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I was sitting on my surfboard 20 feet to side of Neil Strauss, author of The Game.
Enough name-dropping, you say; what about the 34 lbs of muscle?!
How Did I Do It?
First, I followed a simple supplement regimen:
Morning: NO-Xplode, Slo-Niacin
Each Meal: ChromeMate, alpha-lipoic acid
Pre-Workout: BodyQUICK.
1. Five supplements five times daily at different times is not simple.
2. When you find yourself swallowing something called NO-Xplode, you really ought to take stock of your life choices.
Similarly to the 15-minute orgasm, the 4-hour body is wildly misleading but has a surprising quantity of actually reasonable techniques mixed in with the bullshit.
How he ACTUALLY gained 34 lbs of muscle in 28 days with 4 hours of exercise per week (IF he did):
He's a very experienced bodybuilder and kickboxer doing the bulk phase of a bulk/cut cycle. He already spent years building the foundation of muscle and fitness, so to bulk he eats a ton of protein and works out intensely. He's not spending a ton of time on exercise because he's doing full-body exercises with very heavy weights, which is a lot of bang for your buck, but you can't start out that heavy unless you've already worked up to it. The supplements may or may not be doing anythingother than making sure he doesn't explode. I seriously doubt the time span though.
Once again, I reluctantly found myself thinking that his bulk out techniques make a lot of sense. It's just that you can't do it in one month unless you've already done it a bunch of times, like he had (and I doubt that even he really did do it in one month). But his advice to eat lots of protein, make sure you're getting enough total calories, and to focus on whole-body lifts, working up to heavy ones, is standard weightlifting advice. I'm currently doing the Casey Johnston "Swolewoman"Lift Off protocol, and she advises those exact principles only without a specific timespan.
Casey Johnston has a post on the 4-Hour Body. She also thought it was 38 lbs of bullshit with a surprising scattering of actually good advice:
Ultimately what encapsulates my experience of this book ten-plus years on, is this ur-example of a basically harmless and maybe even qualitatively good but quantitatively impractical recommendation: Macadamia oil.
Macadamia oil is the new and improved olive oil. Since several high-level bodybuilding coaches introduced me to this new kid on the block, I’ve been hooked.
Has anyone ever heard of Macadamia oil before or since? It sure didn’t take the place of olive oil.
Ferriss has a lot of brief rundowns of specific exercises recommended by star weightlifting coaches, some of which sound bogus or impractical but most of which sound fun and/or worth a try. Unusually for this sort of bro-y book, several of the coaches work with female athletes, so he's using women for some of his good examples. Some of this is "if this 16-year-old girl who weighs 120 lbs can be trained to lift this, so can you," but some of it is just "Here's what this athlete achieved with these techniques" and the athlete is a woman. I sincerely appreciated this.
For the bullshit quotient, meet the "Slow Carb" diet. This is for weight loss, unrelated to his build strength/bulk out advice. It bans white foods and fruit, supplements with lemon juice and garlic, and advises eating the exact same meals every day selected from a limited list of foods, plus unlimited "eat whatever you want" every Saturday. I suspect that it does work for weight loss temporarily, just like basically every diet works for weight loss temporarily. It's dumb but honestly, I've come across much dumber diets. At least he doesn't say cavemen never ate carbs.
Enough name-dropping, you say; what about the 34 lbs of muscle?!
How Did I Do It?
First, I followed a simple supplement regimen:
Morning: NO-Xplode, Slo-Niacin
Each Meal: ChromeMate, alpha-lipoic acid
Pre-Workout: BodyQUICK.
1. Five supplements five times daily at different times is not simple.
2. When you find yourself swallowing something called NO-Xplode, you really ought to take stock of your life choices.
Similarly to the 15-minute orgasm, the 4-hour body is wildly misleading but has a surprising quantity of actually reasonable techniques mixed in with the bullshit.
How he ACTUALLY gained 34 lbs of muscle in 28 days with 4 hours of exercise per week (IF he did):
He's a very experienced bodybuilder and kickboxer doing the bulk phase of a bulk/cut cycle. He already spent years building the foundation of muscle and fitness, so to bulk he eats a ton of protein and works out intensely. He's not spending a ton of time on exercise because he's doing full-body exercises with very heavy weights, which is a lot of bang for your buck, but you can't start out that heavy unless you've already worked up to it. The supplements may or may not be doing anything
Once again, I reluctantly found myself thinking that his bulk out techniques make a lot of sense. It's just that you can't do it in one month unless you've already done it a bunch of times, like he had (and I doubt that even he really did do it in one month). But his advice to eat lots of protein, make sure you're getting enough total calories, and to focus on whole-body lifts, working up to heavy ones, is standard weightlifting advice. I'm currently doing the Casey Johnston "Swolewoman"Lift Off protocol, and she advises those exact principles only without a specific timespan.
Casey Johnston has a post on the 4-Hour Body. She also thought it was 38 lbs of bullshit with a surprising scattering of actually good advice:
Ultimately what encapsulates my experience of this book ten-plus years on, is this ur-example of a basically harmless and maybe even qualitatively good but quantitatively impractical recommendation: Macadamia oil.
Macadamia oil is the new and improved olive oil. Since several high-level bodybuilding coaches introduced me to this new kid on the block, I’ve been hooked.
Has anyone ever heard of Macadamia oil before or since? It sure didn’t take the place of olive oil.
Ferriss has a lot of brief rundowns of specific exercises recommended by star weightlifting coaches, some of which sound bogus or impractical but most of which sound fun and/or worth a try. Unusually for this sort of bro-y book, several of the coaches work with female athletes, so he's using women for some of his good examples. Some of this is "if this 16-year-old girl who weighs 120 lbs can be trained to lift this, so can you," but some of it is just "Here's what this athlete achieved with these techniques" and the athlete is a woman. I sincerely appreciated this.
For the bullshit quotient, meet the "Slow Carb" diet. This is for weight loss, unrelated to his build strength/bulk out advice. It bans white foods and fruit, supplements with lemon juice and garlic, and advises eating the exact same meals every day selected from a limited list of foods, plus unlimited "eat whatever you want" every Saturday. I suspect that it does work for weight loss temporarily, just like basically every diet works for weight loss temporarily. It's dumb but honestly, I've come across much dumber diets. At least he doesn't say cavemen never ate carbs.
