis oblique, is the most impressive leg muscle to define, if only because it’s the only quad muscle visible when you’re rocking boardshorts. Located in your lower quad, a fully developed VMO not only creates a teardrop-shaped cut just above your knee, but it also acts as an important stabiliser that guards the joint against injury. For his part, trainer Nick Tumminello recommends focusing on exercises that hit the entire quads hard. “If you develop the quads overall,” says the trainer and founder of Performance University, “you’ll get the coveted teardrop.” Mix these exercises into your 78

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● THEY MAY NOT BE the most functional muscles you need to grow, says Murphy, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to look great at the beach. Here are three moves to add to your routine twice a week. The first is the towel pull-up. Drape two towels evenly over a pull-up bar, take hold of both ends (palms facing each other), and perform pull-ups. You’ll activate a ton of muscle fibres with this and because the towels are thick and you have to constantly squeeze them, yyou’lll also smoke your forearms and develop an iron grip ip. Peerform 50 total pull-ups in as few sets as possible. mer curls are also an outstanding exercise “H Hamm for biicepss growth,” Murphy says. “Everybody focuses fo on th he bicceps brachii – or the biceps itself – but the brach b hialiis runs beneath the biceps and hammer curls work k thee brachialis in particular. A bigger brachialis pu ushess the biceps up further, making them appear biggeer.” Working the brachioradialis also increases the b sizze of the forearm, which makes the arm appear more full. Using a weight that allows 10 to 12 reps on your first set, perform five sets in total, pushing each one until you’re one rep shy of failure. Finally, work in some barbell chain curls. The chains make the lift more difficult at the bottom of the exercise, and lighten as you curl up. This allows you to overload your biceps with more weight. Do five sets of eight to 10 reps.

regularly scheduled leg workouts once a week for a teardrop that would make any pro cyclist jealous. Start with the leg extension, Tumminello says, “which complements squats and lunges because it loads the quads in part of the joint range you don’t get from those movements.” When you’re standing at the top of a squat or lunge and your knees are extended, you’re not getting any force through your quads, but the leg-extension machine keeps the tension on through the entire range. Expert tip: you can work the quads harder by elevating your heels with 2.5-kilogram plates during squats. Set up as you would for a normal squat, only elevate your heels 2.5-5 centimetres using the weight plates. Bend your knees and lower your body in a controlled manner until your hamstrings touch your calves and your glutes are below your knees, then return to starting position.

BU I L D T H E PE R F E C T B ODY

Lunges are one way to attack the vastus medialis muscle.

GOAL NO.9 GET BOLDER

SHOULDERS ● SCULPTING

THE PERFECT V-taper physique starts at the shoulders, which means training your deltoids and traps. “Shoulders that are round and powerful looking give the impression that your body is built for performance,” says Even-Esh. But getting there can be difficult, he contends, especially if you’re doing the same old lifts day in and day out. “The body adapts and doesn’t feel challenged, limiting new muscle

growth.” For a fresh set of shoulder exercises, try these three exercises that attack the delts from all angles and build strength and endurance both concentrically and isometrically. (Note: once a week is plenty.) First, there’s running the rack side raises, a simple way to overload the deltoids. Start with a light pair of dumbbells and perform three reps of side raises. Go to the next pair of dumbbells for three reps and continue “running the rack”, climbing up in weight until you can no longer perform three reps with perfect form. From there, reverse order and work your way back down the rack to where you started. If you can do more than two sets, Even-Esh says, then you didn’t push hard enough. Then he suggests the dumbbell overhead carry, which challenges your shoulders, abs and upper back isometrically. Lock the dumbbells (or kettlebells) overhead with arms completely straight, engage your abs and walk slowly for 15 metres. Start off with three or four sets at this length, and slowly increase the distance to 20 and 30 metres per set. It’s great for adding size and strength to your shoulders and traps. Lastly, you should do the dumbbell press 21s, which hit the shoulders through various angles while maintaining constant muscle tension. To do it, perform seven reps at a time from each of these ranges of motion – bottom half, top half and full range. Start with very light weights and press seven reps from your shoulders to the midway of full extension. Then press seven reps from midway to full lockout. Then do seven reps of fullrange overhead presses. Two or three sets should be enough to blast your shoulders.

Boost your performance, too! We’ve compiled the most coveted fitness performance feats for the modern man, from a blazing race time to bench-pressing 1.5 times your weight. Here’s how to get there. SPEED RUN A KAY FASTER 1) Head for the hills Hill sprints are a great way to develop explosive leg strength and the endurance you need to redline it for the finish line. Find a steep, 100-metre-long hill, sprint up it and jog back down. Repeat six to 10 times. 2) Intervals The best way to cut seconds off of your time is with intervals. Head to a local track for sprints – 12x200m, 10x400m, 8x600m are good options – and break them up with 200 to 400m of slow jogging.

3) Leg lifts Strengthen your quads, calves, hips and butt to get faster and make your body more resilient against the pounding of fast running. POWER TOUCH THE RIM 1) Body-weight squats They make you stronger and because they mimic the crouch position of the jump, they’re great practice. Graduate to jump squats. 2) Calf raises Shaq did them every night before bed when he was in college, and his vertical leap increased by 20cm.

Aim for a big number – say, 400 – and break it up into sets. 3) Jump rope Jumping rope hits the same muscles recruited for your vertical leap. Incorporate it into your training two to three days a week, continually increasing the length of the session. ENDURANCE DO 20 PULL-UPS 1) Elastic bands Loop an elastic band around the top of a pull-up bar and place your foot in it. That’ll help you to knock out more reps than you otherwise could.

2) Negative pull-ups Focus on the lowering portion rather than the lift. Find a low bar and jump up so your chest is near bar level, then slowly lower yourself. 3) Forced reps When your muscles are on fire, have a training partner help you crank out two to three more reps. You’ll overload your muscles, forcing greater growth. STRENGTH BENCH-PRESS 1.5 TIMES YOUR WEIGHT 1) Pull the bar apart As you lower the bar, squeeze your shoulder blades together and try JUNE 2017

to “pull the bar apart”, then maintain this tension while you push for more force. 2) Vary grip width Alternating among wide, narrow and normal grips allows you to focus on both prime mover and supporting muscles, which can help you break through sticking points. 3) Superset with bentover rows Beef up your lats, which are key to moving the bar, as they act as a spring and provide a bigger base for you to press off of, with bentover rows between bench-press sets.

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BEYOUR BEST

> Think you qualify as a “fit” guy?

In the all-important categories of strength, flexibility, conditioning and sheer power, how do you stack up to the average man? Well, read on — because we’ve assembled the ultimate self-examination so youu can find out once and for all BY BILL BRADLEY // PHOTOGRAPHS BY

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R

O

GET A GRIP The farmer’s carry is a remarkable indicator of your body’s total strength.

