Product Description

From elite bodybuilding competitors to gymnasts, from golfers to fitness gurus, anyone who works out with weights must own this book -- a book that only Arnold Schwarzenegger could write, a book that has earned its reputation as "the bible of bodybuilding."

Inside, Arnold covers the very latest advances in both weight training and bodybuilding competition, with new sections on diet and nutrition, sports psychology, the treatment and prevention of injuries, and methods of training, each illustrated with detailed photos of some of bodybuilding's newest stars.

Plus, all the features that have made this book a classic are here:

• Arnold's tried-and-true tips for sculpting, strengthening, and defining each and every muscle to create the ultimate buff physique

• The most effective methods of strength training to stilt your needs, whether you're an amateur athlete or a pro bodybuilder preparing for a competition

• Comprehensive information on health, nutrition, and dietary supplements to help you build muscle, lose fat, and maintain optimum energy

• Expert advice on the prevention and treatment of sports-related injuries

• Strategies and tactics for competitive bodybuilders from selecting poses to handling publicity

• The fascinating history and growth of' bodybuilding as a sport, with a photographic "Bodybuilding Hall of Fame"

• And, of course, Arnold's individual brand of inspiration and motivation throughout

Covering every level of expertise and experience, The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding will help you achieve your personal best. With his unique perspective as a seven-time winner of the Mr. Olympia title and all international film star, Arnold shares his secrets to dedication, training, and commitment, and shows you how to take control of your body and realize your own potential for greatness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1077 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 800 pages

Amazon.com Review
Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn't competed as a bodybuilder since he won the Mr. Olympia title in 1980, but he remains the sport's No. 1 icon. He hosts an annual bodybuilding contest in Columbus, Ohio, and allows a column to be ghost-written under his name in a muscle magazine. Today's bodybuilders may have bigger muscles than Arnold ever did, but everyone inside and outside the iron game gives him credit for exponentially broadening the popularity of physique training.

With this updated Encyclopedia (it was originally published in 1985), Schwarzenegger wraps his huge arms around the entire sport. He hits the history of bodybuilding, the champions (he's quite generous in his praise of predecessors, contemporaries, and successors alike), the training systems. Some of the information is more bodybuilding lore than science; for example, exercises are said to "expand the rib cage" or develop the "inner" or "outer" chest, all physiological impossibilities. But they're still good exercises, and the book includes every movement imaginable for every muscle group.

If you love the sport of bodybuilding, you'll want this book in your library, if for no other reason than to feast your eyes on the hundreds of photos of the best physiques in the history of the sport. And, in a pinch, the 800-page encyclopedia can fill in nicely for a missing dumbbell. --Lou Schuler

About the Author
Arnold Schwarzenegger has won more bodybuilding titles than anyone else in the world, including seven Mr. Olympia titles and three Mr. Universe titles. He has also won international fame as a movie superstar. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Maria Shriver, and their four children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Foreword to the Second Edition

Who would have thought that anyone could compile an encyclopedia on bodybuilding and resistance training, let alone one more than six hundred pages long? After all, how much is there to say about hoisting heavy metal plates? Bodybuilding isn't, as they say, rocket science.

Well, many people take exactly that approach when they begin a bodybuilding program; I know because they're easy to spot at the gym. Such individuals generally load excessively heavy weights on a bar, heave the iron with whatever form it takes to get the weight up (with an extra thrust from the lower back for good measure), and then let the bar come crashing down. That's not bodybuilding! Strong on desire but short on smarts, these folks are either sidelined by an injury or often will give up quickly because they aren't seeing any significant results from all the work they're doing.

The truth is, it doesn't take a Ph.D. to learn the complexities of bodybuilding, but neither does it come as naturally as, say, riding a bike. Heck, the bodybuilding vocabulary is like a foreign language: pyramid training, gastrocnemius, negatives, periodization, instinctive training, spotting. Learning the many distinct elements of resistance training, from the hundreds of unique exercises and variations to understanding how to put together a results-producing workout, all take time and practice. To make progress at the fastest rate possible, you've simply got to know what you're doing.

If you're rich enough to afford $50 (or more) an hour for a personal trainer you might be able to get away with being a bodybuilding dumbbell. Or, for about the price of a single session, you can invest in this encyclopedia and reap a lifetime of gains that'll start with your very next workout.

Many people forget that I, like you, was once a beginner, and started building my body and my career standing in exactly the same position you are right now. If you find that difficult to believe, there's a selection of photos from my teenage years that will show how far I had to come, how much work I had to do. What made me stand apart from my peers, though, was a deep, deep desire to build muscle and the intense commitment to let nothing stop me. Along the way I made countless mistakes because the only guidebooks I had were a couple of Joe Weider's English-language muscle magazines, and I didn't even speak the language! The magazines inspired me to learn English so I could follow my early idol Reg Park's routine. Still, the magazine could teach me only some rudimentary concepts; everything else was done by trial and error.

