The Logic Of Exercise

Since you're actually reading this, I'm assuming a few things about you, the reader. First, you're at least somewhat interested in muscle mass, or more specifically, how to increase the amount you carry. In other words, you want bigger muscles. You might not realize this is your goal, however. You might just want to get 'in shape', or lose some fat, or even just look better. You've probably spent some time in the gym. Maybe you've gotten results, maybe you haven't. You could just be interested in knowing more about the hows and whys, or you might be after some new ideas to improve your own training. You could be tired of all the myths that people spread without any kind of proof. Or maybe you've had enough of marketing hype and just want a frank discussion of the facts. Whatever your reasons, on some level, you're concerned with 'bodybuilding'. Allow me to elaborate on that before you freak out and think you've wasted money. By bodybuilding, I don't mean you want to step on stage in your underwear while covered in oil and fake tan. When I use the term 'bodybuilder' in this book, I'm referring to anyone that's concerned with improving his/her appearance with the use of exercise and nutrition strategies. Don't freak out because you're not getting ready to step on stage. The way I'm defining it, the vast majority of people that exercise are 'bodybuilders' even though they have no competitive goals. Most people are just after visible abs, or bigger biceps, or whatever the fad is these days. If you're concerned with getting a bigger squat or a faster sprint, odds are you're not going to pick up much here. I don't want to discourage you, but this book is mainly oriented around getting bigger muscles with the end-goal of making your body look pretty. A lot of the traditional rules and suggestions that given for athletes with an anti-bodybuilding stance aren't going to apply here. I'm narrowing it down even further because there's going to be very little in the way of nutrition info here. I thought long and hard about that (not really), but the conclusion I reached was that, although nutrition is absolutely vital for muscle growth and being pretty – at least as important as anything I discuss here, if not more so – it's just outside the scope of this particular book. To be blunt, it's just not my area of expertise. While I can discuss the topic, I'd simply be rehashing other (superior) sources, and I don't see any need for that. Now muscle, on the other hand – that's where I can break it down and talk shop. In contrast to diet information, I'm not aware of any works out there that are doing what I'm attempting here, which is to really sit down, have an honest look at what people do in the gym, and relate that to the research. In particular, I want to address a lot of the myths that people hang on to and how exercise relates to the results people get. Most books on lifting look at the process from the top down. They start with a conclusion, then work backwards to find data that supports it. I'm doing the exact opposite here, going about things deductively – by examining the situation and using that to reach conclusions. To do that, I'll be diving into a good amount of scientific research. At times it can get a little thick, but I've done my best to keep it as easy a read as possible. Just be aware that when given the choice between oversimplifying and being correct, I'm going to go for correct. The core of this book is actually logical reasoning and critical thinking. You thought you were buying a book about lifting? Well, you did. I'm just approaching this from an entirely new direction.

Chapter 1: The Logic Of Exercise

You see, anybody can write about 'science'. You see it all the time. One of the most common things you'll see in fitness publications is some author grazing over the abstracts of a few papers, jumping to some hasty conclusions, and then claiming that his or her thoughts are based on science. That's not what I'm after here. Anybody can write about strength training, or diet, or bodybuilding. While there is some science involved in many cases, a lot of it is based on anecdote and on guys that are simply working to 'prove' conclusions they've already assumed are true. That's not productive - that's just reinforcing old myths and creating new ones. This isn't just about science, about relaying all those sound-bite factoids and slogans that the fitness industry seems to build itself on. Yes, I'll be quoting research; quite a bit of it. At the core, I want it to be more than that. I want to go over the hows and whys of my reasoning. If you don't understand my thought process, then we won't be on the same page. One thing I find myself saying repeatedly is that having opinions and drawing conclusions is as much about the journey as the destination. What you think is not necessarily more important than how you think. There's something to be said for having a rational thought process and having the tools required to evaluate information. If you aren't able to filter information, then you can come into a situation where even the broken clock is right just by coincidence. Is it really 6:42pm, or did you just happen to glance at the clock at the right time? You may have the right facts, but you have no way to objectively know if you're really correct. This leads to an unfortunate situation; without the ability to separate the ice cream from the manure, you can fall into the trap of assuming that every viewpoint is equal and worth attention. As unpopular an idea as it seems to be these days, some viewpoints are objectively more correct than others. Just because someone believes something or holds an opinion does not mean that viewpoint is right. If there is an overall theme to this book, besides 'get jacked', that would be it. My goal here is not just to give you information. My goal is to make sure you understand why I draw my conclusions. To do that and make sure we're all on the same page, I'm going to raise the bar a little. This isn't just a matter of copying abstracts off of Pubmed and cherry-picking data that supports my pet conclusions. That happens enough already. Instead, we need to look at the tools of critical thinking. Everybody talks about science, but nobody actually looks at the underlying thought process. I'm a firm believer in using logic and basic common sense to cut through the garbage out there. If you can do that, then you've got a leg up on most people.

