The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding : The Bible of Bodybuilding, Fully Updated and Revised Paperback – Unabridged, November 5, 1999

This is my 2nd copy of this book. I lost the first one a while back when I moved. Thought it was a useful book and decided it was worth a 2nd purchase!

Very cool book. Lots of info on just about everything to do with weightlifting and exercise in general. I'm not a bodybuilder per se but there is so much here, I have already learned a lot just looking up random exercises. Arnold is my hero.

I have this book in both paper and electronic form. The paper one I got more than a decade ago and its size is just unwieldy for bringing to the gym, plus finding just what you need quickly can be challenging. The Kindle version is perfect for that since it allows easy bookmarking and highlighting, and it is my gym companion these days.The book is very well written, easy to read, and very comprehensive. Arnold leaves no stone unturned when it comes to bodybuilding. Weight lifting exercises, nutrition, programs for beginners, intermediates and competition-grade experts. There are also plenty of photos of his glory days and interesting and funny anecdotes. The tone is very approachable and conversational.After trying a couple of exercise fads lately, I am back to basics, and who could be a better teacher than Arnold? He covers a lot of ground and the exercises are illustrated and explained well.The book is not without shortcomings: Arnold assumes that you would spend hours in the gym 6 days a week. Even the beginner series can easily take 2 hours a day (in my experience, at least, especially since I am new to some of these routines). After consulting other books, I decided to stick to his 6 days program and prune out some of the exercises which did not cover major muscle groups or were somewhat redundant to bring the duration of each workout down while still building strength. Lastly, this is not a general fitness or even weightlifting book: it is a bodybuilding book; Arnold assumes that your goal is to look like him and that photos of top bodybuilders would be motivating. While my goals are different, this book is still one of the best resources on strength training and associated nutrition.Highly recommended in electronic format.

My grandson bought this one, he says UT had good info for bumping up his workout routines

I can't say that there isn't a better work available out there.I CAN say that in years past I've purchased a couple of books such as "The Weider System of Bodybuilding" and "Bodybuilding: The Weider Approach." And this "New Encyclopedia" is so much better than these it isn't even close.This book is marketed as one that is equally necessary for both the novice and amateur bodybuilder as well as the champion Mr. Olympia. I kind of find that a silly approach and since I'm NOT a "Mr. Olympia" and very definitely won't be becoming one any time soon, how great it is for champion bodybuilders is unimportant to me.I'm reviewing this book according to my own need: an encyclopedia of weight training exercises; the muscles that each exercise works; photographs to demonstrate each exercise; and suggested workouts to help a bodybuilder put the exercises into his or her own workout. And to that end, the book simply is excellent.For the record, I didn't see a single picture of a female bodybuilder (apart from when they happened to be standing next to the men). So "designed for women bodybuilders" hardly fits. But I submit that a woman could look over the exercises and put together a training routine just about as well as a man.Many (but not most) of the 800 pages are devoted to aspects of bodybuilding that I simply don't care about, such as posing and being photographed in such a way to make your muscles look their best. I'll let other people discuss how good those sections are and just stick to what I bought the book for. All I wanted was an encyclopedia of bodybuilding exercises.The pictures are all black and white, but there are a LOT of them. It's a great work for the photographs alone.The thing that I will say is that, having looked at the exercises and the description on how to do them and the muscles that are involved (for instance, what workout would you do to maximize the impact of your INNER chest?), I believe that this book will get regular use in my library. And if there's a better book out there to this end, I'll buy it too and still be glad I got this one.

Got this for my man and he loves it