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1-Page Summary of Thinner Leaner Stronger
Overview
Thinner Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Female Body (2014) by Michael Matthews explains how women can build strength and lose weight through a combination of resistance training and healthy eating. It’s easy to get results if you know about the basic science behind building muscle and losing weight. Once you understand that, it becomes easier to follow scientifically proven techniques for getting faster results.
Many people believe that going to the gym will help them achieve their wellness goals. However, if they don’t see results in a reasonable amount of time, they often give up and try other things such as supplements. The key to sculpting your body is doing compound exercises (working more than one muscle group at a time) like squats. You should work progressively by increasing weights over time. Squats are an essential exercise in resistance training along with deadlifts, bench presses, and military presses.
The amount of calories a person takes in should be less than the amount they burn. However, the quality of those calories is also important to building muscle and keeping weight off. Exercise programs have to be tailored for each individual depending on whether their goal is losing weight or bulking up.
When women have a solid understanding of how to build strength, they are able to set goals and track their progress with confidence. The Thinner Leaner Stronger approach offers an alternative solution for fitness that leads to increased strength and better health outcomes.
Key Point 1: The fitness industry is flooded with useless information about how to get lean and strong.
There are many different ways to get fit, but most of them don’t work. The best way is to know the body’s basic physiology. You can figure out how it works and what you need to do in order to improve your fitness level.
Science has proven that fitness fads do not always work. For example, a study published in the American Journal of Medicine found that those who did high-intensity interval training (HIIT) in spin classes ended up with adverse conditions similar to military trainees. HIIT is popular because it offers a high rate of calorie burn per hour. Yet researchers discovered that many participants—especially newcomers—ended up with rhabdomyolysis, which happens when “muscle constituents break down and leak into the bloodstream.” This medical condition can lead to kidney disease. Summarizing the study, writer Max Lowery explains: “HIIT’s rise in popularity is symptomatic of what’s wrong with fitness as an industry: A brazen disregard for fundamentals and a ‘one size fits all’ mentality.”
Key Point 2: Building muscles is the key to achieving a leaner, stronger body.
Many magazines tell women that they should tone and shape their muscles, but this is misleading. Genetics play a large role in muscle shape, so you can’t change the way your muscles look by working out. Moreover, building muscles will help you lose fat stores and create a perfect beach body.
Psychiatrist Dena Oaklander decided to follow her own advice and start working out. She noticed that strength training increased her energy levels and helped tone her body. In an article for Time, Sue Clark, Oaklander’s personal trainer, spoke about the benefits of strength training on overall mental health as well as physical appearance. As Clark notes, “Above and beyond the physical changes, though, a whole new persona emerges as people start to feel really confident in their own bodies.”