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T N E S S T E S T S H A V E B E E N A R O U N D F O R A G E S — F R O M T H E L A U G H A B LY E A S Y

(touch your toes, anyone?) to the downright dangerous. But in the past couple of years, these evaluators of endurance and strength have become increasingly hardcore: Australia’s Special Air Service Regiment’s “selection” involves three weeks of relentless physical hardship tantamount to torture, including starvation and sleep deprivation. All of this got us thinking: why should you have to enlist in Australia’s most elite fighting force (or miss out on a good night’s kip) just to take a fitness test? After all, what better way is there to gauge your head-to-toe physical capabilities – and discover the areas you need to work on – than putting yourself through a thorough, exhausting examination? So, with the help of several top trainers, we assembled the definitive baseline fitness test: if you can complete this, then congratulations, you’re fit as hell. Here’s how it works: in each of four categories – strength, flexibility, conditioning and power – we’ve laid out one or two simple exercise challenges. (For best results, complete each category on a separate day, or at least enough hours apart that your abilities aren’t compromised.) If you pass, you’re a badarse – though you’ll definitely want to check out our instructions for taking your fitness to an even higher level. If you fail, don’t sweat it: we’ll tell you what to do to get your body up to par. Think you’ll make the grade? Well, get a good night’s sleep, because you’re about to find out.

F I T N E S S T E S T C AT E G O R Y 1 : S T R E N G T H

Know your own strength A S A N Y T R A I N E R W I L L tell you, there are many different kinds of strength: explosive strength, relative strength, maximum strength and so on. But for the purposes of this test, we’re singling out grip strength. And that doesn’t mean just a strong handshake. The act of gripping really heavy things engages muscle systems far beyond just your fingertips and shoulders. “It’s one of the best predictors of total strength,” says Stefan Underwood, one of the top performance specialists at elite training centre Exos, workout home to everyone from US football stars to Chinese athletes training for the Olympics. Underwood knows strength first-hand, having personally worked with more than 20 professional footballers as well as special-operations army personnel and top basketball, ice hockey and baseball players.

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Want to know how strong you are, given your relative size and body mass? Read on. THE TEST

Farmer’s carry using either kettlebells or dumbbells, carry 75% of your body weight – half in each hand, with your arms fully extended out from your sides – and walk. Note: technique is crucial here. You want to go at a rhythmic, slow, controlled pace. It’s about reaching the finish line, not racing there. “You need to have a very proud chest as you go,” says Underwood. “Remember when you were a pimply-faced kid walking down the hall in high school, and that one hot girl walked by, how you’d pump up your chest? You stand tall, you pull your shoulders down and back, you HOW TO DO IT:

stand at attention – that’s your form for the farmer’s carry.” G O A L : cover 75 metres in 90 seconds. T H E R E S U LT S

IF YOU PASSED: congrats! You have the baseline general strength to go and build more brute strength and work harder on your explosive power. Of course, lifting heavier things is one way to get better: slowly and intelligently progressing yourself towards fewer reps and heavier weight, swapping out your 3x10

“Grip strength is one of the best predictors of total strength.”

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sets for 5x5. Go get ’em. You’ll also be ready to build up muscular endurance, which is best achieved with squats. So feel free to load up 85% of your max for three sets of five reps. But instead of racking the weight between sets, stand with the bar on your back for 30 seconds. It’s more “time under tension”, pushing your muscles into unfamiliar territory, recruiting the bigger muscle groups required to stay standing (legs, shoulders, core, spine). And when your body is gassed, add in three sets of five 75cm box jumps – with five seconds’ rest in between each jump and 30 seconds between sets – to help develop more explosive strength. IF YOU FAILED: it’s time to build a proper foundation using classic exercises. “It’s back to basic moves” – bench presses, pull-ups, squats, weighted sit-ups – “not weird shit,” says Will Lanier of Barry’s Bootcamp in the US. As a former CrossFit trainer who can casually land a 142cm box jump, he should know. Gradually move to pull-ups: do two to five each day for a week; then, four days a week, grab the gym’s pull-up assist bands and do five reps with the thinnest band, three with a medium thickness then three with the thickest. “Ensure that you reach a dead hang at the bottom and that your chin passes the bar at the top,” says Lanier. “You won’t get stronger by performing with crap form.” After the pull-ups, work in three sets of 15 weighted sit-ups, starting with 5 kilos and slowly upping the weight each week. Oh, and one surefire way to build up your strength when you’re not at the gym: do 10 pushups every time you need to use the toilet. And no, don’t do them in the bathroom – find a place you can do them in the office, after you’ve used the bathroom (and washed your hands...) JUNE 2017

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KNOW SQUAT To do it right, keep your toes 5cm from the wall. F I T N E S S T E S T C AT E G O R Y 2 : F L E X I B I L I T Y

Stretch yourself F L E X I B I L I T Y I S A B O U T more than just touching your toes. Rather, it’s the ability to control your entire range of motion, whether you’re loading a squat or holding the yoga warrior pose. Having great flexibility is one of the most important building blocks to achieve great, wellrounded fitness. So remember: you may poke fun at your mate who skips leg day, but you should never let a bro miss his flexibility work.

G O A L : squat without touching the wall with your hands.

Active straight-leg raise lie flat on your back in a doorway, positioned with the doorjamb halfway between your kneecap and hip. Pointing your toe and keeping your leg fully straight, lift one leg as high as you can. G O A L : get your ankle through the doorway. HOW TO DO IT:

T H E R E S U LT S THE TEST

Overhead squat stand facing a wall with your toes 5cm away from it, raise your arms overhead and do an unweighted squat.

HOW TO DO IT:

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I F Y O U P A S S E D : “The guy who can do these easily – bang! He knocks it out, drops arse to grass, and doesn’t touch the wall – has the requisite flexibility to train heavier,” says Underwood, so start working on

Olympic lifts and doing plyometric work, which will make you more explosive. But it’s important to remember: the more you lift, the more your body craves flexibility work. “New muscle fibres aren’t automatically as flexible,” Lanier says, so you need to maintain your baseline flexibility. “It’s up to you to make sure you maintain your bendy bobcat pretzelness while tackling heavier loads and time under tension.” That doesn’t mean you have to go to Bikram yoga three days a week, but you should work some reverse lunges, side planks, deep and full body-weight squats and foam rolling into your daily routine. It won’t take much time – seriously, no more than seven minutes – but it’ll launch you to new heights in the weight room. IF YOU FAILED: you might be the strongest dude in the gym, but without flexibility, you’re on the express train to Injury-ville. Without proper flexibility and a full range of motion, you’re throwing your entire body – from your calves and feet to lats and lower back – out of whack. “First step: stop chasing heavier weight,” says Underwood. Decrease the weight 10% on all your lifts, and focus on the mechanics of your movement, achieving a full range of motion and maintaining proper posture for each lift. We suggest doing 10 Cossack squats five days a week, to build strength and mobility: stand with your feet very wide apart; turn your left foot out so the back of the heel is on the floor and the toes are pointed up. Now squat on your right leg, keeping the right foot glued to the floor; repeat with the other leg; that’s one rep. Keep your back flat – never let it curve at the bottom. After two weeks, add kettlebells, holding them close to your chest.

