[.ca] Challenge Yourself: Leanness, Fitness & Health at Any Age (ISBN 0960971475)

sensible advice:
This is an excellent book for all ages but in particular for those of us who are 0ver 50. Just reading and seeing pictures of athletes in their 60's and 70's is inspiring. What I really like is how Mr. Bass lays out all the facts and his personal experience to discuss the battle between the volume vs. intensity crowd. He presents the facts and doesn't knock either approach. I respect someone who does not claim his way is the only way, as so many self appointed fitness gurus do. It seems lately, if you listen to the "experts", if you work out more than once every 2 weeks and do more than 6 total sets, you aren't working intensly enough and are wasting your time. Bass basically says you can either work out harder or longer for equally good results BUT! you can't do both. He presents programs that incorporate both philosophies(volume vs. intensity). Having lifted for 30 years,I find this book very inspirational. Mr. Bass shows you can lift, (and lift heavy weights!)for years and years after most people relegate themselves to 4lb. dumbells and shuffleboard.

sensible advice:
This is an excellent book for all ages but in particular for those of us who are 0ver 50. Just reading and seeing pictures of athletes in their 60's and 70's is inspiring. What I really like is how Mr. Bass lays out all the facts and his personal experience to discuss the battle between the volume vs. intensity crowd. He presents the facts and doesn't knock either approach. I respect someone who does not claim his way is the only way, as so many self appointed fitness gurus do. It seems lately, if you listen to the "experts", if you work out more than once every 2 weeks and do more than 6 total sets, you aren't working intensly enough and are wasting your time. Bass basically says you can either work out harder or longer for equally good results BUT! you can't do both. He presents programs that incorporate both philosophies(volume vs. intensity). Having lifted for 30 years,I find this book very inspirational. Mr. Bass shows you can lift, (and lift heavy weights!)for years and years after most people relegate themselves to 4lb. dumbells and shuffleboard.

Comprehensive yet easy to read--great resource:
This is one of the best exercise/health books of the many such books I own. It covers a lot of ground--diet, exercise and motivation--and yet it includes the latest information at the right level of detail for one who wants to know the how AND the why. There is a good explanation of interval training, periodization, and balancing high-intensity training with adequate rest. Mr. Bass' other books are all very good (I know because I've read every one) but this one is his masterpiece.

Hairless Weirdo:
Clarence Bass is obviously deeply in love with his body, and you'll probably find this book rather boring unless you're in love with his body, too. This book is short on information and long on personal details of Bass' exercise routines, Bass' scores on various physiological tests, Bass' diet, and photographs of the old coot which, to me, are oddly uninspiring. Yeah, he's in better shape at 60 than my father, but at least my father's got hair on his chest (gray though it may be). In this book, you are treated to more than 50 photographs of Bass, shaved of body hair, mostly semi-nude, and usually in some ridiculous bodybuilding pose. A photograph or two might be inspiring, but this many photos is only a testament to the author's narcissim. And, frankly, I'm actually repulsed by the author's "ripped" look, which actually makes him look weak rather than healthy. The diet he claims he eats (and promotes as an exemplar) is so boring that very few people who tried it would ever stick with it (breakfast = grain mush flavored with beans, frozen peaches, and fortified with RIPPED brand protein powder; lunch = soybean burger and nonfat yogurt flavored with aspartame; dinner = frozen vegetable stew with canned fish). Actually, there are a lot of things WRONG with this diet, including the fact that soy foods have been found to shrink your brain, as well as flood it with female-hormonelike chemicals. Also, this diet, far from being "natural", relies heavily on canned and frozen foods; furthermore, Bass is a proponent of supplementation with creatine for performance enhancement (cheating, in other words), despite the fact that it causes him side effects. Not surprisingly, an earlier version of this diet made Bass rather unhealthy, as shown by some of his blood profile scores. He had relatively high homocysteine levels, high triglyceride levels, and shockingly high total cholesterol levels (228). How did he improve these levels? He added FAT to his diet--and the more fat he added to it, the better his cholesterol levels became! (pp. 176+; his homocysteine levels came down from vitamin supplementation). If Bass were less concerned with looking "ripped," he'd chow down on olive oil, cod liver oil, and flax oil, and live to be a hundred. As it is, I predict he won't see 70. Bass also de-emphasizes the value of endurance training, even though for most older people walking is the best exercise of all (Bass does walk regularly, but he credits it with nothing except some fat-burning ability). The book DOES, however, provide good (though too-brief) instruction on strength training. That's the best information in this book, but it's not worth the price of the book (instead, read: BRAWN by McRoberts). This book is really more an autobiography than anything else, about a rather odd duck named Clarence Bass. He's really not an unlikable fellow, despite his narcissm, but you don't necessarily want to be pulled into his little world of body-obsession, either. He claims to keep a workout diary, in which he writes down what he eats every day--and he probably really DOES that, too. It's not bad, it's just weird. Can you imagine hanging around with a guy like that? He probably doesn't drink, because it might up his bodyfat by .000003 percent above "ripped", but if he does, can you imagine kicking back with him, watching a football game, while he writes down in his diary the calories contained in his beer and in the non-fat carrot stick-dip he's sharing with you?

Fantastic Book!!!:
This is his best book to date.I have been working out for many years and I found his periodization work-out for advanced lifters to be one of the most practical work-outs I have ever tried. This book is a must read for any serious weight trainer. I also highly recommend reading Stuart McRobert's book "Beyond Brawn" and subscribing to the magazine "Hardgainer". Both these authors share many of the same views on training. Great Book!!!