Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19028 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

good but a little overwhelming fro a complete beginner
As a complete beginner to weight training I found this book to be a little overwhelming in that covers a huge amount of training and nutrition thoery. Also putting together the initial programs requires quite a bit of puzzling things out. If this was the only reference I had I would probably have needed a month to absorb it all before I actually started doing any excercise !.

Having said that, now that I have had time to go through it properly, I feel there is very little about the relevent training physiology and nutrition that I dont know and it is probably a book that everyone doing any training should have in thier library.

If your a complete beginner though I recommend first getting something like "the new rules of lifting" which seems to have much the same core philosophy (i.e. emphisis on compound excercises and nutrition) but is much more accessible and conducive to just getting started with some excercising - more of a "user guide" to this books "reference manual" style.

Useful
You won't get any before/after pictures of guys endorsing a product and the style is a little asinine at times but the work out routines are demanding and give results (for me 17kg gained in 4 months). The approach may sem a little unorthodox at times and you'll need a gym with a decent of equipment not your executive nautilus machines but the work out definately work. The nutrition advice is sound, which condensed means eat about double your current amount of useful calories which I followed and it worked. The book gives 4 programs building you up in stages and will have you doing exercises not many do, such as squats and the like but if you stick through it, you will make some very solid gains.

From a Beginner
I brought this book with so high expectation.
As it seem to of gotten so good reviews.
Although the book provide loads of information it was not really user friendly, You could not really match diagrams and charts to the text with out reading the page to see what was being explained.

This book does seem to give good information, it you have the time to STUDY it. And I am sure you will learn a lot about Health and Fitness it acts like a personal trainer.
It would have been nice it was laid out better for the new comer.

I would suggest before buying this book to read it in a book shop and see if you can understand it first.