FitnessProsBooks.com - The New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscle

	List Price: $15.95 Our Price: $10.38 Your Save: $ 5.57 ( 35% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Manufacturer: Avery
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 796 EAN: 9781583333389 ISBN: 158333338X Label: Avery Manufacturer: Avery Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: 2008-12-26 Publisher: Avery Studio: Avery
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Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Lifting Snobbery Comment: There is some good info here, but the authors of New Rules seem more interested in advancing their particular training philosophy than in actually educating/inspiring readers to improve their training. Essentially, the focus of their 'New Rules' is compound, Olympic-style weightlifting. Nothing earth shattering there, but the authors take their program a step further by basically denouncing all other forms of physical activity as unnecessary. This approach to the subject is both myopic and petty, essentially saying that anyone who's on a 'bodybuilding program' or anyone who doesn't follow their protocols to the letter is wasting time. There's an old adage that there are no bad exercises, only bad exercisers. This snobbery that "if it's not my way it's garbage" belongs more to the high school cafeteria than to a serious training manual. The authors would have done better to propound their strong belief in compound lifts as part of a periodized training program rather than its entirety. The authors' hatred of cardiovascular exercise and their strange fascination with "twisting" movements (there's an entire chapter on it) seem like something from the Izzy Mandelbaum school of training. The fact is, each individual responds differently to physical activity. Just because one person doesn't see mind-blowing results from cardio doesn't mean that it is useless to all. In fact, cardio, intense weight training and clean eating are the three pillars of physical fitness. A refusal to perform any one of these functions is really only a sign of weakness. If your goal is to become an Olympic lifter--or if this is absolutely the only type of training to which your body responds--this program might be ideal for you. Otherwise, there are other books on this subject that will provide more balanced and effective approaches to getting in better shape. Customer Rating: Summary: Great book - must read! Comment: I am a health and fitness professional and often find 'fitness' books to be really bad and full of BS - but this book really surprised me. Very scientific but aimed at normal readers. Even quite humorous at times - which helped. More importantly - I have been using these NEW RULES with great success - Go read the book! IOt is good for you... Customer Rating: Summary: Very Impressive Comment: As a personal trainer, I find it interesting to see the huge variety of workout books. I like this one a whole lot. There is lots of scientifically valid, sensible advice, and a lot of very good workout plans. Best of all, it goes down very easily because the author (I assume it's mostly Lou) is very funny. Books about weight training, even ones that I enjoy, aren't necessarily "fun" to read. They can be too academic, a footnote every 4 sentences, or at the other extreme, so brief and thinly-sourced that you wonder about the validity of the assertions. One guy reviewing this was upset because he felt that the book is just a collection of workouts. This is highly misleading, and I think you'll agree if you pick up this book in the store and have a look. There is plenty of supporting background material, and it reads well because of the humor and good style. I think that Lou knows his audience and knows that he can't go on too long with science minutiae. He also knows that there are those who won't read any background material, good or not, so he shows how to cut to the chase if you're one of those readers. I also like the concept of having 2 authors, as long as they're matched well - you get more for your money. Of the workout books that you can find in a regular bookstore, many aren't so hot. This one is excellent! Customer Rating: Summary: "New Rules" revolutionized my workout - but took some time to sink in. Comment: I've been lifting weights in my local gym for about 2 years - doing circuits of the nautilus and cybex weight stack machines. I had been plateaued for a while and wanted a better understanding of which moves work which muscles, how to use the machines to best advantage, proper form etc... I bought "The New Rules of Lifting" looking for a basic guide and what I got was different from what I was expecting. The New Rules is an attempt to shake things up and it attacks a host of standard wisdoms - such as the importance of cardio exercise (your body will choose to adapt slow twitch muscles for cardio over fast twich for power - reducing your power gains) and stretching (stretching is necessary - but it's not about increasing flexibility beyond your usual range). The 'New Rules' also include an eye opening "no machines" rule. Lou Schuler writes the copy and Alwyn Cosgrove cooks up the exercises and the routines. In place of muscle isolating machine exercises, "New Rules" emphasizes free weight exercises that work whole groups of muscles while replicating commonly used movements in the six major movement categories: push, pull, bend, lunge, twist, and walk/run. There are relatively few major exercises listed - but a bunch of variations and supersets and combinations. The routines are mixed to form a whole year of constantly changing routines. I was looking for a guide to how to do standard gym sitting down machine based exercises Schuler/Cosgrove gave me an iconoclastic attack on that whole culture. I read it (and read a few other workout books - such as Schuler's other major book "Men's Health: The Book of Muscle" (with Ian King)) and let it sink in. I wasn't ready to abandon my routine. I also