John Legend Teams Up With AXE Collective Campaign

Barret Wertz

John Legend + AXE

They're working together on new campaign and AXE Collective.

Starting now, forget what you know about AXE. Love it or hate it, it is the number one men’s fragrance brand in the world. The reason? They care about men. ALL men. They are making that very clear by showing us who the new AXE man is with their new campaign (check it out above). In addition to that, the brand is in its second year working with  John Legend for their AXE Collective. He will be narrowing a field of talented men and women who have passion and talent in the fields of music and film making (Legend actually has his own production company, Get Lifted). 

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At the launch for the revamped campaign, I sat down with Legend to chat for a few minutes about his connection to the AXE Collective, how he plans on making this year even better than last year, and of course, his favorite AXE fragrance.

Legend is very excited about the AXE Collective and working with the various artists it cultivates. Last year “it was really fun meeting young artists,” he says. “I know what it’s like being a creative person trying to find their voice, trying to be heard, and I think this is such a great opportunity for them, and it's really fun and edifying for me to meet artists.” Last year's collective included musicians and fashion designers, which Legend and AXE worked with together along with US designer Billy Reid. “I loved seeing all of the musicians perform, I loved being part of the show that the designers did here for fashion week, and just seeing artists be able to express themselves in a venue where they can be seen by people from all over the country and all over the world is pretty exciting,” he says. 

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This year, AXE and Legend will be focusing on music, a given for Legend, and film, his newest extension into the creative space. “[We are] always looking for talented directors and writers and filmmakers to work with anyway, so both of these are really natural extensions of things we’re doing. I get approached by brands all the time, but sometimes it doesn’t work to do it because I just don’t feel the connection to the thing that we’re talking about—creatively it doesn’t connect with who I am. But this fits perfectly with what I am.” 

Legend is also a husband—to model Chrissy Teigen—and soon-to-be father. He told us a little about how this mentorship is helping him shift his focus to fatherhood. “I want my daughter (and hopefully more in the future) to read all the time, and be aware of what’s happening around the world, and not be in their own little bubble. I want them aware, and I want them to be kind, and to be creative and intelligent.” 

So what kind of AXE man is John Legend? “I use the Night Deodorant and Body Wash. That just fits me.” (That must mean it's Chrissy-approved!) And regarding the new collection of AXE Signature Collection, which will include Night, but offer a few more, new refined scents he says “I still use [Night]. I’ve got to figure out what my transition is going to be for the new collection.” 

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Christina Simonetti and Men's Fitness Editors

Power Snacks

Muscle-building food you can make in minutes.

Our Fear of Silence

The cultivation of mindfulness requires periods of focused attention. Many proponents of mindfulness maintain that this is best developed through seated, silent meditation. So before considering how to focus attention, we must first consider our relationship with silence.

Whether in the center of a city or deep in a forest, the cacophony of sounds around us makes it apparent that true silence is impossible. Composer John Cage wrote music that included long periods of silence. When the musicians stopped playing, concertgoers were quickly confronted with the shuffling, shifting, and coughing sounds in the concert hall.

So what is silence?

Silence is the absence of intentional sound. Intentional sounds are the things we turn on, such as TVs and iPods; words spoken or heard in a conversation; music such as humming or tapping; and the noise of tools, keyboards, or other objects. Sounds that remain are unavoidable. So silence is purposeful quiet. Some find it unsettling.

A study of 580 undergraduate students undertaken over six years, reported by Bruce Fell on The Conversation, shows that the constant accessibility and exposure to background media has created a mass of people who fear silence.

This study, along with research by Drs. Michael Bittman of the University of New England and Mark Sipthorp of the Australian Institute of Family Studies argues that "their need for noise and their struggle with silence is a learnt behavior."

This cannot be blamed on the relatively recent rise of social media and 24-hour availability. For many of these students' lives the TV was always on, even when no one was watching. That often was the case throughout their parents' childhoods as well. If background noise has always been with us, it's no wonder we can become so uncomfortable when it's taken away.

Lest I try to pass myself off as a contemplative or a meditation master, I confess that I have my own difficulty with silence.

My wife and I, city dwellers, were staying in a house far from the city. It was rustic, with no TV, radio, or Internet. When we went to bed it was so dark and quiet it was unsettling. We couldn't sleep! If I miss a few days meditating in a row, as I did in the busyness of the recent holidays, I find it very challenging to break away and begin my practice again. And when I am in a difficult episode, riddled with self-doubt, nervousness or anxiety, the last thing I want to do is turn off all of the media that distracts me from my insecurity. But I soon realize that distractions can exacerbate the difficulty. I get back to fixed periods of silence, return to the discipline of my practice, and heal.

If the fear of silence is a learned behavior, it can be unlearned. This can be undertaken through mindfulness meditation and focused attention.