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F I T N E S S T E S T C AT E G O R Y 3 : C O N D I T I O N I N G

Climb your way to the top Y O U D O N ’ T H A V E to run a marathon to prove you’ve got some kick-arse endurance. Think of conditioning as real-world functional fitness – how your body supplies energy efficiently to meet the demands of everyday activities, whether it’s playing with your nephew in the park or just strolling through the city. THE TEST

Max aerobic speed assessment hit the gym and tackle US pro basketballer LeBron James’ favourite total-body, vertical climbing machine, the VersaClimber, or visit your local footy stadium and find a section with 40 to 50 rows of seats. G O A L : climb 250 metres on the Versa in under five minutes, or sprint to the top of the stadium seven times (and back down) in under five minutes. HOW TO DO IT:

T H E R E S U LT S

IF YOU PASSED: you’re in such good shape that the challenge now is refining the rest of your body – ie, building explosive strength and increasing grip strength – without sacrificing your conditioning. That’s why you need to add this timed HIIT workout to your routine once a week. It will continue building muscular endurance and boosting your conditioning:

The finetuned HIIT workout Do this sequence five times, as fast as you can:

■ 20 kettlebell swings ■ 15 weighted step-ups (50cm) ■ 10 burpees over bar or lateral jump over kettlebell

it means you’re struggling with muscular and cardiovascular fatigue, in which case body-weight intervals are your only way to go. Do this to get yourself up to speed:

The baseline HIIT workout 10 minutes each, as many reps as possible:

■ 12 burpees ■ 12 plyo box jumps (50cm) ■ 12 walking lunges

I F YO U FA I L E D :

The VersaClimber is a fantastic full-body workout for strength and conditioning.

STAIR MASTER Sprinting stairs is one of the best HIIT workouts there is. A N O T H E R G R E A T M E T H O D : hit up a stairwell and go as hard as you can for five minutes. Then take your total distance travelled and divide it by 300 seconds: Congratulations – that’s your lactate threshold. Now be sure to work at 85-95% of that same pace during any cardio session to ensure you’re becoming a well-conditioned beast.

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F I T N E S S T E S T C AT E G O R Y 4 : P O W E R

Leap ahead

GO ALL IN The old-fashioned long jump is the greatest way to discover your raw power.

T H E B E S T W A Y to size yourself up against other dudes in terms of raw power is with an old track-and-field event: the long jump. While strength translates to moving more weight, power helps you move it quickly and forcefully – and the two are not mutually exclusive. The long jump, which requires elements of both strength and power, is the purest test of that. THE TEST

Long jump H O W T O D O I T : stand with your toes on a line. Pick a target in front of you and jump towards it, throwing your arms back and quickly bringing them forward to propel you. “Pretend you’re skiing and you’re digging your poles into the powder,” says Underwood, who worked with US football player Byron Jones before he set the world record in the long jump at 12'3" (373.38cm) during the 2015 NFL Combine. G O A L : to jump 1.8 to 2.5 metres, measured to where the back of your heels land.

T H E R E S U LT S

well, you’re not winning Olympic Gold just yet, but you’ve got some pretty damn good power. But now it’s time to work on unilateral strength. Start by performing three sets of eight pistol squats three days a week, then gradually add more weight. Also, perform three sets of 10 single-leg deadlifts. These will work your core, back and shoulders while improving your balance at the same time.

I F YO U PA S S E D :

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I F Y O U F A I L E D : you need to work on producing power from your hips to help move your body forward. Try modified kettlebell swings with more weight: hike the kettlebell behind you between your legs, then stand with force, coming to a full extension of knees and hips and squeezing your glutes so the bell pops up to hip height. Do 10 sets of 10, three days a week.

Joe Holder, a Nike trainer and performance specialist at S10 Training in New York, US, likes shocking the central nervous system after heavy lifting to improve power. “Think going from a heavy bench press right into a medicine ball pass,” says Holder, a former football player. “Or going from the squat right into a few high-quality squat jumps.”

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C A F F E INE

“BAD” FAT S

H Y DR AT ION

SODIUM

“GOOD” FAT S

CONTEST PREP Facts, tips & myths BY MARK GILBERT

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BE READY EARLY One thing to be noted right off the bat is that peak week cannot get a physique that is four weeks out, looking ripped and well-conditioned in a week. In fact, especially in lessexperienced competitors, I suggest that clients should be virtually “show ready” 14 days out, and this is where the first controversy rears its ugly head. Many coaches simply put the show date in their diary and attempt to get their client to peak on that date. This is fine for experienced competitors, but for those who haven’t been through the process before, it can be a recipe for disaster. The best thing to do is, for the two weekends before the show, try some “practice runs”. So, pretend the show is on the Saturday and go through your full peak week prep (except the tan) and record everything you do and how your body responds. If you were fuller after a Saturday night pig-out, 90

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then you didn’t eat enough carbs and/ or fat. If you looked better the day before, then you overdid it. Doing practice runs allows you to identify where you went wrong and correct it. Being ready two weeks out means that the results you get from these practice runs will be more valid and applicable to what will happen on the big day. Also, being ready early means many guys can actually make gains in muscularity and fullness, without gaining fat in the days leading up to the show!

DEPLETION/ REPLETION Depletion and repletion is the process of substantially burning off most of your muscle glycogen (the sugar stored in muscles that is used for energy) and then restoring it. This technique is the most important and fundamental part of peak week. The concept came from one of the oldest

proven sports nutrition techniques — carb loading. Many decades ago, scientists realised that by removing most carbs from athlete’s diets and having them do exhaustive exercise, followed by re-introducing lots of carbs they would hold onto more total carbs (as glycogen) and this would top up their fuel tank, allowing them to out-perform other athletes. Well, more glycogen doesn’t just improve energy storage, it also fills out muscles. You see, each gram of carbs that is stored brings with it almost three grams of water and more water and carbs in the muscle equals a bigger, fuller muscle that will hold a better pump! The best way for a physique athlete to use this strategy in peak week is the following: Depletion training Between 7 and 4 days from competition, do three workouts — Day 1: upper body; Day 2: lower

ALL IMAGES: ISTOCKPHOTO

ith so many people doing contests and photo shoots these days, and so many different opinions on the best strategies to put the finishing touches on your physique in that crucial last week, in this article, I’m going to look at all of the different controversial “peak week” practices and get to the bottom of which ones work best, which ones don’t work and which ones work for some people and not others. “Peak week” is that last week or so before a physique contest (or photo shoot, pool party, etc), during which you can make that last 5-10% improvement and even lose a little more fat. There are several well-accepted strategies, like depletion/repletion (which includes “carbing up”) and there are several controversial practices around salt/sodium intake, water/hydration, etc and then there are several little tricks which various coaches use. I’ll be looking at all of these and giving you my thoughts on their effectiveness (or not). Beyond the time-tested strategies, some others are complete myths and the rest may work for some people but not others and must be implemented in the correct way or they can backfire and sabotage all of the hard work and discipline you’ve put in.

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body; Day 3: upper body. Do sets of 12 to 30 reps with very short rest periods. Aim for up to 50 sets with 30-45 seconds between each. The first half of each of these training sessions should be using “compound movements” (exercises which use multiple muscle groups simultaneously — squat, leg press, deadlifts, rows, pull-downs, chest and shoulder presses, etc) then you can move to the isolation exercises. This depletion workout is brutal and exhausting when carb-depleted but has excellent effects. Depletion diet From day 7 to day 4 — if the competition is on a Saturday — cut your carbs to 50 grams or fewer on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday… Congrats, you’ll now be in ketosis! Repletion (“carb up”) Wednesday, Thursday and Friday progressively increase your carbs. A good place to start is by eating your normal, average dieting amount of carbs on Wednesday, 50% more on Thursday and then add another 50% more carbs on Friday. However, this depends very much on how lean you are, if you were eating an appropriate amount of carbs during your diet, how much muscle you carry and most importantly, your genetic carb sensitivity — some people can eat double this amount and many need less. Then eat a level of carbs on contest day, every 2-3 hours, that is appropriate depending upon whether you look/feel flat or feel full. Of course, you should have a good idea of the ideal amount of “repletion” carbs based upon your practice runs.

