Should carry a health warning - Rated 
This is meant to be a book for beginners and is therefore quite dangerous. Anyone who advocates, as this author does, sitting in a car for a few minutes with the heater on as a way to warm up for weight training should be banned from any gym. Anyone who describes an exercise without proper diagrams or drawings is increasing the risk of that exercise being done wrong and should be banned from any gym.
Having said that, what else is there to say except that you should bin this book and go and get some training before you open another one.
You should know that weight training needs a trainer. You can do serious, permanent damage to your muscles and ligaments if you do not train properly, and do not prepare properly.
Decent exercises, flabby prose - Rated 
Essentially I'm giving this book a positive review because the most important thing - the exercises - are decent. However, as others reviewers have said, the layout is inconvenient, and there are about 100 pages (literally) of 'the temple of you' guff before you actually get to the exercises. The assumption that all women must have defensive 'issues' about their bodies is rather wearisome too. But if you skip that stuff and just do the exercises, this book is fine.
Good manual, bad title, awful colour of cover - Rated 
An almost too-catchy title, a Barbie-pink front cover and under-par photos do injustice to this otherwise good manual for resistance and weight training, targeted at women. I bought this book to build and maintain my own resistance training routine without going to the gym. I have earlier worked with good trainers who have taught me correct technique and the use of body weight, free weights, resistance bands and tubes and the Swiss ball. This book is a good companion for motivation and for remembering to do the right exercises in a balanced manner throughout the week.
The book is written accessibly. Judith Sherman-Wolin peppers it with stories from her clients and their experiences with exercise failure. She proposes an exercise success triad of virtue comprising knowledge, consistency and results. She recommends the equipment required for this exercise and lists their prices in US dollars which is not very useful for readers like me outside the US. She also address myths related to bulking up.
The book could be organised a bit better. For instance, stretches are listed in Chapter 7 and exercises do not appear till Chapter 10. It can be disorienting for users who have not worked out in structured gyms before. The photos could have been better, probably even in colour. However the breathing techniques are explained which are not ordinarily found in many books. For those, who do not want to devise their own routine, the 'exercise menu' at the back is very helpful in maintaining a balanced workout with weights.
I recommend the book but I should add, just as Sherman-Wolin says, motivation is necessary to get results.
Best Workout Book Ever - Rated 
Judith is incredibly inspirational and encouraging without being the slightest bit patronising. She's not some 25 year old gym bunny you just want to smack, she does look fabulous for her age however.
The 30 days worth of workout recipes are really useful. What I do is put a bookmark on the page that has the day I'm working on, and then have the book open to the exercise recipe I'm doing. It's easy to flip back and forth if you do it smart ;)
Agree that a poster for the wall would be a GREAT inclusion in the book, but I don't think I'd put it up. I really appreciate the fact that a set of dumbells and this book are all my "home gym" need contain, and that's easily stowed away and out of sight.
I don't think illustrations are as important as words when describing an exercise - Judith explains in the words what muscules you'll be working, exactly how you should position your body, and what you should feel. She also explains why your hands go in certain places and warns you against injury. The photos are simply complimentary to the words. If she were your personal trainer, she'd be telling you what she's written in the book, not just handing you a bunch of pictures and fobbing off.
Very difficult book to use - Rated 
Well written and really positive and 'go-getting', but unfortunately very difficult to use.
There's way too few pictures, so you regularly have a guess about the technique, and the layout means you're constantly having to stop and hunt out pages elsewhere in the book.
I wish they'd do a new version that was spiral bound, had more pictures and told you exactly where to find all the cross references!
|