The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [71]
He told me the story over a bottle of Catena Malbec. His obsession started when he saw a professional samba dancer in Brazil balance tequila shots on top of each butt cheek in a dance club. Lamenting the lack of similar scenes in his own country, he set off on a mission to isolate the best exercises for creating buttocks worthy of tequila shots.
By 2000, he had refined his approach to a science. In four weeks, he took his then-girlfriend, an ethnic Chinese with a surfboardlike profile, to being voted one of the top 10 sexiest girls out of 39,000 students at the University of Auckland. Total time: four weeks. Other female students constantly asked her how she’d lifted her glutes so high up her hamstrings.
If The Kiwi could have answered for her, he would have said, “Add reps and weights to the swings.”
In 2005, my interest in kettlebells reinvigorated, I returned to the United States from Argentina and purchased one 53-pound kettlebell. I did nothing more than one set of 75 swings one hour after a light, protein-rich breakfast, twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. In the beginning, I couldn’t complete 75 consecutive repetitions, so I did multiple sets with 60 seconds between until I totaled 75.
Total swing time for the entire week was 10–20 minutes. I wasn’t trying to balance tequila shots on my butt cheeks. I wanted abs. In six weeks, I was at my lowest bodyfat percentage since 1999.
2005: Swing minimalism.
My weekly training schedule was so light as to be laughable by conventional standards. I also took 10–20-minute ice baths (two bags of ice bought at a gas station) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
DAY 1 (MONDAY)
• High-rep kettlebell (53 pounds) swings to at least 75 reps (ultimately, I got to 150+ reps in a single set)
• Slow myotatic crunch (next chapter) with max weight x 10–15 slow reps
DAY 2 (WEDNESDAY)
I alternated these two exercises for a total of 3 sets × 5 reps for each. I took two minutes between all sets and therefore had at least four minutes between the same exercise (e.g., dumbbell [DB] press, wait two minutes, row, wait two minutes, DB press, etc.):
• Iso-lateral dumbbell incline bench press
• “Yates” bent rows with EZ bar (palms-up grip and bent at the waist about 20–30 degrees)
Then:
• Reverse “drag” curls using a thick bar twice the diameter of a standard Olympic bar (I put plates on metal piping I bought from Home Depot, secured with $5 pinch clamps): 2 sets of 6 reps, three minutes’ rest between sets
DAY 3 (FRIDAY)
• High-rep kettlebell (53 pounds) swings to 75-rep minimum
• Slow myotatic crunch (next chapter) with max weight x 12–15 reps
• Every other week: single-arm kettlebell swings to 25 minimum reps each side
I should add that I was negligent, often adding one to three additional rest days between sessions. It didn’t matter. The training volume needed for head-turning changes was lower than even I thought possible.
Though I added in a few extras for other reasons, the king of exercises—the two-arm kettlebell swing—is all you need for dramatic changes. Here are a few guidelines (more later):
• Stand with your feet 6–12 inches outside of shoulder width on either side, each foot pointed outward about 30 degrees. If toes pointed straight ahead were 12:00 on a clock face, your left foot would point at 10:00 or 11:00, and your right would point at 1:00 or 2:00.
• Keep your shoulders pulled back (retracted) and down to avoid rounding your back.
• The lowering movement (backswing) is a sitting-back-on-a-chair movement, not a squatting-down movement.
• Do not let your shoulders go in front of your knees at any point.
• Imagine pinching a penny between your butt cheeks when you pop your hips forward. This should be a forceful pop, and it should be impossible to contract your ass more. If your dog’s head gets in the way, it should be lights out for Fido.
Michelle Obama’s arms: