Q: What is the Minimum Effective Dose for Exercise X?

Q: What is the Minimum Effective Dose (MED) for any given exercise, or my whole workout?


A: Good question, as this isn't necessarily clear in The Four Hour Body. The answer is that there is no explicit answer or formula to come up with the answer for any given situation.

The MED for you will be dependent on what you're trying to achieve, where you're starting from, and what you're doing. For example, Tim Ferriss talks about doing a weight lifting routine where he works his muscles to exhaustion, and that's his whole workout - a few exercises done to the point of failure. He does go over how many sets and reps to do if this is your approach, and shares his specific workout, but the amount of weight used, which exercises done, and your own muscle endurance will mean that your MED for this exact workout may not be the same as his.

Instead of sweating the mathematics of determining your MED for a given workout, focus on the concept of the MED, which means following Principle 5 - "be smart about it". A good example I often use is in cardio workouts. I see so many people set the equipment to manual mode, dial in a set resistance level, open a magazine or put a show on the TV, put on their earphones, and turn into a workout robot for the next 30 minutes. Instead of that 30 minute workout, they would probably get the same from a 15 minute interval workout with the magazine closed, shows off, and their mind focused on really pushing themselves during the sprint or high intensity periods.

The same goes for weights. Doing 20 reps of low weight across 5 sets takes much longer than doing a pyramid (10-12 at 50-60% of your max, then 6-8 at 65-80%, and then 2-4 at 85-95% of your max).

This is what the MED is all about - using the biology and chemistry in your body to your advantage. The body will actually keep burning calories for quite a while after working out, and this 'while' is significantly longer when you train with intervals than with a constant resistance and output. So you don't need to go as long since the magic of biology will keep you burning calories from your workout more than long enough to offset the shorter duration of your workout.


This is all part of what I mean by "enlighten.your.body" - get smart about what you're doing by using your mind to change your body.