CrossLit: Book Reviews

February 2011 - Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder

February 2011 - Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder
Review of: Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder
Reviewer: Doogie

We all know him and we all love him. Some of us love him more as the Butcher of

Bakersfield, Dutch, the Terminator, or Arnold the body builder. Whether you
love or hate this guy, you cannot deny his success story. The book Arnold: The
Education of a Bodybuilder is about his success as a bodybuilder. This book is
Written by Arnold and dives into great details on his training, mental attitude,

and lifestyle during his march to the top of bodybuilding. The whole time I was
reading this book my mind was reading it in an Arnold accent. All I could think

of were his number one, one liners. Such greats as "Get to the Chopper", "You
son of a bitch", and my favorite "down".


For those of you who do not know, Arnold is not an American. Arnold was born in

Graz, Austria. As a boy he started playing team sports such as soccer, but
always craved attention from the coach and wanted to be the star player every
game. He was usually disappointed and did not get to serious into soccer. When

he was in 15 the soccer coach would take his team into the gym to lift weights
with their legs. The bodybuilders in the gym noticed how hard Arnold worked at
squatting and took him under their wings. Once he began to train he never
stopped. He lived 10 miles from the gym and had to bike or walk to get to the
gym 5 days a week.


I am leaving the details of Arnold's training as an exercise to the reader. I
feel that his mental approach to lifting and life as more important to discuss.

Weightlifting changed Arnold's mental attitude. He began to think anything was
possible through hard work and dedication. Arnold's main goal was to win Mr.
Universe contest and move to America. What I found interesting was how Arnold
kept challenging himself and how he kept his eye on his goals. When training he

would often make challenges or bets with his training partners that he could
lift more than his training partner. Arnold stated that he would never want to
lose to his training partner or weight. He would often talk to the weights and
tell the weights that he was going to move them over his head and that they were

a "son of a bitch".


The book starts to tail off after Arnold finishes describing his reign at the
top of the bodybuilding world. One section that I found interesting was when he

was describing a girl friend named Barbara that he dated when he was starting to

get into the film industry. He describes how he loved this girl, but he ended
up leaving her because she was contempt with her station in life and wanted
Arnold to slow down his bodybuilding lifestyle. Arnold did not want to be known

as just a bodybuilder and he wanted to continue learning and pushing himself to
the top of anything he put his mind to.


The book ends with a section on nutrition and exercise. Most of the section is
dated. The one thing I took from this section is that Arnold stated you should
only eat real food and stay away from processed foods. I was hoping for Arnold
to dive into any supplements that he used, and he if used any performance
enhancing drugs, but he did not divulge this information in this book.


This book is a very short read and I recommend it. While we are not
Bodybuilders I think this book has some value around the mental side of
weightlifting and life. Most of Arnold's latest biographies focus on his movie
or political career. Without reading them I am going to assume that they are
very similar to this book, but with a different theme.

December 2010 - Championship Weightlifting: Beyond Muscle Power, The Mental Side of Lifting

Review of: Championship Weightlifting: Beyond Muscle Power, The mental side of
lifting
Reviewer: Doogie
ISBN: 978-0-9709871-1-2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Kono

Tommy Kono is one of the greatest weightlifters in the history of
weightlifting. He lifted in the 1950's through the 1970's, and has also won the
Mr. Universe title. I have left a link of Tommy's Wikipedia page as an exercise
to the reader. Tommy's approach to this book is from the mental side and his
main theme is that good weightlifting is 50% mental, 30% technique, and 20%
power. I always swore by 93% persistence, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and
2% butter scotch ripple, but I am probably wrong! Tommy breaks down his book
into the following areas: history of weightlifting and current state of USA
weightlifting, Tommy's mental approach to weightlifting, training and technique
methods, and stories of other weightlifters peers of Tommy.


