We don’t like to admit it, but we’re an ageist society. 

While there are some good reasons for this (a 70-year-old would struggle to be a policeman or a firefighter), it’s also true that we often start to discriminate prematurely about the things a person should or shouldn’t be able to do based on their age. 

Enter: LeBron James and his latest statistics (and the American public’s astonishment at them). 

That’s right. It’s not just retirees who feel judged by their age. Even one of the greatest basketball players of all time – LeBron James – is not immune. 

A recent Instagram post by SportsCentre, speaking about LeBron’s recent spate of form, was titled entitled, “HE’S 36 ”.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SportsCenter (@sportscenter)

Lebron, over the last eight games he has achieved as follows: 

LeBron James over the last 8 Games:

39 PTS, 6 AST, 5 REB
30 PTS, 11 AST, 7 REB
33 PTS, 9 AST, 5 REB
23 PTS, 6 AST, 11 REB
30 PTS, 5 AST, 4 REB
20 PTS, 11 AST, 10 REB
33 PTS, 6 AST, 5 REB
30 PTS, 10 AST, 11 REB pic.twitter.com/9CF6YEQbyh

— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) December 13, 2021

Sportscetre re-posted this information, and their post sparked debate about Lebron’s age.

“Who else is doing this at 36 let me know,” one fan asked.

“LeAlmost 37,” quipped another.

“Wow here come the people who choose to discredit LeBron no matter what.”

“MVP,” wrote another.

Further remarks included: “Dudes proving everyone wrong, Wow that’s actually crazy.”

Another user said it’s a whole lot easier for Lebron to keep himself from aging than it is for the rest of us, writing: “He said he is spending 1m a year on his body…not everybody can afford that either…”

The discussion also involved other athletes who are proving age and experience can outclass youth and enthusiasm.

“Cristiano Ronaldo but better,” one Instagram user wrote, while another said: “Tom Brady is in his mid 40’s and is still leading almost every qb stat.”

Though it’s good there was a positive response to Lebron’s impressive statistics, the fact that there is a growing roster of high performing older athletes across all sorts of sports should mean we’re no longer (so) surprised when aging athletes earn a spot in elite teams (if they are good enough to do so).

Other icons like Zlatan Ibrahimović and Roger Federer have similarly proved that when it comes to performance, age is but a number. As another aging athlete (and legendary centre back) Sergio Ramos once said: there are not young players and old players, there are good players and bad players.

According to Ageism In Sports, “If you research ageism in sports, you find that the average age that athletes are said to hit their physical peak is far earlier than your average work employee is stereotyped to peak. That means that athletes on average will suffer from the effects of ageism earlier than the general population who is impacted by ageism stereotypes only when they show physical attributes of age.”

“Athletes who find themselves dealing with ageism in their line of work can still look the same as they did years ago, but their age, the number, is defining how they are being treated in the world of athletics. It’s said that athletes who can beat ageism in their sport are an anomaly, they are rare in the industry, and aren’t the norm.”

TWSN reports: “Youth is one of the highest valued assets in sports. In the NBA, the idea of potential overshadows almost all other variables. It is the reason why first round draft picks are nearly untouchable unless a team is trading for a superstar caliber player like Paul George or James Harden.”

“Aside from the true stars of the league, most of the older generation of players are unable to sustain longevity. Players barely over 30 are already outcast from the NBA because organizations would prefer to have an unpolished second-round twenty-year-old on their roster instead of a former 20+ PPG scorer who has shown a shade of decline.”

This makes Lebron’s incredible performances of late even more impressive. Let’s hope he keeps defying physics and biology for many years to come.

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No Time to Die, the hotly-anticipated 25th James Bond film and Daniel Craig’s last stint as the famous fictional spy, is truly an end of an era.

Craig is officially the longest-serving Bond, having filled 007’s shoes for 15 years, and was also probably the most unique Bond, too. Craig’s Bond wasn’t a skeevy womaniser or decadent bon vivant: he was a tortured, brooding, intense killer, with an icy-cold wit and no time for nonsense. It was a different, more mature take on Bond that stands worlds apart from previous characterisations.