CARB REQUIREMENTS SHOULD NOT BE BASED ON BODY TYPE Some coaches wrongly oversimplify who can handle carbs and who can’t. Many state that ectomorphs (prone to being skinny) and mesomorphs

(prone to being muscular) can handle more carbs than endomorphs (prone to carry more fat). This is not correct. An ectomorph who has lived an unhealthy lifestyle or who has an unfortunate genetic profile can have poorer insulin function than an endomorph. As such, you have to undergo a lot of trial and error and careful observation (or get a gene test — I suggest FitnessGenes but I’m biased as I am a co-owner) to determine your ideal carb intake.

FAT, YES FAT! Also, eat at least 0.6 grams of fat per kilo of your body weight on Wednesday, at least 0.8 grams per kg on Thursday and at least 1 gram per kilo on Friday (assuming the show/ shoot is on Saturday) evening. Most coaches don’t consider the acute effects of fat on muscle but you can carry a substantial amount of fat in muscles (as “intramuscular triglycerides”) and this (like the extra

carbs) makes them bigger and fuller. Additionally (and no one else seems to have figured this out yet), fat (which is mainly consumed as triglycerides) contains glycerol, which is notorious for drawing water into the blood — and more blood volume in a lean individual means vascularity! Also, more water in the circulation probably means less under the skin, where it blurs definition. Good sources of fat are coconut oil, peanut butter, olive oil and milk chocolate… And don’t worry, if your diet and training has been solid, that fat will go straight into the muscle and not under the skin. In fact, this is one reason why most guys say that they look better on the Sunday after 24 hours of pizzas, burgers and cheesecake!

PROTEIN Don’t decrease protein intake at any time. Protein helps hold water within the bloodstream, thus preventing it from going where you don’t want it!

R E D W INE If you have a normal or high tolerance for alcohol, drink one to two glasses the night before and drink a glass or two in the two to four hours pre-contest. This will remove excess water and further improve vascularity.

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A SPA R AGU S Have about 12 medium to large spears the night before — fried in a bit of butter is best.

WATER/HYDRATION MANIPULATION As we’ve already touched on, we want water to be retained in the muscle and not under the skin (subcutaneous). Since glycogen can only be stored in the muscle when accompanied by almost three times its weight in water, that water has to come from somewhere. By following the depletion diet and training protocols, you’ve created a huge demand for carbs/glycogen (an active male can store up to 500 grams or even more) and that’s where the repletion carbs you eat are going to go. In this scenario, if you restrict water, theoretically your body should suck water away from other parts of the body (like subcutaneous stores) so it can top up the urgently needed glycogen. The question is, how much should you restrict water to get the balance 92

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right? The answer is, again, trial and error and practice runs. More and more competitors these days only moderately restrict water and many of them come in ripped to the bone. Others, probably still the majority, restrict water quite a bit in the last day or two. Some take it so far as to barely have any liquid (or none) in the 24 hours before hitting the stage — this is almost certainly not necessary, puts a large stress on the kidneys and could be dangerous or in extreme cases, even fatal. Of course, the larger competitive bodybuilders who use various pharmaceutical agents can experience unwanted water retention due to complex hormonal fluctuations and may have to go to extremes of water manipulation. I could write an article (maybe even a book) on this alone, so it is beyond the scope of this article, but suffice it to say that cutting water dramatically is probably not necessary – even for the drug-enhanced physique guys. Just find an intake that works for you.

SALT/SODIUM First off (for ease of conversion between the two) 40% of salt is sodium. I’m going to refer to sodium in this article because it is the molecule which actually has the water-altering effects. Sodium intake needs to be considered in parallel with water and carb intake and this is the most controversial and complex topic of them all. I have yet to read or hear any coach or “expert” properly explain sodium’s effects in physique athletes. In fact, no one has even come close (it is probably my work in fitness genetics over the last several years that has pointed me in the right direction on this). The fact is, the way sodium affects the body is governed by genetics — changes in sodium intake have very little effect in some people and substantial effects in others. It is also strongly influenced by potassium intake. This is another topic I could write an article on (actually, I have), so I’ll just touch on the basics here. There is a gene called ACE (among others), which determines if you are affected by higher sodium and lower potassium intake. If big changes in sodium intake don’t seem to make any difference to your physique, then congratulations, you’re probably in this category and there is no reason to change your intakes as long as you have a good diet and/or supplementation (you could do an experiment and get your blood pressure tested after sodium restriction and then again after

CON T E ST PR E P

“ B A D ” FAT S If your diet and training has been solid, fat will go straight into the muscle and not under the skin. In fact, this is one reason why most guys say that they look better on the Sunday after 24-hours of pizzas, burgers and cheesecake! having a high-sodium diet for several days and if there is little change, this will confirm your suspicions). For the sodium sensitive types, the first course of action should be to figure out your potassium intake (approximately) from food and try to ensure that it is between 4.5 and 6 grams per day. Just getting your potassium right will improve your water balance and ensure that sodium fluctuations can’t cause such dramatic shifts in water retention. If you are going to mess with your sodium intake, potassium intake should be somewhat lower when your sodium intake is low and higher when your sodium intake is high. You see, just as with low or inadequate sodium intake, too much potassium triggers an increase in the hormone aldosterone, which signals the kidneys to hold onto sodium and water — exactly what you are trying

to avoid. So extreme manipulations in these two crucial electrolytes can be counterproductive!

OTHER TIPS AND TRICKS 1. Sweet potatoes These are extremely high in potassium and yet contain almost no sodium. 2. Glycerol Use 4 tablespoons 2 hours before pre-judging and before contest time. This stuff can really help fill out muscles and increase vascularity. 3. Caffeine Have 200 to 600mg in the four to six hours before — depending upon your tolerance. Tablets are best. This will have a mild diuretic effect making you look harder. 4. Red wine If you have a normal or high tolerance for alcohol, drink one to two glasses the night before and drink a glass or two in the two to four hours pre-contest. This will remove

excess water and further improve vascularity. 5. Vitamin C Take 1000mg every four hours for the last 12 hours. This may have mild diuretic effects. Ensure you’ve used it before as it can cause diarrhoea. 6. Lipoic acid Probably not very useful for lean, fit competitors who already have very good insulin function. 7. Dark chocolate Have 30 to 50 grams, two to three hours before the shoot and no, don’t worry about the fat and sugar content. Dark chocolate is one of the most potent vasodilators you can get and it will make you look fuller and more vascular — go for a chocolate that is at least 85% cocoa... and no, milk chocolate doesn’t work. 8. Asparagus Have about 12 medium to large spears the night before — fried in a bit of butter is best. 9. Do NOT add any “new” foods which you haven’t tried before in the last three days. Avoid wheat but rice, sugar, chocolate, sports drinks, potatoes and sweet potatoes are good choices. 10. Rest Lie down, try to sleep or at least clear your mind and stay relaxed on contest day! Virtually everyone looks harder and leaner in the morning. So there you have it — effective strategies, how to implement them, new info that hasn’t been touched on before, a few myths busted and the top 10 tips to squeeze a little bit more leanness and muscularity out of your hat in your final prep. Good luck!

