A cold is a called a cold because of the cold. No, this isn’t a Dr. Seuss story. This is science. 

When we breathe cold air into our nasal cavity, it lowers the temperature in the nose and provides a better environment for the cold virus to thrive and replicate, new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests.

Yale researchers brought together a bunch of mouse cells, got them sick and cold, then waited. The scientists found that the mouse-adapted virus replicated far more and better in cooler temperatures (nose) than at body temperature (lungs) because antiviral defenses are less efficient in colder environments. 

“Many of us have the cold virus in our noses without symptoms—about 20 to 25 percent of healthy people carry the virus—and if you are one of those people and you go out in the cold, you might develop symptoms,” says study co-author Akiko Iwasaki, a professor in the department of immunobiology at the Yale School of Medicine, the Today reported. 

What does this mean for you? Wrapping a scarf snuggly around your nose can help prevent cold symptoms, but be wary of that snot-nosed passersby; he can still infect you if you come in contact. 

This also means mothers everywhere have been right for years. Let their boastful I-told-you-so slide—just not about going out with wet hair, though. The virus doesn’t enter out bodies through our heads, Iwasaki says, so trump her with that tidbit and call it even.

Nine Natural Cold and Flu Remedies >>>

"Chris Paul's coming down. Fly!"

The words echo across the court where New York Knicks shooting guard J.R. Smith—six-foot-six and, at 225 pounds, superlean—is dribbling a basketball along the sideline, huffing for air. Paul, one of the NBA’s best point guards and last year’s steals-per-game leader, is now closing in on him and Smith needs to move fast to have any chance to escape. He explodes toward the basket in a dead sprint, crosses the half-court line, and screeches to a stop just behind the three-point arc. He fires off a shot, watches it soar through the air, and barely notices as the net lets out a sharp whoosh when the ball plunges through the hoop.

But afterward there are no cheers, no high-fives. Paul, who plays for the Los Angeles Clippers, is actually 2,500 miles away. The private gym in Manhattan where Smith is working out with a ferocious, gamelike intensity is practically empty. The only other person on the court is Idan Ravin, a middle-aged man with a bald crown and deep-set eyes who routinely sidles up to Smith with a loud voice and a unwavering message: Keep running.

A 43-year-old former lawyer whose own playing career peaked at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, MD, Ravin has managed—despite an almost complete lack of formal basketball credentials—to go from being a pro-bono youth-league coach moonlighting at his local YMCA to the most sought-after private trainer in the NBA. Called “the hoops whisperer” by pretty much everyone including himself, he has earned a reputation as a generous but unsparing instructor and lifestyle guru, helping many of the world’s greatest athletes—LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Stephen Curry, and Dwight Howard among them—not only shoot better, run faster, and jump higher, but also eat better and hone their “mental edge.”

Ravin is also credited with helping transform their physiques. His grueling workouts—a high-intensity blend of sprints, plyometrics, and basketball drills—have supercharged the conditioning of his already well-conditioned NBA stars, and his philosophy on diet and nutrition have helped many of his athletes gain muscle and shed fat—sometimes to a startling degree. In August, when 11-year NBA veteran Carmelo Anthony posted photos on Instagram revealing his newly chiseled frame—“around 10 pounds lighter, but stronger and noticeably leaner,” according to Ravin—the “Skinny Melo” images went viral.

Anthony isn’t alone. In the same off-season, the sport’s top player, LeBron James—a former Ravin client—dropped what appeared to be a similar amount of weight himself, and later admitted that he had chosen to obsessively limit his carb intake and portion sizes over the summer. At one point he posted a photo on Instagram of an elaborate dessert he was offered on the Greek isle of Mykonos, with the caption: “To [sic] dang on bad I can’t eat it! Grrrrrrrrrr!!” What the hell was going on?

“Guys like LeBron and Melo are Ferraris,” says Ravin. “They’re always thinking, ‘How do I get to run the fastest and maximize the speed of my engine? How do I make myself more aerodynamic?’ There’s a purpose to all of this.”

