I first found out about the book Body by Science, written by Dr. Doug McGuff and John Little, while reading Dave Asprey’s site, The Bulletproof Exec. For those of you who are unaware, Dave is a biohacker, and is all about doing whatever is best for his body — even some extreme stuff — and he swears by Body by Science and uses it as the basis of his exercise program.
Because I have such respect for Dave, his glowing endorsement of Body by Science made want to check it out and see if it was worth implementing as part of my exercise program.
After reading through the book, I feel like it’s pretty safe to say that this is a significant shift from traditional exercise programs — even stuff like CrossFit — that have you working out multiple times per week. In fact, the program in Body by Science aims to get you in optimal health and prime physical shape in 40 minutes per month, give or take.
Basically, here’s the workout program:
- Lift heavy weights, so basically 75% of your one-rep max.
- Do 3 to 5 compound movements per workout.
- Do only one set of each movement per workout.
- Each rep should last between 6 and 10 seconds.
- Take each set to failure.
- Work out like this every 7 to 14 days, taking longer periods of time off if you hit a plateau.
Like I said, this whole “20 minute workout every week” will likely come as a shock to most people, particularly those who have followed the “I need to workout 45 minutes per day in order to be healthy” idea of training.
The one thing I don’t particularly like about this book is its reliance on machines over free weights. Personally, I think free weights are better since they adhere to your range of motion, not the other way around.
In all honesty, I have not yet had an opportunity to implement this workout plan since I’m still exhausted from the first three weeks of fatherhood, however, once I get back to a more normal sleep schedule, I plan on giving this a try for a few months. At that point, I will update this review.
In the meantime, I found this to be very interesting reading, and recommend you check out this book based on the information alone.
Other Interesting Links:
Upgraded Self Radio Podcast with Dr. Doug McGuff
What are your thoughts on this? Have you read this book? Do you think these ideas are crazy? Leave your comments below to share with the community!
Disclosure: The opinions expressed above are 100% my own. This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which I receive a small commission if you make purchases. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
It’s articles like these that make you rethink what you’re doing in life. It makes you want to make a change. And I am glad I found a similar article to this a few months back and made me start going on the paleo diet.
It changed my life in so many ways.
http://cooklikeacaveman.com/paleo-cookbook-review/
I hope you guys can try it for yourself because I have felt the amazing effects of it.
This is one of the best books about muscles and their role in healthy mebabolism I’ve ever read. However, while the exercise protocol may be effective in modulating blood sugar and insulin, few people will adhere to it very long because doing resistance exercise to failure is unpleasant. Missing from this book is any hint of the tremendous joy found in exercise, thus why many people like to work out multiple times each week. Dr. McGuff disses conventional cardio. Overlooked is that old-fashioned cardio provides an endorphin response to which resistance is no rival. Healty is good. Healthy and happy even better.