I know in this day and age reading a actual book about training for some is foreign.
Figured i start a thread so others can add their 2 cents.
Not my favorite author. With him overly harping on the hardgainner angle . But ,it is a solid read for those starting out with a ton of value.
Brawn and its sequel are great picks. I’m a big fan of books that cut out the nonsense and my choices reflect that.
Keys to Progress by John McCallum: does an invaluable job instilling a sense of the basics and working hard from an old-timer perspective via a delightful story-telling style with lots of sarcasm.
Any of Wendler’s 5/3/1 books: great for simple but effective programming.
Super Squats: the work outlined here is brutal, but it’s dead simple and I wish I’d read it early on to get a taste of what truly training hard feels like. I wouldn’t prescribe it to someone learning how to squat, but it’s something to anticipate graduating to.
And ANYTHING by Dan John.
Books I bought early on but would omit from this list: anything heavy with science and academia. Zatsiorsky’s Science and Practice of Strength Training, Mel Siff’s Supertraining come to mind. These are incredible compilations of training research but when it comes to taking action, simpler is better.
Same here… ive got all those you mentioned.
I know this isn’t a DVD thread, but “From the Ground Up” by Dan John is fabulous.
La’
Oh my goodness what a fantastic topic. I’m going to start with 2 books I wish I had from the beginning.
Super Squats, by Randall Strossen. Not only does this book contain THE Super Squats program of infamy, but also a history on the squat itself, a crash course in lifting psychology, some fundamental nutrition information, mentorship on how to execute the movements in the program, a FOLLOW ON program to run after Super Squats to give you effectively unlimited programming potential, and 2 separate Super Squat programs AND ways to modify. And it can be read in an afternoon. It’s a total package.
Mass Made Simple, by Dan John. It contains SO much Dan John goodness to it, helps get you in the correct headspace to gain, gives you the BEST squat technique walkthrough I’ve seen for a beginner alongside a plan to get you into squatting shape, walks you through literally every single workout of the journey, gives you some solid nutritional oversight, and once again gives you the tools you need to succeed.
After that, The Complete Keys to Progress by John McCallum. You get SO much from this book: a decade+ of articles from “Strength and Health” detailing how to eat and train in the pre-early steroid era, so you KNOW it works. You also can chart the evolution of lifting trends and see just how what was old is new again, similar to when I bought Josh Bryant’s “Tactical Strongman” book only to discover it was the same PHA training that John wrote about 50 years earlier. Marvel at how eating worked for bodybuilders BEFORE insulin, and how even dudes who were primarily concerned with looking good STILL moved heavy iron. Well worth the read.
Practical Primitive by Marty Gallagher is, again, a HUGE value. A kindle copy is less than $10 and gives you oversight on the training and eating of some of the greatest lifters from the spheres of bodybuilding, powerlifting, strongman, and just generally strong and jacked humans, along with cardiovascular monster and gurus. Marty has walked the walk and it shows in his writing and knowledge of the subject matter, and you get exposed to SUCH a wide variety of approaches while still getting constantly dialed back to the common working variables.
Brawn has already been mentioned, and holds high esteem for me.
5/3/1 Forever is exactly that: a book on 5/3/1 that gives you the tools to program “forever”. This book REALLY unlocked programming for me: Jim is able to take the complicated and make it simple. He’s our Prometheus in training: bringing us fire. With leaders and anchors, I finally “got” accumulation and intensification, and his ability to balance that with conditioning, assistance, jumps and throws with 50 unique programs in the book is just a goldmine. Another book that just gives you all the tools you need to succeed.
Jamie Lewis’ Feast, Famine and Ferocity book was quite life changing for me, especially when combined with his “Issuance of Insanity 3” and, more specifically, the Apex Predator Diet. Learning to cycle my nutrition in 2 week famine/4 week feast intervals has really been a gamechanger for achieving my goals, and Jamie has a fantastic way of slapping you with some absolutely bonkers intensity training and having you come out transformed on the other side.
Dan John’s latest works of the Easy Strength Omnibook, Easy Strength for Fat Loss, and the Armor Building Formula are all must reads. You will NOT put them down once you start. Dan writes in short, easy to digest chapters that all contain solid gold, and you WILL want to run the programs once you are done.
