The Lean Exec: A Strong, Athletic Physique in Just 3 Hours A Week

By Neill David Watson

Struggling to fit exercise and eating right around long work days?  Spend your day commuting, at your desk and in meetings?  Want to find simple ways to get back on track with your health and fitness?

*Includes Access To Free Bonus Content* Neill Watson’s symmitarian philosophy stems from 20 years of testing and i

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bigger Brother Ltd
• Release date: Jun 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781912615681

Book preview

DEFINITIONS

BIGGER BROTHER*

/BIH-GER BRUHTH-UR/

NOUN

Derived from the concept of Standing on the shoulders of giants – a person who has experience and knowledge they can share with you openly and impartially to help you avoid mistakes, improve and successfully reach your goals.

*This is a phrase and meaning created by the author based on the concept behind Bigger Brother. It’s not in the dictionary or even the Urban Dictionary, although it should be and maybe one day it will be!

STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

The metaphor of dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants (Latin: nanos gigantum humeris insidentes) expresses the meaning of discovering truth by building on previous discoveries.

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. ISAAC NEWTON

SYMMETRY

/SIM-I-TREE/

NOUN, PLURAL: SYMMETRIES.

1. The quality of being made up of exactly similar parts facing each other or around an axis.

2. Correct or pleasing proportion of the parts of a thing.

SYMMITARIAN**

/SIMI-TAIR-EE-UHN/

NOUN

A person who takes appropriate measures to develop their desired physique and mental state corresponding in form and arrangement, while balancing their lifestyle and goals.

**This is a word and meaning created by the author for this book. It’s not in the dictionary or even the Urban Dictionary, although it should be and maybe one day it will be!

WHY SHOULD YOU READ THIS BOOK?

Firstly, and for the record, the author of this book was not a natural athlete and does not find training easy. Growing up, I was not particularly strong, fast or skilled at sport. At school, I was usually one of the last people to be picked for sports teams and I spent most of my teens warming the bench. I always had to work very hard at physical activity to improve or even compete with peers and would not be remembered by classmates for my sporting endeavours! This book is written on the back of 20 years of experience and knowledge gained through trial, error, lots of reading, learning, failure and success.

Secondly – as if you didn’t know – your health is massively important!

If you want to live the longest and best life you can, staying healthy is a big part of that. The challenge is, you may also want to do well in your career, enjoy life and spend time with family and friends. Modern life doesn’t tend to make it easy, particularly if you’re an office executive that spends a lot of time indoors, sitting at a desk.

Studies have shown that success is often linked to good health and fitness.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IS ASSOCIATED WITH IMPROVED AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE AND ENHANCED COGNITIVE PROCESSING.

THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY (NCBI)

STUDIES INDICATE THAT OUR MENTAL FIREPOWER IS DIRECTLY LINKED TO OUR PHYSICAL REGIMEN. AND NOWHERE ARE THE IMPLICATIONS MORE RELEVANT THAN TO OUR PERFORMANCE AT WORK.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW, 2014

WITHOUT A DOUBT, THE HIGHER YOUR LEVEL OF FITNESS, THE GREATER THE CAPACITY YOU HAVE TO PERFORM YOUR JOB, AND THE GREATER CAPACITY YOU WILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE DEMANDS IN YOUR LIFE…

JACK GROPPEL, PHD, CO-AUTHOR OF THE CORPORATE ATHLETE (JOHN WILEY & SONS, 2000) AND CO-FOUNDER OF THE HUMAN PERFORMANCE INSTITUTE

Better fitness makes us better all-round performers. If you don’t believe me, here’s a quote I found online from my ultimate boss (at the time of writing, I work for Virgin Money):

I DEFINITELY CAN ACHIEVE TWICE AS MUCH BY KEEPING FIT.

