Women's Health Big Book of Exercises

sybrix

I went into my local B&N looking for New Rules of Lifting for Women but they only had the men's version, which may be similar enough but I wanted something that focused on a woman's physique, with inspiring example photos. (seriously, I swear half the fun of exercise books is checking out the toned bodies of the women doing the moves :laugh:) Anyway, I stumbled upon this book and snatched it up for 24.99.

It had a chapter of lifting instruction (how much weight to use, how many reps to do, what are circuits, etc) and the illustrations all have notes about proper form, which I liked because I'm new to lifting. There's also a somewhat vague chapter on nutrition, which I wouldn't follow anyway because of personal diet restrictions.

It contains 619 exercises total and many, many workout regimes. The workout regimes (at least the 4-week one I started today) do not give you the exact exercise, but instead tell you which muscle group to work (upper back, core, quads, etc) and then directs you to the chapter that has those exercises. The thing I like about this method is that while it does suggest specific exercises, each exercise has TONS of variations with different types of equipment. So if you are at the gym, it has a variation to use with gym equipment. If you have dumbbells, there's a variation for that. Exercise ball variations, and even variations with no equipment at all. This is great because I have very little equipment and was able to do the 1st workout this morning and hit all the muscle groups I was supposed to.

I was wondering if anyone uses this book? What did you think of it? Did you get good results on the workout plans?

I still plan on buying NROL4W eventually, but this seemed like a great choice to start with.