There’s also the age factor. James and Anthony both turned 30 in 2014, and both have been playing in the NBA since they were teenagers. “It’s almost common sense: When you get older, it’s less wear on your body if you’re lighter,” Ravin says. Working with Anthony through the summer, Ravin helped the seven-time NBA All-Star design and implement his “smart carb” diet. “During the day, Melo eats a big oatmeal base so he has more energy for workouts,” Ravin says. Later on in the day, when he’s cooling, he’s tapering down his portion size. He also cut out the sweets. “There’s definitely no crap,” Ravin says. “And he doesn’t eat a lot of red meat. He eats mostly fish. He gets his protein shakes. Melo is a big guy—he can put weight on—but he’s been really meticulous about this.”

Ravin often says he’s not in the business of making his players great—they’re already great—he’s trying to help them become “great-er,” and, in a few special cases, helping them jockey for position in the conversation about “great-est.” And in that nearly empty Manhattan gym, one week before the start of the NBA pre-season, at an hour when many NBA players are still sleeping or, perhaps, sunning themselves on yachts off the coast of Ibiza, Ravin is pushing Smith, a mercurial sometimes hero, sometimes goat (early this season he was suspended for brazenly elbowing another player in the groin during a game) toward realizing his own first-round Ferrari potential.

Toward the end of the workout, Ravin takes Smith through a succession of ball-handling drills. Smith darts around the court dribbling a ball in either hand. Then he runs back and forth down the sideline, maintaining his dribble by pushing the ball far out in front of him. He never pauses for more than a few seconds. The entire time, Ravin encourages Smith to vary the height and pace of his dribble, the better to throw off the timing of Chris Paul, who’s waiting to snatch the ball from his hands. Over the course of the workout, he never allows Smith to get comfortable.

“Slow your breathing down,” says Ravin when they’ve finished up. Sweat drips to the floor from the tip of Smith’s goateed chin. “Nine out of 10 and you’re done.”

Smith gracefully walks over to the free-throw line and sinks the required nine of 10 shots with ease. But he’s bushed. The workout has lasted a mere 45 minutes, but Smith looks like he just suffered through a late-round play-off game. When I ask the trainer to rate the difficulty of that morning’s workout on a scale of 1 to 10, he shrugs. “Seven and a half.”

For more than seven months a year, Ravin lives out of a suitcase, going wherever his players need him—and the NBA off-season is an especially busy time.

Last June, while the NBA finals were still in full swing, Ravin traveled from his home in New York to Los Angeles, where he spent three weeks working out Anthony and several other players. In July he was in China, leading instructional sessions for Nike’s Jordan Brand and helping Chris Paul with the release of his new Nike Jordan CP3.VII sneakers. Then it was back to the West Coast—L.A., Vegas, L.A.—followed by Winston-Salem, NC (with Paul), Puerto Rico (with Anthony), and back to his usual New York-L.A. circuit. Players have nicknamed Ravin “Crouton” (because he’s “cooler than the average cracker”) and “Idan Wan” (a mangled play on “Don Juan,” from a client who saw him out on a date).

His training is nothing if not full service. When the Knicks’ Amar’é Stoudemire, another Ravin client, wanted to visit Israel during the summer of 2010, not only did he hire Ravin as his 24/7 tour guide, but he also prepped for the visit by taking Hebrew lessons with Ravin’s mother. “I’m a trainer, a friend, a mentor, a therapist, an advisor, all of the above,” Ravin says. “They’re trusting you with something in their lives that runs second only to God, family, and their health. They’re trusting you with their dream since they were four years old. So it doesn’t just end when you leave the gym.”

In the gym, however, Ravin’s workouts adhere to several basic rules. First, he wants to “overload the senses”—shouting to Smith about Chris Paul’s impending steal, for instance—to acclimate his players to the chaos and intensity of a game. Second, he keeps practices closed, private, and discreet to allow his players to experiment without fear of embarrassment. (“You have to feel comfortable to feel creative,” he writes in his 2014 memoir, The Hoops Whisperer.) He also discourages repetition for repetition’s sake, preferring one well-executed performance-based move to 10 less-dynamic repetitions. (A sprint culminating in a stop, jab-step, jump, and perfect release is exponentially more useful than 20 stationary shots in a row.) Last, he keeps his workouts short—never more than 90 minutes and often considerably less: “I want you in and I want you out, real efficient, serious, and no bullshit.”