MARK GILBERT is an expert in sports nutrition and has worked with elite level athletes and formulated supps for many of the industry’s biggest companies. See the MuscleDiet YouTube channel for more information.

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THE CLASSIC S E E PAG E 9 7

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DON’T FEAR THE

PIZZA

> A cheese-and-sauce-covered pie can be healthy?

Damn straight it can — and we’ve proved it with these four cleaner, leaner versions that will satisfy your cravings but keep you looking and feeling great. B Y C A N D I C E K U M A I /// P H O T O G R A P H S BY TRAVIS RATHBONE

G

REAT PIZZA DOESN’T have to be a greasy mess of fatty ingredients and empty calories. In fact, with the right toppings – nutritional powerhouses like kale, sweet potato, rocket and almonds – you can rest assured that you’re fuelling your body with the things it needs to build muscle, boost immunity, improve overall health and even burn fat. Here we’ve raised the bar, developing healthy, delicious pizzas you can make right at home in a matter of minutes: Whip up the protein-packed Kale-Bacon Pizza to refuel after a workout, or bust out the Sweet Potato & Sautéed Mushroom Pizza to really impress at your next date night in. Got leftovers? Pizza holds great overnight, so take it to work the next day. And it even freezes well, making it the perfect go-to dinner grab. Bottom line: you’ll never look at pizza the same way again.

D ON'T F E A R T H E PI Z Z A

SUN-DRIED TOMATO & PROSCIUTTO PESTO FL ATBREAD SERVES 8

WHAT’S HEALTHY ABOUT IT

Antioxidant-packed sun-dried tomatoes, plus a megaboost of vita mins A, C and K in the form of kale and almonds in the pesto, make this superfood pizza a guilt-free comfort food. Enjoy it post-workout, and get a natural protein kick from the prosciutto and almond pesto.

■ Presto pesto. Double your batch of pesto and try tossing it with pasta, using it to top off toast or mixing vegetables in it prior to roasting.

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D ON'T F E A R T H E PI Z Z A

KALE- ALMOND PESTO

1½ cups curly kale ½ cup raw almonds 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped ½ tsp sea salt 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice PIZZA

500g store-bought pizza dough 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil ¼ tsp sea salt ½ cup homemade kale-almond pesto (above) 6 slices high-quality prosciutto, torn 2 roma tomatoes, thinly sliced 1 cup rocket 1 cup finely grated mozzarella FOR THE PESTO

1. Place kale, almonds, garlic and sea salt into a food processor or blender and pulse to combine until the ingredients are somewhat mealy. 2. Gradually add olive oil in a steady stream until the mixture is finely chopped yet still has texture, about 1 minute. Pulse in lemon juice and adjust the seasoning to taste. Put aside ¾ cup to use. Store any extra pesto in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.

THE CLASSIC SERVES 4–6

WHAT’S HEALTHY ABOUT IT

This incredibly easy-to-make classic pizza has less saturated fat and calories than takeaway.

FOR THE PIZZA

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. 2. Transfer dough to a large baking tray and brush crust with olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt. Place in the oven and pre-bake for about 8 minutes. Remove from oven. 3. Spread ¾ cup kale pesto on top of crust. Add prosciutto slices, roma tomatoes and rocket and top with mozzarella. Place back in the oven on the middle rack and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

F O OD S T Y L IN G BY M AT T VOHR

THE MACROS

401

5g

CALORIES

PROTEIN

63g

15g

CARBS

FAT

500g store-bought pizza dough (regular or gluten-free) 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil ¼ tsp sea salt, divided ¾ cup organic, low-sugar tomato-based pasta sauce ¾ cup high-quality mozzarella cheese 2 tsp dried oregano ¼ tsp chilli flakes ¼ cup fresh basil leaves (optional) 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes (optional) 1. Preheat oven to 200°C; set pizza dough out at room temp for about 20 minutes. 2. Sprinkle a clean work surface with flour; roll dough into a 1½cm-flat, 25 to

30cm round or rectangle. Place it on a baking try or in a cast-iron pan, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with ¹/8 tsp salt. 3. Place dough in oven and pre-bake for about 10 minutes, then remove. Top pizza with pasta sauce, mozzarella and oregano, and bake on the middle rack for 12 to 15 more minutes. 4. Remove from oven and sprinkle with remaining sea salt and chilli flakes, plus basil and sun-dried tomatoes if desired.

THE MACROS

462

33g

63g

10g

CALORIES

PROTEIN

CARBS

FAT

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D ON'T F E A R T H E PI Z Z A

KALEBACON PIZZA SERVES 4–6

500g store-bought pizza dough 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil ¼ tsp sea salt, divided 4 slices organic bacon, cut into 2.5cm pieces ½ red or brown onion, finely diced 2 cups finely chopped curly kale 1 cup organic tomato-based pasta sauce 1 cup shredded skim mozzarella cheese 1 egg

SWEET P O TAT O & SAUTÉED MUSHROOM PIZZA

SWEET POTATO PERFECTION

Sweet potato contains fibre, vitamins A, C and B6 and even protein. Some of these nutrients are found in its skin, so try leaving it on when making your purée.

SERVES 8

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided 1 medium onion, thinly sliced 2 cups thinly sliced cremini or button mushrooms 500g store-bought pizza dough Sea salt, to taste 1½ cups sweet potato purée (use leftover mashed sweet potatoes, or boil 2 large sweet potatoes — roughly chopped, skin on — until soft and blend until smooth) 115g shredded mozzarella 1 cup rocket Balsamic vinegar, to finish 1. Preheat oven to 220°C. 2. Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a large frypan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 10 minutes. Add in sliced mushrooms and sauté for an additional 10 minutes. 98

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3. On a clean work surface, roll out pizza dough and place it on a large baking tray or pizza stone. Brush dough with remaining 1 tbsp olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Pre-bake for about 5 minutes or until golden brown; remove from the oven. 4. To top crust: using a large spoon, spread the base of pizza with sweet potato purée and sautéed onions and mushrooms and top with cheese. Place back in the oven on the middle rack for 10 to 12 more minutes, until dough is crisp and cooked through. Remove from oven, sprinkle with rocket and balsamic vinegar and serve hot.

1. Preheat oven to 200°C and set pizza dough out at room temperature for about 20 minutes. 2. On a clean work surface with a touch of flour, roll out pizza dough into a 1½cm flat, 25 to 30cm round. Place it on a large baking sheet or pizza stone, or in a round cast-iron pan. Brush dough with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt, then pre-bake for about 5 minutes. 3. In a large frypan over medium heat, add bacon and cook until crisp; set aside to drain on paper towels. Add diced onion to the pan and cook until softened, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Add chopped kale to the pan and cook until wilted, about 2 minutes. 4. Top pizza with pasta sauce, mozzarella and sautéed kale and onions. Bake in the oven on the middle rack for 12 to 14 minutes. 5. Two to 4 minutes before pizza is ready, crack egg on top and bake until crust is crisp and egg is slightly cooked. Remove from the oven, cool slightly and serve.

