The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [7]
In practice, the 80/20 principle is often much more disproportionate.
To be perceived as fluent in conversational Spanish, for example, you need an active vocabulary of approximately 2,500 high-frequency words. This will allow you to comprehend more than 95% of all conversation. To get to 98% comprehension would require at least five years of practice instead of five months. Doing the math, 2,500 words is a mere 2.5% of the estimated 100,000 words in the Spanish language.
This means:
1. 2.5% of the total subject matter provides 95% of the desired results.
2. This same 2.5% provides just 3% less benefit than putting in 12 times as much effort.
This incredibly valuable 2.5% is the key, the Archimedes lever, for those who want the best results in the least time. The trick is finding that 2.5%.5
This book is not intended as a comprehensive treatise on all things related to the human body. My goal is to share what I have found to be the 2.5% that delivers 95% of the results in rapid body redesign and performance enhancement. If you are already at 5% bodyfat or bench-pressing 400 pounds, you are in the top 1% of humans and now in the world of incremental gains. This book is for the other 99% who can experience near-unbelievable gains in short periods of time.
How to Use This Book—Five Rules
It is important that you follow five rules with this book. Ignore them at your peril.
RULE #1. THINK OF THIS BOOK AS A BUFFET.
Do not read this book from start to finish.
Most people won’t need more than 150 pages to reinvent themselves. Browse the table of contents, pick the chapters that are most relevant, and discard the rest … for now. Pick one appearance goal and one performance goal to start.
The only mandatory sections are “Fundamentals” and “Ground Zero.” Here are some popular goals, along with the corresponding chapters to read in the order listed:
RAPID FAT-LOSS
All chapters in “Fundamentals”
All chapters in “Ground Zero”
“The Slow-Carb Diet I and II”
“Building the Perfect Posterior”
Total page count: 98
RAPID MUSCLE GAIN
All chapters in “Fundamentals”
All chapters in “Ground Zero”
“From Geek to Freak”
“Occam’s Protocol I and II”
Total page count: 97
RAPID STRENGTH GAIN
All chapters in “Fundamentals”
All chapters in “Ground Zero”
“Effortless Superhuman” (pure strength, little mass gain)
“Pre-Hab: Injury-Proofing the Body”
Total page count: 92
RAPID SENSE OF TOTAL WELL-BEING
All chapters in “Fundamentals”
All chapters in “Ground Zero”
All chapters in “Improving Sex”
All chapters in “Perfecting Sleep”
“Reversing ‘Permanent’ Injuries”
Total page count: 143
Once you’ve selected the bare minimum to get started, get started.
Then, once you’ve committed to a plan of action, dip back into the book at your leisure and explore. Immediately practical advice is contained in every chapter, so don’t discount something based on the title. Even if you are a meat-eater (as I am), for example, you will benefit from “The Meatless Machine.”
Just don’t read it all at once.
RULE #2. SKIP THE SCIENCE IF IT’S TOO DENSE.
You do not need to be a scientist to read this book.
For the geeks and the curious, however, I’ve included a lot of cool details. These details can often enhance your results but are not required reading. Such sections are boxed and labeled “Geek’s Advantage” with a “GA” symbol.
Even if you’ve been intimidated by science in the past, I encourage you to browse some of these GA sections—at least a few will offer some fun “holy sh*t!” moments and improve results 10% or so.
If you ever feel overwhelmed, though, skip them, as they’re not mandatory for the results you’re after.
RULE #3. PLEASE BE SKEPTICAL.
Don’t assume something is true because I say it is.
As the legendary Timothy Noakes PhD, author or co-author of more than 400 published research papers, is fond of saying: “Fifty percent of what