The conditioning sessions seem to be designed to emphasize discomfort. In basketball, like nearly every sport, players almost never run in a straight line. They’re zig-zagging to avoid defenders, curling around the court to find a good passing lane, or stopping and starting to get an opening for a shot. So when Ravin’s clients sprint, they never get into a straight-ahead groove. They sprint while dribbling, they sprint with a pivot or a jab step. They never “touch lines,” Ravin’s term for the dreaded “suicides” of youth practices everywhere.

“Sprints are very good, but at the end of the day, the game is played in an integrated way,” says Ravin, who tries to target stabilizer muscles in their legs as much as their lungs. Ultimately, if his clients are indeed Ferraris, Ravin strives to never let them hit 200 mph for very long. Instead, they reach 60 mph really quickly, in all directions, and over and over again.

Ravin also swears by plyometric body-weight exercises, whether it’s frog jumps, skips-and-bounds, or bear crawls. “Basketball is a sports played with so much imbalance,” he says. “Every time a guy goes up for a rebound or to block a shot or to make a layup, he’s twisting and contorting his body. The only time a guy shoots a normal shot is when he’s absolutely wide open.” Ravin puts his players through a routine of body-weight drills (see Idan Ravin’s Fast-Paced Cardio Workout, previous page), both as a form of strength training and as a way to fine-tune their equilibrium for even the most off-kilter positions. “Imbalance is built into everything—every time you run you’re imbalanced. Think about the last time you saw a tennis player just hit the ball with both feet evenly on the ground,” Ravin adds. “So we try to find a way to kind of hedge that risk, and body-weight exercises are a wonderful way to do that.”

His teachings aren’t confined to the hardwood. When Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond was preparing for the 2012 NBA draft, he came to New York to train with Ravin, and one of their first stops was a Manhattan Whole Foods. “I told him, ‘I’m going to show you a really common-sense way to be good about your diet,’” Ravin tells me. “So we picked up salads and lean proteins and a little fruit.” Drummond, who stands a towering 6'11", lost 22 pounds in a month and saw an immediate uptick in his game. “He realized, ‘I move better when I’m lighter,’” Ravin says. “Now, when you watch his lateral movement, it’s almost like you’re watching an ice skater. The reality is, you can be 290 and move or you can be 265 and really move—which do you think is more beneficial to you?”

When I ask J.R. Smith what makes Ravin special, he cites the toughness of his workouts. “My conditioning will always be Grade A,” says Smith. Which is especially important because NBA players spend most of their time in-season working on plays and game scenarios. “When I hand them back to their teams at the beginning of training camp, they can quickly begin to focus on the team component of their performance: mastering offensive and defensive schemes, preparing for their opponents, and integrating their ability with those of their teammates,” he adds.

Smith also lauds Ravin’s ability to diagnose and cure basketball flaws. “I prefer to have someone be really brutally honest with me,” he says. “Idan works with KD [Kevin Durant], Melo, CP [Chris Paul], Steph [Curry] – I mean, all those guys – and then he tells me, “You have the talent, you have the ability.’ He pretty much trains you to be a killer, which you really hav to be to play in this game. He makes you feel like a superhero, like nobody can beat you.”

Ravin advocates a brand of mental toughness that’s as much Thich Nhat Hanh as it is drill sergeant. In The Hoops Whisperer, he begins every chapter with an aphoristic tweet—he calls them his “Idanics”—and each ends in a hashtag of escalating Zen master–ness. In the introduction it’s “#blessed.” By Chapter 12 it’s “#get2knowhimb4ujudgehim.” In the 19th it’s“#rethinkdefinitions.” By the 20th chapter the hashtag reads simply, “#confuciusknew.”