THE MACROS

401

5g

CALORIES

PROTEIN

63g

15g

CARBS

FAT

THE MACROS

462

33g

63g

10g

CALORIES

PROTEIN

CARBS

FAT

D ON'T F E A R T H E PI Z Z A

WHAT’S HEALTHY ABOUT IT

Mouth-watering bacon and eggs on a pizza? Hell, yeah! Even with kale sautéed in bacon fat and mozzarella on top, this homemade pizza still packs fewer calories and less fat per serving than takeaway. The trick to losing weight and saving calories this year? Cooking at home.

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THE > CHOCOLATE FOR

PERFORMANCE & HEALTH? BY MARK GILBERT

IN MOST PEOPLE’S MINDS, chocolate is still typically thought of as the “king” of unhealthy snacks and a guilty pleasure that should be minimised or omitted from the diet. And to be fair, when we look at its basic nutrient profile, this attitude may seem to make sense. After all, it is primarily composed of sugar and saturated fat. However, it seems that, as with many foods and nutrients, beliefs about chocolate have ignored its complex make-up. In fact, it seems that the humble cocoa bean from which chocolate is made has more than a few tricks up its sleeve... JUNE 2017

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C HO COL AT E FOR PE R FOR M A NC E A N D H E A LT H

DARK CHOCOLATE It’s the wonder stuff. Dark chocolate is packed with good things like minerals and antioxidants, and eating it can make your life better – and not just because it tastes so damn good. Chocolate consumption has links to better memory, improved cognitive and cardiac function and a reduced risk of stroke. According to a study in the Journal of the American Diabetes Association, dark chocolate contains phenethylamine, a compound shown to release the same endorphins triggered by sex. Antioxidant-rich chocolate is also known to stimulate dopamine production. One Finnish study even found that chocolate reduced stress in expectant mothers, and babies of chocolate-eating parents smiled more than the offspring of their boring, nonchoc-eating counterparts. This dark, chocolatey goodness can even help to protect your skin from sun damage, although we don’t recommend skipping the sunscreen for a block of Old Gold.

I have been following the story of cocoa for quite some time. Around the turn of the century, research began to emerge that cocoa had benefits on cholesterol and antioxidant activity. Since then, it has shown favourable effects on blood flow, then insulin and more recently brain function, inflammation and, most importantly for readers of this magazine, improvements in performance, muscle strength and recovery. It may even help to decrease body fat and probably has multiple other advantages for exercisers. These days, it isn’t hard to find sports supplements which contain cocoa or its extracts but I think I was (among?) the first to include high-flavanol cocoa in a pre-workout product formulation several years ago. I included it mainly because it increases levels of our old friend, nitric oxide

might have health benefits emerged when scientists studied its content of polyphenols – these are just natural chemicals which occur in plants. One of these is a type of flavanol called a “catechin”. You may be familiar with a similar catechin found in tea, called “epigallocatechin gallate” or EGCG – this is the one which is responsible for its fat loss effects. Similar constituents are found in red wine and these are thought to be responsible for its health benefits. Anyhow, in the late 1990s it was discovered that dark chocolate had a four times greater concentration of these flavanols as compared to tea, and subsequent studies have shown it is also a four times more concentrated source than wine. So really, what we have here is a potential superfood! But are there any actual benefits to humans?

COCOA HAS NOW BEEN SHOWN IN ABOUT A DOZEN STUDIES TO INCREASE PERFORMANCE. (“NO”) – the naturally-produced gas in the body that dilates blood vessels and has benefits on muscle growth, hormones and exercise performance, but I suspected it had other benefits too. In the following, I’m going to look at these multiple benefits and also advise on some important guidelines on how to properly use cocoa so that its effects are not reduced or diminished.

How does chocolate work? Well, the first hints that chocolate 102

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Nitric oxide (NO) I was a senior R&D scientist on the first ever nitric oxide product to be sold in the sports nutrition market (U.S. Patent: 6784209) and at that time, there was only “suggestive” research that NO helps with the building and repair of muscle and also perhaps with fat loss and exercise performance. But the research on the positive associations with all of the major anabolic hormones and blood flow were solid. So with NO, we were pretty confident we were on to a winner. For several years

C HO COL AT E FOR PE R FOR M A NC E A N D H E A LT H

after formulating that product, “experts” and “gurus” were posting comments and writing articles saying that NO may “seem” to work “in theory” but it is just a scam. Well, they don’t say that any more because the research in real humans is now pretty air tight. The great thing about cocoa is that it is such a potent stimulator of NO, it would be surprising if it didn’t have these effects. Also, again, due to the complex chemical composition of cocoa, it seems to have other effects beyond that of just boosting NO and some of those effects seem to work in concert with NO to increase the overall benefits of its effects.

Exercise performance OK, I’ll start with the juicy part first. Cocoa has now been shown in about a dozen studies to increase performance. Many of these were cycling time trial performances in which the subjects cycle for a prolonged time at a steady pace and then do a very intense time trial to see how far they can cycle in a given time. Although this isn’t the same type of physiological stress as weight training activity, it is a very intense muscular effort when in a depleted state and so it is reasonable to assume that if cocoa can help improve the performance of cyclists in a maximum intensity effort, it can help guys lifting intensely in the gym. Other performance studies have demonstrated that cocoa helps the body process oxygen

more efficiently, use glycogen and maintain blood sugar better, help regenerate mitochondria (the cell’s energy “powerhouses”), increase VO2 max, increase total work capacity, decrease muscle damage and improve blood flow. On top of these results in healthy individuals, cocoa also helps improve mobility and endurance in people with cardiovascular disease.

Muscle As I briefly alluded to, the “NO”, which is jacked up by cocoa is intimately associated with hormone function and also is involved in muscle growth, strength, damage and repair. Way back when we formulated the first NO product, we had

found evidence that it is involved in the release or function of the “big four” anabolic hormones – testosterone, IGF-1, growth hormone and insulin. We also found several studies going back to the early 1990s showing that nitric oxide is required to heal wounds and repair tissue. At the time, scientists believed that nitric oxide might soon be used to improve muscle mass in patients who are losing muscle due to disease. We also found a study showing that when NO was blocked, strength decreased and that when NO levels were boosted, strength was significantly increased. Furthermore, a human study showed a 15 percent increase in force production in the muscle from boosting NO! Two other studies showed that NO was almost certainly directly involved in building and repairing muscle tissue also. Add this to the fact that studies on other NOenhancing nutrients have shown benefits on strength and number of reps in things like bench press and other lifts and this makes a pretty compelling case for cocoa! More recent studies have shown that NO is a key signal produced by muscle loading, which stimulates an increase in mTOR signalling (the primary path which stimulates the musclebuilding process, protein synthesis). If that wasn’t enough, a recent study on cocoa found that when subjects consumed it, they had lower levels of cortisol, catecholamines and other biological markers of stress! So for those guys hitting it really hard in the gym, there could be some additional benefit.

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C HO COL AT E FOR PE R FOR M A NC E A N D H E A LT H

Fat Several studies have documented an influence of cocoa on fat and carbohydrate metabolism, as well as on appetite. A fairly recent review of research, conducted at Queen Margaret University, UK, concluded that cocoa influences the expression of certain genes involved in fat production in the body and that it probably also influences hunger. For instance, when dark chocolate was compared to milk chocolate, it was found that the dark variety resulted in less hunger. Again, all of this is consistent with studies that show desirable effects of NO on fat metabolism. However, with chocolate, some of the possible fat loss effects may be as a result of its rich mineral content. It is rarely reported that cocoa is a concentrated source of several minerals, including magnesium (which is often found to be deficient in people’s diets), copper, manganese, iron and phosphorus. Increased phosphorus intake has recently been shown to decrease body fat in obese individuals.