Why You're Reading This

If you're like the average person in the modern Western world, you don't get a lot of activity. Chances are your job has you sitting down most of the day. You probably don't eat that well. It's very likely that you don't look the way you'd like to look. If you picked this up in the first place, I'd put very high odds on that last statement. Question is, what do you do about it? If you're really honest with yourself, do you even know where to start making changes? You may have an idea about needing to exercise and eat better, but really, where do you start? You don't know, do you?

I'm sure that you've got your own beliefs, shaped by things you've heard over the years. Things you've picked up on the news, things you've heard from buddies that lift, things that you remember from playing sports in high school. But have you ever asked yourself if these things are true? We live in a time where anybody can just make a claim or have an opinion – and it will be taken as authority, regardless of evidence or proof. One of the drawbacks of a media culture is that there's just no critical thinking. There are no standards of evidence. Simply stating something is enough for most people to assume it's true. Maybe you're not the average guy. Maybe you've got some gym-cred. You've spent some time in the trenches. Maybe you've had some results. Trained some clients. Even done a show or two. Certainly you know what you're doing, right? Not so fast. Although it may sound crazy, your results are not a guarantee that you've got the Holy Grail. Don't believe me? Keep reading – I'll make you a believer. Even a lot of experts are too results focused. Meaning, they only focus on their own results, without considering the larger body of evidence. This isn't bad – there's nothing wrong with ironing out a system that works. But that's not what I'm after here, and you need to realize this up front. This book isn't just going to lay out a program and an eight-week plan for you to follow. I'm not going to spout off a personal methodology and then tell you why it's better than what everybody else is doing. I've always been a believer in teaching a man to fish. If you just want 'Matt's Eight Week Bulking Cycle', sorry. You're not going to find it here. This book is going to look at what people do in the gym, what the research says, and then try to make some sense of the two. I'm not here to lay out a workout plan. I'm here to flesh out the core principles of bodybuilding – the rules that define all muscle-building workout routines. The goal is a model of muscle hypertrophy – the process of muscular growth. I want to account for What Works. If you understand the bigger picture, all the other routines tend to crystallize out of it. It sounds like a lofty goal, for sure. And it hasn't been easy. But what you'll get is my best shot at it. I can't promise it's 100% complete, and I can't promise that my reasoning is fool-proof. But with luck, you, the reader, will at least come away looking at things in a different light. At the end of the day, that's all I'm after. Once you start looking at weight training in the right way, a lot of the questions go away. I want you to ask yourself a question, and be honest about it. Why are you exercising? What do you want to get out of it? For better or worse, most people are in the gym to chase some appearance-related goal. I'm not going to sit here and argue over subjective aesthetics. What I like isn't what you like, and it's just that simple. But I do need to clarify what this book is going to discuss. When it comes to appearance, I've found that it always boils down to a few different mindsets. 'I don't want to get too big' Also found in women as 'I just want to tone up a little'. These people are under the impression that if they touch a weight, they'll wake up in a week or two looking like the shredded bodybuilder they saw in the magazine, complete with veins popping out all over the place.