A few hours after the end of Ravin and Smith’s workout, the trainer and I sit on a bench in front of Chloe’s Soft Serve Fruit Co., a vegan “soft serve” business he’s an investor in, just off Manhattan’s Union Square. (Ravin is a serial entrepreneur; some of his other investments include IranianPersonals, EligibleGreeks, ArabLounge, HyeSingles, and, perhaps most fitting, Sokanu, a career-counseling algorithm that, Ravin says, “sorts out what you really want to do in life from what you kind of pretend you want to do.”) I ask him what makes his approach to training unconventional. He pauses, then delivers a decidedly non-basketball answer that has the cryptic, thought-provoking, and potentially nonsensical quality of a Japanese koan.

“Let’s say there’s a woman who works at the MAC counter at Saks Fifth Avenue and she approaches me and says, ‘You know, Idan, I’m

really struggling to become a makeup artist, what should I do?’ The conventional answer would be: ‘Stay after work and get a mentor who also works at Saks and study and work on more people.’ The Idan answer would be: “‘I want you to leave the office early and go register for classes at NYU, and I want to work on your sketching because the face is a canvas. So the better you’re able to manipulate charcoal, I guarantee you the better you’ll be at the makeup counter.’ That’s how I see life.”

Ravin grew up in suburban Washington, D.C., the son of an Israeli mother and Russian-Israeli father. They were both Judaic studies teachers and the family kept kosher. But Ravin was a rebel, more interested in watching Isiah Thomas than studying the Talmud.

As a teenager he committed himself to the game with zeal, devouring books on training, sending away for $1.25 plyometrics manuals, honing his jump shot, and drawing inspiration from the haters. “In ninth grade, I had this cruddy coach who called me slow and embarrassed me all the time,” Ravin tells me, “so it just became my obsession to never let him embarrass me again. Literally every single night—it could be 15 degrees below zero, it didn’t matter to me—I would walk to the park by my house and I would run and run and run and run. It became my mission to never let myself sweat or even breathe hard during practice—and I did it.”

Soon Ravin was a dominant player in his small private school league, yet he still bristled at his coaches. After being benched for a game, he responded by hogging the ball with Kobe Bryant–like shamelessness. “I took every shot I could and scored 42 points—the most ever at school and enough to win me ‘County Player of the Week’ honors,” he writes in The Hoops Whisperer. “After that, I played with complete disregard for [my coach’s] words and his system.”

That 42-point performance would prove the highlight of Ravin’s playing career. At the University of Maryland, he failed to make the team as a walk-on. After getting cut, he took avidly to street ball. “If they retired jerseys at the playground, then RAVIN would have hung from a light pole draped over the mid-court lines,” he writes in The Hoops Whisperer. Still, it looked like basketball wouldn’t be an option in his professional future. He went West for law school, and got a job at a firm in San Diego. He hated it. As an escape he volunteered to coach a team of middle-school-age kids at the YMCA. Soon the boys were mopping the floor with their opponents, parents were calling Ravin to ask how he’d transformed their mediocre tween hoopsters into deadly focused athletes, and Ravin was trying to figure out a way to make a life in the game.

Ravin ended up back in D.C.—he’d told off a partner at his San Diego firm and resigned—and one day he happened to run into a few acquaintances from his days playing in D.C. pickup games. They told Ravin they were trying to catch on with European professional squads. Ravin, who had never coached anyone older than 13, suggested he give them a workout at the gym. Within weeks, news of his unconventional and intense practices began to spread. Players from the University of Maryland squad dropped by, including the program’s star player, Steve Francis, who was preparing for the 1999 NBA draft.

Francis liked the workouts, and brought Duke center Elton Brand. When Brand became the first selection and Francis was No. 2, Ravin suddenly found himself a trainer to the NBA elite. From there, word of mouth drew young stars to Ravin in rapid succession.

Ravin eventually did short coaching stints with the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Knicks, both of which ended in frustration. In 2006, he found himself in an elevator in Charlotte, NC, face to face with Michael Jordan, whom he’d never met. “I learned long ago that the guys call him ‘M,’ so I go, ‘Hey, what’s up, M?’” Jordan, who isn’t known for indulging small talk with strangers, looked down at him and without pause answered back, “What’s up, Idan?”

