Serious Strength Training

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View books by Tudor Bompa, Lorenzo J. Cornacchia.

Excellent for all but total beginners! - Rated
This is a great book if you have some knowledge of weight training and wish to "step up" a level. It's not just for professionals and certainly doesn't advocate the use of steroids.
Periodization (ie: to improve your performance, you can't train the same way all the time) is a really useful, and scientifically backed up, model to base your training on and this book is written by the "father" of periodisation: Tudor Bompa.

The individual exercise descriptions alone make this title worth purchasing. They are some of the best and most detailed I have come across and are accompanied by great photographs.

I'm certainly not a professional weight trainer but enjoy going to the gym and this is simply the best training book I have ever read.

From soneone in the know this book is excellent - Rated
Contary to some of the other comments on this book I would like to offer my suport to anyone wishing to buy this book. Bompa's record is without reproach and his book is in the same vein. I have been a personal trainer for almost ten years now and his book is a bible. The simple but massively effective system of training from 1rep max's at all times has brought me any many of my clients great success, very quickly.

I should point out that there are those for whom this level of intensity is not suited but Bompa himself points this out clearly, early on in the book, recommending 2 yrs experiance, good posture and no joint imbalances. This is good advice. If you're a beginner or someone with poor posture, get a trainer and get it corrected. If you've been training for a while and you want excellent results. buy the book, follow the guidelines see your body shape change.

Serious steroid use, more like - Rated
The number of books out there that advocate training
principles that can only be used by people seriously
jacked on massive amounts of anabolic steroids is just
amazing. Alas, this book is yet another one of them.
It would be fine if the book admitted this much,
but "anabolic steroid" does not appear anywhere in the
index. But when a "newbie", who knows no better, reads
such books and wonders why he's so knackered and making
so little progress after a few weeks of such training,
this is terrible. It's more than terrible: it's a disgrace.

If you know about steroids, and take their use for granted,
this book is fine for you. If you don't, or don't approve of
their use, buy something like "Brawn" instead.

Just when will the bodybuilding/power-lifting world do
what is right and be completely honest?

Nothing to do with strength training! - Rated
I found the title of this book to be very misleading, as someone interseted in powerlifting I was looking for a book to advise on improving strength in movements such as the squat and deadlift. This book is aimed at bodybuilders and features many of the "shaping" exercises popular with "cosmetic" training. It also features nutritional advice, again aimed at bodybuilders and again largely useless for the the strength/power athlete.

too hard - Rated
This book i thought i'd need but was useless inless you are a pro.The exercise descriptions are fine, but the routines are make believe and so are the different cycles throughout the year of size and strenght goals.If you are a lecturer buy it if not by the book Brawn.