Men's Health AU 09.2022_downmagaz.net

TACTICS in that movie, for me. So I have those flashes, He shared his diagnosis Steinberg says, “and I was where that face is looking at me [in a scene], with a Lebowski nod: new sceptical that it was realistic. and I’m like, ‘Oh my God – it’s that face’.” He’d never done TV. I was shit has come to light. fully aware that he was a Jon Steinberg remembers being a kid on guy who could do probably the floor of his parents’ bedroom, watching Thomas Perry novel about a loner retiree literally anything he wanted Bridges in King Kong and Tron a million who’s hiding a bloody and morally murky to do, and I felt like we times. He grew up to be a creator of TV shows covert-ops past. were going to be in line like Jericho and Black Sails. In 2017, the with 35 people trying to get producer Warren Littlefield approached “I think, almost right away, we started his attention.” Steinberg and his Black Sails partner Robert talking about [doing] Unforgiven in the Levine with a pitch for a series based on a spy genre – the opportunity to do what that Bridges is also, famously, movie did for westerns in the Bourne space,” very hard to book, for Steinberg says. “And that got really exciting.” anything. The question of whether or not to accept a The minute they started talking about particular piece of work fills who might play Dan Chase, the titular Old him with anxiety, even when Man, Bridges’s name was first on the list, the work is tempting. It’s said that the Coen brothers had to talk him into playing the Dude in The Big Lebowski, a part that’s now one of the pillars of his legend, and then when they wanted him for the John Wayne part in their remake of True Grit, they had to talk him into that, too. He even had to be wheedled into playing the whiskey-pickled country singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, the role he went on to win an Oscar for. “All of them,” he says, a little sheepish. “All of them. And this one’s no different. I resisted this a lot. I had a lot of good reasons not to do this.” But when Bridges hesitates, it’s usually for one big reason, whether it’s Jon Steinberg or the Coens or Marvel on the other end of the line: “The basic concern of, once you engage in this, you can’t engage in that – and you don’t even know what that is yet! But you know it’s going to take you away from your family, from music, from your art – all these other things you’re going to have to focus on less, if not at all.” So he resisted The Old Man, for a while, not because he wasn’t interested – he’d read the book and liked it – but because he was interested, and he knew he’d get sucked in, which is how he works. “Once you get hooked, it’s surrender,” he says, laughing a little. “Then it’s, Take me, eat me, have your way with me.” SEPTEMBER 2022 101

JEFF BRIDGES’ ROLES OVER THE YEARS THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, ’71 HEARTS OF THE WEST, ’75 KING KONG, ’76 THE FISHER KING, ’91 THE BIG LEBOWSKI, ’98 IRON MAN, ’08 SOMETIMES, BRIDGES SAYS, of the memory. “We’d be writing it in our with a stuntman and be in a life-or-death, MOVIEWEB.COM; IMDB.COM; FX NETWORKS trailers, and then all the guys from the studio knock-down-drag-out fight, and it’s all fully operating with that level of commitment would be there tapping their foot.” committed to.” can keep him from enjoying the work. He’s constantly having to remind himself of what But at first, he says, taking that now They’d shot four episodes and parts of his mum, Dorothy Bridges, used to say every unthinkably loosey-goosey approach to the a fifth when the pandemic shut down their time he went off to make a movie: “She would making of a massive tentpole superhero show along with pretty much every other say, ‘Remember, Jeff, have fun. And don’t take film was a source of huge anxiety, because show on earth. it too seriously.’ And I’d say, ‘Oh, fuck, I forgot. in order to work, he needs to commit, and in That’s right.’ ” order to commit, he needs to know what he’s In October 2020, the week they were committing to. Early on, he says, “I was really supposed to go back into production, It’s like when he played Robert Downey in a terrible state. Y’know I got to know what Brenneman heard Bridges was out with Jr.’s nemesis in Iron Man, released in 2008, I’m saying. What’s the script? I gotta know a sore back. “And the end of that week, he’s the film that launched a billion-dollar my lines, so I can prepare! And then I made got cancer,” she says. megafranchise, which has involved Bridges this little adjustment. Jeff, you’re making a not at all, because he died at the end of the $200 million student film. Relax and have He announced it later that month on first one. Or maybe he didn’t – Bridges some fun.” Twitter with a Lebowski reference: new isn’t sure. shit has come to light. He mentioned the That’s how it goes. Bridges resists and great doctors he’d been seeing and said his “In the script they gave me, they open the resists, and then when he gives in, he gives prognosis was good. But by that point, 2020 suit and the suit’s empty,” he says, “So who them everything. One day, Steinberg and had already been one of the bleakest, meanest knows? Maybe I’ll be – what was my name?” Levine got a call that Bridges wanted to do years in recent memory, a year of endless The Old Man, and then a few months later, injustice and unthinkable loss, and the idea Obadiah Stane. there he was on set, a 70-year-old man that it might end with the Dude dying of “Obadiah Stane,” he says. “Maybe shooting a brutal close-quarters knife fight fuckin’ cancer seemed depressingly on-brand. Obadiah Stane will come back, somehow.” in an overturned car. It was hard not to expect the worst. Honestly, he doesn’t sound hugely invested in whether this happens or not. But he was He didn’t do all his own stunts, of course, “I’ll give you a little of what that trip was happy with Iron Man as a finished product but according to Steinberg, “You’d be amazed like,” Bridges says today. – “I’m biased,” he says, “because I’m in it, but by what he did do. He did quite a bit. It was that’s my favourite superhero movie” – and he important to us that it feels honest, and a It went like this: sometime that summer, dug working with director Jon Favreau. lot of that solution was Jeff doing a lot of it, he’s exercising, stretched out on the floor “The way he worked with the suits, the fighting his way through it. He doesn’t half- in Santa Barbara. He rolls over and feels Marvel people, was amazing, because we arse anything, and [the knife-fight scene] is a something like a bone in his abdomen would show up not knowing what we were scene where he’s got to go to a really dark place where a bone shouldn’t be. His wife tells him going to shoot,” he says, getting a kick out to get to an emotional moment and a scene to go get it checked out, but it doesn’t hurt, where he’s got to roll around on the ground so instead they go through with a planned vacation – three months at the Bridges family’s place in Montana. 102 MEN’S HE ALTH

