As strange as it sounds, Diego Mercado's journey toward a crisis began at a movie theater in the Bronx when he was 16 years old. Mercado was sitting in a multiplex when he saw a dude rip off his shirt in a Twilight movie. "Like, you see that awesome aesthetic body. Like, oh man, I want that." Right there, he decided that he had to build a six-pack, too. He wanted to have a body that everyone knew was in great shape.
So the sophomore hit the weights. At first, he worked out at Planet Fitness. But as he got more serious, he sought out a more serious gym. Star Fitness in the Bronx was hardcore-full of competitive powerlifters, bodybuilders, and other guys who made strength training part of their identity. He was reading every PubMed study on testosterone and anabolic protocols when he should have been attentive in his high school classes. Mercado immersed himself in gym culture-feeling passion and peer pressure to look the part. He was way bigger and stronger and fitter looking than he had been before, but he noticed that some of his friends who didn't seem as committed as he was were making faster progress. He desperately wanted to make greater gains.
After learning he had low testosterone levels, Mercado wound up taking a stack of anabolic compounds without medical supervision. He became obsessive about training and dieting. Mercado was crushing two or even three sessions at the gym daily. To micromanage his food intake, he was toting a scale to the Mexican and Cuban restaurants where he worked as a server and bartender. He also was camping out on Instagram-exuberantly sharing his quest for muscularity and mainlining the fitness content of other ripped guys. His Instagram account, which he'd later scrub, was packed with images that showed his arms stretching the limits of his T-shirts and his big-screen-worthy abs.
Denne historien er fra October 2022-utgaven av Men's Health US.
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Denne historien er fra October 2022-utgaven av Men's Health US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Tren Nation - How an obscure bovine steroid became gym Gen Z's favorite social-media muscle flex.
Not anabolic steroids. Not testosterone. Not creatine or multivitamins or a high-protein diet. No, Frank and Jesse (who both spoke on condition of anonymity because trenbolone is deemed illegal) immediately jump to trenbolone, which has quickly developed a rep for increasing muscularity and decreasing body fat all at once. Among bodybuilders it's known as the god of all steroids for its potency. To teens and young men, it's simply tren, a ticket to the prototypical social-media-friendly physique. Why? Frank, who's now 18, explains tren's growing popularity with all the confidence and expertise of someone who Googled tren once (mostly to see how jacked it made cows), watched hundreds of hours of tren content on Tik Tok, and made a ton of tren jokes. If the only thing you care about is putting on muscle, he says, it really does seem like tren is the thing to take.
Say What? - Hearing loss isn't just a thing that happens to your parents. Nearly one in five people in their 20s show signs of it already. And it puts your brain and well-being in danger, too. Luckily, new tech can help. Listen up.
Hearing loss isn't just a thing that happens to your parents. Nearly one in five people in their 20s show signs of it already. And it puts your brain and well-being in danger, too. Luckily, new tech can help. Listen up. An estimated 15 percent of American adults-that's about 38 million peoplehave some level of hearing loss, according to the CDC. Research increasingly suggests that untreated hearing loss can lead to other significant health issues, including depression and Alzheimer's disease.
Back-Round Check! - Tap into next-level total-body strength and supercharge muscle gains by learning when and how) to round your back in the gym.
Lift with your legs, not with your back. It's a cue many trainers use anytime you bend down to lift something heavy. It makes sense, too, since conventional wisdom holds that rounding your back with heavy weight leads to injury. But if you look closely at a strongman like Tom Stoltman hoisting a 300-kilogram (661-pound) Atlas stone, you'll notice that his spine isn't ramrod straight at all. Instead, he's almost hunching forward, curling his entire spine around the stone. And if you scroll fitness social media long enough, you may come across an exercise called the Jefferson curl, which asks you to stand holding a light barbell, then lower the barbell while simultaneously rounding your back as much as possible.
Christian Mccaffrey is Him - He's entering his eighth season in the NFL, but the league's most electric running back is not slowing down.
Every off-season for the past seven years, Christian McCaffrey, the San Francisco 49ers' All-Pro running back, has met up with Brian Kula, C.S.C.S., a trainer he's worked with since eighth grade. They talk about any injuries and any niggling pain from the previous season, do a battery of strength and movement tests, and then create a program "to turn CMC back on."
A Merciless Sun
Just over a year ago, Kekoa Lansford watched from a hilltop as the Maui wildfires incinerated his hometown.
ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME, JAKE
How societal menace and serial disrupter JAKE PAUL is trying to change the sport of boxing, influence influencer culture, and, gulp, maybe change the world, too.
THE REINVENTED QUARTERBACK
A 2023 bookended by injuries pushed the Bengals' JOE BURROW to reconstruct his entire approach to fitness and nutrition.
THE WRECKING BALL WIDEOUT
DK METCALF pursues an old-school path to hardcore strength: PUSH. YOUR. LIMITS.
FATHERHOOD BUT WITH QUESTION MARKS
I've always wondered if I'm a good dad. So I did something drastic: I asked my kids.
CAN MARVEL REGAIN ITS SUPERPOWERS?
Critical savaging. Box-office meh-ness. Cultural irrelevance. How did the MCU lose its dominance over all screens, and what will it take to restore it?
