Body By Science

[Jay Guindon]

So I recently read Body By Science by Doug McGuff and had some questions around it. It claims to be completely based on the scientific literature and lists an impressive array of studies in the notes to back up the claims. It also gives the fair warning that a lot of the content flies in the face of the conventional thinking on strength/fitness training but is not based on theory or ideas or fads but on the accumulation of sound scientific research on exercise and strength training. Yet I still feel that there is some research out there that is counter to the points they make. I say this not having actually read the research that is counter to their claims but just based on hearing/reading of it.

1. They claim the best way to get strong is through moderately heavy weight moved really slowly until failure, and around 90 seconds total work. I understood that failure was not required for significant strength gains, just heavy weights near your 1rm. 5x5, 5x3 or 1,1,1,1,1,1,1 type deals. This is clearly completely the opposite of what Body By Science says.

2. They claim Nautilis machines are the best way to get strong, yet I just read on ergo-log.com a study that showed that a 100kg backsquat is greater than a 200kg leg press. http://www.ergo-log.com/squatvslegpress.html Plus every single person I’ve ever heard speak about strength says that you can leg press 200lbs and won’t be able to squat 200lbs but you can squat 200lbs and leg press at least 200lbs or more. To their credit they give their workout in a free weight version as well but still claim the machines are better. Again, they’re recommendations seem counter to the other stuff I’ve read that is also supposed to be based on science.

3. They claim that getting stronger gives you bigger muscles and bigger muscles makes you stronger. I am sure I read that strength and muscle are not completely inter related and that you can be strong and not big and can be big but not strong. Bodybuilders come to mind in that they are big but not necessarily strong. I think there’s a table in Rip’s book that shows the relationship between strength gains and rep range and weight. It seems to show lighter weight and more reps is hypertrophy and heavier weight and lower reps is strength, and I was under the impression it was not his table per say but borrowed from the scientific literature. This however would be science counter to the science in Body By Science.

4. They claim that the research shows that stretching doesn’t increase your flexibility and doesn’t help strength at all and in fact makes you weaker. I am sure I read a post on GymnasticBodies about a study that showed that a stretching program and a strength program together gives faster strength gains then a strength program alone. It also seems that my physiotherapist would be wrong when she gives me stretching exercises to increase flexibility, according to the Body By Science guys.

5. They claim that the scientific studies show that strength training more than once a week not only has no effect, training more than once per week actually slows down your progress and in some cases causes you to lose strength. The HIT/SS crowd seems to be the only people who use this once per week schedule so is their science sound and everyone else is doing too much and progressing more slowly than they could?

6. They claim that there are no exercises in a gym that transfer to real life activities, no matter how similar to something in real life; that everything is skill specific and must be trained as such, and that cross training has been scientifically debunked. So having a 100lb weighted pullup will not make you a good climber. You will get some generic strength that will transfer a bit, but you will still suck at climbing unless you climb. Or, just because you have a 150lb shoulder press doesn’t mean you can put a 100lb log overhead. You would have to practice getting logs overhead, not barbells. This one I have less issue with as I remember in the games this past year the workout where the competitors had to move the sandbags down the stairs, across the court, and back up the stairs struck me as interesting. I remember a few athletes having trouble moving the wheelbarrows, throwing the bags back up the other side, and climbing the wall, which surprised me. This made me think about the skill component and how it might need to be developed to efficiently use their strength. I know Erwan over at MovNat talks about skill work developing capacity at the same time. So I wanted to know you’re take on this, both from what the scientific literature actually says about skills, strength transference, etc. and from your coaching experience.

7. And in the same vein, if I have specific skill goals, like doing MovNat, would I be best served just doing MovNat and I would get the necessary strength and conditioning at the same time? Or do I still need to supplement with lifting, sprinting, gymnastics, CrossFit, etc.?

[Razz]

I'm just going to state that sometimes science is flawed. You can never ever base everything on science as you can make science prove almost everything by tweaking this or that and making a good little bias. Science often has to be accompanied by practical experience.

[Cole Dano]

That's one heck of a multi part question Jay. That book must have really gotten into you. We've had a couple of heated science goes overboard type discussion here of late

1. They claim the best way to get strong is through moderately heavy weight moved really slowly until failure, and around 90 seconds total work. I understood that failure was not required for significant strength gains, just heavy weights near your 1rm. 5x5, 5x3 or 1,1,1,1,1,1,1 type deals. This is clearly completely the opposite of what Body By Science says.

