For those of us sadly discovering middle age seems to also mean extra inches and unwanted pounds, this new book, "Your Body Revival" by famed bodybuilder and fitness expert Dave Draper is a godsend. Anyone familiar with either Draper himself, a consummate sixties bodybuilder who quickly ran through the pantheon of available titles by winning Mr. America, Mr. Universe and Mr. World to become famed as the blond bombshell, or with his unusual gifts as a writer as displayed in previous books such as "Brother Iron, Sister Steel" ... , this new offering of "Your Body Revival" is no great surprise. Indeed, for the mature fitness enthusiast unable to find adequate relevant personal guidance in mass circulation magazines that are more exclusively geared to the needs of younger athletes, this latest book is a unique and valuable offering that presents a plethora of suggestions that help both a more mature fitness enthusiast as well as a younger neophyte to manage his or her way toward specific physical goals.
Draper is one of those rare souls who is more interested in making a contribution to the sport by helping the everyday guy with his or her training issues than he is than with training potential bodybuilding stars for the posing platform. Not that Draper does not coach bodybuilders, for he surely does, but to date his main focus in his books has been more directed with helping "everyman" to strive for personal excellence. And it is this strain of thought that runs so memorably and helpfully through the chapters of this tome, as well. Draper clearly points the reader in the right direction, motivating and stimulating him or her with the voice of experience, probing at old fallacies and false promises, and summarizing, in concise and clear language, what the sound, basic nutritional facts are for the more mature athlete.
In doing so, he also provides a simple recipe or regimen for the athlete, one that will provide a maximum of lean muscle mass and which will also capitalize on fat loss at the same time. In this short book, big Dave emphasizes the "vital importance of muscle and bodybuilding", and even provides sample workout routines designed to reach these goals. And the book contains nuggets of useful information for all readers, regardless of their own circumstances or fitness level. In fact, in reading the book, you will quickly become amazed by the breadth of knowledge Draper applies to the subjects under discussion. It is obvious to even a casual reader that the book is carefully researched and meticulously written. Then again, one would hardly expect any less from the original blond bombshell, and a guy who brushed shoulders with everyone from George Eiferman to Steve Reeves to Larry Scott to Arnold Schwarzenegger to Tony Curtis to the late Sharon Tate.
In his introduction, Draper describes the sixties bodybuilding experience as being a time of relative innocence, before it became a mainstream fitness activity, and before it became corrupted by big power and big money, and it is that kind of personal ethos of seeing physical culture as a meaningful way of life and as a natural set of activities for someone interested in living a natural and healthy lifestyle that comes through here and makes this book so worthwhile. Like "Brother Iron, Sister Steel" before it, and like the many more books that we readers hope will follow, this is a book to be read and savored as words of carefully gathered experience, as words of training wisdom from the most gracefully aging bodybuilder of the 20th century. Dave Draper has become a quiet legend for those of us who matured in the shadow of his many accomplishments, for he is a guy who always managed to walk with a singular dignity and purpose, someone who never sold out to the more crass and commercial forms of strength sports "entertainments" we so often see in today's publications. This book gives us the honest information we need to strive more successfully toward our own realistic physical fitness goals. I highly recommend it. Enjoy!