After finishing up their Friday morning practice, Ravin and Smith move on to the recovery phase of their morning at a Juice Generation shop a few blocks away. The Knicks swingman still appears lean in his civvies—he probably carries more weight from his prodigious neck tattoos than he does from body fat. He reveals that he too has been inspired by Ravin to adopt a healthier lifestyle. He’s going to sleep earlier and going out less—the sun-up practice times, he says, force him to “make different decisions at 11:30 at night”—and he’s picked up Ravin’s habit for “green juicing.”

At Juice Generation, Smith guzzled 32 ounces of high-fiber liquid, pounding a potent wheatgrass and vegetable mix before chasing it with a far sweeter Mucho Mango cocktail. Ravin settles for a kale-and-spinach-heavy concoction called Supa Dupa Greens. Sated for the time being, trainer and client proceed to walk together through Midtown, and if Smith wants to feel like a superhero, sauntering through Times Square on a Friday morning proves to be an awfully good way to do it.

“Love you, J.R. Pound, baby,” says one middle-age guy to in a sport coat, extending a friendly fist.

“J.R. wih the A.R.!” shouts one fan, leaning against a light pole.

Smith has an afternoon tee time in New Jersey with Brooklyn Nets point guard Deron Williams, and Ravin needs to get back to his various business ventures. But before they part, the conversation touches onc more on the workout. I ask Smith what he ate that morning before his session with Ravin.

“Nothing,” he says. Smith has already thrown up four times in front of the trainer and, in all likelihood, is hoping to avoid a fifth.

Ravin smiles, “A lot of players say that my workouts are harder than the games.” Smith nods his head in agreement.

“When people use the term ‘game speed’ I think it’s a little overrated,” says Ravin. “’Idan speed’ is more like it."

Last summer we launched a rapid fat-loss program, the 21 Day Shred. It's a full training routine with full body circuits, traditional bodybuilding splits, intervals, and cardio challenges. Here is one of the staple ab routines from the program. It's not back and better than ever with more recipes and demo demonstrations (on the app). So whether you're taking on THE SHRED, or working on your own routine, here's something to add to your arsenal. 

Your ultimate rapid fat-loss solution - The 21-Day Shred. Download our new app for $4.99 >>>

or get a copy of the PDF for $9.99 >>>

MEDICINE BALL SLAM

Sets: 3
Reps: 10
Rest: 0

MEDICINE BALL V-UP

Sets: 3
Reps: 20
Rest: 60 seconds

PUNCHER'S PUSH UP

Sets: 3
Reps: 5 each side
Rest: 0

MEDICINE BALL TOE TOUCH

Sets: 3
Reps: 15
Rest: 60 seconds

RUSSIAN TWIST

Sets: 3
Reps: 10
Rest: 0

SIDE PLANK

Sets: 3
Reps: 10
Rest: 60 seconds

Some people might still debate it. Yes, it's still early in his career. But there is a valid - more than valid - case for the fact that Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry may be the best shooter that ever lived. Curry nailed his 1,000th three-pointer Wednesday night against the Indiana Pacers. He reached the milestone faster than any player in NBA history. It took Dennis Scott 457 games. Curry did it in 368. The baby-faced son of former NBA sharp shooter Dell Curry, has led the NBA in three-pointer made and attempted the last two seasons. He also holds the league record for most threes made in a single season. And if they kept the statistic, Curry would probably lead the world in three-pointers made off the dribble. 

Curry isn't just a shooter anymore. He's a magician. The basketball is a prop. He's been honing his craft nearly his entire life. His dad played 16 seasons in the league. Curry, who is averaging nearly 23 points and 8 assists this season, was there for it all. But he's not the stand-up shooter his dad was. His ball-handling skills are worthy of streetball legend.

His left-handed behind-the-back passes are enough to force his coach, Steve Kerr, another great shooter, to scratch his head while the crowd ooh's and ah's. Take, for example, one sequence this week where Curry nearly shook Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook out of his shoes before lofting a high-arching left-handed scoop layup that gently kissed the rim. In the same game, he dribbled around half of the Thunder team like a Harlem Globetrotter before sending a bounce pass between an opponent's legs. 

