health Books

The work points to many of the negations in the current health
care delivery systems in the USA. It spends too much money and
the paperwork is burdensome, generally uninformative and
inefficient. The system needs a separation between the doctor
and the pharmaceutical industry because the needs of the general
public demand an independent attitude on the part of physicians.
Emergency rooms are utilized instead of patient clinics.
This contributes to bloated costs. The HMO co-pay can be burdensome for patients. In addition, there is a slow migration
toward the universal health care coverage in order to correct
some of these inefficiencies and distribute the resource to
persons uncovered or undercovered by the present protocols
and medical delivery systems.

In more than 20 years teaching a course focusing on analysis of American health care history and policy, I have yet to discover a more persuasive diagnosis of our health care delivery system's ills or a more convincing case for how to cure them. Dr. Lebow brings to this examination direct experience as a practicing physician from which he draws numerous stirring personal accounts. To his clinical perspective, he adds an extraordinary command of the broader economic and political issues essential for understanding the context and causes of America's current health care crisis epitomized by the alarming number of our country's uninsured--now about 44 million and growing. The book is honest, engaging, and sure to stimulate discussion with its clear prescription for change. With lively prose and strategically placed humor, he makes complex matters understandable. His humanity and passion are the earmarks of a brilliant teacher. Regardless of how deeply you presently understand America's health care system, you can learn from this book. And regardless of your political inclinations in respect to his advocacy of a single-payer solution, you can't ignore his meticulous presentation of the facts or the relentless logic of his conclusions from them.

I'd like to give this book 4 stars, but there are just too many holes for me to do so. Dr. Lebow presents many important points, but the book simply is not the answer to our prayers regarding the current healthcare mess.

As Dr. Lebow points out, in the health insurance industry, competition among health insurers has led to less efficiency rather than more efficiency. 10 different credentialing applications, 12 different contract types, no standardization whatsoever and an administrative mess for any doctor who doesn't have the luxury of a seasoned healthcare administrator in his office. Add to that the eligibility trouble. Multiple phone calls for every patient to check eligibility for every appointment. Worst of all, the current health insurance system provides no incentive to managed care to pay for preventive care.

These are the issues that single-payer would fix for the insured population, saving billions of dollars. Dr. Lebow is right on, though I wish he spent as much time on eligibility and insurance company hassles as he did on preventive care. He also does great work in presenting the myths of healthcare today. Many of them can't be repeated enough (like the corporate welfare given to prescription drug companies).

But I have several issues as well.

My biggest complaint is that his solution only delays the inevitable a little longer. He deals only with the healthcare funding system and has little to say about the healthcare delivery system. "Market Driven Healthcare" by Regina Herzlinger and "From Chaos to Care" by David Lawrence offer real long-term solutions to the healthcare delivery problems we face in our current environment. Unless those market principles are imposed on healthcare, single payor will only delay the final implosion of medical care. Once the financial gains from single-payor healthcare are realized and exhausted, the costs will continue to spiral out of control.

Another issue is that he gives few details in the "how" of his solutions. Focusing on prevention and public health is a good and obvious point. Everybody agrees on it, but I don't think simply saying "it will happen once a grassroots movement demands it" is sufficiently descriptive of how he sees prevention and public health becoming the standard. Who will implement it? How?

Because of these problems, Dr. Lebow does not make a convincing case to those in power that change is good for them. He persuades the persuaded brilliantly, but I can't imagine why someone who opposes single-payer would change his mind after reading this book. And those in power are whose minds must be changed if change is to come.

The way I see it, healthcare as we know it is a very young industry. Only 16 years ago, managed care was almost an unkown in the healthcare world. Now, it dominates. Unfortunately, that insurance model grew so quickly there was no way anyone could have planned it properly. Imagine how the computer industry would have destroyed itself if it weren't entirely made up of systems thinkers known for their planning ability. ISO-9000 was brilliant, as is settling on the PC as the standard. Healthcare needs, and is getting, more of that now. HIPAA and state-mandated credentialing applications perfectly demonstrate the government's role in fixing healthcare. It should be a regulator, an agent for the lowly to make sure the big guys play fair, and a standard-setter to make commercial insurance more efficient. But it's entirely too early to declare the market dead and single payer as the only way out of this mess.

