Fit

by Lon Kilgore, Michael Hartman, Justin Lascek

Fitness is hard. Very hard. Everyone knows it is, but everyone is also willing to risk time and money on the mythology of easy fitness. If anyone, ANYONE, tells you that there is an “EASY” way to fitness, they just want your money. FIT is a book about how to get fit. It defines what fitness is in measurable, observable, and real-world terms. There is no mumbo-jumbo, just facts, practical information, and a logical approach to creating fitness from the first day of training through the day you reach your goal in fitness. No other training resource provides the reader the programming basics to specialize in one component of fitness or seamlessly program for comprehensive fitness and take the trainee from beginner to intermediate then to advanced and beyond - it’s a book for a lifetime of training. Exercise is dangerous - from 1 yard to 100 miles, 1 pound to half a ton, on land, in the water, on a bike - hazards abound and you need to pay attention to what your body tells you. But the body can adapt to much more than we give it credit for. If you use the concepts in FIT - no excuses, no whining, no shortcuts - and just get to the gym, garage, or wherever, and train hard, you will amaze yourself with results and how fast they are earned.

Genres: Fitness, Nonfiction, Health

324 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2011

Reviews

[Greg Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book mostly as a recommendation for a book that focuses on multi-element fitness. Coming from a focus on strength training, I wanted to begin incorporating endurance, and had an interest in what the book calls mobility. This book explains in very clear and simple terms what the facts are - how different focuses or combining will affect your overall fitness. For example: yes, incorporating endurance and HIIT will affect strength gains - but how to tailor a program to suit your specific goals while still getting an overall, rounded fitness and not neglecting any area, leading to a more rounded accomplishment of 'fitness' - strength, AND endurance, with mobility.

It's not quite a textbook - there is humour, occasional enough that it catches one off guard with its dry wit when it does pop up. Reminiscent of Mark Rippetoe (which is no surprise, since the authors have worked together), down to the occasional thinly-veiled rants at modern fitness charlatans - which are true but certainly worth skipping if you've had the lecture already.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful breakdown of the nebulous idea of "fitness" into measurable quantities: strength, endurance, mobility—and how best to develop them. Teaches you the basics of the science behind how exercise works and how spend your time most efficiently in the gym, with some quality myth-busting along the way. One of the best things I've read on programming: a great resource for learning how to build and tune a fitness regimen, rather than cargo-culting a program and hoping it works.

Badly needs a copy editor, however.

[Khaled Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who trains or trains others to be more fit should read this book. It explains how to become fit in simple, logical terms and cuts through all the lies and misconceptions of the mainstream fitness world. Like any art, the basics of fitness as simple, but applying them to achieve a desired result elegantly is where the genius lies.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting perspective with lots of sensible methods, though I thought some of the methods weren't as well supported as the authors seemed to think (mass vs. strength gain). Convinced me to care more about strength (instead of using it as filler in between running days) and do more intense endurance (more intervals, less long slow distance).