Reviews (136)

An excellent strength training reference manual
I work out regularly, and when doing strength training, I frequently have questions about which muscles I am working, whether I am performing the moves with correct form, etc.I decided to read this book after reading the author's companion work, Women's Strength Training Anatomy, which focuses on lower body only, whereas this volume offers a full-body review.
Strength Training Anatomy
Excellent strength training manual. I actually own the original version, but just had to buy the revised one as well. Do not regret the decision. This a clear, concise, well-laid out guide to weight training. I've been lifting for 9 years so I'm pretty advanced. Since I need to change my routines every 4-6 weeks, I always look to this handy book to put together new ones.

AWESOME!!
I use this book when I strength train and absolutely love it!! Recommend it to anyone. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Anatomy    2. Bodybuilding & Weight Training    3. Muscle strength    4. Muscles    5. Sports    6. Sports & Recreation    7. Weight training    8. Fitness training   

Editorial Review

When Bob Anderson first published Read more

Reviews (65)

Great Book
This book was exactly what I was looking for.I play softball regularly and am approaching the age of 50, and I was looking for specific stretches to help me prepare to play.The book contains specific instructions and illustrations and is easy to folllow.Their are specific stretches to help with all kinds of activities, and the author has a long history of working with athletes.

Indispensable to fitness for all ages and sports.
In the good old days of typewriters, carbon papers, and stencil sheets, literary authorship served society at highest ethical, scientific, and artistic standards. In contrast, today's word processors and graphic software attracted to the field of book publishing plenty of con artists and commercial profiteers. This book on stretching by Anderson demonstrates the utmost dedication of its author to public welfare. Without sophisticated cameras or elegant graphing capabilities, the author was able to present all aspects of motion of human stretching by relying on hand-drawn sketches.
Essential to workout injury free
It you enjoy running, walking of jogging you must stretch. If you like weightlifting you must stretch. If you play any kind of sport,.. again you must stretch. And guess what if you are not currently engaged in any physical activity, still will benefit a lot from stretching.
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Subjects:  1. Athletic Training And Conditioning    2. Consumer Health    3. Exercise    4. Health & Fitness    5. Health/Fitness    6. Stretching exercises    7. Exercise & workout books    8. Sports & Outdoor Recreation   

Editorial Review

You might think that the subtitle, "The World's Most Authoritative Guide to Building Your Body," is hyperbole, but Read more

Reviews (58)

Good job
The authors do a very good job of explaining how your body, and more importantly, your muscles work, all with their "Men's Health" flare. The beginning of the book goes over a foundation of your muscles and the different types, which really set the tone for the rest of the book. Later in the book, they do go into specific detail on exercises and do's & dont's for beginners, intermediates, and advanced situations, so all of their bases are covered. They have seperate chapters for all muscles groups and great pictures to help visualize.
You've got to read this book!
I received this book as a gift. There are quite a few books on this subject on the market and this one is the best. I too could not put it down and finished it in 3 days. It's a huge book, a great resource that is well researched and written.. I have a few friends who've purchased this book and really loved it too. I can highly recommend this book
Are you kidding?
I purchased this book based upon the 50+ positive reviews and must say, I am disppointed. I will get right down to it. When referencing select muscle groups like shoulders, this book lists EVERY exercise that effects the muscle group and not the exercises that have a direct impact. For example, for shoulder exercises it lists Bench Press. The primary muscle group for Bench Press is the CHEST with the Shoulders being indirectly affected. The Bench Press should not even be in this category. This happens over and over whne discussing various muscle groups and it can lead a beginning weight lifter to have a strong misunderstaing of strength training.
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Subjects:  1. Bodybuilding    2. Bodybuilding & Weight Training    3. Consumer Health    4. Diet / Health / Fitness    5. Exercise    6. Men's Health    7. Physical fitness    8. Sports    9. Sports & Recreation   

Reviews (28)

Great Book for motivation but actually learned something
I bought a copy of Beyond Brawn from McRoberts and was hesitant to buy this book because of the writing style and extreme abbreviated routines promoted. This book recommends excercises I can accomplish and get results.
Logical Extension of T-A-P
I've read and enjoyed several of Lou's other books, I like his style of writing and find his work entertaining and informative.This book, to me, is the logical successor to his popular Testosterone Advantage plan.The diet advice and planing is similar but updated, and the exercise plans follow a similar periodization scheme.Fat loss circuit, Hypertrophy, and low reps for strength.While there is a break in routine, I would not recommend this book to some one who has not worked out regularly for at least six months. But for some one looking to move from beginner to intermediate, or an intermediate looking for a change of pace, this would be an outstanding resource.

