An extension and development of the training philosophy sketched in Brawn, this is a fantastic book. If you purchase only a single book on strength training philosophy, this should be it.

This book is a guide to designing a strength training program based on sound theory, the experience of lots of lifters, and a healthy dose of common sense. The writing in this book is a bit weak, and some ideas are not clearly explained, but I find it useful and go back to it regularly.

Grip strength is a specialized subject all its own, and Brookfield offers truly masterful instruction in this slim but informative and entertaining book.

The most useful part of this book, I think, is its coverage of training technique, which is pretty thorough and in fact incorporates and revises an entire earlier book of McRobert's. Nonetheless, I still found it disappointing because it did not go beyond his earlier works. I do consult it periodically.

John McCallum's "Keys to Progress" series published in Strength & Health from 1965 to 1972, there is an enormous amount of good basic training instruction here, and some sly humor. I recommend this for intermediate lifters, who can sort the gold from the dross. I was surprised the instruction was not more dated--the intervening years have seen more motion than progress.