Customer Reviews

Science and Practice of Strength Training, Second Edition

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was a slight disappointment, wasn't as good as I expected. Contains good info anyway, and I found some interesting new pieces of info, but also some errors. Due to some errors I can't totally trust everything in this book, have to verify some things from other sources before I could trust them completely.

As an example, in "Injury prevention" section authors recommend including "trunk rotations against resistance" in training protocols (page 147). This is totally against scientific proof, according to scientific evidence this exercise should absolutely be EXCLUDED. Check this in Stuart McGill's book "Low back disorders- ..." and you will find the right kind of advice on injury prevention.

Same goes for the recommendation on page 145: "Persons at high risk of LBPS (low back pain syndrome) should perform sit-ups with the legs bent, as in this position the load on the spine is lighter and the effect on the abdominal wall is greater." This is old and erroneous information, the new scientific evidence proves that there is not a great difference in the load on the spine even if legs are bent. The pressure is again high and exactly from the injury prevention viewpoint there are superior rectus abdominis exercises. Once again, check for example above mentioned McGill's book for the scientific evidence and better recommendations.

For the above stated reasons, I can't totally trust this books information, especially the injury prevention section is clearly not updated to take into account the newer scientific evidence.

I have mixed feelings about this book. First, the good stuff: it contains a good review of current scientific literature relating to muscle development. It contains (I assume) good instructions to persons who are seriously training for regional or international competitions in weight lifting, gymnastics, track and field events, swimming, baseball, and others. The text is not centered on any one sport; this is a good thing, since strength training is relavant to any sport. The book also has chapters dedicated to special interest groups including pre-adolecents, seniors, women (with discssion of menstrual cycle), and persons recovering from injury. I learned a lot from this book and will use some of its material in a college course that I teach.

Things I'm less impressed with include the first few chapters in the section entitled "Basis of Strength Conditioning." The reader is bombarded with technical language and equations without sufficient explanations. The text is not dry; it provides great examples and contexts for the scientific concepts introduced in this section, but I found myslef a bit lost. This led to some misunderstandings later in the book when the same concepts were mentioned with regards to specific situations. I have a Ph.D. in Biology, so it's not a good sign that I got lost in places. Part of the probelm may be the unneccessary use of abbreviations that reqired me to use the glossary a little too often (I'm glad it has a glossary). Other than the introductory sections, I think the whole book could be written more succinctly. The text became repetitive in places.

I recommend this book to those with specialized interests: coaches, exercise technicians, elite athletes, and college professors like myself.

As the name implies, this book is a scientific analysis of the practice of strength training. Rather than the typical myths advocated by publications such as Men's Health and other popular sources for training information, this book provides the scientific foundations for strength training. It helps cut through the many myths surrounding strength training and provides in depth scientific analysis by one of the world's leading biomechanists, kinesiologists, and strength training experts. Zatsiorsky has influenced the weightlifting, powerlifting, strong man, and sports training worlds as well as academia. He describes theories as well as methods. This book belongs on the shelf of any serious student, professor, coach, or athlete. I, myself, am a tennis player and have benefitted greatly from this book. Clearly one for the ages, this book is excellent. Worth at least 100$.

I read this book upon the recommendation of Louie Simmons from one of his
[...] articles. I can safely say that this is one of the best books out there. It contains legitimate research and case studies of ELITE world class athletes. You won't find a perfect program here, because no such thing exists... Rather, you will find principles that you can employ to your training and research results based on other world class athletes (most notably Olympic weightlifters).

Best part of all, the text isn't infested with bodybuilding magazine type advice that distorts many trainees philosophy. The bottom line is that 3 sets of 8-12, pre-exhaustion and pyramid sets among other techniques are flawed and ineffective for elite strength athletes and Olympic athletes.

A great book on strength training for beginners and veterans alike. You don't need to be an exercise physiologist to understand it and yet the information is complete and extremely helpful for athletes and coaches at all levels

This book is heavily referenced by Louie Simmons of the Westside Barbell Club in Columbus.

It's funny that I took this book out from my library when I was 15 and I tried to read it and understand...that was 12 years ago.

I bought a copy from Elite Fitness a few years back...I've managed to understand a few more things than I did when I was 15 but honestly...alot of this stuff goes WAAAAY over my head. It's very scientific and I fear unless you have an aptitude for this sort of thing, it's going to be a tough read.

Nonetheless, this book has heavily influenced strength training as the world knows it...So I give it 4 stars.

(if you want the cliff notes, check out Louie's Articles)

This is one of the best books on strength training I have ever read! But this book is a dry read and is not for everyone. The information in this book is great and very scientific. You will learn a lot in this book but you must be willing to think outside the box to put the information to use. This is not a book that you can read and pick out a workout routine, but this book will help give you the tools to build a great workout routine if you take the time and effort to apply the principles from the book. If you love fitness and buy Men's health/fitness then this book is NOT FOR YOU. If you know who Mel Siff is and you like his book then this will be of interest to you. This is a text book, and in my opinion a great one. I am very glad I bought this book.

I am very satisfied with this book.It's very interesting scientific strength book who attempts to join scientific strength approach with one side and practice on the other side.Book is very influenced from work dr.Zatsiorsky with weightlifters and throwers in former Soviet Union but I am also interested in non linear periodization from dr.Kraemer.
Many thanks to autors

How often do you say - WOW. When reading a textbook?? Well, if you are really into strength training, this literature will bring you a new and fuller understanding of just what it is and how it is done. This should be on the book shelf of all lifters and body builders,
along side of Bill Pearl's books. This is not going to give you specific exercises for like building your bicepts, Bill Pearl's books do that in spades. No, this book built on the latest science and on the author's years of training olymipic/international champions is a rare mix of the two. I had expected that there would be kinestics pics galore showing all of the exercises, etc. But to my pleasant surprise it was more on the sciences; biological, neurological; physical chemistry, mental conditioning and in the "real world" what works and does not!! It blew away some of my closely held falicies and replaced them with research and actual training methods that are proven to work. I have termed it a textbook which might offend the authors, but it seemed appropriate as it reads in many sections like a text book. Replete, with formulas, math, graphs; enough to make any of us reach for the Excedrine. I found that once well confused, I would just skip ahead and there I was pleased to find softer examples and illustrations that reflected back onto and made more understandable the "textbook" stuff.
The knowledge and training methodology(s) gave me a Quantum leap forward into understanding my rate(s) of progress and how to keep on pressing toward the mark with out; burn out, plataus, injuries, etc. I have totally revamped my strength conditioning program to mirror and include the book's knowledge. I am gaining more, with less time spent at the gym - that alone is worth the cost of this book.
The only negative is why this book was not around when I was peaking ! I can not turn the clock back, and I am now only 5 months into a return to the gym, and at 65 in better strength now than my body building program of 5 days a week at 40!

this is a wonderful piece of strength training prose. It is right there with SuperTraining by Siff !!! Easy to understand by a master of the lifting science.