Training Books

This is a great book for anyone who is looking for a better understanding of exercise physiology.

This book is incredible in its details. You get a complete picture of how each muscle is used during a certain exercise. I've never seen a book with this level of detail. Great for both men and women who lift to get a better understanding of muscles used. Includes upper and lower body diagrams!

I had hit a plato in my strength training and the CTO of my company recommended this book because it shows different way to focus on the same muscle groups. This book is very helpful and the diagrams are so detailed, also points out incorrect ways of doing exercises which helps prevent injury. I got everything that I expected out of this book! Amazing book for the value.

If your new to working out then this book is for you. If you know the basics already then you don't really need this book.

If you are looking for a no nonsense book to show you exercises that target certain areas of the body without a lot of fluff, then this is the book for you. It is a great guide if you are looking for guidance on how to properly lift weights, or target muscle groups for growth. It is set up very well. If you are working out arms, you simply turn to the "arms" section and pick the exercises you want to do. It even gives you tips on how to avoid injuries like torn rotator cuffs, back, etc. I highly recommend it if you are getting started at resis5tance and weight training.

I read this book back in 2002 and 2003 while I was training for my first marathon. I just pulled it out and started reading it again recently and it is such a great book. Full of information and motivation to help with marathon training. I wish I would have gone to a college that offered a marathon class!

This book has good information on training for marathons.
I am looking forward to mine in Dec.

I liked the book: it is well-written and has a lot of useful information on how to start running in general and how to train for marathon in particular.

I am a physical therapist who also enjoys (???) running. This past Fall, I finished my 2nd marathon in Appleton, WI. My first was Grandma's in Duluth, MN in 2002 (before children). This second marathon I used the same program but had to add the walk to run progarm in also as I had a one year old and a two year old at home now! I was not quite in the same shape I had been for the previous marathon. The program is wonderfully flexible with only 4 days of training a week. I printed the small schedule in the front chapter up and used to mark off my runs. Reading the chapters a second time still was important to train the mental endurance. As a therapist, I really love the stressing of completion and not speed. Reading each chapter a week helps to mentally prepare for the runs and stay focused on the weekly runs and the marathon itself. It is such an accomplishment to complete the race that setting time goals should only be broad- I'll finish in under 7 hours. I would be very interested in reading the women's book but would love them to write another book for 'subsequent' marathoners. The issues of mental endurance, life balance, and aging bodies would be good additional chapters to write about.
I have used the walk to run program for many of my patients who want to return to their prior level of running after injury with very good results. If you are even thinking of just getting into running this book is a great book and you may just decide 'why not try the marathon'.

Bought this book to start training for the Chicago Marathon. I am 50 years old and have never run a marathon. It is a week-by-week training guide that essentially guarantees that you will be able to finish the marathon if you follow their plan. The book is very easy reading. The chapters are written to read for each week of training. Works with your physical and psychological potential obstacles for completion of the marathon. So far, so good. I'll let you know whether it delivers after October 12, 2008!

There is a great divide in America between those in the military and those who are not. Nowhere is that divide more total than in the elite universities, where virtually no one knows anyone in the military or has any sympathy for it. This book is a very rare bridge between those two worlds. Fick graduated from Dartmouth in 1998, became an elite Marine officer, fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and then went back to graduate school. This is his memoir.

The primary subject of the book is the training that a Marine officer goes through, the transformation from an ordinary person into a warrior. It is extremely well written. The pace is relatively slow, and the reader is able to go along with Fick on his emotional journey from Ivy League student to Marine officer.

Fick happened to finish his training as an officer, just as 9/11 was happening. He thus jointed the military, when we were still at peace, and was a very junior officer, just as the war was starting. He gives an excellent account of some of the early fighting -- and early mistakes -- in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was rotated out of Iraq, just after Saddam fell, however, so his account is limited to the early war, before the counter-insurgency started. In short, a very valuable, well worth reading for many reasons, but very out of date, for those wanting to understand the Iraq War.