RICHARD BRANSON, CO-FOUNDER OF THE VIRGIN GROUP

I have definitely found in my own life that, while staying fit can be a challenge and an effort to fit into daily life, making time for fitness, better eating and good sleep pays back tenfold in my productivity and career. It also teaches focus, consistency, helps to reduce stress, avoid sickness and problematic health issues, like back problems, pains and strains. It’s worth noting that staying fit and healthy doesn’t mean giving up on all the good things in life. I still enjoy delicious food (including burgers) and a beer or three. Actually, staying in shape allows me to indulge within reason, with limited impact on my health and fitness.

This book is for busy people who struggle to find time for fitness and want to balance work, life and health, minimising the time required to keep fit and maximising the benefits with a challenging schedule. It will show you how, with the right focused effort, you can stay lean and fit in as little as three hours per week. I believe following the philosophy in this book, with the right balance in life, can make you fitter, healthier stronger and better – not just physically, but also mentally.

This is the Symmitarian Way.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

(And Who It’s Not For)

While this book includes and imparts information, knowledge, techniques and principles of professional fitness that can be used in, or lead to, building a physique fit for entry in a bodybuilding competition or a career in fitness modelling, it is not written specifically for people looking to develop this kind of professional career. This book is written for people who want to create and manage a fit, strong, muscular, lean, natural body at their own desired level – fitting it into their lives without having everything revolve around training and dieting.

Why? Because the reality is, even if you are genetically gifted, looking like a sub-10% body fat fitness model/bodybuilder usually requires a lot more time in the gym than most people (who are not doing it for their career) have time for, plus very strict dieting and possibly even some steroid use. If you need proof, just go online and search images for off-season bodybuilders, Arnold Schwarzenegger body (to see how it varied through his 20s, 30s and 40s), or pictures of actor’s beach bodies and compare them to how they look on screen. That’s not to say there isn’t work and effort involved and you can’t maintain a great physique. However, it doesn’t have to rule your life and it’s about finding a balance that feels good for you, not a secret pill or potion.

So, this book is for busy people who want to find and keep motivation and do the right things to see regular results in the development – and ultimately, maintenance – of a body they desire within a balanced lifestyle. Not to mention, still enjoy some cheeky treats without destroying progress. When considering what this book should be, here are some points that were noted down:

NOTE: WHILE THIS BOOK COULD BE USEFUL TO A WIDE VARIETY OF PEOPLE AND THE TECHNIQUES DESCRIBED ARE SUITABLE FOR MOST INDIVIDUALS LOOKING TO IMPROVE FITNESS, IT MAY PARTICULARLY APPEAL AND BE USEFUL TO MEN BETWEEN THE AGES OF 28 AND 55.

This book is designed for people who want to develop and maintain a solid, athletic, balanced, strong physique without it taking over their life, as well as wishing to avoid traps such as incorrect training and nutrition based on body attributes, not getting the results they want, plateaus, and loss of motivation. It’s based on my own journey back to fitness and particularly written for people who are not body professionals (such as athletes or fitness models) who want to fit their fitness objectives around their life. By providing simple techniques, cutting through the bull$h*t and writing in layman’s terms, this book will help get you on a long-term success track with training so you can (with the right attitude and effort):

WHY DID I WRITE THIS BOOK?

The Biggest Mistake Of My Life

That’s right, one of the key reasons I wrote this book is because I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life in my late 20s. I stopped resistance training!! It didn’t happen overnight, but gradually over about five years, and when I reached about 28 I stopped training and exercising completely!

Why did I let this happen?

I let my work take over and forgot some of the important things that weight training had taught me. I was working long hours, not sleeping well, partying and drinking in my free time and perhaps allowing stress to get the better of me. All that, hand in hand with the dregs from the bout of glandular fever I had at 20, caused recurring problems – and I let my health slip. I forgot, or chose to ignore, the benefits of health over other things in life, not to mention the great feeling that being fit and strong to the core gives you. I also forgot how powerful it can be, how it makes you more focused, efficient, helps you escape and helps you be better overall.

