Customer Reviews

Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training (Paperback)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Previously I read the books "Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding" by G. Thorne and P. Embleton, "The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding" by A. Schwarzenegger, "The Complete Book of Abs" by K. Brungardt, "The Complete Book of Shoulders and Arms" by the same author, "Lee Honey's Ultimate Bodybuilding" and other. These books were good and very helpful as introductory to bodybuilding for myself, but all these books are not comparable to Mr. El-Hewie's master peace "Essentials of Weightlifting & Strength Training".

Mr. El-Hewie explains the art of weightlifting. In the book you will exactly find everything about weightlifting you wanted to know. The books I read and mentioned above are not even close to his project. What he did is a very complete and thorough representation of techniques, principles, with very clear and numerous pictures exactly where you need them, comparison and explanation of various weightlifting flavors like bodybuilding, Olympic style weightlifting, power lifting. You can learn every weightlifting style from his book, if you wish. You will find all the best exercises and the best of the proven techniques for all of these disciplines. The accent of the book is however on freestyle weightlifting.

From the book you will learn how bodybuilding differs from normal weightlifting and what mistakes you have done if you were bodybuilder. You will understand that bodybuilding is just a shorter version of normal weightlifting, and that shortage could be easily overcome with much more powerful exercises and attitude than you possibly had before! I tried the exercises myself and I can assure you that after years spent in bodybuilding, with Mr. El-Hewie's exercises I feel as reborn and would never return to poor bodybuilding style of exercising. One very important note: by changing your bodybuilding style to weightlifting you will avoid the injuries and inevitable deformations that you will have with your bodybuilding style (whatever it is). Also the feeling of whole body strength is so refreshing and powerful that I can't stop myself from practicing even at nights after this book!

One of the book editors was 100% right that Mr. El-Hewie's book is the lifetime project. It is so crowded with information, attitude, techniques, comparisons, and all vital info on the subject that you would find probably everything you need about healthy weightlifting training. This is not money-luring book like most of others I found, this is honest approach to personal practical knowledge of an highly educated and very skillful author.

This is the first edition of the book. Bad things about it is that the language is not polished because the author is not from English spoken area; the book binding is poor and the index should be more thorough, the glossary also. The book has long lines of dense text so it is a little harder to read if you are used to reading more luxury books. You will have to adopt yourself to the author?s language.

But, these bad things are nothing when compared with what you got with the book! Personally after some 10 pages or so I adopted myself to the author's language style perfectly. Even the author's language and style gives you a very warm feeling of having a contact with a specific person with distinguished personality, and giving you an impression as if you have a personal trainer next to you. About the dense text: if the author followed usual big letter size and wide empty page margins, you would face not a 540 pages book, but maybe 2,500 pages and proportionally expensive one. So there is a good point in keeping the size down, right?

All in all, if you ever intended to make your life healthy and use weights to improve it, this book cannot be overlooked. And if you like and practice weightlifting or bodybuilding like myself you would enjoy every single page of it. All possible recommendations, with 5 stars, I do not believe other titles come close to this master peace!

Additional note: I recommend you to buy this book and the book The Weightlifting Encyclopedia: A Guide to World Class Performance -- by Arthur J. Drechsler. The Drechsler`s book is almost with no pictures inside, but the two books complements each other beautifully.

I am a former collegiate oarsman, who lifted weights to augment strength in college. I also coached rowing for a short time, and track and field.

I wanted to review the book after finding Mr. El-Hewie has 57 book reviews on Amazon.com, many less than flattering. But he writes them honestly. So I wanted to see how good his book is. Its a bit difficult, but very good. Packed with information. I've looked at many other books at the library, but bought few. At the moment, I have Getting Stronger, and now this book.

To begin, the book is 9 x 12 and an inch thick. Mr. El-Hewie uses margins of about 3/4 of an inch. His 519 pages could easily have been spread out to a "more readable" 1000 pages. He is very much for powerlifting and traditional weight lifting, but still gives very good coverage to bodybuilding. His technical writing is thorough. He gives anatomical and descriptions of how things work that you expect of other books, but seldom find.

He covers Technique, Posture (over and over, since you can hurt yourself, as some us well know), Fallacies, Weightliftng, Powerlifting, Importance of Muscle Balance, Bodybuilding, Weight Training, individual chapters to the Snatch, and Clean & Jerk. Also Endurance vs Strength, Axial Training (multi-joint exercises, his preference),Training Choices, Managing Load Volume and Intensity, Health and Fitness, Exercise & Preventable Disease, Diet and Nutrition, Exercise and Injuries, Exercise and Science, a good FAQs, and Training for Women. He has tables. He show both good technique and bad technique, and the what and why of them. He summarizes each chapter.

The book is not perfect. But this is a book in English by an Egyptian. There are occasional grammatical errors, and rare difficult sentences. But hey, how many of us would try to make a 500 page book in a foreign language ? Mr. El-Hewie claims to be a doctor and engineer. From what I read in the book, he must be.

