Table of Contents
Body By Science by Doug McGuff is a book that contradicts most of the advice that you will find online about strength training. From the perspective of a physician, McGuff explains how building muscle is a biological process that requires sufficient rest as well as intense stimulation, and that more frequent training can impede rather than help your muscle growth process. Most people who peddle fitness advice want to sell you their supplements, but McGuff sticks to the evidence we have, and recommends a training program that is intimidating, challenging, but incredibly efficient.
Routine
The Big Three: Leg Press, Pull Down, Chest Press
The Big Five: The Big Three + Overhead Press + Seated (or compound) row
Instead of devoting energy to complex movements, these exercises allow you to perform simple and natural movements, allowing you to focus on eprforming hard work rather than execute opposing movements.
Frequency
Big Five: go to true failure, perform once.
Time Under Load (TUL)
Measuring how much time you spend while doing a set of reps gives more accurate insigth into progress even if small.
Between Exercises
Move quickly between exercises, there are metabolic benefits to doing so. (30 seconds to 1 minute between each exercise)
No Wasted Time
Performing the Big Five or the Big Three stimulates all major muscle groups without chewing off unnecessary clock once a week. 50% of ada[tation comes from sufficiently intense stimulation, 50% comes from sufficient recovery.
Exercises
- Seated Row: Upper body pulling exercise.
- Muscles Activated: Targets torso. Do not tuck your elbows in or flare them out. Let them ride neutrally.
- Chest Press: Follow Seated Row with this upper body pushing exercise.
- Muscles Activated: Front of torso muscles are activated (pectoralis major, pectoralis minor, triceps and deltoid musculature surrounding shoulder joint. If using a machine, don’t tuck or flare arms too much and don’t tuck shoulders up. Incline and decline chest press not recommended if trainee is already performing chest press.
- Pulldown: Arms in front of you, not on the sides. Underhand Grip, hands a little narrower than shoulder width apart. Safer and activates muscles better.
- Muscles activated: Although most train biceps with single joint movements (barbell curls, the biceps crosses both elbow and shoulder joint. Pulldown involves rotation around elbow and shoulder joint, you’re involving the biceps from both ends. Latissimus, rhomboids, and trapezius muscles are also activated.
- Performance: Get in a slumped position, lower shoulders directly towards hips in linear fashion.
- Overhead Press: After pulldown, move to overhead press.
- Muscles activated: Triceps, deltoid musculature and pectoralis muscles.
- Performance: Parallel Grip, hands in front of you.
- Leg Press: Final exercise.
- Muscles activated: Entire lower body from waist down, emphasis on hip and buttock musculature, and hamstring and quadriceps (front of thigh) in addition to inner calf muscles.
- Performance: Legs perpendicular to ceiling, hips flexed slightly more than 90 degrees. Knees bent to as close to 90 degrees as possible. Slow, smooth movements just short of lock out. As you go back to starting position, allow weights to “tap” the weight stack.
Free Weight Big 5
- Bent Over Barbell Row
- Standing Overhead Press
- Deadlift
- Bench Press
- Squat
Always move slowly. Fast movements diminish strength gains (momentum contributes to movement). Machines are safer with no downside.
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Either add more weights to train to failure or exercise super slow with the same weight and measure TUL.
Misconceptions
Swimming does not produce “swimmer’s body” – rather, a particular body type has emerged that is best suited for swimming.
Exercise is purposefully directed activity that stimulates the body to produce a positive adaptation in fitness level and health. Physical activity (in contrast) can improve fitness and health, but can also undermine one’s health (running, jogging, tennis).
Studies have documented that 60 percent of runners are injured in an average year.
Fitness does not necessarily mean good health. The body is always in an anabolic (building) or catabolic (destroying) state. Some activities like running do not allow for enough building after being in a catabolic state. Any repetitive activity has this wear and tear effect on the body.
People who exercise more frequently do not experience more strength or muscle gains than those who train less frequently. In 2005, CNN reported the surprising findings of McMaster University research group, which found that hard exercise once a week was as effective as an hour of moderate daily activity.
