Brawn: Bodybuilding for the drug-free and genetically typical

As a natural weight trainer I felt this book was very useful for setting realistic targets for results. It not only suggested dimension targets based on natural growth, but also indicated the type of poundages that would be lifted to achieve these goals. Great resource. A must buy in the ocean of such books available.

I would start by saying that this book is not the first McRobert book you should buy. I recommend that you head in the direction of his "The Insider's Tell-All Handbook on Weight-Training Technique". That book shows you how to use perfect form in the gym. There is no point in going here unless you get that right first. Learn Squatting, Deadlifts and Bench Presses. Learn these 3 well. Then when you have spent a few months learning them and have experimented with the other exercises, get this book and read it. Brawn is 225 pages of text without any pictures. Unlike other bodybuilding titles this one is very much aimed at the average Hardgainer. What is a Hardgainer? A Hardgainer is simply someone who is not a genetically gifted individual who takes drugs to enhance their already immense build. Who are these drug users? They are ones who are in bodybuilding books, the covers of top bodybuilding magazines and filling most of the pages. Stuart McRobert claims that these individuals are all drug users... and he is right. Some of the genetically gifted people use steroids like it was a dinner. The top competition winning bodybuilders where always gifted. They travel from all parts of the world to congregate together for gym training in the same places because they are gifted. They are not like us. They are called Easygainers and according to McRobert, who has spent 30 years in the gym, they have absolutely no understanding of how to train people who are not gifted like them. To a large degree McRobert is correct. It is impossible for Woody Allen to create a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger even if he did eat right, exercises right, lifts weights right and takes as much steroids as his body could handle, he will never be able to compete with an Arnold who even stopped doing all of the above. However Woody Allen could develop his own potential and be muscled up in his own way. In Brawn, McRobert will talk you down at the start, convincing you that unless you are one of these gifted few you are wasting your life trying to achieve these professional bodybuilding competition sizes that are influenced heavily by drug use. He is right. Then he goes on to tell you that some Hardgainers have progressively gone on to push a single 300lbs/136kg Bench Press, 400lbs/182kg Squat and 500lbs/227kg Deadlift. Anyone who has spent a large amount of time, going to a normal gym (not the ones occupied by the genetically gifted only) will know that these kind of single lifts are well beyond the expectations of even the experienced. Yet Brawn can take you there. How to do just that is what makes Brawn a must read. Although Brawn may tend to say a lot of the same stuff over and over again in the introduction chapters, it soon gets into the meat. Goals are Bench Press 6-8 x 250lbs/112kg, Squats 15-20 x 300lbs/136kg, Deadlift 15-20 x 350lbs/158kg Deadlift. Now here comes the important part. If you find yourself doing any other exercises other than these three then you are doing so

Want to get big and strong? Want to stop wasting your hard earned cash on fad supplements and tricky training gear? Get this book and it'll change your idea of what weight lifting and strength training are all about! I too began lifting weights at a young age. I never consistently stuck with it because I was discouraged. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the kind of physique I was seeing in all the major magazines. WHY NOT?... I was doing precisely what they were telling me... I was working hard and training like a fool, yet I couldn't get ripped and big and muscular like the guys in the mags. I tried everything short of steroids and nothing but NOTHING worked. That is, until out of sheer frustration (and spending literally thousands of dollars on supplements, training gear, fancy machines and memberships to designer gyms) I decided to order a book I saw advertised in the back of one of the more respectable 'Natural' Muscle building magazines. I read Stuart McRoberts book and it blew my mind. After all the hype, all the crap that is shoved down the throats of weight training enthusiasts... this book spoke the truth. The simplistic, natural, sane truth about bodybuilding. Follow the simple precepts of this book and YOU WILL succeed. McRobert explains in easy to grasp way the amazingly non-complex path to acheive your goals through his credo of "Basics, 'Breviated and Best". Don't get me wrong... McRobert also blows the lid off the weight training myths that anyone can acheive the body of Arnold, Corey Everson, Lee Haney or whomever the latest 'hot' bodybuilding star is, if they just work hard enough and buy a certain magazine and every freakin' bodybuilding product said magazine has to offer. I KNOW this book works. Several months after being on one of the routines from Brawn, I was working out in the local gym with my nephew. We were doing military presses with some impressive weights when one of the local bodybuilding legends walked by... he stopped dead in his tracks. Eyes bulging and jaw dropping he blurted out "What kind of 'juice' are you guys doing!!??" We laughed and shook our heads... that was confirmation enough. My first copy of Brawn is trashed so I'm back to order my next copy. I'll probably end up buying the rest of the series too. Yes! It's that good! WHAT?... you haven't ordered it yet?

This is hands down the most usefull book on weight training there is. Forget all the B.S. in the magazines, this is it. Everyone who wants to get big and strong needs this book. The concepts completely changed the way I train, and man do they work. Do only the big lifts, lift brief and heavy, never train on a set schedule, only train every 4 or 5 days, or even less, whatever it takes to recovery, these concepts will make you big and muscular, gauranteed. Plus, this book has minimal redundant or worthless information, like you may find in most training books.

Brawn is the book most "average" people who weight train have been waiting for for years.Instead of wasting your valuable time,money and most of all EFFORT on following the books and routines by the "champions", buy this book and begin to realize your true potential.Crammed with the most useful information I have read in years, and I have been involved in weight training for 20+ years and have a degree in Physical Education and let me tell you, you'll never do better than this book!Thank you Stuart McRobert, you've done the weight training world a great service, I'm now a huge fan!