Essential Chest and Shoulders: An Intense 6-Week Program (Men's Health Peak Conditioning Guides) (Paperback)

by Kurt Brungardt (Author), Lou Schuler (Author) "Ever ask yourself why you want a bold chest, broad shoulders, and strong upper back?..." (more)
Key Phrases: push your chest, advanced routines, rotation press, Core Program, Level One, Essential Chest (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
For intermediate to advanced exercisers, Essential Chest and Back provides quick, simple exercises to increase strength and muscle mass. Kurt Brungardt offers the latest advances in fitness research, including a stretching program and an introduction to cardiovascular exercise for a total body workout.

From the Back Cover
Essential Chest & Shoulders
An Intense 6-Week Program

Want a chest to treasure? Work your back!

The secret to a strong, powerful chest is the right balance of upper-body strength. That means doing as many exercises, sets, and reps for your back as for your chest. And that great set of shoulders? Again, the key is balancing shoulder work with chest and back exercises. Best-selling fitness author Kurt Brungardt shows you how to pull off this upper-body balancing act with a masterful 6-week play designed to make you bigger, stronger, and more studly, whether you're viewed from the front, back, or anywhere in between.

YOU'LL LEARN:

* How to build impressive muscle without injury
* Why working your chest gives you killer abs
* The stretches that help you get bigger
* How short workouts and long recovery produce a great body
* Foods that fuel versus foods that fool

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kurt Brungardt is one of America's best-known personal trainers. He is the author of many leading-edge works on fitness, including two previous books in our series of Men's Health Peak Conditioning Guides, Essential Abs, and Essential Arms.


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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books (December 14, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157954309X
• ISBN-13: 978-1579543099
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #69,420 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Routines, September 30, 2003

By	Thomas M. Seay (Palo Alto, California USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have read a few body-building books and think this one, along with the other books in the same series (arms, legs, abs, etc), are the best to date.

One reason for this is the insistence upon good form. Like a lot of people, I have in the past gotten carried away with adding more weight and not paying attention to form. This is still a temptation but the message on good form presented in this book is finally starting to stick. I especially was impressed by his argument for paying attention to the negative part of the exercise.

Another STRONG point of the book is that it provides you with lots of routines. After finishing the books 6 week course,
you are supplied with an additional 4 or 5 good routines for future use. As the author states, it is important to change routines often, so that your muscles do not get too used to a given exercise (and you dont get bored). However,
I am very lazy about putting together routines and tend to stick to one. Thanks to this book this is no longer a problem, because it does it for me; I now have complete sets of routines that I can follow and am beginning to see important gains as a result.

The book also does a good job of covering the basics of good nutrition, rest and, for all of you gym rats who would ignore it,
aerobics (ever see those pudgy cro-magnon loking guys in the gym who claim their bloated tummies are muscle)!!!! He doesn't cover supplements though and that is understandable given the controversy and hype surrounding so many of them.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for a beginner, July 16, 2003

By	Manjari Mukherjee (Mountain View, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is simply a program to improve strength in your shoulders and chest. I have followed it for the prescribed 6 weeks with very good results. I can see better defenition in my chest and shoulders and I've increased the amount of weight i can lift considerable. However, this is mainly because i had not lifted in a year. It is very basic and anyone who follows a workout plan already would have most of the excercises given in this book. I would reccomend buying it only if you are a true beginner.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book for beginners, May 31, 2006

By	JN322 "32nd" (IL United States) - See all my reviews

This is the 2nd book on weight lifting I've read. The first one being "Muscle Logic" which was both difficult to grasp as a beginner, and also a very unrealistic program to actually accomplish (read it and you'll see why you couldn't do this unless you owned your own gym).

But essential chest and shoulders is not like that at all. It is written for guys like me who knew virtually nothing regarind weight training. It gives excellent introductory material regarding the muscle groups and strategies and general fitness information.

The program that it gives is a 3-day a week program, 2 focusing on chest and shoulders, and the 3rd day on other muscle groups. The program is easy to follow, starts simple and gets more in depth as the time goes. But not overwhelming for beginners.

The program does focus on chest and shoulders, so if you were interested in lower-body, abs, or arms, you may want to look at another book (which the men's health publisher makes virtually identical books for both arms and abs).

Most of the exercises are performed with dumbells. And the book is designed for someone who is just getting started, and can be performed solo if you don't have a partner (its a lot easier to escape dumbell bech presses at an early level than a bar if you don't have a spotter, but its good to have a spotter).

The plan is again, fairly simple and designed for beginners. Experienced weightlifters will not gain anything from this book. If you're looking for a starting point, this is for you.