The Men’s Health Home Workout Bible

If you’re planning a weights routine at home then get this book. Exercises are explained in a way that gives you confidence in doing them correctly (and safely). Lots of info on the equipment required, with plenty of variations offered for those more advanced. No gimmicks, just the stuff you need to know!

A light, conversational tone makes for entertaining reading about a subject that might otherwise be as laborious as the physical activities it describes. If you can forgive the occasional lapses into sexist language, there are laughs and much learning in this big book.

Large pictures and concise descriptions make it an ideal learn-as-you-work book, to be placed alongside your weight bench or your gym mat. Whether you have basic equipment, soup cans and milk jugs, or just your own body and a bath towel, there are plenty of exercises here to keep you busy several times a week for 30-60 minutes at a time. Eat properly, count your calories, and keep this book within reach. It may be the only book you need to learn about your body, buy the right equipment, and create a plan to meet your individual goals.

This book is useful, and overall I like it. There are many options for exercises different muscles, depending on how much gear you have/want.

Here’s what I recommend for the next time they revise it.

Clean up the charts in the end. For the suggested workouts, there are charts in the back, but it’s like the editors/graphics designers got tired and stopped trying when they got to this most critical part of the book. Page numbers for each exercise would help enormously. It took me a lot of time to find the exercise descriptions that they listed, and simple page numbers would help a lot. Also, they reused the same charts without checking to see if they actually made sense, so there are things like “Weight” columns to let you track how much weight is involved in exercises that actually don’t require using weights, such as pushups. Or, they tell you to do just one rep for the beginning workout, but then have a “Reps” column for you to track how many reps you did. They don’t have an obvious way to track how many pushups you did, just how many reps of 10-15. So, this needs some logical revision.

Also, it would be helpful to have an easy way to make exercise substituttions. For example, if you have dumbells but mostly want to do body weight workouts, you might want to substitute a dumbell curl for a self-resisted bicep curl. There isn’t an easy way to make such substitutions, but doing so would be an obvious way to use the book, in accordance with the authors’ approach.

Some of the exercises listed in these charts aren’t actually listed in the book with the same name. For example, the unilateral calf raise. In the exercise descriptions it’s called one-leg calf raise. So, a consistency check needs to be done.

There should be a paragraph somewhere in the book telling you to figure out what an appropriate amount of weight to use is. I have tried starting exercise regimens many times in my 40 years, but have had a recurring problem: two days afterwards, my back goes out and I’m in enormous pain for two weeks, which ends my attempt. I believe the reason is that in my exuberance to change my life, I push myself too hard at the very beginning, and wind up trying too many reps or too much weight. It doesn’t hurt at the time, but long run it does. So, some way to help gauge what makes for a sensible effort would be helpful. I’m actually cutting some exercises in their recommended beginner workout in half at first in hopes of avoiding injury. I imagine that’s a good strategy….

Also, I’d like just a little more info about cardio, which these authors clearly don’t like much. But a description about how to monitor heart rate and how to incorporate cardio into a regular routine would be helpful. Half a page is all I’m asking for.

Generally, I like the author’s organized approach and informal, readable style. A few tweaks would inspire a fifth star, and I think these guys have it in them.

Though presented as a home workout bible, which shows you how you can do workouts with minimal equipment, it is also useful for the gym goer who would like to get a better understanding of exercises. Not limited to the homework out!

I bought this one as a gift (it is my second purchase)