Rating: 
Summary: Effective routines despite many erroneous explanations
Review: A great bodybuilder yet a lousy and lazy author and communicator, Arnold could have shrunk this book into one forth of its length and hired a well-educated editor to present more compelling and accurate information. In this book, Arnold sounds more submissive to the cynicism of wealthy, lazy, and late starters from Santa Monica. He is pictured with his trainees in-person in the simplest and most ridiculous exercises that a mature adult could contemplate doing. Thus, the entire book is geared for those late starters that are hard to motivate who need the simplest routines, in a nutshell.
Though the book was first published in 1981, it was then well known that endurance training and strength training affect muscles in different ways. Arnold contends, on page 11, that Bodybuilders and Weightlifters were found to have less healthy hearts and lungs compared to runners. That is one of many of his erroneous interpretation of physiological issues related to exercise. Based on that false conclusion, he proposes adding an aerobic component to strength training. The fact is that aerobics enhances the cellular respiratory mechanism and has no impact on making healthier hearts or lungs.
His effort to explain how strength training benefits rehabilitation is limited to the versatility of applying resistance to the desired region of the body and at the desired rate. He does not delve into the desired enhancement of metabolism by activity that is beneficial to cell growth and repair. His dumbest interpretation of the effect of weight lifting on high blood pressure is claiming that pulsating blood massages the walls of arteries and prevents their hardening and that strength training strengthens the heart and keeps arteries flexible. That is not true unless the person's entire lifestyle is conducive to healthy living, the heart was not already diseased, and that there were no other causes of essential hypertension that are not preventable by exercise.
The rest of the book deals with progressive strength training, from Series I thru III and ending with competitive bodybuilding. I doubt that any late starter would be able to advance through the three levels unless completely committed, wealthy, and jobless. The three series has a common feature. They entail: (1) stretching with 5 exercises, (2) warm-up with 5 exercises, (3) warm-down with 5 to 7 exercises, (4) weight training of 5 regions of the body with 2 to 4 exercises each, and (5) abdominal training with 5 to 7 exercises.
The choice of exercises for each body region shows the depth of experience of the author. This is the positive aspect of this book. He assigns the Clean and Press and dumbbell lateral raises to the shoulders, bench press and dumbbell press to the chest, chin-up and bend-over rows to the back, arms curls and triceps press to the arms, and squat, lunges, and calf raises to the legs. As you go through the transitions from Series I through III, he suggests adding more weight, more exercises, and accomplishing the workout in lesser time intervals. This is another positive contribution by an experienced athlete.
The pictures are outdated, too large, unnecessarily fill whole pages, and there are a lot of blank tables to fill next to each picture. I never understood why this book was written for men only. May be that was the trend in 1981.
Rating: 
Summary: To the Point
Review: I bought this book for my boyfriend and he loves it. The book is broken down in to specific areas and along with the pictures, make exercises easy to understand and do correctly. The pictures are VERY outdated which makes for a good laugh, but overall the book is great. NO FLUFF! And you can never go wrong with Arrrrnnnold.
Rating:
Summary: a classic!
Review: I've read most of the standard books on this subject & found this to be among the "must haves." It's well written, from the perspective of one who's lived what he recommends. I found it to be extremely practical, emphasizing results rather than theory
Rating:
Summary: The Right Way to Transform Your Life!
Review: I've used the method in this book for several years, starting at age 47, I'm now 52, and it changed my life, made me stronger, healthier and more sucessful. Highly, highly recommended. There's a lot to learn but when you do it completely for awhile, and then you see others coming into the gym doing their routines, you really see the superiority of this method. It is totally thought out and very beneficial for both men and women. I have started my daughter using it, and she has seen the same great results. Kudos to the master. I could lose his movies, but NOT this book!
Rating:
Summary: The Right Way to Transform Your Life!
Review: I've used the method in this book for several years, starting at age 47, I'm now 52, and it changed my life, made me stronger, healthier and more sucessful. Highly, highly recommended. There's a lot to learn but when you do it completely for awhile, and then you see others coming into the gym doing their routines, you really see the superiority of this method. It is totally thought out and very beneficial for both men and women. I have started my daughter using it, and she has seen the same great results. Kudos to the master. I could lose his movies, but NOT this book!
