Just Got Three Books

[Anthrax Invasion]

My books have arrived! Starting Strength, Defying Gravity: How To Win At Weight Lifting, and The Strongest Shall Survive!

I'll probably give a good little review of them once I'm done reading. Chances are, by tomorrow night, I'll have tackled all three.

 

[blackwell33]

great, I just ordered starting strength today. Put up a review after reading through it. I'd like to hear what u think.

 

[EnderJE]

Ummm....lift more weights?

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Ummm...shut up?

 

[HaZaRDouZ]

get a subscription to Musclar Development. Good reading, as for those books, i am sure you can find a similiar one on Limewire for free.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

A magazine? No thanks.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Alright, so I finished the squatting chapter in Starting Strength. It's very informative. He covers anything you could ask about during the exercise. Breathing, stance, grip, head position, back, knee, hip function and cautions, along with a final closing three pages on equipment for squatting. I'm very impressed. The best part it, I was able to sum up the things I need to know to fix my squatting form in a few quick notes that I'm going to post up in front of my rack so every time I go to squat, I'm reminded of them.

I'm tired, but I want to continue on and read the bench press chapter. Will probably post something on that later today.

 

[blut wump]

lol. How many of us have lost sleep on the first day of reading 'Starting Strength'?

 

[Jim Ouini]

There's so much information it was almost overwhelming. I think I mentioned before, my first workout after reading the book I totally overthought my squat and had a terrible workout.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

I'm actually planning to break from lifting for a week or two, just to teach myself the lifts over again. I think I need the most help with my bench press. I picked out six things or so, so far, that I need to change with it. I just never was any good at it.

I can't wait to get started, though.

 

[anotherbutters]

lol, we're all the same - I renamed mine Stopping Sleep after the first few late nights.

I wouldn't take a break from lifting, just try to introduce one or two things at a time. It took me a few weeks to remember everything and do them all at once for bench press and it's still not automatic.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

I just finished the benching chapter - wow. There was a LOT of stuff I was doing wrong or just didn't realize I needed to correct. It was nice when I grazed over something I already did right, but the reinforcement of technique will be a good thing.

You get coahces on where your eyes should be, grip, elbows and their role in the descent of the lift, driving the bar up from the chest and using the legs to stabilize, how to position your shoulders, feet and back, and how to breathe properly for the lift.

So far, this book is golden.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Deadlift chapter read. I'm getting hungry, and also antsy to go train and perfect my form. I learned the least from this chapter so far. My deadlift form was pretty on target already. He goes over grip and foot placement, bar placement relation to the body, the path of the bar when lifting and all the things people tend to do wrong (none of which I was guilty of, oddly), the use of equipment, avoiding calluses, how the elbows should be positioned, obviously all stuff about the back, arching, rounding - the whole nine yards, and the position of the shoulders.

A great chapter still, but not my favorite. Watch, I missed something key and will end up screwing myself up bad.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

I finished the rest of the book. Loved the whole thing, definitely a great read. There's less to describe about the press, and too much to go into with cleans. The programming section at the end throws some nice tidbits at you, and then the book wraps itself up.

On another note, I started reading parts of Bill Starr's The Strongest Shall Survive and it fell short of the impact I thought it would make. The training section I briefed over, so I might have to give that a closer look, but the nutritional section was horrid, as far as I'm concerned. I guess it's to be expected that the diet knowledge back then was sub-par. Still some key things in there, but they were fundamentals to me. His views on certain things are just skewed.

Aw well, Starting Strength was what I was really after. The other two were just to pick up any extras. Good stuff, all in all.

 

[blut wump]

Deadlift chapter read. I'm getting hungry, and also antsy to go train and perfect my form. I learned the least from this chapter so far. My deadlift form was pretty on target already. He goes over grip and foot placement, bar placement relation to the body, the path of the bar when lifting and all the things people tend to do wrong (none of which I was guilty of, oddly), the use of equipment, avoiding calluses, how the elbows should be positioned, obviously all stuff about the back, arching, rounding - the whole nine yards, and the position of the shoulders.

A great chapter still, but not my favorite. Watch, I missed something key and will end up screwing myself up bad.

On reading the chapter, I found that my deadlift form was within reasonable tolerance levels.

I wish I'd taken more care on reading the paragraph or two on the eccentric portion of the lift. I tore a muscle in my side three weeks back while lowering the weight back down due to allowing the weight to sway too far out.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Ah, damn, so that's how it happened eh? That's no good. I'll make sure not to let it sway from my frame, although I don't think it does this much anyway.

One thing I never used to do is hold my breath for fear of an aneurysm, but the few times I sampled the technique, it felt solid. I'm gonna like utilizing that for stability.

 

[anotherbutters]

I can't find what he says on breathing, but I read somewhere to take a big breath into your belly, not chest. That makes a lot of difference for me, giving me a solid core.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

He points it out numerous times. The first time is in the squat chapter. It's one of the last topics covered, towards the end of the squatting portion of the book.