Before the season, when Curry was still playing with Team USA in the World Cup, the 27-year-old guard said he wanted to improve on every part of his game. He especially focused on core strength, knowing at 6-foot-3 and 190 pounds, he's still considered small in this league. But he's playing as big as anyone. For the record, Curry only made his first All-Star game last season. This season he's in the race for Most Valuable Player. And by the way, the Warriors (28-5) have the best record in the NBA. 

If four benefits to sleeping naked weren’t enough to sway you, findings from a poll conducted by memory foam mattress company, Ergoflex, might just do the trick. 

The average man wears his pajamas for nearly two weeks in a row before washing them. That may not alarm you, and you’ll probably be happy to know that women wear theirs for 17 days in a row, but there’s a dirty secret looming in your dirty laundry.

“We all have skin and gut organisms that are usually not harmful…but if they get into the wrong place they can cause problems,” professor Sally Bloomfield of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine told Daily Mail. 

You share a bed with your partner, but you could also be sharing microbes that get into your skin and put you at risk for MRSA, cystitis and other skin infections. Some words of wisdom from Bloomfield: wash your pajamas at least once a week. 

Once those nasty microbes build up (say in a two-week span), they can't be easily destroyed in the wash; they may even spread to your other clothes when you finally get around to doing laundry. This could be dangerous and incredibly gross if you live with roommates or your family...so basically all of us.

Sometimes spreading germs can help boost your immune system, like kissing your girlfriend. This is not one of those times. So, for the 73 percent of you guys who don’t do the wash and wear what’s on hand, do yourself (and everyone else) a favor and learn how to do laundry. 

Get The Hang Of Doing Laundry Right >>>

Last August we dropped The 21-Day Shred with online director Mike Simone. Now as we roar into 2015, we've expanded and upgraded the original edition to pack in more workouts, challenges, and special recipes.

We like to considering The 21-Day Shred as our original blueprint to the perfect body. The training and diet plan both backed by the science, research, and reporting from MEN'S FITNESS editors over the years, coupled with Mike's strategies to living life lean.

Make 2015 your year. Kickstart it right with the only program you need, The 21-Day Shred.

Get the full plan on your iPhone and iPad devices or download your PDF copy.

FROM THE BOOK:

The 21-Day Shred Ab Circuit >>>>
Day 7 Video Demo: The Full Body Workout >>>
Day 13 Video Demo: Back and Bicep Workout >>>

It’s all in your head. Muscle mass, that is, not neuroticism. 

Researchers at Ohio University’s Musculoskeletal and Neurological Institute have found that muscle strength is largely based on brain activity, not just hours logged at the gym. 

In the study, published in the Journal of Neurophysiology, 29 volunteers had their non-dominant arm placed in an elbow-to-finger cast for four weeks. Half were asked to perform mental-imagery exercises five days a week in which they imagined themselves flexing and resting their immobilized wrist for five-second intervals; the other half did not. 

In the end, both groups had lost strength in their restrained arm, but the individuals who completed mental-imagery exercises were only 25% weaker, compared to a 45% loss in strength among those who did not perform the mental-imagery exercises, The Atlantic reported. 

Typically, people think muscle strength depends on muscle size, but it has more to do with muscle memory, the researchers say. 

“If you swing a golf club for the first time, you’ll likely miss the golf ball. But if you do it a hundred times, you’ll learn how to hit that ball,” Brian Clark, a physiology professor at Ohio University and the study’s lead author says. “Well, the same thing happens when we go through periods where we don’t do tasks—we kind of forget how to do it.”

The mental-imagery prevented the participants from losing as much muscle mass because our muscles act as “puppets to the nervous system.” 

This is good news for us all. Spend five minutes at your desk imagining an arm, leg or ab exercise can actually have a tangible effect. Just don’t rely solely on your brain for getting you in tip-top shape. You'll be disappointed to find that your imagination can't carve a six-pack on its own.

