Practical Programming for Strength Training – by Mark Rippetoe & Andy Baker

Strength training is an important part of overall health maintenance, but it can be hard to find a good guide to progressive strength improvement that isn’t a bodybuilding book.

This one gives a ground-upwards approach, explaining small details to even quite basic things, before taking the reader through to more advanced progressions, and how to get the most strength-building out of each exercise over time.

As such, this is a good book for anyone of any level from beginner to quite experienced, and you can hop in at any point since there are always catch-up summaries and/or reiterations of the previous concepts that we’re now building on from.

The authors do also talk nutrition, hormones, and so forth, but most of it is about the exercises and the progressions thereof.

There is a slightly patronizing chapter towards the end, about “special populations”, for example offering “novice and intermediate training for women”, but it doesn’t take away from the majority of the book, as the exercises don’t care about your gender. Muscles are muscles, and we all start from wherever we are. Yes, testosterone boosts muscle mass, but let’s face it, there are a lot of women in the world who are stronger than a lot of men.

One thing to bear in mind is that a lot of this is barbell training, so you will need a barbell (or access to one at a gym). If purely bodyweight training is your preference, or perhaps some other form of weightlifting (e.g. kettlebells or such) then this isn’t the book for that.

Bottom line: if strength training is your focus and you like barbells, then this is a great book to take you quite a way along that road.

Click here to check out Practical Programming For Strength Training, and get stronger!