The Men's Health Big Book of Exercises [Paperback]

While this book is marketed as the end-all of training books that gives every exercise you need along with sensible workout and nutrition plans, it falls a bit short of that promise.

It does have a TON of exercises with pictures and tips on how to do them correctly, and thus, it's a good reference book. The organization of the exercises, however, is poorly executed. While they appear in their proper categories, such as "back," there are no further details about the many exercises that follow as to which particular parts of the back that the exercises target.

It also doesn't indicate which exercises are compound, mass-builders, which are isolation exercises, and which are in the middle. Unless you really know what you're doing, you won't know what exercises to do and why.

The workout programs given in the book seem to be thrown together kind of haphazardly, and while they'll keep you "busy" in the gym and are better than being completely random, they're not the most effective in terms of building muscle and getting stronger. If you get bored of routines easily, you might like the fact that there are many variations that you can do for each muscle group.

The nutritional section calls for a diet high in protein, moderate in fats, and low in carbs. This is fine for losing weight if done correctly, but definitely is not optimal for building muscle. Scientific studies have clearly shown the connection between high carb intake and building muscle. In fact, if you don't eat enough carbs, you'll not only be short on the glycogen necessary for muscle synthesis, you'll have a VERY hard time eating enough overall calories to build any appreciable amount of muscle.

All in all, if you're looking for a nice collection of exercises for every muscle group, you will like this book. To be honest, however, The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding : The Bible of Bodybuilding, Fully Updated and Revised is better for this (and better overall).

If you're looking for some guidance in creating a workout and nutrition plan that will help you build muscle and lose fat as effectively as possible, then I recommend Bigger Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body (The Lean Muscle Series).

The concept of Men's Health Big Book of Exercises is great: collect hundreds of exercises, group them by muscle group and add some background information and nutritional advice. There you go: the workout manual to make all others obsolete. But despite the lyrical reviews posted here, I found this book disappointing. In short: the collection of exercises is great, but the way they are presented is not optimal. A serious framework to construct your own training plan is absent and the nutritional information is downright silly.

EXERCISES

What I liked about this book is the sheer number of exercises, they are the reason I continue this book every now and then. Each exercise comes with at least one clear picture and has some handy little performance tips scattered around. However, this being the main event of the book, there are a number of omissions that I would consider flaws.

First, there is no connection between the discussion of the anatomy in the beginning of each section and the exercises. It's great that you are shown the different muscles that make up the back, but in the 60 or so exercises that follow, there is no way of finding out which muscle or part thereof is targeted by which exercise. Also, if you give 15 variations of one particular exercise, it would have been logical to mark the variations in terms of level of difficulty. No such luck.

Basically, the book first gives some fairly detailed information on an entire muscle group (albeit with some less than great illustrations), but then simply dumps a long list of exercises on you. Though the number of exercises provided is much smaller, the book Strength Training Anatomy by Frederic Delavier is infinitely better. It tells you not just how to perform an exercise but also how an individual exercise targets each specific muscle. I sincerely hope Men's Health takes some cues from Delavier for their next edition of the Big Book.

TRAINING PLANS

The 'exercise plans' in the Big Book are alright, but if you are looking for a good, consistent framework to get maximal results (as opposed to just "doing something in the gym"), I feel the The Body Sculpting Bible for Men is way better. It may not have the same number of exercises, nor nice color photos like the Big Book, but I feel the overall framework of training is much more solid and consistent than the somewhat hap hazardous and confusing approach in Men's Healh Big Book.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION

Now, if it were for the exercises and plans alone, I would still have given the book three stars, maybe even four; the sheer number of exercises makes it quite unique. Five stars would be out of the question, because the difference in content quality is too far off from some of the other books available. Still, I decided to lower the rating by one more star, because of the nutritional sections which are silly at best.

First let me say that from a magazine (such as Men's Health) I fully accept a somewhat eclectic approach. A new study comes out one month that says coffee is bad for you and the next month another says it's good - all fine. A book, however, I expect to be a bit more authoritative. This book is not.

The Big Book opts for the "high protein, medium fat, low carbs" approach. I think Susan Kleiner in her book Power Eating clearly demonstrated why a high carb, medium protein approach is far superior for building muscle and losing fat. Other than the Big Book, Kleiner backs up her story with sound scientific references. Where the Big Book settles for "A study in Denmark found...", Kleiner takes a truly scientific approach. Her conclusions are very different but much more logical and actionable for anyone who can think beyond the simplistic adage "muscle is built by protein, so the more protein I eat the more muscle I get".

