I've just read the Four-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss. It seems on the face of it like ridiculously valuable material, if true - like what the completed version of Michael Vassar's proposed reboot of dietary science would look like at the finish point if dieting turned out to be more susceptible to Munchkinism than in my wildest dreams. Ferriss also talks the rationalist talk quite well in this book, much more so than in Four-Hour Workweek; he cites the experiments and occasionally says things like "I spent a lot of money on this and I expected it to work and it didn't work at all" or "I tried this and it seemed to work and I have no idea why it worked and I think it was probably a placebo effect."
Does the LessWrong hivemind have an opinion about 4HB? Has anyone tried it and found that it doesn't work, or that it does work, or that it works but not as well as Ferriss thinks it should work?
I have not read the book.
For strength, the more similar the bodybuilding advice is to "do a moderate amount of very difficult compound exercises about once a week, more difficult every session," the more I agree with it.
For general health, I don't think four hours of aerobic exercise per week is enough at all. I try to get more than that. Is it really possible to survive half marathons and such on four hours of training per week? If there is a way to munchkinize running as there is for bodybuilding, I don't know it. The best things I know of are interval training and stair running.