Men's Health: The Book of Muscle : The World's Most Authoritative Guide to Building Your Body Hardcover – October 17, 2003

This review is probably showing under my wife's name. Not that a female can't do these things..just wanted to clear that part up. After numerous attempts to start up weight training (the last being an all time long, 8-week stint in the fall of 2008 which ended due to injury), I got this book purely on the rave reviews plus a sampling of an Ian King routine I had found in one of the Men's Health magazines. Going through this book, the physiology of muscle building, the detailed pictures of the exercises and then finally the workout routines....I was impressed through and through. I've gotten friends to get this book as well and they're loving it.What I liked about the Beginner program:1 - It stresses form, form, form over trying to do impressive looking weights. Bad form will get you injured.2 - It stresses tempo. You'll see a lot of people at the gym doing their reps as fast as they can. There are times where this is fine, but in general it's not. Too fastcan also lead to injury.3 - At the time, I didn't understand why the first few phases were all single leg, dumbbells, and none of the more common exercises like the bench press, the squat, etc. I came to realize it spends the time developing a solid foundation for your body to build upon once the big, compound exercises come. Without focusing on ironing out weak links or strength imbalances, getting into the compound exercises will likely lead to injury sooner or later.4 - Pictures and descriptions of the exercises. For the vast majority, it shows and explains the exercises in plenty of detail. There are a couple, where after I've tried it once, I was looking for more detail on, but a simple google search solved those problems.What I didn't like about the Beginner program:1 - the early phases took a long time if you did all the circuits it calls for. I was getting to 2 hrs for a workout. What I realized later was .. you do what you can do and they give you ranges to achieve. So, rather than follow it to the dot...adjust when necessary....yep ..only complaint I had.What this book is not:This book does not advertise itself to be anything more than a strength/muscle building book. In that aspect, it achieves its goal with flying colors. Note this book is not a book on nutrition nor is it a weight loss book. It touches on both topics a little bit, but just enough to point you in the right direction. In 5 months, I lost a net of 5 lbs. But my waist size got smaller (as the need for new jeans indicated) and overall slimmed down. Went from wearing XL shirts to M/L. During this last month, I started The Abs Diet ... just the nutrition/eating part... and stuck with The Book of Muscle for the workouts. I've lost 5lbs in this last month while continuing to gain strength. Next is to incorporate more cardio in the off days.Conclusions:I'm 32 years old...my longest weight training stint before was 8 weeks. I started into the compound moves too quickly before my body was ready and I ended up getting injured. During this beginner program, I've yet to get injured and the slower tempo helps you hear what your body is saying. In case anyone cared or was curious...here's kinda of my achievements...and we'll just go with the last 4 months since that's when the big compound exercises started. (these are weights for at least 6 reps)Bench press - started at 115 ... doing 170 nowMilitary press - started at 55 ...doing 115 nowSquat - started at 95 ...doing 205 nowDeadlift - started at 135 ...doing 230 now.Can't wait to see where I'm at after the intermediate program is done!

I purchased this book after learning about Ian King from a reference in Tom Venuto's BFFM ebook. All I was looking for was a new way to split up my workouts.Background1. I have been working out for more than 20 years and have read and tried many programs including high volume and low volume workouts.2. I've followed a 3-6x week lifting regimen. Since turning 40, I settled into 4 days lifting and 3 cardio. My results have always been mediocre. I was following the BodyRX program. After an initial 10 lb weight loss, I actually never lost another pound and ;earned I was eating far too much (thanks BFFM).3. Mostly I focused on big muscle exercises using machines: Leg Press, Chest Press, Pulldowns, Rows and then supplemented with extensions, curls etc. I have not deadlifted or squatted for over 15 years because it made my back sore and didn't allow me to "focus" on the muscles being worked.Results:I started with the Intermediate program because the advanced program had so many strange exercises and rep schemes I hadn't done before. I am now in the 10th week of the program. I workout MWF. I do 30-40 minutes of bike riding 6 days a week because I want to lose 25 lbs. It's my warmup and lifting days and my cardio on off days. I do yoga at home on cardio days for my stretching- otherwise my lifting workouts would be too long.1. I stopped using wrist straps when I started BOM. For the past 20 years I used them for all of my back exercises because my grip always gave out before my lats did. My forearms are stronger and more muscular than ever. I figured by this time I would always have a weak grip and small forearms. That appears to be untrue. My back seems to not have suffered at all although sometimes my grip gives out at the end of a set.2. My calves have muscle in places they hadn't before even though I train them less than I did before. I know it is because of squatting because I felt a pain in the same area that muscle subsequently developed.3. My abs, which I thought were strong, were not. They are getting stronger. I work them 3x weekly vs. my old 1x weekly.4. My lower back has not been sore from squatting or deadlifting. In fact, I've grown to love these two exercises because they make me feel like I've really worked out instead of my old "going through the motions" workouts.Am I stronger? Yes.Am I leaner- surprisingly yes. I credit this to BFFM food tracking, eating less calories and doing more cardio.Am I more muscular? Certainly in my glutes, quads, calves and forearms. I am hoping to see similar gains in my chest, backs and arms in the coming stages.This program changes every 3 weeks. By the time I am familiar with the exercise and start to add serious weight, it's time to start a new stage.This has kept me mentally invigorated and seems to be working.Go figure- a book from Men's Health and a 3x weekly workout has re-charged this 41 year old guy who just wanted to lose 20 lbs, have bigger biceps and learn a new split.I also bought "Get Buffed" from Ian King. That's the predecessor to this book. I tried creating a 4 day workout plan from it, but got overwhelmed with the new info and decided to try BOM first. I am glad I did.Book Review-The detailed exercise instructions and pictures help a lot, especially for some of the odd exercises like King Deadlifts and 1 leg squats. Also Deadlift and Squats were well detailed. I needed this because I had never done them correctly before.The exercise physiology and the conclusions drawn from limited studies (very Men's Health like) didn't add much value for me.I wish the workouts referenced the page the exercises were on. I have to flip through pages a lot when creating my new routine.I also wish there were templates available for the workout tracker. I create my own in Numbers (or excel). But it would be easier if they were downloadable.I highly recommend reading this book and trying the workouts if you are not getting the results you want.