The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [169]
Does this look like a bulky powerlifter? No, it looks like a normal high school girl. Normal, except that she’s 132 pounds and can deadlift 405 pounds! Holy emasculation, Batman!
Remain parallel to the ground for each set and come up to sitting position for 30 seconds of rest between sets. Start with three sets × three reps of three seconds on each side. Your first session would look like the following:
SET 1
Turn fully to the right side and hold for three seconds.
Turn to the left side and hold for three seconds.
Repeat two more times for a total of 3x three-second holds per side.
Sit up and rest 30 seconds.
Repeat for two more sets.
Progression: In future workouts, gradually increase up to five sets of three-second holds, then increase time, one second at a time, up to a maximum of 15-second holds for five sets (each set = 3 holds per side).
This concludes the workout.
Total workout time, including rest: less than 60 minutes.
Total time under tension per workout: less than 5 minutes.
Feeling at workout conclusion: exhilarated instead of exhausted.
Barry suggests the sumo deadlift instead of the conventional deadlift whenever possible. The pull distance is shorter and the lower-back position is safer.
The following sequence of photographs, also courtesy of Mike Lambert from Powerlifting USA, show the incredible Mike Bridges, who was considered by many to be the best pound-for-pound powerlifter in the world during his prime. He dominated three different weight classes, and even now, in his fifties, he regularly deadlifts more than 600 pounds.
Keep in mind that Barry’s athletes drop the weight when the bar reaches the top of the kneecaps (here the fourth photo). Notice that, like Lamar, Mike is looking up at almost exactly 45 degrees the entire time, until completion.
MAXIMAL SPEED
Finally, once Barry’s athletes are strong, he makes them faster.
If you have no interest in running, you can skip this section and just read the sidebars. But, if nothing else, the competition anecdote at the end is fun to read. Now back to our story …
Each athlete runs two time trials to start. The short trial (T1) is a “fly-in” 20-meter run and the long trial (T2) is a run of 300 meters. For T1, the athlete runs a 40-meter dash, but only the second 20 meters are timed. For T2, the athlete has a five-meter run up to the line, and then a timed 300 meters. In both cases, the runners should already be close to top speed when they cross the start line.
Once he has these two times, Barry plugs the numbers into the ASR algorithm, which gives him a precise distance and time to run for each runner. This distance/time will form the basis for their speed workout. For events of 400 meters or less, Barry’s athletes do no training runs longer than 70 meters.
The determined “X distance performed under time Y” can be thought of as one “repetition,” and reps are performed until the runner cannot complete the distance in the time allotted, or cannot complete 10 repetitions under a predetermined total time (a timed “set” of 10 repetitions). Exceeding time in either case marks the end of the workout.
Here is a real-world example from a runner named Scott:
20-meter fly-in 1.88 seconds
300-meter fly-in 36.00 seconds
The workout distances are then randomized between 15 meters and 55 meters, such as 55 meters < 5.57 seconds. This means that Scott’s workout is a series of 10 runs of 55 meters that must not exceed 5.57 seconds each. Four-minute rests are taken in between runs.
If Scott does not run under 5.57 in his first attempt, he is given one more opportunity to make it on a second run. If he exceeds his time on this second run, or any “rep” before his 10th, his workout is finished for that day.
This is a sharp contrast to conventional methods.
Sprint coaches usually tell their runners to run “repeats” at a particular distance and at a particular speed. A typical