If you’re looking for something fresh, loud, and slightly insane, this album is for you.

The authors, with the assistance of Bruce Young, MD, give us insight on seven categories of health and wellness, one for each day of the week. On Mondays we read a topic related to Children and Adolescents. Tuesdays we learn about diseases and ailments. On Wednesdays we enhance our knowledge of drugs and alternative treatments. Thursdays’ topics are on the mind. On Fridays we read about sexuality and reproduction. On Saturdays we receive the gift of knowledge about lifestyle and preventive medicine. And on Sundays we learn about medical milestones. From acupuncture to acne, black and blue marks to brain tumors, and lactose intolerance to lymphoma, you’ll find the answers to a multitude of your health-related questions.

Whether you’re interested in history, disease, prevention, mental health, alternative medicine or diet, you’ll find a multitude of relevant topics within the cover of this fascinating book. Find yourself wondering “Why?” Buy this book and read about a different health and wellness topic every night for a year. You might not just sleep better … you might find yourself living better.

Viewing muscle diagrams and poses of the various phases of an exercise does not serve the reader in performing efficient function. Enhancing functional anatomy during performance requires understanding of which group of muscles should be tightened most, which group should be kept loose until its time comes to kick into action, and which skeletal curve should be exaggerated in order to maintain balance.

The author painstakingly labored to dissect the mechanics of various exercises such as the deadlift, shoulder press, dumbbell flyes, etc, in many photographic views yet without any sound understanding of the laws of mechanics. The hard labor of the authors is greatly undermined with their lack of experience in performing the exercises. There is no single logical plan that takes you along a safe path to do any of their exercises. Their obsession with graphics and display could not remedy their lack of substance and poor exercise strategy.

Graphics alone would not accomplish that internal mental recognition. The seated shoulder press, for example, requires above all well erected low back, spread out shoulder plates, and upright chest cage, even before any pressing takes place. The deadlift is another vivid example of such mental recognition of spreading the shoulder plates, tightening the low back, and thrusting the chest prior to initiation of lifting.

The list of bad foods is ridiculous. Each one bad type of food is opposed by tens of good ones. That adds more confusion and lacks any focus to the basics of nutrition. It suggests to the reader that the name, not the content of the food item, that renders it bad or good. One type of nuts is condemned as bad, while others as good. Yet, all nuts are rich in oil, whether unsaturated or not, which hinders weight loss for people with chronic obesity. Then, there are plenty of colored tables of exercises that lack any logical theme.

Among all the photos of men’s muscles, skeletal deformities are random. The authors are oblivious to the need for sound bone formation and posture and more distracted with the bulky and defined flesh. The cover photo depicts the C-shaped, kyphotic torso with poorly defined six-packed rectus, concealing the lower body and the face. The latter two are crucial in understanding the mechanical balance of the whole body, in the form of proportionate leg musculature to upper body musculature, in addition to the state of mind of the athlete expressed through his general outlook.

Mohamed F. El-Hewie

Author of

Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training