TRON, ’82 THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS, ’89 TEXASVILLE, ’90 TRUE GRIT, ’10 TRON: LEGACY, ’10 THE OLD MAN, ’22 “I’m sweating at night,” Bridges hell. The failed revolution” – and then he gets BUT THE DUDE SURVIVED. remembers, “but that’s because the nights a letter from the chemo-treatment centre, are hot. And my legs itched. Those are all telling him he’s been exposed to COVID. And He beat COVID as well as cancer. (“There’s symptoms of this lymphoma that I had – I that’s when things get really scary. still something in there,” he says today. “They didn’t realise that. But I was feeling great. don’t know if it’s scar tissue or whatever it is. Had no pain.” Chemotherapy, Bridges explains, “strips But I’m in remission.”) He went back to finish you of all your immune system. So the COVID shooting The Old Man, almost two years after He gets back to California about a week made my cancer look like a piece of cake. The completing the first four episodes – two years before he’s supposed to be back on set as Dan cancer never hurt. But the COVID, oh God. of seeing only masked faces, two years that Chase. Decides he’ll go to the doctor, see about Because I had nothing to fight it, and that was seemed like a weird dream. whatever’s going on in his abdomen. wild. I was on death’s door with the COVID. My wife would say, ‘How is he? He’s going I ask Bridges if he felt like a different “I get it checked out,” he says, “and they to live, isn’t he?’ And the doctor would say, person on the other side of all this, in any way tell me that I have a nine-by-twelve-inch ‘We’re doing the best we can’. It was that kind he can quantify. lymphomic mass in my stomach. Nine by of thing. They weren’t saying, ‘No, he’s going twelve! A huge fucking thing. Like a baby in to be okay’. ” “More the same,” he says after a second. my stomach, man.” “Deeper the same, rather than different. Maybe this is no big surprise, but Bridges Deeper the same.” So they call in the specialists. They start took a pretty Zen approach to the possibility him on chemo. The chemo does its thing. of his own death. He says he drew on Long before cancer and COVID, he’d Bridges feels sick, but he feels all right. He everything he’d learned from a lifetime of already done a fair amount of thinking, he feels as much love as a man’s ever felt, from spiritual practice, everything he’d learned says, about mortality, and the fact that he will everybody. He celebrates his 71st birthday in about letting go and not knowing and simply not be here forever. The book he’s carrying December 2020, him and 50 friends laughing bearing witness to a situation, which he around with him today is Four Thousand together one Zoom call, and it’s the best says sometimes put him at odds with the Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, by birthday he’s ever had. practitioners of Western medicine who were the British journalist Oliver Burkeman. Four treating his cancer. thousand weeks, Bridges explains, “is how Then it’s early 2021. Bridges goes in many weeks you got if you live to around 80. for another scan at the hospital in Santa “This one doctor,” Bridges says, That’s not too many, you know what I mean? Barbara and the news is good. The mass in his “would come up to me and say, ‘Jeff, And my buddy, he actually did the math – stomach, Bridges says, has “imploded down to you’ve got to fight, man. You’re not you’ll live to 76 with 4000 weeks. It’s a little this little thing the size of a marble.” He sends fighting. You gotta fight!’ And I said, less than 80.” joyful emails to Brenneman and Steinberg, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ grateful to the universe. I’m in surrender mode. I’m practising Burkeman’s big idea, contra to just about getting ready to die. If anything, my action everything anybody’s ever written about This is in January. As it happens, it’s would be closer to dancing – I’m dancing time management and productivity, is that January 6. Bridges is glued to the TV like with my death.” no matter how we optimise our lives, we will everybody else – “I’m watching the, what do you call it, the revolution or whatever the SEPTEMBER 2022 103

Bridges loves acting but also fractals, playing music and all his side projects. Shirt by All Saints; jeans by John Varvatos. never have enough time to meet the demands in front of you. We can miss the present. thing – it’s not only kids, it’s just a modern life places on us. Bridges opens the book, I say, ‘That’s not what I wanted. I want this thing to aspire to, which seems so bizarre. ‘I adjusts his glasses, reads out loud: and this and this and this’. And you miss what want to be an influencer when I grow up’. And you’re given. I want to be an influencer! Why not? That’s “ ‘The trouble with attempting to what I want to do. Make a difference.” master your time, it turns out, is that time “And it’s not like I’ve figured it out,” ends up mastering you’. I love that,” he says. he says. “I’m an anxious cat, man. I resist And then he’s off, swinging from vine life big-time.” to conversational vine, talking about Burkeman suggests that “the dictatorship Buckminster Fuller and the way flocks of of the clock, the schedule, and the Google In this moment, I’m feeling the birds and schools of fish change direction as Calendar alert . . . [makes] it all but impossible dictatorship of the clock myself. Bridges one big group, and that’s when Bridges says to to experience ‘deep time’, that sense of has to hit the road soon, and I’ve still got me, “You know about fractals?” timeless time, which depends on forgetting questions. I point out that on The Old Man, the abstract yardstick and plunging back he and John Lithgow’s character – a I say ‘Yeah’, tentatively, and Bridges, into the vividness of reality instead.” Bridges high-ranking government official whose sounding almost suspicious, says, “You’ve loves that idea, too. connection to Bridges’s Dan Chase goes way seen the fractals?” back – are both thinking about their legacies, “Clock time is relatively new,” he says. about how they’ll be remembered once their And I say, even more tentatively, that I’ve “Back in the feudal times, they didn’t have past actions come to light. I ask Bridges if he’s seen some fractals in my day, and Bridges clocks, man. It was a whole different thing, been thinking more about his legacy, given the says, “The latest kind of fractals?” And time. And we’re trying to jam in as much as events of the past few years. at that point I have to admit that I am not we can. We feel like we’re left out if we don’t really up on the latest advances in fractals, do this bucket list. And we miss what’s right “It’s so wild,” he says. “There’s this new and Bridges tells me to get out my laptop 104 MEN’S HE ALTH

TACTICS We feel like we’re left out Bridges says to me. “You married?” ifwe don’t do this bucket I am, I say. Bridges is, too – since 1977, list.And we miss what’s right in front of you  to Susan Geston, whom he met in Montana . . . the present in 1975 while shooting the movie Rancho Deluxe. It’s a good story. Geston had been and Google “hardest fractal”. And while happens. You think you know where it’s in a car accident, and on the day she met I’m digging the computer out of my bag, he’s going, right? Watch what your mind is doing Bridges, she had two black eyes and a broken explaining, “This guy Mandelbrot came up as you watch that. What’s the conversation nose. A makeup artist snapped a picture of with this formula, z equals z squared plus c. that you have with your mind as you watch it? the moment they met, and 10 years later he And when that diagram is made in a visual Pay attention. Look at the detail. Look at the sent it to Bridges. Bridges still carries it in his sense, it’s basically a window into infinity.” fucking detail, man.” wallet – a picture of a goofy young actor in a cowboy hat meeting a beautiful girl with a I can’t connect to the studio’s WiFi, so We’ve been looking at this for kind of a banged-up face. we end up elbow to elbow, me and Bridges, while, long enough that Bridges has forgotten watching computer-animated diagrams why he wanted to show me the fractals in “It was love at first sight,” Bridges says of fractals on the cracked screen of my the first place. And yet it’s all connected. We now. But even that wasn’t enough. “I resisted iPhone – kaleidoscopic geometric patterns, have, somehow, zoomed down to the root of marriage so much, man. I resisted getting evolving endlessly, as if we’re zooming Bridges’s anxiety. As much as he loves acting, married because it’s the same thing – it deeper and deeper into a universe as much as it fires him up, he also gets fired up takes you away from all the other things. All of microscopic particles. about fractals, and about playing music with the other chicks, man, and all these other his band, the Abiders, and about this company adventures that you don’t do. “See that first shape – that’s the initial he’s involved with that makes guitars out shape. Some call that the fingerprint of God. of sustainable wood, and when he resists “And I resisted, I resisted. And I said, If I Now just watch this for a second. Give it a engaging in this or that new acting project, he don’t marry this lady, I’ll spend my life – this couple of minutes before you get the whole gist does so “because I know it’s going to take me is my fear – I’ll spend my whole life saying, of it,” Bridges is saying. away from all my little side projects that I love That was the one, and I let that diamond slip so much. through my fingers in the sand. And finally “Just keep watching it. Watch what the caveat I gave myself, that allowed myself “So whatever I’m attracted to, I get” to get married, was: You can always get a – he mimes recoiling, makes a sound like divorce. I said, Okay. ” somebody’s showing him a snake. He shrugs. “Funny dynamic.” So they got married. And honeymooned in Hawaii. Bridges’s assistant is hovering. We have five minutes of clock time left. “So now we cut to the Seven Sacred Pools in Maui,” Bridges says, “and I’m just smelling “Let me just say this one thing,” the rotting mangoes and I’m pouting. Sue says, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘Nothing’. She goes, ‘Oh, let’s annul this. This is terrible’. I said, ‘No, no, no’. “And she put up with that pouting shit for three years and didn’t kick me to the curb, thank God. I finally got with the program and said, Oh no, she’s not trapping me. I got a gift, a wonderful gift, that I was questioning and didn’t want to accept. And now we’re celebrating our 45th wedding anniversary, man. Three kids, three grandkids.” Susan Bridges got exposed to COVID when Jeff did. “We shared an ambulance to the hospital. Oh, man,” Bridges says, sounding like there was still no place he’d rather be than right there with her, that it was somehow another gift from the universe, terrible and beautiful, all at the same time. alex pappademas is the host of the Big Hit Show podcast and the author of Keanu Reeves: Most Triumphant. SEPTEMBER 2022 105

