Powerful Combination: Two Books to Lift By
When I decided (through my dad’s persuasion) to join a gym, I wanted to do things thoroughly this time. I read reviews on Amazon to find the best books on strength training and checked the library to see which were available to me.
Even before The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess arrived, I knew it was going to be just the workout routine for me. It is. I can’t say enough about how good it is. All I can say is “get it!” (there is a New Rules of Lifting for men as well)
I do have more energy. Less back pain. I feel stronger. It’s easier for me to get my housework done (usually the dinner preparation alone would have me hurting) and cheery moods come more easily. Most of all, I am learning different, healthier ways to move!
For anyone who has pain and wants to start strength training, in addition to NROLW, I recommend a great companion book: Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living: A practical approach to eliminating chronic back pain, tendinitis, neck and shoulder tension, and repetitive stress injuries.
Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living isn’t even designed in particular to be a weight-lifting guide, but it teaches a body awareness and the why’s and wherefore’s that most strength training books don’t. It is a book well worth owning. I’ve read many books on muscular pain, but to me this is the best. It has condensed information that you might have to read eight other books on pain to find; and it’s all there in one, plus info I’ve never found in any other book.
If you weight train without Muscular Retraining, maybe you’ll decrease your pain, but it’s possible you won’t—because if you strength-train with poor posture and little awareness of how your muscles work together, you might only strengthen your muscles’ ability to keep your posture poor. Your muscles will be stronger and better at keeping you in pain! (I think that was often my problem 7 years ago when I had last strength-trained).
But if you read Craig Williamson on muscular retraining, and keep what he says in in mind during your workouts in the gym, what a powerful combination!
I started at the gym expecting it to take up to two years before I am fully pain-free (based on what my dad said). Maybe it will, but with this much improvement in only a month and a half, I’ve already achieved what I thought would take at least 6 months. I really think it is the combination of an excellent workout design along with the understanding the muscular retraining book gave me.
In the past I have done good stretch and isometrics routines (at home) by Pete Egoscue and others that also bring pain relief, but the pain relief didn’t last; I think I need the weight room to stimulate my muscles more intensely. But I also think these other routines were meant to stimulate muscle awareness and retraining simply through doing them, but that I needed more explanation. With what I learned from Muscular Retraining I am finding the muscular awareness to accomplish on my own what those routines are meant to do, however I am certain I will return to them every now and then, especially since what I’ve learned now may make them even more effective.
By the way, the lifting program I am doing from The New Rules of Lifting for Women is by Lou Schuler with Cassandra Forsythe, M.S. and workout programs created by Alwyn Cosgrove.
I am thankful to these folks for making a book that makes progress so easy. The forms provided make it easy to remember each workout what I’m supposed to be doing and to track my improvement. There is lots of information on the book’s web site, too, with forums and even videos of how to do certain exercises.
To sum up, if you can, get two books: The New Rules of Lifting for Women (or Men, as the case may be) and Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living: A practical approach to eliminating chronic back pain, tendinitis, neck and shoulder tension, and repetitive stress injuries. I love them both.
See here for prior post on how I got so motivated to work out.