5. They claim that the scientific studies show that strength training more than once a week not only has no effect, training more than once per week actually slows down your progress and in some cases causes you to lose strength. The HIT/SS crowd seems to be the only people who use this once per week schedule so is their science sound and everyone else is doing too much and progressing more slowly than they could?

Taken together this could make since if you are really working max lifts. You do need the extra recovery time when going heavy load, max lift, low rep. Could be.

The advantage to not going to failure in my mind has always been you can get back at it again sooner. I also tend to think of training even strength training as being a skill, so more time off means less training the skill.

Depending on your goals i could see this going either way, for what we do here, its not the case.

2. They claim Nautilis machines are the best way to get strong, yet I just read on ergo-log.com a study that showed that a 100kg backsquat is greater than a 200kg leg press. http://www.ergo-log.com/squatvslegpress.html Plus every single person I’ve ever heard speak about strength says that you can leg press 200lbs and won’t be able to squat 200lbs but you can squat 200lbs and leg press at least 200lbs or more. To their credit they give their workout in a free weight version as well but still claim the machines are better. Again, they’re recommendations seem counter to the other stuff I’ve read that is also supposed to be based on science.

I suspect that they say that because of the way the resistance ramps on a Nautilus machine. Stretch bands have a similar effect. Again i think its more of a matter of they are different. Regular machines even have a place at least therapeutically. However there is nothing like trying to control a big hunk of metal, or your own body weight in a disadvantaged position that make all systems come on line.

Maybe individual muscles do get stronger, i doubt the system does with only machines.

3. They claim that getting stronger gives you bigger muscles and bigger muscles makes you stronger. I am sure I read that strength and muscle are not completely inter related and that you can be strong and not big and can be big but not strong. Bodybuilders come to mind in that they are big but not necessarily strong. I think there’s a table in Rip’s book that shows the relationship between strength gains and rep range and weight. It seems to show lighter weight and more reps is hypertrophy and heavier weight and lower reps is strength, and I was under the impression it was not his table per say but borrowed from the scientific literature. This however would be science counter to the science in Body By Science.

Its definitely not at 1:1 relationship. Will will get more tone, no matter what bulk also needs eating lots.

4. They claim that the research shows that stretching doesn’t increase your flexibility and doesn’t help strength at all and in fact makes you weaker. I am sure I read a post on GymnasticBodies about a study that showed that a stretching program and a strength program together gives faster strength gains then a strength program alone. It also seems that my physiotherapist would be wrong when she gives me stretching exercises to increase flexibility, according to the Body By Science guys.

Well again it depends on how you define stretching, yoga sure got me more flexible and i'd say it was basically lots of intense stretching. Can't say it made me super strong, that's why i'm here now!

6. They claim that there are no exercises in a gym that transfer to real life activities, no matter how similar to something in real life; that everything is skill specific and must be trained as such, and that cross training has been scientifically debunked. So having a 100lb weighted pullup will not make you a good climber. You will get some generic strength that will transfer a bit, but you will still suck at climbing unless you climb. Or, just because you have a 150lb shoulder press doesn’t mean you can put a 100lb log overhead. You would have to practice getting logs overhead, not barbells. This one I have less issue with as I remember in the games this past year the workout where the competitors had to move the sandbags down the stairs, across the court, and back up the stairs struck me as interesting. I remember a few athletes having trouble moving the wheelbarrows, throwing the bags back up the other side, and climbing the wall, which surprised me. This made me think about the skill component and how it might need to be developed to efficiently use their strength. I know Erwan over at MovNat talks about skill work developing capacity at the same time. So I wanted to know you’re take on this, both from what the scientific literature actually says about skills, strength transference, etc. and from your coaching experience.

Well that is true to a point, some thing transfer better than others though, but to be really good at one thing you have to do that one thing. I was one of the top guys on in yoga at one point, but if i even tried to do a different style of yoga then i would have most likely only been better than average. There is specificity particularly at the top.

7. And in the same vein, if I have specific skill goals, like doing MovNat, would I be best served just doing MovNat and I would get the necessary strength and conditioning at the same time? Or do I still need to supplement with lifting, sprinting, gymnastics, CrossFit, etc.?