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H E A LT H Pillow Talk: reframe your attitude to sleep so you don’t ‘stay woke’. For Shakespeare, sleep may have been “the main course in life’s feast” – but with irregular work hours, sleepless children and financial anxieties to contend with, too many of us are going without. Here, a panel of pros for whom a solid kip is paramount shares its tactics BY TOM WARD SEPTEMBER 2022 107

1 Get Ahead 3 Draw Up 6 Beat Of The Game A Schedule The Clock “Good sleep starts the “If you have a young family, moment you wake up,” a supportive partner is says Alastair Lockwood, important,” says Rajesh an ophthalmologist at Feel Nair, consultant urological “Checking the time can heighten anxiety about not being able to fall asleep,” explains Lockwood. “If you have a Good Contacts. “Light surgeon at St Thomas’ clock you can see from your bed, take it out of your room, or turn it around to face the wall.” Don’t underestimate the absorption during the day Hospital and Harley Street. ill effects of ambient lighting, either – the glow of a phone or clock, the flash of a passing car. Blackout blinds or an – both natural and artificial “I do complex operations eye mask are essential night-time items for Lockwood. – helps your body stay alert, that can last up to eight then increases the quality hours, so I need my sleep.” of your sleep.” Lockwood Nair suggests writing a advises breaking your desk weekly sleep plan. “It might shackles with a workout be Monday, Tuesday you’re or run, and buying a desk busy, but Wednesday your lamp with a daylight bulb schedule is lighter so it for the months when doesn’t matter if you sleep sunlight is scarcer. less,” he says. “That way you and your partner know in advance whose turn it is to wake up.” 4 Listen To The Buzz Having served as an army 2 Get Back nurse in the Balkans, Iraq Into Books and Afghanistan, Phillip Hall “Read novels!” enthuses – a counsellor with Help for Ollie Gallant, DJ and host Heroes – has bedded down of the Gutology podcast. everywhere from freezing “The one thing that police cells in Kosovo to transformed my sleep military bases in the Middle Tick-tock, you don’t stop . . . worrying was reading fiction. It East. “The key thing is about sleep. takes you away from the having a fan on,” he says. stresses of the day in a “Even in a war zone, that way TV doesn’t.” Often white noise blocks out wake up in the night? those little jolts that might 7 Get Some Air “Instead of thinking, keep your subconscious on As a pilot for a major ‘Crap, my alarm goes off alert. I do the same if I’m in airline with 16 years of in two hours’, I’d reframe a hotel or at home.” experience, Tim Wings it: ‘Great, I can read this (not his real last name) book’. In 15 minutes, I’d has plenty of experience be asleep.” operating on minimal thrust. “We use the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale, a numbered scale on which 5 if we’re too tired, we’re ntofeeonalerAommdsnne.tygsoic“nilloNembitnsogeetpdsrnfolm-sbretfieievastesfhettrhoerifBrenctieotetghcnlIsthagergCksiascoaeosaiannetmrngopceaosriplggonuelireadgambeeilnrysKpleayos,nbM”nuhTycsgSeuoaa6eKlpypanDosDmabfaeLtedrl.coniied“anoociImgszmodloheivfkFrptealeer–orrnnaetwyndosespoestigsntrhrse,oieaytdwdnoCseuhoduaacomrlnstfpstlaeoei.ldfrgacBfaysotnuh.nsme”toafsepostsvireotoeetownnbstsahaahiloloeln legally not allowed PHOTOGRAPHY: AGATA PEC, PHILIP HAYNES, ROWAN FEE, DAVID SYKES to fly,” he explains. “I often leave home at 4.30am and might do three short-haul flights in a day.” For powering down, he’s a proponent of breathwork. “If I’m struggling to sleep, I’ll breathe in for three seconds, hold for three, exhale for three,” he says. “It gets my body in the right frame of mind.” A good way to nix pre-sleep turbulence. 108 MEN’S HE ALTH

H E A LT H 10 Reframe 12 Know 13 And When Your Rest Your Limits All Else Fails… “When sleeping in a tent Working flat-out is a false Just give up and get up, in Iraq at 42°C, and economy. While many of us says Galal Yafai, the knowing you could be feel guilty about easing up British flyweight boxer called to attend to at work, stress and sleep who won gold in Tokyo. wounded soldiers at deprivation will ultimately “When I’m fighting the any point, you need a hinder your ability to next day or making strategy,” says former perform to your best. weight, it can be pretty 8 Do A Mental soldier Hall. For him, Practise self-discipline, says hard to sleep. There are Clear-Out shifting his focus to 11 Look To surgeon Nair. “Recognise, occasions when I haven’t The Light As an A&E doctor, relaxation – rather than ‘I need X hours of sleep to been able to sleep more business owner and just sleep – helped. “I “I have a whole-body function’ and don’t than four or five hours. parent, Qian Xu’s shift might have seven hours red-light therapy compromise on that,” he I don’t fight it. I get up, patterns are the definition off and only sleep for four machine in my clinic, says. “I don’t let patient care then try to sleep again of “erratic” – and zoning hours, but I’ve spent the Skin Aesthetics, and suffer. If I’m tired, I think, in a few hours.” Research out on the job is not an rest of those hours giving that really helps me ‘If this were my family shows our emotional option. When she does my mind time to wind and my clients,” says member, would I want reaction to missed sleep get a chance to sleep, down.” The stakes might Dr Xu, who is also them to have this level of can be more damaging she struggles to silence not be as high in your an aesthetician. care?’ If can’t fully deliver, to productivity than our her mind. “Rather than household, but taking the Preliminary studies I’ll ask someone else to do physical tiredness. A keeping it all in my head, pressure off could help suggest exposure to it.” Say it with us now: strategic daytime nap is I’ll write my thoughts you win the battle. this type of light does d-e-l-e-g-a-t-e. your ally. If not, strap on down in my notes app,” improve sleep quality. your gloves, slip into your she says. She also sets Use-at-home red light best suit and face the calendar reminders for panels are also new day swinging. everything she needs to available. “It do the next day. Mental stimulates the body’s offloading is a study- production of proven strategy for melatonin,” she says. reducing pre-sleep Two sessions a week anxiety – and far superior should keep you in than “just trying not to the pink. think about it”. 9 Set A Later What-supp? Hopefully Alarm not you. Much is said about exiting 14 the office promptly, but early Get Some Supplementary morning presenteeism is Assistance a problem, too, with habitual A reliance on sedatives can be harmful and delivers overtime linked to lower diminishing returns. Fraser prefers to keep it natural when he needs to be match-ready. “I take a shot of tart productivity. The world won’t cherry juice, which is a type of anti-inflammatory. It promotes sleep and helps my body recover.” If he wakes fall apart if you’re not at your up in the night, he’ll sometimes take a melatonin tablet. desk for 8am – as cancer “If you’re changing time zones, taking something to force your body to sleep can be good,” he says. surgeon Nair knows. “Sure, SEPTEMBER 2022 109 there are days when you’d like to get into work early,” he says. “But there are those days when you have to be in early, and knowing the difference is key.” When a later start means a stronger performance, Nair has his priorities in order.