To develop focused attention, you may want to begin by confronting the experience of silence. Turn everything off, go to as quiet a place as you can find, and sit for a few minutes. Take in the environment. Just experience the present moment and allow what is around you to exert itself.

If you find yourself agitated or ill at ease, start with very short periods of quiet. Turn off the TV when washing the dishes. Drive without the radio on. Walk the dog without the iPod or phone. You will reap benefits. And slowly, as silence is embraced, you will find comfort there.

This piece was originally published on PsychCentral.com as Our Fear of Silence. All rights reserved. Reprinted here with permission.

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The 8 Worst Things a Beginner Can Do in the Gym

Eric Broser for Muscle & Fitness

Rookie Mistakes

These are the 8 worst things a beginner can do in the gym.

Semper Fit: How Military Spouses Stay in Shape During Deployments

Maryellen Duren's husband, Staff Sergeant Joshua Duren, had only been home for 8 months when he got the call: the Marine Corps needed him to go back to Kuwait. He had just four days to pack his bags and say goodbye to his wife, his 4-year-old son and his 2-year-old daughter.
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‪He left for the Middle East, and Duren did what she always does: she hit the gym.
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‪It's tricky enough for moms of young children to stay on top of their fitness game, but what happens if your spouse is deployed with the military, leaving you alone to run the household? Worse still: what if your spouse is one of the fittest people on the planet? How can you possibly keep pace with him?
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‪ "If anything, being married to a Marine only encourages me to be as fit and healthy as I can be," says Duren. "His motivation motivates me." At her current home near Miramar, in California, Duren doesn't have many opportunities to go to the gym, so she focuses on walking and running. "I walk a fast-paced 5K in the mornings. In the evenings, I go for a run with the kids in the double stroller. It's mainly uphill, and pushing 70 pounds of kid in the stroller is a great work out."
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‪Trina Lutes-Johnson is another Marine spouse and mom to three kids, whose husband is currently in Eastern Europe. She's a deployment exercise expert, having already worked out through her husband's tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Lutes-Johnson says, "I work out for many reasons, the first being my sanity! I am just plain cranky if I don't get a workout in. I aim for being active every day. With three kids, that's not easy, but it can be anything from walking one day to P90X2 the next."
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‪How does she find the time? "Kids come first... even more so when I'm playing both mom and dad. So I squeeze workouts in during naps or after bedtime, or even when kids are eating dinner. I also do leg lifts, squats or kicks when I'm on the phone, drying my hair or brushing my teeth. All the little extras add up."

‪Spouse Nicole Cahill finds inspiration in her kids. "I was on the treadmill one afternoon, pouring sweat, wondering why I decided it would be a good idea to train for a half marathon while my husband was gone. I was discouraged, pissed off that I was tired, pissed off that Scott was gone again for work.... Then I felt someone watching me. It was my son, standing in the garage doorway. He said, 'you're doing a good job mommy,' and ran back inside. I was able to get into my groove thanks to my 3-year-old."
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‪Cahill can do pull-ups and handstand push-ups now, but she wasn't always this strong. Several years ago, she and her spouse, Command Sergeant Major Cahill, moved to Guam, a tiny island in the South Pacific. She was pregnant with their third child, and the move overwhelmed her. Feeling herself spiraling into a cycle of anxiety and depression, she knew she needed to do something. But what?
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‪At the park one day, she saw three of her neighbors working out. "They were doing push-ups, sit-ups, and running laps while their kids played," she says. "I was 6 weeks post baby, so I was like a little kid, hoping they would ask me to come play. One of them yelled out, 'get over here!' and that moment changed my life. I start working out with them three days a week after we dropped the kids off at school, rain or shine - mostly rain in Guam. The four of us turned into five, then 10, then 30."
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‪The group stuck together, even after they'd left Guam for other parts of the world. Today, they work out together via a Facebook group. "We created a real support system thousands of miles away from home. These ladies are family. And we all became better mothers and wives because of our workouts. We took the stress and left it at that park."
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‪Does all that time spent sweating pay off? Yes, say these super-fit military spouses.
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‪"It took me more than six months to be able to do some of the P90X2 moves," says Lutes-Johnson. "But I feel pretty badass for doing things I never thought I could."
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‪She credits working out with bringing the family closer together as well. "We go hiking together a lot while their dad is gone," she says. "It's a win-win: family time and a workout."
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‪Cahill says even her athletic husband is wowed by her transformation. Once, in Guam, "he drove by the park while I was doing pull-ups on a swing set. I didn't see him, but my friends said he slowed the car to a crawl and watched me crank out 15 pull-ups. They said the look on his face was priceless. He has always been an amazing athlete, and to see his wife doing unassisted pull-ups at the park might have put him back."
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‪Duren's commitment to exercise changed her life. Before she became a Marine Corps spouse, she was an obese teenager, with no idea how to work out or eat right, but over the years, she transformed herself into to a 128-pound mom of two. "It amazes me that this girl who was 260 pounds and couldn't walk up the stairs can now run a 5k with ease," she says of her new self. During her husband's last deployment, she studied to become a nutrition specialist and personal trainer. Now she runs fitness classes for other military spouses on base while she awaits her husband's return.
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‪"That moment he steps off the plane and sees me in person for the first time in months, all the sweating will be worth it."

