Four Hour Body

Tim Ferriss' latest is the Four Hour Body and it is a fat tome with a fascinating premise - you can learn something from many years and many episodes of an creatively OCD man's experiments in human performance.

Ferriss loves to discover a premise, quantify it in an experimental protocol, and observe/measure the outcomes in his own or others' bodies.

There's a bunch in Ferriss' book into which a nutrition junkie could delve, including how to binge with damage control, how to "cheat" the NFL combine, how to swing a bat for power, and how to execute Ferriss' "slow carb" diet.  Truly, that only scratches the surface of the book's goodies.  But after digging through nearly 400 fascinating pages, there's only a little that I'm willing to apply to myself.

Short list:  cold showers; a super low volume strength protocol designed by a sprint coach for sprint athletes and thus quite applicable to a guy like me who's doing strength to be a better CrossFitter vice a strength guy; why cinnamon can help your blood sugar levels; why spinach really was helping Popeye get strong; and how you can use ten reps a day for rapid improvement.

At the macro level, the book's biggest lesson is how to design and execute an "N=1" experiment.

I'm working on the application of several of TF's ideas, focusing on those ideas that might have an application to continued improvement of work capacity across broad time and modal domains.  I'm looking forward to seeing how they work!

There's no part of the book that wasn't interesting to me, and don't think that I've in any way summed up all that could be learned from "The Four Hour Body".  If you have the time and inclination, it's worth the $$ to buy/read.

Rosedale With Moore

Jimmie interviewed Dr. Rosedale, and this was a surprise - I've been poking around the low carb world for years and had never stumbled across this man or his work.  Dr. Rosedale was on the mark over and over again and I look forward to reading his book as I'm always looking for a better book, one that tells the most complete and useful truth, that I can refer to a friend or client.  As usual, Jimmie does a fabulous job letting Dr. R tell a good story, and there's a great deal of usable information in this segment.

http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/1951/world-renowned-low-carb-physician-dr-ron-rosedale-episode-365/

Robb Wolf

I did not start listening when Robb started his podcast last year, but I've downloaded every episode to my iTouch and most commuting time is spent processing all the info he offers (FOR FREE!) in those podcasts.  Now that his book is available on Amazon, I look forward to devouring a copy on my Kindle.  I have found his mix of big brain biochem being related to the tales he tells well of his trials and errors applying what he knows to clients has expanded what I know significantly. 

What interests me most is being able to hold a full contstruct of 'some thing' in my head, and relate it to others in a coherent fashion.  In other words, knowing this fact or that fact is nice, but it's twice as nice if I can associate that fact to other facts in a conceptually congruent way.  Robb has also pursued that end, at least, it seems that way to me.  I'll be very interested to see how he's pulled together and organized what he knows via this book.  I think it will be a potent tool for those seeking a deeper knowledge of how to eat for health and performance.

Just as significantly, Robb does a nice job in helping to cut through all the crap that's out there.  It's as much about learning what to eat as it is about learning how to see through the marketing and hype in the food industry so you don't waste your money and time on unneeded foods and supplements.