I disagree with the reviews above. I feel this book is really confusing. Ive been weight training, on and off, for 7 years at least. Due to lack of progress and chronic shoulder injuries I was forced to rethink my training program and start from scratch; back to the basics.
The book is basically split up as follows:
1) Basics: make up of muscles, stretching, Reps, Sets
2)Set programs A, B, C, D Starting with program A for beginners and ending with D for athletes.
3)Exercises: The above programs contain a number of recommended exercises done over a certain time period. this section explains how the exercises in the above programs are performed.
4)A whole section on nuitrtion: the basics, what kind of diet to maintain according to the type of sports youre in, and a bit about supplements.
Now i personally had no problems till i reached the set programs section. Personally i was hoping the book would teach me how to tailor programs for my own needs. I was more than happy to do set programs, except for the fact that the book was very vague in a few areas. For example, how many sets should one do for each exercise performed. To say that athletes can do such and such number of sets and that beginners should do so and so isn't very helpful for someone trying to get back into training. Plus there is no real mention of whether or not one should incrementally increase weights from set to set. I mean does one stick to one workload weight or increase as one goes on in the same exercise?
I don't know. This maybe a good book for some but it definitely left me more confused than I was to begin with. This is not a book that can be used to tailor your programs at all, which is what I was looking for. Out of fairness I cant say that the set programs don't work as I haven't tried them out. This is the first Weider book ive purchased and it hasn't given me a good first impression. And the only reason i gave this book a two star was because of the few bits of information here and there that i found useful. Definitely not for everyone.
