[.ca] Self's Better Body Book (ISBN 0609603191)

From Amazon.com:
Few books deliver when they promise to be the definitive guide to a topic, but Self's Better Body Book comes pretty close. With nearly 20 years of expertise in the field, the editors of Self magazine have produced a thorough and practical book about working out. The spiral binding and fold-out pages make it easy to use while exercising. One can prop it up on a stationary bike or lay it flat on the ground beside a weight machine. The layout also makes initial sense because it's split into Basics and Bonus sections. The front Basics section provides simple exercise routines, with clear directions and diagrams on proper form. The back Bonus section offers advanced routines and tips on how to increase the intensity to help you meet specific fitness goals, such as relieving stress or losing extra pounds. With a total of more than 20 exercise routines to mix and match, one can easily design a customized program to meet individual needs and goals and solve problems, such as pinpointing which exercises exacerbate back pain. The book is filled with checklists to help you keep track of workout type (stretching, cardio, or strength training), frequency, and intensity. While sometimes the organization of the book can seem a bit confusing, this is a solid guidebook to fitness. --Ann Lien

self magazine book:
i had high hopes for this book,but it was a real dissapointment.the $ i spent on this book was a real waste...don`t buy it!there are plenty of book's better than this one.

Worth your time AND money:
I've tried to start exercising for years. My usual excuse was that I didn't know how. When I bought this book that excuse completely disappeared. I have never read a more inciteful, encouraging, or instructive book on fitness. This book emphasizes both specific fitness areas such as cardio, flexibility, and strength (all with scientifically based exercises), as well as overall fitness topics such as nutrition and meditation. Excellent book.

Great workout book to change with your needs:
This book has encouraged me to start and maintain a workout program. Rather than focus on one particular "workout," it gives you a series of exercises/plans for cardiovascular exercise, strength exercises (including exercises you can do with your bodyweight, freeweights, machines) and flexibility exercises. It even has workouts you can do from your hotel room when you travel and stretches for the office. It's flexible, easy to follow and rather than being focused on workout "doctrine," it helps you build a workout that suits your abilities, needs and skills.

A good starting point:
This book doesn't go into too much depth, but it does provide a very good overview of a number of topics. The exercise pages are excellent. It's easy to lay them out and refer to them while working out due to the fold-out format, and the instructions are clear. In addition, the book tells you which muscles are being worked by each exercise -- other sources are not always as clear. You're not going to get a great deal of detail on any particular topics, but you'll get a good set of basic exercises as well as an introduction to some important fitness concepts. I think it's a keeper.