The 4 Hour Body by Ferriss

Ref: Tim Ferris (2010). The 4 Hour Body. Harmony Publishing.

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Summary­

  • Secrets and Shortcuts from Physicians, Dieticians, Athletes, and experts on success in training, nutrition, the bedroom, sleep, and more. 

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Misc Quotes

Success and change, in any context: Make it conscious. Make it a game. Make it competitive. Make it small and temporary. Daily goals and public accountability combined with daily rewards and public recognition. Seeing progress in changing numbers makes the repetitive fascinating and creates a positive feedback loop.

Sperm production (spermatogenesis) takes an estimated 64 days in humans.

Pareto demonstrated a grossly uneven but predictable distribution of wealth in society—80% of the wealth and income is produced and possessed by 20% of the population. He also showed that this 80/20principle could be found almost everywhere, not just in economics. 80% of Pareto’s garden peas were produced by 20% of the peapods he had planted.

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Sex

  • For almost all women, the most sensitive part of the clit will be the upper-left-hand quadrant from their perspective, around one o’clock from the man’s perspective.

    • Find 1:00 P.M.—ideally a small indentation or pocket between the hood and her clitoris—with your right hand’s index finger and begin stroking using the lightest touch possible and only 1/16″ or so of movement. The tip of the finger is better than the pad, so cut your nails beforehand. Nicole emphasizes the start: “If I can suggest one thing to the guys: take the time to find the spot. Once you find it, she won’t be able to take more than a very light touch, like brushing satin against her skin.” Stroke like a metronome at a constant speed for periods of two to three minutes, but feel free to change speed between periods.

    • Insert the middle finger of the non-stroking hand, palm up, and use a come-hither motion to stimulate the g-spot. After five minutes, add in the index finger for a total of two fingers and continue the come-hither motion. 2. Place a buckwheat pillow under her hips for the same angle as the improved-angle missionary, and use your left thumb to anchor the clitoris while you perform cunnilingus at the one o’clock upper quadrant of the clit. Do this as lightly as you would perform the stroke for at least five minutes, without finger insertion, and then add in #1 above with the right hand.

  • Practice Improved-Angle Missionary: The woman should test (a) pulling her knees toward her chest to tilt her hips toward her, and (b) placing her feet flat on the bed to elevate her hips.

    • The number-one move I would offer to men is the targeted pelvic grinding in this position, either moving the hips in small circles or slowly side to side.

    • I later found bracing the abdominal muscles, even extending them a bit, and rocking the hips back and forth in a short one- to two-inch motion to be most effective. Imagine that, from just below your navel to the base of your penis, you are connected to the woman—never lose contact with the clitoris. If you do this right, expect to feel like you did 1,000 sit-ups the next day.

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—-Nutrition—-

Fat

  • There are at least two distinct types of fat:

    • White adipose tissue (WAT)

    • Brown adipose tissue (BAT)

  • 1lb of fat, used during long-state aerobic exercise, contains roughly 4,000 food calories, the same energy density as gasoline. Even if you’re a lean 5% bodyfat at 150 pounds, your available 7.5 pounds of fat can keep you humming for several hundred miles.

  • Cold Exposure

    • It’s been shown that you can burn almost four times more fat than usual with two hours of cold exposure. Not all fat is equal. Cold stimulates BAT to burn fat and glucose as heat. Cold, as well as drugs called beta-adrenergic agonists, can also make BAT appear within WAT in mice and rats. In other words, cold might help you increase the amount of your “fat-burning” fat. This has tremendous implications. Even at shorter durations, cold exposure with shivering could increase adiponectin levels and glucose uptake by muscle tissue. This effect could persist long after the cold exposure ends.

    • Men acutely exposed to cold for two hours (in a liquid-conditioned suit perfused with 10°C [50°F] water) have been observed to increase heat production by 2.6-fold and increase the oxidation rate of plasma glucose by 138%, of muscle glycogen by 109%, and of lipids by 376%. Raising the body’s heat in response to cold exposure is done mostly by burning lipids (50%), then glycogen from muscles (30%), then blood glucose and proteins (10% each).

  • Gastrointestinal Bacteria

    • Two primary strains of bacteria have been found to influence fat absorption, almost regardless of diet: Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. Lean people have more Bacteroidetes and fewer Firmicutes; obese people have more Firmicutes and fewer Bacteroidetes. As obese people lose weight, the ratio of bacteria in their gut swings confidently over to more Bacteroidetes.

Diet

  • Skip sweeteners whenever possible. If it’s really sweet, it probably spikes insulin or screws up your metabolism. Experiment with spices and extracts like cinnamon and vanilla instead.

