2010 Reading

Useful books I have read this year.

Anatomy of Exercise has been a simple but helpful reference tool for me in exercise selection.  The book is a collection of common exercises and shows a person working out side-by-side with a computer rendering of a human body with the skin removed.  The primary and secondary muscles recruited are identified and highlighted on the rendered body.  I have used this book to create a massive spreadsheet showing the primary muscles involved in exercises and assign a compound muscle "score" to each, thereby helping me select exercises with the most muscle activation for early in my workouts and with lower activation for later in my workouts.

Nutrient Timing is a phenomenal book on supplementation written by two Ph.D.s on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin.  Drawing on literally hundreds of academic studies, the authors discuss (1) how much protein, amino acid, carbohydrates, and vitamins to take for optimal development of muscle mass and (2) when to take them.  The book is a breath of fresh air from the ad-driven supplement articles in the magazines and the broscience in the gym.  Read this book. 

Big Beyond Belief was written in the 90s by a Ph.D. and a pro bodybuilder.  I was initially concerned by the gimmicky-sounding title, but the book turned out to be top-notch.  In particular, the book discusses the variables in any workout plan (training time, frequency, exercise selection, weight, reps, rep speed, rest intervals, intensity), and presents several 8-week training plans with strategic variation of the variables over the course of the 8 weeks.  The book explains in detail why split training should be discarded in favor of  circuit training.  I just finished 8 weeks on one of these training plans and set personal records on several exercises in the process.  After 8 weeks, I believe I've concluded the frequency and/or reps in the training plan was slightly higher than optimal for my body, which I have taken as further information learned from reading and implementing this book.

Muscle Gaining Secrets is an e-book of lessons learned by a guy who considers himself a "hard gainer" and has spent a decades training.  I discovered the author, Jason Ferruggia, from his blog Renegade Strength & Conditioning (link in sidebar).  I've followed his blog and discovered that just about everything he has recommended on his blog has paid off in my workouts.  The book dovetails nicely with Big Beyond Belief, as he discusses the same training variables and goes on to recommend the amounts of each of the variables that are most effective for classic "hard gainers".  I am presently working through a 12-week training plan in the book and I'm noticing significant strength gains already.  Also included is very helpful review of supplements: what is crap and what is useful.  Good stuff.  Just a warning: the website where you purchase this e-book is kinda cheesy--so much so that it originally put me off from my buying it for months.  But over that time, I kept finding the stuff Jason wrote on his blog to be effective in my training, so when he announced a sale on the book to celebrate his recent engagement, I went ahead and bought it.  I was not disappointed.  If you are a "hardgainer", I believe you will find this book extremely helpful.

So that's what I've been reading.  What have you read that you have found effective?

Many Think This Way, and Many Fail

Most people who attempt to build a good deal of muscle fail. Sure, almost everyone is able to gain a small amount of muscle, but many never get beyond a slight level of development, despite focused efforts, years in the gym, supplementation, adequate diet, and--not least among these--an abundance of desire. There are reasons for the widespread failure, the most common being the plain, simple, and unfortunate fact that the majority of weight trainers don't know what they're doing. The exceedingly rudimentary nature of the undertaking suggests that an equally simple approach will suffice: Just lift weights many think to themselves as they hit the gym and unleash a furious, nonsensical workout. Just lift weights and good things will happen. The muscles will grow. Work a little harder and they'll grow a little more. The idea is intuitive and simple. The act couldn't be simpler. Many think this way, and many fail.

This is the second paragraph of Chapter 1: The Problem of Gordon LaValle's book Training for Mass. It perfectly captures the mindset I had when I first set foot in a gym. I knew what I wanted: to build a bigger physique. And I thought I knew how--just lift weights, right? And initially this was true. Like virtually all beginner trainers, I saw some modest immediate gains. It excited me, but I wanted more.

Figuring out how to pack on more muscle mass has taken me quite a long time. Why? Because I spent too much time following bullshit magazine workouts and obeying broscience advice I heard on TV or from a friend. I won't embarrass myself now by telling you about the two years I spent doing machine-only workouts and forcing myself to run miles at at time, multiple times a week.

I learned something from that experience, though. I learned one approach to exercise that does not lead to muscle mass gain. I've learned a lot of other approaches that don't work, and I'll probably get around to describing them at some point. But what I'd prefer to focus this blog on is what I have found does work: the training, nutrition, recovery, and supplementation necessary to build a chiseled physique.

I've got several blog posts in process already and a list of other ones I'm planning to write. I planning to review blogs, websites, and books I've found helpful; talk a lot about nutrition and a little about supplementation; post some quotes, excerpts, and videos I've found inspirational; tell you what's on my workout playlist; and occasionally just rant about the latest crazy thing Chatty Guy McGee has interrupted one of my sets at the gym to tell me.

I'm definitely still learning. I've grown a lot in 2010--honestly, more than I imagined I could a year ago. I'm hooked. I want to grow more.