Doug Brignole was a body builder for over 40 years. This first half of this book describes the principles that underly his training. The second half goes into detail about all the major muscle groups and the exercises that he recommends to train them.
Principles covered in the first chapters:
- Levers of the human body
- Active lives and neutral levers
- Mechanical disadvantage
- Resistance curves
- Apex and base
- Primary and secondary resistance sources
- Alignment
- Opposite position loading
- Dynamic vs. static muscle contraction and range of motion
- All or nothing principle of muscle contraction
- Reciprocal innervation and active/passive insufficiency
- Compound vs. isolation debate
- Peripheral recruitment — comparing compound and isolation exercises
- Momentum and the use of good form
- Balance/core exercises in physique training
- Cross education and the benefits of unilateral exercises
- Assessing and selecting exercises using ideal form
Brignole’s emphasis is on efficiency in training. Efficiency implies not wasting energy and, importantly, avoiding injury.
I’m just a beginner in weight training. Things that stood out to me:
- Compound exercises are not recommended. He favours isolation exercises
- He does not like bar-bell exercises. Cable or dumbbell variants are preferred.
The second half of the book describes the musculature of the human body. I found that extremely interesting. Exercise analysis/selection rationale is easy to understand.
A wonderful book. Highly recommended.
Post Script: Doug Brignole died (COVID got him!) shortly after I purchased this book. RIP.