In October 2020, DREW MANNING, a then-39-year-old personal trainer turned fitfluencer best known for his unique brand of weight-loss challenges, stood in front of a camera inside his kitchen in Salt Lake City, Utah. In front of him was a large pile of Halloween sweets. “Are you guys ready for this?” Manning asked before rolling up his Manning’s attention- black T-shirt to reveal an ample stomach, stopping just short of what grabbing stunts helped he’d taken to calling his man boobs. “I need some breathing room for my belly,” he told the camera, slapping his stomach a few times him rack up clients. with an audible smack-smack-smack. A Problem Shared The challenge was simple: over the next 15 minutes, Manning would try to eat as much of the pile as he could, bingeing his way For those unfamiliar with Manning’s emotion-first brand of life through chocolates and other sugar-laden treats. The stunt joined coaching, empathy is perhaps the most important selling point. He several other extreme eating sessions, posted to his Fit2Fat2Fit has spent nearly a decade finding ways to signal that he understands YouTube channel and promoted to his million-plus followers across the experience of wanting to lose weight and is therefore able to Instagram and Facebook. Every episode lasts about 12 minutes, with connect with and help people in the same situation. close-up shots of whatever he’s gorging on, from pancakes to steak and potatoes. Manning rose to fame in 2011 when, after claiming that he couldn’t relate to his clients’ supposed lack of willpower, After each stunt, though, Manning felt terrible. “You literally he launched his original Fit2Fat2Fit challenge on YouTube, can’t do anything for the next six to eight hours,” he tells Men’s intentionally gaining and then losing 34 kg. That attempt went viral, Health. “So, we always had to schedule [these shoots] towards the and he wrote a New York Times bestseller about his experience. end of the day so that I could just lay down. I kind of hated doing these because I knew they were for entertainment. They would get a Unlike many of the other fitfluencers populating your feed, good amount of views, but at the same time it’s just like a day of your whose self-discipline and muscular physique seem to be part of their life wasted.” wide appeal, Manning’s fame is tied to first making some obviously unhealthy choices, and then trying to undo them. For the Halloween video, he’d added some variety by comparing his efforts with those of his girlfriend, Julie, who documented the Along the way, Manning has built a million-dollar health empire same thing separately. But all of these stunts were part of a larger, by selling products that promote a ketogenic diet, along with his stranger goal: to gain 25kg in four months, and then try to lose it all own line of nutritional supplements, workout apps and online in another four. Having started seven weeks earlier, Manning was coaching. He says his programs have helped more than 500,000 scheduled to hit peak weight just in time for his 40th birthday in late clients, and he has more than 53,000 YouTube subscribers, December, kicking off what he called his Back2Fit challenge, which 267,000 followers on Instagram and a million followers on anyone could join for the new year. Facebook, where he sports #TeamEmpathy T-shirts. To accomplish the radical weight gain, Manning had to go big, doubling his daily kilojoule intake and ceasing to exercise completely. By the day of the Halloween challenge, the 6ft 1in (185 cm) PT weighed close to 102kg, up from about 83 kg two months earlier, though that wasn’t immediately obvious until he showed his belly. The lifelong athlete and weightlifter’s bearded face was still thin and his shoulders remained broader than his hips. His biceps were large and his forearms well-defined. Eventually, Manning hit the wall with a king-size bag of Skittles, which he chewed into a wad before coaxing it down his throat. A few times, he put his hand to his mouth like he was about to be sick. Finally, about five minutes later, Manning raised his last Twix to signal he was out. Julie ate more than he did in the end, although she, too, ended up leaning against the counter, sweating. “I wanted her to feel my pain and to experience what I experience,” he says later in the video. “Well, I do,” Julie says while holding his hand. “I have empathy.” 112 MEN’S HE ALTH

WEIGHT LOSS “IT’S NOT ABOUT GETTING SKINNY OR HAVING A SIX- PACK. IT’S ABOUT FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE PROCESS” Spreading the Message Manning was born to evangelise. He grew up in a strict Mormon household where everyone would wake up at 5am to read scripture, leaving him exhausted before the time came for his wrestling or football practice. While he excelled at sports, he says his parents were unimpressed. “I never felt worthy or good enough, no matter what I did,” he says. At age 19, Manning deferred his enrolment at university to join a church- mandated missionary trip to Brazil. Six days a week for two years, he’d put on his collared shirt, smart trousers and shoes, suffer through the tropical heat and go door to door offering bibles and the opportunity for strangers to Manning packed on pray with him, join the church and be 29 kg by doubling his baptised. When Manning speaks about that time with the Brazilians, it’s easy to kJ intake and hear some of the early values he’d bring quitting the gym. to Fit2Fat2Fit. “No matter what had happened, no matter where they’d come from, no matter what their life was, they “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you were still worthy to be loved,” he says. “That [experience] kind of trains care” is a favourite slogan. you to listen to understand people instead of listening to judge.” He doesn’t believe that gaining and losing so much weight so quickly can permanently impact his body. “What I’ve been told by my And the fitness industry is filled with judgements that Manning doctors is that your body is pretty resilient. It can handle abuse,” he says. “If you treat it right consistently with a healthy lifestyle, it can says he’s against. “It’s not about getting skinny. It’s not about having reverse a lot of the damage.” a six-pack,” he has said on his weekly podcast, The Fit2Fat2Fit Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine physician at Harvard Medical School, disagrees with that assessment. This kind of rapid Experience. “It’s about falling in love with the process because you’re weight cycling “actually interferes with the signals between the brain and gut, particularly in the hypothalamus, which is the part worth it. You’re worth it to have a healthy lifestyle.” of the brain that regulates weight”, she explains. For Manning – as well as anyone else who yo-yo diets – that can make losing weight Of course, what constitutes a healthy lifestyle is debatable, progressively more difficult. especially as weight-loss companies drown their products in But his latest challenge poses bigger questions. The science has become increasingly clear that dramatic weight-loss journeys similar euphemism. “Right now, the culture is a mess on synonyms such to Manning’s are neither practical nor sustainable for most people, and that how much you exercise may be a better predictor of your health as ‘wellness’ and ‘detox’,” says Adrienne Bitar, a professor of American than your body size. A growing movement no longer sees ‘fit’ and ‘fat’ as mutually exclusive. Would Manning’s brand of performative studies at Cornell University and author of Diet And The Disease Of empathy continue to age well? Civilization. “No one’s willing to say, ‘I’m just trying to lose weight to look good’.” In addition, fitfluencers often have a financial interest in the products they recommend. Manning has received sponsorships from a paleo supplement and snack label, a frozen food company and a monk-fruit sweetener brand, among others. During his recent extreme transformation, Manning argued that weight gain was associated with emotional challenges, too. On 27 December 2020, he released a video of himself celebrating his SEPTEMBER 2022 113

