Encyclopedia of Muscle & Strength [Paperback]

It is hard not to give this book five stars. The author has labored hard and honestly to present deep, extensive, and insightful information on a specialized subject, on which few people could even scratch its surface. Not only his hard labor that earns him credit, but also his open mindedness and intimate association with physical training has that rendered his work believable. This book will survive its author, as one of the best references on planning strengthening routines. Needless to say, its cover design is simple, thoughtful, and smart.

The drawbacks of the book are few, as follows.

1- The book is not encyclopedic as its title suggests. It offers extensive analysis and theories on how to mass muscles but it completely omits spinal integrity, stretching, warming up, and arranging exercise sequence based on progressive load rather than body part.

2- The paragraphs of the book are gloomy and dense without a catching focus or emphasizing key issues. That conceals many insightful information amidst circumstantial text.

3- The author plunges into training essentials without giving any idea about his credentials, achievements, or his objectives of writing the book.

4- The author teamed up with exercise performers of mediocre technical skills. Body curvature is definitive in sorting out skillful athletes from others. Those photographed in the book are not good models (in my opinion).

The highlights of this book project follow.

Chapter 1, "Core Concepts", describes physical strength along 7 dimensions, the 3 types of muscle contraction, and the 6 principles of strength training. It does so in convincing as well as challenging manner.

Chapter 2, "Training Variables", is encyclopedic in its analysis of exercise choices, order, sets, type of resistance, and rest breaks.

Chapter 3, "Training Cycles", though only 6 pages, it offers invaluable analysis of periodization of load for various goals of hypertrophy, strength, power, and peak performance. That is heavy stuff.

Chapter 4, "Strength Training Equipment", is a filling up chapter on training gadgets.

Chapter 5, "Tactics for Building Muscles mass", is a 33 page long article of dense text. It deals with various arrangements of weekly splits, body-part and whole-body training splits. Here is where the author shows his best work as well as his opinionated bias. It is the best chapter in the book because each exercise is accompanied by a labeled anatomical sketch, next to three exercise photos, next to a table entailing exercise goal, order, and set number. Thus, you could identify each muscle by its label, see how to exercise it, and then read on how to achieve that. That where the author's academic background advances his presentation. The author's bias is clear in his preference of isolated exercises of muscles regardless of spinal integrity.

Chapter 6, "Programs for Building Muscle Mass", is another 33 page rich chapter. Here again the author's excellence is vividly illustrated. It discusses supersetting, compounding, high intensity setting, various repetitive setting, negatives, controlled setting, forced setting, pyramidal setting, circuiting, exhausting, antagonistic setting, and multiple daily training. The 50 and 100 repetition sets annoy me to the extreme. It is unscientific and impractical, if not harmful.

Chapter 7, "Training Cycles for Building Muscle Mass", is overreaching and biased, yet motivating. It describes programs for beginners, intermediates, and advanced for various goals of sizing and strengthening and individualizing body image. Its drawback is its adherence to the 10 and 15 reps, omission of coordination and balance, and following main stream of isolating exercises that undermines spinal integrity (my passionate topic). Mechanically sound training should enhance spinal stability before emphasizing peripheral strength of off-center joints.

Chapter 8, "Tactics for Maximizing Strength", emphasizes Powerlifting compounding of heavy load at low repetitions for peaking strength through squat, bench, deadlift, abdominals, and pulls.

Chapter 9, "Programs for Maximizing Strength", details the strengthening of chapter 8 through managing the rate of achieving tension, from static to ballistic, the direction and duration of achieving tension.

Chapter 10, "Training cycles for gaining Maximal Strength", further details the previous two chapters along the time cycling of training load.

Chapter 11, "Chest", describes various modalities of training the pectoralis major. Form here to the end of the book, the author shows exhaustion and limits discussion to "start" and "move" of each exercise. The One-Arm Dumbbell bench press, page 229, is both harmful and useless.

Chapter 12, "Shoulders", describes various modalities of training the Deltoid along the same theme of previous chapter. Again, three of the one-arm dumbbell exercises of Deltoid are also harmful and useless as well.

Chapter 13, "Back", describes various modalities of training the lats, rhomboids, and teres major. It is done better than chest and shoulders yet with one flaw. It tangentially touches on the spinal muscles in back extension and stiff-legged deadlift. No mention of goodmorning or barbell pulls.

Chapter 14, "Trapezius", poorly describes how to train such awesome muscle. It entails few lousy shrugging exercises while the Clean, Snatches, and Pulls are omitted. The Y-raises by dumbbells in prone position are wasteful to time and effort.

Chapter 15, "Triceps", describes commonly known exercises of the triceps, in addition to unique ones and a bad one too. The reverse-grip bench press defies anatomy and could inflame the elbows and wrists.

Chapter 16, "Biceps", is flawless, as expected in many American books geared towards the Biceps excellence.

Chapter 17, "Forearms", in addition to common exercise of the forearms, it has two lousy ones. The weight plate pinch and farmer's walk are wasteful.

Chapter 18, "Quadriceps", shows the poorest aspect of the book. The crossing of the arms in front squats, the Smith machine squat, the incomplete squatting, the forward leaning during squatting are few of many flawed techniques in that chapter. The Zercher Squat, page 328 is forbidden and harmful since the bar is shelved on the forearms. The step-up and jump squat are my favorite.

Chapters 19, "Hamstrings and Glutes", and 20 "Calves", are wasteful since it describes low yield exercises.

Chapter 21, "Abdominals", describes seated, lying down, and standing exercise of the front muscles of the torso.

Chapter 22, "Whole Body", describes the high yield exercise in a superficial and incomplete manner. None of the photographed guys seem to be able to do any snatch, clean and jerk, or full overhead squat. Moreover, condoning the dumbbell push-up and row, page 376, is a big mistake. Its spectacular outlook does not justify its harm.

Mohamed F. El-Hewie
Author of
Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training

First I am not formally educated in this subject but I try to follow those who are such as Stoppani, King,etc... I have been reading and training for 12 years and this, hands down is the best and could be the only book of it's kind in my library.

What it is: A comprehensive look at wt. training techniques that are used today and how to manipulate them, all in laymen's terms. It cover's everything you need to design routines or follow his for the rest of your life.

What it is not: A this is the "Miracle" routine you've been waitmg for book. Nor is it random routines that you see in magazines endorsed by enhanced athletes.

If you want a practical and scientific book that is a great read than this is for you whether you are a bodybuilder or power lifter, novice or pro.

The book is very well written, and provides a complete, precise set of tables throughout the chapters that allow the novice or advanced bodybuilder or strength athlete to start using proven exercises/techniques to improve their appearance and/or performance. The "Rating" matrices of Time/Length/Difficulty/Results alone were, for me, worth the price of the book. I have read Jim Stoppani's articles in Muscle and Fitness, and am glad I followed-up and purchased his Encyclopedia. An impressive piece of work from an obvious expert.

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