Category: men’s health

There are exercises that you can do with relative ease–and then there are the ones that kick your butt every single time. The ones that leave you standing in a puddle of your own sweat. The ones that make your muscles scream. And the ones that make your heart pound in your chest. This challenge from Andy Speer, C.S.C.S, creator of The Anarchy Workout, an intense 6-week fat-loss DVD program, strings together four super-tough exercises to create one total-body ass kicker. How fast can you perform it? The current time to beat is 2:45.

We found seven of the fittest men on the planet and asked them a simple question: What's one thing you do each day that improves your fitness? Take a cue from their routines–and reach the best shape of your life.Make No ExcusesThe ManRob MacDonald, training director of Gym Jones, one of the most hard-core gyms in the country.Why He's Insanely FitMacDonald once burned 87 calories in one minute on an AirDyne bike, and he holds the 500-meter SkiErg sprint world record in his age group.His SecretsIf you had to describe MacDonald, you'd call him a machine. He never stops. He works and works and works to get bigger, stronger, and better. (Another man who is a mountain of muscle: the

For years, doctors used to make guys sweat about their heart health–literally. A brief but intense run on a treadmill while hooked up to a bunch of wires and electrodes would assess your heart's response to exertion. The problem? The results were sometimes inaccurate, leading to additional tests.Today there's a smarter way to check for heart disease: It's called a coronary calcium scan of your arteries.”The calcium score blows all the other predictors out of the water,” says Men's Health cardiology advisor John Elefteriades, M.D., director of the Aortic Institute at Yale. “It's so accurate that everything else pales by comparison.”(Related: 100 Ways to Protect Your Heart.)Here's how it works: The noninvasive procedure takes 10 minutes

We showed you how Money Can Buy You Happiness. But did you also know that certain purchases could help you live longer, too?Here's what no guy should ever be without, regardless of what's in his wallet.Shoes That ShinePeople can make fairly accurate assumptions about you by checking out your shoes, University of Kansas research reveals. So send the right signal: Opt for real leather and stitched soles.”Once they start to separate, glued soles are done,” says Justin Fitzpatrick, a London shoe designer. “Stitched soles can be replaced.”Find something that fits your style in our guide to The Best Shoes For Every Guy.SkinspirationPricier grooming products generally contain higher concentrations of active ingredients, says stylist Diana Schmidtke, whose clients include Clooney

Infections won't just weaken your immune system–they could also cramp your cranium. A serious sickness can lower your I.Q. score, suggests a new Danish study. Researchers studied 190,000 men who took an intelligence test and found that guys who had been hospitalized for an infection in the past scored a mean of almost 2 points below the national I.Q. average. Men who logged at least five major hospital visits posted around 9 fewer points than average. Related: The Germiest Places You Touch Every DayInfections activate certain brain cells that work with your immune system, says study author Michael Eriksen Benros, M.D., Ph.D. This changes the way other cells send signals to your brain, which can cause cognitive problems, he says. Research shows that relatively

The days of frequent brain farts may be closer than you think: If you're over the ripe old age of 18, some of your cognitive skills have already headed south, according to new findings from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.But not all of your brain is in a free fall. The study also found it could take years or decades before some of your other mental abilities reach their peak. Researchers put together a set of short, simple computer games designed to assess various cognitive skills–like processing speed, vocabulary, and social cognition–for players ages 10 to 89.The scientists found that different brain skills peak and decline at wildly different ages, starting as early as your late teens and as late as your 70s. (Regardless of your

Like bad 80's shoulder pads and frosted tips, some exercises go out of style–and for good reason. Here are the exercises trainers would never recommend you do nowadays, and their safer, more-effective alternatives.STOMACH SLAPSSome trainers thought that hitting the stomach of someone performing crunches would cause them to brace their core, creating a tighter muscle contraction. The idea was that this would lead to better-looking abs, but the only people who might find it useful are MMA fighters because they actually take hits in the breadbasket, says BJ Gaddour, C.S.C.S., Men's Health fitness director and creator of Bodyweight Cardio Burners. Better option: The hollow-body holdTry the hollow-body hold if you want a serious punch to the

Turns out, you can have deflated balls and not be the quarterback for the New England Patriots.Some men need to have their balls punctured and drained, says Dr. Brian Steixner, M.D., a urological surgeon who joined Men's Health Live this week to talk about the most horrifying surgical procedure you probably didn't want to know existed.What medical condition requires a testicle draining? Steixner says it's caused by the formation of a hydrocele, or a build-up of fluid surrounding the testicle.When this happens, your testicles can “become as small as a baseball or up as large as a basketball,” Steixner told us.It gets worse. So much worse. Brace yourself and listen to entire hilarious yet illuminating (and definitely