Women please read as well!
I know this book doesn't really address women too much, but it is highly reccomended that we read it.If you are tired of reading books to gain muscle and strength that show the fitness models with 1 and 3lb weights, this is the book to get.
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Subjects:  1. Bodybuilding    2. Bodybuilding & Weight Training    3. Consumer Health    4. Exercise    5. Health & Fitness    6. Health/Fitness    7. Human Exercise Physiology    8. Muscle strength    9. Weight Training    10. Weight lifting    11. Health & Fitness / Exercise    12. Weightlifting   

Reviews (9)

Fantastic !
This book allowed me to see sport differently than "suffer and pain" ! Thanks to Amazin Lethi, it is easy to feel joy and satisfaction about it ! Buy it ASAP !!!

Relief for an older, tired body - Thank YOU!!!
The exercises in Amazin's Total Strength Training for Women has allowed me to rejuvenate my body strength, tone weakened muscles in my arms and legs, and rebuild muscle loss due to my age (64). She has shown me that age is not really a factor when attempting to strengthen muscles - something I had resigned myself to upon reaching seniority. Her anatomical reproductions are excellent and they allowed me to target areas of my body that were weak or painful with equally excellent results. I look forward to her next book on Home Training. Her techniques have inspired me to set up a gym at home and continue to excercise. Thank you, Amazin ... there is an entire world of senior age women who can benefit from your book.

Men do it too
Thank you Amazin Lethi for this fantastic oeuvre. Despite being of the opposite gender from the focus of the book I found it wonderfully useful for my own workout.
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Subjects:  1. Consumer Health    2. Exercise    3. Exercise For Women    4. Health & Fitness    5. Health/Fitness    6. Muscle strength    7. Physical fitness for women    8. Weight Training    9. Weight training for women    10. Women's Health - General    11. Sale Books   

Reviews (52)

disappointing for beginner
I had read all the rave reviews so was disappointed by my own experience.I am a new-comer to multisport competition.I found this book to be too much theory and not enough practicality; what was practical was presented in an incohesive way.I could see this being good for the serious triathlete, but for me, I found better use out of Eric Harr's book and on the internet.

Like reading a scientific paper
This book went above and beyond everything that I expected. The author gives references for virtually every point that he makes. He is clear about his standpoint when it comes to a lot of issues, such as POSE running, and explains his reasoning.
Good for someone wanting to progress
This is the only pure triathlon book I own, so I can't compare, but it answered 95% of the questions I had about how I go about improving from being a bunch finisher. The other 5%, well I suppose the author has to draw the line on detail somewhere. For example, the section on swimming skills is a 3-4 page summary of the total immersion swimming book.
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Subjects:  1. Athletic Training And Conditioning    2. Sports    3. Sports & Recreation    4. Training    5. Triathlon    6. Multidiscipline sports    7. Reference works   

Reviews (8)

Nice book
I bought this book and it was not a bad decision.Most of the reviews here are pretty accurate.He does cover unique ground in pointing out exercises that are not common in the more mainstream books like Body for Life and Lean Body Promise.The first edition has its fair share of editorial bugs but I think that you could piece together the general meaning given the context.I would point out that most books do not go into lifts such as the clean and snatch due to injury possibility.This is something that needs to be covered because some of these exercises can really put a person into jeopardy if they did not slowly build up to these type of movements.The more mainstream books tend to stick with bodyshaping movements and do not really go into more "athletic" moves.This is a good resource to consult for those type of movements but most people that I see working out at the gym are not into that type of lifting.In that way, the book is a bit overkill.The author has taken unnecessary pot-shots at the Body for Life and Lean Body books for being to simplistic or "looks based", but that is what a lot of people go for these days.They just want to know how to get from A to B as fast as possible.You look at Body for Life (even with its flaws) and the program is fairly simple and will give results as long as you are consistent.The downside with this book is that in being as comprehensive as it is, it misses the typical American way of life.I am not saying that this is the right way of thinking but it is out there.I would say that this is really geared towards those that are more advanced and not intimidated about more advanced lifting techniques.

Best Technique Book
This is the most detailed and complete book that I've ever read on weightlifting form.It's written in an outline-bullet format so that it's easy to understand, but it's still dense with information.
Good book
I purchased this book with the intent to learn more about the sport I participate in, which is Olympic Weightlifting. I found the book to very informative on each aspect of lifting. I also liked the detailed explanations throughout the book.
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Subjects:  1. Bodybuilding    2. Bodybuilding & Weight Training    3. Consumer Health    4. Exercise    5. Muscle strength    6. Sports    7. Sports & Recreation    8. Weight lifting   

Reviews (8)

No detail left unexplored
An impressive level of detail, covering absolutely every aspect of training for a full ironman.This will serve as a constant reference for me as I embark on my training, and I highly recommend this as a reference guide for those even enagaged in a 1/2 iron or shorter-distance triathlon.

