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Product Description Foreword by Pavel Thinking Simply and Seeing Clearly I Prometheus The Purposeful Primitives There Is No School Like Old School Standing On the Shoulders of Giants Iron Masters Paul Anderson Primitive Patriarch Bill Pearl Anti-Aging Role Model Bob Bednarski Iron Icarus Hugh Cassidy Iron Master Renaissance Man Eat Your Way Through Sticking Points! Lift Big, Eat Big, Rest Big, Grow Big! Mark Chaillet Powerlifting Ultra Minimalist How Little can you do and still get Super Strong? Doug Furnas The Athlete's Athlete Near Death Experience Leads to Iron Introduction Dennis Wright: "Simplistic Genius" Coaching Coan, Furnas and Chaillet Simultaneously Ed Coan The Greatest Powerlifter Of All Time... How the Greatest Powerlifter in History Trained Ken Fantano Power Theoretician Powerlifting Architecture Dorian Yates The Iron Monk Bodybuilding, Blood & Guts Style Kirk Karwoski Prototypical Purposeful Primitive Iron Methods The Purposefully Primitive Resistance Training Amalgamation What the Iron Masters Have in Common How to Build Muscle Primary Exercises Secondary Exercises Tertiary Exercises Auxiliary Exercises Two Day A Week Training Three Day A Week Training Four Day A Week Training Five Day A Week Training Six Day A Week Training The Purposefully Primitive Training Week Periodization and Preplanning 4 Week Peaking Cycle Periodization and Creeping Incrementalism 8 Week Beginner Periodization Cycle Logging Entries Iron Essays Primitive Roots Build a Retro Home Gym Stone-Age Tools for Accessing the Third Dimension of Tension Progress Multiplier: The Training Partner How Simple can the Physical Renovation Process be made Without Losing Effectiveness? Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis Embrace Change, Legislate Contrast No One System, Mode or Method Trumps All Others Legislating Contrast Contrast Is King Direct Muscle Soreness and Deep Muscle Fatigue The Seductive Siren Song of Machine Exercise What Not To Do How Not To Train Mind Masters Mental Mentors The Functions of the Human Brain Jiddu Krishnamurti Intuitive Primitive Aladar Kogler Iron Curtain Brain Train Grand Maestro Mind Methods The Tao of Fitness Shikantaza Checklist Auto-Visualization Ideo-Motor Checklist A 10 Step Program Based on the Kogler Brain Train Approach Mind Essays Purposefully Primitive Psychology Reprogram the Central Processing Unit of the Soft Machine Making the Mind/Muscle Connection Physical and Psychological Weak Points Brain Train The Psychology of a Champion Athlete Purposeful Layoffs Brain Train Feats and Tactics Want to Change Your Physique? Start by Changing the Way You Think Cardio Masters Purposefully Primitive Cardiovascular Exercise Many Roads Lead to Cardio Rome Getting Our Cardio Facts Straight Leonard Schwartz, M.D. Aerobic Avatar Birth And Death Of An Exercise Craze Cardio Methods The Three Types of Cardio Muscle Fiber Nuts and Bolts Muscle Fiber Reference Guide Every Self-Respecting Purposeful Primitive Needs this High-Tech Gadget The Three Benchmarks of Aerobic Activity Cardio Essays Aerobic Exercise Is Irreplaceable Step Outside the Cardio Box Walking for Exercise is Different Than Normal Walking Zen and the Art of Walking The 1,000 Calorie Cardio Burn Martial Artists and 3rd Way Hybrid Cardio In Praise of Steve Justa Sustained-Strength Grand Maestro Nutrition Masters
Customer Reviews:
Excellent book, for the beginner to the advanced powerlifterNovember 16, 2008 I have been lifting weights on and off for over thirty years, literally since I was 13. I am now 45. I have an extensive collection of weightlifting and bodybuilding books, totaling probably 20 or more. Let me tell you, this is a great book.
read it slowlyOctober 21, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
very, very good. so much information i am reading this very slowly. savoring the info like a good wine. read about a lot of this before, writing is excellent, buy it.
just proceed slowly with care as a lot of us are older iron heads.
A seminal work: essential reading for strength athletes and those who desire fitnessAugust 17, 2008 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I'm generally skeptical of new fitness and weight training books but frankly the pre-publication descriptions of Marty Gallagher's book are under-statements. There are so many publications today, especially on fitness, that it makes selection of sources difficult but you can readily see on the initial review that Gallagher's book stands apart from the others on the shelves.
The Purposeful Primitive is a book that I will constantly refer to in devising my own physical transformation routines (see Marty...I'm learning... physical transformation). The material presented is rich and deep. I know that I will have to re-read this book many times to better understand the concepts presented because they are in fact, sublime. I am equally certain that I will discover something new each time I bury myself in these pages.
The author introduces us to weight training, nutrition, metabolic and cardiovascular training and mental conditioning through the accomplishments of other athletes and reveals their insights and training methods as well as then men behind these methods. Gallagher skillfully presents the men who mastered iron and these are the same legendary athletes who many of us believed to be mostly myths. They are brought to life in this book. The Purposeful Primitive is an education in training that spans far more than it's 410 pages. The book teaches us the fundamental principles of physical adaption to training or transformation of our bodies using the most efficient and effective means necessary to reach our goals. The book reads well because Gallagher writes so well. It is a remarkable book and I am confident that it will be cherished by all who use it.