With Craig now bowing out, there’s been a huge amount of speculation as to who will fill his shoes and what they’ll bring to the role. While some actors like Tom Holland and Idris Elba have been rumoured to be taking the helm, some actresses have, too. Lashana Lynch, who played Nomi – the MI6 agent who inherited Bond’s 007 designation after his retirement at the end of Spectre – might very well be the next Bond. I mean, she kind of already is.

Many fans have fiercely rejected the proposition of a female Bond – but if they didn’t like that idea, they’ll really dislike the latest revelation about the next James Bond.

Barbara Broccoli, the daughter of Albert R. Broccoli and both the producer and rights holder for all the modern James Bond films, revealed during a podcast interview that she’d be open to the idea of James Bond becoming non-binary, with the only proviso being “we just have to find the right actor.”

We break down the odds on who’s likely to be the next Bond below.

This has incensed some fans, with some particularly choice comments shared on TMZ: “yeah, so completely destroy what the character has embodied for almost 70 years, sure”, “get woke, go broke”, and perhaps most pointedly, “create a different franchise – and leave this alone.”

RELATED: ‘Controversial’ No Time To Die Scene Leaves Bond Fans Feeling Confused & Scared

And that’s sort of the heart of the matter, isn’t it? Rather than trying to ‘rehabilitate’ the image of such a historied and well-loved character, surely it would just be better to come up with a different character who’s non-binary, or female, or queer… From the get-go.

It’s something the comic book industry has experimented (and struggled) with, for example. Marvel Comics, over the last two decades, has launched a wide variety of titles that have seen diverse figures take up the mantle of various famous superheroes, such as a black, female Iron Man and a Muslim Ms Marvel.

While some titles with fresh, diverse takes on heroes have been very successful – take Miles Morales, the Afro-Latino teen who’s the new Spider-Man – many have been quite unsuccessful, and have attracted criticism from fans. This EW article gives you a bit of a taste of the debate.

The core argument is that introducing diversity means nothing without good writing – and indeed, it’s better to just write existing characters better rather than try and change an essential aspect of their character.

Now, is this all much ado about nothing? Broccoli has previously voiced her opinion that Bond should always remain male: that as long as Bond is British and has XY chromosomes, everything else is open to discussion. It seems her comment about a non-binary Bond was designed to spark debate and court coverage, and well, it’s worked.

We’d say this endless speculation and ugly culture wars over James Bond are more damaging to the character and the films than the actual movies. Making Bond non-binary is one thing, but dangling that worm just to get Twitter fingers flying doesn’t do anyone any favours.

Both writers and fans need to come to some sort of consensus as to what is truly essential about Bond’s character. Male and British seem like two core prerequisites. He ought to have a naval background. More importantly, he needs to dress well and have exceptional taste. But his ethnicity, age, upbringing and sexual preferences? Are they really that important?

RELATED: James Bond’s Favourite Shoes Are A Perfect Smart Casual Style Move

Or do we do away with Bond entirely? Is he a relic of a less enlightened age? We don’t think so. As Daniel Craig was able to show, Bond can be more than just an outdated stereotype of masculinity, and he’s a character that still has plenty of stories in him.

We don’t really care who James Bond is – as long as the films remain fun, high-budget and well-written. That’s what’s most crucial.

• Why Is Nobody Is Talking About James Bond’s $4,000 ‘No Time to Die’ Car?
• Tom Holland Could Be Most ‘Baby Faced’ Bond Ever… If He Is Picked To Be 007

The post If Bullets Don’t Kill The Next James Bond, Political Correctness Will appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

Watch how Bitcoin gets mined in the video below.

The supply of total Bitcoins in circulation is capped at 21 million, and we have now hit 18.8999 million Bitcoin currently circulating on the network, as of Monday morning, according to Blockchain.com. This is 90% of all Bitcoins.

