The Very Best Flat-Belly Workout for Men

Escape the Gen X Money Trap! AND 12 Things We Hated as Kids but Love as Adults

Author

Stephen Perrine
June 17, 2025

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🚨 Welcome to this week’s issue of Generation Xcellent. I’m Stephen Perrine, New York Times bestselling author and former top editor at Men’s Health and Maxim. And like you, I’m doing all I can to survive the moshpit of midlife. Thanks for joining me on the journey! If you like what you see, send me an email—and share this newsletter with another guy who could use our help.

Stephen Perrine

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- FITNESS -

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The Very Best Flat-Belly Workout for Men

Build full-body strength and fitness with an abs workout that will challenge you from every angle

By Anais Noordanus

> Most every guy who walks into my gym wants the same thing: to get bigger, stronger, and leaner. But none of those goals are possible unless you first start by establishing a solid core. 

 And you won’t get there by doing 100 crunches every day. Your core is made up of 29 pairs of muscles, and you need to hit all of them, from a variety of angles, to get the strength and stamina you’re looking for. Here is the ultimate core workout for the midlife man. 

Suitcase Carry (3x30 seconds on each side)
Challenges your core while improving your posture, balance and grip strength–a key indicator of longevity.
Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in one hand. With your back straight and shoulders back, walk for 30 seconds, put the weight down, pick it up with the other hand, and walk back for another 30 seconds.

Pallof Press (3x12 each side)
Increases your anti-rotational core strength; strengthens glutes
Stand with a pulley cable to your left, set at chest height. Pull the handle with both hands until it is directly in front of your chest. Your knees should be slightly bent and your arms out in front of your chest, as though you were gently hugging someone. Now extend your arms straight out in front of you as you resist being pulled to the left. Do 12 reps, then turn to face the opposite direction and repeat with the pulley cable to your right.

 High to Low Half Kneeling Cable Chop (3x12 each side)
Works on rotational core strength and power while improving hip mobility 
Attach a rope or bar to a pulley cable, with the pulley set at about head height. Kneel down so the pulley is to your left, with your right foot and left knee on the floor. Your right thigh should be parallel to the floor. Grab the top of the bar or rope with your left hand and the bottom with your right. With a slow, controlled motion, bring the bar down until your left hand crosses over your right leg and your right hand is down by your hip. Pause for a moment, then slowly return to the starting position. Keep your shoulders squared and your torso facing forward throughout the motion. 

 Plank Pull Through (3×16—8 with each arm)
Forces the whole body to work on stability while tackling anti-rotation and anti-extension, two key functions of the core.
Get into a pushup position with your hands shoulder-width apart on a mat. Place a dumbbell on the floor just outside your left shoulder. Holding your elevated position, reach your right hand under your left shoulder and slide the dumbbell across the floor until it’s just outside your right shoulder. Now return your right hand to the mat, and reach under and across with your left hand, sliding the dumbbell back to your left side. 

Med ball rotational throws (3x5 each side)
Develops power and strengthen the obliques while working on core rotation
Stand about five feet from a wall with a medicine ball in your hands, feet hip-width apart, knees slightly bent. Rotate your torso away from the wall, then explosively rotate and hurl the ball at the wall. Catch the rebound and repeat. 

Back Hyperextensions (3x12)
Strengthens the core, lower back and glutes 
Lay face-down on a mat with your legs straight and place your hands behind your neck. Simultaneously raise your shoulders and legs off the ground–your weight should be primarily on your hip bones. Hold for a second, then return to the starting position.

—Anais Noordanus, ACSM, is a certified personal trainer who trains clients at Life Time Fitness in Denver, CO.
🤷🏻‍♂️ AND STILL THEY FIND A WAY TO GET UNDER IT…

- GEN X CULTURE -

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12 Things We Hated as Kids but Love as Adults

It’s possible that our attitudes have evolved. It’s also possible that our standards have dropped.

By Bob Larkin

>Most of us, as teenagers, looked at our parents and thought, “That’s never going to be me.”

And most of us were utterly wrong. That’s partly because we’re terrible at predicting how we’re going to change as we age, at least according to one Harvard study. But it’s also because adulthood comes with some perks that, at midlife, we don’t mind taking advantage of. For example:

1. Afternoon naps. They once felt like punishment. Now, naps are doctor-approved micro-vacations. We might even remind our family that the National Sleep Foundation recommends a 20-to-30 minute nap every day to boost short-term alertness. Good lord, who ARE we?

2. Getting carded. At 23, being asked for ID felt like a slap to your dignity. Now? We brag about it when the cashier at Trader Joe’s asks to see our license—even though he also carded the guy who drove his Rascal scooter down from the Golden Acres.

3. Cash as a gift. At midlife, the perfect gift is anything that’s not one more novelty mug or book we’ll never read.

4. Ignoring new music. Once we looked down on people who didn’t know the latest indie band. Now, we need subtitles to understand SNL’s musical guests and shell out hundreds to see artists whose tour posters include phrases like “30th Anniversary.”

