Some of the Very Best Fitness Information Came From Just an Avid Enthusiast
Last modified 21 hours, 42 minutes ago.
“Every line you write under someone else’s standards, like prostitution, kills a corresponding segment deep inside.” -Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile, p.164
This post is about what I believe allowed the exceptional writing and insights of Body By Science by Dr. Doug McGuff and John Little to come to fruition.
In Antifragile, Nassim Taleb states that the notable philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, “worked as a lens maker, which left his philosophy completely immune to any form of academic corruption” (p.164). Likewise, Dr. McGuff is not a full-time fitness professional. He’s an emergency-department physician at a busy hospital in South Carolina. Fitness always was and is a passion and hobby.
The initial equipment that his gym, Ultimate Exercise, contains, is there, because it was too heavy to put in Dr. McGuff’s house without falling through the floor! So, in 1997, he found a place in town where he could keep his equipment. Now at a storefront, he decided he might as well start running it as a personal-training studio, too.
Dr. McGuff isn’t dependent on his fitness business to make a living or keep the lights on of his facility, though. Without those pressures, I believe he was able to develop an uncorrupted appreciation of exercise and fitness training.
About 10 years after opening Ultimate Exercise, Dr. McGuff collaborated with John Little to write Body By Science. Plain and simple, the book tells us how it is with exercise. Moreso, it tells us how we get deceived and mislead. . . over and over again, which leaves us frustrated, unsuccessful, and often, injured, as well. (One of the biggest eye openers is the section on myostatin and muscle-growth potential).
The book doesn’t try to oversell what exercise can do for you. No program can give you more than what your genetics allow. Exceptional results are for those with exceptional genetics. However, it does promise that if you learn to train both intelligently and intensely, that you will be able to maximize whatever genetics you do have. The benefits of that are bound to leave you a happy participant.
As Mike Mentzer said, it’s unnecessary to continue on hopelessly bewildered and confused. (That was before the fitness-information avalanche that exists today, too).
It is highly-recommended reading to anyone who wants to engage in meaningful exercise and improve their fitness (and life) for the best.
I am writing this about 15 years after the initial publication of the book. Body By Science isn’t perfect, but it is one of the best pieces of fitness writing that exists IMHO.
Furthermore, I value it, because of its erudition, ethics, and integrity. It is a rare piece of writing within the galaxy of modern fitness information.
And that is like a breath of fresh air after a tough set of leg presses.