Rating: 
Summary: Finally, the how and why backed by research.
Review: * Finally a book that reveals the how and why's about bodybuilding, backed by research, not opinion. This book could quite possibly answer every question a begginning or professional bodybuilder may have about gaining muscle, strength, and definition. Easy to follow guidelines, interesting and thorough nutritional information are just a couple of high points of this book. The most important thing in the book, other than the periodization of training, is the page that list the best exercises for each bodypart based on IEMG readings. This page let me see which exercises I should be doing in order to recruit the most muscle fibers and grow. I have recommended this book on every message board I have visited. To say it is a must-have would not do the book justice. In a way I wish I would have kept my mouth shut, because in the future there will be more competitors in bodybuilding contest due to the knowledge gained in this book.* The charts and tables are set up for every skill level of bodybuilder. Even with limited knowledge, one could use this book to increase their gains.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book--scientifically backed
Review: A very good explanation of the periodization techniques and why they work. Excellent explanations of the scientific reasons behind the different periodization cycles. This book covers the scientific aspect of training for size and strength much more comprehensively than some other books, which extract portions of the theories in this book and try to make entire training programs from them. For example, the popular book "Body for Life" uses one cycle all year round and says you should continually make gains--no explanation of going through a phase of getting your body used to exercise prior to even beginning his (Bill Phillips) program. Many people I know have gotten injured using the popular "Body for Life" workout due to this major oversite. Another book, "Power Factor Training" only deals with the "Hypertrophy phase" using one technique (partial reps)to constantly grow and get stronger. Another example is the book, "Power to the People! : Russian Strength Training Secrets for Every American" by Pavil Tsatsouline explains training the Central Nervous System (CNS) using heavy weights for a couple of exercises 3-5 times a week--all the time, and states that you will continually get stronger on a cycle like this. Why these programs cannot work on an ongoing basis, or many of the popular programs like "Body for Life" cannot continue to work will be explained in this book. The results you will get using the programs in this book will be far safer and more effective than most of the books out there today. One flaw is that is seems to concentrate primarily on cycles to train for bodybuilding. I only wish it would incorporate more powerlifting, and possibly Olympic lifting training cycles as well. Overall, however, very comprehensive and good scientific explanations of a wide range of weightlifting training.
This book explains the entire range of training (primarily for bodybuilding) and why each phase is important and using any one type will cause stagnation.
Rating:
Summary: Serious Training for the Serious Athlete
Review: An excellent book for those that want to know the how and why. The explinations of the physiology and psychology of lifting help a great deal. Knowing how a muscle works and grows helps to explain why this method works. The in depth training examples are fantastic and are much more detailed than other Periodization books that I have read. Be careful though. If you try this method (as I am) be prepared to push yourself. Some parts of the program are extremely difficult. But if you are looking for results, this book will give you it, and explain the details behind it. I look forward to more books by Bompa.
Rating:
Summary: Good book... Might be useless for some people
Review: BOOK REVIEW: People who are into serious bodybuilding might find this book very informative. It is packed with information such as charts and graphs showing anything from training guidelines to nutrition. In addition, it is filled with tips on how to train properly (i.e. how many sets and repititions to do, how long to rest between each set, etc.), how to lose weight, how to avoid injuries, etc. It also shows where specific muscles are can be found on the human body (the locations of biceps, triceps, deltoids, etc.). For people who are looking for extensive workout tips (push-ups, bench presses, etc.), you won't find it here. All the workout tips are not covered until Chapter 11, and that's about it... only one chapter! People on the hunt for home exercise tips, forget it! The workout tips require the use gym equipment... The book assumes that you go to the gym to workout! The tips are basically useless for people who workout at home. I only recommend this book for peple who want to know as much information as possible on how to train, and take care of their bodies.
Rating: 
Summary: A bodybuilding book, not really strength building.
Review: Good book, but.......it is more a book for body building rather than strength training. Sorry, the two aren't synonymous. In fact, the two terms are intermixed at the beginning, and as the book continues, they finally drop "strength" word and admit they are talking about body building. A little less talk about getting "cut" and building mass and more on aspects of building strength please. If the title was more accurate, I'd give this book a much higher rating. Lots of good info.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not great
Review: Good, accurate information - which is hard to find in the fitness field - but these guys are a little too enamored of bodybuilders and isolation exercises. They've spent too much time in the lab hooking up 'roided out booby builders to the EMG machine, not enough time with athletes from real sports who need real strength. They've written one too many articles for the muscle magazines (aka soft-core porn for the supermarket magazine racks.) Bodybuilding is not about strength, it's about size. It's hard to take a fitness writer seriously who associates with that drug-abusing crowd.
Rating:
Summary: I am confused...
