The hacker's guide to fitness.
It’s no secret that I’ve been reading The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss for the past month. I’ve discussed the benefits of cold showers and each week I’ve marked my progress on the Slow-Carb Diet (Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4). In addition to what I’ve discussed on the blog, I’ve also added kettlebell swings, cat-vomit maneuvers, GLUT-4 exercises, added cinnamon to my coffee, and more. But I’ve yet to review the book as a whole – and the reason for that is because it’s huge, and I just finished reading it.
The book isn’t meant to be read cover-to-cover (which I couldn’t help but doing). It’s more like a reference book on the most efficient ways to improve yourself physically. Ferriss discusses everything from how to lose 20 lbs in 30 days to gaining a ton of muscle with just minutes in the gym to becoming a master of the bedroom to maximizing your homerun potential (homeruns as in baseball – not as a metaphor for previously mentioned bedroom skills).
I took to the chapters of “Subtracting Fat” almost immediately. Before reading this book, I’ve followed the P90X diet off and on, or tried my own [failed] version of eating healthy, or just ate whatever I wanted and workout out a lot. Somethings worked OK, but nothing has ever worked as well as the Slow-Carb Diet. It’s incredible simple, and it allows a fail-safe day where you can go nuts and eat all the pizza and fried chicken you want (and I do). Now I didn’t lose 20 lbs in a month, but I did lose 10 – which was 5% of my overall body weight. I’m also consistently lighter than I’ve been in at least 4 years – probably more like 12 years.
Ferris focuses a lot on different types of conditioning – how to run an ultra-marathon, how to swim a mile, how to deadlift a horse. I’ve learned a lot from these chapters. I’ve changed my running posture and I don’t have as many knee issues. I’ve also been working on a lot of posterior chain exercises – something that I’ve been neglecting since… well… forever.
There are two things to understand about this book:
1) This is like the hacker’s guide to fitness. Ferriss shows you the fastest most efficient ways to do everything. I lost 6% body fat in one month, where previously it would take me 3. I’ve improved my kettlebell swing from 25 to 40 lbs – and I’ll be adding more weight tonight. Ferris isolates what works from what doesn’t and shows you how to do the absolute minimum to achieve maximum results. It sounds like a cheesy ad pitch, but that’s because cheesy ad pitches make unbelievable promises, and this book can give you unbelievable results.
2) The book focuses on self-experimentation. By the time you finish it, you’ll be ready to run any number of experiments on yourself to find what works for you. Ferriss gives you the tools and the examples you need to go out and try your own experiments. I’m already thinking about how I can alter my diet and measure the progress to determine if something different works for me. I think this is going to start a whole new subculture of self-experimentation – and I hope to be a part of it.
When I first opened this book and started reading it, I was overjoyed. Finally, someone wrote a fitness book for me. A book that focuses on the why and how – and discusses what doesn’t work. Ferriss presents it all in an easy to read format that is as entertaining as it is informative. I highly recommend it. For me, this book is the beginning of a new chapter of my life – and I’m already seeing results.
Blood, Sweat & Beer 