The very first Bitcoins were mined on January the 9th, 2009. That means it has taken twelve years for Bitcoin miners to hit the 90% mark.

According to Coindesk, despite there now only being 10% left, “the remaining supply [of Bitcoin] is not expected to be mined until February 2140, based on network activity estimates and Bitcoin’s halving schedules.”

Yahoo Finance reports that Bitcoin was being traded for less than $0.10 when 10% of the supply was mined in early 2010, and traded for $7.50 when 50% of the supply was mined in December 2012.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $46,923.40 ($65,782.1 AUD), having declined substantially from its peak of $69,000 ($96731.44 AUD) earlier this year.

As the world’s first and most famous cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has led blockchain technology revolution since the beginning. Bitcoin blazed a trail when it initially broke into popular consciousness in 2017, and in the years following it consequently afforded all other cryptocurrencies the possibility of succeeding in its wake.

Bitcoin relies on miners who, Coindesk explains, “continually process transactions and validate blocks in a process broadly referred to as mining. Such participants provide their computing resources and hardware to solve millions of complex calculations on the Bitcoin network each second, receiving Bitcoin as rewards.”

According to Coindesk, “Miners currently receive 6.25 Bitcoin for each block they mine, which would drop to 3.125 bitcoin after the next halving in 2024.”

It’s also worth noting that not every Bitcoin will be available on the open market, even when the remaining supply has been completely mined.

According to Decrypt, 3.7 million Bitcoin are probably gone forever, due to Bitcoin sometimes being lost, burned, or just plain forgotten by its owners.

Decrypt also reports that Bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto “may have mined around 1.1 million BTC in the first few months of its existence,” writing that “since then, it appears that Satoshi hasn’t touched his stash, indicating he, or she (they? it?), cannot or will not move these coins into the circulating supply.”

Bitcoin is down 6,36% today and down 25% over the last month. Bullish investors are still pointing out there is typically always a slump after an all-time high, while bearish investors are taking a step back, after individuals like big wig investor Louis Navellier have recently warned that things like Federal Reserve tapering could see Bitcoin fall to $10,000 USD per Bitcoin, a stinging decline of 80% from its all-time high set last month of almost $70,000 USD.

• Bitcoin Price Prediction: Where Bitcoin Can End Up In 2021
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The post Bitcoin Crashes Through ‘Point Of No Return’ Milestone appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

After a truly action-packed, tense year, the 2021 Formula 1 World Championship drew to a close last night at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Defending seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton ultimately lost out to rival Max Verstappen on the last lap of the last race of the season, with the pair finishing 1-2 after heading into the race dead even on points.

In many ways, it’s the end of an era. The unrivalled dominance of Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton has had few parallels in international sport, let alone motorsport. Hamilton was on the cusp of a record eight Driver’s Championships: he already holds the records for most career wins, points and pole positions, among myriad other achievements, but this would have been the crowning glory.

To suggest that Hamilton would be crushed would be to make the understatement of the century. But without delving into the politics and intricacies of Verstappen’s win – or the season that was more broadly – we just want to take the time to recognise (one of the many reasons) why Hamilton will go down as the Greatest Of All Time: his impeccable sportsmanship.

Despite being shattered both physically and emotionally, Hamilton very promptly went over and congratulated Verstappen on his win after getting out of his car at parc fermé. Hamilton’s dad, Anthony Hamilton, also made the point of congratulating Verstappen. Indeed, both Hamiltons went over and also congratulated Verstappen’s dad, former F1 driver Jos Verstappen.

Hamilton was also incredibly gracious and composed during his speech before heading up to the podium, showing grace under fire that we doubt Verstappen would have been capable of if the tables had been turned (sorry Max, we love you, but let’s be real here).

