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APEX
Muscle Building
By Brian Johnston - Review
Review by Rahul Alvares
Apex was an unexpected
read. Written by Brian Johnston this book has been written in
a very uncommon style.
The book is basically
divided into three parts dealing with psychology, training and
nutrition.
Johnston has devoted
a hearty section to psychology which alone takes up about 45 pages
of this 140 page book. Motivation, anger, anxiety, stress, concentration,
relaxation, imagery, confidence, client preference etc are the
topics that Johnston has included in this section. I have noticed
that many authors do devote a lot to psychology and goal setting
but Johnston takes this subject to the extreme.
I don't dig a lot into
psychology especially if it is in much detail. For me this section
contained a little too much to digest and I pretty much skimmed
over most of the topics lightly touching them only. I skipped
a lot of the notes in this topic.
Also Johnston is one
of the few fitness writers who have an exceptional control over
the English language - the drawback to this is that the book has
therefore a very dense feel to it. Complex sentences feature frequently
in his writing making it a sometimes taxing effort while reading.
In the training section
Johnston has again taken a different route altogether. Only a
few topics are picked up but they are explained in much detail.
Adaptation to exercise, strength versus hypertrophy, neural adaptation
and why strength and muscle growth don't always correlate, muscle
shocking, pre and post exercise training, massage etc. are the
topics covered in the training section. Two topics dominate in
this section - Chaos training and Blitz training. Blitz training
as I have understood is essentially a few weeks of intense exercise
and dieting for hitting a 'peak' condition prior to contesting/photo
shoots.
Very little is actually
given about programs and exercises. The training routine is divided
between maintaining muscle with minimum exercise during off season
and intense blitz training for the best appearance at competition
time.
Johnston certainly
knows his stuff and this becomes all the more obvious in his last
section on nutrition. A seasoned fitness expert Johnston gives
in detail the effects and required quantities of all the macro
and micro nutrients, vitamins, minerals, hormones and supplements.
Creatine, caffeine, ribose, sodium bicarbonate, antioxidants,
cortisol, MSM, Ciwujua, glutamine, you name it; it's all explained
in detail in the nutrition section. As expected the diet is cycled
correspondingly with the blitz training and off season maintenance
programs.
One of the topics I
read with interest was about carbohydrate cycling prior to competition.
Bodybuilders usually deplete their glycogen supply a few days
before the competition and super compensate with carbohydrates
just before the competition day to get that pumped effect which
comes from the water holding tendency of carbohydrates.
The entire cycling
of carbohydrates - depleting, and super compensation- has been
explained in a most informative way.
The book, like I said, is written in a strange and very tangential
sort of way. Who would benefit the most from this book I can't
be sure. The book doesn't exactly target the hardcore bodybuilder
and neither is it the best book for the general fitness trainee.
It is more like an account of one man's training techniques and
experience.
Apex is a detailed
account of selective topics only; topics the author decided to
include maybe because those are the ones he felt total mastery
over; or maybe because those are the ones he thought to be the
most important. Also Apex is written in a style that suggests
Johnston is actually talking to a fitness trainer more than to
a trainee.
Johnston's immense
knowledge and grasp of the bodybuilding subject remains his biggest
plus point. Though not complete in an 'encyclopedia' sort of a
way Apex makes relatively interesting and informative reading
all the same.
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"APEX Muscle Building"
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