Manning first pulled this stunt over a decade ago, gaining then losing 34kg. “ANY TIME I DO THESE EXTREME TRANSFORMATIONS, THERE’S A LITTLE BIT OF CRAZINESS INVOLVED” 40th birthday while standing shirtless in his kitchen with a gold seconds, 20 minutes in total. As the program progressed, the moves ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: ELLE STALLINGS; DREW MANNING; JOHNNY PREHN plastic chain that said “Old Dude”. He claimed he was heavy enough got more complex (pull-ups, bent-over rows, kettlebell deadlifts), the that he had to buy new clothes and needed anti-chafing cream. He also work intervals got longer and the rests got shorter. wasn’t sleeping well and had a weaker libido. Even for Manning, that portion wasn’t easy: the first day, he “This journey was way harder than I thought it was going to be,” documented himself huffing and puffing. But Professor Schoenfeld he told the camera before stepping on the scales. In four months, he’d says that, as a fitness pro, he still had a huge advantage over those gained 29 kg and more than tripled his body-fat percentage to 26.2. who’d never seriously exercised. “It’s much easier to gain muscle while losing body fat in someone who has previously had a lot of muscle,” Most people will never gain that much weight that quickly. “For he says. Mentally, Manning admitted that he had an edge, too. Not the average person, the primary weight gain is over the holidays, only had he done this experiment before, but he’d also built up nearly and it averages several pounds,” says Brad Schoenfeld, a professor of a lifetime of habits around exercise and eating certain foods, and his exercise science at Lehman College in New York. professional reputation depended on him losing the weight. But Manning didn’t have 15 years to gain that weight. That’s And then there’s the factor that the fitness industry is notoriously where the eating contests, some of which included foods that were cagey about: genetics. Dr Stanford says that a child of two parents chosen by polling his followers, came in. “Any time I do these extreme who are medically obese has a 50-85 per cent chance of also becoming transformations, there’s a little bit of craziness involved because I that size, “even with the optimal lifestyle modifications”, such as a have to catch people’s attention,” Manning says. “But it’s in the hope healthy diet and exercise. Either way, weight-loss plans that people consume the messaging of, ‘Hey, we need more empathy in can be difficult to sustain – physically, emotionally and, in some the fitness industry’.” cases, financially. A Man With a Plan It Starts in the Mind In January last year, Manning set out to prove first-hand that his Throughout the latest challenge, Manning made it a point to be methods for weight loss work. He launched his Back2Fit program, emotionally vulnerable with his followers, talking openly about the which features a paid online app that includes recipes, a keto-based infidelity and addiction to pornography that led to his divorce in 2015, meal plan that limits kilojoules to 8370 a day and video workouts. and alluding to his conflict with the Mormon church, from which he was suspended for having premarital sex. He’s now a single parent The plan wasn’t created with help from a dietitian, but Manning who shares custody of his two daughters. endorses its efficacy. Following the program, Manning cut out nearly two-thirds of the kJ from his bulking diet, but the plan was still fairly However, he declined to give many details about his and Julie’s complicated, says dietitian Abby Langer, author of Good Food, Bad break-up in late 2020, as he neared his maximum weight. Instead, Diet. Many recipes require lots of ingredients, including expensive what he focused on was his “emotional eating” of ice cream and wine. ones such as wild-caught salmon, and steps that seem labour- “Food does give you these little dopamine hits that temporarily numb intensive. Because the plan is ketogenic – a diet where you eat lots the pain of life,” he said on his podcast. of fat and very few carbs – participants need to follow it strictly and indefinitely. “If you start eating carbs again, you’re going to gain the Not everyone agrees with this depiction of weight gain. “This weight back,” says Langer. idea that you are fat because something is wrong or unresolved is exceedingly toxic,” says Virgie Tovar, a self-described “fat activist” Manning’s workouts consisted of conventional high-intensity and author of You Have The Right To Remain Fat. The problem, Tovar interval circuits. For instance, the first Back2Fit workout was five says, is that this mentality shifts blame for not losing weight when rounds of 45 seconds on and 15 seconds off of four movements: banded dieting on to the person and not the plan, which may be flawed, deadlifts, body-weight bridges, squats and lunges. For cardio the especially if someone is seeking results as dramatic as Manning’s. next day, subscribers walked fast for 30 seconds and then slow for 30 114 MEN’S HE ALTH

WEIGHT LOSS Manning has been frank about his struggles with emotional eating. When it comes to the idea that some people “emotionally eat” losing weight has helped with my mindset and proven to me that I can because of some unresolved trauma, Tovar argues that their shame do hard things.” is often tied more to how they’re perceived and treated than to an internal crisis. To actually empathise with them, says Tovar, you The Final Cut should “unseat the narrative that being a higher-weight person is bad, and not just bad for your health, allegedly, but bad in terms of In May last year, the week before his final weigh-in, Manning began your morality, your physical appearance, your capacity to lead, your taking drastic steps to shave off his last few kilos. “If I don’t make viability as an employee, as a patient, as a boss”. weight, I don’t care. I really don’t care,” he said on his podcast. Then, five days before the weigh-in, he cut his daily kilojoules in half to 4200 For Manning’s part, he seems to have intentionally added as much a day and ate primarily chicken breast, tuna and egg whites. “The shame as possible to the weight-gaining process. The first half of the meals didn’t look good, guys. It was not appetising,” he told those challenge, he explains, “is about training your brain to be lazy. So, listening. When he stepped foot on the scales, Manning clocked in sleeping in, not making my bed, not meditating, not journaling, not at 82 kg, just under his goal. eating healthily, just eating whatever you want whenever you want, not being disciplined at all”. Though Manning typically shaves his When Men’s Health asked Manning if he ever considered going stomach, chest and armpits, he let his body hair grow out as he gained in the opposite direction for his final weigh-in and missing his goal, weight. “It’s kinda funny letting yourself go,” he said on his podcast. he says that he did. But he was also influenced by his company’s investors. “It’s not just my decision,” he says. And, ultimately, By December 2021, nearly one full year since Manning announced he thinks he erred on the right side. “If you don’t have certain the Back2Fit program, more than 8000 people had signed up. boundaries, if you don’t have that balance of tough love, then Manning says roughly half of those who join the program complete it, empathy can lead to enabling.” and that the average weight loss has been 15 kg. Manning still appears as muscular, lean and shirtless as ever in Some adopters have rave reviews. Kyle Wheeler, 35, lost 54 kg and his social media posts. In recent months, he’s launched the Back2Fit says he used to be almost unable to walk up the stairs to his home or 2.0 program, which upgrades many of his original offerings and sleep without snoring so loudly that his fiancée would leave the room. introduces new experts on life change. One is Tasha Lynn, a mental “My cardio could be 10 times better and, mentally, emotionally, I’m health coach who shares journaling prompts, meditations, group still working through stuff,” Wheeler says. “But it works for me and I support and stories from her life. “You see, weight loss and physical was one of the laziest, most negative people I knew.” transformation start from within,” Manning wrote in an email introducing Lynn to his followers. “Starting from a place of self-love Then there’s Jessica Rose, 44, who completed Back2Fit and makes the physical transformation process so much easier.” Manning’s Complete Keto meal program. She’s lost about 16.5 kg but has “been mostly focused on continuing to get stronger and build It’s hard to miss the seductive implication: if you want to look like muscle and less focused on the number on the scale”. She’s going Manning, you can copy his workouts, meal plans and supplements through a divorce and planning to move across the country, she adds. and, most importantly, his attitude. After all, doesn’t he know what “I feel like going through Drew’s programme, getting healthier and you’re up against? He’s been there. Twice. SEPTEMBER 2022 115

