Product Description

At the heart of the book is a complete, illustrated, six- month course for explosive growth. Exercise by exercise, workout by workout, the reader is shown precisely what to do, and perhaps even more important, what not to do. Dr. Darden also shows why HIT, when pursued steroid-free, is the best way to safely build muscle. Finally, the exercise religion Arthur Jones founded, and Dr. Darden fine-tuned, has its bible.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32835 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Customer Reviews

Misleading, biased, commercial - almost an anti-HIT book
As an adept of the HIT training system, I found this book very disappointing. The author does not emphasize the theories/advantages/disadvantages of HIT as much as focusing on a one-sided odyssey of the man who commercialised the Nautilus training equipment, Arthur Jones.

Almost half of the book is dedicated exclusively to exaggerated praises to Jones (the author makes an effort to present him as a revolutionary man and an adventurer with a wonderful sense of humour, but my personal impression was - disappointingly - of an mean, irrational, eccentric, vain, arrogant, stubborn, crude and rude bully). To further emphasize Arthur Jones' "superiority", the author criticises at great length a number of successful bodybuilders (including - surprisingly - HIT "godfather" Mike Mentzer) presenting unflattering stories of a purely personal nature which I personally found very hard to believe.

The other part of the book is dedicated to training. I found it average in terms of information and quite brief, consisting mainly of common sense advice and a few generic "health routines". The author fails (in my opinion) to justify his choices or to present scientific evidence to back up his claims (other than some unverifiable measurements of Casey Viator against a number of non-HIT bodybuilders).

Overall, I found the book to be the personal vendetta - paparazzi style - of a bitter, unsuccessful bodybuilder, whose only means to gain attention is to present unflattering, moot personal stories about everybody else.

Just my 2 cents' worth...

appalling
I gave this book a '1 star' rating so that I can write a review.
A '0 star' rating is appropriate. The beginning of this frightening book is quite interesting. There is information about the travels of Arthur Jones, creator of Nautilus and credited by many people as the person that discovered the benefits of high-intensity, infrequent resistance training.
Why do I dislike this book? Near page 30 the book becomes a horrible read. Darden seems supportive of Jones' violence. Darden seems like a giggling child describing the 'fun' he had with Jones. He hints that Jones would fight with bodybuilders. Jones would give orders, terrorise, threaten, degrade and humiliate
people. There is an account of Jones challenging somebody to a fistfight at a University lecture. Jones discovered that this person refused to fight in the Vietnam war ('hid out' as Darden describes it). Jones described to the audience how he planned to give him an 'ass-kicking' and tear him apart (literally).
Darden writes about 'sissies' and a violent powerlifter.

Arthur Jones, if these accounts are true, is a mentally ill, psychopathic (perhaps) bully.
My book will be put in a bin.

I recommend 'Muscles in Minutes' and 'Heavy Duty 2 Mind & Body' to people intersted by one set to failure training.
Visit the mike mentzer website to find these.

Strength training finally makes sense
This book will make you understand how you need to train to build muscle (and lose fat) and more importantly:-

WHY you should train like this and not the conventional more is better approach. as you read the book you will find yourself saying "that makes sense" and "why didnt I think of that".

After reading this book you will find yourself:

-Training for a shorter duration (but much harder)

-Training less frequantly

-In the best shape of your life or making the best progress possible.

Buy it before you waste any more money.