Highly recommended!
This was very helpful for my first triathlon.Good and useful information.

A little confused
First of all let me say that this is about the best ironman training book out there.However, there are several severe flaws.First, the authors are confused about their audience.It is never clear when they are talking to novices and when they are addressing elites. They float around willy-nilly first addressing one then the other.Warnings are given to beginners right in the middle of long spiels obviously addressed only to pros.I believe this book is probably meant for novice to intermmediate triatheletes. But the authors are inconsistent in their approach to this.Second, most of the equipment information is very shallow but nevertheless useful to novices.However, once again the intended audience is unclear.Thirdly, the training bricks, many workout, and much of the advice are clearly geared to triatheletes who are very advanced.Any first-timer is going to overtrainand many advanced atheletes will as well if they utilize some of these workouts.They authors recommend no more than two breakthough workouts per week!!Is anybody else reading this?So once again the audience is unclear.If the authors are going to address novices then they need to do so in a consistent way throughout the book.The same with elites and intermmediates etc.Despite these flaws I managed to extract a great deal of useful information from this book and will continue to use it. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Athletic Sports And Games    2. Ironman triathlons    3. Sports    4. Sports & Recreation    5. Track & Field    6. Training    7. Triathlon    8. Fitness training    9. Multidiscipline sports   

Reviews (116)

Am I reading the same book?
I thought that this book was very short on actual, useful data. It seems that it could be boiled down to about 20 good pages to get the pertinent information across to the reader and dispense with the "this is the best book in the world" hard sell. The physiology was only mildly interesting as I just wanted the "program"-give me the workout and let me decide if it works or not and spare me the anatomy and physiology lessons.

It worked for me
I followed Phase II of the book, as it was detailed in an a May/June 2005 Special Edition of Rodale Press entitled "Muscle."I jumped from 138 to 150 pounds in four weeks.I performed NO cardio and ate like a horse, but probably could have gotten adequate results by eating 3000 calories instead of the 4200.About half the gain was fat, with a very impressive 6 pound gain of lean muscle.Forget isolation exercises.Get the mass you need, then go for the beach muscles if that's what you want... or get shredded and start over.I'm 46 and I'm finally getting the mass I've worked all my life for.

Solid and clear advice, except for meal plan
I learned a lot from this book. It is quite scientific, but rather disorganized. The meal plan is very vague, however. Don't get me wrong, the book tells you exactly how to calculate energy/nutrition/timing requirements, but to apply the calculations to months-worth of meals -- finding real recipes to meet those requirements -- is a huge amount of work. The book does not help at all with this significant task.
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Subjects:  1. Bodybuilders    2. Bodybuilding    3. Bodybuilding & Weight Training    4. Diet / Health / Fitness    5. Exercise    6. Handbooks, manuals, etc    7. Health & Fitness    8. Health/Fitness    9. Muscle strength    10. Nutrition    11. Sports & Recreation / Bodybuilding & Weight Training   

Editorial Review

"Periodization," nutrition, stretching, peaking--who knew that so much went into riding a bike? Joe Friel's Read more

Reviews (28)

The most complete book there is...
Better than the Carmichael books, hands down. If you are a noodle around cyclist...this is not for you. However, if you are willing to read the book, do the tests to determine your fitness, and then develop your plan, and stick to it, it will make you a much better cyclist. I went from the back of the pack, struggle to keep up cyclist(got dropped several times) last year, to a front of the pack, much stronger cyclist this year. A buddy and I put togather a program last fall, and followed it thru over the winter, and now we are much better and stronger. The only other factor in my improvement was probably my Computrainer, which I rode all winter long. The workouts, along with the computrainer did the trick. The only downside to the book is that to get the full value of it you need some way to measure watts, and if you don't have the needed equiptment, you may not get the full benefit.

Fantastic
This is an excellent resource for anyone wishing to get into or improve on already existing road racing skills.