Experience, however, is the best teacher as long as you learn from your mistakes. When I began, I trained biceps far more intently than I did triceps, a larger muscle group. I pretty much skipped ab training altogether because that era's conventional wisdom dictated that the abdominals received enough stimulation during many heavy compound movements. I put so little effort into calf training in those early years that when I finally came to America, I was forced to redouble my efforts. I even went so far as to cut off the pant legs on my training sweats so that my calves were constantly visible and under scrutiny -- a constant reminder to me that my weaknesses deserved greater attention. Nor did we have many machines available; I never used a leg curl or leg extension during my first years as a bodybuilder. Most of all, though, I was handicapped by my lack of knowledge; my catalog of exercises to shape the total body consisted of just a few movements. Fortunately, with this book, you don't have to make the same mistakes I did.

You'll find, as I did, that building muscle builds you up in every part of your life. What you learn here will affect everything else that you do in your life. As you witness the fruits of your labor, your self-worth and self-confidence improve, and these traits will color your work and interpersonal relationships long past your competitive days. I credit bodybuilding with giving me not just physical attributes but also with laying the foundation for everything else I've accomplished -- in business, acting, even family. I know I can succeed in anything I choose, and I know this because I understand what it takes to sacrifice, struggle, persist, and eventually overcome an obstacle.

Even today, many of the people I work with comment upon my commitment; when I'm making a movie, I'm ready to do a difficult scene over and over again until we get it right. Why? It all comes back to discipline. If you make a commitment to better your physical health, you'll find the same self-discipline, focus, and drive for success carries through into the rest of your life's activities. Though you may not realize it now, you'll eventually recognize it when you take the same disciplined approach in tackling a particular challenge. That's another reason I'm so enthusiastic about what bodybuilding can do.

This book is not a biography, not the story of my life as a seven-time Mr. Olympia winner or even a history of my life as an actor. (If you're interested, you can find all that elsewhere.) Though I'm known mainly as a bodybuilder-turned-actor and businessman, on various occasions I've been able to take on another role, one that brings me the greatest amount of personal pride, and that's the role of teacher. That's why I published the original encyclopedia in 1985 and have continued my close association with the sport. In the years since that first publication I've been collecting, studying, and revising information for this expanded and updated reference. That I can say I was able to inspire a generation of men and women of all ages to take charge of their health and fitness is truly gratifying. From the couple of dozen students of bodybuilding who heard me give a seminar in the mid-1970s at a Santa Monica gym, to the elementary and high schoolers I tried to empower to exercise when I traveled to all fifty states as chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, to the less fortunate who compete in the Inner City Games throughout the year and the developmentally challenged who participate in the Special Olympics, to the readers of my weekly syndicated newspaper column and the ones I write in the muscle magazines, to you the reader of this encyclopedia, you are all very much the reason I've undertaken this gargantuan effort. I am indeed grateful that you've chosen me as your teacher.

That I can share with you my greatest passion in the world, which is truly the only real secret to health, longevity, and a better quality of life, has made this book an endeavor of absolute necessity -- and joy! Bodybuilding is my roots, and I will continue to promote the sport and spread the word through my work.

I've accumulated more than thirty-five years of bodybuilding experience, including tens of thousands of hours training with the world's top bodybuilders from yesterday, like Bill Pearl, Reg Park, Dave Draper, Frank Zane, Sergio Oliva, and Franco Columbu, to the champions of today, including Flex Wheeler, Shawn Ray, and eight-time Mr. Olympia, Lee Haney. I've studied the writings of the predecessors to modern-day bodybuilding, some of which date back more than a century, including Eugen Sandow's System of Physical Training (1894), the United States Army's Manual of Physical Training (1914), and Earl Liederman's Muscle Building (1924). I've interrogated the world's pre-eminent exercise scientists, researched questions from students at seminars I've given on all the major continents from Africa to Asia to South America to more recent ones I hold each year in Columbus, Ohio -- and poured every ounce of that knowledge into this encyclopedia. With this reference book, which is designed for students ranging from rank beginners to competition-level bodybuilders to athletes looking to improve their performance to those who simply want to look better and be healthier, readers are free to pick through the expansive knowledge its taken me so many years to accumulate.

In one sense, I feel like a doctor on call who is continually asked for expert advice. A skier in Sun Valley asked me recently how to build quad strength and muscular endurance to improve his performance; at a health convention, several people inquired about the latest on the muscle-building properties of creatine; at Wimbledon, a top tennis champion wanted some advice on building his forearm strength; on vacation in Hawaii, a woman came up to me and asked what she could do to lose a hundred pounds of body fat and keep it off, at seminars, young bodybuilders want to know how to put a peak on their biceps and improve their outer-thigh sweep; when speaking to military personnel, I'm commonly asked how to get more out of training with just very basic equipment. Every day I'm asked questions on topics ranging from vitamins A to zinc, to the need for rest and recuperation, to the false promises of performance-enhancing substances. This is why I decided long ago that if I was going to spread the gospel on the benefits of bodybuilding I'd absolutely have to stay current with the material.

