Essential strength training program builds muscle, endurance

• Have you ever wondered if there is one single best workout that could be used by you, your family and/or your circle of friends?
• Let's call this the essential program, because it is the 'essence' of sound strength training principles distilled fom my own experience, great advice from other experts as well as past and present advances in exercise physiology and biomechanics.
• Some of my friends have asked me if the advice that I give today is markedly different from the advice I gave in my first book.
• In 1978, Arco Publishing Company published my WORKING OUT WITH WEIGHTS.
• They printed several thousand hardbacks that were marketed to school libraries and several thousand paperbacks that were sold in bookstores.
• A few more printings later, Arco was bought by Prentice-Hall, a company with vastly greater marketing resources.
• It was my understanding that even when it reached its peak sales, the book never reached higher than #2 in fitness book sales.
• At any rate, several printings were made until 1995, when I was notified that it was being taken out of production.
• The program that I'm providing for you below is centered around two to three exercises per major muscle group and three sets of 10 repetitions of each of those exercises.
• As you shall see in later articles, it can easily be adapted for sports-specific training,for advanced bodybuilding or for simple tightening and toning of the muscles.
• 1.Talk to your family doctor or a sports medicine doctor before using this or any weight training program.
• 5.Use one or more of these methods to warm-up for your workout: do several traditional stretches for the upper and lower body, do 5-10 minutes of 'cardio' prior to the workout, do a very light warm-up set of each of the exercises.
• 6.For the first month or two, you'll be using the same weight for each set of a given exercise.