In this Book Thinkers video, Nick Hutchison reviews Dr. John Jaquish’s book Weight Lifting Is a Waste of Time and So Is Cardio, and There’s a Better Way to Have the Body You Want and demonstrates the X3 Bar resistance‑band system. Hutchison explains his personal motivations—challenging his own bias toward weightlifting and adapting to COVID‑related gym closures—to test a claim that traditional weightlifting fails to fully fatigue muscles because the load is greatest at the weakest point of a lift. He illustrates the biomechanical issue using a bench‑press example, then shows how the X3 Bar’s variable‑resistance bands increase force as the band stretches, allowing full‑range muscle fatigue in short, 10‑minute sessions. He outlines the 12‑week program (starting at four workouts per week and progressing to six), and shares early observations such as reduced lactic‑acid buildup and the ability to perform squats, deadlifts, presses, and curls with the band. Hutchison also discusses dietary takeaways from the book, highlighting protein absorption differences between animal and plant sources, recommending 1.2‑1.5 g of protein per pound of body weight, and adopting a 16:8 intermittent‑fasting schedule. He notes that he will post before‑and‑after photos and that Dr. Jaquish appears on an upcoming Book Thinkers podcast. Throughout, Hutchison balances skepticism of conventional gym culture with enthusiasm for the X3 Bar’s efficiency.
Chapters
Hello, Book Thinkers family! Today's video is going to be a little bit different. You're actually going to see me work out, and the subject of today's discussion is Weightlifting Is a Waste of Time and So Is Cardio, and There's a Better Way to Have the Body You Want by Dr. John Jaquish. So when this book came across my plate, I said to myself, there's 2 really big reasons why I want to read it and why it's interesting to me. Number one, I love weightlifting, so why in the world is it a waste of time Immediately I felt defensive. And so I love reading information that contradicts a bias that I already have because then I get additional perspective and I get a little bit smarter. And best case scenario, or worst case scenario, I read the book and I think it's a total load of rubbish, and then I move on and I have some information to defend myself against the next person that says weightlifting is a waste of time. But that didn't end up happening, and we'll talk about that in a second. Number 2, 2020 hit, COVID-19. I can't go to the gym anymore. So what did I naturally do? I replaced the 10 hours a week that I was spending at the gym with additional work. And now that things are opening up a little bit more, I don't want to go back to the gym. I love the work that I'm doing. And so when I read this book and I read a little blurb about it before making the decision to work with Dr. John, it said 10 minutes a day I can replace the gym and still have the body I want. Okay, let me give it a shot. And so I dove into this book, and there's over 200 academic papers, I think, that are cited in this book. Dr. John is a mad genius, and he's kind of anti-fitness industry. And as I started to get into the science behind why he developed this X3 Bar System, as well as why weightlifting is a waste of time, he kind of sold me. And I actually really do believe, after using this for a couple weeks now, that he's right. And I'll give you one example, and it's going to be a bench. So when you're benching, the most weight you can hold is at your weakest point, and this is true for any compound exercise. So if I'm benching right here, this is the most weight I can hold. So I'm only fatiguing the muscle through this part of the compound movement, whereas some science says at the top, you know, this part right here, when I'm benching, I can push 7 times as much weight. So I'm not actually fatiguing the muscle. That's why you have to go through repetitions in the gym, because you're not effectively fatiguing the muscle. And also, you're putting too much weight on joints if you're always trying to max out and you're full of ego in the gym. That's how you get hurt in the gym, because you put too much weight at your weakest point. And so I'm going to give you an example right now of what a bench might look like with this X3 Bar System. So this right here is a band, and as I push away from my body, there's going to be more force. I'm going to be pushing more weight, meaning I'm fatiguing the muscle through the entire repetition. So let me just give you an example here. This is what this looks like. And what you do is slow movements until you absolutely fatigue the muscle. And it's a 12-week program. And as you go through this 12-week program, you start with 4 workouts a week, then you go all the way up to 6 workouts a week. It's a 12-week program, like I mentioned, and I'm taking before and after pictures, so I'll give everybody the results. The other side to this book that I found really interesting was about diet, and the fitness industry pushes a lot of products, as we all know, that maybe aren't as efficient as they say. One example is protein absorption percentage. I had no idea that the amino acid makeup of a protein differed between different protein sources. So let's just say vegetable protein like broccoli or something like that, it's actually going to have less absorption percentage than something like You know, animal protein, red meat, good old red meat. And so what he recommends is doing intermittent fasting. I'm starting with 16:8 because I've never really done intermittent fasting consistently before, meaning I'm not going to eat for 16 hours and I'm only going to eat for 8 hours. Within that 8-hour window, you've got to eat anywhere between 1.2, 1.5 grams of protein for each pound of body weight. That's a lot of weight for me, or a lot of meat for me, essentially. And so I'm going to be trying that out. I'm eating a lot. I'm going to gain some weight as I go through this workout program. I'm going to put on some muscle. I will take some before and after pictures. I really do recommend you guys check out this X3 Bar. It fatigues me in 10 minutes a day, which is exactly what I was looking for. The lactic acid buildup does still happen to me even in just a couple minutes a day, whereas before it took 2 hours a day. And you could do everything with this. You can squat, you can deadlift, you can bench, you could do over— Uh, know, shoulder presses, you could do curls, you could do bench like I just showed you. There's a lot of different workouts. Having a lot of fun. Dr. John was also on the podcast, uh, the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books podcast. We had a really fun discussion. I love his attitude and kind of swagger that he has when he just calls out the fitness industry. So you'll get to see that sometime soon. It'll be posted relatively soon after this video. And that's that. Let me know what you guys think. Let me know if you have any questions for me, and stay on the lookout for those before and after pictures in a few months.
