New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscle
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend A revolutionary method of weight lifting using today's science for maximum results. In The New Rules of Lifting, fitness guru Lou Schuler and strength-training expert Alwyn Cosgrove boil down the most recent findings on weight lifting and fitness to create a program of workouts that focuses on the movements at which the body naturally excels. These six "real-life" movements-squat, bend, lunge, push, pull, and twist-compose three complete programs for three… Product details and pricing info |
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66 Customer Reviews Posted
- "New Rules" revolutionized my workout - but took some time to sink in.
- I've been lifting weights in my local gym for about 2 years - doing circuits of the nautilus and cybex weight stack machines. I had been plateaued for a while and wanted a better understanding of which moves work which muscles, how to use the machines to best advantage, proper form etc... I bought "The New Rules of Lifting" looking for a basic guide and what I got was different from what I was expecting. The New Rules is an attempt to shake things up and it attacks a host of standard wisdoms - such as the importance of cardio exercise (your body will choose to adapt slow twitch muscles for cardio over fast twich for power - reducing your power gains) and stretching (stretching is necessary - but it's not about increasing flexibility beyond your usual range). The 'New Rules' also include an eye opening "no machines" rule. Lou Schuler writes the copy and Alwyn Cosgrove cooks up the exercises and the routines. In place of muscle isolating machine exercises, "New Rules" emphasizes free weight exercises that work whole groups of muscles while replicating commonly used movements in the six major movement categories: push, pull, bend, lunge, twist, and walk/run. There are relatively few major exercises listed - but a bunch of variations and supersets and combinations. The routines are mixed to form a whole year of constantly changing routines. I was looking for a guide to how to do standard gym sitting down machine based exercises Schuler/Cosgrove gave me an iconoclastic attack on that whole culture. I read it (and read a few other workout books - such as Schuler's other major book "Men's Health: The Book of Muscle" (with Ian King)) and let it sink in. I wasn't ready to abandon my routine. I also felt a bit leery of doing major free weight work without a lot of practice. I started trying out the moves at home, with minimal weight on the bar. Once I gained a little confidence I started doing it at the gym. Wow.
Starting any new routine gives you results, but this was something more. The classic exercises emphasized in "New Rules" (the squat, lunges, dead lift, good morning, lat row, Russian twist, bench press, military push, pullup (or lat pulldown) really do get whole groups of muscles worked at one time. Cosgrove has sweated the details with the routines - with some wonderful instructions on varying the timing, doing supersets, combo movements, and moving through periods of lower weight/higher reps; higher weight/lower reps; less weight and explosive movements. The rationale for each stage is well argued in the text.
Despite having a lot of old fashioned exercises, this isn't a traditional routine. There are no biceps isolating exercises (or almost none). You'll end up doing moves that few others in the gym are doing. I'm only a month into the first program so I can't say definitively that this is brilliance - but I there's no debating that my whole approach to weights has been transformed. For me the biggest revelations were:
1) balance work on each side of a joint (maybe obvious to some - but awareness of this was huge for me). For example - if you do work on the "push" side (like a bench press) you must do equal work on the "pull" side of the same joint (shoulder) (i.e. rows/lat pulls). I really notice this whole issue now and I feel much better for it.
2) emphasize the largest muscles groups. That means that squats, dead lifts, lunges, and good mornings are the bread and butter. I used to work the upper body more than the lower - now I achieve a much better balance. I really feel it - especially with climbing stairs and biking. It feels good.
3) put the twist motion on equal footing with the other major motions. In the past abdominal work meant crunches. Now I'm putting much more emphasis on twisting motions and my waist has tightened up and my back feels better (even with the low-back scary dead lifts).
I had been looking for a book on how to optimize the weight lifting regimen I already know and this book demanded I scrap almost everything I did. I didn't want to hear it at first. Now that I've given it a try it has revolutionized my understanding of how to work my body and how to use free weights. I feel I'm working out whole areas of my body more efficiently in a shorter time. I've also been able to grab a few ad-hoc workouts outside the gym (like the time early morning I had a half hour alone at the train platform and used my heavy knapsack to do squats, lunges, militaries, explosive pushups, and rows to get a near full body workout. This might not have occurred to me in my "machine" lifting phase. Highly recommended for weight lifting folks looking to take it to the next level and shake things up.
Two significant observations: 1) Lou Schuler writing is engaging - but he doesn't vary the story much among his various books. His chapters on basic wisdom and physiology are essentially identical in the 3 books of his that I've read (Men's Health: Home Workout Bible and Men's Health: The Book of Muscle). What's different in each of these books is that he's paired with a different trainer who emphasizes different exercises (or specifies that a given exercise be done in a slightly different way) and there's different plans. I like "Men's Health: Book of Muscle" a lot and wouldn't say that I'd necessarily recommend New Rules over it - but I've chosen to work "New Rules" first and I can vouch for it. "Book of Muscle" has a lot more exercises and a more conventional muscle isolating point of view (although it's mostly free weights too).
2) I got the Kindle version and this is one of those books you should buy on paper. The workout regimens are tables of data that are presented as small and difficult to read pictures on Kindle. You'll want to make photocopies of the workouts to take to the gym. With the Kindle version you can't do that - you must transpose the workouts yourself. You still get all the info - but you give yourself more work with the Kindle version if you're really going to work the plans. - 2008-09-23, 5 of 5 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- LIFT WEIGHTS!!!