Other effects Now, many astute readers may already be aware of some of these benefits but there are some other fascinating effects of cocoa and these include…

Cholesterol - HDL and LDL When it comes to protecting the heart and blood vessels from the damage caused by low HDL (“good” cholesterol) and high LDL (“bad” cholesterol), cocoa is hard to beat. It not only moderates the oxidation of LDL which is the process that leads to the narrowing of blood vessels, it also increases HDL cholesterol levels. This effect on HDL is especially important for 104

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the fairly significant proportion of gym-goers who use anabolic steroids, as these drugs seem to have their negative effects on the heart in large part by decreasing HDL. Also, probably part of this effect of keeping blood vessels clear of blockages is the reason behind chocolate’s apparent positive effects on the brain, such as improving cognitive function.

Protects major organs Beyond the effects on the heart and blood vessels, some research suggests it may help repair liver damage caused by poor lifestyle and being overweight. Believe it or not, a condition called nonalcoholic, fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is caused by too much eating and not enough exercise, now causes more incidences of liver disease than the abuse of alcohol. Well, it looks like dark chocolate can protect the liver from this condition. Similar to its protective effect on the liver, it seems to protect kidney function too. When compared to white chocolate (which doesn’t contain cocoa or polyphenols), consumption of dark chocolate resulted in significantly better measures of kidney function. And again, as with the effect of HDL cholesterol on the heart, steroid-using bros are at higher risk of liver and kidney disorders, so again, eating dark chocolate or some form of cocoa could be a healthy choice.

Type of cocoa is crucial! So cocoa clearly has great potential to improve performance, recovery and health but one of the most complex aspects

of cocoa is how it reacts when combined with different nutrients. Several studies suggest that if you consume it with certain foods, the benefits can be altered. As with the polyphenols in tea (and possibly wine and berries, etc), some studies suggest that when you consume them with milk or other proteins or fats, they no longer deliver the goods, or at least they are delivered differently. On the other hand, some studies suggest benefits to combining them with milk proteins and this is an active area of research which is trying to deliver the maximum benefits of this superfood. The problem currently is that some studies suggesting that it is the casein from milk which may deactivate the effects but the effects of the polyphenols have also been reported to be reduced by milk fats. They also bind to components of whey protein but the consensus is that this may be a way to enhance some of cocoa’s effects. Therefore, until the science catches up and shows some definitive benefits, my best recommendation is that for the health benefits, you are probably fine to mix cocoa with whey protein but you should avoid casein, soy or fat. For the performance benefits, use dark chocolate (minimum 70% Cocoa – and no, milk chocolate doesn’t seem to have these effects) on its own or use powdered cocoa without any protein or fat. Finally, when choosing cocoa, try to go with a natural or “non-Dutchprocessed” or “non-alkalised” version and organic varieties may also be a better bet.

G N I V O M t r a t S

u o y e r a We d

TS U O K R O W 0 0 1 1, R E V O H T I W L TAKE CONTRO ANY TIME FITNESS APP * L A I R T ON THE E FR E Y A D 7 A H T I DW E T R A T S T E G D N J O I N I N - CL U B A

*Offer valid for first time guests who are local residents or workers 18 years & older only, however, 16 & 17 year olds may trial an “Approved Club” - see anytimefitness.com.au/approved-clubs (photo ID required). Offer subject to satisfactory completion of pre-exercise screening & to standard temporary/guest membership terms. Not valid with any other offers. Not redeemable for cash. Not transferrable. Limit 1 offer per person. Where the trial pass permits use outside staffed hours, a refundable deposit may be payable for an access card. Further provisions may apply. See Club for details. Offer expires 30/06/17.

TRICEPS

THE LEVELUP SERIES:

> Exhaust all three

triceps heads from multiple angles for maximal growth.

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DIP LEVEL UP DIFFERENCE: dips replace close-grip bench presses as the compound lift in this workout, as they still recruit all three heads. They’re placed second in the routine to ensure the muscles and joints (elbows and shoulders) are sufficiently warmed up. Keep your torso upright to emphasise the triceps over the chest.

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L EV E L U P: T R IC E P S

CABLE OVERHEAD EXTENSION LEVEL UP DIFFERENCE: using a cable instead of a dumbbell means you’ll be able to keep significant tension on the muscle – namely at the very top, where the squeeze with the elbows fully extended is crucial for maximal contraction and triceps growth. growth

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

training your biceps and triceps comes down to variety. While a healthy diet of curls, curls and more curls will be enough to add some size to your bis, developing a full pair of horseshoe tris that pop off the back of your arm requires you to target all three triceps heads – lateral, medial and the long head. This means trashing the muscle from all different angles, with an assortment of exercises and equipment. The workout on the next page utilises isolation and compound movements in the span of a brief but exhaustive 11-set triceps throw down. In the previously published “Straight Up” version of this routine, 108

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you had similar diversity. This time, though, the compound movement for triceps switches from close-grip bench presses to body-weight dips. The other three moves in the routine look

similar, though equipment and angles are altered to make sure your triceps don’t forget how to grow. With sufficient intensity, volume and variety, they will.

L EV E L U P: T R IC E P S

LYINGDUMBBELLTRICEPSEXTENSION

O P E N E R S P R E A D : S I M O N M C D E R M O T T-J O H N S O N . T H I S S P R E A D F R O M L E F T: M I C H A E L N E V E U X ; E D G A R A R T I G A ; M I C H A E L D A R T E R

LEVEL UP DIFFERENCE: subbing in dumbbells for a barbell places the hands in a neutral position, instead of a pronated grip, to hit the muscles from a different angle. If possible, do this exercise on a decline bench to increase tension on the triceps long head.

STRAIGHTUP EXERCISE

ONE-ARM CABLE REVERSE-GRIP PRESSDOWN LEVEL UP DIFFERENCE: Flipping your grip on pressdowns targets the hard-to-reach medial head of your triceps. If you can’t fully lock out, then lower the weight.

SETS

REPS

Lying triceps extension

3

8-12

Close-grip bench press

3

8-12

One-arm overhead dumbbell extension

3

8-12

Cable pressdown

3

8-12

LEVELUP EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

Lying dumbbell triceps extension

4

10

Dip

3

To failure*

Cable overhead extension

2

10-12

One-arm cable reverse-grip pressdown

2

8-10 **

*Rest-pause on your last set: after reaching failure, rest 10 to 15 seconds, then go to failure again. Repeat one or two more times. **Perform two dropsets on your last set, lightening the load 20% or so on each drop after reaching failure.

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THIS MONTH IN SUPPLEMENT NEWS

BATTLE READY

Investing in the right supp can help whether you’re looking to build muscle, sculpt a lean physique or maintain a healthy body.