felt a bit leery of doing major free weight work without a lot of practice. I started trying out the moves at home, with minimal weight on the bar. Once I gained a little confidence I started doing it at the gym. Wow. Starting any new routine gives you results, but this was something more. The classic exercises emphasized in "New Rules" (the squat, lunges, dead lift, good morning, lat row, Russian twist, bench press, military push, pullup (or lat pulldown) really do get whole groups of muscles worked at one time. Cosgrove has sweated the details with the routines - with some wonderful instructions on varying the timing, doing supersets, combo movements, and moving through periods of lower weight/higher reps; higher weight/lower reps; less weight and explosive movements. The rationale for each stage is well argued in the text. Despite having a lot of old fashioned exercises, this isn't a traditional routine. There are no biceps isolating exercises (or almost none). You'll end up doing moves that few others in the gym are doing. I'm only a month into the first program so I can't say definitively that this is brilliance - but I there's no debating that my whole approach to weights has been transformed. For me the biggest revelations were: 1) balance work on each side of a joint (maybe obvious to some - but awareness of this was huge for me). For example - if you do work on the "push" side (like a bench press) you must do equal work on the "pull" side of the same joint (shoulder) (i.e. rows/lat pulls). I really notice this whole issue now and I feel much better for it. 2) emphasize the largest muscles groups. That means that squats, dead lifts, lunges, and good mornings are the bread and butter. I used to work the upper body more than the lower - now I achieve a much better balance. I really feel it - especially with climbing stairs and biking. It feels good. 3) put the twist motion on equal footing with the other major motions. In the past abdominal work meant crunches. Now I'm putting much more emphasis on twisting motions and my waist has tightened up and my back feels better (even with the low-back scary dead lifts). I had been looking for a book on how to optimize the weight lifting regimen I already know and this book demanded I scrap almost everything I did. I didn't want to hear it at first. Now that I've given it a try it has revolutionized my understanding of how to work my body and how to use free weights. I feel I'm working out whole areas of my body more efficiently in a shorter time. I've also been able to grab a few ad-hoc workouts outside the gym (like the time early morning I had a half hour alone at the train platform and used my heavy knapsack to do squats, lunges, militaries, explosive pushups, and rows to get a near full body workout. This might not have occurred to me in my "machine" lifting phase. Highly recommended for weight lifting folks looking to take it to the next level and shake things up. Two significant observations: 1) Lou Schuler writing is engaging - but he doesn't vary the story much among his various books. His chapters on basic wisdom and physiology are essentially identical in the 3 books of his that I've read (Men's Health: Home Workout Bible and Men's Health: The Book of Muscle). What's different in each of these books is that he's paired with a different trainer who emphasizes different exercises (or specifies that a given exercise be done in a slightly different way) and there's different plans. I like "Men's Health: Book of Muscle" a lot and wouldn't say that I'd necessarily recommend New Rules over it - but I've chosen to work "New Rules" first and I can vouch for it. "Book of Muscle" has a lot more exercises and a more conventional muscle isolating point of view (although it's mostly free weights too). 2) I got the Kindle version and this is one of those books you should buy on paper. The workout regimens are tables of data that are presented as small and difficult to read pictures on Kindle. You'll want to make photocopies of the workouts to take to the gym. With the Kindle version you can't do that - you must transpose the workouts yourself. You still get all the info - but you give yourself more work with the Kindle version if you're really going to work the plans. Customer Rating: Summary: LIFT WEIGHTS!!! Comment: I recently bought their other book "New Rules of Lifting for Women" and decided that I needed this one as well since I am a Personal Trainer. I like how they bring it back down to the basic classics that have worked for centuries. Power lifting is the original functional training. And with all these crazy fads its nice to see some good common sense advice. These moves maybe classics but they are combined with modern knowledge to show why they are effective and how this kind of lifting is best. More Reviews
Editorial Reviews: Ten unique programs for fat loss, muscle gain, and strength improvement for beginners and elite lifters. Want to get more out of your workout and spend less time in the gym? Many guys devote so many hours to lifting weight yet end up with so little to show for it. In many cases, the problem is simple: They aren’t doing exercises based on the movements their bodies were designed to do. Six basic movements—the squat, deadlift, lunge, push, pull, and twist—use all of the body’s major muscles. And, more important, they use those muscles in coordinated action, the way they were designed to work. The New Rules of Lifting, now in paperback and with more than one hundred photographs, gives you more than a year’s worth of workouts based on these six basic movements. Whether you’re a beginner, an experienced lifter looking for new challenges, or anything in between, you can mix and match the workouts to help you get bigger, stronger, and leaner. In addition, the comprehensive nutritional information provided makes The New Rules of Lifting a complete guide to reaching all your goals. If you aren’t using The New Rules of Lifting, you aren’t getting the best possible results.