This is a great read for those concerned with how we train our Marine Corps officers. An added bonus: an inside view on the early US incursion in Afghanistan and how we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the early days in Bagdad. I've bought at least a dozen copies for interested friends.

Captain Fick has done the Corps and the American public a great service with this insightful and well written book. In it, he explores what it means to be a platoon commander, responsible for many young lives while leading them into battle. Fick does not hold back in either detail or in exploring his own emotions, giving the reader the best possible sense of what it is like to be a small unit leader in the US Marine Corps.

Fick begins by detailing the process of becoming a Marine officer: Officer Candidate School, The Basic School, and the Infantry Officer's Course. He discusses the difficult and often frustrating training that he is put through, and the resulting transformation that he undergoes from young man into lean, tough Marine.

Then, through the lens of his deployments to Afghanistan with the 1st Marines and Iraq with 2nd Recon, he gives the reader a firsthand sense of the boredom, fear, and excitement of combat, the pride in seeing his platoons perform well in the most dangerous situations, and the incredible frustration at being led by weak and incompetent officers.

One Bullet Away, together with Generation Kill, the companion book written by Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright about young enlisted Marines in the same Recon platoon, is easily the best book available on the first part of the war in Iraq. It does not give a clear picture of the overall strategy or the way that the war played out on a macro-level. It is not intended to. Rather, One Bullet Away is meant to put the reader into the mind of a young Marine officer at war. For its ability to give the reader a sense of the lives of individual Marines on the ground in combat, this book is unsurpassed.

This is a no frills account of a marine officer in the making four years before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. U.S. Marine captain Nathaniel Fick qualified for Marine Officer Candidates School (OCS) in Quantico, Virginia, by completing a three mile run in under 18 minutes, twenty dead-hang pull-ups followed by one hundred crunches in under two minutes.

Following a combat tour in Afghanistan, Mr. Fick joined the elite Recon Marine division, a feat accomplished by only one percent of marines. At the conclusion of his training, he led a force of twenty two marines in the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion to war at the opening bell of combat in Iraq.

Mr. Fick ended his stint in the military upon his return from Iraq because he was too deeply affected by the collateral damage inflicted on the innocent during war. Fick was eager for combat, and killing the enemy was of little consequence to him for a short period, but he had become a reluctant warrior. He couldn't stomach a career in killing people or witnessing the killing of the men he was in charge of.

Nathaniel Fick is currently an MBA candidate at the Harvard School of Business, proving himself again as one of the few, the proud.

"One Bullet Away" lacks the climactic battles in David Bellavia's "House to House" and Marcus Luttrell's "Lone Survivor", but it more than makes up for it with depth. Mr. Fick's story resembles less the breakneck speed battles of "Saving Private Ryan", and more the slow, methodical and philosophical approach of "The Thin Red Line".

Captain Fick is refreshingtly candid about his experience in the military, and provides a well balanced view of life in the Marine Corps before, during and after combat.

One Bullet Away is Fick's memoir of his time after joining the Marine Corp in the summer of 1998 up through 9/11 his units deployment to Afghanistan and then Iraq.

If you ever wanted to know what it takes to be a leader, Fick tells you in no uncertain terms. It isn't candy coated or prettied up, he is honest and straightforward. Qualities it takes to be a truly effective leader. As he finds out on the first day: "Honor, courage, and commitment are the Marines' core values. [...] If you can't be honest at OCS, how can the Corps trust you to lead men in combat?"

And lead men Captain Fick does, as a Weapon's Platoon Lieutenant on his first day in the Fleets and into Afghanistan after 9/11 and then in Recon where he leads his men into Iraq on invasion day. Fick's accounts are gritty and honest. You can feel the frustration that only military life can bring out in someone and at the same time you can feel the immense pride that comes with accomplishing something important.

