Rating: 
Summary: this book has the answer
Review: in diet and exercise books, i'm interested in information that i can use to be a life long fit person. this book has the answer on how to train with weights. it hits the bullseye. there is no better book on the market. you will see from reading this how most information on the market is wrong. books like "body for life" are way off the mark. you will learn how to get strong. you will develop a way of working out that can be used for a long time, not burn yourself out. you can control how muscular you want to look. the book is expensive but you have to pay for this type of knowledge i guess. you will save alot of money on equipment, and save alot of time reading useless information, and save alot of time on useless training. so i hate to say the book is definitely worth the price. this man is the expert on this topic. he has understood and synthesized the knowledge in this area to the point where there is little more to know about it. is he an absolute expert on diet? (this book does not contain his diet information, but i just got his other two books.) i would say no. combining this book with dr. douglas graham's "nutrition and athletic performance", is 50% my athletic training information.
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Summary: An ideal approach to physical fitness!
Review: In Power To The People!: Russian Strength Training Secrets For Every American, Pavel Tsatsouline reveals an authentically Russian approach to physical fitness. He shows how anyone, by learning how to contract their muscles harder, can build up to incredible levels of strength without gaining an ounce of weight. He shows how to exercise with a super-strict form and lift more weight than can be accomplished by swing or cheat. Following his instructions, the reader can get a tremendous workout on the road withing any equipment. Now it's possible to train the human body to world-class fitness standards at home, working out for twenty minutes a day, and with only $150.00 worth of basic weights. Power To The People! is a highly recommended addition to any personal or professional physical fitness reference bookshelf.
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Summary: it's great.
Review: Like beyond stretching and beyond crunches, his other books, this is great. I think that it is the best book on effective strength training that I have ever read. This is not book just about theory and principles, like "Supertraining", another very good book, even though power to the people also explains about theory and principles and the how and why of anatomy why what he recommends is effective. But Tsatsouline provides detailed and complete outline of exact program to do and how to customize it for yourself. It is very different from anything you have probably every read about strength training. The things he teaches in the book though won't just get you strong, if you want more than that, but can make you look really good-- lean, ripped, and/or real big muscled if you want it. Anyway, it's very good book; the best available english-language print matter on the topic of strength training.
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Summary: Pure Power
Review: Reading this book blew me away! I have "weight trained" for over 15 years. The information in this book was a slap in the face wake up call. Pavel is the man, period. Instant strength gains beyond my wildest dreams. Anything by Pavel is like money in the bank! As long as you apply the info you can't go wrong. I regularly toss around a 72lbs. kettlebell like a rag-doll thanks to Pavel. If you want fitness with horsepower, you know who to ask.....Pavel Tsatsouline!
Rating: 
Summary: CLIFF NOTES VERSION OF SUPERTRAINING by MEL SIFF
Review: This is the cliff's notes version of "Supertraining" by Mel Siff. What this comrade did was flip through the 600 page "Supertraining"
and paraphrase a page here and there. You can sum the whole book up in a few sentences. Do one arm shoulder presses and deadlifts. A few sets of 5 each day. Increase the weight 5lbs each week...once it gets too hard...start a new cycle 5 lbs heavier than where you begin the last one. Nice rhetoric in this book though, it is entertaining..good marketing job.
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Summary: Empty promises, deceitful, and dangerous exercises
Review: 1) The book is devoid of traceable references. The author attributes many quotations to experts, doctors, professors, and coaches without citing their qualification, the publication, or the means to verify their accuracy, such as Leonid Matveyev, Leonid Ostapenko, and Dr. Ken Leistner.
2) The author starts, at page 10, by demonstrating the great progress in Weightlifting in the comparison of Paul Anderson (American champion, 350 lb bodyweight, year 1956) and Naim Suleymanoglu (Bulgarian, 132 lb bodyweight, year 1996), which also show the great contribution of the communist bloc to advancing Weightlifting. He also frequently cites the achievements of the soviet Weightlifting legend Yuri Vlasov. The author then abandons that sport and proceeds to advance his version of skewed sport of deadlift, side press, and barbell curls that defies all standards of modern weight training.