“A big congratulations to Max and to his team,” Hamilton said during his post-race interview. “I think we did an amazing job this year. My team, everyone back at the factory, all the men and women we have, and here, have worked so hard this whole year. It has been the most difficult of seasons. I’m so proud of them, so grateful to be part of the journey with them.”

“We gave it everything. This last part of the season we gave it absolutely everything and we never gave up and that’s the most important thing.”

Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton’s behaviour has been widely applauded by F1 fans, pundits and celebrities alike. “Lewis Hamilton is a supreme competitor, who gave absolutely everything against a worthy champion in Max Verstappen in a sport riddled with risk. Hamilton’s grace in defeat underlines what a sporting legend and role model he is,” The Times’ chief football writer Henry Winter relates.

Even veteran motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson, who’s never held back in his criticism of Hamilton, was impressed by his decorum, calling him “very very dignified”.

RELATED: Jeremy Clarkson Takes Aim At Lewis Hamilton With ‘Anti-Woke’ Rant

Even if you don’t like him, it’s hard to fault Hamilton’s status as a positive role model – beyond good sportsmanship. The first and only Black driver in F1 history, Hamilton has become a conscientious advocate against racism, as well as for human, environmental and animal rights. F1 couldn’t ask for a better global ambassador.

Hamilton’s not going anywhere: he might have lost the 2021 title but he’ll be back again next year, undoubtedly with extra fire in his belly. Until then, Verstappen has some pretty huge shoes to fill. Hopefully, he can rise to the occasion.

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The post Lewis Hamilton’s Class Act In The Face Of Agonising Defeat appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

We’d thought we’d seen it all this year when it came to headline-grabbing watch releases: Rolex’s surprising Explorer update, IWC Schaffhausen’s Big Pilot overhaul, the Audemars Piguet Black Panther…

But with only weeks left in the year, Patek Philippe has blown everyone else out of the water with the release of the Nautilus ref. 5711/1A-018 ‘Tiffany & Co.’

Patek made waves this year when they announced they were discontinuing the incredibly popular Nautilus ref. 5711 after 15 years on the market… But the Tiffany Nautilus is the very definition of going out with a bang. Featuring a lacquered ‘Tiffany blue’ dial counter-signed with the logo of the famous jeweller, this ultra-limited edition is the final and most eye-catching iteration of the 5711. This is the epitome of hype.

How hype, you may ask? Well, one of these incredibly desirable watches just sold at Phillips’ 2021 New York Watch Auction for an eye-watering US$6,503,000. That’s right. $6.5 million for a stainless steel watch. The mind boggles.

Watch how it all went down below.

The watch hammered for $5,350,000, with the auction premium bringing it to $6,503,000. That officially makes it the eighth-most expensive watch and the most expensive Nautilus of all time, as well as the highest value watch to sell online at any auction house ever.

Considering that virtually all the other watches in the top 10 most expensive watches sold at auction are either historically significant vintage pieces (such as Paul Newman’s personal Rolex Daytona) or incredibly complex, one-off pieces of haute horlogerie (like the Grandmaster Chime ‘Only One’ ref. 6300A-010, another Patek), it’s a rather unbelievable price that’s caused no shortage of controversy amongst watch fans.

RELATED: The Most Expensive Watches Of All Time Revealed

As Hodinkee’s Logan Baker puts it, “some fans love [it] and the Beyonce-level surprise of the drop… sceptics [see] the Patek Philippe ref. 5711/1A-018 with Tiffany & Co.-signed dial as… a Veblen luxury product whose deliberate un-obtainability represents all that’s wrong with today’s timepiece market.”

We’d tend to agree. Regardless of what you think about the watch itself, this specific auction feels rather cynical. Well, it would, except for the fact that all the proceeds are going to charity: specifically, The Nature Conservancy. Patek, Tiffany and Phillips aren’t making a cent from the sale… But the publicity is priceless, we suppose.

