Rating: 
Summary: Okay, but full of bias and errors
Review: To begin, Brzycki is not what I'd call "the strength and conditioning coach" at Princeton. His function at Princeton for many years has apparently been primarily in fitness administration and teaching some fitness classes, not the strength and conditioning of athletes. According to one interview, Brzycki hasn't trained athletes on a regular basis for quite some time. According to another interview, Brzycki did not apply his own "practical approach" to his own workouts until after well his days as a competitive powerlifter were over. In other words, Brzycki is a fitness expert, not necessarily a strength expert. In the field of fitness he probably excels. Otherwise, in my opinion, he often tries to force-fit his fitness theories into strength training principles. Fitness goals and strength training goals are not necessarily the same. Brzycki has far less DIRECT experience training strength athletes than many other authors - Dreschler, Poloquin, Kono, Newton, Zatsiorski, for example. Brzycki shows extreme prejudice against Olympic-style weightlifting, for example, a strength and power sport he has never, to my knowledge, either competed in nor coached. Sour grapes, I suspect. Brzycki apparently reads a lot of scientific journals and must be a fast typist, for he publishes books and articles quite often. Apparently he hasn't read the decades of strength training information and scientific analysis gleaned from the detailed training logs of generations of Communist bloc athletes, which Brzycki dismisses in his first chapter as mere "anecdotal evidence." That said, if your goal is general fitness with an eye towards increasing strength, then you could do a lot worse than this book. There are many approaches towards strength training that work (and some that don't.) Brzycki's approach will work.
Rating: 
Summary: Well supported and useful information about strength trainin
Review: Unlike dozens of other books I've read on the subject of strength training, Brzycki supports his beliefs with plenty of documented scientific research (the reference/bibliography is 16 pages long!), whereas most other such books are purely anecdotal. Or based on the results of a select group of geneticly gifted (or genetic freaks?) body builders. Brzycki provides a through explaination of why certain training techniquies work and other don't. He also give (well researched) recommendation so designing your own program, including such factors as number of sets, approapriate repititions based on the best time-under-load for a given muscle group, and appropriate recovery intervals. Overall, this book dispells a lot of myths and clears up the confusion and mystery around strength training. By the time you're finished reading it you will find that working out and achieving results is not nearly as complex as muscle magazines and sponsored body builders would have you think. By the way, I gained 6 pounds of muscle and increased my bench press by 20 pounds in one month following the recommendations of this book.
Rating:
Summary: Time & results-efficient, practical, well-researched
Review: Yes. This is the most practical approach I've seen to strength training. I used his single set/maximum weight/total body workout for three weeks and I saw a difference. How NICE to get out of the gym! As a note to readers: the author is an academic. In that circle, you have to back up your observations with other people's claims. I agree that footnotes would have made it more readible. I gave this book 5 stars for its content, not the footnotes issue. What I got from it was a workout I took pretty much straight off the pages. He includes options for different machines, free weights, and partner-resistance. I like the variety. I answered all of my questions about using the single set plan with the data he provided. I got my cardio done in my favorite, sweat-inducing way. I have progressed wonderfully, within the amount of time I'd like to spend in a gym.
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