Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book, the training phylosophy works very well.
Review: I bought this book a year ago and decided not to write anything untill I see results. After 12 months of following his training phylosophy and safety guidelines I have noticed great results. In fact I noticed the gains in the first weeks. I keep an accurate work card an pay heed to what it tells me ie increase load, level or back off. I'm very happy with my personal gains. I hate long unpaid manual labor style excercises and Brzycki's approach has none of this, it really has worked fast with minimal time spent in the weight room for me. The price of course is of maximizing efficiency is damned hard high intensity workouts, but hey thats life. The book has also helped me a lot in sorting out my endurance/cardio training from that of pure strenght. Best of all I can track and see results and have been doing for a year. This guy has done a lot of research and proves it. I love the authors treatment of the established weightroom predudices. He takes a be all you can be attitude and shows that you can get started right away and see the benefits.Dave
Rating: 
Summary: This book really helped to update my workouts.
Review: I found this book to be very easy to understand and while I was a bit skeptical about only doing one set per excersise after only one week I am noticing results. I have been working out for nine years now but think that this new method will help me get the results I want better. It has allowed me to cut down my workouts from 4 days to 3 and given me more time for cardio work. Despite only 3 days I feel like I got a better workout than when I worked out 4 days. Could have used more diagrams on proper form to use but Istill found this book very helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but don't need it if you're already familiar with HIT
Review: I purchased this book with a lot of enthusiasm after I learned about HIT (high-intensity training). Honestly, I was dissapointed. The information is better than that found in 99% of strength/bodybuilding books, but that is not enough, especially since most mainstream books by bodybuilding champs and the people at Weider Inc. are directed to steroid pumped,... It advocates training two or three times a week, which is sound advice, and the volume of training is adequate, but there are too many isolation excercises instead of focusing on the big and productive excercises. Besides, too many pages are filled with excercise technique, and he gives a thousand variations of each excercise (nautilus machines, universal machines, free weights, etc.). Only one chapter is truly useful, the one on making your own excercise program, but still, I believe there are better ways of training. His book is titled "A PRACTICAL Approach...", but I think it is not too practical to fill it with citations instead of relying on a bit more common sense. If you want practical, commonsense, and PRODUCTIVE training, try McRobert's "Beyond Brawn".
Rating:
Summary: Good, detailed advice on weight training
Review: I started out with the "Body for Life" method without much knowledge of weight training a few years ago...and this book blasts a few "myths" from that program away. Most importantly, you don't have to kill yourself with multiple sets of the same exercise to get a good workout (BFL recommends SIX sets for each exercise!!). Instead, research has shown that one or two sets does just as much to fatigue the muscle and promote strength gains. I've definitely found this to be the case! The major drawback of this book is the writing style. It's written for a target audience of strength trainers and conditioning coaches, so there are a lot of textual references. And, the material isn't new or anything. I bought the "complete idiot's guide" at the same time and found it to have the same information, minus the textual references, plus some other information that seemed particularly useful for people new to weight training, and it was more fun to read. I still occasionally use this book for reference, but only after I've looked in the "complete idiot's guide" first.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: I would be hard pressed to think of a better introduction to effective, common-sense strength training than this book. Bryzcki does an excellent job of debunking all of the nonsense espoused in the "muscle comics" located in the grocery store checkout aisle and replaces it with *real* training information that is useful to novice and experienced trainee alike. Highly Recommended!
Rating:
Summary: BUY IT NOW!!!
Review: IF UR INTERESTED IN KNOWING WHY I SHOULD THAT EXERCISE OR IN WHICH WAY -THAT UR TRAINER CANT REALLY ANSWER YOU SOMETIMES- THIS IS THE BOOK. THE ONLY BAD THING IS THAT THEORIES IN THIS BOOK CAN BE CONFUSING IN ORDER FOR U TO MAKE AN EXERCISE PLAN TO USE IN GYM OR UR DIET PLAN.
Rating:
Summary: Sound, objective advice but a tiresome read
Review: If you are new to the world of bodybuilding, get this book. It will give you the hard facts regarding strength training. It will also teach you how to build an effective routine, how often to train, how long to train and specifically how to train while your training. (how many reps, how many sets). The best part about what he is saying; it is all supported by documented studies. Unfortunately, there is too much fluff and way to many references making it a difficult read. If it weren't for these shortcomings, I would give it 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended with some serious caveats
Review: It's not bad. Just be sure to do your own research and take the things he says about diet and about the "danger" of some exercises witha grain of salt. Overall, you'd be hard pressed to do much better for the money, but you definitely can. Of course, reading this book is certainly preferable to reading some silly muscle comic book (that is, stuff like "Flex" or "Muscle and Fitness") sold from a news stand.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended with some serious caveats
Review: It's not bad. Just be sure to do your own research and take the things he says about diet and about the "danger" of some exercises witha grain of salt. Overall, you'd be hard pressed to do much better for the money, but you definitely can. Of course, reading this book is certainly preferable to reading some silly muscle comic book (that is, stuff like "Flex" or "Muscle and Fitness") sold from a news stand.
Rating:
Summary: informative and easy to read
Review: The book is a must-buy for anyone interested in serious weight-training. It is loaded with useful information and cuts through all the hype and bs of the fitness industry. Nice photos as well and very thorough. Great book!
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