Can You Learn While You Sleep? >>>

Ethan Hawke is no stranger to the award show circuit. He's been nominated for a myriad of awards, including Oscars, Tonys, and Screen Actor's Guild Awards, over his 30 years in the business, and 2015 is no exception. He is sweeping the nominations, including a Best Supporting Actor nod for the unprecedented hit Boyhood.

But with great success can come great scrutiny. So when stepping onto the red carpet in front of millions of people, how does Hawke get ready to look his best? His groomer, Lauren Kaye Cohen (whose lengthy client list includes such leading men as Leonardo DiCaprio, Terrence Howard, and Sir Paul McCartney), will be using Montez Renault to make sure he looks his absolute best. She is the sought after groomer for men who want to keep their natural, rugged handsomeness intact.

Here, Cohen walks us through how she got Hawke ready for the Golden Globes on Sunday:

Hawke used Montez Renault 3-in-1 Performance Wash due to the lack of time he had to get ready. With only 30 minutes to spare, it was the easiest all-over wash to get the job done. He used the Jojoba Smoothing Scrub for spots he was going to shave. He didn’t feel overwhelmed and was able to get out of the shower in moments. The Shaving Cream was so nice because it doesn’t foam, you can see exactly where it’s going. The Facial Moisturizer is an essential finishing product for every guy. Hawke has just finished a film, so Cohen was able to do what they wanted with his hair. Being a classic guy, he wanted to keep it simple. “He has a brand new haircut going back to his own style," said Cohen. "We wanted to make him feel like Ethan again; modern and crisp. For his hair, we had it twisted and turned in a modern way without looking overly groomed. It was nice to keep him rugged and manly on his own. The thing I love about these products are that they are so self-explanatory." 

In addition to the Montez Products as the foundation for Hawke's preparedness, Cohen also used Orbie Thick Dry Finishing Spray and Rough Luxury Soft Molding Paste to finish the simple style Hawke likes so much. The Dry Finishing Spray is one of the "very few products I've found that doesn't wreck the hairstyle," said Cohen. It adds thickness that no guy is going to be mad about. Lastly, keeping in the natural theme of Hawke's look, Cohen used Burt's Bees eye cream and lip balm, keeping the eyes hydrated and the lips matte. Because no guy needs a glossy lip.

Over all, Hawke pulled together a pretty effortless look in his Dior tuxedo for the Golden Globes. Here's hoping he gets the Oscar! 

We’ve all had it drummed into our heads for as long as we can remember: Processed foods are bad for you and whole, natural ones are good. Yet for some reason, “clean eating”—it’s really as simple as that—has recently become a trend. Frankly, calling it a “trend,” a word that implies temporary interest, is probably doing more harm than good, because if there’s one eating philosophy you’ll want to stick with for the rest of your life, clean eating is it. And the benefits extend far beyond mere weight loss.

Nonetheless, we’ll consider it a good thing that clean eating is finally getting the attention it deserves. So with the help of some new encouraging research, let’s review how eating clean can help you become a leaner, stronger, and even happier person in 2015 and beyond.

17 Foods You'll Find in Any Fit Guy's Fridge >>>

As with most nutrition trends, a key reason clean eating is gaining steam right now is because of its potential to help you lose weight. Fortunately, research supports this. A study from the Harvard School of Public Health reported that subjects who increased their consumption of whole grains and whole fruits and vegetables over a 20-year span gained significantly less weight than a control group.

And even though clean eating puts no restrictions on how much you eat—and doesn’t enforce quotas for macronutrients like protein, carbs, and fat—anecdotal evidence consistently sees clean eaters taking in fewer calories.

“I’ve had male clients struggle to hit the 2,000-calorie mark when they’ve cut out all refined foods and eaten only real foods,” says Nate Miyaki, C.S.S.N., a nutrition consultant and author of Feast Your Fat Away.

But that’s just one example of what clean eating can do for you. More than merely helping you lose weight, cleaning up your diet can help you put on muscle more efficiently, boost your immune system, improve your health, and add to your happiness.

“Eating clean means eating natural foods—foods that don’t have added sugars, chemicals, or unhealthy fats,” says Douglas S. Kalman, Ph.D., R.D., director of clinical nutrition at Miami Research Associates. Processed foods, on the other hand, are very regularly stripped of valuable nutrients as they’re manufactured into convenience foods.