This isn’t the only time this year a Patek Philippe Nautilus auction has raised eyebrows. A factory-sealed Nautilus ‘Olive Dial’ (ref. 5711/1A-014) went under the hammer with Antiquorum for a ludicrous US$470,000, or about 13 times the retail price, back in July – controversial, as factory-sealed watches shouldn’t really exist.

RELATED: This ‘Olive Dial’ Patek Philippe Auction Is Very, Very Silly

As the collaboration celebrates 170 years of partnership between Tiffany & Co. and Patek Philippe, 170 examples of the Tiffany Nautilus have been made – but will only be available at Tiffany’s New York, Beverly Hills and San Francisco boutiques.

That partially explains why the price of this first one was so insanely high: it was the only one available outside of those boutiques (and you can bet your bottom dollar the other 169 were snapped up immediately by Tiffany’s most exclusive customers).

It will be interesting to see what happens when or if one of the other 169 watches go under the hammer. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results… But what about the same result? Enough hypotheticals: we need a lie-down.

UPDATE: in a strange turn of events, the original bidder for the Tiffany Patek fell through. Instead, well-known Patek collector Zach Lu ended up purchasing the watch for $6.2 million – still an absurd amount of money…

• Andy Warhol’s Patek Philippe Could Be A Bargain Waiting To Be Snapped Up
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The post $6.5 Million ‘Tiffany Patek’ Auction Proves The Watch World Has Lost Its Marbles appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

For the vast majority of gym-goers, the overall goal is to get stronger and to be able to lift heavier and heavier weights (unless your goal is to increase muscle size, in which case you’d go down a hypertrophy training route). But, simply picking up a set of heavier dumbbells during the following session, or moving the pin further down the stack on the cable machine, isn’t always going to guarantee success.

In fact, lifting lighter weights can be just as effective, as fitness trainer Paul Sklar explains in a recent Instagram post. In his video, Paul can be seen performing hammer curls and bicep curls, using 25lbs and 30lbs dumbbells, respectively. For a man of Paul’s sheer size, these would be considered ‘lightweight’. So, why wouldn’t he increase the weight when he’s perfectly capable?

As Paul explains, it’s because of the mind-muscle connection: “If you have the right mind-muscle connection, it doesn’t matter how much weight you use,” he relates.

“Make the most out of any exercise you do, because each one may work a lot more than you think they do. When I use a weight like this, I take all sets to failure, understanding what failure is.”

Check out Paul Sklar’s training to failure workout in the video below

There are a couple of key points to unpack in those comments: what is mind-muscle connection, and what exactly does taking sets to failure mean?

What is mind-muscle connection?

Mind-muscle connection, as Muscle and Strength explains, “means you are mentally connected to the body and how it’s working while you’re performing activities.” Essentially, this means you shouldn’t focus on the weight you’re lifting and eyeing up being able to lift as much as possible, but rather, understanding what is happening with the muscle through the entirety of the exercise. And the best way to do this is to use a lighter weight.

Time Under Tension

To help improve your mind-muscle connection, you can employ various techniques, such as time under tension. Time under tension involves increasing the amount of time you take to perform an exercise, putting greater tension on the muscles for a greater amount of time. Studies have shown that increasing the eccentric portion of an exercise (the lengthening) can result in greater muscle growth. With a bench press, for example, you would slow down the lowering of the bar, putting greater tension on your chest muscles, before pressing it back up quickly.

You can also pause at peak contraction to help increase time under tension. Using the bench press as an example again would mean you would pause and squeeze the chest muscles once you have pushed it back up to the starting position.

Again, increasing time under tension will be much easier using a lighter weight, compared to what you would lift if you were to perform the same exercise at a faster pace.

Training To Failure

As for training to failure, there is some mixed opinion with regards to both its effectiveness and how it should be implemented. Training to failure means to train to the point where you can physically no longer lift the weight you have selected with the correct form. If you are able to pump out another rep with good form, even if it feels difficult, then you haven’t technically reached failure.