3) In a marathon of filling 116 pages with irrelevant pictures, white spaces, and large font, the author finally describes his Drills at pages 84-110. He describes three exercises as the only needed tool to build huge muscles on a super abbreviated program of "deads and presses" and claims that there is no need to do other drills, page 35. Thus the one-century of progress in Weightlifting are reduced by this unsubstantiated method to only three exercises that have never been used as core elements in the training of Yuri Vlasov or Naim Suleimanoglu.
4) The author tries to con his reader by his Russian origin by claiming that he has inherited the Russian keys for ultimate success in Weightlifting. The readers just have to trust him regardless of the absence of traceable references and his lack of known history in Weightlifting training, competing, or teaching.
5) The following are the flaws with his three exercises:
The deadlift, page 84-99:
____________________
(A) The author advises that the deadlift has to be approached with the lifter's eyes looking to the ceiling, page 85. This is both flawed and dangerous. Lifters lift weight with their spinal muscles and not with the head. The lifter can look forwards or downwards as long as the neck and spines are aligned on a straight line.
(B) The author advises that the lifter should approach the deadlift with his body "feel very tight". That is also a flawed technique. Lifters should only tighten their body as soon as they engage the load and in proportion to the phase of lifting.
(C) Alternate gripping of the bar is advised without rational explanation other than feeling strong, which is not true.
(D) In 16 photographs, the author fails to show the crucial process of initiating the lift from start to below-the kneecaps. In one photo, you see the barbell on the floor, in the other the barbell is already up at the end of motion, nothing in between.
(E) The functional anatomy of the deadlift is erroneous. The Sumo deadlift, page 93, is claimed to emphasize the glutes, while the truth is that, it emphasizes the hip adductors. The duck deadlift, page 96, is claimed to emphasize the quads, while the truth is that, all deadlifts emphasize the quads and not only the duck-type. The Snatch pull, page 97, is claimed to emphasize the lats, while the truth is that the latissimis dorsi can only be emphasized when the shoulder plates are rotated significantly such as in chin-ups and rowing. The Clean pull is claimed to emphasize the grip, while the truth is that, all deadlifts emphasize the grip.
Side Press, page 100:
________________
This is an antiquated exercise that dates to the year 1913. Nobody train on side press in modern days of weight training. It is dangerous because of the bar spinning can easily dislocate the shoulder and the side bend can easily herniated the spinal disc.
Barbell curls with wide grip, page 110
_____________________________
No modern weight lifter would grip the bar wider than the shoulder grip during curling. The elbows are hinge joints that only tolerate flexion and extension. Thus, wide grips could force elbow abduction and traumatize the elbow joint and shoulders.
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Summary: PLEASE PURCHASE. I am a test case for the efficacy of Mr...
Review: Tastsouline's programs.
I have lifted weights seriously for over 15 years.
I also am a long distance runner. I also practice Hatha Yoga daily for at least 75 minutes but usually 90 minutes-2 hours daily.
My free-weight program generally was done five-six days a week for 50-90 minutes.
After reading Pavel's tome, I decided that focusing on several exercises or movements, i.e., lifting, pushing, and curling,. would free me up for additional cross-training.
He's right:
With my Pavel-influenced program, my body, strength, and fitness have improved, and in less time:)
Basically, Pavel emphasizes a major lifting movement that is also one of several "full body" exercises. Deadlifts attack not only the entire back, legs, buttocks, but also the traps, bis, and shoulders. It has been empiracally proven that these type of movements ignite a flame in our metabolism.
Also, the pushing movement, the flat bench, is a great exercise. I substitute heavy flies and leaning forward dips occasionally.
The other movements are basically a rear military press and barbell curls.