In the end, Fick leaves the Corp he feels he was destined to belong to and concludes:



In June, one year after coming home from Iraq, I dragged a childhood friend to the Civil War battlefield in Antietam in western Maryland. I wanted to walk the ground. Among the split-rail fences and restored cannons, I saw RPGs and fedayeen. Where would I have put my machine guns to defend the Cornfield? How would Hitman two have assaulted the Bloody Lane?

The sun was warm on my arms, and bees buzzed through the tall grass as we meandered towards Burnside Bridge. There, on the afternoon of America's bloodiest day, troops made three unsuccessful attempts to cross Antietam Creek under withering fire. We stood at the center of the span with our hands on the stones.

"Was it a waste?" I asked.

"No," she replied. "They won, and Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. They freed the slaves, the way you freed the Afghans."

I didn't answer.

"Think about the women under the Taliban and the poor Iraqis under Saddam," she continued seizing a chance to change the subject. "You helped do so much good for so many people. Why can't you take comfort in that?"

Staring down at the water, I measured my words, running through a justification I'd given myself a thousand times before. The good was abstract. The good didn't feel as good as the bad felt bad. It wasn't the good that kept me up at night.

"You sound so unprincipled," she said, shaking her head. "Why can't you find peace in what you and your men sacrificed so much to do? Why can't you be proud?"

I took sixty-five men to war and brought sixty-four home. I gave them everything I had. Together, we passed the test. Fear didn't beat us. I hope life improves for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, but that's not why we did it. We fought for each other.

I am proud.

And proud you should be Captain Fick.

Hi

I teach Crossfit [...] and this book is quite simply Brilliant. It is also a great companion for crossfitters to help with technique. If you want to really learn the lifts, if you want to get stronger this is the place to go. Be warned this is not a hone and tone body building book but a great work dedicated to compound lifts and the development of strength.

Just buy it !

This is the best book on weight training I've read, and I've read a lot of them.

I wish I had had it 15 years ago. If you know a young person getting into strength training, buy them this book.

Also get Practical Programming for Strength Training, by the same authors. Consider getting Science and Practice of Strength Training by Zatsiorsky and Kraemer if you want the footnotes. Though frankly, all these books could use better footnotes.

One tiny quibble is that the book is strongly focused on strength training, as it says in the title. This isn't the same thing as fitness or aesthetics, which are probably more common motivators for weight training. As far as I know there are no really good books on weight training for non-strength goals. Yes, I've read Stuart McRobert.

Coach Rip applies a perfect amount of dry whit to his rock solid understanding of weight training and delivers a tutorial that is as readable as it is helpful. Starting Strength gives an insight to both form and function of barbell training that your everyday coach/trainer does not have and cannot provide.

Highly recommended for anyone that wants to improve their strength, and especially recommended for anyone that is in the position to be instructing others in weight training.

I'm not an expert on training, but from the reviews I've read and all the info Ive come across on Rippetoe, this a must read. If all the principles on this book are true, which they sure seem from the detailed explanations and the depth of the physiological discussion, this book explains all you need to know to become strong and healthy. My results so far are awesome, not only because I feel much healthier and stronger, and I look better, but most of all, because I like the workout so much I just can think about anything else than going back to the gym. And I'm a guy who never enjoyed exercise much at all.

This is one of the best strength training books I have invested money and time into. It covers the dominant strength exercises in detail and includes great photos to enhance the learning process. This is well worth the money if you plan on getting strong and doing it the right way.

All the information police, soldiers and other warriors have been missing for over fifty years is right here in this solid volume.

Lt Col Grossman and Loren Christensen put it all together. They've created terms we did not know we needed, for things we didn't even know occurred. Grossman has a cute but very apt description of the function of the midbrain, fulfilled by 'the puppy,' as he calls it. He calls fear of human violence the 'universal phobia,' and tells you why it's universal. He gives a brief overview of what happens to your body when 'fight-or-flight' kicks in, then delves deeply into sensory distortions experienced in life-or-death situations. This is only the beginning.

