Customer Reviews

Workouts With Weights: Simple Routines You Can Do at Home

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been using this book as my training guide for several months now. It has a practical and no-nonsense approach. Since I bought this book and started using it, I have been reading other weight-lifting/strength-training books and so far have found the lessons/advice in this book to be extremely sound. If strength training (and not weight lifting) is your goal and you want to take the do-it-yourself approach, you won't go wrong with this book. You won't need a lot of equipment, either. A few free weights will do the trick.

I originally bought this book because I was looking for a book with the basics of using hand-held weights which depicted women and men together in a straight forward, healthy way. These are ordinary people demonstrating the moves. In other words, I'd seen enough gorgeous models staring at me from books and videos selling sex as much as practical information about exercising. Easy to use and I give it to a lot of women friends and my sisters. As an aside, this book is saving my life as it coincided with the moment in my life when I started an exercise routine and stuck with it for 3 years now. (Maybe it was the book?) I actually mainly use the warm-ups and stretches chapters as the mainstay of my routine. I have a big gym at the university and use that equipment rather than the hand weights. But I have used the weights chapters and they are easy to follow.

I was looking to get in better shape for some of the sports that I do (racing sailboats being my main concern), and did not know the first thing about strength training. This book really set me on the right path, with lots of good information about how to do this safely and efficiently. I am about the farthest thing from a bodybuilder, but since I have been following their programs, I feel healthy and strong. All those little aches and pains from computer work have disappeared, and my knees don't click so much when I do stairs or exercise bikes. I do the workouts while I watch TV in the evenings, so I don't have to go out to a health club ... and I get the entertainment value as well. Kudos to the authors for providing such a great service!

Complete and easy guide to establish objectives and create a safe, effective program. Defined programs at the back of the book are excellent for entire body workouts and make implementation easy. I used it the same day I bought it and have continued for years. I recommend it often and always hear positive feedback.

If you want to train in the privacy of your home and need information as to the basics of weight training, then this is the book. It contains easy to follow instructions as to the various free weight exercises. It also contains several routines with various levels of difficulty. It is also a good reference for experienced body builders.

This book is great for beginners and for those who have been working out for awhile. Very easy to understand routines, safety tips, stretches and warm-ups. When I first discovered this book I had not worked out with weights at all. I felt challenged initially, yet the different programs the authors have worked out make the workouts fun, and definiteley not boring. I loved the pre-set routines when I first started, yet I ultimately customized my own to make it work even better for me. I recommend this book highly!

Years after a car accident ended my weight training, I feel well enough to go back to free weights and pulled out this old book. Lots of books show dozens of moves and some may do a better job of explaining them. But this book does something that I've not seen that often in other books; they present a logical series of workouts that accelerate in intensity as your fitness increases.

The graphic layout of the programs is easy to translate into a spreadsheet or forms and you'll find it easy to adjust weight, repetition and set counts as you progress.

At the price this book goes for now you can't go wrong. It's true that the photos are pretty bad, but you don't need to spend much time looking at them anyway.

This is a great book. It'll save you about a thousand bucks by showing you how to do exercises with simple hand weights as opposed to expensive machines. I would get rid of all other books I own save my bible before getting rid of this.

First let me say that I am very particular about the books that I aquire, and try finding authors that present the "real deal".
That said, I think this book is great! I have perhaps a bad habit of exchanging books that I do not find usefull. This is the first book I have purchased on the subject of weight training, and I am completely happy. First, it has great info on weight training in general. Goals, saftey, nutrition. Just enough to get you started. No preaching either, just encouragement. These first few chapters are followed by some warm-ups and stetching excercises. I also really love the routines they have set in the back. There are several, and they are progressive and could keep you going for months at least, while building up strenth. This book is written from a more gentle perspective, no jocks or jarheads here. I do agree with the reviewer about the pictures. They serve their purpose quite well, but when I saw the publishing date was in the early ninties I had to check to see if I was reading correctly. They all look straight out the seventies. But again, this book is more about doing than glamor and show. Great book for those who want a good workout from home with almost no equiptment at all.

I just received this book in the mail yesterday, and was somewhat disappointed. The cover of the book is misleading compared to the pictures inside. The cover looks pretty up-to-date, but the people in the book who illustrate the exercises look like flashbacks from the '70's with headbands, permed hair, full body leotards, etc. They look like the "before" pictures of people who need to work out. Not that that matters, but it is not as motivating to me. The exercises are ok, but basic (I didn't learn anything new). If you are a beginner who doesn't need motivation, then you might get some use out of this book.