I do either overhead barbell extension, dips, or close-grips for my tris.
I also do standing one leg calf raises (for my one leg down dogs in Yoga).
In summation, this is a very informative and entertaining book. Lifters, bodybuilders, and athletes of all shapes and sizes (you too laides:) will benefit from Pavel's recommendations and the extra cross training that you'll have time for.
As always, thank you Amazon.com for the outstanding service and value. Also, for the communists complaining about the book price: lighten up! It's not easy to get a book published when you are a former member of the Russian Special Forces.
Namaste,
Rating: 
Summary: Some good info, purposely limited to sell another book later
Review: This book is essentialy about deadlifting and overhead pressing. Deadlifting has been the subject of much agreement in the fitness world as the most important barbell movement to enhance athletic performance. The varieties of and tricks for improving DL performance can be put on two pages. Overhead presses are treated as the pushing equivalent of the DL's pulling. SP's are rightfully more imporant than bench presses, or for that matter, perhaps any other single movement. Ok. Another two pages. Pavel makes it a whole forty dolllar book, and charges another forty for two more exercises in another book,(pushups and squats), in his -Naked Warrior-Pavel makes a big point of the superiority of building strength without mass due to the possibility of losing the mass, and thus the strength, in harsh circumstances. The -reality- is that strength built without mass must recieve constant training to be maintained, and is very specific to the way it's trained, while mass is much slower to be lost,(along with its strength), and is applicable to whatever strength you apply it to, with a little bit of training. Unless you are training for powerlifting, the possible damaging effect of the heavy weight eventually needed in this method far outweigh the benefits.
Rating: 
Summary: Response to the reader from Alamo
Review: Although I can see where you're coming from with your criticisms, I think that you're evaluating Power to The People(henceforth referred to as PTP) by the wrong criteria. Pavel makes it clear that his book is about building strength, not about building mass. That is the crucial difference between the world of powerlifting and the world of bodybuilding, respectively. Powerlifters and bodybuilders use very different training protocols, primarily because they're aiming for different goals. Bodybuilders usually use sets of 6 to 12 repetitions, isolate particular body parts into many different exercises, and do different body parts on different days. Powerlifters use no more than 6 repetitions per set, utilize a small number of compound-joint lifts, and rarely split their workouts by body part. What this boils down to is that training for strength and training for mass are two different things. Look at any powerlifter, and you won't see a huge guy with bulging muscles. But you will see a guy who can lift more weight than you've ever dreamed about. Have you ever watched the Olympic weightlifting events? Those guys don't look very ripped. Or just take a look at Pavel himself. He's not a huge guy, but he is immensely strong. There's a reason why almost every branch of Special Ops in the US military has hired Pavel to train their recruits. The guy is hard as a rock, and he has the credentials to prove it. Most bodybuilders, on the other hand, look much stronger than they actually are. Pavel is condescendingly critical of bodybuilders and their training objectives, so I can understand why someone who adheres to a bodybuilding protocol would feel slighted. But PTP is a book about building strength, and building functional strength in particular. This is among the best books out there when it comes to developing real-world functional strength. The lifts described in PTP use multiple body parts, and require you to balance the weight and use supporting muscles during the whole lift. The strength gained from such lifting is applicable to real-world situations. When was the last time(whether in sports, or just in life in general) that you ran into a situation where you needed to isolate your biceps without using any other arm muscles? The answer is never. The bottom line is that if you want to get huge and look good at the beach, go check out "Brawn" or some of those other bodybuilding books. But if you want to develop true strength, pick up a copy of PTP. Aside from what I've already said about the book, PTP is also notable for its focus on using muscular tension and on training the central nervous system. Additionally, Pavel's breakdown of proper technique for the deadlift is the best I've ever seen, and he's insistent on maintaining strict form(which is essential to prevent injury). And yes, Pavel does have a penchant for shameless self-marketing, but try to ignore this, because PTP contains a wealth of information that would won't find almost anywhere else.
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