Men's Health Best: Weight-Free Workout

I bought this at the end of January and began doing routines immediately. The two bodyweight circuit routines (every other day, in the afternoons), the abs routine (each morning), and the "isoexplosive" routine (on off days, in the afternoons) work very well together.

Since the end of January, I've lost 25 lbs and went from doing five of most exercises to doing twenty, with most push-up variations with my feet elevated to lift more of my own weight. I've also thrown in some pull-ups by tossing a towel over a sturdy door, and pistol squats. The few diet tips -eat protein right after working out, essentially -are also handy. My strength and stamina have increased, I look better, and had to buy new clothing for the summer as the old stuff was just falling off me.

This won't turn you into the fellow on the cover, of course, but if you're like me and just won't go to the gym (too far away, too expensive), all you need is a patch of floor and you're good to go, and least if you've not exercised much before, or have had an injury (as I did).

I also recommend buying a jump rope and getting in some cardio that way.

This little book packs a lot of value into a few pages. What I like best about this book is it cuts out the fluff. It is brief and to the point on it's coverage of general nutrition and bodyweight training aspects. Most importantly, it contains a variety of workouts ranging from; full body circuits, back care, balance and abdominal routines. Selections are short, sweet and well organized.

Highlights:

Two, 22 minute full body, bodyweight circuits (great for those days when you want to focus on active recovery and give your body a rest from your regular heavy lifting)

One, 15 minute high intensity workout (Good for when you are crunched on time)

A Valuable 7 minute "save your back routine" (Doing this will relieve the pain in your back, after a day of sitting at your desk.)

Good verity of well illustrated stretches

Solid, basic selection of well illustrated bodyweight exercises

The total content of this book is under a 100 pages, but it manages to provide great photos and a good verity of workouts. This book is a great little handbook for those who are looking to venture down the path of bodyweight exercises. Another plus is this book is small enough to take with you as a reminder to squeeze in a workout.

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Includes complete routines for a thorough, total body workout using a wide variety of clearly illustrated bodyweight exercises. Practical guide for those interested in developing functional strength and improving their bodyweight to strength fitness ratio. Includes high quality photos and text typical of all Men's Health publications.

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This appeared to be a bunch of magazine articles cut and paste into a short book. There was no reasoning, progression, or consistency to their plan. It did contain a variety of exercises though but no plan. I think You Are Your Own Gym: The Bible of Bodyweight Exercises for Men and Women is a much better alternative.

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I bought this for my brother. He has been using the book for almost 3 weeks now. He is so happy and excited with this book and the guidance it provides. I can hear his confidence coming back from the way he sounds when we talk on the phone. I bought this so he would not have any excuses to exercise during the week. Seems to be working!

Okay, I hadn't seen my brother since he began using this book until a week ago. I am so proud of him. He lost 10 lbs and dropped from a 4x to a 2x. He gives this book all of the credit!

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Devil's Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step

In Devil's Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step Cecile Pineda has delivered a poetic, profound meditation on the slowly unfolding death of the natural world by man-made radiation. She's not the only one who sees it, but she's in a very small group of people currently alive on the planet who are able to face annihilation without blinking.

Pineda uses Fukushima as a jumping off point to make a convincing case that production of nuclear fuel for whatever purpose is effectively conducting war on the living inhabitants of the world. She acknowledges that a culture built on attending to the shiny surface of things is designed to overlook: The hundreds of thousands of nameless Russians who died burying Chernobyl. The fact that your government makes weapons out of depleted uranium, weapons that have been used in Iraq and Afghanistan and many other places, creating soil and dust that produces human fetuses so deformed they are not recognizably human. The fact the U.S. is full of G.E.-built Mark I Boiling Water Reactors, many sitting on top of seismic faults, others sitting right on the shoreline of the Pacific or Atlantic region of Earth's one ocean.

I realized I can no longer count all the people you've known who survived, or did not survive, cancer. Cause and effect break down when cause is an invisible, tasteless, odorless substance that takes longer to break down than does the human body.

Official pronouncements coached by top dollar public relations firms can steer public perception, but they cannot change facts on the ground. Pineda writes:

...it's conceivable that in the larger scheme, Mother Earth may be the "decider" notwithstanding her failure to be recognized by the government -or any other government for that matter -with the exception of the government of Bolivia.

