 Hey everybody past Steven Anderson here from Faith Forward Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona This is a book review of bigger leaner stronger by Michael Matthews I've read a lot of books on weightlifting fitness workouts, and I have a ton on my shelf But this is by far the best Book on weightlifting that's out there now. I did it as an audiobook and I've listened to it on audible calm about three or four times over the years. I first listened to it five years ago and The best thing about this book is that it actually works, you know If you follow the workouts and the the the weightlifting principles laid out in the book You will get results. You will get a lot stronger You won't have to take his word for it, but you will see the results right away And so if you're interested in getting into weightlifting, maybe you're a beginner You just want to learn more or maybe you're just in a rut and you want to kind of get out of a rut Then I would highly recommend this book. Now, let me give you some of the the key teachings of This book first of all the book emphasizes free weights over machines, you know I don't use any weightlifting machines whatsoever and A lot of people they go to the gym They use all these machines and they think that they're getting stronger because they keep adding weight on those machines But working out with machines. It doesn't really give you functional real life strength Like working with free weights does there's something about using free weights That just makes you build a lot more muscle and get a lot stronger And and it's it's actually muscle that you could use in real life like, you know to move furniture to to work hard and Do real-world activities? So Let me explain to you this way. Have you ever seen somebody lift weights for the first time? They've never done a bench press for example and they do their very first bench press one things You'll notice that they're kind of really shaky and wobbly, right? It's because there are a lot of little tiny stabilizer muscles that that come into play when you're lifting with free weights So the person who's never lifted before they have to adapt to that. Okay, whereas the machine You don't have to stabilize anything because it's all just a very controlled motion so our bodies respond a lot better to lifting weights when we recruit all of those stabilizing muscles as well and You know all the tenons and ligaments and stabilizers and the fascia and the muscles are all working together So there's just there's just something magical about free weights that you're never gonna get lifting on a machine And I've seen this ring true even in my own personal life where you know Back before I realized how worthless weight machines were, you know I'd work out on a weight lifting machine say the bench press machine, which is probably the worst possible machine and You keep adding weight on the bench press machine You think you're getting a lot stronger because you keep adding weight and you really feel the burn and feel like you're getting Workout, but then when you actually go to a real bench press and do free weights You realize that you haven't gotten any stronger at all Because it's it's a it's kind of a fake strength. It's it's not building real strength It doesn't really build muscle the way that free weights do so the book really emphasizes using free weights only which I totally agree with and Most people that are serious about lifting weights agree as well that the reason why there's so many machines in the gym It's just because people just like them because they're easy Or because there's been so many TV commercials and infomercials and advertising campaigns that people think that they're effective or safe or whatever But in reality a lot of people get hurt on using these machines, especially the leg press machine people get hurt on it So it's it's better to do free weights exercise another thing that's emphasized in the book is doing compound exercises as opposed to isolation exercises So what does this mean? Well compound exercises are our weight lifting exercise that use a lot of different muscles Not just one muscle in isolation So just to kind of explain what that means, you know, for example, if you were doing a biceps curl That's an isolation exercise because you're just working one muscle just the biceps Whereas doing a pull-up is a is a compound movement because it's it's working not just the biceps But also your back muscles and your shoulder, you know doing a deadlift is a compound Exercise it pretty much works Everything from your neck to your ankles on the back of your body doing squats work a whole bunch of different muscles in your legs also in your back doing a bench press is working your chest and your arms and so Compound exercise are better than Isolation exercises first of all because it's more like the real world I personally if I'm gonna lift weights I want to have strength that I can use in the real world to do work to lift furniture to move things around to to do Physical activities in real life. And so in the real world, we don't isolate one muscle pretty much any activity You're gonna do in the real world whether it's working in a warehouse or Running swimming biking you're using a bunch of different muscles at the same time hiking climbing so Compound Exercises are building real-world strength plus, you know this whole idea of isolating muscles Just ask yourself this question. Is there any muscle that you don't want to build? Is there a muscle that you that you don't want it to get stronger? Of course the answer is no you want all your muscles to get stronger and so You know, why would you need to isolate it? Just work everything, you know So if I can do a deadlift and work a whole bunch of muscles at once If I can do a bench press or a squat or a military press and work multiple muscle groups at once that's great and and you build a lot more muscle that way and Isolation exercises would just be like a little icing on the cake. They're not important It's the big compound movements that are important and the big things that he puts forth in this book as being the most important exercises are Push-ups are not push-ups, but bench press which is like a push-up Except you're adding more weight bench press squats deadlift and military press and also weighted pull-ups, so Those are compound free weights exercises where you can really build a lot of muscle and and real-world strength, so That's another thing I like about the book is that it promotes the compound movements and here's the thing your body Wants to be Symmetrical or balanced, you know a lot a lot of guys they just want to build a certain muscle But in order to get that one muscle, you know They just want to have the biceps or whatever but in order to build that muscle You really have to build all your muscles because your body wants to be proportionate, you know If you just work only your upper body Your upper body is not going to get as strong as if you worked your lower body as well You know you got to work the full body in order to just build overall strength that can be used in real life and Also with free weights, you know your work at all the the little stabilizer muscles and everything so you don't end up with Muscular imbalance as much so anyway, I don't want to go on and on about the book explains it a lot better than I can So anyway, if you're interested in lifting weights, you're trying to get in shape for the new year Whatever, you know, I strongly recommend this book now He's not big on endurance exercise in the book I will say that as far as from a weight lifting standpoint The book is right on. Okay. He's not into endurance exercise, which I understand that but I personally am so I sort of ignore that part of the book where he's telling you to keep your cardio short and Just do these like 20 minute sessions or less than an hour, you know I like to go out on runs for hours and long bike rides and but my goals are a little bit different I'm not just trying to get bigger leaner and stronger. I'm trying to build endurance more than anything But from a weightlifting standpoint, this book is dead on. It's the best weightlifting book on the market in my opinion And so I'd highly recommend it now as far as the nutrition advice in the book The nutrition advice in the book is sound. It's good advice The only thing about it is that it's a little bit complicated because he really has you counting a lot of calories and grams and everything like that but an alternative to that I think that that's Superior is the weight watchers program. So if you're overweight and you're doing weightlifting So you need to you need to lose some fat Then I would apply the principles of this book, but then for the nutrition side of it I would do the weight watchers point based program. You can get the app It's like $20 a month for the for the online only weight watcher subscription So do the the weight watchers for the nutrition side of it Now if you're underweight obviously, don't do the weight watchers follow the advice in the book for how to gain weight but if you need to lose weight, which is probably most people out there then The weight watchers can substitute for the and it's compatible with the nutrition advice that he gives in the book Like he would definitely approve of the weight watchers format for cutting weight so anyway, I hope that this helps you out and helps you to be healthy and to be in shape and I do think it's good for Christians to be healthy and in shape so that they can serve God effectively and and have real World strength that they could use to work hard at their job be healthy live longer serve the Lord avoid medical expenses and You know be a good example to their children of health and fitness Obviously There are more important things in life than just getting in shape You know the Bible says that bodily exercise profit little and then we should exercise ourselves rather under godliness so Spiritual things are always going to be more important But that doesn't mean that we should just completely neglect our bodies especially in the day that we live in with all the technology It's easy to get sedentary. It's easy to get lazy and with all the abundance of junk food It's easy to get overweight and really just abuse our bodies and and become ineffective and unhealthy as people so I Do think that a lot of people do need to take heed in this area And this book is a great tool to help you get there. God bless you. Have a great day