Those who forgave Tony Blair for taking his holiday while the world was on the brink of destruction may not be so inclined to pardon the flagrant flaunting of his man-boobs — or moobs — on the yacht Good Vibrations. (We shudder to think of the effect on the prime ministerial moobs if the boat actually does vibrate.)
While the PM is no John Prescott, he is possibly a few pounds over his ideal weight. A few extra State dinners might have contributed to our leader having to go up a cup size, but he is, by all accounts, a self-disciplined man and we must not judge him by his jugs alone. Mr Blair is presumably neither a big boozer nor a pot smoker — both of these noxious substances being oestrogenic and therefore moob enhancing — although there is much to be said on the subject of posture and muscle tone, of which more shortly.
While it is obviously too late for Mrs Blair to heed my mother’s advice (“Never marry a man whose tits are bigger than yours”) there is still time for the PM to put the Middle East aside for, say, 60 minutes three or four times a week and concentrate on putting the tone back into Tony.
But first we must look at the growing problem of man-boobs in general. Often, though not in the PM’s case, this is an offshoot of the obesity crisis, where the boobs sag on the protruding stomach. For others, it might be a case of having overworked the pectoral muscles at the gym when they were fit young men who cared about these things: then, as middle-aged rot set in, the pecs went south in flabby fashion.
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Less commonly, there is a condition called gynaecomastia, which is glandular breast growth in men. Though there are no proven causes, theories abound, mostly to do with oestrogens seeping into the food chain and water supply; the idea is that women on the contraceptive pill excrete oestrogens which get into the water supply, causing fish to change sex and men to grow breasts. Alcohol and marijuana are also said to increase oestrogen levels, and certainly anyone who has ever been to a rock festival will confirm a high man-boob count. Last year, the St George’s and Princess Grace hospitals in London performed 150 breast-reduction surgeries in men. Regular excess fat is liposuctioned out, while excess glandular tissue is surgically removed.
But most well-stacked men will not have to resort to such drastic measures. The most sensible way to shift the cleavage is with a combination of diet and exercise. Michael White, a personal trainer with Home Health Fitness, says that man-boobs tend to present in men in their forties and fifties, though he has had clients in their thirties with the problem. “They are basically just fatty deposits, though some men are more prone to getting them than others. The problem is in the pectoral area, so you have to focus on chest exercises to tone that area. In the gym, you would be using the bench press, the pec deck (the weight machine where you sit upright and press your arms together) and the Swiss ball fly, where you lie with your back on the ball, holding dumbbells, and move your arms as if you are trying to fly. You can also do a chest press with free weights.”
But what about the busty chap who can’t get down to the gym? “Press-ups are best of all,” says White. “You can do standard ones with the hands a shoulder-width apart, but if you move your hands a metre apart it isolates the exercise more to your chest.”
Toning is only part of the battle. If it’s a matter of extra fat, aerobic fat-burning exercise must be done as well. “For cardio work, I would suggest rowing or cycling,” White says. “Maybe not jogging. Men with moobs don’t like jogging, for obvious reasons.”
Not all fitness experts think that man-boobs are simply a matter of getting the things off your chest. Ben Price, a fitness manager for Esporta, reckons that the problem could be postural. “We spend so much of our day seated: driving, at a desk, at home. This can cause the upper back to become quite weak, which makes the shoulders roll forward and the chest become weaker. To strengthen that area you need to strengthen the upper back — the rhomboid muscles. You would work your chest muscles as well, but the ratio would be two chest exercises to four back ones.”
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Jamie Sawyer, a specialist trainer at the Third Space gym, says that the best plan to shrink man-boobs is to improve the muscle mass in the whole body. “When you increase muscle mass with strength training, you increase testosterone levels. It’s thought that environmental toxins cause a decrease in testosterone, and then men start to produce more oestrogen, which increases the fatty deposits and glandular tissue on the pectorals.” Sawyer advises his pectorally challenged male clients to avoid alcohol and soy isolate products, which he believes may reduce testosterone. “Soy sucks for guys,” is his considered opinion.
For exercise, he advises strength training for all the muscle groups, and sprinting for 20 to 30 seconds followed by jogging for 30 seconds. “The sprinting increases growth hormone and testosterone,” he explains.
Meanwhile, what should the PM and his fellow B-cup men do about diet? The nutritional therapist Kate Cook subscribes to the oestrogen theory and adds that the stress hormone cortisol may play a part. “No quick sugar hits,” she advises. “Big swings in blood sugar would affect the hormone balance.”
The Middle East may be in an uproar, but if Mr Blair follows our advice then within a few weeks he should be able to thrust his manly chest out in statesmanlike fashion — without a trace of the summertime boobs.
GET IT OFF YOUR CHEST
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Exercise 1: Wide-Arm Press-Up
Like a normal press-up, but with your arms out at twice your shoulder width, fingers pointing forwards. A highly effective pec-toner, like Exercise 2.
Exercise 2: The Dumbbell Chest Press
Lie on a bench with the arms straight up from the shoulders, the knuckles outwards. Lower until weights are level with chest, allowing elbows to be drawn down and back. Press dumbbells up again.
Exercise 3: Bent-over row
Bend forward at the waist with elbows out to sides and hands dangling below, holding weights. Row the weights up to just below nipple-height. Like Exercise 4, this targets the rhomboid muscles.
Exercise 4: Bent-over fly
Same starting position as Exercise 3. Arms stay straight as you smoothly raise and lower them out to the sides.