- I recently bought their other book "New Rules of Lifting for Women" and decided that I needed this one as well since I am a Personal Trainer. I like how they bring it back down to the basic classics that have worked for centuries. Power lifting is the original functional training. And with all these crazy fads its nice to see some good common sense advice. These moves maybe classics but they are combined with modern knowledge to show why they are effective and how this kind of lifting is best.
- 2008-07-19, 2 of 2 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- nothing more than a set of workouts
- I may be biased because I bought it expecting it to be something other than what it turned out to be, but this is the first strength training book I have ever actually purchased, and I will definitely be more hesitant before buying another one. I thought this book was going to be a textbook introduction to basics-first training. that it definitely is not. if you like chatty writing, you might like his writing style. personally, I find it annoying when I have to wade through ten pages of witty asides to get a paragraphs worth of information. if you are a complete beginner you might get something out of the first couple chapters, but you could read all that stuff[...].
about halfway into the book, schuler says "really I could just stop now and give you the workouts that my co-author came up with, but then you would be disappointed because you thought you were buying a book." the truth is, that's basically what he did. aside from the several dozen workouts, the book is worthless.
schuler is a magazine writer and it shows. the book has all the showboating, flare and lack of substance of a men's journal article. he also shows a blindness to the niceties of scientific research that is so typical of magazine writers.
the chapters on "diet" and "technique" (which contain only two things that actually resemble techniques) are nothing more than whimsical justifications of schuler's biases on certain subjects, backed up with references to studies whose flaws are evident just from schuler's explanations. one study, which forms the basis for shculer's entire argument about cardio, exclusively used men from a rural welsh village as subjects. nevermind the hundreds of other studies about cardio, done with proper controls, that contradict schuler's pet peeve. in the section on diet, we are told that diet soda must be okay for you because the author drinks so much of it, and that ice cream is okay because it has milk in it.
despite schuler's assurance that his book will teach us proper lifting form, that subject, which should form the basis of the book, is consigned to a few pages in the exercise section. and they are far from perfect. the guy in the squat photos is holding the bar wrong, doesn't have his feet turned out enough, and has his neck hyperextended. the deadlift sections doesn't explain that you are supposed to keep the bar within an inch of your shins once you start the lift. the section on lunges doesn't tell you how widely spaced your feet should be, or what the angle of your torso should be in the lower position.
the lack of discussion of proper form combined with the variety of exercises seems tantamount to an encouraging beginning lifters to go out and try anything they read about regardless of whether they understand the physics or body mechanics involved. and for a book supposedly about "basics first' training, some of the lifts are dangerous in the extreme (e.g. standing row, quarter squat), arcane (e.g. towel biceps curl, barbell reverse-grip bent-over row), or even downright silly (e.g. "bulgarian split deadlift," mixed grip lat pull).
I'm sorry but I don't believe it's necessary for beginners, or anyone, to learn all these different movements. perfecting just the squat and the bench press could keep you busy for years.
since the workouts are the only real content in this book, they must be the bottom line in determining the books value. but I don't really know how to rate them. I am not a strength training expert and I haven't done them. what I do know is that I am not going to spend a year of my life finding out whether they are as pointless as the rest of this book. - 2008-06-12, 10 of 16 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Recommended for the 'General Fitness' crowd
- PRO:
This book covers pretty much everything any casual gym enthusiast could want to know about training. It includes sample programs for gaining muscle, losing fat and getting stronger, as well as nutritional information to help you accomplish these goals, and exercise illustrations.
In a nutshell the authors' message is that you can train your entire body using 6 basic movements: Pushing, Pulling, Twisting, Squatting, Dead lifting and Lunging. For each of these basic movements there are several variations, but they are almost exclusively "compound exercises" (meaning multi-joint exercises) which are time efficient and allow you to use many different muscles with few exercises.
Also:
-The nutritional information is solid but relatively basic (they don't go into some of the fancier topics like calorie or carbohydrate cycling; nor do they discuss contest preparation if that stuff interests you)
-Exercise illustrations are sufficient and don't consume the majority of the book's pages like many fitness books do.
CON:
By far the biggest drawback to this book is that you probably won't be able to follow the programs specifically as written if you train at a busy commercial gym. I would say that about +90% of the sets listed in the programs have you alternating between at least two (sometimes four) exercises. For example: Squats with Bench Press, or Shoulder Press with Cable Rows. While the reasons for the pairings are sound (time management, longer rest periods compared to straight sets, improved conditioning from dense workouts) I think they fall under the category of "Fitness Porn Fantasy". One of the two authors owns a gym which I'm certain he's designed to accommodate this style of training and, I'm guessing, probably most of the folks who train there must follow similar programs which could make them more understanding of the equipment hogging this program requires; but of the 6 gyms I've trained at over the years I think it would be very difficult, or at the very least stressful, to pull off.
Also:
- The exercise descriptions that accompany the pictures are somewhat bare bones.
- If you like a lot of single joint exercises like bicep curls, triceps cable extensions, or calve raises; you'll be disappointed with the programs because they are essentially void of them.
TARGET AUDIENCE:
-Anyone looking to improve their general fitness, increase lean body mass and reduce body fat; but aren't looking to become bodybuilders.
-Anyone with 45-75 minutes to train 3-4 times per week
-And preferably anyone who trains in an empty gym. - 2008-06-10, 3 of 3 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Worth the price
- I originally checked this out at the library. The workouts were so effective, that I bought the book, and my wife purchased New Rules of Lifting for Women.
- 2008-06-08, 1 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
