Tim Ferriss Geek to Freak Starts Next WeekIn honor of the timely release of the forthcoming book The 4-Hour Body, by author, speaker & lifehacker Tim Ferriss; I’m going to have another go at his experiment he publicly posted in 2007 titled “From Geek to Freak: How I Gained 34 lbs. of Muscle in 4 Weeks.”

Though Tim was formerly a wrestler and a solid mesomorph body type, he had stepped away from his strenuous workout plans to slim down while training to compete in a tango competition in Argentina.  From that training, he had dwindled down to 146 Lbs.

So after returning to the US, he studied muscular hypertrophy and set out to gain as much muscle mass as possible in 30 days.

4 thirty-minute workouts and 30 days later, he had gained a total of 34 LBS OF MUSCLE.

After reading that, I thought to myself, “hmm… that’s pretty cool; what if I could do at least 25% of that? That would be worth it.  So I did and set out for 30 days of kicking my own butt physically. I’ve never done anything like it before.

Tim says that the most difficult part was the eating.  And I have to admit that my outcome would have been even greater if I could have kept up on the eating front.  I got serious food fatigue about 16 days in.  I had to push myself to eat.  for me it was 2-3 times the amount of food I normally consumed – each meal, then had “snacks” in between.  Imagine Thanksgiving day quantity meals every single day!

So what did I do? I had to get creative. I had to eat standing up, listening to techno music, double up on protein to get it all in! Remember, that you are basically eating a few different meals in large quantity for a month. Every meal with family is different – you eat like some mutant WWE wannabe. The strenuous workouts were nothing in comparison to the eating.

Tim Ferriss Geek to Freak Starts Next Week

I wrote down, timed and measured everything I ate, drank and exercised. I was pretty upset after a couple weeks of my weight not changing. I was feeling different, but the weight was about the same.  What I ignorantly forgot is that I was losing fat while building muscle at almost the same rate!

Tim’s new book will no doubt have all of the supplements, amounts of food, when to eat, how much to sleep, which exercises get the most results, etc. – I was going off two blog posts and sifted through his responses to questions to come up with an eating plan, weight training program and attempt to still keep going though I wasn’t seeing huge weight gains.

Here are my results:

Before — After
Weight: 182.8Lbs — 181.7 Lbs
Caliper Fat Pinch:
Chest: 22mm —  20.5mm
Abdomen: 34.5mm — 25mm
Thigh: 24mm — 22mm
Waist: 34in — 32.5in
Abdomen: 36.25in — 34.75in
Thigh: Right (32 inches up)
Unflexed 21.5in — 21.25in
Arm: Right
Unflexed 12in — 12.25in
Flexed 13.5in — 14in
Shoulders: 46.75in — 47.25in
Chest:
Flexed 41.5in — 40.50in
Unflexed 40.5in — 39.75in
Body Fat: 24% — 17.9%
43.9 Lbs of Fat — 32 Lbs of Fat
139 Lbs Lean Muscle — 149 Lbs of Lean Muscle

Not bad gains for an ectomorph.

The goal this time is the same results or better – 10 lbs of muscle.  I haven’t really worked out since then, I’ve just been watching what I eat.  So Here are some resources if you are interested.

The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss hits stores December 15th.

The 4-Hour Work Week Blog – Tim discusses general ideas and answers questions (most helpful)

bodybuilding.com – Tim goes into workout, meals & supplement details

My next post will be on my diet, supplements, routine or workout.

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