[.ca] Solitary Fitness (ISBN 1844543099)

Review after following this book for 52 days:
I have bought this book and done my best to follow its advice for 52 days, after which I feel I can now write a fair review. First I will say everything I can say that is positive about this book. POSITIVE: The book is cheap and, if you are willing to work hard, both mentally and physically, contains guidelines for developing your own fitness regime at home, using only a room and the odd prop such as a chair, pillow, 2 saucepans, etc. After 52 days of following this book, my shoulders, upper arms and chest are definitely showing some signs of getting bigger and more defined. Again, if you really set your mind to it, you could, using this book, conceivably develop your own fitness programme without travelling to and from a gym and paying membership fees. And now the negative elements of this book. NEGATIVE: The book is appallingly written and appallingly edited. There is no coherent structure or programme contained therein, no real step-by-step approach. The only way you can make it work is by buying a separate exercise book or note pad and rewriting everything in "Solitary Fitness" to make it structured and comprehensible. The pictures are not always clear and neither are all the explanations. Some of the exercises are just plain weird (the weirdest of which are several exercises aimed at your "anal muscles" - I'm not kidding). After 52 days there has been no impact or progress in my stomache area. If anything, I think my love handles have grown. Another disadvantage is that the programme is extremely time-consuming. It takes easily more than an hour a day (my own day 29 took up most of the day) and you are expected to do it six days a week. I understand that a prisoner has all the time in the world, but people with jobs and families don't. Finally, the end of the book is filled with really disturbing adverts for e.g. books on Nazi atrocities and other such unsavoury stuff. So, you decide. This review was written after honestly trying this programme for 52 days.