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124 YOUR ULTIMATE TOTAL-BODY WORKOUT 127 CHANNEL THE BEAST WITHIN 128 HOW A BUSY MAN MAKES GAINS BECAUSE FIT IS THE NEW RICH WKENLCEOEMHAE BTO Ben Patrick, better known as Knees Over Toes Guy, has a controversial plan to help you beat chronic knee pain – and transform your athleticism in the process BY THE EDITORS OF MH PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL SCOTT SLOSAR SEPTEMBER 2022 121

TSHHAE KJOEIUNPT BEEF UP YOUR LEG DAY Knee pain – or a lack of faith in your These four exercises from Patrick are worth mastering to build leg knees’ ability to withstand hard training strength and athleticism. Start with the first move and gradually or intense competition – puts a cap on work to learn the others over the course of your training your athletic potential. Here are the keys to a joint strategy that will reap rewards BAD KNEES. The words his knee extending so far 1 Reverse Sled PullWHY:Eachstepbackforcesyouontotheballsofyourfeet,beforeyoustraightenyour conjure images of popping in front of him that it goes knee and drive into your heel. “With each step backward,” says Patrick, “you are joints, morning runs turning beyond the tips of his toes loading the knee for greater strength.” But the sled provides gentle resistance, since into jogs and walks, and (hence his “knees over it’s delivering only horizontal force. pizza-box-height vertical toes” handle). The way he leaps. You probably know sees it, every foundational DO IT: Load a sled. Wrap a harness around your waist. Walk backwards. Take 20-30 a few people who have bad athletic movement (running, steps per leg; do 2 or 3 sets. You can do this daily as part of your warm-up. knees – an estimated 1 in jumping, lunging, squatting) 5 Australians who are over requires you to move knees knew it was true because Patrick has no formal knees-over-toes movement the age of 40 fight chronic over toes. Watch your of everything I’d been training in medicine or but only if you have hip and knee pain. You might even knees as you descend a through.” So he encourages physical therapy, and glute control. have a pair of less-than- flight of stairs and you’ll his clients and online qualified experts don’t fully stellar knees yourself. notice that Patrick is right. subscribers to do exercises embrace his theories. Brad Schoenfeld, a But if it’s so natural, what that actively drive knees in You can learn plenty from renowned trainer and Ben Patrick, 30, knows makes his advice so front of toes, like extreme his approach – but not muscle researcher, says bad knees well. Patrick is special? Well, his advice split squats and reverse every move will erase your he’s “not aware of any Knees Over Toes Guy, a runs counter to what sled pulls. knee pain. evidence showing that social-media sensation/ doctors and trainers have intentionally forcing the knee-rehab guru whose long recommended: when The social-media THE RISKS knees to go over the toes training methods promise you lower into the bottom explosion around Patrick during squatting and other to end knee pain and juice of a squat or lunge, you has refocused the fitness Traditional methods of knee lower-body exercise athletic ability. Patrick should never let your knees conversation onto the knee strengthening start with the improves joint health”. himself suffered from bad pass beyond the tips of joint itself – and exercises joint above your knee, the knees, and he says he still your toes. The reasoning for that help stabilise it. But hip. Many experts value And personal trainer remembers being called the this conventional wisdom is Dan Giordano, the chief “old man” of his high school relatively simple. Imagine a hoops team, back when he straight line shooting up had knees so bad he could from your toes; keeping barely jump 60cm high. your knees behind this line You’d never know that from helps them stay safe by checking his Instagram never stressing the joint. In (@kneesovertoesguy) now, limiting your knee’s range of though. His 1.4 million motion, you build strength followers watch him drag without ever running the sleds, train with elite risk of aggravating it. CrossFitters and weightlifters, and throw Patrick disagrees. “The down dunks. knee that can go farthest and strongest is the most Patrick’s secret: he protected,” he says, quoting regularly pushes his knee’s the late Charles Poliquin, a range of motion to its max, legendary strength coach. bending the joint so deeply “The moment I read that, I that hamstring touches calf, 122 MEN’S HE ALTH

2 Tibia Raise WHY: The tibialis, a muscle that starts under the knee and runs to the bottom of your foot, is a key decelerator of your foot – but it rarely sees direct weight- room work. “A stronger tibialis means less stress on the knees and more protection for your shins and ankles,” says Patrick. DO IT: Stand with your butt against a wall. Without bending your knees, lift your toes. The further your feet are from the wall, the harder it gets. Do 3 sets of 20 reps; you can do this move daily. 3 4 ReverseNordicCurl WHY: This isn’t a regular part Heels-Elevated Goblet Squat of your training, but it is a solid test of your knee’s range of motion. Do it once WHY: If you struggle to flex your a month. ankles, you likely can’t drive your knees over your toes during standard DO IT: Sit on your shins, abs and glutes squats. But by elevating your heels, tight, knees wide. Maintain a straight line you erase that limitation and can squat from shoulders through knees as you low. “You build strength with a full lower backwards. Stop lowering if you feel any pain in your knees, pause, then range of motion,” Patrick says. return to the start. Do just a few reps (2-4 is plenty), and focus on lowering slowly. DO IT: Stand with your heels on weight plates, a weight at your chest. Bend at the knees and hips, lowering your torso as low as you can. Pause, then stand. Do 3 sets of 15. medical officer of Bespoke your glutes first as a university hoops athletes. before, but the tibia raise, your knee. All these moves Treatments, can’t rationalise nonnegotiable first step. That starts with his which Patrick has helped subtly enhance your pushing a painful knee to popularise, strengthens the athleticism, too, letting its limits to kick-start THE REWARDS singular focus on knee front of your lower legs, you build the same spring healing. “Medically flexing. His extreme split which work to decelerate and stability that Patrick speaking,” he says, “you If you’ve already built that squats, for example, ready your body on every stride showcases regularly should offload the joint and glute strength, Patrick’s your knees to handle the and jump – and protect on Instagram. transfer mechanical stress exercises can help you take awkward positions you those knees. to the hip to allow the knee your knee strength to the might land in during games Your key: don’t start with to start healing itself.” next level and bulletproof of pickup basketball or Another Patrick favourite moves like Patrick’s extreme the joint, too. “He’s done a even tag with your kids. is the reverse sled pull, split squat. Ease into Translation: at some great job of bringing which gently works your knees-over-toes training point, yes, you can drive significant parts of training His exercises also serve quads every time you with the four moves above. knees over toes, but if to the forefront,” says trainer to cushion your knees straighten your legs and (And keep strengthening you’re recovering from a Brian Harrington, who works against impact. That’s the pull the sled back, building those glutes.) Don’t let your knee injury, strengthen with high school and beauty of the tibia raise. muscle to help stabilise knees dictate terms! You’ve done calf raises SEPTEMBER 2022 123