Rating:
Summary: Good Basic Information
Review: The information presented in the book is no-frills weight training and practical advice. Perhaps that is why some people don't like it. They are usually the ones who are taken in by the allure of protein shakes, supplements of dubious value, and exotic weight training routines. It is unfortunate that Arnold, like most bodybuilders, got his huge gains from steroids. He is clear, however that his massive gains took many years to achieve. People still believe they can go from flab to male model muscle in 12 weeks or 6 months. Muscle takes work, time, and dedication, more than most people are willing to devote. Arnold's dietary advice is practical and no-nonsense. He deflates the standard ideas of high protein diets and vitamin supplements as a way to speed muscle gains. His recommendations are pretty standard, lots of fruits & veggies, small amounts of meat, avoid heavily processed foods. Not a very marketable point of view but at least a logical one. His blurbs about daily nutrition requirements were most likely lifted straight from the FDA, but that info comes from scientists, so its better information than what you read in muscle magazines.The pictures are of course dated. Nobody wears calf socks and skimpy shorts with white piping anymore, and the models are like normal folks, hairy, balding, shaped funny. Today we are so used to shaved, tanned and sculpted models in magazines and books it is somewhat disconcerting to read this older tome. His routines are brutal, so don't expect to be able do them completely. Mutiple sets are at the core of his training regimen. I tend to do only 2-3 sets per muscle group, but that is what I am comfortable with. Vary the routines to your liking and ability, because not everybody can keep up with Arnie...
Rating:
Summary: Good Basic Information
Review: The information presented in the book is no-frills weight training and practical advice. Perhaps that is why some people don't like it. They are usually the ones who are taken in by the allure of protein shakes, supplements of dubious value, and exotic weight training routines. It is unfortunate that Arnold, like most bodybuilders, got his huge gains from steroids. He is clear, however that his massive gains took many years to achieve. People still believe they can go from flab to male model muscle in 12 weeks or 6 months. Muscle takes work, time, and dedication, more than most people are willing to devote. Arnold's dietary advice is practical and no-nonsense. He deflates the standard ideas of high protein diets and vitamin supplements as a way to speed muscle gains. His recommendations are pretty standard, lots of fruits & veggies, small amounts of meat, avoid heavily processed foods. Not a very marketable point of view but at least a logical one. His blurbs about daily nutrition requirements were most likely lifted straight from the FDA, but that info comes from scientists, so its better information than what you read in muscle magazines. The pictures are of course dated. Nobody wears calf socks and skimpy shorts with white piping anymore, and the models are like normal folks, hairy, balding, shaped funny. Today we are so used to shaved, tanned and sculpted models in magazines and books it is somewhat disconcerting to read this older tome. His routines are brutal, so don't expect to be able do them completely. Mutiple sets are at the core of his training regimen. I tend to do only 2-3 sets per muscle group, but that is what I am comfortable with. Vary the routines to your liking and ability, because not everybody can keep up with Arnie...
Rating: 
Summary: Outdated!
Review: This book illustrates basic exercises with very little real information. Arnold shows his bodybuilding routine which consists of training each bodypart three times per week twice a day, which would be extreme overtraining for anyone who is not taking steroids. His dietary recommendations are outdated and primitive. This book is satisfactory for learning basic exercises so long as you disregard the training advice.
Rating:
Summary: GOOD BUT NOT THAT MOTIVATING
Review: This is a good book to start boybuilding.But the book's doesn't provide good pictures and photos to show the results of bodybuilding.The pictures all show pretty normal developed people except JON JON PARK who is more musucular than the average man.Last of all,the chapter on competition bodybuilding is too short and brief.The training and excerises are all condensed in a few poor pages where those are the photos people really want for an ARNOLD book.
Rating: 
Summary: Just Starting Out?
Review: This is a great book for anyone who is just starting out in weight trainig. It has all the fundemental routines and breaks you in while keeping you motivated. A Must Have!
|