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New Study Proves That Dogs Can Recognize Human Emotion

Best Friends

New study shows Fido really does understand you.

There's a reason they say dogs are a man's best friend. You have to admit it’s pretty hard to resist the look he or she gives you with their slobbery tongue sticking out, head innocently tilted to the side, and puppy eyes bulging. It’s like they know what we’re feeling. 

But really—they actually might. Researchers just discovered that dogs are now the only animals (other than humans) that can recognize emotions in both humans and other dogs—specifically, they have the ability to tell whether humans are sad, happy, or bursting with anger.

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“Previous research has only shown claims that a dogs’ ability to differentiate between human emotions is down to “associate behavior,” - in which they link certain emotional states to facial expressions or other cues that they have learned,” per Medical News Today. But in this study, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, 17 domestic dogs (that were untrained whatsoever) were shown images of both humans and canines displaying positive (happy or playful) and negative (angry or aggressive) emotion expressions, as well as audio clips of human voices or dogs’ barks that demonstrated a negative or positive tone. (See below; photo from University of Lincoln.)

When the canines were presented with an angry audio clip that matched its negative expression they gazed into the image much longer than normal, signifying that your furry, four-legged friend does, in fact, “have the ability to integrate two different sources of sensory information into a coherent perception of emotion in both humans and dogs,” per coauthor of the study Dr. Kun Guo, from the School of Psychology at Lincoln. 

So next time you're in need of a buddy who really "gets you," look no further than Fido. 

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5 Things I Learned Once I Ditched Dainty Dumbbells

Ladies, have you secretly yearned to work out in the hallowed part of the gym where all of the mighty muscle men hang out? I did, yet it took me weeks to pluck up the courage to walk amongst those beefy blokes and big, black dumbbells.

Yep that's right, there are no pastel pink hand weights on this side of the gym, and guess what? Those heavy, black weights have turned out to be my new best friend. I've been transformed into a 'girl who lifts,' and here's what I've learned over the past three months.


Image: Charlotte Moore

1. Find yourself a good lifting programme
The only reason I dared to venture over to the 'dark side' of the gym was because I was utterly inspired when reading Thinner, Leaner, Stronger by Mike Matthews. If you want to understand what works when it comes to eating well and lifting heavy, then his science-based suggestions are a great place to start.

He also details a weightlifting plan over a year, chunked up into eight-week blocks, split over 3/4/5 weekly sessions depending on your availability. You work specific muscles during each session, ensuring you're combining the most effective exercises for each area of your body.

2. Book a weights induction with a qualified trainer
This is essential for two main reasons. Firstly, there's probably new equipment that you need to understand how to use safely, both for yourself and others around you. Secondly, every single weightlifting exercise has its own set of rules as to how it should be performed for maximum impact. Don't rely on looking at how others are doing their reps, even if they have bigger muscles than you!

Poor form can lead to injury, and something small like a pulled muscle in your back, will affect your life both in and out of the gym. There's also etiquette around putting weights away after you've used them, so don't stand out for the wrong reasons.

3. You might get stared at because you're the only girl
Hopefully, after following points 1 and 2, you'll feel confident enough to walk into the gym and start your workout. It can feel intimidating if you're the only female amongst lots of meaty men BUT, think of it as blazing a trail for the other women who also want to be there, but haven't felt brave enough yet.

There have been many times that I've shared the gym with 15 guys and no girls at 7.30am during my workout. I felt really self-conscious at first, and then after a couple of weeks, it just became the norm. I've ended up feeling proud for taking that step, and I've also noticed a small trickle of women joining me too.

4. Lifting bigger weights is fun (and addictive!)
Before I started following my programme, my gym membership had been sitting idle for months as I'd completely lost interest in the same old boring routine. Now that I have purpose, I want to challenge myself every week to see if I can lift that little bit heavier.

I use the Fitlist app to create each workout and track the reps of every exercise. As I can see the progress I'm making, it inspires me to push that little bit harder each time, and I can proudly share my results with anyone who asks!

5. Heavy weights don't make you bulky
Yes, the urban myth that keeps rearing its ugly head has been well and truly squashed for me. A lean, toned body is created when you have optimal body composition (usually around 20% body fat for women) and defined muscles. Although newbies can make good muscle gains in the first 6-9 months of lifting, you won't suddenly wake up one day having turned into the female version of Arnold Schwarzenegger!

It takes time, dedication and a good understanding of food macros to successfully add any kind of muscle to your body. Once you have all of these things in balance, you'll reap the rewards of feeling like a happier, healthier, stronger version of yourself.


Image: Charlotte Moore

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