The authors divulge the training a person needs to enter the 'toxic, corrosive realm of combat,' and why we need those who are willing to do so. Stress and fear innoculation, dealing with killing, being wounded, and cultural issues are dealt with in section three.

Sometimes the aftermath is far more traumatic to a person than the 5 minute episode of all hell breaking loose. The authors use almost 100 pages to discuss what happens after the smoke clears: PTSD, debriefings, a full explanation of tactical breathing, guilt, and communicating with those who've been 'there.' Along with the guilt issue, the author also addresses the conflicts that can develop from within because of a person's religious beliefs after killing.

I believe this book to be of immense value to all emergency responders, police, and military personnel. After borrowing it and reading it, I've ordered it and recommended it to just about everyone I know in those communities.

I would have a hard time recommending this book to anyone on the outside, which is part of why I rated it a four. There is a large amount of insider jargon, and a cultural bias, in the warrior community. This will not translate well for those Lt Col Grossman refers to as 'the herd.'

The second reason I gave it a four is the physical quality of the book. The binding seperated from the spine almost immediately, and I can see the cover coming off within a few readings.

David Grossman continues his analysis of the warrior mind and consciousness, and provides valuable insights and advice to those
on the front lines of war abroad and police work at home.
However, the strength of the book is serious diluted by largely unedited inclusions of Grossman's training presentations. The excessively colloquial and informal language of oral presentations to "insider audiences" of police officers and soldiers does not make for an effective
book. Much is lost in the transition, which Grossman does not handle in a professional manner. On Combat needed a good, honest editor whose strong hand on the keyboard would have vastly improved the tone and style.

This book is a goldmine on combat and killing psychology . A must read for everybody interested in physical and mental mechanism involved in the process.

On Killing read more like a study of a subject in need of research, but On Combat is much more developed and geared towards preparing the reader for how his mind and body will react to a combat environment both during and after the crucible of battle. This book should be required reading for law enforcement and the armed services.

Another great book from Lt Col Grossman (Ret). This book is a little different from his first one (On Killing), which was an over view of stress in combat soldiers over our history. This book is perfect for law enforcement officers and those alike who deal with more violent people then the public on a daily basis. I have been a State Trooper for 6yrs now and this helps me under stand the different feelings I have had during my different encounters while on the Patrol. Just A Really Great Book!

You may never have heard of Frank Bettger (prounced Betch-er)but thousands of sales professionals attribute their success to reading his book, "How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling."

Bettger gives practical timeless advice on improving your salesmanship. Simple things like listen more than you speak, continue your education, act with integrity, think of your customers needs more than your own may sound old fashioned, but they still work wonders.

I read Bettger every year and I never fail to pick up something new and valuable.

Highest Recommendation!

Cheers!

How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling

I have read this book over 15 times in the past 10 years, because it is the BEST book on selling that I've ever read. It is common sense and real world in its approach. It has been in print since 1947, and that speaks volumes.

Every book on sales uses the core principles that Frank Bettger laid out in this classic manual in 1947. These principles remain an effective part of the repertoire of most successful sales professionals. Bettger shows his belief in Dale Carnegie's putting-people-first tactics with his inspiring language, skilled storytelling and bedrock principles. While some of his syntax, especially the gender-specific pronoun use, is dated and the dollar amounts are small compared to today's figures, getAbstract suggests that every salesperson should read and master this basic, practical guide.

My initial contact with Bettger's wisdom was some 27 years ago through an audiotape version of his book. Now, I've been reacquainted with the man through his book. What a timeless nugget of wisdom! This book,in its virtuous compactness, has turned out to be The BEST book from which I've learned much that is priceless in effective communications (sales). In fact, it is so priceless to me that it has become a constant companion, occupying an enviable corner of my briefcase. I recommend this book very, very highly to any serious-minded sales/communications apprentice, anywhere, anytime. Read, re-read, internalize, practice, and watch the positive results materialize, inexorably!! Things (generations, perceptions and culture) may change, yet there appears to be a constant theme and thread common to them all. This book, in my opinion, transcends those boundaries...