Health Care Meltdown: Confronting The Myths And Fixing Our Failing System by Robert H. LeBow (former Medical Director of an Idaho community health center for more than 25 years and who was paralyzed in a cycling accident shortly after completing this book) is a clarion wake up call focused upon the medical care system's rampant excesses, over billings, neglects, and quagmires that floods the American health care system to near incapacitation. Over 40,000,000 Americans have no health insurance. This places an unsupportable burden on Emergency Room Care (one the most expensive health care provider resources), and while money is in unnecessary and wasteful bureaucratic and law-suit avoidance oriented testing, far to many people simply go without the medical service they desperately need. A sharply worded criticism that also offers models for reform and improvement, Health Care Meltdown should be mandatory reading for health care providers, citizen health care activists, anyone charged with the responsibility of developing policies and guidelines for managing health care services.

As an Adjunct instructor in the Concordia University system, I have had the opportunity to encourage my MBA students to read this book for my Special Topics in Health care class. After reviewing other possible textbooks during the last 6 months, I have decided to now use this text as the basis for my 8-week adult education class. Offering ample examples and 'myths' that portray our fractured health care system of today, this author has summarily provided a springboard for ongoing conversations and possible answers for this country. Granted all, the HC system will not be corrected for some time, but an accounting will be made when the public becomes a focused participant at the table.
As health care professionals, it is our responsibility to study, learn, participate and educate others, as well as ourselves.
This will begin that process and it will be well worth your effort and consideration.
Thank you
ESchwarz, RN, MBA, CCM

Fantastic and simple recipes cooked in a healthy way. The ingredients used are easy to find and I had absolutely no problems to follow the recipes. I would recommend it to everyone who's trying keep or learn a healthy style of cooking.

I was in a bookstore few days ago, checking cookbooks when I see this handsome youngman asking a store worker about some book. I couldn`t help to hide noticing his reaction when he found out the book he was looking for in the bottom shelf of the cookbook section. He got very excited and even screamed some words I didn`t understand. I than asked him what was all about? He apologized and replyed that the book in question was written by him and that he was so proud and happy he couldn`t contain himself. I tougth that was very sweet. He was so charming and sincere about the book that I was convinced to buy it. It turned out to be a great decision. I loved the simplicity of the recipes and the way he uses vegetables, herbs, and all the other healthy ingredients. I was happyly surprised to find out that no red meat, flours or canned products are used in any of the recipes. I was also surprised the youngman is not that young, he is in his forties!!! Must be the food. Bravo!!! It is a wonderful book!!!

I was in a bookstore few days ago, checking cookbooks when I see this handsome youngman asking a store worker about some book. I couldn`t help to hide noticing his reaction when he found out the book he was looking for in the bottom shelf of the cookbook section. He got very excited and even screamed some words I didn`t understand. I than asked him what was all about? He apologized and replyed that the book in question was written by him and that he was so proud and happy he couldn`t contain himself. I tougth that was very sweet. He was so charming and sincere about the book that I was convinced to buy it. It turned out to be a great decision. I loved the simplicity of the recipes and the way he uses vegetables, herbs, and all the other healthy ingredients. I was happyly surprised to find out that no red meat, flours or canned products are used in any of the recipes. I was also surprised the youngman is not that young, he is in his forties!!! Must be the food. Bravo!!! It is a wonderful book!!!

I shop for books online very oftenly and use the customer and editorial reviews to help me to get decided about a book I'm interested on. Some of these reviews are too critical, while others are too favorable, so I analyze each review as only half truth. The Editorial Review of THE HEALTHY TABLE fails its purpose which should be to tell us what is good or bad about this book. The problem here is that it suggests that the book is too simple and straigth forward like it is a bad thing - or yet -that the book doesn't offer any culinary innovation for the health conscious,like to show another revolucionary diet is or would be the best news in the world since the invention of the wheel. After reading the book I found out that its greatest quality is exactly to be so simple and straigth forward. There are some problems however, the price is too high for a two colors book, the photos also are poor, I believe they try to show an "atmosphere" but the idea doesn't convince and the people photographed don't show they want to be there, perhaps if the food was showed more, the results were better. Finnaly, I found out that the book is very helpful, the recipes are healthy, creative, uncomplicated and above all, "simple".

