A Great Resource
This book is a great resource for those interested in the science and philosophy behind HIT (High Intensity Training).
I especially enjoyed the individual chapters written by Tom Kelso and Ralph Carpinelli which I thought presented the most cogent explanations of why and how to employ HIT workouts.
At the "used" prices the book is being offered for it's not only well worth the read, it's a steal!
Top notch
Matt Brzycki has done an incredible job with this book. I definitely put on the "must-haves" for strength training alongside Stuart McRobert's books.
Brzycki has done a great job in assembling top notch experts in the field of strength training. I read the negative review from Cruickshank and have to highly disagree. First, this is not a "Brzycki" book. Whether or not he trained under Matt Brzycki is irrelevant. This book is not a collection of Matt's ideas/approaches. It's compilation from a wide variety of authors, including Dr. Ken Leistner (Powerlifting guru), Jan Dellinger (nobody knows iron history better that I've seen), Ken Mannie and Dr. Ted Lambrinides - and that's just a few of the authors. So the reviewer's experiences with Matt Brzycki - whatever they were - are completely irrelevant to appraising this book.
To be completely honest I didn't like every single chapter. But that's okay. Every chapter has a different author's perspective on different training issues/methods. There are many different ways to do things. But their underlying philosophy of "train, hard, briefly and infrequently" has been proven successful going back a century (do some research on how the old time bodybuilders of the 20s-50s trained before the advent of steroids).
There is stuff in this book you simply CANNOT find in any other book that I've ever seen, like Bill Piche's chapter on Powerlifting HIT. I think it's very useful for any trainee - powerlifter or not - to learn some of those exercises like ball squats and trap bar deadlifts. This guy has certainly been in the trenches too - he's noted as having deadlifted 600lbs at a 198lb bw without the use of steroids.
This book covers the whole gamut of strength training, with one notable exception - detailed descriptions of the most productive strength training exercises. That's the one thing that's missing with this book. However, given the huge size of this book - it's virtually an encylopaedia with over 400 pages - this is understandable. The editor has published another book - "A Practical Approach to Strength Training - that describes in detail many exercises. I'd also recommend Stuart McRobert's book on exercise technique as well.
There isn't any nonsense in this book about miracle supplements or "secret" routines that are pushed every month by the unscrupulous muscle magazines. This book tells you all you need to know about strength training (again, with that one exception of exercise description).
My feeling is that there is just too much junk out there in terms of training advice. The best advice I can give to the trainee is to just read a very small number of books - this being one of them - and never EVER read another muscle magazine. Training really isn't that complicated, despite what some con artists will have you believe.
Good luck with your training!
Excellent Book
From reading some of the reviews all I can think of saying is this "Did you read it or is it your Ego speaking?" This us and them mentality is pure stupid. This is a very good book and is backed with a bunch of non biased research (Rare in Strength and Conditioning) Just looking at the credentials of the ones bashing it tells the whole story for anyone that has been paying attention. If you are interested in different ways to apply High Intensity Training to your program, this is for you. If your not interested then why waste your time? AND you shouldn't be rating the book if you haven't read it.
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