Pushing Yourself to Power: The Ultimate Do It Now Do It Anywhere Lambs to Lions Complete Guide to Total Body Transformation

I've been meaning to write a review of this book from some time, but I wanted to wait until I had a chance to really work with the exercises. A little background on me (since anyone thinking of buying an exercise book wants to know: Will it work for a guy like me?) I am ready to turn 45. I am what you might call a weekend athlete. I play hockey in a league here. I have never been a world-class athlete or body-builder, but I've never been horribly out of shape, either. I take care of myself. Don't smoke, drink a little, and watch what I eat. I'm in pretty good shape. I am not as trim as I was in High-School, but I don't have much of a gut. I am 6'2" and about 200 pounds. So, kind of middle of the road physique-wise. I am a reader, so I have read all kinds of books on fitness and bodybuilding, and buy Men's Health every month (damn, I could save some money with a subscription, come to think of it!). I know about every theory you can name. (If only knowing were the same as doing!) Last year, I joined a local fitness club. After three weeks, I felt a difference. My body tightened up nicely. My waist trimmed. I looked better in clothes, and my wife appreciated the difference out of them. I wasn't bulky big. But the difference was noticeable. I felt good. But, you know how it is... you have a job, a wife, two kids... Getting to the Gym is hard when you are also designated Kid Taxi. I stopped going... lost my definition, put on some weight, and was pretty disappointed in myself. Enter Push Yourself to Power (PYPT). I've been working out with it for a couple of months, and the gym results are back - even though I haven't darkened the door of any gym. That's very cool! Is it magic? Are you kidding? No exercise program is. And buying it won't make you any fitter, any more than buying a Tae-Bo DVD will trim inches off of your waist-line. Unfortunately, you actually have to use it to see a benefit. But it does work. There are, however, a couple of things that you have to know... because this exercise program won't work for anyone. The beauty of the system is that you don't have any weights. The problem of it is that you don't have any weights. Let me explain: When you lift a 25 pound weight, two things work together: The weight offers resistance, and your muscle provides the effort. This will make your muscle work hard and which eventually leads to muscle breakdown. Your body, being incredibly smart, rebuilds the muscle better - seeing that it now needs more strength. This is the basis of all body-building theory. Your body builds what it needs. If you eat potato chips and sit on a couch, it doesn't need muscle. If you work digging ditches, it does. The body adapts. Weight training, essentially, fools your body into thinking it needs to develop efficient muscles to exist. So it does. So, resistance + effort = growth. In normal weight lifting, you provide half of the equation: Effort. In PYTP, you need to provide BOTH the effort AND th

Many who started bodybuilding and weight lifting back in the seventies; fondly remember starting our physical culture journey by doing the Charles Atlas dynamic tension exercises as a teen. The course was over fifty years old by then, and while it had good advice, the directions were hard to follow without coaching. So, after pulling and pushing our way through the first few weeks of the course, many of us gave up and turned to the barbells that were beginning to show up in our high school weight rooms. Much later, after years of heavy weight training, I found myself, like many other life time weight trainers, with aching and deteriorated knees, shoulders, and back. I got winded easily. I had lost much of my flexibility and coordination as well. This was despite hours spent stretching and working out hard in the gym. For some reason my bulky build lacked functional strength. While I could lift heavy and go hard in the gym, this didn't give me strength and energy for daily tasks or sports. For someone hitting middle age, who had been a black belt martial artist, this was hard to take. So ditching my thirty year love affair with the weights, I began stumbling around for an alternative for conditioning. Enter Pushing Yourself to Power. John Peterson followed the Atlas program as well, but he was fortunate enough to have the coaching of a grandfather and great-uncle who were life long physical culture devotees. Pushing Yourself to Power is a master text of physical self development. It covers everything from breathing, nutrition, joint mobility, power calisthenics, dynamic tension type exercise, and isometrics. The Dynamic Visualization program in the book can be used safely for out of shape beginners or athletes suffering from injuries. For the more advanced athlete there is the five hundred pushup challenge. There is an excellent and inspirational biographical section on remarkable athletes who developed Herculean builds without using weights, such as the late actor and athlete, Woody Strode. John also shares his refreshingly, positive Christian faith in the book. If you are interested in bulky, superfluous muscles and pushing heavy weights in the gym, this book is not for you. But, if you are interested in building a pain free, lean, lithe and muscular physique with coordination, flexibility, endurance, speed, and strength to spare, this book is tailor made for you. You see, as John's grandfather explained to him many years ago, the athletes of the twenties, thirties and forties lived closer to agricultural life than we do today. They had seen the mighty musculature of the plow horse and the strength he developed. But they had also seen how the plow horse had to be put down at a relatively early age, because of deteriorated joints. They compared this to the race horse, which enjoyed a longer life without swollen joints and pain. The choice is yours. Do you want to be a plow horse or a race horse? After almost two months

