18th century's approach to strengthening: bulking and artistic illustration, with minimal fitness.

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	• Getting Stronger: Weight Training for Sports Bill Pearl Shelter Publications, 2005 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 53 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Good overall guide with more exercises than most weight training books.

I have searched MANY books on weight training and have found this to be the most comprehensive, offering the most variety of exercises - suitable for home and gym alike. This is by far the most inclusive book I have found, and turn back to it frequently so that I can keep my work-out varied.

My main complaint is the lack of emphasis on proper form, something which I find few books do well. More photos would be helpful, but overall, a great book and my current weight training favorite - good for men and women and I believe good for beginners as well as seasoned weight trainers.

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18th century's approach to strengthening: bulking and artistic illustration, with minimal fitness.

In my earlier review of "Weight Training for Men and Women" by the same author, I had addressed the same issues which appear in the current book, which is nothing more than reproducing the previous book under a different title. The reason for my second review is to attempt to answer my own concerning questions. Those are:

1- What are the simplest and basic exercises needed for staying fit versus achieving tip-top athleticism?
2- What are the basic nutritional needs for staying healthy at affordable cost?
3- What are the minimum guidelines for telling the difference between good fitness virtues versus bad ones?

I believe that Bill Pearl has taken the bodybuilding approach for granted as the best way to building strength. There must be a simpler answer to reduce the number of exercises to as low as 3 of 4, and the nutritional needs to basic grocery food stuff. The complicated needs for bodybuilding stand in the way of producing an educated generation of fit citizens. From what you read in this book, the current approach to weight training is more retarded than the 18th century's approach: complex needs for formidable objectives. This approach alienates the majority of people who are looking for affordable, rational, and practical life style of staying fit and strong.

A summary for the book contents follows with reviewer's comments.

- General conditioning: it prepares beginners to joining the world of adult training for the sake of becoming bodybuilders.

- Bodybuilding: a summary of training programs for beginners, intermediate, and advanced trainees with helpful tables of sketches of exercises.

- Strength Training for Sports: an essential discussion on periodization, exercise physiology, and training habits.

- Stretches from Weight Training: a brief and appropriate list of stretching exercises.

- Sports Training Programs: full 100 pages of non-sensual and redundant programs for people who never seek help from a bodybuilding expert. The section on Powerlifting propagates the myth of isolated regional training. Thus the legs are hit hard on one day, the shoulders on another day, and the back on a different day. That is a backward approach to training that even the 18th century athletes would have never contemplated.

- Exercises for Free Weights: This is the thickest chapter in the book. It deals with exercises for isolated body parts. It starts with two anatomical charts that are made in haste. The chart of the front, misplaces the gluteus minimus and that of the back misplaces the two rhomboideus muscles. Neither chart locates the serratus anterior, levator scapulae, abdominis transversus, or the most important muscles: the spinal erectors or quadratus lumborum. Let alone the soleus and vastus intermedius.
Its major pitfalls are: the bent-to-opposite foot (page 192), wide-gripped back squat (page 284), and cross-arm front squat (page 285-7). The first exercise traumatizes the vertebral ligaments, the latter two overlook shoulder flexibility.

- Hardware: is the right place to fill 20 pages with non sense information.

- Fit for Life: deals with low back issues and children's training. Its pitfall lies in designating specific training programs for blue-collar workers and white-collar workers, as if the author could draw the specific health criteria from socioeconomic status.

-Getting Older: is a motivational chapter on training in old age. It is based on personal concern of the author. The over 50's program is merely a personal choice than a reliable recommendation.

-Muscles: is a snap shot on muscle anatomy and function with an attempt to explain the effect of exercise of muscular adaptation.

- Injuries: is a brief outline of sports injuries and the "RICE" first aid.

- Injury Rehabilitation Program: is a useless chapter that lists exercises of back, knee, and shoulders without further details on how to structure any rehab.

- Nutrition: deals with macronutrients, supplements, natural food, and vegetarian eating. It presents both the author's own experience in addition to current knowledge among bodybuilders.