Man, I have SO many more to gush over, but this is a good starting point.
Somehow i knew you would appreciate this thread.
I actually think Arnold’s book may have set me back as much as it helped me (obviously I rolled with the pre-contest training template for months on end), but everyone should still have it!
Brawn was awesome.
“Be Your Own Bodybuilding Coach,” by Dr. Scott Stevenson is an impressive tome, but (in my personal opinion) a little dense for most.
I think allot of indviduals in my generation had this book.
Yeah like i mentioned … other than a few issues i have with it. I think most beginners would be light years ahead of where they are now with reading it. They would have a solid understanding of the basics.
Great start for beginners. Easy to read and use to set up training/diet. Written by Eric Helms of 3DMJ. Natural bodybuilding coaches and competitors.
This one might be good for someone starting out. It’s 400+ pages long, and set up like a textbook on bodybuilding. So on one hand, it’s a lot for a beginner. On the other hand, there is a lot of basic stuff like what lifts hit what body parts, pictures and cues to learn lifts and simple routines that anyone could follow.
Then as they went along and tried stuff and had questions they could read relevant sections of the book, about nutrition or deloads or psyiological science stuff like satellite cells and the sliding filament theory.
There are also brief write ups on a lot of the well known routines/programs like 20 rep squats, DC Training, Rest/Pause, drop sets, PHA, etc, etc. To give somebody coming up an idea of what’s out there and what’s been tried over the years.
I’ve always been curious about this book. I enjoyed the Metroflex Powerbuilding Basics book, but almost everything else I read from Josh was severely wanting, primarily because he spent a LOT of time trying to create a tough guy persona in his own writing. “Gas station ready”.
Appreciate you giving it a shout. Is Josh’s programming in it still primarily percentage based? Most things I’ve read from him are.
Arnold’s book is awful
Ha… I know the guy on the cover.
Super Squats
There’s a section on Power Building and using Strength Training as foundational work for bodybuilding. Those parts have the percentage based stuff. But it’s not as involved the 3 phase, multi month, % based plans from the MetroFlex book.
The rest/majority of the book is more for hypertrophy and those routines mostly use rep ranges. Like it says “4 x 6” or “3 x 10” and you do what comes natural.
Some are just kinda cookie cutter lists of exercises, but those are usually showing an example of how to use some concept or idea that Bryant just talked about.
The book is cool because it tries to give a broad overview of the principles of building muscle, more than really digging in and focusing 100% on 1 method.
@FlatsFarmer Appreciate the details there. Definitely sounds worth picking up.
I was so excited in my first post I completely forgot THE book that I ALWAYS recommend to everyone: it was already a foregone conclusion in my mind, haha.
Powerlifting Basics Texas Style by Paul Kelso. Once again, even if you have no interest in powerlifting, this is THE book that everyone should read, and I make it a point to re-read it at least once a year, and each time I do I STILL get something out of it. This isn’t a manual on powerlifting at all, but instead a series of parables related to all manner of training with weights for physical self improvement with a variety of approaches and lessons along the way. Paul uses a lovable cast of characters similar to John McCallum’s Complete Keys to Progress, and his prowess as a writer really shines through. Along with lifting, Paul discusses nutrition with a Texas bent, trends in lifting, abstaining from performance enhancing drugs, the folly of vanity, and SO many things that are amazingly even MORE relevant to young trainees today in this era of social media influencers. Seeing him give a nod to this “up and coming Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell” is just a delight as well. I would have loved to have this when I started out.
Sure, if you’re advanced. But it does go through the history of bodybuilding, how to perform exercises, how nutrition works - so I view it as a 101 level class.
And the other books aren’t perfect either. The anatomy one is a med school textbook, but if you want to get into the science of the body (since working out and nutrition effects every part of it), it’s good to have. The cookbook prioritizes a low fat approach, but the techniques are solid, and provides clear information to someone who might have always relied on fast food or takeout, and it has an exhaustive list of ideas and a variety of ingredients most beginners might be unsure what to do with.
Since it was for beginners, I figured having things you could reference made more sense, so they could learn about how and why things work as they have questions while progressing. Once you understand those things, any program will make more sense and they can understand how to tweak it.
Agree 100%… holds true for 99% of the lifting population.
