Body by Science: A Research Based Program to Get the Results You Want in 12 Minutes a Week
Body by Science: A Research Based Program to Get the Results You Want in 12 Minutes a Week
Building muscle has never been faster or. easier than with this revolutionary once-a-week. training program
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In Body By Science, bodybuilding powerhouse John Little teams up with fitness medicine expert Dr. Doug McGuff to present a scientifically proven formula for maximizing muscle development in just 12 minutes a week. Backed by rigorous research, the authors prescribe a weekly high-intensity program for increasing strength, revving metabolism, and building muscle for a total fitness experience.
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User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Take the time to understand and you will be rewarded!
This book gives an in-depth understanding to the lay person who is serious about gaining knowledge of the body chemistry that occurs during and after a workout. This is a must read. You must not just read this book, but study it and really learn what the authors are detailing in this book. I’m a high-intensity exercise advocate, and train people in it, but I have become even more zealous of its potential for strength and health after reading this book. I’m very thankful to the authors for their efforts.
5 Stars Excellent exercise guide
Book not only gives instructions for efficient muscle building but also explains what’s happening inside your body. Also lists all the other health benefits one accrues from increasing muscle mass.
4 Stars Probably the best book on the SuperSlow protocol
There has been a lot of buzz over this exercise concept during the last fifteen years or so, with a gaggle of books out hyping the idea that slowing down rep speeds during resistance exercise is the “best” way to exercise, bar none. Readers have probably seen many titles promoting variations of this theme, such as “The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution”, “Power of 10″, and so on. Slowing down concentric and eccentric reps is not a new idea, it probably goes back over a century (heck, maybe even back to Cro-Magnon times, Fred Flintstone probably experimented with it), but the idea really started taking off due to the efforts of Ken Hutchins promoting his “SuperSlow” (TM) protocol in the 90s and beyond. Soon thereafter, SuperSlow “Zones” starting branching off from central Florida and appearing in various cities around the country, offering very short workouts twice a week for people “short on time”. Certainly there were lucrative business opportunities here…
Mr/Ms. Average American never has any time, except 6 hours of TV a night, and certainly does not like to move more than required, so these promises of “20 minutes, twice a week”, or in the case of Body By Science, “12 minutes a week”, certainly appeal to folks who want to get in their 12-20 minutes and get out. The trouble is, slo-mo training is painful, which unfortunately tends to hurt long-term compliance. Bad for business.
So what is so hot about slowing down rep speeds that encourages its proponents to hype it as the ultimate form of exercise? Indeed, many of the staunchest proponents say no other form of exercise is necessary, especially steady-state aerobics. Most slo-mo proponents actually poo-poo ANY type of cardiovascular training, even HIIT interval-training that has been shown to be very effective in numerous studies. Ken Hutchins is well-known for nixing cardio, especially. And in this book, Dr. Doug McGuff echoes the same theme, viewing any cardio as probably unnecessary or even worthless. Certainly it is fair to say this is a minority opinion among exercise physiologists and researchers in general, and the actual scientific literature usually points out a synergistic effect of combining strength training with some type of cardio. Indeed, these are two separate modalities of training that produce different physiological effects on muscle tissue, glucose transport, insulin sensitivity and so on; each form of exercise affects these parameters in different ways. It is difficult, therefore, to buy the SuperSlow arguments that only one form of exercise is necessary (i.e., muscle strengthening), or that slo-mo strength training should *replace* all cardiovascular work. Hutchins and Co., in fact, have received a huge amount of backlash from exercise experts on this idea of “all cardio is worthless”. The idea that the only form of exercise that is worthwhile is “strengthening muscle”, which all of the slow-mo proponents spout, is a creative re-visioning of the term “exercise”. And it is an idea, if interpreted exclusively, that has zero support in the clinical literature. I submit another working definition of “worthwhile exercise”, which is more in tune with the goals everyone should be looking for: “that which in general improves one’s endothelial health, insulin sensitivity and lean muscle tissue.” Yes, weights are important, especially for that last component. But weights aren’t necessarily superior in promoting some of the other parameters, alas. Saying weights produces superior results in insulin sensitivity to traditional cardio methods, for instance, is playing a little fast and loose with the documented research.
