Human Kinetics Bodybuilding Anatomy

It`s good with the anatomy.

Great book. Very knowledgeable.

I brought this for my son who is a freshman in high school, and who has started weight training - and joined the football team.It is exactly what I was looking for.Clear, illustrations of exercises, how to perform them and the muscles they work.Straight forward.Very similar to the Kinesiology page from Muscle and Fitness.

Perfect for beginners and experienced Bodybuilders....I have to say I do like the original book more but this is a Great Buy if your looking to know the body and what muscles you are truly targeting

I'm somewhat disappointed in this book. I have three other books in the series-- Bret Contreras' Bodyweight Strength Training Anatomy,Stretching Anatomy, and Golf Anatomy, all of which I think are excellent. I wanted something on strength training anatomy with weights; I've seen Delavier's Strength Training Anatomy, but didn't like it. This series doesn't seem to have a book on weight training anatomy, so this was the closest I could find.Part of my lack of excitement about this book may have to do with my interests and biases. I'm not a bodybuilder (except we all are, a little bit); I do strength training for functional strength and agility rather than for looks, and wouldn't really want to look like the Hulk anyway. I use Contreras to look up which are the primary target muscles of a given bodyweight exercise, and which are secondary., and also he has some exercises I never heard of, and others I didn't how to do properly. I was looking for something that would tell me the same thing, about weight exercises.This book has the same great anatomical drawings as the other books in the series, great anatomical discussion too, and it does pretty much do what I asked, but here's what I don't like: it seems to be an awful lot about things you do on those machines in the gym, which as far as I understand it, are for suckers. Anyway I never use them any more. They isolate one main muscle in a movement, don't require you to stabilize anything, and develop non-functional strength. Some of the are ill-conceived, potentialy even bad for you, too. I suppose the reason they have them in gyms is that you can do those exercises without having to develop good form, pretty much. So that's one problem.In fact, I went to look up 'hack squat" or "hack lift", and the book talks about some weird machine exercise that doesn't look at all like a hack lift to me; basically a leg press. Hack lifts is done with barbells. The barbell hack lift or hack squat should have been covered instead of this cockamamie thing, or at least both of them.I know there are some cable pull exercises that are hard to duplicate any other way, and even those dumb knee extension machines may have some valid uses, maybe in rehab or something, but it's just way too much about machines for my taste.I disagree with the instructions on how to do deadlifts: we're told to lower the weight slowly back down to the floor. Now, you can do the exercise like that, but the deadlift, unlike most lifts, is all about the concentric phase; you should actually DROP the weight to the floor, or at least let it down pretty fast, don't worry about making sure you lower it slowly. If you lower it slowly, you're lifting less weight than you could be doing, and you'll get less benefit. (Also, don't bounce it; make each lift an actual dead weight lift, that's why it's called that). Not only my opinion, although there may be some who disagree.I looked for Zercher squats and "Romanian dead lifts"; they're not in here. That seems like a pretty serious omission. (I put RDL in quotes because, although it's a great supplementary exercise for the deadlift, terrific hamstring exercise, it's not actually a deadlift at all).The other problem I have is that there are exercises in there that are on everyone's list of exercises no one should do, like the upright barbell row and the behind-the-neck barbell press. The upright row section doesn't say anything about its dangers (rotator cuff injuries); the behind-the-neck section does say that there is a greater risk of injury than with the standard upright press, but it probably should say something stronger than that, such as "don't do these"! Or, I read somewhere that it may be OK to do them, UNLESS you have thoracic kyphosis or shoulder issues, but the problem is, most people have both of those!Or take the Good Morning exercise. A great exercise, no doubt, but if you don't do it right, it's not worth much, maybe even bad for you, and not many people know how to do it right, without good coaching. The book does SAY to keep your spine straight, but not everyone will really get it just from that. Also, it's controversial even when done right; some say it puts too much stress on the spine. There's no mention of that.More generally, there just isn't a lot of context for anything in this book. Good anatomy exposition, good drawings; no philosophy of why would we be doing bodybuilding anyway, how it fits with health and fitness in general, the importance of good form, how to balance mobility training with strength work, nothing like that.The book also talks a lot about Smith machines, which are not really machines; they're just a sort of rack in which the weight can't get away from you and do harm, and also it has to go up in a straight vertical line. Unfortunately, when a human lifts a weight in any real-life application, the weight does not go straight up! There are useful things you can do with one of these contraptions, and probably a lot of bodybuilders use and love them; I'm sure the same can be said for behind the neck presses and upright rows, but still, a lot of wise people seem to think they should all be avoided.Also, there's nothing about cleans, jerks, snatches, or about kettlebells, or about overhead squats; I'm fairly confident saying "there is nothing" because I have the Kindle edition and can do searches. Although they could fool me by calling it something different....Anyway, I understand these aren't standard bodybuilding exercises, but covering them would have broadened the appeal of the book.I would think that these days, bodybuilders would also be interested in functional strength and agility.So, I'm only moderately satisfied. Part of it is because I'm not a bodybuilder, but I also think they talk too much about machines, Smith machines, and exercises of dubious use and safety.