Perhaps the issue is that this book strongly focused on a US audience. First and foremost, you are assumed to be too fat, or at least struggling with overweight. You also really like to eat a lot of fat and most certainly eat lots of animals. Also, you are not willing or able to change any of these habits.

Even within that context, the advice that comes out is sometimes downright puzzling:

- Beans, peas and corn should be avoided as they contain a lot of starch (p. 442)
- However, whole milk is fine (it's not all that much extra fat anyway), source cream is almost pure fat but hey, serving size is generally small, so go ahead! Other "healthiest" or at least "guilt free" foods: butter, pork chops, full-fat cheese, chicken thighs, coconut (p. 444 - 447). This one I found a particularly funny health advice: vinegar is good for you, so sprinkle some on your caramelized onions (!) or in your mayonnaise (!) before you spread it on your sandwich. Now, maybe I have been gone from the US for too long, but I don't think that I ever saw anyone health conscious eat mayonnaise sandwiches. But according to the Big Book, it's apparently great for your workout diet as long as you add some vinegar to it and stay clear of beans and potatoes. Yeah, right!

If you insist of eating a lot of fat, I can imagine the advice in this book to then at least cut back on carbs makes some sense. But it's obvious that this is no optimal diet advice for anyone serious about exercising. Again, Susan's Kleiner approach (high carb, medium protein and low fat) is far more sensible and much better researched. Sure, if you live in an area where KFC is considered lunch and a white sub sandwich is considered your healthy option, any truly sensible exercise diet may be out of reach. But of course, your results will never be the same as when you opt for a truly effective exercise diet.

In summary:
- Great book if you are a strength trainer and are simply looking to find some more exercise variations. The selection of exercises is unparalleled. Major flaw: the book doesn't tell you why and when you should choose one exercise over another, or which muscles each exercise targets specifically. For more detailed information on anatomy, how to exactly perform exercises and how these exercises relate to your muscles and objectives, a much better option is the classic but recently updated Strength Training Anatomy-3rd Edition (Sports Anatomy)
- If you need some guidance in setting up an exercise plan, opt for The Body Sculpting Bible for Men, Revised Edition: The Way to Physical Perfection instead. While Men's Health Big Book contains lot and lots of information, it gives you little guidance to make sense of it all. The little snippets of information basically have the same value as reading a couple of magazines. If you thought this book tied all the somewhat useful snippets of information from Men's Health archives together in a more consistent framework, you're out of luck.
- If you struggle with overweight and you are absolutely sure you cannot stray too far from the mainstream American diet or let go of eating lots of animals and fatty foods daily, then the nutritional advice in this book may be the best you can achieve. But if you are serious about your body and health and are willing to change to an optimal, goal-oriented diet (i.e. eat like an athlete), make sure to ignore all nutritional sections in this book completely. They are confusing at best, and if you follow a mainstream European or Asian diet, they will actually lead you in the WRONG direction. Instead, order a copy of the very dry, scarcely illustrated but content wise very solid Power Eating, Third Edition by Susan Kleiner.

If I had to pick one word to describe this book, it wouldn't be "big", it would be "complete". It's not just a big book of exercises- its that plus a whole lot of other info as well. Here's some of what I liked the best about it...

-it devotes a chapter to answering questions we all have about lifting, questions such as "how fast should I lift?" or "how many repetitions should I do?"

-the exercises are organized by body part, so you get a bunch of ex's for the chest in Chapter 4, a bunch of exercises for the back in Chapter 5, and so on. Easy to navigate around in this book.

-included is a section on warm-up exercies- which a lot of people forget about doing. Here you'll find a lot of stretches.

-there's a workout plan towards the end of the book for just about every need you might have. For example, you'll find a workout plan for the crowded gym, for fat loss- even for vertical jumping. Neat!

The book ends with a section on cardio, and a section on nutrition. As you can see, while it is a "big" book of exercises (and kinda heavy too), its also a very "complete' book as well. Also recommend Treat Your Own Rotator Cuff if you have a shoulder problem that keeps you from working out.