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I asked a body-builder friend if Tim Ferriss' workout could actually achieve the results Tim claims. He replied that a person can only gain weight that quickly

by reedlaw 17y ago

I asked a body-builder friend if Tim Ferriss' workout could actually achieve the results Tim claims. He replied that a person can only gain weight that quickly with steroids. Research has shown that under optimal conditions, less than ten pounds of muscle can be added in a year. Ferriss claims to have gained 34 pounds of muscle in 4 weeks: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to-freak-how-i-gained-34-lbs-of-muscle-in-4-weeks/ http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to... Here is a discussion by steroids users that confirms what my friend told me: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/anabolic-steroids/10-pounds-muscle-year-11595.html http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/anabolic-steroids/10-pound... I couldn't find the relevant research that says ten pounds a year is the max, but here is a Google Books search result that confirms it: http://books.google.com/books?id=VnpCA-Z1qcsC&pg=PT166&dq=ten+pounds+of+muscle+can+be+added+in+a+year&ei=nIteSrb3LorklATpkoG5Bg http://books.google.com/books?id=VnpCA-Z1qcsC&pg=PT166&#... "Unfortunately, the average bodybuilder finds it nearly impossible to gain even ten pounds of solid muscle tissue in a year's time..."

deleted 17y ago
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psykotic 17y ago
Not a Feriss fan but it's not at all impossible to gain way more than ten pounds of muscle in a relatively short time if you aren't already very strong. His exact numbers sound excessive but I suspect he's gone up and down with that muscle mass several times in the past, which makes it a lot easier to rebuild it.
- jambalaya 17y ago
  Why is it not all that impossible to gain way more than ten pounds of muscle in a relatively short time? From what are you basing this? I haven't read Tim's books but this seems like a reason to not like his work. This isn't science. Now, if he said body weight from water etc. Which he could have for all I know.
  - psykotic 17y ago
    What makes me most skeptical about his claims in that blog post is the time frame and the simultaneous loss of body fat in absolute rather than relative terms. When I first started training Olympic weight lifting seriously I gained nearly fifteen pounds of muscle in six months (along with five pounds of fat; even vain bodybuilders who are obsessed with body fat have to alternate bulking and cutting cycles because it's very hard to gain a lot of muscle while keeping off the fat) and my coach has replicated that routinely starting with relatively weak beginners. About six months into a program like that, your efforts start to yield diminishing returns. This is true for total performance as well: when you're starting out, for the first six to eight months, it's easy to work out 3-4 times a week, do heavy squats every time, adding 5 kg to your old record with every single session, but once you get to about 2x body weight (around 150 kg squats in my case) on the bar you not only can't add things as fast anymore, but you have to totally change the nature of the program, and this is despite the fact that 5 kg represents an increasingly smaller percentage of your maximum capacity, so you might naively think it would get easier, not harder, over time to keep up a constant rate.
Nikklus 17y ago
The short answer (upcoming pun intended) is that it’s simply not true that ten pounds is the maximum you can gain in a year, unless you’re talking about an achondroplastic dwarf. I myself have gained more than ten pounds of muscle at many points over a twenty year history of bodybuilding. It’s even more possible when you’re a green hand, as you will gain a lot easier from day zero than you will five years down the line. I think you’ve missed that the first four responding posters in the second link you’ve provided all agree with this in different manners. And from what I can see, (I may be wrong here) but Tim Ferriss also claims to have started his training regime—specifically targeted at maximum muscle gain—from day zero. Regarding your third link, well, just looking at the quote you’ve supplied beneath it is enough. There are two variables in that statement which need to be highlighted, “…the average bodybuilder…” and “…nearly impossible…” If you consider the reverse of what the author seems to be saying it would be along the following lines: “…in order to gain more than ten pound of muscle in a year, you need to be an above average bodybuilder.” So, all we need to do now is figure out if Tim Ferriss is an ‘above average bodybuilder’ or not. If everything he is telling us is true, then there is the possibility that he is indeed above average, either in genetics, or in his understanding of exactly how to build quality lean mass. Or even better, both. However, you’ve unfortunately taken the third link out of context. If you read on, John Little actually goes ahead and supports ‘mavericks’ like Tim Ferriss. Immediately following the point where you’ve cut off his sentence, he continues: “…due largely to the person’s falling prey to the hype and outright B.S. that is propagated by most bodybuilding publications and that line the pockets of more than a few gym owners and personal trainers.” By this comment it seems to me that John Little’s definition of an average bodybuilder is someone who chooses to follow popular techniques…as opposed to those who use a more scientific route. Now I’d never heard of Tim Ferriss until today when I typed the word ‘superhuman’ in the Google Blog search for other reasons, but his thinking and techniques are very similar to the ones that I used when I was in training. People also found it hard to accept the accomplishments that I made relative to my time and frequency in the gym (whole body, once a month, average of 30 minutes per workout.) I never made gains to the tune of 34 lbs in 28 days though, but then I never had the luxury of constant optimum conditions within which to grow. Real life kind of gets in the way. My routine was based on the theories and practices of Mike Mentzer, a strong science-based proponent of the Heavy Duty method of training, which Tim Ferriss’s method seems very similar to. It’s a real difficult call to make—not being able to examine the Tim Ferriss’s results first hand—but I’m gonna stick my neck out and say that 34lbs in 28 days could be done by a beginner, under strict and optimum conditions…conditions which include choosing parents with the best genetics possible!

