The New Rules of Lifting offers a comprehensive guide to weightlifting, focusing on natural muscle movements and providing a year's worth of workouts. The book is well-structured for beginners but may be less beneficial for experienced lifters, with some sections lacking clarity and useful nutritional advice.
The New Rules of Lifting by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove presents a unique approach to weightlifting, emphasizing natural muscle movements over isolated exercises. The book is divided into three main parts: an overview of weightlifting and the six basic movements, detailed exercise descriptions, and nutritional information. The first part provides a broad introduction to the principles of the book, including warm-up plans and the importance of flexibility. The second part delves into specific exercises and programs, although the organization could be improved by introducing programs before exercises. The nutritional section offers basic information but lacks practical food lists, with humor detracting from its usefulness. Overall, the book is a great primer for beginners and intermediate lifters, but experienced lifters may find it less beneficial unless they are looking to break out of a plateau.
Quick quotes
The New Rules of Lifting are based upon using muscles in tandem and in very natural ways, rather than isolating your muscles and working your muscles in a way that your body will never need outside of a gym.
One of the things that bothered me about the “Exercises” section was that each exercise lists which programs that it is used in.
In a small way, I agree with Chris’s conclusions about the book; it’s a great primer for beginners that will get them set off in the right direction.