Much better than the competion
I had read all the Chris Carmichael traning books, and found them lacking.There isn't enough detail about what lies behind his programs to allow one to adapt them very well.
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Subjects:  1. Cycling    2. Cycling - General    3. Sports    4. Sports & Recreation    5. Training    6. Fitness training   

Reviews (19)

Thorough and Insiprational
This is a very thorough and very inspirational book. It details all the possible types of exercises with all the possible types of equipment (and without any equipment as well) that one could do. Just by looking at the clearly drawn pictures, even before reading the explanatory notes accompanying each exercise, you get the idea of how to do it. I enjoyed very much reading about Bill Pearl's career and his overall philosophy about weight-training - his understanding of and approach to weight-training is just as impressive as his physique. Bill calls for natural, drug-free and healthy workouts and lifestyle, not the eat-all-food-you-can-handle-and-more and gain-fast advice that one gets nowadays.

Great Book. Thanks Bill, We needed this!
While many people classify themselves as trainers and experts, who better to get advice from than a man wo won Mr. America, Mr. USA, tied Arnolds record of four NABBA Mr. Universe wins, beat every great champion from the 50's to the 70's including Sergio Oliva, Frank Zane and Reg Park and has been training everyone from Joe Average wanting to get in shape to Mr. Olympia winners like Chris Dickerson.
Love this book!
This book is a great reference for all types of exercises. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in setting up resistance training programs, especially those working in the fitness industry. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Bodybuilding & Weight Training    2. Reference    3. Sports & Recreation    4. Mind, body, spirit: thought & practice   

Reviews (117)

Buy It
I finished the Honolulu Marathon in good enough condition to walk another couple of miles to the hotel immediately afterwards all thanks to this book. The book touched my life in the way only the best of books can. Your search for a really good first time marathon how-to book is over. Buy it!!!

Very Good!
They got it down. It's a sixteen week course, providing you are up to speed with the preliminary 11 week training program.(That's the ablility to jog 30 minutes - 4 times a week) I am on my last long run this weekend of week#13 at 18 miles (the first long run was 5 in week 1)and then the last 3 weeks before the marathon is all tapering back. I am confident, and have not a doubt that I am, by this time, a marathoner, and will finish. That is the goal emphasized by the book, and that will be fine by me ...(this time..)!!

I just finished about 2 hours ago!
I'm sitting here typing this with salt on my face and a medal around my neck.I have this book to thank for finishing my first marathon, and I couldn't be happier.
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Subjects:  1. Athletic Training And Conditioning    2. Marathon running    3. Running    4. Running & Jogging    5. Sports    6. Sports & Recreation    7. Track & Field    8. Training    9. Fitness training    10. Sports & Recreation / Running & Jogging    11. Track & field sports, athletics   

Reviews (29)

A Great Training Reference to Workout at Home
You will find a good collection of exercises (over 400), photographed and fully described to put together a flexible workout program.
Exactly What I Was Looking For
I can't add much to the other positive reviews here, but I liked this book so much that I thought I needed to add a few more stars to it's rating.
Great book when starting to workout
This book is great for someone that has never worked out or is just getting ready to start working out again. It is especially helpful if you haven't purchased any equipment yet. It will show you how to get the most out of different types of equipment and how to do most exercises no matter what type you have (dumbbells, barbell, machine, a chair, etc.) Having said that, if you do have a particular type of equipment this book will show you how to get more exercises out of it than you ever thought possible. It also tells you the benefits of different exercise and gives you sample workout routines. Finally, it differentiates between beginner, intermediate, and advanced form for almost every exercise. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Bodybuilding    2. Bodybuilding & Weight Training    3. Consumer Health    4. Diet / Health / Fitness    5. Exercise    6. Exercise for men    7. Health and hygiene    8. Men    9. Sports    10. Sports & Recreation   

Reviews (30)

The starting line for triathlon training
There are bigger triathlon books, and there are books with more detailed training schedules.There are books to hone your swimming, and books to make you run faster, but there is probably no better book for starting the sport of triathlon than Eric Harr's
Triathalon Training
Great guide for someone trying to get their feet wet in this sport.
Great Training Schedule
I really liked what Eric had to say about the training schedule and heart rate zones. I have been training in target heart rate zones as he says, and I have seen a lot of improvement versus just putting miles in. It was also a fun and inspiring read. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Exercise    2. Sports    3. Sports & Recreation    4. Track & Field    5. Training    6. Triathlon    7. Sports coaching    8. Track & field sports, athletics   

Reviews (16)