No need to supplement, unless you aren''t able to do MovNat on a regular basis. Otherwise its a personal choice, depends on what you want. Again from my experience in Ashtanga, i didn't even want to do anything else at the time and it wouldn't have helped in my goals.

Now i'm more interested in lets call in well rounded health, so i do more things and am very happy. But it can't do a fraction of what i used to yoga wise.

[JL]

Much of it sounds like old HIT philosophy. From what I have seen, the research has moved well beyond the 1 set to failure, and low volume approaches. Most people who train and do research find that higher volume is necessary to continue making progress consistently. People who coach Olympic athletes have burried this idea back in the late 70's. Absolute beginners can get away with this for a while, but I think anyone who has been training for 6 months or more starts to learn that volume is very important. Take this any way you want, but from what I know, there tends to be what the full body of science actually implies, and what gurus sell. Volume was old news and Pavel sold it like a revelation. Most concepts you find are old news, really.

[Jay Guindon]

Thanks guys. Appreciate the thoughtful answers. Mr. Brady, thanks for the thorough breakdown. I think I'll take your advice and do MovNat and not supplement and see how it goes.

[Razz]

I'm in the middle of reading this book now. I like the first 50 pages just talking physiology. I also like the later parts talking physiology. I do not like the 1x12 minute workout per week bullshit. It will not create elite athletes, but they do not state that. They state it's good for health and I actually do believe this. It's very much along the lines of Art Devanys evolutionary fitness, which I personally believe is superior if health is the only purpose.

[Blairbob]

Health and sport, especially elite sport do not necessarily go hand in hand.

Back when I used to leg press back in HS, I could BS 330ish and leg press 660+3 of my friends sitting on top of the machine. I weighed just under 150. It was about 400+ lbs extra (2 of my friends were X-country runners). Honestly, you end up getting more tired racking and deracking plates than doing sets of leg press.

[Seiji]

I didn't read most of this, I was just scrolling through and got really perturbed by Razz's first post.

Science is absolute. If something is wrong, then it isn't science. Science is the idea that you have to prove everything repeatedly, and if something can be easily changed by a little tweak, then those little tweaks are supposed to be documented. If something is right but then 20 years later is discovered wrong, then that sucks, someone must have messed up. Science should never be wrong, it's the people behind it that make the mistakes.

Not mad at you razz, I'm sure you didn't mean it the way it came off to me

[Razz]

Seiji I know how science is supposed to be. Unfortunately it's sometimes hard, as for example now we are discovering that most of what we thought we knew about nutrition was based on crap science.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010 ... ntPage=all

Try to read that one, quite interesting

[AlexX]

You know this is why I like results more than studies. Show me a powerlifter that was successful using those parameters and I'll be convinced, otherwise this is just a bunch of studies with no real world applications. I don't care what some studies theorize because they are always dealing with minute differences and pure beginners in terms of strength training (who in the world wants to stay at that level for their whole life).

This is why there is such a huge disconnect between real coaches and guys who spend their time doing only studies, don't you ever wonder why you've never heard of any of the guys that conduct these studies? It's because they don't ever actually train or produce any athletes. It's easy to sit back and theorize, producing results is a whole different ball game.

I found most points to be misguided (interpreted to suit the authors point of view) some just ridiculous. Definitely reminds me of the HIT era, and look how that turned out.

[Quick Start Test Smith]

I didn't read most of this, I was just scrolling through and got really perturbed by Razz's first post.

Science is absolute. If something is wrong, then it isn't science. Science is the idea that you have to prove everything repeatedly, and if something can be easily changed by a little tweak, then those little tweaks are supposed to be documented. If something is right but then 20 years later is discovered wrong, then that sucks, someone must have messed up. Science should never be wrong, it's the people behind it that make the mistakes.

Not mad at you razz, I'm sure you didn't mean it the way it came off to me

Seiji, I just want to point out that in order for a conclusion to be logically solid, the premises must be true. If the premises aren't true, then the conclusion is likely false. I think that whenever science draws incorrect conclusions, it is because the premises are incorrect or are misinterpreted. As in the case of nutrition, science drew incorrect conclusions because it either have only part of the real picture and made incorrect premises or it misinterpreted the premises.

In my opinion, though, scientific error is most often caused by not knowing the full picture.