book reviews
“Power Lifting” by Dan Austin and Bryan Mann
“Power Lifting” contains a lot of good information about the physiology of building muscle. There are entire chapters dedicated to stretching (dynamic vs. static) and each of the main power lifts. Another chapter is on “foundational training” which details exercises to prepare your body for the power lifts. Their chapter on the psychology of lifting is mostly about the differences between those who depend upon a high state of arousal and those who approach the lift coolly and calmly. Personally, I see the benefit psyched yourself up for a lift, since it does increase my lift, but as I get older and am trying more technical lifts, more and more I prefer approaching a lift in a mindset attentive to form.
“Body Building Strategies” by Mohamed El-Hewie is oddly not about traditional body building. This is not a book to turn you into a “body building” champion, but instead a very technical manual for building your body from the inside out.
Basically, he believes that the most important muscles are not the traditional muscle groups (chest, legs, arms) but the muscles along the spine. Those are the muscles that hold it all together, and you in a proper and upright position. He also writes more about the relationship between bones and muscles than any of the other writers I just read. He advocates exercising the entire body each session, since that is how we apply strength in the real world.
Tony Xhudo’s “How to Build Muscle in Your Advanced Years” was disappointing because there isn’t actually any advice for people in their advanced years that is different than advice you could give someone in their twenties. The advantage of the book is that he spends a high percentage of his book discussing diet and supplements, and his explanation about how “cortisol release” means people should only lift weights for 45 minutes at a session.
In “Strong Enough” I got the impression that Mark Rippotee is very annoyed with the world, and I tend to agree with him. His book is a blunt and often coarse defense of old fashioned, hard core weight lifting. There is a lot of good information for beginners, and a lot of warnings about doctors who think they know more about weight lifting than sports specialists and con men trying to make money off our insecurities by getting us to buy pills and gadgets that distract people from real exercise.
“Power Lifting” contains a lot of good information about the physiology of building muscle. There are entire chapters dedicated to stretching (dynamic vs. static) and each of the main power lifts. Another chapter is on “foundational training” which details exercises to prepare your body for the power lifts. Their chapter on the psychology of lifting is mostly about the differences between those who depend upon a high state of arousal and those who approach the lift coolly and calmly. Personally, I see the benefit psyched yourself up for a lift, since it does increase my lift, but as I get older and am trying more technical lifts, more and more I prefer approaching a lift in a mindset attentive to form.
“Body Building Strategies” by Mohamed El-Hewie is oddly not about traditional body building. This is not a book to turn you into a “body building” champion, but instead a very technical manual for building your body from the inside out.
Basically, he believes that the most important muscles are not the traditional muscle groups (chest, legs, arms) but the muscles along the spine. Those are the muscles that hold it all together, and you in a proper and upright position. He also writes more about the relationship between bones and muscles than any of the other writers I just read. He advocates exercising the entire body each session, since that is how we apply strength in the real world.
Tony Xhudo’s “How to Build Muscle in Your Advanced Years” was disappointing because there isn’t actually any advice for people in their advanced years that is different than advice you could give someone in their twenties. The advantage of the book is that he spends a high percentage of his book discussing diet and supplements, and his explanation about how “cortisol release” means people should only lift weights for 45 minutes at a session.
In “Strong Enough” I got the impression that Mark Rippotee is very annoyed with the world, and I tend to agree with him. His book is a blunt and often coarse defense of old fashioned, hard core weight lifting. There is a lot of good information for beginners, and a lot of warnings about doctors who think they know more about weight lifting than sports specialists and con men trying to make money off our insecurities by getting us to buy pills and gadgets that distract people from real exercise.