THE 9-MOVE TOTAL-BODY BLASTER WFIEBTIGUNHLEKTS-SU-SFPRFEIEX Head outdoors for a go-anywhere, no-equipment workout that helps you build strength and torch kilojoules – while having fun, too PHOTOGRAPHY BY TYLER JOE DIRECTIONS: Do this workout 3-4 times WORKOUT a week, resting at least 1 day between sessions. All other days, go for a 20-minute LSUKANTGEER walk or run. Start standing on your right leg, knee bent WARM-UP slightly. Swing your left foot behind your right leg, TWOASLPKRININGTLUNGE then leap to the left. Land Do 5 walking lunges per leg. On each, take a on your left leg, left knee large step forward, then bend at the knees and bent, then repeat the hips to lower your torso until your thigh is process to leap back to parallel to the ground. Turn and sprint back the right. That’s 1 rep; to your starting position. do 5, blasting your glutes and inner thigh muscles and building the athleticism to move quickly from side to side. After each set, immediately do 5 two-footed lateral jumps, leaping from left to right and then back. Rest 60 seconds. Do 3 sets. B A RWTOEAVSLEPKRRISNINEGTLUNGE SUPERMAN HOLD TO SPRING PUSH-UP Do 5 reverse walking lunges per leg. Lie on your belly, arms and legs outstretched. Lift your arms off the ground. Squeeze your glutes, On each, take a step backwards, then bend lifting your straight legs 3cm from the ground (A). Hold, then place your hands in push-up position. at the knees and hips to lower your torso until Push up explosively, driving your hands off the ground (B). Land and lower into your next rep. Do reps your thigh is parallel to the ground. Sprint back for 30 seconds, then rest 30 seconds. Do 3 sets. to your starting position. 124 MEN’S HE ALTH

PAT ULRTSOEHTRA-NUTAPIOTWNINITGH FEATURED TRAINER: DeVentri Jordan is a founder Do a push-up, lowering your chest to within 3cm of the GameFace Training program at Life Time and has of the ground (A). Press back up. Lift your right worked with professional athletes, including NFL QBs Cam hand from the ground and reach it towards the sky, Newton and Teddy Bridgewater. He specialises in rotating your chest to the right as you do this (B). workouts that build athleticism. Return to push-up position and repeat on the other PICTURED HERE: Dane Fischer is a New York City-based side. That’s 1 rep; do reps for 30 seconds. Rest 30 fitness trainer and fashion model. seconds. Do 3 sets. A B CORE CIRCUIT DIRECTIONS: Do these exercises as a circuit. Do not rest between exercises. Rest 30 seconds between each round. Do 3 rounds SUITCASE CRUNCH Lie on your back, arms extended, lower back pressed into the ground, legs 3cm above the ground. This is the start. Pull your knees to your chest, squeezing your abs as you do. Return to the start. That’s 1 rep; do 10. WINDSHIELD WIPER STAR PLANK Lie on your back. Lift your legs straight up. This is the start. Start in a right-side plank, left elbow on the ground, abs and Keeping your shoulder blades glued to the ground, slowly glutes tight. Raise your right hand towards the sky. Raise your rotate your straight legs to the right until your right leg right leg as high as possible. Hold for 30 seconds. That’s 1 rep. touches the ground. Return to the start; repeat on the other Do 1 rep on each side. side. That’s 1 rep; do 10. SEPTEMBER 2022 125

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TGHOERIBLELAARFLXOW START Keen to make yourself impregnable to injury? The 1 key is to get animalistic with your training, starting BEAR DOWNwith this back-and-core strengthening move Start in bear-plank position, BY BRETT WILLIAMS PHOTOGRAPHY BY PHILIP FRIEDMAN back flat, knees off the floor. Your hands should YES, STRONG, POWERFUL back and be below your shoulders, gripping kettlebells. Look at core muscles can help protect your the floor. Squeeze your abs shoulders and your spine. But if you truly and shoulder blades. want to prevent back pain and injury, you also need all that beef to be mobile. “Your torso is always changing positions, 2 twisting and turning and shifting,” says ROW, ROW, ROW! elite trainer Ebenezer Samuel. “And you Drive your left hand into the kettlebell hard, then row the right bell toward your need to train your back and ab muscles rib cage. Pause and squeeze your abs and shoulder blades, working to keep your hips to be ready for all that movement.” and shoulders square to the floor. Lower it, then repeat on the other side. That’s where the Bear x Gorilla Flow, one of Samuel’s favourite back exercises, comes in. Most row exercises force your torso to maintain a static position as you do rep after rep. This flow starts you in a bear plank, but after you’ve done a row rep on each side, you jump forward, shifting the position of your hips and spine into a gorilla stance. That teaches 3 your spine to be ready for anything, and it rockets up your heart rate. Growls and grunts optional. Who’s This Guy? GET GORILLA Cliff Rodgers is an NASM- Jump forward so that both feet are planted certified trainer based in New just outside the kettlebells. Squeeze your York City and a member of the glutes and hamstrings, pulling your butt down. Make sure your shoulders are higher than your Men’s Health Strength in butt; you’re now in a gorilla stance. Diversity Initiative, which helps 4 FINISH trainers from marginalised communities jump-start their DOUBLE UP careers with education, Squeeze your shoulder blades and row both mentorship and visibility. bells towards your rib cage. Return the bells Rodgers was diagnosed with type to the floor. Jump back to a bear plank and 1 diabetes in 2017 and has since begin another rep. Do reps for 40 seconds, committed himself to educating then rest for 40 seconds. Do 3-4 sets. clients about proper diet and exercise. Follow him on Instagram at @cliff_no_hanger SEPTEMBER 2022 127

