| www.kettlebellplanet.com |
| Submit content |
| Feedback |
| Featured Sites |
| Connecting people with Kettlebells worldwide |
| Product Review, By Nathan Donahue Dinosaur Training, Lost Secrets of Strength and Development, by Brooks Kubik. Did you know that Arthur Saxon, at 5'11 and 205 lbs, could life a 380 lbs barbell overhead with one hand while holding a 75 lbs kettlebell in the other? All this before the age of steroids, supplements or professional bodybuilding. Brooks Kubik teaches you how to people can once again be as strong as possible in Dinosaur Training. With all the thousands of fitness products in the marketplace today, it can be pretty confusing trying to figure out what you should spend your hard earned money on. To help you with this issue, I am doing a series of product reviews on all the fitness products I have spent my money on in the past. In this next installment, I am reviewing the underground classic strength training book, Dinosaur Training, Lost Secrets of Strength and Development, by Brooks Kubik. Dinosaur Training is the polar opposite of almost every weight lifting and bodybuilding book you will ever read. There are no pictures, it does not teach you how to look better and it barely even mentions diet. What Dinosaur Training does teach you how to do is to get brutally strong. The entire purpose of this book is to show the reader how to get big and strong the old fashioned way. Now, if all this book taught was that you should lift heavy weights, and then show you how, it would be a pretty good book at that. I believe that true strength training is something that is not taught enough anymore. But, what really makes this book interesting is the crazy ideas Brooks Kubik has for gaining strength. Exercises such as stone lifting, farmers walks, barrel lifting, sandbag lifting and carrying, bottoms up lifts and more. The list goes on and on with all kinds of great lifting ideas. Dinosaur Training is a throw-back to the old time lifters where a man would find something heavy, pick it up and either walk with it or carry it overhead. This book teaches you that the original purpose of lifting weights was to get brutally strong, not to look pretty in the club. He gives some interesting history on what the standards of strength used to be, compared to now. And he laments at the direction that lifting weights has taken, that of the superficial bodybuilding and chest and biceps crowd. This book does not just teach you how to lift weights for it's own sake, but also how to apply your strength training to your sport of choice. Brooks teaches you how to develop power in the all important hips, back, shoulder girdle and grip so that you will be a better wrestler, football player or whatever your sport of choice. Some of the interesting ideas he brings up are the use of thick bars, something I have grown to love. Training with singles instead of reps as the old time strongmen used to do in order to save your energy for the development of power and strength. He also delves into how to train with logs, barrels and sandbags. These implements have grown popular now, but he described these training methods decades before they became main stream with strength coaches. All in all I really enjoyed this book and keep it handy as a reference manual for when I need new and creative training ideas. It also serves to keep me focused on training for function instead of form. If I have any criticism of the book, it is that there are no pictures showing the implements and exercises he follows. Also, for the novice reader, there is a real lack of programs listed. Overall I recommend this to you if you want to get big and strong period. If you just want some nice guns and a pretty chest so you can pick up girls at the bar, then this is not the book for you. |