Luiz Ratto has created a culinary adventure for people who are conscious of their health. Evocative of the cuisine in five-star restaurants, these recipes are culled from years of experience and cooking wisdom. The flavors are exotic, the aromas pungent, and the photography enchanting.

This 175-page book is photographed in black and white, and is dedicated to "cooks everywhere." The book features an Introduction, Cooking Tips (including Techniques, Ingredients, and Equipment), and a listing of Basic Recipes. The Recipes themselves are grouped by course: Appetizers, Soups, Salads and Grains, Vegetables, Fish Shellfish and Poulty, Weekend Recipes, and Desserts.

Each recipe features a short paragraph of introduction (for example, where the recipe came from and presentation tips). There is a list of ingredients, followed by paragraph-form instructions on how to prepare the dish. All of the instructions are simple and easy to follow.

However, I was surprised to discover that nutritional information is completely absent. Also, pictures are only provided for some of the recipes. If you are unfamiliar with some of the ingredients, or with the expected textures, you may struggle.

The recipes are unique and inventive. Examples include: Green Grape Salsa, Chicken Roll-Ups (prepared with spinach and plum tomatoes), Doce De Coco (Coconut Cookies). The ingredients used vary by recipe - some are readily on-hand and others are exotic (for example, wonton skins or portobello mushrooms).

Very good review book for Step 1 neuroanatomy section - since this is very high yield. Cover all you need to know to tackle this field on exam. Covers more than FA but is not as exhausting as Kaplan notes.

First Aid is money for most subjects, but it's weak on neuro. This book is a very good balance between too little and too much for this overwhelming subject. The High Yield series keeps improving in quality, and in the newest edition is even better at showing clinical scenarios and integrating other subjects like pathology or physiology (I used an older version and it's still pretty good, though).

I would like to say this is great for course work, but at least at my school they tended to test on obscure minituae hard to find anywhere.

This is all you should need for Step, which does feature a decent dose of neuro (about 10, more like 20 questions). It's also very good at developing as essential foundation of knowledge applicable for future use, which sometimes gets lost when scrambling to cram for course exams.

My big qualm is the pricing. It's a thin book, not a main text. Use the library, borrow it from a friend, split the cost, etc. High Yield makes a nice line of books but they need to trim prices for medical students.

Getting confused with studying anatomy of the brain? This is a book for you! It is far better than dozen of other neuroanatomy books! It gives you a lot of details and it's easy to read, too! I'm studying for the USMLE step 1 exam and I will keep it handy all the time!

The USMLE has become increasingly focused on neuro over the past few years, and First Aid has become more and more inadequate with respect to neuro. This book is a great way to prepare for the neuro questions on Step 1. It's a slender book and is thus a very quick read --- heck, I'm a slow reader and finished it in 2.5 days. At the beginning of the book are several images of brain sections, with arrows pointing to the most important structures. The book also has radiologic images (MRA, MRI, CT) which were very helpful for me when I took Step 1 --- actually, I remember having 3 distinct questions with an accompanying MRA image. The book does a good job of explaining the basic function/organization of the different parts of the brain in a concise manner. There were a few sections that I thought were a little too detailed for Step 1 --- especially the cerebellum section. Overall, though, it's a wonderful book and it will help you to nail the neuro questions on the USMLE.

This is an excellent book and it's really all you need to prepare for your step 1. I used this book and answered every single question on neuro correctly.

Thanks Amy for a great resource that I have given to many people in my congregation as they battle cancer.

This book is a fantastic resource for all cancer patients, but especially for newly-diagnosed cancer patients. Written by an MD who has cancer, it provides common sense guidance for many aspects of treating and living with cancer. I highly recommend this book for patients who have just been diagnosed. Read this book before you do anything! It is also valuable for cancer patients who have been diagnosed with a recurrence. An easy read, it is well worth the few dollars you will spend to own it.

This book was educational, inspirational, and very helpful. Since the author is a cancer survivor, she offers hope and encouragement from that perspective.

