A must-have muscle-building manual for anyone serious about developing a bigger and stronger physique. Whether you’re an experienced gym-goer or new to lifting this book is essential reading to help you better understand the key principles behind hypertrophy and how to then put them into practice to get the body you want. and best workout routine for building muscle. free audiobook download
Book Review
There are some good tips in this book: e.g. about rest periods, rep speeds, general pointers on form and making sure you 'feel the target muscle'. I'm sure a lot of the book is helpful to a complete novice.
Firstly, the book does come with the caveat that it is supposed to be for beginners...though it does go on to say it could be useful to any gym-goer no matter their experience level. I suppose it's also implicitly qualified by the fact it's to be part of an encyclopedic series and so shouldn't give you everything. But for a book grandly titled 'Men's Fitness 7 Rules of Building Muscle PDF ' by the leading personal trainers in the country, who I know have so much good advice to give, and which runs to 177 pages, this book was a real disappointment, that contains best workout for building muscle. free ebooks download for android
From page 81 onwards you have exercise guides: well over half the book. There's nothing in and of itself wrong with that, but it includes things like 2 pages on how to perform a leg extension (and in those 2 pages there is a section set aside for 'What you need' and 'Notes' that takes up half a page, the only information it has is 'You need a leg extension machine'). In nearly every gym the machine itself has a series of pictures and instructions telling you to sit down, extend your leg, and return to the starting point. People, even novices, don't need that sort of information. Inexplicably*, things like squats, dead lifts and actually complicated moves that would need treatment in a book by experts don't get a mention. Two pages telling someone how to do a machine-based exercise is pretty redundant in my eyes.free books online
*Well, the reason cited is that beginners often can't perform the moves with good form, so the book will only treat the easier stuff that everyone can safely do...but to me that's a cop out. No one needs a book on the easy stuff you can glean from 10 minutes spent browsing bodybuilding.com. read books online free
More interestingly, there were two ab exercises listed: best workout routine for building muscle the crunch and the reverse crunch. Building good ab muscles is something I've struggled with so I was looking forward to this section. The form tips were nice about focusing on shortening the distance between your belly button and sternum: great tip to focus on contracting the abs. But...2 exercises? Is that all one needs? More importantly: why those 2? And do they do different parts of the abs? They apparently both have the same primary target muscle according to the book: so why should I do them both? Does one not target the upper abs more? I simply don't know. You'd think so, one being the reverse of the other, but this book doesn't say.free books to read
It's a problem that runs through the book: it lacks detail. And without the detail, you don't really know where to go. The book has info on the 45 degree incline leg press, horizontal leg press, split squat, and front and rear elevated split squat. They all apparently target the exact same primary and second muscle groups. There is no more guidance on why any of these 4 different exercise, sometimes subtly different, should be chosen. If we're talking about performing the same exercise at a different angle, or with feet elevated or not, you'd expect there to be a reason: otherwise, why list them? What does elevating my feet on a split squat do? Absolutely no idea, the book doesn't help. download free ebooks online
I was also disappointed with the beginning sections on the 'principles'. There is a section on different workout phases as part of a 12 week program. I was expecting some insightful advice on when to progress training, maybe something about starting out with a focus on building basic strength before moving later on down the phases to more hypertrophy...and I was expecting some information on the reasons WHY these expert trainers might suggest something like that: the science behind it, what happens to your muscles when you perform low rep strength stuff before the higher rep muscle building stuff. None of that was present. The workout phases were just empty tables of exercise options that you select at your pleasure...but why should I prefer certain exercises? Are they all equal? Why are they labelled phases A, B, C when there is no discernible difference or any commentary on it? I didn't even really know what it was all about. best free books online
There are useful tips. Stuff on how you shouldn't warm up too much or too little: get it 'just right'. And there was a bit of depth to that: mainly warm up by performing the exercise your about to do with lower weight to practice the movement and specifically target those muscles. But ultimately this section suffered because of the premise of the book: it outright says if you feel you have to stretch to perform an exercise, try a different one that needs less flexibility. But sometimes, and rightfully so, beginners want to know how to squat rather than leg press, want to deadlift rather than do a hip extension. Flexibility is a real problem for people, novices included, and I could understand the need for a 180 page book to give people good information on combating this...I don't expect a 180 page book to just say 'do easy stuff', 'use a machine', 'don't stretch because you don't need to'.
I kind of understand that beginners can get quick gains from using these methods that aren't as complex and needing of practice and tutoring. But when you understand that, you don't really know why this book exists. 180 pages is quite a lot, and it's quite a lot on the very easy stuff that basically people get an understanding of free of charge by googling things. In a sense I felt this line of criticism was unfair: the book says in the intro it's not going to concern itself with difficult things, can I really criticise it for not doing something it never was meant to do? Well, I think it is fair criticism: the book feels a bit pointless. It's hefty, it's expensive, it's by the leading experts. I felt what it says could be said and is said by hundreds of competent personal trainers at commercial gyms.