I want you to understand that while I say the book is rich and deep it does not mean that the concepts are difficult to understand. Just the opposite. The author presents the material with a concise and precise brevity in his writing that is a joy to read and yet fully explains each concept in terms that a laymen can grasp and readily use. So not only could I appreciate the points as a mere enthusiast but I readily understood and it was immediately apparent to me that this book created absolute gems to add value to my fund of knowledge for training. Some of the pages clarified my previous confusion over concepts or methods. Some of the pages gave me new concepts and some of the material turned my head inside out--a paradigm shift.
By reading and consuming The Purposeful Primitive I was becoming a better athlete page by page. Gallagher's fluid ability to communicate is not only entertaining but is empowering. I am able to immediately move forward with confidence towards what I want to achieve. I have a new mentor. Thanks to Marty Gallagher for shining light on the shadows.
An Incredible, Must Have Book!July 12, 2008 5 out of 6 found this review helpful
In a review for a previous product, I stated there are 3 books I considered indespensible in my workout library. Now there are four. This book is worth the purchase for the section on the Iron Masters alone. When you add in the different approaches to lifting for strength and power, the psycology of working out, the cardio and diet sections, and all the little essays that give us a look into the "Purposeful Primitive", you have a book that is, in my opinion, one of the best books for approaching getting the best out of your body. I read this book cover to cover very quickly, and will probably read it several more times, just to pick up little kernals of information I missed the first time. The book almost reads like an Anthony Robbins book on NLP - here are the masters, here is how they worked out, here was their psycology, here is how you can apply it to yourself.
On another note, I must disagree with the first reviewer on the steroid situation. Steroids are mentioned, but not gone into great detail. This is not a book on how to cycle your anabolic drugs, but rather how to workout, no matter your experience level or goals for yourself. Steroids have been around in power sports since the late '50's and in most sports for 30 years now. Only now are they coming into the news because of teen athletes trying them, which is never a good thing. However, you can still get the benefits from these workouts and the ancillary information without the benefits of performance enhancing drugs. Will you be able to bench press 600 or deadlift 800 without the drugs? Probably not. Will you be able to squeeze every bit of the talent God gave you and be the best physical specimen you can be by following this book? Definitely so!
Fantastic resource for beginner or long time Iron devoteeJuly 8, 2008 10 out of 10 found this review helpful
A book on the crossroads of bodybuilding, power-lifting, and fat loss, by an accomplished lifter, coach and writer with over forty years of experience in the game.
Mixed feelings about this book. Short form: I highly recommend it to a range of audiences, despite my reservations. I enjoyed reading it, and will re-read it several times, looking for the bits I can make use of.
Marty coached or met everyone who was anyone in the world of Power lifting in the 80s and 90s, and he fills the book with anecdotes that give a real feel for the characters that made a half-underground sport what it was. He also uses these anecdotes to great effect when discussing training styles and nutritional strategies, building his recommendations for various phases of body recomposition around the greats he trained with or coached. His writing is engaging, and his genuine love of the sport shines through. The tales of strength he shares are inspiring, and he has a knack for presenting even the roughest of his subjects with their humanity intact.
The training and diet information are comprehensive. Marty is a big believer in old school training splits and volume, and he has plenty of experience to back up his position. It's an approach to training that will feel pretty revolutionary to a machine trainer or someone caught up in the absurd, unproductive isolation training so many unqualified trainers end up foisting on their clients.
On the downside, this is mostly a book for beginners and intermediate trainees. I didn't see his weight training recommendations as all that relevant to my own current needs; my program is already spartan by Marty's standards, and I expect a fair number of more experienced lifters will feel the same way. His cardio and diet recommendations were similarly solid, but not likely to change the way I train or eat (not because they're bad; just because it's another case of "I already do that"). Marty also doesn't make much of a training distinction between Body Building, Power Lifting, Strong Man Competition, Olympic Lifting, Martial Arts, or other strength sports. To a more advanced lifter who knows where he wants to fit in the strength game, that cuts into the book's utility.
The place where the book falls down most is in its silence on the subject of steroids. It's a tough subject to honestly discuss. Talking about it opens you up to attack from the For The Children crowd and scares the heck out of a certain percentage of law abiding citizens (i.e. the vast majority of the market). Athletes don't want their reputations tarnished by the public admission that they were using, and supplement manufacturers (a prime job for ex-champions) hate admitting that their spokes-user did not gain twenty inch biceps at three percent body-fat solely through the use of their products.
So, Marty doesn't talk about steroids and training at all. This isn't just a problem because we miss out on part of the story of power lifting and bodybuilding in the day. Ultimately, the training you believe in and recommend is built around what you've seen work. The training that works for a twenty year old serious steroid user is not necessarily relevant to any natural trainee, let alone the thirty-and-over crowd Marty seems to be speaking to. I can see how much experience he's bringing to the recommendations in this book, and I absolutely respect his impeccable strength-cred. But I'm left wondering: Are these volume recommendations really the best choices for a non-user?
In the end, I'd say that this book is still of great value and well worth purchasing, despite its flaws. If you're interested in a slice of Iron History, or a beginner looking for a guide to body transformation, go get it.