That's been no easy chore. Evolution in bodybuilding has occurred at the speed of light, both at the competitive level and among recreational athletes. Those who simply write that off as due to a greater use of anabolic drugs fail to see what's taken place in the industry. Muscle-building exercise, long scoffed at by coaches who claimed it made you musclebound and inflexible, has come under intense scrutiny by researchers. In fact, the science of resistance training is really becoming a science as exercise scientists verify what we bodybuilders have been working out by trial and error for years. That's not to say we didn't know what we were doing; on the contrary, early physique champions were pioneers in the health and fitness field, planting the seeds of development for each generation that followed. We coined such phrases as "No pain, no gain," words that every bodybuilder today knows and understands.

Though science is showing us how best to manipulate the...

Customer Reviews

Could be much better!
I have bought many bodybuilding books and this one is not very good. Here is why:
1. It's large and heavy - it's very difficult to keep this book on your lap and read. The only option is to put on the table. If you would like to take this book with you to the gym, or sit comfortably in a chair and read it - forget it, your arm will fall off.
2. Book is filled with photo's - if you enjoy the history of bodybuilding - this could be fine. But I expected photo's just to illustrate the exercises, not the review of American bodybuilding, especially from 20-30 years ago. Better make a dedicated book with photos and instead in this book provide clear examples for exercises.
3. Programs are not easy to adapt if you are starting bodybuilder and there is not enough variety to fit into your needs. I expected clear and simple programs with variations depending on my particular needs. There is a program and it's hard to figure it out how to properly change it for my needs.
4. Nutrition is a very short chapter at the end. I expected more advice and examples which would make it easier for me to understand and adapt. For example program Body for Life offers very easy instructions for meals and protein drinks etc. As far as easy to understand exercises with good and easy to understand photo's I found that Joe Weider's book is much better (and a bit lighter)...

Excellent book!
The most thorough book I've seen. Arnold Schwarzenegger did a remarkable job covering any aspect of bodybuilding. From the different exercises, programs and nutrition to the most subtle topics. I read a few other books and this book is definitely the best one I read so far - VERY RECOMMENDED!

great, comprehensive, in-depth overview of conventional strength-training strategies
I rate this book 5 stars because Schwarzenegger does a great job of organizing all of the conventional strength-training exercises that have accumulated over the years into one book,and he describes them in greater depth and more detail than most other books do. So this book is of great value to anyone (beginner or advanced) who wants to use conventional training methods to get the body they desire.
With that said however, the exercises in this book will not enable you to obtain "maximum results in minimum time", which I believe is what most people want in the ideal workout plan. After all, if I were to ask you what your 3 greatest assets in life are, what might your answer be? You might very well say your body, your health, and your time. Those are assets that you can't put a price on. Like Emerson once said, "The greatest wealth is health". And as Donald Trump has said, "Your life is like a credit card given to you at birth. But money is not what matters here; it's the time you have on that credit card that counts".
So how does one develop a workout plan that truly enables you to obtain maximum results in minimum time? The answer lies in that powerful little word "intensity". In order to get really maximum results in minimum time, you need to be able to generate "maximum intensity". And to accomplish that, you need the "right definition" for intensity, which is one that works in both theory and can be applied practically.
And that's where this book falls short: it does define intensity, but the definition given is too inadequate and vague for practical application, so it is not the "right" definition. And as result, most of the exercises in this book will not enable you to generate maximum intensity, because they are not centered around the right definition for intensity.
To elucidate further, maximum intensity is vital to obtaining maximum results in minimum time for two reasons:
1) The key to building muscle from any weight-lifing plan lies in subjecting your muscles to a higher level of intensity than what they are currently accustomed to. Your muscles then grow bigger and stronger to adapt to that higher level of intensity.
2) Intensity is inversely proportional to duration. The greater the intensity of a weight-lifting exercise,the shorter it has to be in time duration.
Thus, it turns out that the "most effective" way to build muscle is actually the "least time-consuming" way, IF you know the secrets to maximizing your intensity. And of course to do that, you need the right definition for intensity to begin with. Otherwise, you won't know which strategies work best to generate maximum intensity.
Currently, the best published books that I know of for enabling you to achieve maximum intensity are "Static Contraction Training" (Sisco and Little) and "Max Contraction Training" (John Little. Those books are not without their flaws, but they do contain strategies that will enable you to take your weight-lifting exercises to higher levels of intensity than any conventional workout plan will.
Finally, it's interesting (but not surprising) to note what Arnold attributes his well-developed biceps to: he states in this book that he came to the realization that it was largely due to genetics. He says that whatever exercise he did for his biceps, his biceps just seemed to grow huge naturally. He does not attribute his huge biceps to having had the best workout plan for the biceps. And I can assure you that the plan he has for developing the biceps (put forth in this book) is not the the most effective or time-efficient way to develop the biceps. That doesn't mean that Arnold's approach for developing the biceps won't work; it will work, especially if you've got the right genetics, spend a lot of long, tedious hours working out in the gym, and if you take steroids. It's just not the the best appproach to use in terms of effectiveness and time-efficiency. And that's simply because none of these exercises will enable you to achieve maximum intensity, for the reason explained above.