This is a classic book on fundamental sales techniques that remains sound after 60 years and dozens of printings. Yes, some of the pronouns are out of date (he assumes that all the sales professionals are men and all the secretaries are women - or that there are even secretaries - and so forth) and the dollar amounts given are made largely irrelevant by the inexorable power of inflation. However, the principles Frank Bettger laid down in 1947 will still work for any sales person working today.

Bettger is closely associated with his mentor, Dale Carnegie and his compelling use of language and story will remind you of the sound of the self-help books of that era. He provides 35 short chapters divided into six parts.

In part 1 Bettger wants you to learn to act with enthusiasm. Even if you don't feel it now, if you learn to act with energy and enthusiasm, you will soon feel it and it will become the fuel of your success. He also talks about the power of making calls. You can't sell until you get in front of people and you need to call a few people to get the appointment (he calls them interviews). Soon you will have a ratio of calls-sales-close that you can study and make more efficient. Bettger also wants you to get over fear and hesitation in talking with people you don't know by taking a public speaking course - one where you actually get to speak a lot and learn from supportive and constructive criticism. He also wants you to plan you schedule by the week so you know what you are doing and then execute the plan. He also tells you to record what you did and what came of it. There are examples planning sheets. However, you can find great day planners nowadays from many different companies.

Part 2 takes you though his sales method. Basically, he shows you ways of finding out what a person wants and providing it for them. Bettger shows you how to find what your client's "vulnerable spots" are. That is, what his motivators and needs are. You also need to learn how to connect with people. One way is to learn and use their name, find out about their hobbies, their family, and so forth. Write it all down and refer to it before you go to see the client so you can ask about his interests and show a personal interest in him. Bettger also takes you through his steps in the sales process, how to overcome objections, why you should ask why to get past the stated objection to the real objection.

Part 3 is all about confidence. You need to be confident in yourself and nothing is more important to that than your personal integrity and honesty. You also need the confidence of your clients, and Bettger shows you how to earn that by being honest, using testimonials, a professional appearance, and a courteous demeanor.

Part 4 discusses the importance of getting people to WANT to do business with you. He advises you to identify young people with talent and to encourage and help them in their career. You are going to be in business for a long time and helping develop these young people will help connect them to you as they rise. He wants you to smile, remember names (and tells you how), warns you against talking your way out of a sale, and how to approach what he calls "big men" - what we might call C-level executives.

Part 5 takes you through the mechanics of the sales process and how it begins before the sale. He is totally committed to selling by appointment, how to get "secretaries" (gatekeepers) on your side, why you must prepare for each sales presentation and why you must right down what went well and what went poorly immediately after you leave. You also learn why you should let the customer work your demo, getting leads from new customers, rules for closing the sale, and why you must show up with a prepared order or contract where all the person needs to do is sign the order. Assume the sale!

Part 6 talks about the powerful learning experience you get from failure. You must never let setbacks cause you to give up or quit. He uses Benjamin Franklin's method for moral perfection as a model for perfecting your sales process and then talks to you about why you need to get to work now and how fleeting time really is.

Excellent book for anyone in sales, considering a sales career, or managing salespeople.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

Another good one from Mark. Makes you think of horses in a whole new way has you step into their world so to speak. A must read!

Mark has written a nice book, not clearly a manual or a How to.. book but a text full of experiences. It's not literature about horses but a book about different horses and experiences, giving clues about horsenalities and personalities. A fun and interesting book.

Quite simply, I love horses, and I loved this book.

What Mark writes about horses and humans gets to the heart of what life's all about. If I was the CEO of a big company, I'd bring this cowboy in to talk horse with my upper management, let them figure out why. I relate to his idea of quiet leadership.

I've since read three of Mark's other books. All of them have something unique to say, Mr. Rashid is a man with sharp prespective on life and a way with words.