I'm only 18 and I've gone through a lot with different fitness plans and stuff. I used to be this fat obese kid with no life, and found running to be my way out. Anywho, once i learned that strength was an important part of fitness and health i took to it with a vengeance, learning as much as i could about nutrition and technique, I even bought the home workout bible by mike meija. After only 3 months of lifting, and just 17 years old, my physique had only slightly improved, and my strength still seemed to me be average. Plus, even though I was only doing 145 pounds on benches, and 200 on squats, my knees and back were already giving me a hell of a time. It was then that I learned about Matt Furey. An man who had amazing strength, flexibility and character. So I ordered his combat conditioning book. I was skeptical and only half heartedly took to it, yet I did feel a lot better by doing hindu puhsups, squats and bridges. But the book was all about strength and health... yay thats exactly what i wanted, but I wanted a good-looking physique too. So i went onto some more research, decided to look up more things. I found out about Charles Atlas, Joseph Sandow and all those other old guys who were strong as heck yet still looked amazing. Then I came across John Peterson. I can tell you that the first time I saw his picture, it was of him doing a pullup. HE DID NOT LOOK 50 LOL! The guy is amazing... he is as inspiring as my father, as strong as anything and looks amazing too. I bought the book at once, decided to go at it, left the weights. I can tell you, In 3 months, I can now see my abs, I have definition all over, and i since I test myself monthly with weights, I can say that my bench has gone from 145 to 170, biceps from 20 to 35 and i can now do 5 pullups instead of none. If you're looking for good health/good read/super strength/good looks/flexibility/extreme conditioning... trust me go for this book. You can't fail on the wisdom of this man.

This is the best book you can buy on increasing your strength, losing weight, and just getting into perfect shape. The money you would have to spend to equal the information in this one book, would be alot. Its an encyclopedia on Physical culture. Its the best resource that Im aware of. And the book is just filled with information. 182 pages filled with text and pictures. Unlike Pavel and Matt Furey's books that use huge font, and 1 or 2 pictures of the exercise. Example John does the Furey Pushup and shows 8 pictures of him doing it during different parts of the exercise. Matt Furey shows 2 pictures of him doing it. If you buy Matt's book "Combat Conditioning" you would still probably have to buy a video to figure out how to actually do the exercise. Not with PYTP after seeing the 8 pictures of John doing the exercise you know exactly how to do it. And the whole book is like that. Thats just one example. The strong part of the book is the layout. The book breaks down like this. John's writing style is very readable. You can tell he knows what he writing about. Every subject from the exercises to nutrition, to goal setting is very well done. Good explanations of the exercises, good uplifting advice(motivational), with enough humor thrown in to keep it from ever getting dry. As far as books about BWE's go this is the best one Ive read to date. He outdoes Atlas and Furey with this book. I havent read anything from Liederman so I cant comment on his work. John's workouts are designed to give you 7 attributes of Dynamic Fitness 1.Strength 2.Flexibility 3.Endurance 4.Speed 5.Balance 6.Coordination 7.Asthetics All done working with the greatest piece of exercise equipment ever made, YOU The book has a good introduction and a list of Johns hero's who built themselves up with bodyweight exercises. Good reading. Then we get to the lessons 1.(Deep Breathing, Super Joints, and Chest exercises) 2.Nutrition 3.Energy 4.Abs 5.Neck 6.Shoulders 7.Back 8.Biceps 9.Triceps 10.Forearms 11.Thighs 12.Calves These lessons are done mixing Dynamic Self Resistance, Dynamic Visualized Resistance, A few Isometrics, McSweeney's Tiger Moves, Bridging and Calisthenics. Then a section with Power Calisthenics (Furey Pushups, Furey Squats, Pullups, etc.) By far this is the best book for beginners that Ive seen.(Something finally knocked off Solitary Fitness) And these pages are packed with info. You wont get the feeling that these 182 pages could have been done with using 50. No this book is wall to wall. Alot of Furey and Pavel's books could actually use alot less pages than they do. Not the case here. All in all this is the best book on BWE's that mix Calisthenics with Isotonic, Isometric, old style conditioning. A great value for the money. Very motivationg book. That realizes that people are different sizes and have different leverages. Good Q & A's after every lesson. Great Nutritional Advice. Good goal setting and health ad

This is one of the few fitness books (especially those dealing with bodyweight training) that really can be used by anyone of any fitness level. Can't do a pushup or a chinup? No big deal, John has a workout that can allow you to build up strength until you can handle your own bodyweight. On the other end of the spectrum, he presents several ways that you can continue to challenge yourself through a lifetime of working out without ever having to go to a gym or buy special equipment.The exercises John teaches have been around for years and since the old Charles Atlas stuff (a big part of these workouts) went out of fashion at least a quarter century ago, many of us have never heard of some of these techniques.While the workouts haven't been mainstream for a generation or so, the nutrition advice is pretty much in line with what most registered dieticians would recommend. It's not a low carb diet, but an approach that will allow you to shed fat and provide enough energy for your workouts.It's a good, entertaining read and the workouts are definitely worth a try.