Premise: You have six basic movements that your body can do, so it would make sense to develop strength training programs that would focus on these movements.
Production Value: Was not incredibly impressed here. The book itself is a good size. Not a “fit in your pocket, you need a magnifying glass to read” or a “humungoid need the kitchen table to read” but a goldylocks “just right”. The negative aspect is it puts me in mind of a book that you study from in the elementary school library that is functional but not pretty by any stretch. No color pages. No glossiness. Just a plain simple print. This isn’t a negative in and of itself, but it strikes as a different quality than typical books of this nature. Not sure if it’s better or worse…but definitely different.
Layout: Set up as well as you’re going to set up a book. Easy to follow. Things are in their place without overlap or repeating information.
Writing\technical content: I grouped these because it would be really hard NOT to. The real technical content is somewhat light. It’s there, but this is definitely not a textbook. The writing itself is really neat…for lack of a better description. Take your big brother, but make him really smart, and have him tell you anything that’s important about lifting weights and you’ll have this book. It’s terrifically easy to read, with a very friendly tone the whole way through. It tells you what you need to know without filling pages on things that you don’t understand. When is does start to get a little heavy or confusing the author comes out and says “don’t worry about it…it really doesn’t matter”. Which IMO is very valuable and often overlooked quality. “Here’s four methods…they all work. Why? Don’t worry about it, no one really knows just take it for granted that it is. Let’s press on.” All in all very impressed. Everything that you need to know without the “you MUST do this” lies, and without extra information that does more harm than good.
Workouts: You get 9 total workouts. Fat loss\Hypertrophy\Strength with 3 each. Each workout “chunk” is an being all its own and the author(s) let you pick and choose which chunk you want to do, when ever you feel like you’re ready for it.
When I first flipped through the workouts I thought “you’ve got to be shitting me…this is garbage”. The workouts pretty much take up a page each and have 3-6 exercises. HOWEVER on closer inspection I’ve got to admit that the programs and layout of the programs is really phenomenal. I don’t really throw out a huge amount of praise typically but I’m really impressed. One, it lays out the program and you pick how many days you want to do it (flexibility). Two the exercises stay the same throughout the individual program but the set\rep\rest will change so assuming you did the max of 4 day a week workouts you would only do the same workout twice. So in addition to the flexibility the odds of actually getting bored of your routine are really low. The entire program set is entirely composed of compound movements so they’re rock solid in that regard. Just amazing really. By far the most impressive routines I’ve seen layed out in an off the shelf workout book.
Depending on your knowledge level you may take more or less out of the book. If you’re you’re relatively new and want some different ideas then this is a “must have”. If you pretty much have a good grasp of what’s going on then this is a “worth the money”. Very satisfied.
