As a bodybuilder you may be asking yourself, Why should I read a book on immunity? If you want to build muscle, you have to train hard and recover, right? If your immune system is out of whack, you can easily get run down or ill, which means you can’t train hard—or at all. And even if your immunity is only somewhat compromised, you may not be able to properly regenerate after a workout—slowing gains to a snail’s pace.
4 Weeks to Maximum Immunity, by the editors of Prevention with Kim Galeaz, R.D., can help you stay strong to train intensely and recover optimally for faster muscle growth. While some of the book is just a skim-fest for those of us in decent health, like the sections on fighting against illness—they’re at the end of the book with suggestions on what to do if you have allergies, asthma, cancer, diabetes and even food poisoning—those interested in building their bodies and health will find lots of good stuff.
Chapters like “An Apple a Day Can Keep the Doctor Away,” “Sleep: Quality Matters As Much As Quantity,” “Stress: Don’t Let It Get the Best of You” and “Mood: Happiness Is Good Medicine” set the tone. Practical recommendations—like eating fruits and vegetables at the same meal because of their synergistic health effects and having sexual intercourse because it appears to have immune-enhancing effects—will keep your highlighter streaking through entire paragraphs.
The 350-plus-page book is full of practical advice and discussions of research on various immunity-oriented subjects. There’s an entire chapter on vitamin D, sunlight and what’s necessary if you want to avoid a deficiency, which is common in more than 50 percent of the population. That may explain many of the more prevalent health problems today—maybe even your inability to build muscle. After all, vitamin D and calcium are essential for muscle contraction. There are even miniquizzes on how well you’re eating and resting, your outlook on life and clean living (no, that one has nothing to do with steroids).
You won’t find information on how to build 20-inch arms here, at least not directly, but a healthy immune system is another cog in your mass-building machinery. 4 Weeks can keep it tuned up like a high-performance race car. It’s quite an impressive tome, filled with some obvious and not-so-obvious information that may surprise you—and help you in ways you never imagined.
—Becky Holman
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