In these studies, the key findings showed that a workout requiring six to nine minutes a week produced the same muscle enzymes (essential for diabetes 2 prevention) as a workout requiring four and a half to six hours per week.
It does not matter how many reps you do, or how many minutes you spent during strength training, a positive adaptation can only happen by training to failure.
One set to failure is enough, no need for three.
There is no reason to perform a full range of motion during exercises.
History of Health
Higher population densities made the spread of plague easier.
The invention of the sewer increased longevity – dealt with waste management and the problem of disease. The principle source of improving life expectancy was not medical advancement but technological advancement that made our environment more like it was in the past.
People think they were doing something right to be fit before their mid-twenties, but it was just the natural process of the body strengthening each year.
The degree of leanness (lack of body fat) that is currently in vogue is just as detrimental as an overabundance of body fat.
The problem today is not that people are inactive but that calories are so readily available to be consumed.
Lipase
When mobilizing glycogen out of a cell during high intensity exercise, we are able to activate hormone sensitive lipase, which permits the mobilization of bodyfat. This is not done by low intensity exercise.
Hydration
Adequate hydration is important for enhancing the body’s response to the exercise stimulus, it also has much to do with the fat loss process. Hydration signals to the body that all is well, and to metabolize as usual.
A calorie is a unit of heat measurement that represents the amount of heat required to raise one liter of water one degree centigrade. If you drink 3 liters of ice cold water a day, you would need 111 extra calories to burn to raise that quantity of water to 37 degrees centigrade (37 calories per liter * 3). Plus cold water lowers core body temperature which results in more calories burned.
Omega 3 Fatty Acids
Omega 3 fatty acids are chains of carbon atoms linked to hydrogen. They are essential to the fat loss process because of their effect o hormone sensitivity. Carbon atoms can be saturated or unsaturated. A carbon atom can bind 4 molecules, if it binds two other carbons and 2 hydrogens, it is fully saturated. It is unsaturated if it develops a double bond with another carbon, so that only one hydrogen is bound to it. Omega 3 has its double bond 3 carbon atoms back from the end of the chain – omega 3 and omega 9 has its double bond further down the chain.
The position of the double bond determines the shape and flexibility of the fatty acid. Omega 3 have the double bond in alocation that makes them elongated and flexible. Because of this, the cell walls will be fully expanded, placing all the hormonal receptors on the exterior of the cell facing outward toward the environment, where they can appropiately interact with the circulating hormone. These hormones are necessary for creating fat mobilization process, that is why it is important that they are connected to receptors.
Omega 3 is found in tofu, walnuts, flax seed and oil, chia. It is primarily found in green leafy plants and grasses and meat from the animals that eat this vegetation. The best way to get it is to eat plenty of green leafy vegetables and fish. Omega 6 is found in grain based agriproducts and in the animals that eat them.
Psychology of Training
What is required is to rid people of the neurosis of having to go back to the gym to train frequently. Fitness magazines only exist to sell supplements and instill a sense of training angst by convincing you that you are not doing enough.
Nothing will be lost by extending recovery period to 7 to 14 days. There is no upside to performing more workouts.
The gulf between what you want and what you perceive is often the result of genetics. The frustration results in an inaccurate understanding of biology.
Reluctant as the trainee may be to accept it, there is a distinct evolutionary disincentive for having excess muscle.
Health Benefits from Training
The closer you get to realizing your muscular potential, the closer you get to optimizing the potential of your metabolic system or “support system.” More muscle improves processing of waste materials, oxygenating blood, controlling insulin levels, optimizing bone mineral density, optimizing aerobic capacity, enhancing flexibility, and reducing chances of injury.
Restoring insulin sensitivity decreases sustemic inflammatory state, which results in a less generalized inflamation of blood vessel walls, requiring less need for cholesterol to be transported for this purpose on LDL molecules.
As a muscle becomes stronger, fewer motor units will have to be recruited to perform a task, thus relaxing the demand on the cardiovascular system.
Synergize
- Eat natural unprocessed foods
- Stay cool
- Sleep well and sleep cool
- Avoid stress as much as possible
- High intensity exercise