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You Are Your Own Gym: The Bible Of Bodyweight Exercises For Men And Women (2010)

by Mark Lauren(Favorite Author)

3.98 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0971407614 (ISBN13: 9780971407619)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Light of New Orleans Publishing

review 1: I picked up this book based on internet recommendations for a good bodyweight training book. I was interested in this type of strength training, since I knew that I wasn't going to religiously go to the gym and winter was coming so I couldn't walk at night or early in the morning, but I understand that consistency is necessary to actually get in shape. I was going to hold-off my review until I finished the 10 week beginner program, but I'm very impressed with the results so far 6 weeks in. This is the best total body workout I've tried. I can tell that I am stronger (arms, legs, back, core) and I have substantially more energy. I do my work-outs in the evenings when I am exhausted from the day and it completely revitalizes me. I know that if I can start I will feel better ... moreafterwards.Pros: - It doesn't require any additional equipment (although I did end up buying a pull up bar, but it's not strictly required). - The routines are 30 minutes 4-5 times a week. I have found this achievable.- The workouts are hard (but doable) and I can tell that I am getting stronger every week.- There's an iPad and iPhone app with the timing and videos of the work-outs in the book. Worth getting.- I can do this routine when I travel (I have done this and it worked great)- He explains how his 10 week programs are designed and offers different programs for different skill levels and modifications to make the exercises easier/harder. - Lots of exercises are included in the book for you to design your own routines.Cons:- I'm not sure I'll be strong enough at the end of the beginner 10 week training program to move to the next level. On his website he recommends repeating the last 3 weeks until you are. I can see this getting boring if it takes a while. I will eventually have to design my own routines. He gives lots of options, but I doubt that any will be as good as what he put together.
review 2: I've been a strength trainee for almost 6 months now. Before that I was a couch-potato of the worst kind. I work from 8 to 6 in an office (and eventually get up to go take care of something) and when I get home I sit on the couch and watch TV and scroll through Facebook. Until then only my fingers moved in any way.Then I got a gym membership. I won't lie: I hated the first time, I dreaded the next couple times until I got used to it.But that gym was unorganized and unsafe: some machines were half-broken, the improvised squat rack was also fixed with duct-tape and there were no Olympic barbells.I was starting to get the gym seriously and decided to upgrade to a better gym where I would pay the same each month and have access to better machines and trainers. I liked it for a couple times, but there was this problem: I could only go after work, and, apparently, so would everyone else.The membership was $US 100/month and still I have to walk through a crowd of people throwing weights all around. I didn't have a safe spot to deadlift and all the machines I wanted to use were taken. We would almost have to stand in line to use something.Then I had to take a month business trip out of the country and in that month I signed up in another gym. I loved that gym but I knew it was temporary. I grew significantly in the time span.When I came back I dreaded going back to that crowded and stupidly expensive gym, so I started searching.I had heard of YAYOG before but I thought that bodyweight can only have a limit one can achieve and then you reach a plateau. Wait, I still think that way, but the limit, in my eyes, has changed a lot. What I thought would be easy became really hard.Last week I decided to give this a go and read the book. Now this is where my real review starts. I usually make a little list of the ups and downs in the books I read (unless I just feel like writing a quick review). This is a fairly short book, only emphasizing most of its pages on how-tos to exercises and DYI workout plans.Negative aspects:- Athough Mark Lauren really wants to sound uninterested in making money out of this program - since you're not paying anyone to use your own body to evolve physically - this book is not for free. Nor could it be. But he could be a little more honest than that.- I don't know what he hates so much about gym goers. There's not a single program in the Fitness world that works for everyone. Some people like Stronglifts better than Starting Strength. Some people like Pilates better than Yoga. Some people like HIIT instead of lifting weights. It all depends on the type of person and their goals. A million different programs could work to a single person. It's just up to the person to decide what they feel best with.- He points out all the negative aspects - and some are pointed in a tremendously dramatic way - of going to the gym: Pack your bag, enter de car, drive, parking, changing clothes, saving your locker key and deal with other people in the same gym you go to. He shows things this way because he maybe thought that only people who've never been to a gym and dread going there would read this book. But further on he shows how this book is also for former strength trainees who come from the gym. Let's make some sense of this, shall we? You can't try to please and displease at the same time. It doesn't work like that. You could have written this book without indirectly dissing people who actually like to go to the gym. That's bad marketing for you.Positive aspects:- This program requires no accessories. All you need is a chair, a door, a table, a towel and, if you can afford it, a yoga mat (not mandatory though).- He doesn't impose too many rules to follow the program, but to be honest, from someone who read some literature on fitness already, I would recommend you to read more about the food part that he didn't talk much about. It's extremely necessary to know what you're eating and what's the quality of the calories you're ingesting. If you can't tell what are the nutritive differences between a steak and sweet potatoes then you need to read about it.- The book is written in an easy to understand way and has some funny and snarky comments along the way, which makes you feel at ease with the program right from the start.- This point is not much about the book, but there's an app to follow his program (both for Android and iPhone) and it's much easier to follow the program that way because of how the sets are built (unless you're good at counting reps and seconds past at the same time, I'd recommend you to download the app with the same name).All in all, I enjoyed the book and I'm following the program but it's too early to know if it's working or not. But if you're curious, well, my glutes, quads and hamstrings are on fire and I can't walk without the penguin waddle! less

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