The New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscle
by Alwyn Cosgrove, Lou Schuler
List Price:
Our Price: $10.99
You Save: $14.96 (58%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $5.49 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Alwyn Cosgrove, Lou SchulerEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-12-29
ISBN: 1583332383
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Avery
Book Reviews of The New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscle
Book Review: The basic premise may be new...but the exercises are all old. Highly overrated..
Summary: 3 Stars
This book has some useful insights, and you can get results from this plan. But that's because you can get results from any workout plan, as long as you "happen" to subject your muscles to higher levels of intensity than what they're currently accustomed to. And that's especially true if you're an absolute beginner to weight-training, in which case anything that you do will be more intense than what you were doing before, which was nothing.
With that said, the exercises in this book are nothing new; so with the overabundance of books out there that contain the same exercises, done basically the same way, one wonders why the author even bothered to write the book at all.
Most important however is this: if your goal is to build maximum muscle in minimum time (or maximum muscle at all),this is not the workout plan for you. And that's partly because the author does not define intensity correctly (as it relates to strength-training) anywhere in the book. In fact, I don't believe he defines intensity at all. And obviously if you don't have the right definition for intensity (one that works in both theory and practice), you won't know which strategies work to generate MAXIMUM intensity for any exercise that you do. And if you don't achieve maximum intensity, you simply will not get maximum results in minimum time. In fact, without maximum intensity, you won't get maximum results at all, even if you were to do these exercises (in this book) for 100, 1,000 or 1,000,000 years.
The basic premise for this book (and the only part of the book that might be new) is that the ideal workout plan is one that is based upon the "natural" motions that our paleolithic ancestors most likely did most often. Anything other motions are pretty much a waste of time, according to the author. So the author recommends six basic moves (such as those involved in the squat, the deadlift,and the row), based upon his beliefs as to what those motions were; and the entire workout plan is based upon that concept.
That is a flawed, misleading concept, and the author gives absolutely no compelling arguments as to why it should be accepted as valid. And there are many arguments as to why it is flawed. But since the author apparently believes in it, the advice he gives in this book is intended to work in sync with this misleading concept; so as a result, the advice he gives in the rest of the book is misleading as well.
For example,the author contends that the biceps curl(or arm curl) is a waste of time, because you can fully develop your biceps by doing exercises like rows, which involve bending the arm, and which use one of the six basic moves that he says form the basis of the ideal workout plan;in this case, what he calls a "pulling motion". He also claims that bending the arm (as done with the biceps curl) is a waste of time,because it's not one of the six basic moves that he recommends. But you have to bend your arm against the resistance of a net external force to fully develop the biceps; otherwise, the muscle fibers in the biceps that come into play only for that particular motion (i.e that of bending the arm) will remain undeveloped. And rows won't accomplish that, because you are not actually "bending" your arm against the force of the weight when doing rows. When doing rows, you're just "allowing a bend to occur" in the arm; but since the force of the weight is always parallel to the forearm when doing rows, there's absolutely no resistance for the biceps to work against. The force of the weight must be at an angle to the forearm in order for there to be any resistance for the biceps to work against; and that's not the case when doing rows. Rows are an isolation exercise that involve one single motion working against the resistance of the weight, and that motion recruits muscle fibers in the back (the rhomboids and trapezius)and the deltoids (the median and posterior), and that's it. Rows do not work your biceps at all, even though you do allow a bend to occur in the arm when moving the upper arm back relative to the upper torso. But the author is apparently unaware of this, since he insists that rows are a compound exercise that sufficiently work the biceps as well as the back muscles and the deltoid muscles. This book is full of misleading information like this, partly due to the misleading premise of the book. Additionally, the author doesn't make it clear which muscle groups you're working for any given exercise that he describes.
Furthermore, the author mistakenly believes (again, due to the erroneous premise of the book) that compound exercises are all you need to fully develop your muscles. He believes that isolation exercises (such as the biceps curl) are a waste of time. But the truth is that you cannot achieve maximum intensity "in any given muscle group" when doing compound exercises. And anyone who believes that you can, is either using the wrong definition for "intensity" (this book offer no definition), or the wrong definition for a "compound exercise"; or both. For example, the row is often inaccurately referred to as a compound exercise. But if you look at it more closely, you'll find that it's actually an isolation exercise, not a compound exercise. The truth is that you cannot fully develop your biceps, triceps, glutes, calves, hamstrings, lats, forearm muscles, pectorals, abductors, etc. without isolataion exercises. And if we choose to believe otherwise, we do so due to a faulty level of awareness as to what intensity really is in regards to strength-traing. The fact that this book offers no such definition speaks for itself.
In sum, the only way to build maximum muscle in minimum time (or maximum muscle at all, even in maximum time) is to achieve maximum intensity...not just high-intensity, but MAXIMUM intensity. And to accomplish that, you need the right definition for intensity, and you need to do isolation exercises, and you need to do static contractions,so that the intensity does not fluctuate,as it always does with repeated body motions.
And the only published workout plan that accomplishes all of that is the one found in John Little's book "Max Contraction Training", which I would recommend over this book, which is very misleading and inaccurate.
Summary of The New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscle
A revolutionary method of weight lifting using today's science for maximum results.
