Strength Training Anatomy Workout II, The (edition 2012)

This is a very well illustrated and highly informative follow up to the equally educational first book by the author Strength Training Anatomy Workout, who also wrote Strength Training Anatomy-3rd Edition and Women's Strength Training Anatomy. All three of which are must have books for the physical fitness trainer and the individual concerned with the hows and whys of how your body works during the performance of various exercises.

The illustrations are all wonderfully drawn and very detailed while the supporting text if very easy to understand and just as detailed as the illustrations. The accompanying descriptions of each exercise is very well done and the author improves upon that even more by providing variations, advantages and disadvantages, helpful hints, and in some cases even warnings concerning each exercise.

This book contains three main parts with numerous sub-headings throughout.

Part 1: Advanced Techniques To Help You Keep Progressing

Part 2: Exercises For The Main Muscle Groups

Part 3: Workout Programs

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in physical fitness whether it is merely an individual wanting to get in shape of the physical fitness professional who wants to better educate himself for his clients.

Shawn Kovacich
Martial Artist/Krav Maga Instructor
Author and Creator of numerous books and DVD's. ( )

While I enjoyed the pictures of the muscles being worked with various exercises, this book bothered me on a couple of levels. The first level is that the majority of the strength exercises depict mean, while most of the stretching exercises depicted women. A small and somewhat petty complaint, but this did offend my feminist sensibilities somewhat. I've just become pretty active with Crossfit and lift weights as do the majority of women in my gym so it would have been nice to see some of that reflected here. Also, many of the exercises depicted are ones that I do not do. So while this is a great book for visually seeing what muscles are worked when, it did not really help me out in the manner I was hoping it would as most of it just wasn't applicable. I think this would be an excellent group for a personal trainer to study and it would probably help people with anatomy, but for my purposes it wasn't too great. ( )

The Strength Training Anatomy Workout II is a detailed and interesting book geared towards those with advanced and intermediate weight lifting skills as the book assumes the reader is already very familiar with weight training strategies and exercises. This is a great reference for those who have reached a plateau in their workout and/or are interested in isolating and better developing weak areas. The book is arranged in three sections. Section one discusses current understandings of muscle development and why certain training changes may or may not affect one’s progress. Section two discusses each muscle group in turn. For each muscle group, the anatomy is described and illustrated, obstacles to muscle development are discussed and numerous exercises are described and illustrated. The last section lists a variety of training programs.

I am a fan of Delavier’s books. I find they are easy to use and good references to have handy. The illustrations are terrific and the text gets right to the point. ( )

I received this book for free as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

The Strength Training Anatomy Workout II is a gorgeously illustrated volume. Each of the many workouts is shown with the affected muscles highlighted, and often important variations in the position, posture, and anatomy are diagrammed as well. This book is a sequel, and as such does not contain basic workout information that is found in the first volume.

With the basics out of the way, let's talk about my impression of the book's recommendations. I think overall this book is pretty good, and the anatomy and exercises should be of interest to many strength trainers. However, I did notice some areas where opinions may differ. This book focuses first on building muscle mass, then strength. Training for hypertrophy has become a cultural default in strength training, but it is not the only option. In the discussion of free weights versus machines, some space is given to anatomical variations and how they effect form with free weights, but very little space is given to the influence of flexibility and technique in proper form. For example, in the section on squats, the ratio of torso to femur length and its influence on squat form is discussed, but it was apparent to me from the illustration that increased hip and hamstring flexibility would fix the problem.

As a CrossFitter, I am bound to have some disagreements with the methodology in this book, but overall I think it is good for what it is trying to do. ( )

Wow. I don't know what I was expecting when I requested this book. I had originally requested it thinking I was just going to hand it over to my boyfriend, let him work with it and then review it from his experiences. (I'm not a strength trainee by any means - I go the yoga route.)

But this book is nothing short of awesome. Full colour pages, descriptive workouts (even loads of plans for beginners, all the way up to advanced workouts), photos everywhere and these AWESOME illustrations that show what each type of exercise technique is working on - displaying muscle tissue, bones, impact; honestly, this is a miniature, useful lesson in anatomy.

Each workout appraises you of the advantages, disadvantages, risks and provides you with handy safety tips scattered throughout the book.

Highly recommended for everyone who goes to the gym or has workout sessions at home. It really is an invaluable resource. ( )

This is a major addition to the original Strength Training Anatomy book. This book is split into three parts. Part 1 is a pretty short part devoted to advanced techniques, while Part 2 is all about the exercises and the physiology behind the exercises. This is not a how to book, but it does a very good job of illustrating the exercises and the major muscle groups being trained through fantastic color photographs and detailed drawings of the muscles affected in cut away views etc. Part 3 is a short section on how to strengthen weak areas.

The book is very much concentrated on the musclehead kind of exercises, i.e. it does not really address anything that has anything to do with working out muscle groups in conjunction with one another. The emphasis is on building up individual muscles and obtaining the lean body builder look and mass. Definition is the key.

I wish that the authors would go into detail for the Olympic weight exercises, and show how the various muscle groups work in conjunctions and where one muscle group takes over from another and where the chain of muscular transfer happens. But that was never the intent of the series. It was to show how each large muscle group works, how to build them up and give the reader an idea as to how it all works.

This is an admirable book, it must have taken an m=immense effort to represent all the exercises and muscles in pictorial form. The book is incredibly thorough and quite informative for those who wants to understanding what they are doing without going headlong into the complete physiological and bio-mechanical studies. ( )

The second volume of The Strength Training Anatomy is more detailed than the first. In this volume, Delavier delves into the physiological and psychological aspects of weight training. Each exercise is accompanied by detailed pictures of how the muscles contract. These tie into the aforementioned information. ( )

I thought this book was well done-- for certain audiences. I am a 110 pound 40 year old female who lifts 4-6 times per week and I have been lifting for many years. This is a technical book-- some a priori knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and body chemistry are helpful in understanding the content. Not a great deal of tutorial-level information is provided. It is completely inappropriate for a novice lifter--- it assumes you know what exercises are called, what muscle groups they work, and at least the basics of how to structure your own program-- and not much on safety.

For me that was all fine. I liked that it provided a deeper understanding of WHY do to things a certain way (things I'd heard before but didn't know why.) The graphics are helpful. It's not just another 'list of workouts' book . This one describes how to do an exercise in a much more detailed way and how to put them together. Not much on form though. You really need a trainer for that anyway. My biggest complaint is that it is really about body building--- not functional strength. It's about getting bulky. Not my goal at all. I could still adapt much of the information to my goals, so it was worth the read. So if you are a well-versed lifter who want to get bigger that is YOUR book. Novices beware. 3.5 stars ( )

Great diagrams and organization. Really helpful to see how the anatomy connects with the exercises and muscle building.