Muscle Quest: Training Secrets of the Super Stars [Paperback]

Gerard Thorne (Author), Phil Embleton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 23, 2006

This book covers every major bodybuilding champion of the last 60 years, from John Grimek and Bill Pearl, to Flex Wheeler and Ronnie Coleman.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Thorne Embleton, Gerard Phil, Gerard Thorne, Phil Embleton, Robert Kennedy Jr

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Robert Kennedy (January 23, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1552100243
• ISBN-13: 978-1552100240
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,863,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, But Look Around, December 12, 2011

By 

V-Fox - See all my reviews

This review is from: Muscle Quest: Training Secrets of the Super Stars (Paperback)

I agree with the other review listed here, this book has quite a bit of information. It's not just workout routines (though there are plenty of them). There's enough discussion of the decades and the people to make this a nice historical review as well. Photography and layout are good, but nothing to be amazed by. Unfortunately, this book only goes up to the year 1999 (seeing as it was published originally in 2000).

My main reason for writing this review, though, is to encourage people to look around your thrift stores and discount markets. I bought this book from the Dollar Tree for a mere $1. So look around before you buy.

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent biographical history of bodybuilding (part 1), August 10, 2006

By 

Ng D. Y. Daniel (Hong Kong, Hong Kong) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Muscle Quest: Training Secrets of the Super Stars (Paperback)

If you are interested in the history of bodybuilding, you will find this book interesting and useful. There are several reasons that I would recommend this book to hardcore bodybuilding fans:
(1) It comprehensively presents both the biographical profiles and training routines of the great competitive bodybuilders in the past 60 years; this point alone makes this book unique in its presentation of the sport's history and coverage of information;
(2) The evolution of the sport in terms of the quality of the bodybuilding physique and the paradigm shifts of the training methods (e.g. from lower training volume in 50's and 60's to higher volume in 70's and 80's and back to lower volume since 90's) is clearly presented;
(3) Unlike other bodybuilding books that have been covering the facts that most, if not all, of the professional bodybuilders are performance enhancement drugs takers, this book accepts this as an established fact; you can occasionally find phrases like "pharmacologically enhanced" and "chemically engineered" in the book, words which are taboos in conventional bodybuilding books which try to tell readers that they can build a superhuman body with training and nutrition alone. Indeed, this book includes the profiles of two bodybuilders that were alledgely killed by overdosing of bodybuilding drugs. I think this book should be credited with its boldness because on the one hand, these two bodybuiders (like other pros who are taking drugs) should be given the respect they deserve; on the other hand, I think the younger readers should not have the illusion that the bodies of those modern bodybuilders are natural.