by reedlaw 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

psykotic 17y ago

Not a Feriss fan but it's not at all impossible to gain way more than ten pounds of muscle in a relatively short time if you aren't already very strong. His exact numbers sound excessive but I suspect he's gone up and down with that muscle mass several times in the past, which makes it a lot easier to rebuild it.

jambalaya 17y ago
Why is it not all that impossible to gain way more than ten pounds of muscle in a relatively short time? From what are you basing this? I haven't read Tim's books but this seems like a reason to not like his work. This isn't science. Now, if he said body weight from water etc. Which he could have for all I know.
- psykotic 17y ago
  What makes me most skeptical about his claims in that blog post is the time frame and the simultaneous loss of body fat in absolute rather than relative terms. When I first started training Olympic weight lifting seriously I gained nearly fifteen pounds of muscle in six months (along with five pounds of fat; even vain bodybuilders who are obsessed with body fat have to alternate bulking and cutting cycles because it's very hard to gain a lot of muscle while keeping off the fat) and my coach has replicated that routinely starting with relatively weak beginners. About six months into a program like that, your efforts start to yield diminishing returns. This is true for total performance as well: when you're starting out, for the first six to eight months, it's easy to work out 3-4 times a week, do heavy squats every time, adding 5 kg to your old record with every single session, but once you get to about 2x body weight (around 150 kg squats in my case) on the bar you not only can't add things as fast anymore, but you have to totally change the nature of the program, and this is despite the fact that 5 kg represents an increasingly smaller percentage of your maximum capacity, so you might naively think it would get easier, not harder, over time to keep up a constant rate.

Nikklus 17y ago

The short answer (upcoming pun intended) is that it’s simply not true that ten pounds is the maximum you can gain in a year, unless you’re talking about an achondroplastic dwarf. I myself have gained more than ten pounds of muscle at many points over a twenty year history of bodybuilding. It’s even more possible when you’re a green hand, as you will gain a lot easier from day zero than you will five years down the line. I think you’ve missed that the first four responding posters in the second link you’ve provided all agree with this in different manners. And from what I can see, (I may be wrong here) but Tim Ferriss also claims to have started his training regime—specifically targeted at maximum muscle gain—from day zero. Regarding your third link, well, just looking at the quote you’ve supplied beneath it is enough. There are two variables in that statement which need to be highlighted, “…the average bodybuilder…” and “…nearly impossible…” If you consider the reverse of what the author seems to be saying it would be along the following lines: “…in order to gain more than ten pound of muscle in a year, you need to be an above average bodybuilder.” So, all we need to do now is figure out if Tim Ferriss is an ‘above average bodybuilder’ or not. If everything he is telling us is true, then there is the possibility that he is indeed above average, either in genetics, or in his understanding of exactly how to build quality lean mass. Or even better, both. However, you’ve unfortunately taken the third link out of context. If you read on, John Little actually goes ahead and supports ‘mavericks’ like Tim Ferriss. Immediately following the point where you’ve cut off his sentence, he continues: “…due largely to the person’s falling prey to the hype and outright B.S. that is propagated by most bodybuilding publications and that line the pockets of more than a few gym owners and personal trainers.” By this comment it seems to me that John Little’s definition of an average bodybuilder is someone who chooses to follow popular techniques…as opposed to those who use a more scientific route. Now I’d never heard of Tim Ferriss until today when I typed the word ‘superhuman’ in the Google Blog search for other reasons, but his thinking and techniques are very similar to the ones that I used when I was in training. People also found it hard to accept the accomplishments that I made relative to my time and frequency in the gym (whole body, once a month, average of 30 minutes per workout.) I never made gains to the tune of 34 lbs in 28 days though, but then I never had the luxury of constant optimum conditions within which to grow. Real life kind of gets in the way. My routine was based on the theories and practices of Mike Mentzer, a strong science-based proponent of the Heavy Duty method of training, which Tim Ferriss’s method seems very similar to. It’s a real difficult call to make—not being able to examine the Tim Ferriss’s results first hand—but I’m gonna stick my neck out and say that 34lbs in 28 days could be done by a beginner, under strict and optimum conditions…conditions which include choosing parents with the best genetics possible!