Mens Health Australia May 2017

MAY 2017 101

FITNESS

“Always bewilling
to place a bet on
yourself,”says
Maximus.

“It you don’t want to quit, you

are not going hard enough”

Step 3:Kill Your Excuses

Preston Wood, 45, is 170cm and weighs 71kg.

He works about 60 hours a week and travels

at least a week out of every month. He has a

wife and family that he puts above all else,

and he lives about 45 minutes from our gym,

a 90-minute round trip.

Despite all those built-in excuses, Wood

can hit all the fitness standards laid out in

“Are You Maximus Fit?” (see box), a truly

incredible achievement for anyone. That’s

why I use him as a litmus test for bullshit.

When someone tells me he can’t achieve his

goals because of some limitation, I can say,

“Well, Preston did it. Why can’t you?”

Draw a 10×10 grid on a piece of paper.

Choose a body-weight exercise – push-up,

squat, lunge – and do a few reps. Write the

number of reps in one of the boxes. Keep

at it throughout the day until you’ve filled

the grid. Even if you do just 3 reps each

time, you’ll do 300 by the end of the day.

BUILD A REP GRID

The second most common excuse: “I

don’t have equipment.” I train a lot of

Special Forces soldiers, men who more

often than not are deployed to areas

where they have the same limitations.

Step 4:Be Good at Everything

Too many people pursue one aspect of fitness

at the expense of all others. Lifters won’t

do cardio because it might limit their gains,

while runners won’t lift because they fear the

extra muscle might slow them down. Those

concerns may have some validity, but only at

the highest levels of sport. The rest of us can

and should achieve high levels of fitness in

multiple areas.

Consider Paul Timmons, a 48-year-old

gym owner. Timmons is a prime example

of what happens when you vary your

training. He looks rather unassuming and you

wouldn’t feel intimidated if you ran

into him on the street. In fact, if you had to

guess what Timmons does for a living, you

might peg him as a high school maths teacher

or maybe a chartered accountant. That’s

why most people are shocked when I

mention that Timmons is one of the fittest

men ever to train at Gym Jones. He set a state

power lifting record, finished the Ironman

triathlon in Kona in a blindingly fast 11 hours,

and was the top-placing American in his

age group at the 2000-metre World Indoor

Rowing Championships.

If you’re an endurance freak, check out

the strength program on page 135. If you’re

mostly a lifter, add the three cardio routines

above to your regimen.

The Treadmill Burner

Run for 8 minutes. Then rest for 2 minutes

as you set the treadmill to its steepest

incline – 15 degrees is ideal. Now run as

fast as you safely can for 45 seconds. Hop

off (feet on the rails) and rest for 30

seconds. That’s 1 round; try for 6.

The Top-End Test

Row for 60 minutes straight, as far as you

can. If you can hit 15,400 metres, you’re a

cardio beast.

The Perfect Recovery

On days you don’t lift, do 30-60 minutes of

low-intensity rowing, running or biking.

THE THREE BEST CARDIO

WORKOUTS FOR LIFTERS

Estimate the number of hours you spend

per week on each activity. You don’t have

to be exact. If anything, you want to err on

the high side.

Work:_____ hours

Sleep:_____ hours

Eating:_______ hours

Commuting:______ hours

Family Time:______ hours

Errands:______ hours

Chores:______ hours

Total:______ hours

168 – (your total)= hours each week

you have for exercise

RUN A TIME AUDIT

“I don’t have the time” is the most

common excuse I hear. I respond with a

time audit: we stand at a whiteboard and

I write a big 168 – the hours in a week.

Then we break it down, as shown below.

Maximus Stats

Height192cm

Weight115kg

Body fat10per cent

102.5kg

bench press36 reps

Squat237.5kg

Deadlift275kg

500-metre row

1:16.960 sec

60 sec. AirDyne

89 calories (372kJ)

Daily energy

8,000 calories (33,472kJ)

Favourite muscle

mealorganic double-

cheeseburger