It wasn’t until I was 32, a few days after my daughter was born, that I stood on the scales and couldn’t believe the number I saw – 98kg (216lbs). As a guy who’d weighed 67kg (148lbs) 14 years earlier, and been a lean, muscular 88kg (194lbs) 6–7 years back, this was a shock. Not particularly because of the 10kg (22lbs) increase in weight, but because it dawned on me that my body composition had changed dramatically, and the reality was at least 20kg (44lbs) of that was now useless slush!!

It took a health issue after that for me to realise I had to force change. The challenge was also that the health issue made it trickier to lift weights (the doctor even suggested it would be worth trying to avoid lifting heavy weights to see if this would help). While I wouldn’t condone ignoring your doctor’s advice, I did some more research and decided I knew my body from the years of training I’d done before, and I knew if I ate better, cut down on the alcohol and built my body back the right way it would improve. I didn’t leap into it, but started building from the ground up, step by step.

At first it was hard and there were quite a few setbacks, but I cut my fat down, increased muscle and took my training to a new level. That included increasing my one rep max on the deadlift from 80kg (176lbs) to 158kg (348lbs) and then up to 180kg (396lbs). I’ve never been a guy who wanted to be huge (particularly as it’s not that useful in my efforts to learn to surf!), so a lean, strong weight of around 86–89kg (191–197lbs) works well for me. Below captures my initial body composition transition doing only three hours a week over eight (nearly nine) weeks - from being overweight and high body fat to my first phase of The Lean Exec:

NOTE: THESE IMAGES ARE COMPLETELY UNPREPARED SHOTS TAKEN WITH A SMARTPHONE CAMERA. NO SPECIFIC CUTTING DIET, NO TAN, ETC., JUST SENSIBLE EATING AND THREE HOURS’ INTENSE TRAINING PER WEEK OVER THE EIGHT-WEEK PERIOD. I DRANK ALCOHOL, ALTHOUGH I CUT THIS DOWN TO NO MORE THAN SIX PINTS OF BEER PER WEEK. I ALSO STUCK TO QUALITY PALE ALES OR GUINNESS, WHERE THE ALCOHOL VOLUME WAS UNDER FIVE PER CENT. IN PRINCIPLE, YOU COULD TRAIN MORE AND BE MORE SPECIFIC WITH YOUR DIET TO POTENTIALLY ACHIEVE A LOWER BODY FAT PERCENTAGE, GREATER MUSCLE GAIN, INCREASED FITNESS, ETC. HOWEVER, I WANTED TO SHOW THE TECHNIQUES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAN EXEC WORKED BASED ON MINIMAL ADJUSTMENTS WITH THREE HOURS’ TRAINING PER WEEK, NOT DRAMATIC DIETS AND ENDLESS HOURS OF EXERCISE TIME.

AUTHOR STATS AT THE TIME OF WRITING THIS BOOK

Towards the end of writing this book, I tested for strength and strength endurance across some core exercises.

I used standards for males aged between 24–39, available online via sources such as Gym Jones, Bodybuilding.com, LiveStrong.com and StrengthLevel.com.

At age 40, commuting, working an average of 60–70 hours per week, balancing personal/family life and training, typically, three to five hours per week, I could hit high levels in the majority of the core resistance exercises.

A WORD ON MOTIVATION

Motivation can be a very personal thing. I have found throughout my life that different things have motivated me to move and ultimately some things don’t interest me enough to make me care. However, one philosophy I have that is rooted in Bigger Brother thinking is, if you care enough to complain or be bothered by something (which I’m guessing you are if you’re reading this book?!), it can be channelled into motivation to change the situation.

When I first started weight training in my late teens, I was motivated by the fact that I wasn’t particularly great at sports. I spent most of my time in the basketball team at senior school warming the bench. While I wasn’t the weakest kid around and had no desire to be a huge bodybuilder, I was very thin, and I wanted to have a more athletic, muscular physique to boost my confidence (as well as appeal to the girls!). This is what initially drove me, but over time it was the positive feeling of being fitter and stronger that ultimately kept me going back to the gym.

Later