Driven to perform Performix may be a newcomer to the industry, but it’s already built a reputation for providing high-quality sports nutrition. BY STEVE DOWNS inspiration in 2014 has quickly blossomed into a powerhouse brand driven by innovation and phenomenal results. This describes the meteoric rise of 110

MUSCLE & FITNESS JUNE 2017

sports nutrition company Performix. The US-based company catapulted into the industry based on performance and continues to advance because — as all great athletes and fitness

AUROR A PHOTOS/AL AMY

WHAT BEGAN AS AN

professionals will tell you — there’s always room to improve. The truest testament to the brand’s success is that it caters to multiple audiences with complete product lines. Whether the goal is to build bigger muscles, sculpt a leaner physique, increase athletic performance or maintain a healthy body and mind, Performix has you covered.

SUPP BIZ

FOR MORE INFORMATION

visit performixdriven.com

START YOUR JOURNEY TO GREATNESS

To meet the requirements of athletes, Performix created its foundational line of sports nutrition featuring formulas such as ION Pre-Workout with CarnoSyn beta-alanine, citrulline malate, creatine HCl, L-tyrosine, Advantra Z and betaine for greater muscularpower output, increased endurance before exhaustion, extended ATP regeneration and more calories burned. Pro Whey + sustained-release protein combines whey concentrate, isolate and hydrolysate with micellar casein to provide fast and extended-release protein to ensure that muscles keep growing, plus a Tri-Phase Amino Acid Profile packed with the essential BCAAs. And SST (Suspension Super Thermogenic) is chock full of advanced metabolismboosting compounds such as caffeine anhydrous, Advantra Z (citrus aurantium), yohimbine and huperzine, in addition to mucuna pruriens (to increase brain L-dopa levels for better focus) and the adaptogenic herb ashwagandha. This line also boasts PUMP Stim-Free Perpetual Pre-Workout with Nitrosigine, citrulline and agmatine sulfate, ISO 9:2:2 BCAAs, Super Male T testosterone booster and a carbon carbohydrate supplement. All in all, it has enough highly advanced products to help you build muscle, boost strength and eliminate fat.

BUILD UNRELENTING ENERGY

The v2X line takes the best of the core line of products and pushes

them into overdrive. Consider diving into a training session on an amped-up version of ION, with CarnoSyn beta-alanine, citrulline malate and other strength builders, plus caffeine. Then consider added TeaCrine and Alpha-GPC to combat fatigue and provide extra focus. SST, Super Male T and ISO 9:2:2 are also amped up under the v2X line.

SHARPEN YOUR MENTAL EDGE

For those who require a mental boost to get the most out of their workouts, the Iridium line is an excellent option. Here you are treated to SST, a more intelligent “cognitive priming” version of the legendary thermogenic that will keep your mind focused as you train to shed excess weight. The same goes for ISO Whey +, ISO 9:2:2 BCAAs, IONi PreWorkout and Super Male T.

REDEFINE WELLNESS

The Performix Lifestyle line includes an 8-hour time-release multi for both men and women, and time-release Sport CLA for mental clarity, fat metabolism and increased energy. It also features TPC time-release brain enhancement for better memory, retention and clarity. There’s even an Omega Sport product for joint recovery and enhanced recovery. In short, Performix has something to offer every type of athlete. To get the most out of each workout and spend your dollars wisely, Performix is the smart choice for advanced supplements that provide spectacular results.

SUPPS

GET SMART WHAT IS TERRA INTELLIGENT DOSING? One secret to Performix’s success is its exclusive Terra Intelligent Dosing Technology. This fuels a multiphase, extended release that disperses critical supplement compounds on a timed-release basis — called Terra Intelligent Dosing — for greater effectiveness. This technology wraps the terra target ingredient in a hydrophilic coat that acts as a carrier control pore to provide delayed-release functionality. This is further covered with an intelligent dispersion coating and finally encapsulated within a multicoating matrix pod. The four-stage timed release ensures continued dispersion of active ingredients to your working muscles, adrenal glands and brain, thereby causing the maximum ergogenic effect.

SELECT YOUR SUPP

Performix’s comprehensive supplement line has something for everyone. Products include: ISO 9:2:2 v2X, ION, Native ISO Whey +, SST and Men’s 8 HR Time-Release Multi.

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SUPPS

PRODUCT NEWS

R1 PROTEIN

WHEY PROTEIN

RULE 1 PROTEINS

GAT

Better input equals better output. With 100 percent whey protein isolate and whey protein hydrolysate, Rule 1 protein packs 25g protein and 6g BCAAs per serve. Contains zero fillers and zero concentrates, and is 100 percent instantised to ensure easy mixing, even in cold liquids. Spray-dried flavours mean deeper, richer flavours that don’t fade. ruleoneproteins.com

GAT’s Whey Protein taste is so outstanding you’re going to think it’s your favourite ice cream flavour. Each scoop is packed with 25g of fast-acting 100 percent premium whey protein blend isolate and whey concentrate that gets straight to work on your muscles. Provides 5g BCAAs from protein and comes in four delicious flavours: Rich Chocolate, Cookies & Cream, Coffee and Vanilla teamgat.com

PROTEIN MATRIX+ SALTED CARAMEL

GOLD STANDARD GAINER

BULK NUTRIENTS

OPTIMUM NUTRITION

Bulk Nutrients’ salted caramel flavour is the most enjoyable protein flavour you can buy without compromising on quality. Now Protein Matrix+ lovers can enjoy salted caramel without having to jump ship from their favourite protein blend. Bulk introduced the new flavour to the PM+ range so people who can only tolerate WPI are no longer limited on choice. bulknutrients.com.au

Offering a 2:1 ratio of carbohydrate energy to quality, primarily isolate, 55 grams of protein and good fats from flax and chia seed with added medium chain triglycerides, all at 760 calories. Available in Chocolate, Vanilla and Cookies & Cream. Banned substance tested and mixes to a smooth, non-clumpy, delicious shake. optimumnutrition.com

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THE 100 TH YEAR LIMITED EDITION D-MAX X-RUNNER It’s been a century in the making. Your once in a lifetime chance to own a piece of history. The 100th year Limited Edition D-MAX X-RUNNER is here. It’s packing a pumped up 3.0L turbo diesel engine, with 430Nm of torque and a 6-speed automatic transmission. Available in both Cosmic Black and Pearl White it’s loaded with features like a touchscreen display audio system, reversing camera, rear park assist, sports bar and tub liner plus much more. Make history yours at xrunner.com.au or visit your local Isuzu UTE dealer today.

5-star ANCAP safety rating on 4x4 D-MAX Crew Cab models built from November 2013 onwards, 4x2 D-MAX Crew Cab High Ride models built from November 2014 onwards. *Private and ABN holders only, excludes government, fleet, rental & non-profit buyers, includes one year business vehicle registration, CTP insurance, dealer delivery and statutory charges. Available while stocks last. Not available with other offers. ^5 years/130,000km whichever occurs first, for eligible customers. Excludes trays and accessories. >The Capped Price Servicing Program (“CPS Program”) applies to Eligible Vehicles with a Warranty Start Date on or after 1/1/15 at Participating Isuzu UTE Dealers only. The 5 years Capped Price Servicing covers the first 5 Scheduled Services for 16.5MY and later vehicle models for up to 5 years/50,000km (whichever occurs first). The 3 years Capped Price Servicing covers the first 6 Scheduled Services for vehicle models earlier than 16.5MY for up to 3 years/60,000km (whichever occurs first). CPS Program is subject to change. For full terms & conditions and current pricing visit isuzuute.com.au/service-plus.