We learn that when we have problems with horses it is because our attitude is not adapted to the horses nature. It shows us that anything a horse does is dictated by his nature, we musn't take it personally, we just have to figure out how to help de horse to understand the situation wihout using any kind of force. Many examples show that the thing to do is very simple...we tend to make things more difficult for the horse.

Mark has a way to really draw you into his stories! I always enjoy reading anything this man writes. What a sense of humor!

This book is simply fantastic. Yes, there are some old or simplified opinions, but as for tool for explaining how the airplane flies, invaluable.

I remember reading and re-reading this text as a young boy--fascinated by everything and anything related to airplanes--flying imaginary airplanes in my head with the admonition to always 'watch my angle of attack'. When I finally got my pilot's license years later, I credit this book with doing the most to make me a safe and confident pilot (second only to my great instructor.) It dispels the popular belief in the general public that the rudder turns the plane and the throttle makes it go faster, and explains to pilots the reality of flight: the elevator controls angle of attack and hence airspeed, the ailerons control the turn, and the rudder is primarily a means of correcting for physical phenomenon such as adverse yaw. Even today the largest killer of pilots is the stall/spin, the result of hoping that pulling back on the stick will make the ground go away, or that more inside rudder will fix that overshoot on final. Yes, Mr. Langewiesche repeats the point again and again, but it's worth repeating: the stick controls the angle of attack, and if you don't exceed the critical angle of attack, the plane won't stall. If the plane doesn't stall, it doesn't spin either. It's that simple, and that profound.

Yes, the physics and writing style are outdated (read Smith's "Illustrated Guide to Aerodynamics" for a more complete yet still readable explanation of the physics of lift, and why Bernoulli's 'suction' and Langewiesche's 'downwash' are just two different ways of looking at the same phenomenon.) And if you're flying a modern unstable fighter or fly-by-wire jumbo jet Langewiesche's simple concepts break down. For today's modern GA aircraft, however, this is still the most readable text there is for explaining not how an airplane flies, but how to fly them.

To begin, the entire Amazon experience was great. The product itself was the icing on the cake. Any aspiring pilots, or veterans, should consider this a "must read" publication. It clarifies many misled bits of advice, about flight, and makes knowledge of aircraft easily understood.

This is a wonderful book, it's written for the Student pilot. But, it's a great read for all pilots. It covers the big picture and the little things that you may not think of, or may have forgotten. This book may help the new CFI to teach different techniques to the student pilot.

This book is entertaining in many ways: like, if you consider some of the olde-worlde wisdom quaintly phrased, and the author's convictions, sometimes quite erroneous, confidently stated.

It is somewhat useful, as it does give some solid pointers about what to look out for (avoid) and what to do (technique) and what common pilot errors are, including some home-grown practical remedies and prevention.

When the author is writing based on his experience he is insightful, and you will gain a lot from his experience. When the author is trying to educate you on theory he evidently does not understand, he is not dangerous, but may leave you with the wrong idea about how things fly. For example, his vigorous dismissal of the fact that pressure differential between top and bottom surfaces wing causes lift, and his counter assertion that the wing stays up because it pushes the air down, is plain bull. The wings would then need to be at 45 degrees to the plane's longitudinal axis, and the airspeed would need to be humongous if that were true. Also, such a plane would never stall except at low speeds, and would be impossible to stall at high speed :)

The book is cheap. So, as long as you know enough physics to determine that the author does not, you will find value in anecdotal and experienced wisdom.

And, after all, you will own a classic that has fooled generations of pilots into buying it. I did.

i just got this a few days ago and my first impressions, without actually trying any of the techniques, were that it wasn't looking very practical. but the author cautions not to just go through each technique (among dozens) in the order presented but to try a couple that look like they might interest you most and play around with them and then go on from there.

so after scanning awhile i saw what is supposedly salvadore dali's image generation method. yeah right, i thought. well, that worked the first time i tried it. and i sketched it out and it didn't look like a dali, but it was the most imaginative sketch i've ever come up with. it was a man riding through the air on a hobby horse above a pavillion tent. and he was thinking about how glad he was that he didn't crash into the tent. i added more adults in the air playing with childrens' toys (jump rope, pogo stick, tricycle etc.) and the children down outside the pavillion wanting their toys back. beats going out to the park and 'copying' as van gogh called it.