I've gone over the book in pieces, some sections completely, others just a skim, and not every page yet, but I've only had it a few days. It seems to be beyond thorough. Tough to get through some sections, but the value in some sections will make you want to make sure you don't miss anything in the entire book. He does not cover every exercise variation, as you might find in Bill Pearl's Getting Stronger, which I also have, and like. But Bill Pearl leaves out much of the nitty gritty hard to write technique for individual exercises. For what he provides, El-Hewie, gives you everything you could want to know about the exercises he includes.

The book is a gift.

Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training, by Mohamed F. El-Hewie, is a book which encompasses both the very general and the very specific. It covers a wide range of subjects relevant to health, fitness, nutrition, strength training, and Olympic-style weightlifting and often does so in explicit detail with exhaustive illustration. Despite the broad scope, the basic theme of the book is simple to understand: the author believes that a balanced program of basic, compound exercises emphasizing the functional aspects of the bodies largest muscle groups are key to maximizing strength and fitness. Examples of these exercises include the Olympic lifts: the snatch and the clean and jerk, and assistance/power lifts like the squat, deadlift, bench and military presses, and the jump good morning. He believes that other exercises and training modalities, such as bodybuilding-type training and moves can, and should, be added to the basics where needed to enhance performance and achieve goals. The author includes extensive information on structuring strength training and fitness routines starting with the basic principles and terminology applicable to everyone, and ending with a detailed example of a cycling plan for competitive Olympic-style weightlifters. The example of the Olympic-lifting cycle alone takes up 22 pages and includes day by day, rep by rep scheduling for the Olympic lifts and all their assistance exercises. We're talking detailed. Other highlights that struck me include:
1. 40 well-illustrated pages on learning and teaching the snatch and the clean and jerk.
2. Detailed chapters on powerlifting, bodybuilding, and weight training, including technical instructions on the involved exercises and competitive lifts. Also the pro's and cons of each training style.
3. Discussion on bringing women into productive training and eliminating fallacies about strength training women.
4. Discussion on making decisions on balancing strength and endurance to meet your goals.
5. Discussions of everything from injury treatment and prevention, to training psychology, to plyometrics, to aerobic exercise, to the riboflavin content of many common foods, to the proper form for lifting a bag of groceries, and much, much, MUCH more.
I very much liked this book and expect to benefit from it in my own endeavors as a competitive weightlifter. While not everything in this book is new or groundbreaking, it is a solid manual and exhaustive reference book. The author's philosophy of taking the best lessons learned from hundreds of years of strength training and weightlifting competition and incorporating them into a program that maximizes health, performance, and function seems basically sound. While I would question some of his claims, more often than not they agreed with my own experience and common sense. These are the pros of this book. The cons include frequent editing and translation errors which are sometimes distracting. Also, many portions of the book are written from the author's own experience and his extrapolations from the experience of others. This may be discomfiting for some people who prefer to put their faith in formal, documented research. Also, though the book is basically well-organized and easy to understand, the sheer volume of information might be daunting to some people.

I bought this book and it was not a bad decision. Most of the reviews here are pretty accurate. He does cover unique ground in pointing out exercises that are not common in the more mainstream books like Body for Life and Lean Body Promise. The first edition has its fair share of editorial bugs but I think that you could piece together the general meaning given the context. I would point out that most books do not go into lifts such as the clean and snatch due to injury possibility. This is something that needs to be covered because some of these exercises can really put a person into jeopardy if they did not slowly build up to these type of movements. The more mainstream books tend to stick with bodyshaping movements and do not really go into more "athletic" moves. This is a good resource to consult for those type of movements but most people that I see working out at the gym are not into that type of lifting. In that way, the book is a bit overkill. The author has taken unnecessary pot-shots at the Body for Life and Lean Body books for being to simplistic or "looks based", but that is what a lot of people go for these days. They just want to know how to get from A to B as fast as possible. You look at Body for Life (even with its flaws) and the program is fairly simple and will give results as long as you are consistent. The downside with this book is that in being as comprehensive as it is, it misses the typical American way of life. I am not saying that this is the right way of thinking but it is out there. I would say that this is really geared towards those that are more advanced and not intimidated about more advanced lifting techniques.

The descriptions of the reviewers: Slavisa Nesic and Larry Wagner "Athlete, Analyst, Coach, Dad" in this list do an excellent review and detailed description of the book. I just wanted to add my voice, as a woman, that I found his book incredibly useful too.

As is stated, the emphasis of El Howie's book is on weight-lifting and power-lifting (which focuses more on strength) as compared with Bodybuilding (to get those shapely muscles that make our stomach flat and the rest of us curvaceous.) Women in general want to look great in a bikini and the Bodybuilding orientation is the way to go.

But he gives enough coverage to Body-building and nevertheless, he is meticulous about form.

The other two books I have liked in conjunction with this is Delavier's Strength Anatomy and his Women's Strength Training Anatomy (I recommend getting both whether you are male or female.) Those books give you very clear basics for form, lots of detailed diagrams and so forth. El Howie's book is extremely comprehensive.

