🚨 Welcome to issue #1 of Generation Xcellent, your weekly source for tons of useful stuff about fitness, sex, money, fatherhood, and GenX culture. I’m your host, NYT bestselling author Stephen Perrine, formerly of Men’s Health, Maxim and Best Life. My job: To help guide you through the moshpit of midlife. 

📩 Thanks for joining the conversation!

- FITNESS -

Eat This to Build Muscle at 45+

A simple tweak to your daily diet can help your body bulk up like it’s 30 years younger

By Stephen Perrine

But hit your 30 grams of protein every morning and you’re priming your body to build muscle the way it did decades earlier. Indeed, one study found that when people in their 60s combined a high-quality protein meal with resistance exercise, their bodies responded in the same way as the bodies of people in their 20s. Another study found that those who ate extra protein in the morning had lower blood sugar and reduced levels of appetite later in the day. 

And the result isn’t just about looking good in a T-shirt: More muscle means a stronger immune system, healthier bones, greater cognitive function and a lowered risk of countless diseases of aging: In one study, men who had the most muscle mass at 45 and up were 81 percent less likely to develop heart disease over the next decade than those with the least. 

Your Action Plan

So, how does a guy get to 30 grams of protein in the morning? The easy way is with a scoop of whey protein. You can mix it into everything from smoothies to cereal, from yogurt to oats. Not a fan? A cup and a half of cottage cheese or unsweetened Greek yogurt will also get you there. 

Here’s a quick recipe to get your breakfast on track: mix ¾ cup iced coffee, a splash of milk, ½ a banana, 1 Tbs each peanut butter and hemp seeds, ¼ cup whole-wheat cereal or cooked oatmeal, ½ Tbs cacao powder, ¼ cup pine nuts, and 1 scoop chocolate whey protein powder. Blend it up with some ice cubes and feel the power.

—Adapted from The Full-Body Fat Fix, by Stephen Perrine (St. Martin’s Press).

- SEX -

Four Exercises that Make You Better in Bed

Add these to your workout routine and your partner will thank you

By Myatt Murphy

>It's a tale as old as time. Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, then several decades later, girl looks at the much older man laying next to her and thinks, “I wonder when the pool boy is coming by?”

Hollywood seems transfixed lately with films about dissatisfied women stepping out on their husbands with younger men. But you still have plenty of assets younger guys lack—stability, maturity, the ability to cook actual meals instead of using DoorDash. What you need is some mojo.

As a certified strength and conditioning coach and longtime health journalist, I’ve had both clients and friends confide in me with concerns about sexual performance. The answer: increase blood flow, flexibility, and endurance in just the right places. Here’s the plan I recommend.

Boost the flow down below

More blood flow equals more get up and go, but extra heft, high blood pressure, and other health issues can turn that torrent into a trickle. This simple cycling move simultaneously improves circulation through your legs and groin while also strengthening your abs.

Master it: Lie flat on your back with your legs extended, arms at your sides, hands tucked under your butt. Lift your legs about 4 to 6 inches off the floor, keeping your knees unlocked. Draw your right knee toward your chest while simultaneously straightening your left leg, then reverse the movement by straightening your right leg while drawing your left knee towards your chest. Continue cycling for as long as you can at a slow, controlled pace (too fast will only cause you to lose your balance), then rest for 90 to 120 seconds. Repeat the move for a total of three times.

Loosen up that lower back

Nothing makes you feel—and act—older than an aching back. This classic stretch loosens your back, hips and glutes as well, maximizing your odds of taking control when the lights go out.

Master it: Lie on your back with your legs bent, feet flat on the floor and arms down by your sides. Curl your knees up towards your chest, grab them with both hands and gently pull them up into your chest as far as you comfortably can. Hold this position for 3 to 4 seconds, then return to the starting position. Repeat the stretch for a total of 4 to 5 times.

Maximize your core stamina

Being a boss in the bedroom takes full-body endurance, especially throughout the muscles that keep your body stable during sex. The classic plank targets all the major players—shoulders, legs, glutes, chest, and especially your core.