If she has any hope left, it's riding on the rise of the global 99%. She quotes Takanobu Kobayashi, an activist who leads Japanese citizens in the relentless pursuit of life over death: "We do not trust the government anymore."

Devil's Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step DEVIL'S TANGO by Cecile Pineda is a well researched, fearsome, enlightening and shocking book. Ms. Pineda connects the dots of the past while counting down the days since the horrifying Fukushima disaster that she refers to as our planetary catastrophe of March 11, 2011. It is with great skill that Ms. Pineda presents what we need to know in order to face the tragic truth of our nuclear polluted world. This book will be a great resource for the reader who decides to act on what is learned from it.

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An absolutely fantastic book, which provides tons of information, not only of Fukushima, which is the "guide-line", but also about all the unbelievable things the nuclear industry is doing in this country and elsewhere. One would think that the responsible people in the industry have a different planet to go to once they are done with that one it's mind boggling!

The way she writes: it's not a documentary which lists all the facts in an accurate but rather boring way. She is a poet and poetic is her writing without compromising the accurate facts, and she lets you never forget the horrific danger we live in, invisible, drowned in silence, but deadly.

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This book is a must read. On the other hand, it's for people who are not afraid to face difficult truths. If you have the courage, this book will test you, will make you think, will make your heart ache.

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The message of Devil's Tango is loud and clear. The author's ability to make cultural connections in the creation of meaning makes this warning excellent reading.

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Home Bodybuilding: Three Easy Steps for Building Your Body and Changing Your Life

I've read the reviews on this site about Home Bodybuilding and have a few observations people may find helpful.

First of all...

1) If a book is rated five stars, look to see if it's rated with just one five star rating or many. Chances are, if there's more than one glowing review, many other people have found the book equally as helpful.

2) When there are negative reviews, check and see how many there are and if there are commonalites between each of them.

I bought this book many months ago along with the Men's Fitness Home Workout book and have found each to have their strengths and weaknesses.

While the Men's Fitness book has more photos and exercises, it lacks much of the periphery elements of the mental components of motivation and just how hard it is for many of us to get started and stay motivated working out--especially at home AND by yourself...HELLO!

I like both both books very much. There must be a reason why amazon.com pairs Home Bodybuilding with the Men's Fitness book. They compliment each other quite well.

Finally, I'd like to give a few observations on what the reviewer "Judge Knott" wrote regarding the Home Bodybuilding book and how this reviewer must not have read the same book I'm looking at right now as I write this review. Specifically:

"There are many exercises shown that can only be done if one has access to expensive, complicated gym machines. (Yo! Isn't this supposed to be for h-o-m-e workouts?)"

If this reviewer would've read the book and understood its purpose, the author Robert Wolff states in clear language that he wants to give readers exercises they can do with freeweights (barbells and dumbbells), without weights (bodyweight only), with machines (if they have those in their home), and even informercial equipment.

"There is a sloppiness and an imprecision in the way many of the exercises are described."

I've got a library full of nutrition, exercise and physiology books and the exercise descriptions and illustrations Wolff uses in Home Bodybuilding match how the others illustrate how the exercises Wolff Describes should be done.

"The whole book is written at a reading level equivalent to that found in "The National Enquirer" or "The New York Post."

I'm reminded of a quote that a 20-plus million copy bestselling author once said, "Don't worry; If you write for the seventh grader, the Ph.D. will understand it too."

"It's also filled with cheerful, peppy, Oprah-like self-help sayings and anecdotes that recall Dale Carnegie in an extremely good mood. They bored and annoyed me."

Look at the other reviews who seem to greatly enjoy this author's writing style. Then click on reviewer Judge Knott's other reviews. For such a scathing review of this book, it was surprising how many of this person's reviews fall into the scope of fine arts and NOT nutrition, fitness or health. Perhaps returning Home Bodybuilding and getting a book on the order of the "New York Metropolitan Ballet of Workouts" might be a better fit?

My purpose is not to deride of belittle the above reviewer. All of us are entitled to our own opinions. However, when coming to this review forum, my only request is that any of us have a fully formed and educated opinion that doesn't selectively omit the good or not so desirable points of any book. That way, we can all learn and be helped by what anyone says--good or bad.

For my money, Home Bodybuilding was money well spent. Thanks for letting me have my two cents worth. Best to all!

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