5. Wearing a jacket when it’s barely cold. A T-shirt in a snow storm? We used to rock the goosebumps just to show how hard we were. Now we head out on every Target run like we’re ready to scale Everest.

6. A weekend with no plans. In our 20s, a quiet Friday night meant we were losers. Now it’s the dream. Canceled plans? Thank the Lord and pass the remote.

7.  A hair strategy. We once scoffed at toupees and hair dye. Now we catch a glimpse of William Shatner and think, Yeah, that looks natural…

8. Getting up early. Used to be the only time we saw the sun rise was if we were driving home with our shirt on backwards. Now we brag about watching the breaking dawn and having “quiet time.”

9. Not caring what other people think. A dismissive look from a stranger used to be devastating. We’d do anything to fit in and look cool. Now? Y’know, socks and sandals do sorta make sense together….

10.  Advice from old people. We used to dodge it like bad cologne. Now we not only listen to it, we’re giving it. Take a deep breath before you tell any teenagers to “enjoy it while it lasts.”

11.  Silence. No music. No chatter. Just us and the sound of nothing. Bliss.

12.  Hanging with our parents. Once considered emotional waterboarding, spending time with our folks now feels precious. We just wish we’d started sooner.

—Bob Larkin has written for Men’s Health, Esquire, the New York Post and other outlets.

Battle of the ‘90s Crushes: The Semifinals
Phoebe Cates vs. Alyssa Milano

PictureLux/Alamy; Album/Alamy

>Welcome to week 2 of the semifinal round of our epic March Madness–style tournament. Last week, “Manic Monday” singer Susanna Hoffs edged out “Dancing in the Dark” muse Courteney Cox by a single vote.

Who will enter the pentagon of passion and take on Hoffs in the final round to determine, at last, the Greatest Generation X Crush of All Time? Will it be Fast Times star Phoebe Cates, she of the legendary red bikini? Or will Alyssa Milano show us all Who’s the Boss? Only YOU can decide! 

SEMIFINALS WEEK 2

Who will you send to the finals?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Don’t forget to open next week’s email to unveil the final showdown and cast your last vote for the Gen X goddess of your dreams. And check out our social pages (we’re on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads) for updates and a full rundown of the winners.

- MONEY -

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How Gen X Got So Financially Screwed

Don’t have the wealth and security you deserve? It might not be your fault. Here’s how to claw your way back.

By Jeff Stevenson

>Are we cursed?

We, as in you and me and other Gen X men, sandwiched at home between parents who are growing older and teens who won’t grow up, and sandwiched at work between Boomer managers who won’t freakin’ retire and younger, hungrier Millennials climbing after our jobs.

It’s true that the 50s tend to be the least happy of decades—thanks to exactly the pressures you and I are feeling right now: 31% of Gen Xers around the globe say they are “not very happy” or “not happy at all,” according to a poll by Ipsos.

But our generation seems to be especially cursed financially. One recent study found that Gen Xers have had the lowest level of income growth of any generation. People’s earnings typically grow the most in their 30s and 40s—exactly when the global financial crisis of 2007 slammed us from behind. At the same time, the stock market, which quadrupled in the ‘80s, when Boomers were investing, was pretty much flat between the dot-com bubble burst and the 2007 collapse—exactly the time when we were starting the 401ks that were supposed to carry us into the future.

“We’re the generation of guys for whom the rules changed,” says Brad Klontz, PhD, a GenXer and psychologist who specializes in finance.

The result of all this bad timing: a lot of debt. Gen X is just 31% of the workforce, but we own 40% of all personal debt. To get a handle on your finances—and cut down on your financial stress—do this: Write out your various debts—car loans, credit cards, etc. Now ask yourself: Are you more Batman—the strong, silent type quietly watching in the distance—or are you more Joker, up for anything and always looking for the instant rush?

Batman: Try the “Avalanche” method of debt management. Prioritize paying off the largest balance, while paying the minimum on your other debts. That will save you the most money over the long run, but it will take a bit of time.

Joker: Use the “Snowball” method. Focus on the smallest debt, pay it off in full as quickly as possible, and then move on to the next largest balance. While less efficient, it will give you concrete results more quickly.

❝

THE GENERATION ONCE DISMISSED AS SLACKERS BECAME THE WORKAHOLICS OF THE MODERN ERA. THEY HAD NO CHOICE.

And look on the bright side: Right now, our incomes are higher than any other generation. The average age of Fortune 500 CEO is 59, meaning we should be the ones at the helm for at least another decade. As Darrell Bricker, Global CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, says: “The generation once dismissed as slackers became the workaholics of the modern era. They had no choice. They are the first generation that had to make peace with the idea that the middle-class dream had changed and that no one was going to hand them success.”

So buck up, men. We got this.

Oh, one more thing: Social Security is on track to become depleted in 2035—just in time for the oldest Gen Xers to turn 70.

—Jeff Stevenson has written for Men’s Health, Maxim, and other classic men’s magazines.
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