In The New Rules of Lifting, fitness guru Lou Schuler and strength-training expert Alwyn Cosgrove boil down the most recent findings on weight lifting and fitness to create a program of workouts that focuses on the movements at which the body naturally excels. These six "real-life" movements-squat, bend, lunge, push, pull, and twist-compose three complete programs for three distinct goals: fat loss, muscle gain, and strength improvement.
At home or at the gym, these routines can be mixed and matched for a year's worth of workouts that will keep boredom at bay and lifters challenged long after most plans have called it quits. And while coordinated, useful muscles will always turn heads at the beach, they'll also help you live better and longer. Besides providing comprehensive workout programs, The New Rules of Lifting covers much-needed background on aspects of lifting that are often overlooked, like warming up, nutrition, and meal planning. Throughout, Schuler and Cosgrove debunk strength-training myths, troubleshoot dangerous pitfalls, and clearly illustrate moves with black-and-white photographs.
In The New Rules of Lifting, fitness guru Lou Schuler and strength-training expert Alwyn Cosgrove boil down the most recent findings on weight lifting and fitness to create a program of workouts that focuses on the movements at which the body naturally excels. These six "real-life" movements-squat, bend, lunge, push, pull, and twist-compose three complete programs for three distinct goals: fat loss, muscle gain, and strength improvement.
At home or at the gym, these routines can be mixed and matched for a year's worth of workouts that will keep boredom at bay and lifters challenged long after most plans have called it quits. And while coordinated, useful muscles will always turn heads at the beach, they'll also help you live better and longer. Besides providing comprehensive workout programs, The New Rules of Lifting covers much-needed background on aspects of lifting that are often overlooked, like warming up, nutrition, and meal planning. Throughout, Schuler and Cosgrove debunk strength-training myths, troubleshoot dangerous pitfalls, and clearly illustrate moves with black-and-white photographs.
Bodybuilding & Weight Training Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Bodybuilding & Weight Training Books
Basic Weight Training for Men and Womenby Thomas D. Fahey
McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; Published: 1999-07-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
Sculpting Her Body Perfect - 3rd Editionby Brad Schoenfeld
Power Systems; Human Kinetics; Published: 2007-10-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops:
Periodization-5th Edition: Theory and Methodology of Trainingby Tudor Bompa, G. Gregory Haff
Human Kinetics; Human Kinetics; Published: 2009-06-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $33.51
Price in other shops:
Morning Strength Workouts (Morning Workout Series)by Annette Lang
Human Kinetics; Published: 2006-11-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops:
Isokinetics in Human Performanceby Lee Brown
Human Kinetics; Published: 2000-04-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $41.60
Price in other shops:
Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioningby NSCA -National Strength & Conditioning Association
Human Kinetics; Published: 2000-07-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.64
Price in other shops:
Arnold's Bodyshaping for Womenby Douglas Kent Hall Arnold Schwarzenegger
Sphere Books; Published: 1981; Paperback; Book
Be Strong: Strength Training for Muscular Fitnessby Wayne L. Westcott
Brown & Benchmark Pub; Published: 1993-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops:
The Psychology of Strength and ConditioningRoutledge; Published: 2011-12-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $99.48
Price in other shops:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Weight Trainingby Cane Deirdre Johns
Alpha; Published: 1999-12-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Female Body Breakthrough: The Revolutionary Strength-Training Plan for Losing Fat and Getting the Body You Wantby Rachel Cosgrove
Rodale Books; Published: 2009-11-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.86
Price in other shops:
The New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscleby Lou Schuler, Alwyn Cosgrove
Avery Trade; Published: 2008-12-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.49
Price in other shops:
You Are Your Own Gym: The Bible of Bodyweight Exercisesby Mark Lauren, Joshua Clark
Ballantine Books; Published: 2011-01-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops:
Maximum Strength: Get Your Strongest Body in 16 Weeks with the Ultimate Weight-Training Programby M.A. Eric Cressey CSCS CSCS, Matt Fitzgerald
Da Capo Press; Published: 2008-05-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.76
Price in other shops:
The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddessby Lou Schuler, Cassandra Forsythe
Avery; Published: 2007-12-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.13
Price in other shops:
Men's Health: The Book of Muscle : The World's Most Authoritative Guide to Building Your Bodyby Lou Schuler, Ian King
Rodale Books; Published: 2003-10-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.74
Price in other shops:
The New Rules of Lifting For Life: An All-New Muscle-Building, Fat-Blasting Plan for Men and Women Who Want to Ace Their Midlife Examsby Lou Schuler, Alwyn Cosgrove
Avery; Published: 2012-04-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.68
Price in other shops:
The New Rules of Lifting for Abs: A Myth-Busting Fitness Plan for Men and Women Who Want a Strong Core and a Pain-Free Backby Lou Schuler, Alwyn Cosgrove
Avery; Published: 2010-12-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.10
Price in other shops:
Strength Training Anatomy-3rd Editionby Frederic Delavier
Human Kinetics; Human Kinetics; Published: 2010-03-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.67
Price in other shops:
The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddessby Lou Schuler, Cassandra Forsythe M.S., Alwyn Cosgrove
Avery Trade; Published: 2008-12-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.65
Price in other shops: