39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very helpful, February 20, 2006
This review is from: Men's Health The Body You Want in the Time You Have: The Ultimate Guide to Getting Leaner and Building Muscle with Workouts that Fit Any Schedule (Paperback)
I am a gym beginner who was looking for a solid introduction to weight training and fitness. My primary goals were learning a variety of exercises along with the proper form for each. Let's face it - for a lot of us, lifting weights is boring stuff, but I figured that more options might keep me going back to the gym. And who wants to get hurt at the gym, or spend hours without any results?
As the book explained, though, the variety of exercises presented provides other benefits - as you continue to work out, changing your routine can not only alleviate boredom but help you pass a plateau. Of course I'm not at that point yet, but I imagine that the well-illustrated 48 "anytime exercises" the book presents will be very welcome when I do.
Another thing I was looking for was an actual routine. Other books I looked at felt like they'd leave me wandering around the gym confused, wondering which exercise to perform next. But this one gives you an order in which to perform the exercises (and I like that each exercise has a couple of variations, so if the station I need next is occupied, I can do the exercise on a bench or stability ball instead.)
The book breaks workouts into the number of days you can commit to working out, and within each day, the number of minutes you can dedicate to your workout (10, 20, 30, 45, and 60 minutes.) Each time period offers 4 distinct workouts - weight loss, definition, strength, and a combination of the three.
A couple of bonus features are a good chapter on stretching, and some brief but solid nutritional advice. I distrust a lot of the "super food" talk in some of these books, but at least this one doesn't shill supplements. Despite the cover and the publisher, it also avoids the "guys in a locker room" attitude of some other books, and has a few specific tips for women and a female model demonstrating some of the exercise variations. It also has a short section on how to put a home gym together.
The book is definitely geared more toward weight training, and while there are some cardio tips, many of the shorter "complete body" workouts exclude cardio work altogether (while the shorter "lean body" workouts offer only cardio work.) One other complaint - as I suggested, there's a pretty wide variety of exercises offered, but I would have liked more tips on substituting variations into the workouts presented. Each workout is very structured, but there are no tips to replace the given exercise with another unless you move on to one of the longer workouts.
Those complaints are minor, though, and if you're looking for a solid introduction to the gym or a way to maximize the time you spend there, I'd recommend this book.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No more excuses, February 7, 2006
This review is from: Men's Health The Body You Want in the Time You Have: The Ultimate Guide to Getting Leaner and Building Muscle with Workouts that Fit Any Schedule (Paperback)
I have been looking for a workout book that would allow me to do some lifting before work. I never seem to have the time, because my workout stretches to an hour. The way this book works is, you first determine how much time you have a week to workout, then you just turn to the section and look at those workouts. For example, I chose 30 minutes a time, 3 days a week. It really works well. You get a core set of workouts that target your whole body. I highly recommend this book for people who think they have "no time to lift".
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Body sculpting resource., April 1, 2006
This review is from: Men's Health The Body You Want in the Time You Have: The Ultimate Guide to Getting Leaner and Building Muscle with Workouts that Fit Any Schedule (Paperback)
A prospect came up to me and told me that they wanted to sculpt their bodies into shape.I knew he meant what he said, and it was up to me to come up with a thorough program.So I decided to look at different resources.I came across Mark Verstegen's "core workout" and Myatt Murphy's book.I bought both books, and I found Murphy's book to be more focused on body sculpting-not to mean that there is something wrong with Mark's book.
This book has wonderul workouts that you could utilize depending on the amount of time you have available, I found this to be a powerful resource, whenever I have a client with only 30 minutes to spare.
I am competent in designing and implementing workouts, but there are times when I feel that my clients need something different, and thats where the "48 anytime exercises" come in.
This book will definitely get you that gladiator look.
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