so next i took those words associated with the image and i plugged them into a technique that looked to me like one of the most impractical in the book. and i got an idea that i've been looking for. and that idea rendered a cool poem. most of the examples in the book look to be "business/career challenge" oriented but at least some of these techniques will also inspire raw creativity. be creative about using the toys.

take it from a skeptic. this stuff rocks. but you have to actually use it, not just read about it. i'm so thrilled that i have this book. YAY!

As a consultant, I am regularly engaged in combined sessions with clients. This book gives an excellent overview of the tools and techniques to use, but is more broad than deep. For me, it works fine. For someone who wants to do very specific creative activities, it doesn't give enough examples and practical application.

I have about 400 books in my library and Thinkertoys (with Thinkpak) is the best book I've read so far. The book is full with creative tools and puzzles to play with. The book comes to me at the right time since I am about to start my own business and the book provides a lot of insight, ideas and techniques. Thank you Mr. Michalko for creating the "toys".

This book, together with my treasured Roger von Oech books, sit prominently on my bookshelf when working on a variety of problems - software development, film production, creative writing for scripts or novels, and developing opportunities in this mediacentric age. These books break open your mind from the restrictive fences imposed on our thinking by the conventional world that we are surrounded by. These fences need to be torn down. If you are an older person (probably older than 30!), then your thinking will become ossified. Just like using your muscles, you need to rework your brain and your thinking with effort to create opportunities and connections to emerging technologies and new developments.

This book is a must for anyone in business who is in need of fresh, limitless ways to create the ideas and creative strategies businesses need these days of uncertainty and complexity. I got my copy from my manager who gives one to all new employees.

I have made more progress with the advice in this book in the last month than my average year. After years of thinking I knew what i was doing at the gym, I finally feel like im on the right track with my body and my health.

Its also refreshing to read (and ironic since this book is 30 years old) people recommending moderate weight/high reps as opposed to the high-intensity school which I feel has its place in your routine, but just was not leading to muscle gain for me.

If you are interested in fitness, getting in shape or body building, I think this is required reading. It has also given me a tremendous amount of respect for Schwarzenegger who seems to have conquered everything in this world except the California legislature.

I first read this book back in the summer of '83, as a skinny kid, while in college. I was curious about bodybuilding before buying it, but after reading it this book actually inspired true change in me. I immediately began training using the dusty, dilapidated weight-set that sat down in the dank, beer-stenched fraternity house basement that I lived in during the summer. I then graduated to the university gym, and then to a real Gold's Gym- I was working out with real bodybuilders! It was such a rush to get into the true environment of pro bodybuilding. It took seemingly forever to put on muscle but one day it seemed to magically start to happen. It was like a dream come true. I used to sit at a bus-stop waiting to come home after a monsterous workout. I never remember ever feeling so exhausted in my life while waiting for the bus.

Anyway, I managed to get into beautiful shape and excelled in my studies and eventually reached the pinnacle of my profession...and bodybuilding was one element that helped, without a doubt. This book by Arnold and friends was so inspirational to me and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to transform their body/lives or anyone who wants to peer into the world of the greatest bodybuilder of all time. You won't regret buying this book. If you happen to be reading these reviews, Arnold, thank you for the memories. I will always consider you as being one of the top greats of sports and success stories..

Full of information on mental & physical training. Things even I would never have thought about. Recommend it to anyone, well worth the money.

What can we say?

Fantastic book. Great for motivation. After reading this book you will realize that dream really can come true if you put enough effort and passion in them.

This is a must have for anybody wanting to know more about the basics of bodybuilding. This book has loads of pictures, detailed descriptions and is thorough and straight forward. And if you happen to be an Arnold Schwarzenegger fan, even better. Buy it!