It works, but....

I've been following a routine in this book for three and a half weeks. My body weight is up 10 pounds; my arm size increased by an inch; my waist size remains the same. The weight increases also translated into stregnth increases. My TBDL increased 55 lbs, Dips increased 27 lbs, and chins increased by, well, only 4 reps. But I am repping with 10 extra pounds. Needless to say, there's a ton of good information in here. However, I can't give it five stars for the following reasons:1) The author is too repetitive.2) The author goes into unnecessary detail sometimes.3) There's too much sermonizing against 'improper' ways of training. (I personally think this is a turn off.)Don't get me wrong. This is still a great book. My results speak for themselves. It's just not perfect.Bottom line. Highly recommended.One more thing. Contrary to popular opinion, the author does NOT recommend only training twice a week with no aerobics. To be more precise, the author doesn't ONLY recommend training twice a week with no aerobic exercise. What's so great about this book is its flexibility. It doesn't try to offer one solution to everyone. Depending on time and genetics, the author recommends training anywhere from once a week to three times a week. He also universally favors aerobics, both for fat loss and overall health and wellness.

THE most comprehensive book on the topic.

At just under 500 pages, BEYOND BRAWN is, bar none, THE most comprehensive book I've ever read on the topic of bodybuilding, and I?ve read several hundred books.BEYOND BRAWN is written in very non-technical language. With 22 total chapters, no aspect of productive weight-training has been overlooked. Section 1 is entitled "Establishing a secure foundation" and discusses general information of value for those who are embarking upon the goal of adding muscle mass.Section 2 is the real meat of the book and is entitled "How to train." At almost 200 pages, Stuart has left no topic uncovered with regards to safe and productive training. Topics include setting up a training cycle, exercise intensity, exercise selection and technique, intensity cycling, personalizing your program, overtraining, and others. Only topics of true importance to the average trainee are discussed in this book. Unlike most bodybuilding books, which are no more than simple fluff, BEYOND BRAWN actually accomplishes the goal of providing tons of useful, no-nonsense information for genetically average trainees who want to increase their strength and size. BEYOND BRAWN is not an overly dogmatical tome which espouses a single way of training for everyone. It presents numerous interpretations in terms of set and rep goals, length of a cycle, training intensity, and exercise selection, to accommodate needs of all types of trainees. Ultimately, I guess the best thing I can say about it, repeating from above is this: "BEYOND BRAWN is, without a doubt, THE most comprehensive book ever written on the topic of strength training and bodybuilding for the genetically average individual." And, again, keep in mind that that statement comes from a guy who?s read several hundred books on the topic of strength training in the past ten years. So my endorsement does not come lightly.