The general consensus suggests that by training to failure, you’re working your muscles to within their limits, which will in turn cause them to rebuild themselves to be much stronger. However, some weight lifters choose to take all sets to failure. According to Bodybuilding.com, this is something Spanish researcher Dr. Mikel Izquierdo has found causes more harm than good. In his study, he found “training to failure every set drastically increased resting levels of the catabolic hormone cortisol and suppressed anabolic growth factors such as IGF-1.” Basically, people who do this may not actually see any long-term muscle growth.

However, a 2016 study conducted by researchers at McMaster University in Canada, found that “lifting lighter weights many times is as efficient as lifting heavy weights for fewer repetitions.” And, while it is recommended that you only take your last set of an exercise to failure, it can be possible when performed with lighter weights, as it can be less taxing on the body, yet still prove to be effective.

This is likely what Paul means when he says “When I use a weight like this, I take all sets to failure, understanding what failure is,” i.e. he wouldn’t take all sets to failure if he were using a heavier weight.

The whole concept of lifting lighter weights to make gains may be lost on many because as we mentioned at the beginning, the very point of going to the gym is to become stronger. But, leaving ego aside and understanding exactly what happens when you’re lifting weight and not just looking at how good you look in the mirror, could be your best route to ‘Gainsville’.

• This Workout Breathing Technique Could Increase Your Gains
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The post Perfecting Mind-Muscle Connection Your Ticket To Becoming A Jacked Beast appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

We live in a divided society. Everything down to your Macadamia milk latte is political. Every statement you make has subconscious intent.

According to this logic, you can’t rock a man bun because you thought Brad Pitt looked cool at the Oscars. Nah: if you tie your hair in a knot, you’ve also got to suddenly develop the spirit animal of a f*ckboi vegan hipster who is a part-time Jazz musician and a freelance NFT entrepreneur who spends a lot of time hanging around in cafes.

Not deterred by this, however, (after my previous experiments, in which I rocked every f*ckbois favourite footwear for a week, and Chris Hemsworth’s designer stubble for a month I have become immune to shame) I recently decided to continue my sartorial evolution by throwing my receding, bleached hairline into a man bun.

In the process, I realised there is an art to the man bun. You have to commit to the process, and learn the ropes before you can really feel good about it. You have to suffer for your follicular systems upgrade, and stay the course.

I realise it’s a bit funny me saying this after only having a man bun for two weeks. But anyway: here’s what I learned.

The Low Bun (with your fringe hanging loose) is the most comfortable version of the man bun, but looks a bit dishevelled (unless you’re Brad Pitt)

Inject Brad Pitt and his lil man bun into my veins #Oscars pic.twitter.com/SPqXb51ZMG

— Jamie Blynn (@jamieblynn) April 26, 2021

The devil may not care, but if you’re going to an important work function, your business associates might.

You will inevitably become obsessed with running your hands through your hair when you are not rocking the man bun

Or is that just me?

Man buns are so not cool they are almost… cool?

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it…

There’s a reason the high bun is the iconic look

After a week of rocking the low bun and having my hair escape every day, I tried my man bun a bit higher up. It worked much better. Now I get it.

Believe it or not; man buns save you time

I’ve realised having long hair actually saves you more time than awkward ‘in between length’ hair. Why? Medium length hair (which is not yet long enough to be put in a bun) requires a shower and a brush to look respectable. Man bun length hair, however, looks the same regardless of whether or not you have showered and conditioned it, because it’s hidden away in a man bun. Life hacks people, life hacks.

You initially feel self conscious, then it gets better

Practice makes perfect.

Man buns don’t give you instant sex appeal

Contrary to what Twitter might have you believe…

Brad Pitts low man bun got me like:#Oscars pic.twitter.com/VGq9VhIhP7

— carrie frison (@carriemehome144) April 26, 2021

…having a man bun, at least in my experience, doesn’t make people start throwing themselves at you on the street.

Long hair may have its upsides, but there are some tricky aspects to it

From struggling to brush such long hair to pulling your man bun too tight, it’s not all fun and games, as TikTok users in the video below explain.