Tommy starts off with a substantial history of weight lifting in the USA. I
found this first part of the book very interesting for two reasons. One, this
section is heavily peppered with many personal stories, and second, Tommy nails
the importance of knowing history if one is to have success in the future.
There once was a time when USA weightlifting was the most revered and feared in
the world. Tommy provides a great history on how weightlifting began in the USA
and his personal history on how he got into weightlifting. He then dives
directly into a personal assessment of the current state of USA weightlifting.
His assessment of USA weightlifting is not postive, and at times very
personal.


The second part of the book is Tommy's mental approach to weightlifting. This
part of the book is also heavily peppered with many personal stories. Tommy
stresses many times throughout this part of the book that when he was on the
platform or training he was representing his country, his teammates, and himself
and he did not want to disappoint. Tommy understood when he was lifting that he
had to put on a show and he took this approach to drive him to always lift
for PRs in the lifts and total. One story that stands out in my head is when
Tommy was about to perform a demo and he had no chalk. One of the other lifters
did not want to lift without chalk but was forced to go on and lift and Tommy
said the lifter was so worked up he was not able to get close to his lifting
totals. Tommy would state that he would train the lifts with someone directly
in front of him, lifting from different areas on the platform, and without
straps to toughen him up.


I am not going to go into details about the technique section of the book. But,
one thing that I found interesting is that Tommy would only train 3 times a
week, and each session lasting and hour and half or less. He stated that he did
not worry about lifting in percentages or tonnage per week because he feels that
leads to over training. He has a couple of stories on how over training affects
lifting and his main point is if the lifts are getting worse, a lifter is not
hitting his normal numbers, then that lifter is over trained. His main argument
against current training styles such as the Bulgarian method is that the lifters
it produces only peak for a minimal amount of time.


II would recommend this book if you want to learn the history of USA
weightlifting, and want to understand the mental side of a champion.

November 2010 - The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet

Review of: The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet
Author: Robb Wolf
Reviewer: Doogie
Nerd links:
www.robbwolf.com

We love our Crossfit stars and Robb Wolf has carved his own niche as the
nutrition expert by busting down the doors with 32 quart Dutch oven of
conventional nutritional wisdom. Robb Wolf’s book entitled, “The Paleo
Solution: The Original Human Diet” is part how-to and part technical reasoning.
The Paleo Solution is separated into the following themes; Robb’s struggles with
vegetarianism, technical reasoning behind paleo, and how-to guide. The main
theme that Robb stresses throughout his book is trying this for 30 days without
any bullshit, and re-evaluate the outcome.


Some of us at WCCF were introduced to Paleo style eating through articles linked
on our awesome site, and/or word of mouth. Some of us at WCCF do not agree with
a Paleo diet. And, some of us do not have enough information to make an
educated decision on how best to navigate the turbulent seas known as
nutrition. Robb’s book is technical enough to provide good information for
folks to make their own nutrition decisions. Robb goes into full detail on how
the body handles Protein, Carbohydrates, and Fats. Robb goes into further
details on how the different Fats and Carbohydrates have unique effects within
the body. I did not know that our body handles different Fats and Carbohydrates
differently with respects to hormone response, storage, and usage. This
technical information was eye opening. Robb states in his book that you can
skip the technical information if you just want to get to the how-to guide, but
the Nerd in me wants to understand how things work under the hood. Robb
penmanship concerning the technical details is easy to understand. It is so
easy I heard Snooki and Jwow fist pumping while reciting how the liver handles
fructose during an episode of Jersey shore.


Robb has an extensive how-to section. This how-to section is very helpful and I
found some great ideas on shopping, cooking and ensuring daily variety with food
choices. The how-to section comes with an exercise section that goes into great
details on exercises that we are all familiar with at WCCF. I skipped this
section. Robb goes into detail on a food matrix that he uses to ensure variety
with food choices. I found this helpful, but the book lacked a graphic or
picture representation of this food matrix that would of drilled home the
point. I heard in a recent pod cast that Robb will post this food matrix on his
website. After reading it a second time I was able to understand the concept.

I recommend this book to anyone thinking about trying the paleo diet and those
who are against the paleo diet. This book is easy to understand and can be
consumed in a relative short time. That is of course, if you are a nerd like me
and like to read.