But enough on the anti-cardio sentiments seen in these books. Let’s comment briefly on the results claimed by slo-mo proponents. This book, Body by Science, certainly offers many arguments supporting the idea that slo-mo training (in this case, intense 10-second concentric with 10-second eccentric reps) is valuable in a variety of health areas. I won’t argue with these claims, they are supported by numerous studies involving resistance exercise in general, and there is no reason to believe the particular protocol offered by McGuff and Co. would be any different. Where things start to go wrong here, however, is when slo-mo proponents claim their methods are *superior* to any other type of resistance training for producing these results. Proponents are usually fond citing a couple studies by Wayne Westcott that seemingly “showed” superior results for slo-mo training, but these studies have been reviewed by skeptics and have received criticisms for lack of a standardized counting methodology, which would make them interesting studies but of questionable worth. Other studies have compared slo-mo with more traditional training protocols and found the slo-mo methods inferior. I guess it boils down to which studies you want to select to “prove” your point.
And what is with this “10-second concentric, 10-second eccentric” hype? Is there anything magical about “10 seconds”, as if we’ve suddenly discovered the gospel of resistance training now? The claim, of course, is that by demanding long periods of what exercise geeks call “time-under-tension”, muscles receive a maximal amount of microtrauma, and therefore, long extended-reps produce the best muscle gains. While there is some truth to the idea that extended periods on reps produce greater microtrauma, especially on the *eccentric* portion, there isn’t any documented literature supporting the protocol of 10 seconds being anything magical. Why not 8 or 6 seconds? Heck, if 10 is good, why not 50 seconds each direction, using a weight so light a parakeet could lift it?
And that brings up another problem with this “time-under-tension” reasoning. I think it is a fine training idea to increase TUT, and as mentioned above this is especially effective on the eccentric portion of an exercise. However, we have a trade-off here, in that the *load* (amount of weight) by necessity needs to be reduced in proportion to the amount of time a rep sequence is performed in. Put another way, if you insist on using very long periods of time, your load being lifted will need to be proportionally small. Yes, slo-mo reps are very demanding, as anyone who has used this protocol knows, so we have something that includes the variable of “intensity”. However, there is more to muscle trauma and rebuilding than merely intensity…slo-mo proponents tend to forget the importance of *load* in this equation. (I don’t have space to elaborate here).
Well, this is getting long so let us sum up. Is slo-mo training actually worthwhile? I think it is. The observation that most weight lifters use too much momentum certainly strikes home- just observe the guys in your local gym bouncing heavy weights up off their chest, etc.. So using slo-mo reps certainly teaches one to pay more attention to the quality of one’s reps. Slowing down the eccentric portion, specifically, is valuable in producing optimal microtrauma, which means more lean muscle during the rebuilding process. Which leads us to another good observation. The argument from slo-mo proponents that most folks lift too much per session, and much too often, is certainly valid. Better recovery is a strong argument, considering how much the typical weight enthusiast trains… Plus, all of the health benefits of weight training in general, as laid out so well in this book, argue that weights, particularly a HIT (high-intensity) protocol, should be an essential part of anyone’s exercise program.
Negatives? The hype over very long reps being somehow “superior” to traditional forms of weight training is certainly questionable. Just because slo-mo training CAN produce good results, as HIT guru Drew Baye has observed, it doesn’t follow that the results are necessarily superior to other rep speeds… Also, we don’t have space here to discuss slo-mo claims to improve sports/athletic performance, which is an area where often explosive movement needs to be trained specifically as part of the skill-set. Specificity-of-training is an important physiological concept, and slo-mo doesn’t really address these sports concerns well, as critics have pointed out.
So, is the book worth buying? Yes. But go light on all the hype.
5 Stars Awesome.
I’ll keep the review short because the important stuff has already been covered by Drew Baye far better than I could ever hope to say it.
This is the best book ever written on exercise science. There are no “feelings”, “hunches” or “guess work” involved in this text, it’s all backed by scientific studies and analysis- right down to the cellular level. This book should go a long way to shattering long standing myths that abound in the world of exercise and bodybuilding and I say it’s about time. I have been an HIT advocate for years ever since I studied the work of Mike Mentzer and there has never been a speck of doubt in my mind that as far as exercise goes, it is not only the most time efficient but the most results producing exercise medium known to man.
Bravo Dr. McGuff and Mr. Little, I think you have written what will become an exercise classic for the ages.
5 Stars It is time to rethink our old beliefs
Dr. McGuff has written a thought provoking book that when discussed with people who exercise regularly, will spark conversation, thought, and even argument. It is amazing how wedded we are to our beliefs about exercise, myself included. I have been involved in fitness for 25 years, and considered myself fairly knowledgeable. However, I began to rethink my beliefs and realised that I had held on to some old dogma that needed to be discarded. I began to apply HIT principles to my weight workouts and dropped my “cardio”, which my aching knee promptly thanked me. I then started cleaning up my diet with Paleo style eating and the results are great! No more pounding the pavement or my knee to reduce bodyfat, it is all about muscle and diet. If you can open your mind to this material then the sky is the limit.
Filed under: Weight Loss Book Reviews