“That complex of nutrients [in the original whole food] actually affords maximal digestibility and usability, metabolically in the body,” says Jonathan Wright, M.D., nutrition expert and co-author of Eating Clean for Dummies. Grains, for example, typically go through an intensive procedure to make them into bread or pasta—the milling removes layers that contain the majority of their beneficial fiber, antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins.

Similarly, the heat involved in canning foods can destroy vitamins, and chemicals are often added to “low-fat” products to compensate for the loss of flavor and texture.

“‘Fake’ foods like this are just empty calories with no functional nutrients,” Miyaki says. “They have no effect on satiety or on the hormones that regulate appetite and energy intake. They leave you feeling hungry, deprived, and miserable.”

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FEEL BETTER, NATURALLY

Transitioning away from nutrient-deficient foods that contain additives and chemicals can quickly translate to ramped-up brain function, more-productive workouts, and improved mood and better sleep. A study from the University of Wisconsin found that certain genes responsible for deep slow-wave sleep are also linked to potassium regulation. Take advantage of that connection by eating more foods that are rich in this powerful nutrient, like leafy greens, fish, and beans.

Additionally, a 2012 study of 80,000 adults published in the journal Social Indicators Research found that eating up to seven three-ounce portions of fruit and vegetables a day boosted brain health, life satisfaction, and happiness.

GET BIG, NOT FAT

“The body has no idea how to metabolize some of the ingredients in processed foods,” says Wright. “For example, many of them act like estrogens and reduce the production of testosterone.”

When you cut out the fake foods that are filled with, literally, fillers—corn syrup, sugar, sodium, trans fats, chemical preservatives, artificial sweeteners, coloring agents—and replace them with whole foods that fuel your body, you’ll notice it in the gym and, consequently, in the mirror. Eggs are, calorie for calorie, one of nature’s best sources of protein, the building block for muscle; the omega-3s in cold-water fatty fish like salmon can help slow muscle breakdown; and the minerals and naturally occurring creatine in lean cuts of beef (supplements directly from nature—who knew!) will speed you toward a trim, fit physique. If you value the sweat and tears you put in while under the iron, clean eating will bring home the (free-range) bacon.

Of course, not everything you eat has to be 100% clean for you to reap the benefits. If you regularly use protein powder, for instance, switching to an unsweetened plant-based version with fewer ingredients can give you more energy with fewer calories. And you don’t have to eat clean all the time.

“I like to balance what’s ideal with what’s practical, functional, and sustainable”, says Miyaki. “I recommend eating clean 85–90% of the time, with some flexibility for favorite foods.” Clean and simple.

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Athletes and fitness fiends alike have very prominent opinions regarding compression gear. The supremely snug attire is thought to improve performance and speed up recovery, but researchers have a confession to make: compression clothing is pretty much useless for endurance runners. (But hey, at least it covers up some leg...)

The study, published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, rounded up 16 competitive male distance runners. They were fixed with monitors and masks to measure their gait, oxygen intake, and other variables, then set loose on a treadmill, running at three progressively increasing speeds. Compression sleeves were slipped over calves, and the treadmill test was repeated, the New York Times reported. 

Results showed that there was no statistically significant difference in running efficiency or biomechanics between when the runners wore compression and when they did not. If the sleeves had functioned as expected, the runners would have used less oxygen. 

Fear not if you’re a sprinter, a basketballer, or a bodybuilder, though. Compression gear can be advantageous in situations where an athlete is engaging in explosive movements, like sprinting, leaping and jerking, a 2013 review of more than 30 studies found.  

And if you really enjoy the suctioning tightness of compression gear, then keep at it. You have nothing to lose.

“Since beliefs are strong performance enhancers, I would recommend compression clothing to persons who believe in the performance-enhancing effect,” says Billy Sperlich, a professor of exercise science at the University of Würzburg in Germany, who co-authored the review.

Just make sure the gear fits properly—as in, it's I-can't-fit-my-hand-in-here tight. 

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