Review: I am a beginner and already have a strength training program. I bought this book because I want to learn about year-round periodization, which can help to prevent exercise burn-out and injury. I think that this book gave me that guideline to design my own cycle. I am not interested in body building by the way. This book is written for bodybuilders at three levels- absolute beginner, intermediate (1-2 years of experience), and advanced/professional. There are complete exercise programs, diet and supplements for each categories. The yearly periodization basically contains two half-year cycles. Each half year cycle has six phases but can be summed up with these four: 1)step-up, 2)hypertrophy, 3)strength, and 4)step-down. For a beginner, this book is full of contrast. On one side, it has pictures of massive body builders pumping huge amount of weight, strict diet, and supplements, but on the other side, the exercise program is very gentle. For example, the program for the beginers cycles the load between 40% to 60% of 1 repetition maximum (1RM) for the whole year. This is very gentle comparing with that from the other beginner book. A popular introductory book has a six week appetizer at 60% of 1RM and then cycles between 60% and 85% for the main course, indefinitely. The authors of this book made you aware that the tendons and ligaments connecting the muscle tissues must be strengthened before exercising the muscles. They also emphasize the beginers should resist the temptation to copy the program for the advanced level. The weight for the intermediate program is cycled between 50% and 80% of 1RM. This is equivalent to those from other beginner books. The weight for advanced program is between 50% to 95% of 1RM. There are a lot of nice photos showing the exercices for free weights (barbells and dumbells) and machine. Since I exercise at home, I use free weights and I think that the list of exercises is quite complete. The selection of exercises is for bodybuilders with emphasis on the single-joint over multi-joint exercises. The cycles are not hard to follow. The authors put in microcycles (variation within a week) where the repetitions and are increased slightly between days. You can simpifly these cycles a lot by ignoring these micros. The reasons I give this book three stars are: - There are no scientific evidence to lower the % of 1RM below 60%. I search for references listed in the back of the book and there are a lot of them, but most of them are on supplements. Based on what I read from other sources, the % of 1RM should be above 70%. My experience also shows that working with lower weight lowers my 1RM. In addition, for beginners it is not a good idea to perform 1RM determination, but at the same time the authors ask them to work at lower weight range. - The idea of stepping 10% of 1RM between two workouts, i.e going from 40% to 50% is difficult to do. I still prefer the old progressive overloading with small weight addition. In the Mixed training cycle, there are jumps from 40% to 70% or 50% to 80% between two workouts. These are big jumps. - Some of the cycles like anatomic adapatation and hypertrophy look the same to me. There is no logic to this division. - There is the muscle definition cycle where one does high rep at lower weight. There is no scientific evidence for this neither. In conclusion, book has a lot of information that conflict other reliable sources that I have been reading. But, this book gaves me the idea of splitting the year into two cycles, and I plan to use this with old progressive overloading.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for coaches
Review: I have been strength training seriously for about 5 years now. This book explains the principles of periodization very well and has a lot of good information for anyone interested in strength training. Bompa's method is based on measuring your one repetition maximum (how much weight you can lift just once for each exercise) and doing a percentage of this maximum throughout the different periods. Each period emphasizes a different aspect of muscle development. I found that measuring your one rep max, doing the calculations, and keeping track of what period you were in and what diet to be following for each period to be cumbersome. I think this book would be great for anyone coaching strength training athletes. If you aren't willing to spend a fair amount of time planning your workout routine every week you may not get much use out of this book. Of course the title is "serious" strength training.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book for Anyone: Entry-level to Advanced Athletes
Review: I have read and reviewed a number of books regarding strength training and bodybuilding. This book is by far the best among the ones I have read. It's a complete guide to strength training, and covers all aspects of the sport. It's easy to read and comprehend, well-organized, and uses a number of scientific (but practical) methods to improve the efficiency of the workout sessions. Part 1 gives the background needed to plan effectively including a basic understanding of human body. Part 2 shows how to use "Periodized Workouts." And Part 3 gives detailed information about exercise, and nutrition. The Periodized Workouts bring variety to strength training making the workouts a lot more challenging and interesting for any level of strength trainers. Overall, the book is near perfect. One area it can improve on is the nutrition and diet sections. The book gives recommendations on the amount of protein, carbs, fat, and total calories for each phase based on body weight. It would be useful if it would have also provided information on building an eating plan, food groups and their amount of carbs, proteins, fat, and calories (a great book on this subject is Power Eating by Susan M. Kleiner). One point of caution: It takes time to build a Periodized strength training plan and discipline to adhere to it. I guess that's why the title is "SERIOUS Strength Training." If you don't have the time or the discipline, this is not the right book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Should be "Serious Bodybuilding"
Review: I was dissapointed. The book did a good job of explaining the principles of periodization, but that was about it. All the knowledge could easily be condensed into half as many pages. Not really a bad book, but I thought it would be more advanced than it was. If you buy it, remember that the weight reccomendations for the example routines are just that: reccomendations. It is more important that you adhere to the number of repetitions.
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