Product Description

As a boy, Samuel Fussell was short, skinny and shy. Adolescence brought an outward transformation - he shot up to 6ft 4in - and he developed intellectually, too. He graduated from Oxford University and joined a New York publishing house, but inside his impressive new frame cowered the 98-pound weakling of his boyhood; the world outside was as threatening and terrifying as before. The armour he chose to protect himself was painfully forged from flesh and muscle over four years of severe diets, exercises and steroids, in the raucous bodybuilding gyms of New York and California. This is his account of the world of dreamers which Fussell entered when he gave up his job and became a bodybuilding addict. It reveals the needs and fantasies of a variety of characters who include colourful rogues and gym rats.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #628086 in Books
• Published on: 1992-07-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

Excellent
Muscle is one of my all-time favourite books - it is very interesting and very funny.

The book tells the story of how Sam Fussell turns himself from a skinny young man into a body builder.

The story begins in New York where Sam is a frightened young man working in publishing who develops an interest in bodybuilding. Interest rapidly turns to obsession as he starts to exercise more and more and pumps himself full of protein. Eventually the obsession becomes all consuming and he packs up and moves to California. In California he hooks up with more serious bodybuilders and the obsession grows. He follows an insane training program, supplemented by large-scale steroid use (abuse) in an attempt to compete as a bodybuilder and a power-lifter. Preparation for competition is even more demanding (It's not about feeling good; it's about looking good) as he attempts to shed all his body fat.

The author writes with a wry yet sympathetic detachment from his obsession. The result is a portrait of obsession that is simultaneously amusing (often outright funny) and chilling (for example taking horse steroids - 'they give these to million dollar horses; they must be OK').

A wonderful book - accessible to all but essential reading for anybody who has ever had even a small obsession with weights.

Essential reading for bodybuilders
A hilarious and oft-disturbing account of Sam Fussel's adventures in bodybuilding. Whether or not you agree with his views, it is an essential part of any lifter's library.

why is this book out of print
Often screamingly funny and also very poignant, a story which is that of anybody's disappearance into an obsession and a world populated by like minded obsessives. And, in his re emergence into everyday life, a happy ending too. Brilliant.

It's not a book I'd have thought to appeal to men who are serious about bodybuilding, not least because the gym seems to tighten the bum in both senses. As his book makes very clear.