Read Next

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The post Two Weeks With A Man Bun: Everything I Learnt Being A Hipster Cliché appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

Anthony Bourdain had an anonymous Reddit account, which he used to write about Jiu-Jitsu.

Posting almost exclusively in the popular r/bjj Reddit community, Bourdain’s comments, featuring his signature self deprecating barbs, had long been rumoured to be him by some Redditors. Now Bourdain’s wife, Ottavia Busia (and “an additional source” close to Bourdain), have confirmed to The Rolling Stone they were him.

The Rolling Stone reported on Saturday: “Eventually, the tone and rhythms, the distinctive attitude in NooYawkCity’s writing, started to become recognizable to savvy Redditors. These, they suspected, were the musings of Anthony Bourdain, the celebrated chef, author, and TV star, who died by suicide in 2018 at the age of 61. Bourdain’s wife, Ottavia Busia — who had introduced him to Brazilian jiujitsu — later confirmed as much, as has an additional source close to the No Reservations host.”

Bourdain’s Reddit profile was ‘u/NooYawkCity.’

His first comment, entitled, “58 year old white belt,” made seven years ago, was as follows:

“I’ve been training about a year, and only recently gotten solidly hooked. From once every few weeks, to once a week to nearly every day. Now it’s an obsession. I’m in shit shape, gas early, and of course, hurt like hell after training. Given the limits of any reasonable expectations, am I out of my fucking mind?”

Reddit user flybrand wrote in response: “38 year old white belt; came back after a 10 year hiatus because of people like you. Keep at it.”

Some of Bourdain’s other comments in the r/bjj community, we reckon, hold some life and fitness lessons we can all learn from – whether that’s finding an obsession (if you want to get fit, and have never been ‘into’ fitness) or showing respect when you travel.

In one post, entitled “Chicken fried steak,” Bourdain wrote: “58 years old and getting so gassed during warm ups, that when we start to roll, I end up sticking my own head into an obvious guillotine –just to take a break. An utterly humiliating class yesterday, yet showed up for a private today with 250 lbs of muscle and bone so I could get pounded like a chicken fried steak.”

“Why am I doing this? I don’t know. I’m like a dope fiend at this point. If I can’t train I start going into withdrawal. Wander around, twitching, restless and pissed off. At least with dope, you feel GOOD afterwards . After training, I feel like a rented and unloved mule . All the other (much, much younger) white belts all seem to be coming back from long breaks because of injury.”

“Strangely enough, so far so good for me. I may feel like a fragile box of stale breadsticks but I’ve managed to avoid injury (if not discomfort). I have never enjoyed pain. I don’t care if it’s Gisele Bunchen coming at me in thigh boots wielding a riding crop, I’m not interested. Yet I insist on getting squashed on the mats every day and feel bereft if I can’t. This is not normal. When I talk about BJJ , Old friends look at me like I have an arm growing out of my forehead. But I Won’t stop. Can’t stop.”

This post got some commenters guessing it might be Bourdain.

He also, on another occasion, wrote: “I travel a lot and visit a lot of different academies. And I frankly don’t care whose photo I’m asked to bow to: Helio, Carlos, Carlson, Maeda — or whether I’m expected to bow every time I either enter or leave the mats, bow to instructor, bow to my classmates… I do it. It’s their house. I’m lucky enough to benefit in some way from the hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of hours of painfully acquired experience represented by those traditions, however silly they may seem. I play by the house rules. Period. If I don’t like your rules? I don’t come to your house.”

He also commented on another post (“Joe Rogan says Ottavia Bourdain got Anthony into jiu jitsu by bribing him with Vicodin in return for going, lol. Also mentions that he trains twice a day”), appearing to confirm the rumour. In response to a user writing: “Wait, am I the only one who thinks she was joking when she said that?” Bourdain said: “That would be a reasonable assumption. Also the fact of the matter.”