Dr. Givler has not only the knowledge of a medical doctor, she has personally gone through a diagnosis and the treatment for cancer. When I first read this book, it was as a reviewer for several magazines. I have purchased many copies now to give to people and unfortunately, know there will be more as long as we have the dreaded disease of cancer. If you are facing a diagnosis of cancer, please think about getting this book--or get one for someone you know who needs it. It is warm without sappy sentiment, practical, and like having a trusted medical friend for the journey.

I'm writing to tell you what comfort I received from reading your book. I read it the first time within two weeks of my husband's diagnosis and the start of chemotherapy. I have reread it again recently, and take it out when I need someone to reassure me God is in control, and to have faith. I often read sections to my husband that I feel will be of the most benefit to continue his incredibly strong belief he can beat it, no matter what the statistics say.

There is so much out there to read that I feel overwhelmed by all the information. However, very few books make you feel BETTER about this very "sucky" situation. Thank you to someone who really needed it, and appreciates it.

This book was hysterical! I laughed all the way through it! I bought this for a friend who will be going through delivery soon and is not happy about it. This gave her a good laugh.

This book about funny labor and delivery stories is great! You always hear about the horror stories, but this one puts a new twist on them, and makes them very funny! I really loved it!

Not informative, but a great set of laughs to ease a stressfull time.

Bleidner has put together a funny and realistic look at the process of childbirth, blending true stories of twists and turns of having a baby with a hilarious sense of humor. Most of these stories are laugh out loud funny and many tug at the heartstrings as well. Any mother about to give birth or who has already done so will identify with a good many of these stories. My only dislike was the addition of the celebrities' stories because most added very little to the cohesiveness of the tales and weren't very interesting to boot. But overall, this is a fun book which should bring a smile to the face of mothers everywhere.

I liked this book cause it has lots of real, actual stories of childbirth, from the moms, dads, docs, nurses, doulas, and more. Its very funny! I've had one child and am pregnant with my second, so it was great reading about an experience I've been through once and will go through again in a few months.

The best book I've found on Fibromyalgia. Who better to write on fm than a medical doctor who both specializes in fm and actually has the disease (yes, disease) himself? As a new fm patient, I found this book to be the most comprehensive, medically sound, and practical for helping to diagnose and treat fm. It even helped with my diagnosis. Another good source is "Living Well with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia" by Mary Shomon (another patient, but not a medical doctor; however, her book seems incredibly well researched. How did she find the energy?) A warning, "Fibromyalgia for Dummies" is an imcomplete piece of fluff, a waste of paper. (See my scathing review of it.) I agree with the reviews below, "Inside Fibromyaligia" is the first choice for fm patients. Thank you Mark Pellegrino.

This book helped me understand Fibromyalgia. It is well written and broken down into easy to understand chapters. If you are new to Fibromyalgia this is the book for you.

This book is full of practical suggestions for every facet of life with FMS - work, vacations, housework, etc. There is an illustrated series of stretching exercizes that are very helpful. I think this book is most different from others in its use of humor. If you don't have a sense of humor, you need to develop one with FMS, when "fibro-fog" becomes a way of life.
Dr. Pellegrino deserves a better editor - several typographical errors mar what is otherwise a wonderful book.

While this is not the first book I think fibro patients should have, that honor goes to the old version of Janet Hulme's Handbook, this is probably the second book a newly diagnosed person should read. The third one should be the Starlanyl.

While about a third of the information in Inside Fibromyalgia is generic and found in many other books, the other two thirds of the book contains his suggestions about how to modify activities of daily living, specific exercises to relieve pain in specific parts of the body and HUMOR make this an absolute must read and re-read. (you know how quickly we forget!!)

Inside Fibroy... is an awesome book that I highly recommend reading and following to anyone who suffers from fibro. I do not however recommend that anyone actually track Dr. Pellegrino down in Ohio to see him personally. It is not worth the $200 which he demands up front. You can get more out of the book. He is more concerned with the bottom line than helping his patients especailly those who travel from out of town to see him. Unlike what he says in his book he will not write a detailed letter to employers to help them understand fibro or to help the fibro patient obtain restrictions or job modifications. I would recommend showing the book to your employer. The book is very helpful, in person the doctor is not.

