The Men's Health Hard Body Plan : The Ultimate 12-Week Program for Burning Fat and Building Muscle

"This book is CHEESY! No its CORNY! No its DORKY! No wait, its FULL OF BS! One solid set to failure with slow reps (3 seconds on the pos/neg) is all you really need, this book is teaching you how to overtrain yourself and delay the desired results. Checkout The New High Intensity Training instead, much better book and no where near as corny/moronic as this."
~ Written on 2008-07-16

"Hard Body Plan is really great. I'm 23 and have been lifting for 8 years and this book can benefit anyone. I was especially interested in the nutritional/supplemental aspect of weight lifting and found this book to be very informative on both subjects. I'm a fan of how the writers have turned lifting into a science. "
~ Written on 2008-04-27

"very helpful to bodybuilders to understand the over all concept of strength training and building muscle mass."
~ Written on 2008-04-19

"So, I'm not really a muscle bound guy (would love to work my way up to that someday), but I found this book to be a great help in my gym routine. The first few chapters goes into nutrition, when to lift, and the reasoning and science as to how muscles work. pretty interesting stuff, even before it talks about what lifts to do and why.

There are three levels of routines here, many kind of overlap each other, but I have been using the "intermediate" lifts, and that seems like it works well for me. Over the course of about three months, i've notice significant improvements in strength and can notice my body looks a bit better as well. The trick with this routine, and I'm guessing any routine, is to stick with it and switch it up from time to time. And always lift properly, and with the right amount of weight.

pretty self explanatory, but again, i'm not a seasoned weight lifter. Also, there are many suggestions on nutrition that I've incorporated into my diet, and feel that that has helped out greatly as well.

I would recommend this book to any friend that is somewhat apprehensive of the gym and wants to learn how to do weight lift."
~ Written on 2008-02-12

"Overall, I am generally impressed with the fitness information dispensed by the writers of rodale press. This book is no exception. It is a solid, science-based approach to strength training with the goal of increasing muscle-size. The workout is very do-able in that it is not an overwhelming amount of information and gives you "cheat sheets" to get you started on a routine immediately. My cautions would be these... If you have never lifted weights, get a trainer at a gym for a couple of sessions to work with you on this. If you master proper form, you will get far more from the program. My second caution is that some of the abdominal exercises and a couple of the lifts are considered by professionals to be "high risk" because of the incidence of injury during execution. For that reason, I feel they could improve on the book by addressing some common risk factors and health problems such as low back pain and tight hamstrings and show modifications for some of these. Again, working with a trainer for a few sessions could do that for you and help you to assess your own risk in light of any health/injury concerns. The emphasis of this book is clearly to the male audience, and rightly so. Most women would not be able to do some of these exercises as the beginner's level, and the average female is not interested in "bulking up". So guys, get the book, try the program and enjoy!"
~ Written on 2008-01-08