Another post was as follows: “57 when I started. Had never been in a gym in my life. Lifetime heavy smoker. Overweight.”

“Coming up on 59 now. I train every day, wherever I can. If I’m home, I’ll do a private followed by GenPop class . Every day. . If away, I’ll take what I can get: preferably classes with some hard rolling . That can be, as I’ve found out, a mystery basket , as levels of aggression and acceptable techniques tend to vary. Face cranks and can openers, for instance, seem to be a polite way to begin a roll in some parts of Eastern Europe.”

“Conventional wisdom is that I should allow myself recovery time . That training every day is not wise. I say fuck that. The clock is ticking. Im not getting any faster, more flexible or more durable. Gotta get in what training I can–learn as much as I can, get as good as I can before I leave this life like I began it: diapered and screaming.”

Another time he wrote: “For over 40 years, my life pretty much revolved around drugs. Booze and cigarettes almost the background music to my drugs of choice (heroin and cocaine). Drug free but a drinker until I started BJJ — at which point the inevitability of getting smashed every day made alcohol a much less attractive option and cigarettes out of the question. Frankly, BJJ as an addiction has in many ways replaced my previous ones. If I’m away from my home academy, I find myself looking for someplace anyplace to train like a dope fiend looking for a methadone clinic. My emotional state when deprived of training would, in different circumstances, be called ‘drug seeking behavior.'”

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The post Anthony Bourdain’s Secret Reddit Account Holds Some Important Fitness & Life Lessons appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

He’s only gone and bloody done it! On the last lap of the last race of the 2021 Formula One World Championship, Max Verstappen crossed the line in first place, not only winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix but also his maiden Driver’s Championship.

It’s been a long time coming for the feisty Dutchman. Seven years in the sport and a lifetime of hard work, high emotions and intense training has finally paid off for the 24-year-old. That Verstappen managed to beat rival Lewis Hamilton – seven-time World Champion and arguably the Greatest Of All Time – is testament to his skill as a driver. That the race came right down to the wire is incredibly fitting, too.

Speaking of fitting things, Verstappen was wearing perhaps the most perfect watch an F1 driver can hope to wear when one’s lifting a gold trophy: a TAG Heuer Monaco. Specifically, Verstappen was wearing his limited-edition Monaco Titan (ref. CAW218B.FC6496) – a high-performance variant of the famous watch that’s perfect for such a high-performance guy.

First introduced in 1969 and named after the legendary Monaco Grand Prix, the TAG Heuer Monaco is easily one of the most distinctive watches on the planet thanks to its chunky, square case and chronograph subdials. It’s also famous as the watch worn by Steve McQueen in the iconic 1971 motorsports film Le Mans.

Verstappen’s Monaco Titan, as the name implies, features a unique titanium case, silver sunburst dial and retro ‘Heuer’ logo, as well as a crown mounted on the left-hand side (like vintage models). It was actually given to Max as a gift after his win at the Monaco Grand Prix this year, and he’s gone on to wear it at every podium ceremony since. Guess it’s a bit of a good luck charm.

RELATED: TAG Heuer Squares The Circle With ‘Racy’ New Monaco Models

Verstappen’s win in Abu Dhabi was a dramatic end to what’s been one of the most exciting seasons in F1 history. The title fight between Red Bull’s Verstappen and Mercedes’ Hamilton was incredibly tense: the pair were dead even on points heading into this last race – and for much of the race, Hamilton looked set to bring home a record eighth title.

A safety car deployment with only a handful of laps to go saw Verstappen make a canny pit stop for soft tyres, which gave him the speed necessary to pull ahead of Hamilton in the final, green flagged lap. It was a controversial race and a controversial win for many reasons, but we’re not going to get into that here. We’d just like to thank both Hamilton and Verstappen for putting on one hell of a show. Both men deserved the win.

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The post Max Verstappen Wins Formula One World Championship Wearing The Perfect Watch appeared first on DMARGE Australia.