The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [152]
The bottom flat line, representing normalcy, is the mean. When are you most likely to try the quackiest shit you can get your hands on? That miracle duck extract Aunt Susie swears by when not talking about crystals? Naturally, when your symptoms are the worst and nothing seems to help. This is the very top of the bell curve, at the peak of the roller coaster before you head back down. Naturally heading back down is regression toward the mean.
If you are a fallible human, as we all are, you might misattribute getting better to the duck extract, but it was just coincidental timing. The body had healed itself, as could be predicted from the bell curve–like timeline of symptoms. This is a very common mistake, even among smart people.
SOME UNEXPLAINED MECHANISM
’Tis possible that there is some as-yet-unexplained mechanism through which homeopathy works. Some mechanism that science will eventually explain. Until something even remotely plausible comes along, though, I’ll do my best to scratch my psora (an itch “miasm” that Hahnemann felt caused epilepsy, cancer, and deafness) with at least one molecule of active substance.
TOOLS AND TRICKS
DeFranco Training on Video (www.fourhourbody.com/defranco) These are the actual videos I took during our training day, in which DeFranco covers some of the more important dynamic warm-ups and stretches, in addition to sprint stance setup.
40-Yard Dash: Average Joe vs. Pro Athlete (www.fourhourbody.com/40yard) This is a clip of Rich Eisen, one of ESPN’s newscasters and “every man” representative, running the 40-yard dash against professional athletes in the NFL Combine. It’s hard to appreciate how fast NFL players are until you watch this.
Parisi Speed School (www.parisischool.com) Founded by Division I All-American javelin thrower Bill Parisi, this school has trained hundreds of professional athletes in increasing their speed. The Parisi NFL Combine program has produced more than 120 successful NFL draftees.
Sorinex Poor Man’s Glute-Ham Raise (www.fourhourbody.com/ghr) I first learned of this (relatively) inexpensive GHR machine from Parkour athletes. It’s a fraction of the cost of alternatives, small enough to be wheeled into a closet, and perfect for DeFranco’s favorite exercise for hamstring development.
End of Chapter Notes
4. A common answer among those interviewed for this book.
5. Fewer still realize that when Ben’s gold medal was rescinded, it was passed to our great American hero Carl Lewis, who tested positive for three banned stimulants (pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine) in the very same Olympics. Lewis was initially disqualified, but this decision was overturned with an appeal of “inadvertent use.” In other words, he had consumed an herbal supplement but was unaware that it contained the stimulants. Not to imply a world-class athlete knew what he was ingesting, but ephedrine plus testosterone was a favorite combination of sprinters throughout the 1980s, a decade often referred to as the “golden age” of steroid use in sports. In fact, four of the top five Olympic finishers of 100 meters in 1988 (right alongside Ben Johnson) had tested positive for banned drugs at some point in their careers.
6. No amount of text can do the movements justice, but free video of each is available at www.fourhourbody.com/defranco.
7. Think of this as trying to heel-kick someone standing three or four feet behind you, aiming for hip height and alternating legs.
8. For the side shuffle, get into a half-squat and push off with the big toe of your trailing leg. Don’t let your head bob up and down, and ensure 20 meters is done to both the right and left sides.
9. See these in motion at www.fourhourbody.com/mobility.
10. For the mountain climber, don’t put your heel down on your front foot. Stay on your toes and keep your knees in front of your feet at all times. Putting the heel down encourages a long stride when running, which leads to heel striking and hamstring tears.
11. See the demo at www.fourhourbody.com/wideouts.
12. Speaker