Review: Body by Science (John R. Little, Doug McGuff, 2008)

What is it about?

Focus in the book, as I see it, is how to make you generally fit, strong and healthy, while not giving you specific advice on how to grow as much muscle as possible or working out to win Strongman-competitions. Emphasis is always on balance between the activities that breaks down the body, i.e. exercise, the rest that builds up the body, and the importance of working out at a proper intensity.

Again, if you thought low-intensity steady-state running is what you should do to be more fit, think again; in fact, LISS for "cardiovascular exercise", they argue, does not do you any good at all. The driving force behind aerobic performance is to constantly push the boundaries upwards to produce lactic acid thus increasing muscle cell work capacity. The adaptions are thus on the level of the muscle cell which in turns drives the rest of the body to be more efficient at providing an adequate amount of oxygen.

With this follows that you should avoid the middle ground, and instead aim for short high-intensity sprint intervals, and in resistance training always working out to failure to maximize the muscle fiber recruitment, choosing exercises that involve major muscle groups. Also, because of the intensity, these workout sessions should be performed infrequently -- just once a week, in order to properly recover and get enough time for super-compensation. High-intensity workouts are more efficient, they argue, as they are shown to produce the same adaptions as lower-intensity sessions ten times longer in duration. This translates to doing short bursts once in a while, instead of continously pushing around at half speed. The resistance training program given describes compound movements using machines for safety when taking a set to failure, but free weights can also be used. If you know Nautilus, the training style advocated there is the basis for the Body by Science program.

Again, this is for general fitness. When it comes to specific sports or other activities where there by nature is a lot of variation on the intensity, of course, that should also be trained.

Digging down deeper, there's a fairly large part of the book devoted to explanations of how your body works: from generating ATP for energy, the function of the apolipoproteins forming cholesterol, muscle fiber types, recruitment & recovery time, how glycogen synthesis works and insulin sensitivity, to free radicals during physical stress. It also describes what genes are responsible for muscle growth, and how some are more suited towards endurance sports rather than strength, all in great detail.

Next up, a chapter describing proper practice for athletes involved in sports, and how common mistakes are done by coaches not separating specificity from conditioning, wearing down when they should be building up. This means you should aim for technique for the purpose of getting better at the sport, but not trying to get in better shape at the same time as this drives the wrong skill set adaptions. A few examples are given, such as fotball players forced to train with a slightly deflated ball, just to make it harder/more conditioning, where in fact, the actual conditioning gained is minimal and in reality, it would force a parallel skill set from playing with a properly inflated ball, all leading to a generally pretty bad training session not really gaining anything. Another good example is how using a treadmill translates very badly to regular running -- again, an example on how training for something makes you good at just that, but not necessarily a similar activity.

Rounding off the book, there's a short part on diet and how it affects health and weight loss, especially in the light of resistance training. It's sparse in detail, but slanted towards paleo-style eating, i.e. mostly animals and some plants. There are many other resources available on the topic for someone who wants to learn more, e.g. Mark Sisson's "The Primal Blueprint".

My thoughts

Besides an interesting read on how the body works and the adaptions made, a few things related to training made an impression on me: make sure to make each workout count, push your boundaries and make sure to recover properly before next workout, instead of working out more often but at a lower intensity. Without proper stimuli, there is nothing driving adaption. The dicsussion on technique and separation from conditioning is another excellent point. Again: work smarter, not harder.

I like the technical discussions in the book, but if I wanted an actual training program, it would lack in detail. It does tell you what exercises to perform and good explanations with images on performing them, but without - in my view - a proper training program. For this, you should look into something like StrongLifts 5x5.

Nevertheless, if you're into low-level talk, interesting references and a different view on exercise, this book is an interesting read.