This book is written so it is very easy to understand,no overload of hard to understand words. It has great ideas and solutions for marital problems. You will find much help in it. I can't wait to read HIS NEEDS, HER NEEDS: BUILDING AN AFFAIR PROOF MARRIAGE.
I can highly recommend this book!

Extremely practical guide to save a troubled marriage. Well worth the read and thoroughly recommend - even for the sake of improving your marriage.

This book saved my marriage. Everything that I had been trying to say for years was finally said by an expert and not me. My spouse was able to read and understand through the book and he was not able to argue about what the book said, like he would have done had it been only me saying those things. I also learned a lot about my own destructive habits (lying was one of my big ones... "Are you mad?" "No, I'm not mad, everything is ok" when in fact it wasn't).

My suggestion is that you read it together, or have one person start reading it and writing comments into the book as you recognize yourselves in it. Then when the other partner starts to read it they too should write comments into the book as well. Later you should both go through it together to read the added comments and use those as talking points.

I also feel that if your marriage is in really bad shape that you read this book first because you HAVE to stop the "love bank withdrawals"... they are causing your marriage to go bankrupt. Once you have a handle on your withdrawals then your deposits (His Needs Her Needs) will finally be able to accumulate to the point of causing positive change. You can make as many deposits as you like, but everyone knows from life even that if you don't control your withdrawals that you can easily overdraft your account.

If you are struggling in your marriage, READ THIS BOOK!

After 8yrs of dating and 4yrs of marriage, our relationship had become...well, boring. Our date nights, if we had them, were typical dinner and a movie. Something was definitely missing. A church marriage counsellor recommended this book along with The 5 Love Languages. It is a must read for BOTH spouses. Do not expect results with only one partner reading and/or applying it!

If you are thinking about buying this book or any other relationship book - do not delay! Dr. Harley's books (including His Needs, Her Needs) have been very helpful to my marriage following a crisis. He makes excellent points that somehow seem to reach both of us and explains things in a way that both of us understand without either one feeling hurt or attacked. It is a terrific book, and I believe anyone who reads it and adopts it in their marriage will see improvement.

This book gave me a great amount of knowledge and detail about Lupus. However, I especially enjoyed the author's table talk approach. The text was not weighted down with too many medical terms. Instead, the author did an excellent job of sharing her everyday battles and victories with Lupus. The encouraging words and advice she offers can be applied to improve everyday life, not only those living and battling with Lupus. Excellent!

I have had two family members to die from Lupus. And I still didn't have a clue of what it was. This book gave me great knowledge of the disease. It also gave me insight of what my family members were going through. I really enjoyed the book.

This is an excellent book full of inspiring and informative information. It is a good book to read even for people who are not suffering from Lupus."If it got any better I could not stand it".

I thought this book was very informative to read with or without having lupus. It's very detailed about letting you know what a person wiht lupus goes through no matter how healthy they may appear on the outside. The book has wonderful stories about the writer trials and tribulations and how she personally beat lupus. This book was motivational and funny and it's a great book to read if you have or know someone that has lupus.

I enjoyed the book more than I expected too. I first picked it up expecting to just scam throught it but I just couldn't put it down. It offered hands on life details of a real person sufferng from lupus. I really didn't know alot about this hidden disease, but found out alot once I read the book. It was also many parts in the books that made me cry mainly because I began to put myself in the authors shoes. It was an excellent book to me.

*****
This book is the second book of the Davisson's two-part series on transforming Christian marriages. It extends the concepts from their first book and gives many more ideas and examples of implementation. It is longer and more in-depth than their first book, "The Man of Her Dreams The Woman of His!"

Here is my review of their first book, which touches on the Davisson's controversial and refreshing approach:

"This book introduces and effectively communicates a radically different message to Christian couples regarding marriage. In my opinion, it is more Scripturally accurate and far, far more effective than what is currently being taught in American churches---which has not so far been able to significantly impact a 50% plus divorce rate among Christian couples. If the tenets of this book are implemented, the healing of marriages will result.