There are various debates as to how often to work out, whether you should focus on just parts of the body each day at a time or workout the whole body in each session. There are also differences of opinion as to best plan your meals, whether and when you should do cardio in conjunction with the weight-lifting. It would be useful, if you are a first-timer, to go for Body for Life or some other program that involves lifting weights. At bottom, in my experience, how one comes out on the various debates invariable is what works best for them, whether physiologically, psychologically or schedule wise.

I just want to say to any woman reading this, if you don't already know, you will never get back or achieve that girlish figure if you don't lift weights and lift heavy weights. And you can no matter what you age.

Though I do not want to provide a link on an Amazon post, if you google John Stone 42 the first link that comes up should be "Fit Women over 42- 89 on parade." If you go to that link you will find tons of stories with pictures of women going through fantastic transformations starting at age 50, 60 and older. Don't ever believe you are "too old" or "too out of shape" to achieve this.

And El-Howie's book is a great reference for getting form down correctly to get the best results and not injure yourself.

Although I am currently not in the best of shape, at one time I worked as a personal trainer and by education I was trained as a research scientist. I have graduate education in both physiology and biochemistry and have worked with some high end athletes including one Olympic level powerlifter. Currently, I am looking to use strength training again myself because I was sidelined for a number of years by a back and neck injury, this is the context for my interview.

The first thing I would like to say is that I own and have bought many books on strength training and most of them are not even in the same category as this book. Of the books that are out there, most of them say the same thing in different ways, make unsubstantiated claims or set unrealistic expectations. In short, this book is a welcome exception. It is well-organized, detailed, thorough, well-written and dense with valuable material.

A lot of the focus here is on training for powerlifting. However, it's also a great strength training text with lots of references. The scope of the book is ambitious and covers the proper way to perform important exercises, information about periodization, explanations of how different types of programs affect the body, the importance of coordination, etc.

In addition, this title has many useful diagrams, training ideas and references to actual studies. The information in it is very credible and much more than one person's opinion. I was also extremely impressed with the detailed descriptions of how each exercise works, the anatomy involved and the sections on physiology.

One might assume that a book like this would read like a text book in accounting or calculus (not that there is anything wrong with either of these subjects).... However, it sometimes difficult to be technically precise and at the same time engaging to the reader. On this account, Dr. El-Hewie has certainly succeeded.

Although this book is quite expensive, it covers a TREMENDOUS amount of ground in a reasonable space. It was clearly a labor of love and it is well worth every cent. Rather than wasting money on more of the same, I recommend getting a few good books. This is one I would NOT like to be without.

Another book that I saw recently for hard-gainers had a lot of good content in terms of building mass. I think it fell down a bit in the nutrition/supplement area, but it is much less expensive than this and covers a subset of this material that is most important to training properly for mass. This book is called From Scrawny to Brawny. There are a FEW other books I saw that I thought were quite good and I will be reviewing them in the near future. I will most likely be reviewing the ones I thought were quite bad as well.

Lastly, this book covers lots of nuances like nervous system adaptation, relationships between strength, mass and power. The importance of coordination and how to plan a path forward depending upon your goals. It's really one stop shopping for an athletic approach to strength training vs. bodybuilding. Bodybuilders will find a lot of great material here, but this is NOT the emphasis of this particular book.

I purchased this book with the intent to learn more about the sport I participate in, which is Olympic Weightlifting. I found the book to very informative on each aspect of lifting. I also liked the detailed explanations throughout the book.

The only thing I recommend for the next version of this book aside from updating out of date information, ie the Weight Classes for Olympic Weightlifting, is better editing. There were grammatical errors and such throughout the book, but it was still readable.

Other than the editing, I'm very pleased to add this book to my library and will recommend it others that want to learn more about Olympic Weightlifting or another form of lifting.

I think the book is okay; it's a little overpriced. Some of the information is outdated and contradictory to more recent studies. The book can also be a little dry at times, reading more like a technical manual. I feel some of the drawings and illustrations could be more clear. The author relies on poor drawings to illustrate lifting techniques.

I bought a Kindle edition of this book after reading the reviews. What a disappointment. Words, words, words... Lots of words. yet the book could easily be edited into one third of its size. Sure, there is some information on strength training, but large amount of info in it is amateurish and dated. There is no nutritional value in animal protein, really?

The book is about the essentials of weightlifting, but the author seems to believe he is competent to dish his opinion on many other areas of life. Mind you, he even comments on homosexuality. There are lots of musings that are of no practical and even theoretical value.

I am very disappointed with the book and am returning it.

This book reads like a terrible translation. Sometimes I was able to figure out what the author was trying to say, but there were several passages that were so poorly written I suspected that entire words were either missing or accidentally added. This is not an occasional problem - it is in every single paragraph and practically every sentence. The editors did the author a real disservice by not either requiring him or having someone else rewrite this book so that it was clear and easily read. Books on this subject are often hard to understand - it's a complex subject - but the problem with this book isn't the difficulty of the material. It's practically incomprehensible in places, and completely frustrating throughout, due solely to its abysmal writing. No offense to the author, as I suspect English is his second language and I believe he has some good information here. But unless this book is completely rewritten it is not worth your money.