Excellent book, inspiring and motivating
I was new to cycling, and I had no idea what I am doing, tried different sources of information, however nothing like this book, its very friendly and targeted towards beginners and even advanced cyclist, the book took me to a whole new level I would not even dream about, very simple and practical to use, unlike other books where they describe advanced training schedule that's not quiet possible if you are working or a full time student like me, it has chapter about female cyclists, very interesting and helpful. The book also describe nutrition thoroughly a subject always overlooked by beginners.
Great training guide for any long distance ride
I've recently decided to ride in my first 200 mile ride and thought I better prepare myself mentaly as well as physically.So I purchased this book.
Kind of Lame
I did not get much out of this book.It looks like a lot of ideas were copied from long distance running data. Important issues like clipless pedals were skimmed over. Also I would like to have seen a chapter on common breakdowns and how to avoid them.Training and nutrition were discussed to death..... ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cycling    2. Cycling - General    3. Sports    4. Sports & Recreation    5. Training   

Reviews (64)

Not worth the money
Anything you read in here has already been written in much better detail. although the pictures of the exercises are good with explaination, you can get this from the internet for free with a little looking.

This is overkill
This is overkill in my opinion. Focus on a program like his brother's 'body for life' and with consistent training you will see more defined abs in 12 weeks. ABS ARE MADE IN THE KITCHEN.

Too many unnecessary photos, poor on substance
In this 130-page book, there are 23 full-page photographs of the author, posing on mountains, streets, in front of his home front door, on lakes, under the shower, with and without glasses, you name it. Before you get to chapter 6, which contains 10 pages, the first 5 chapters range in length from 2 to 5 pages. Whether it is relevant or not, the author scatters his personal photos everywhere in the book.
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Subjects:  1. Abdominal exercises    2. Consumer Health    3. Exercise    4. General    5. Health & Fitness    6. Health & Fitness / Exercise    7. Health/Fitness    8. Physical fitness    9. Sports & Recreation / Bodybuilding & Weight Training    10. Abdomen    11. Bodybuilding & Weight Training    12. Diet / Health / Fitness    13. Muscles    14. Weight training   

Reviews (6)

I really liked this book.
Very informative and layed everything out nicely. I'm going to order the Paleo diet book as I'm not a long distance athlete and more into the crossfit type training.This book would seem to be easily applied to gaining strengh/Muscle with a couple small "tweaks" as the authors put it.

More appropriate for strength athletes
The authors play a rather silly game of exclude the middle.
Carbo drinks and jels in Paleo times
If Paleo people were so fit and healthy why do authors of this book put so much empahsis on importance of sports drinks? How about soda bicarbonate to improve one's performance, or caffeine? So where do we draw the line? Either promote NATURAL way of nourishing our bodies or lets have a list of supplements (as long as they are still legal) to give an athlete the edge. Too bad our ancestors did not have access to energy jels. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Athletes    2. Consumer Health    3. Diet/Nutrition    4. Diets - General    5. Health & Fitness    6. High-protein diet    7. Nutrition    8. Prehistoric peoples    9. Training    10. Diets & dieting    11. Health & Fitness / Diets   

Reviews (1)

The Standard by Which Others are Compared
This huge book, now in its 12th edition was begun in 1963. It is intended for the education of atheletic trainers. Its primary concern is in preventing and when necessary treating sports injuries.
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Subjects:  1. Medical    2. Sports & Recreation    3. Sports Medicine    4. Training    5. Medical / Sports Medicine    6. Track & field sports, athletics   

Reviews (25)

great program with proven results
Lisa in CT has totally missed the boat on her review....If you do those exercises to COMPLETE momentary muscular failure (which will be outright hard work) you will pack on muscle as quickly as possible. There is no faster way to pack on muscle than brief, high-intensity workouts..I'm not talking about just doing 12 reps and then dropping the weight....you need to work to TOTAL failure and use a weight that will BARELY let you get between 8-12 reps. Then you will know the difference between grocery shopping and working out the Ellington Darden way (the right way).....The reason why some of the sections are brief is becasue that's all that is needed...it's not complicated....but you have to read it carefully and understand exactly what is being described when it comes to the intensity required....all-out effort....never had a grocery trip like that....
Not impressed. Very disappointing....
I purchased this book in hopes of getting the most out of my Bowflex Extreme 2. Other reviewers seemed to really like this book, so maybe I'm way off in my expectations. I've been working out for quite a while and recently purchased a Bowflex in hopes of saving time & money by working out at home instead of the gym. I'm not so sure about that decision now...
Great book for anyone looking to get in shape - not just bowflex users
This is not a bowflex manual.This is a manual on how to change your body.All of the pictures and illustrations are with the Bowflex.But, the exercise plan can be performed on any home gym - the only requirement is that you can quickly switch between exercises.
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Subjects:  1. Bodybuilding    2. Bodybuilding & Weight Training    3. Consumer Health    4. Exercise    5. Health & Fitness    6. Health/Fitness    7. Physical fitness    8. Training    9. Exercise & workout books