Master it: Get in a classic push-up position with your legs extended behind you, feet shoulder-width apart. Next, rest on your forearms so that your arms are at 90-degree angles, elbows positioned directly below your shoulders. Pull in your stomach and adjust yourself so that your body is completely straight from your head down to your heels, then hold this position for as long as you can. Rest for 90 to 120 seconds, then repeat the move for a total of three times.

Improve your groove

Hip flexibility dictates how efficiently you can rotate your pelvis and thrust forward and backward in any position. Constant sitting can cause your hips to tighten up, but this stretch can reverse what your desk job has secretly sabotaged.

Master it: Stand with your feet together, hands on hips. Place your left foot about 12 to 18 inches in front of you, then step your right foot back about 12 to 18 inches behind you. The toes of both feet should be facing forward. Hold this position as you gently push your pelvis forward—but don’t lean forward, keep your torso upright. Pause for five seconds, then relax. Repeat three or four times, then reverse your legs—right foot forward, left foot back—and perform the stretch three or four more times.

—Myatt Murphy, CSCS, is the author of the Ultimate Dumbbell Guide: The Body You Want in the Time You Have, and more than a dozen other health and fitness books..

- SPORTS -

🏀Who Is the GOAT of GOATs?⚾️

Is Michael Jordan the greatest athlete who ever lived? Or is it Gretzky, Brady, Messi, Ali, Woods? We settle the argument once and for all.

By Bob Larkin

>You can spark a lively argument over who is the GOAT in any particular sport. But who is the GOAT of all GOATS? Who, in other words, is the greatest athlete to ever walk the earth? Is it Michael Jordan? Or Babe Ruth? Or maybe Tom Brady? And Lionel Messi, Jim Thorpe, Roger Federer, Hank Aaron, Pelé, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, and LeBron James haven’t even entered the chat yet.

If you go purely by stats, “you’re gonna miss some things,” says Justin Kubatko, a statistical consultant at Statitudes and creator of Basketball Reference. Bill Russell won 11 NBA championships with the Boston Celtics, “but at least at the beginning of the run (in the late ‘50s), there were only eight NBA teams.”

“A lot of times, what people are really arguing about is how their era was better,” says Johnny Smith, a professor of sports history at Georgia Tech. “That their generation represents something larger, and their generation can stake a claim on being the quote-unquote Greatest Generation.”

Greatest Athletes of the 21st Century  

1. Michael Phelps

2. Serena Williams

3. Lionel Messi

4. LeBron James

5. Tom Brady

6. Roger Federer

7. Simone Biles

8. Tiger Woods

9. Kobe Bryant

Source: Poll of 70,000 ESPN contributors

Which is why so many of us tend to focus in on the athletes we grew up with: Jordan, Woods, Gretzky, Nolan Ryan. But Kabatko, who’s in his 60s, remembers Major League baseball players in his youth who were less than ideal physical specimens. 

“If you took a modern-day player and put him back in time, but gave him the same restrictions that those players had—without the support systems or emphasis on nutrition—are they going to hold up? When you start playing that time machine game, you have to put everybody on equal footing.”

Despite all these concessions, and the full disclosure that any nominee is going to be problematic at best… can we at least ballpark the GOAT of GOATs?

Smith, when pressed to narrow it down to four athletes to carve into stone on the Mt. Rushmore of GOATs, could only manage three: Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Billie Jean King. A fourth was “just too tough,” he says. “All I can think of is who I’m leaving off.”

Kabatko narrows it down even further, to just one name. “The greatest of all time might be the greatest himself, Muhammad Ali,” he says. “Because if you take everything into account—cultural impact, size, speed—I mean, he had everything.”

Louis Moore, a sports history professor at Grand Valley State University, also leans toward Ali. “The athleticism and dedication that it takes to fight a 15-round fight against somebody is really, really hard to do,” he says. “And to do that over and over and over again for almost twenty years.” Other sports may be just as challenging, he says, “but no one’s hitting you at the same time.” 

That’s two-and-a-half out of three, which is enough to call it. The GOAT of all GOATs is Muhammad Ali.

Don’t agree? That’s why God invented the comments section. Use it. 

Now who’s buying the next round?

—Bob Larkin is a frequent contributor to Best Life, MSN, and Men's Health, among others.