This usually leads to training with a vague goal of 'sculpting' or 'toning up'. For a variety of reasons, this usually ends up with said person getting little to nothing in the way of results. 'I need to add some muscle, but my abs go away' This one is usually limited to younger, usually skinny guys that think they need to keep a visible eight-pack all year long. They're around 150 lbs, and while they realize they need to get bigger, they've convinced themselves that they can't gain weight - because as soon as they eat, their abs vanish. Also applies to the ladies, as they tend to have a chronic fear of any weight gain, loss of definition, or the slightest sign of 'bulking up'. Nothing wrong with being lean, but if you're going around trying to stay small, you're going to limit your results in both size and in strength. GFH GFH guy is a complete 180 from abs guy. He's on a quest to get as big as possible, and to do this he'll eat, and eat, and eat. He's overcome the issues with eating, you see. GFH guy tends to have good results in terms of adding muscle, but the problem is he'll never see it because he carries too much fat. Ladies, you don't seem to have an equivalent, since it's really not marketable to become a tank-ass power ogre if you're a girl. This may be for the best. What does GFH mean? I'll give you three guesses. The Competitor The Competitor may be the best off out of the lot. He (or she) has done some shows, probably looks pretty damn good, and at first glance wouldn't need any kind of help. As you'll see though, just being in that condition isn't a guarantee of being able to apply knowledge. And even the Competitor is looking for an edge. You never know when a new outlook can give you an advantage. All of these groups can (probably) benefit from reading this, because all those approaches have some problems to overcome, and all hold their own sets of myths. Tone-up girl and abs guy are probably the most challenged. They're operating on a lot of assumptions that just don't hold up to scrutiny. GFH guy may have a better insight; additionally, he could be a strength athlete that's just not worried about getting fat. This isn't to be confused with an obese person, mind you. He's got muscle, he just has to get around the problem of holding lots of fat. If you're a would-be bodybuilder, though, you've got some issues to think about. Again, this isn't a diet book, but if you're like GFH guy, you can still benefit from the information. The Competitor might just want a better understanding of the subject and some new ideas to think about. Whatever category you fall into, you'll probably find something to make you think about what you're doing and why you're doing it. As you might have gathered, this isn't just for men. Women will benefit just as much as (arguably more than) men will, simply because women are bombarded with so much, well, pure bullshit.

The bad part is that women are more prone to buy into it because they tend to have a very specific body image in mind, and a lot of social pressure to keep smaller. For reasons beyond the scope of this, women as a group have become convinced that muscle just isn't attractive. At the same time, they're continually being sold on the idea that they can sculpt their bodies in all kinds of crazy ways. Sadly it doesn't work that way. If that's what you feel you need, ladies, I'm not going to try to change your mind. Just be aware that the advice and information is not going to be geared towards you. There's no shaping, sculpting, or toning up – this book is geared towards building muscle and improving body composition, full stop. If you think you need that kind of thing, and manage to convince yourself that I'm full of shit, well, you'll find plenty of people willing to sell you that dream. If the skinny starlet look is your thing, you need to look to the things that will get you there: different parents, starvation, and heavy partying. Now, I will take a look at why these myths came about, and what might be the real culprit behind them, so if you're interested in a new viewpoint to contrast your old outlook, you're in the right place. If you bought this expecting just another Guru book on lifting, I'm very sorry to disappoint you. This isn't going to be just another re-packaged trip through the exact same science with the exact same conclusions, nor is it going to be a showcase for all the neat recycled programs and training methods that I'll claim I came up with in order to feed my ego. I just can't write one of those books and still feel good about myself. If you just want a program, then there's plenty of resources out there, and a lot of them are free. This is written for those of you that are tired of program-hopping, tired of not getting actual results, and tired of getting scammed by marketing hype. Don't worry about the whole logic/critical analysis stuff, either. I'm not going to turn this into a strict treatment of the subject; I just want to get into some basics that will hopefully help you to understand where I'm coming from. From there, we can see what Will Work. As far as that goes, I like to look at it as an umbrella. At best we can draw out broad guidelines, general principles that tell us what tends to be effective on average. The problem we run into is in laying out specifics; once you get underneath the umbrella, it's very hard to say that one approach will work better than another. That's a little secret that most would-be Fitness Experts don't want you to know. In marketing, it's all about creating a brand name for people to associate with. If you're coming out and admitting that your favorite program is just one combination of principles that happens to work - instead of being a magical program of magic - then you're losing that competitive edge in the market. This method of branding is a hallmark of Guru marketing; to set himself apart and 'create value', the expert will claim that his program is better than others. Or he'll use some gimmick to try and be flashy. The reality of it is that there is no legitimate way to say that any effective program is better than any other. By the time you're done with this, you'll understand why.

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