  • The ratio of most fat-loss case studies: 60% diet, 10% drugs, 30% exercise.

  • Fermented foods contain high levels of healthy bacteria and should be viewed as a mandatory piece of your diet.

  • Cinnamon prior to/during meals increases insulin sensitivity before a high fat meal. Cinnamon, even in small doses, has a substantial effect on glucose levels.

  • The phytoecdysteroids (20HE specifically) in spinach increase human muscle tissue growth rates 20% when applied in a culture; it also increases glucose metabolism.

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—-Fitness—-

Cardio

  • The better the runner, the quieter they are.

  • Sprinting: Use gravity (via forward lean) for forward motion instead of push-off and muscular effort. 2. Land on the balls of the feet and aim to have the feet land under your center of gravity instead of in front of you. 3. Never fully straighten your legs. Keep a slight bend in your legs at all times to prevent push-off. 4. Pull each foot off the ground and towards your buttocks (rather than pushing off) using the hamstrings as soon as it passes under your center of gravity. 5. Maintain at least a 180 step per minute rate, which means at least 90 steps per minute with each leg. This will use muscle elasticity to your advantage. Michael Johnson, who held the 200-meter world record for an astonishing 12 years, and also won four Olympic gold medals at different distances, was known for eschewing a high knee lift in favor of short steps. His per-minute step rate? Around 300. Smaller steps and higher cadence. Bend the arms at least 90 degrees and use small movements.

Strength Training

  • Focus on 2-10 exercises per workout, no more.

  • Perform one set to failure for each exercise.

    • Do not just drop the weight when you hit failure. Attempt to move it, mm by mm, and then hold it at the limit for 5 sec. Only after that should you slowly (take 5-10 sec) lower the weight. The biggest mistake novice trainees make is underestimating the severity of complete failure. “Failure” is not dropping the weight after your last moderately strenuous rep. It is pushing like you have a gun to your head.

  • If you complete the minimal target number of reps for all exercises (excluding abs and kettlebell swing), increase the weight the next workout at least 10 pounds for that exercise. If the additional 10 lbs feels easy after 2-3 reps, stop, wait 5 min, increase the weight an additional 5-10 lbs, then do your single set to failure.

  • Do not pause at the top or bottom of any movements (except the bench press, as noted), and take three minutes of rest between all exercises.

  • Squats: Targets multiple large muscle groups- quads, hams, glutes.

    • For the vertical jump, the speed of your descent into a half-squat will correlate to the max height. Really use your upper-body strength and throw your arms down as fast as you can, recoiling with the same speed.” Start with your arms overhead like an Olympic diver, using the additional distance for increased velocity downward. This maximizes elastic recoil.

Abs

  • Janda sit-up: To perform the Janda sit-up without any equipment, do the following: Loop a towel around your calves and have a training partner pull on it lightly at a 45-degree upward angle, trying to lift your feet.

 

Supplements

  • L-glutamine is an amino acid commonly used as a post-workout supplement for tissue repair. I recommend 10 grams at a time every two hours on the dot until the daily 80-gram quota is reached.

  • With CQ I saw measurable fat-loss and anabolic effects once I reached 2.4g, 3x/day 30 minutes prior to meals, for a total of 7.2 grams per day.

 

Fitness Injuries

  • According to Gray the most likely cause of injury is neither weakness nor tightness, but imbalance.

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Aging

  • NAD: The Sinclair group's NAD paper drew attention partly because it showed a novel way that NAD and sirtuins work together. The researchers discovered that cells' nuclei send signals to mitochondria that are needed to maintain their normal operation. SIRT1 helps ensure the signals get through. When NAD levels drop, as they do with aging, SIRT1 activity falls off, which in turn makes the crucial signals fade, leading to mitochondrial dysfunction and all the ill effects that go with it.

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Sleep

  • Ever wonder how you can sleep 8–10 hours and feel tired? The likely culprit: low blood sugar.

  • Sleep Issues

    • Onset Insomnia: Taking too long to get to sleep.

    • Middle Insomnia: Waking too often throughout the night.

    • Terminal Insomnia: Waking too early and being unable to get back to sleep.

  • Sleep and Food, Liquids, Supplements

    • 200mcg of huperzine-A 30 minutes before bed can increase total REM by 20 –30%. Huperzine-A, an extract of Huperzia serrata, slows the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. It is a popular nootropic (smart drug) that can be used to accelerate learning and increase the incidence of lucid dreaming.  

    • More than two glasses of wine within four hours of sleep decreases deep-wave sleep 20–50%

    • 500mg of Mg taken prior to bed will also improve sleep.

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