The Theory of the Sweet Science
The Theory of the Sweet Science
When I purchased this book through money order it would have been about 1994. I weighed about 67kgs dripping wet. 2-3 years later I was weighing in at about 106 solid kg's. A very big part of the muscle gain was due to using the methods and training principles outlined in this book.
Despite the fact that the kinds of training plans in this text are now referred to on the internet as ‘cookie cutter programs’, it worked for me, no doubt about it and according to the reviews at Amazon.com it worked for a host of others too - and that’s the bottom line, that’s what matters the most.
But what is a book about bodybuilding doing on a website about boxing?
I’ve always believed that if you can take one useful thing out of a book then it’s been worth your time. So here it is, the higher the level in this instance the more taxing the exercise is on your nervous system thereby the more beneficial. Level 1 is all about using isolation exercises with variable resistance machines, whereas level 7 exercise is not about merely moving a weight or your extremities through space, instead, you are moving your entire body through space (e.g. bicep curls vs. pull-ups or chest fly machine vs. pushups). In the end there’s no comparison and if you want real benefit from the time you put into your training you need to be working with the higher levels this book talks about. You’ll also learn about the 8 different factors involved in stressing muscles to elicit the desired response along with a few others concepts that you might find useful.
Anyone who wants a good appreciation of what an effective hypertrophy training program looks like, then this is it and it sort of gives you a bench mark to weigh other programs you might have designed for you into the future. The book assumes you to be a non-expert and it’s written for that audience, so it doesn’t just give you the bodybuilding program, it gives you the reasoning behind the program and that’s very important. The pedagogical aids also help to bolster the concepts you’ll learn about which is nice, especially if you’re like me and you need to see something like a diagram before you can fully comprehend matters.
There’s really not much else in this book that applies to boxing but I’d seriously consider buying it to round out your knowledge base. Since 1994 I’ve read my fair share of training books and internet articles and I have to say that much of what I’ve seen written was not only in this book first, but it’s written in a much clearer way and many of those concepts will help in your future to give you are birds eye view of the whole strength, fitness and physical conditioning spectrum so as to have better discernment.
Fitness coach Alwyn Cosgrove had some comments of recent times worth thinking about too.
"...the fitness world is still arguing about which method is better – power lifting vs. Olympic lifting, aerobics vs. bodybuilding… We need to evolve from this reductionist approach"