The book is written in a conversational style and in a gentle way, slowly leading the reader to be able to accept of the harder and more challenging aspects of this route to healing. I will detail some of the points here, but I hesitate to go into too much depth because they do put a great deal of responsibility on husbands who, just reading them in a list here and out of the context of the book, may just reject them as being too hard or undoable. They are not easy, but they are absolutely doable.

Here are some points:
Marriage is God's gift to men and women.
To have a happy and enduring marriage, couples must overcome their carnal natures.
Men must take the initiative in doing this; if they accept this responsibility and implement it, women will be successful in responding.
If men will not initiate, the marriage will be miserable and possibly or even probably fail.
If women initiate instead, they will prolong the marriage, but also enable the men to persist in selfishness and immaturity. In this case, it probably also means that the marriage will fail.

I recommend this book especially to husbands in troubled marriages because it will equip them to begin to find a way to save their marriages. To continue the process, I also recommend the second book in this series by Joe and Kathy Davisson, "The Man of Her Dreams The Woman of His 2 - Livin' It and Lovin' It! (Volume 2)".

I recommend this book to wives in troubled marriages because it will comfort and empower them. This is what it did for me. It pointed out and highlighted the error in current Christian teaching that had trapped me in unhealthy ways of thinking, especially unconditional submission.

I recommend this book to anyone in Christian ministry or who works with troubled Christian marriages. It would also be helpful to couples of other faiths who would be interested in applying the principles; however, the book is heavily Christian in orientation and filled with Bible verses. WARNING: They are not the usual "submissive wife" and "leader husband" interpretations that are prevalent in churches today. If you are tired of what seems to be ineffective Biblical interpretations and truly want a happy and loving and Christian marriage, do not miss this book.

Especially---especially---if you are a woman who has submitted for years to a selfish and immature man---and are at the end of your rope---but you love God and want to be obedient---read this book!

Very highly recommended."

I feel the same about this second book and am glad that the authors have written more.
*****

When it comes to communicating how struggling marriages can be healed, God has done a mighty work in authors, Joel and Kathy Davisson. And the good news is they have shared what they learned in not one, but two of the most innovative marriage books around.

Book I, The Man of Her Dreams The Woman of His!, tells how their relationship was restored, using sound biblical principals, after the sins of adultery and abuse had taken a huge toll on their marriage.

In Book II, Livin' It and Lovin' It, Joel and Kathy continue to share the insight God has given them which has produced the "outrageously happy marriage" they now enjoy. Such ideas as the husband as initiator in the relationship--the husband sets the tone of the marriage--he is the leader in that sense. They also champion submission--not as it has traditionally been taught, but MUTUAL submission, wherein the wife submits to the husband AND the husband submits to the wife. As in Book I, men are called to "become the man God is calling you to be by being the husband your wife needs you to be."

In both of their books, Joel and Kathy teach tried and true concepts gleaned from the Bible that they have applied to their own once struggling, now very successful marriage. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to have or help others to have a marriage (literally) made in heaven!

Kay Sons

First off I have actually spoken many times via email and phone with both Kathy and Joel Davisson. They are as real as there books say they are. This book has been an eye opener for me and my husband and is helping us repair 15 years of emotional and mental abuse as well as adultery in our marriage. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is facing the pain of adultery in there own marriage. There is hope out there! And God answered by sending us all Joel and Kathy!

Joel and Kathy Davisson's "Livin' It and Lovin' It" is the only marriage book anyone needs to successfully navigate the blessing of marriage. It is completely based on scripture and debunks past mis-conceptions bought into by the body of Christ, namely the "submissive wife" teaching. If you want true freedom and anointed equality with respect and dignity for both partners then this is the book for you. Their first book, "The Man of Her Dreams The Woman of His" is a great introduction and overview for this topic. Both will launch your marriage into the heights of joy and "soulmates" that God originally intended.

God has blessed Joel and Kathy with a ministry that is sorely needed. The divorce rate is too high. Men and women must begin to prepare for marriage instead of just planning a wedding. I'm in ministry for step-families. My husband and I are reading the book and thrilling to the possibilities of a fresh outlook on a God-focused and super-blessed marriage. Thank you Joel and Kathy...God bless you and your ministry!