6AM WITH... Brown is wearing Allbirds’ new technical runner, the THE ECO-SNEAKER KING Tree Flyer, and its Natural Run shorts and T-shirt, both made As co-head of Allbirds, a billion-dollar shoe with eucalyptus-tree fibre and company, Tim Brown has learned to relax his workouts. But he still knows how to go hard, too merino wool. BY BEN COURT PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAKE STANGEL CORNER-OFFICE CORE SESSION THE CHILLED AIR off San competed in the World Cup Francisco Bay. The screech with the New Zealand Brown has a standard series of of seagulls. The jostling of national team. “As a moves to strengthen his lower waves under the Golden professional, you’re pushing back and abs. Do them as a Gate Bridge. The crunch yourself hard every day and 3-round circuit. Do each move of dirt underfoot. When Tim measuring everything,” he for 1 minute. Repeat 2 times. Brown runs, he leaves his says. “Now I’m more phone behind and focuses flexible. But I learned that 1 Right-side plank on nature and his breathing. we have a tendency to His favourite run is a overestimate what we can Squeeze your core and glutes five-miler (8km) along San get done, or get good at, Francisco’s waterfront from in the short term and 2 Lunge with a T-twist Crissy Field to Hopper’s underestimate the long Hands, a sign at the base run. I believe deeply in the Extend your arms and twist your of the bridge that he compounding impact of torso every rep. Swap sides after high-fives. Then he loops gradually getting a little 30 seconds. back to the start. bit better – in work, life and fitness.” 3 Push-up Aim for 15-20 reps. “Exercise, for me, is time 4 Hip-bridge march alone, and it’s a way to reset These days, the father of mentally,” says Brown, 41, two kids under five typically Lie on your back, feet near your the co-CEO and cofounder trains every other day for an butt. Lift your hips. Raise and of Allbirds. “I disconnect intense 30-45 minutes. lower each leg. from technology and I take “My target is every other in the beautiful views and day, but two consecutive 5 Standing split Stand on 1 let my thoughts go. The days off or on is fine, and it’s Hopper’s Hands run is as not something I leg. Raise the other leg behind you good as it gets.” The idea obsess about,” he as you fold forward and extend both of Allbirds wasn’t conceived says. In any given arms. Hold for 10 seconds per side. during one specific run, but week, Brown he says that regular normally does two 6 Left-side plank exercise sessions helped outdoor runs plus a him create – and now gym session or two, Squeeze your core and glutes. sustain – the company. and he’ll also mix in “It’s difficult to take an idea a yoga class or bike from nothing to something, ride. Whatever and often you get stuck or exercise he does, feel overwhelmed. Going he tends to chase for a run is a way to it with a series of problem-solve and often core moves. sparks me to attack challenges afresh.” Brown may not train with the SMALL STEPS maniacal fervour he had in his soccer Brown’s relationship with days, but he does exercise hasn’t always been still set benchmarks so cerebral. The New for himself. One is Zealand native played running six miles professional soccer for (9.6km) in under 40 eight years; in 2010, he minutes; it’s an 128 MEN’S HE ALTH

BETWEEN INTERVALS Frenemyworkout? “After warming up, do 5 three-minute intervals at the fastest pace you can maintain. Rest 1 minute between intervals. It’s only a 19-minute session, but you’ll be wiped out.” intense test of speed Silicon Valley set and Go-torecoveryfood? and stamina, requiring a other climate-change- roughly four-minute pace aware consumers. “Bananas. Easy to per kilometre. “I’m grab and go.” competing with no one Allbirds now makes trail other than myself, and it and running shoes, Motivationalmantra? never fails to give me a complete with their carbon sense of where my fitness footprint noted on the sole, “Sometimes when you’re is compared with my peak,” as well as workout wear. going out the door, he says. “I also get a sense “Sometimes when you of achievement from hear that a product is you’re not quite sure you pushing myself. Usually I’m sustainable, the want to do it because it’s falling short, and it will be a assumption is that it’s less cold or you’re a little tired. nudge to be more good,” says Brown. “Our consistent and eat a little belief is that natural But then there’s that better or rest a bit more.” materials, in the context of feeling on the other side exercise and performance, Although he says his create better experiences. of it, having done it.” running time is his personal That’s our journey, to time, he does of course engineer products out of While endurance runs are the bedrock of Brown’s Fantasytrainingpartner? check out what other natural materials that create workouts, you don’t want to be a one-trick pony runners are wearing. “Every better experiences.” “Roy Keane, the fiery single time I see someone, Exercising every other day when it comes to fitness. Push-ups build strength Irishman who became I always look at the shoes is helping him get there. in the entire upper body (above); then target your Manchester United’s – it’s part of the job,” he midfield general. I’ve says. Brown and Joey balance and core with single-leg holds (below). Zwillinger, an engineer and always admired his renewables expert, competitiveness.” cofounded Allbirds in 2016 with a simple premise: Fitnessgoals running shoes were just whenyou’re100? too flashy and too plasticky. They thought they “Being alive would could do better by using be a good start! natural materials like merino wool, eucalyptus Doing some exercise fibre and midsole foams every other day and made out of beans. The company’s minimalist and maintaining that sustainable sneakers drumbeat would make caught on as part of the office-casual uniform of the me very, very happy.” SEPTEMBER 2022 129

WHEN I WAS 14, I was a member of a youth club Subsequently in life I’ve had a few occasions in Glasgow. For the Easter long weekend we’d where I’ve been pushed to the limits of what I can gone to the south of England and were returning deal with. There was this one incident when my by bus. We came to this big junction just north of family was on holiday in Italy and my daughter had the Midlands called Scotch Corner, where we a very bad accident on a bicycle and suffered a stopped for petrol and then this little old bus brain injury. She wound up in hospital, blind and continued into the Pennines, a trail of hills that paralysed on a ventilator. But over time, she also runs down the centre of England. At the highest found that ability to bounce back. In fact, my point of the Pennines, the bus conked out and daughter had twins in January this year. we were stuck. The weather was pretty bad – it had just started snowing – so nobody got out. Now if you’d told me at the age of 14, when The two bus drivers immediately set to work I was recovering from my injury that, “Things will trying to fix the problem. They realised the petrol get better”, I wouldn’t have believed you. But now wasn’t getting into the carburettor, so they I know differently and it’s a lesson that’s been started siphoning petrol directly into it from an reaffirmed by my daughter’s experience. During open can. Gradually the bus filled with fumes. some periods of your life, it’s very hard to bounce That’s when the engine must have backfired as back, but that accident taught me that eventually suddenly the bus burst into flames. you will. I was sitting three or four seats back from the – So You Want to Live Younger Longer? front door. There were flames everywhere and by Dr Norman Swan is out now. I didn’t want to panic, but I hesitated too long DATE: while other people jumped out of the bus. Once PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED March 27, 1967 I’d got my thoughts together, I moved towards the door where the fire had started and was 11.40am confronted by this sheet of flame. When I tried NAME: to breathe, there was no air to breathe in. There was this young girl in front of me, trying to get NORMAN SWAN out, but she couldn’t get the window down. I F E AT: managed to force it down about nine inches and pushed her out. As I pushed myself out the As a teenager, the future voice of window, I remember feeling this overwhelming medical common sense pain. Then I blacked out. was involved in a terrifying I came to on the road, completely dazed. accident that taught him about As I walked away from the bus, people started the human capacity to endure. pointing at me. That’s when I looked down to see that my trousers, socks and part of my shoes had “TRAUMA burnt off along with my skin. FORCES YOU TO DISCOVER WHAT Nobody died in the accident, amazingly. But YOU CAN COPE the fallout of my injuries was several weeks of WITH AND COME very painful recovery. It was an incredibly frightening experience for a kid and I developed THROUGH” PTSD as a result, although nobody knew what that was in those days and my parents certainly had no understanding of it. I’d get these flashbacks and, even to this day, if I go into an enclosed space like a plane, I’ll check where the exit is just in case I need to get out in a hurry. Why do I say that accident made me a man? When you experience trauma, you learn what is of value in life. I learned that what saved people’s lives on that bus was the fact that many of us looked after each other before we tried to look after ourselves. The other thing about trauma is that it forces you to discover what you can cope with and come through. That trauma taught me that, no matter how bad something is, eventually, when times get less bad, then you will bounce back. It’s not like I came out of that experience like some steel- belted commando, ready to take on the world. What I learnt was that, with time, you can get through a bad experience and come out the other side. 130 MEN’S HE ALTH

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