- Drugs: deals with the reason for their use, its statistics, and types: steroids, growth hormone, and stimulants. It discusses two perplexing uses of human chorionic gonadotropin and tamoxifen by bodybuilders for blocking the effect of steroid on breast and testicles. [It might be more shocking to most readers to realize that nutritional health food stores in America sell on-the-self packages that contain steroids. Those cause breast swelling in male bodybuilders with inconvenient knobbing and hardening of the breast tissue. (Ref.: personal encounter is a local gym)].

- Brief History of Resistance Exercise: is the best chapter in the book. It contains rare photos and stories from the 18th century and attempts to document the history of lifting. Its best photo belongs to Arthur Saxon's one-hand press of his two brothers loaded on a bar. The hitch, in that photo, is that the loaded bar does not show a yielding curve, which raises doubt about the authenticity of the photograph.

Mohamed F. El-Hewie
Author of
Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training

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Solid, timeless book for everyone from reformed couch potatoes to competitive bodybuilders

There are no silly fads here or wacko advice from the latest kid-wonder--just solid time-tested training weight training programs. I've used them, and I know they work for me, and I'm not particularly genetically talented for muscle-building. There is a heavy emphasis on free weights, which Bill Pearl believes provide the best workout. It's also very useful that most of the exercises in the book can be done in a fairly inexpensive home gym.

As a female reviewer, I can also say this is great book for women. When I first bought the first-edition of book in the early 1990s, it was the only one I'd seen which advocated that women train like men. Specifically, that means free-weight exercises, including the bench press, and weights which are difficult on the last rep, in order to gain strength. He wasn't just talking out of his hat either, as he trained regularly with his wife, Judy, who has a beautiful, trim, feminine body. Today it's widely accepted that if women train like men they will gain strength without bulking up, but I give Bill Pearl credit for being one of the first to popularize that truth. The new edition of the book, which I bought recently, has an updated section on women.

I disagree with the earlier reviewer that photographs would be better than the simple line drawings in the book. The training programs with mini line drawings are excellent to photocopy and take to the gym! I've never seen a book with such convenient 'memory jogs' when you're still learning your program. The drawings are based on photographs of Bill and Judy working out, so they are accurate. Each mini-picture refers you to a page with a larger drawing and complete description of the exercise--so if you need more info, you just go there.

I also disagree that this book is only for serious obsessive body builders. I'm a very average person and it has helped me enormously over the years! At least 3/4 of the book is geared to average people or athletes whose main sport is not weight training. The book starts with three "general conditioning" programs for beginners--which gives you about six months of workouts. Once you've worked through those programs you can decide to remain in a general conditioning track for strength and good health or move to either a sports-training track or a more serious bodybuilding track.

I've read quite a few weight-training books, and this all-time classic is still the best.

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Very Useful Guide

I started weight training a little over a year ago and have looked at so many different books (most of them from the library.) This one is definitely the cream of the crop and is one of the few books I actually bought. It's very comprehensive and is like an encyclopedia of training moves for different body parts. It also gives info about what kind of strength training is helpful for various sports, so you can build muscle where you need it most. It does focus mostly on free weights, though it discusses weight machines too. It gives various routines from beginner to advanced and it even has a chapter on the history of body building (quite interesting!) The best thing about it though is the variety it offers. I get bored doing the same thing over and over and this book has been very useful to me in that regard. When I start to feel bored, I simply change my workout by choosing different excercies for each muscle group. I think even a seasoned body builder would find this book useful. Bill Pearl is also a vegetarian (ovo-lacto) and offers smart advice about food and weight training.

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Great!

I am just getting back into working out with weights as it has been about eight years. Since then, I have forgotten everything and a trainer in my gym referred this book. I love it! Every day I go through and pick out the parts of the body I am going to work out and I am able to choose new techniques I have forgotten or have never tried before. It has been a few months and I love my results. This book shows you the proper way of doing things and what I like is it tells you exactly what part of the muscle(s) you are working. I recommend it for everyone that is just starting out or that needs some new techniques.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Written by Bill Pearl, a four-time Mr. Universe, and widely regarded as the best general book on weight training available, Getting Stronger contains specific strength training programs for 21 sports as well as general conditioning. The book includes more than 100 one-page fitness programs that can be performed by simply following the illustrations, while each lift is keyed to a section with specific instructions for that lift. The 20th anniversary edition includes new sections on nutrition, supplements, injury rehabilitation, stretching, and equipment.

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