The Men's Health Big Book of Exercises: Four Weeks to a Leaner, Stronger, More Muscular You!

I purchased this book in the past and lost it. It's like a Bible, if you want to stay fit and exercise it's of Great value to you.

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Great book! If you are looking to vary your workouts and exercises or hit a plateau, this is definitely the workout book for you! When you get this in the mail, yo will also be surprised how thick this book is--the spine is two fingers thick and it is 551 pages of color photos.PHOTOS AND EXPLANATIONS OF EXERCISESLots of workouts with easy to understand photos AND explanations. Relies on both photos and description to explain what you need to feel as you do the movement/exercise. This is very helpful because it explains where you need to squeeze or pull to help exercise the muscle properly. There is an index in the back to help fine the exercise or muscles you are looking for too!HELPFUL INFORMATION AND VARIATIONSThe book also provides tidbits on the side which are helpful, such as building muscle by doing certain variations. For example, there are 25 variations and combinations for biceps which you can do for a simple dumbbell curl to work different portions of your biceps! You can use them all to get a fuller shape, which is great to work into a rotation.MUSCLE DIAGRAMSAdditionally, there are muscle diagrams which help you both learn about the muscles you are work. But it also helps you identify what you want to build. If you do not know what muscle it is that you want to grow bigger or stronger, you can go to the muscle diagrams at the front of the chapter to get the name (which is clearly pointed out and explains what it does and what movements target it). Then you can go into the chapter and look for the exercise which works that muscle. For example, ever wonder what that muscle is at the bottom of your biceps that connects to your forearm area? How to work that? It is called the brachioradialis, and you can now go into the chapter and look for exercises that target it!THOROUGH BODYWEIGHT EXERCISESIf you are in an apartment or don't have time to get to a gym some days, there are great bodyweight exercises. This section is thorough and can be done at home, in the office at lunch, or while away on vacation. Most use minimal furniture too, so you can really do most of the exercises with nothing but you and a floor.WORKOUT ROUTINESNot only does this book have just workouts, but it also has some great workout routines for different goals. There are routines are generally broken down for strength building, endurance, and fat-burning. There are also routines to do at home with minimal equipment, such as just dumbbells, which will really challenge you and make a difference such as spartacus or the wheel. Many of the workouts also explain how you can vary them too to make them easier or harder.NUTRITION AND MEALSThere is also a section about nutrition and healthier eating for your hard workouts. This is also helpful and gives meal plans, but I wouldn't say it is anything you could not find online. If you are an absolutely beginner and don't know where to look, this will certainly help!

I purchased this book along with Dumbbell Training for Strength And Fitness, based upon Amazon reader recommendations. While Dumbbell Training was mostly a dud, MH Big Book of Exercises was mostly a hit.In the past, I've designed my home workouts with the help of Men's Health Home Workout Bible: and Men's Health The Body You Want in the Time You Have: The Ultimate Guide to Getting Leaner and Building Muscle with Workouts that Fit Any Schedule. The former helps you translate exercises done in gyms and on machines into what you can do at home with bodyweight, dumbbells, or barbells. The latter gives you a variety of plans for losing weight, gaining muscle, or total-body workouts.However, over time - I've wanted to add more variety into my strength training, and that's where MH Big Book of Exercises comes in. I found a decent variety of shoulder and chest exercises, but the book really gave me a lot of new moves within core and legs. There are a ton of variations presented, although for my tastes - they have too many cable machine variants thrown in (who has a cable machine at home?!). Still - the sheer number of exercises fit exactly what I was looking for in this title. There are some really interesting ideas that I'm excited to try, like straps that descend from your pull-up bar so you can do hanging pushups/rows.As others have mentioned, the nutrition guide is simply a low-carb affair without much imagination. This diet works for a lot of people, so I understand why they went with an easy out in this regard. Some of you who've done P90x will find it very familiar to the "Fat Shredder" phase diet, which you do for the first 30 days of the program. My problem is that the diet is billed as a "one size fits all" approach - even though there are risks that you'll actually lose muscle weight along with fat via this approach. Personally, I think they should have presented a few diet options: low-carb, slow-carb, and perhaps an athletic-oriented diet with less restrictions on the carbs. But - this is 'Mens Health' we are talking about, so it's all about a diet that will net you a six-pack.The one other area that I found lacking was the supplied workout plans. I guess after using "The Body You Want, In the Time You Have" - I expected more. The first few are decent, albeit a bit repetitive. However, some workout guides seem thrown in and add little value... E.G. "The Spartacus Workout", which takes up a whopping one page.Still - it's called the Big Book of EXERCISES for a reason, so despite those two minor quibbles I rate it four stars. If you need a lot more exercises that you can do at home, this is a great resource.