This book is a must-read. I heard a lot of hype about this book before purchasing, and I'm glad I finally bought it. I did the entire 4 month routine and honestly, my body feels better than it ever has in the past.

I was used to the traditional bodybuilding bodypart split of chest on Monday, legs on Tuesday, Arms on Wednesday, etc etc. For years, I just accepted that this was the way to train your body. I just dealt with back pain and shoulder pain as part of the "price of working out." Doing 5 exercises for your back in one day, and 5 exercises for your shoulders in one day is the absolute wrong way to train your body, unless you are an actual bodybuilder, but for the average fitness enthusiast, that just doesn't apply.

Eric's book outlines splitting your routines into upper body days and lower body days. The routines are easy to follow. Full detailed pictures, and explanations. One of the most important things he advocates is varying the rep range each week within the 4 week routine. You probably never have done any exercise of 8 sets of 2 reps or 10 sets of 3 reps. You have to keep in mind Eric is a Strength & Conditioning Coach with the goal of getting you stronger. I was hesitant, but you have to open your mind and try it.

My body feels stronger, and more balanced. There are a few non-traditional exercises that you probably have never heard of, or are hesitant to try out. My advice would be to do everything in the book to a T. It works. You may be reluctant to do so much deadlifting and squatting. You may have never hear of scapular push ups, walls slides, face pulls, or behind the neck band pull aparts. Open your mind. Follow the routines exactly and you will be glad you did. I know I am. Your body will feel so much stronger, more balanced, and your posture improves. I hope this doesn't sound like a 3 a.m info-mercial testimonial for the latest fitness product, because it's not. I'm a Certified Personal Trainer and a Certified Gym Rat who has been lifting for 11 years. Open your mind, try the routines, follow to a T. Your body will thank you.

In a time where most muscle books don't put out anything innovative any more, Eric Cressey delivers something genuinely fresh. Obviously powerlifting style routines like the one in this book are not brand new, but putting one in a more mass market package like this is. Cressey makes powerlifting accessible to your average weight lifter and even to those who may not have much experience with resistance training at all.

The 16 week routine presented in the book makes use of a number of common and uncommon movements, many of which are not known to the average gym goer. Each movement is well explained and given to the reader in an unintimidating fashion. Cressey also presents a full chapter on dynamic flexibility warm-ups and soft tissue work with more depth than I've seen in any other book. Including those concepts in the program not only insure that the book's reader will get bigger and stronger, but that they'll improve their posture and remain injury free. Those factors are often overlooked in books like this but are very important to a resistance training program.

The book introduces a focus on lower repetition work like no other book I've read. For those of us that are interested in fitness from an aesthetic standpoint (looking good) and a performance standpoint, this book is a must have.

Eric has written a book outlining a strength training program that anyone can do. I have been weight training for over 13 years, and had been looking for something new. This book is it. I am excited to hit the gym and challenge myself. Everything is thoughtfully explained and demonstrated with words and pics. From the warmup using foam rollers,a lacrosse ball and various stretches, Eric positions you to succeed. He is "your coach" throughout the 16 week program. Some of the exercises may seem different from what you are used to doing, but they each have a role. I have had an opportunity to meet Eric and see him and his staff work with his clients. His enthusiasm and energy are apparent, and I believe it has carried over into his book. I recommend the book as it has certainly motivated me to train harder and smarter and, more importantly, train for the long haul!

You simply cannot go wrong with this book. Cressey pushes hard training and progression on the big basic exercises and inspires the reader to reach his/her full strength potential. It is is inspiring, informative and humorous all at once. It cuts through the mainstream crap and Eric explains wonderfully well why training for strength in the weight room is so important and the only way to go for drug free people wanting to get big and strong. Don't hesitate pick up this fine book.

I purchased this book because I have read Cressey on T-nation and subscribe to his newsletter. I knew he would be one to write an excellent well rounded routine. It is hard to filter all the garbage routines that just over train an individual on press, press press your way to greatness. I love the balance his book gives you and the total strength you will gain from this approach. I would recommend this book to anyone on any level of fitness.
It is worth the money to buy the Magnificent Mobility DVD mentioned in the book, as well.
Thanks for a great addition to my gym library!