Strength, Muscle and Power
A World Premier Book Review by Rob Drucker
Cover shot of Strength, Muscle and Power. Photo used with permission from the author.
Strength, Muscle and Power is a new book authored by Brooks Kubik, and it reveals how to train sensibly to gain functional muscle and build super strength. Whether your focus is on strongman training, Olympic lifting, powerlifting, or bodybuilding, this new book will guide you through what works and what doesn't, and it will help you develop the mental toughness to required power your workouts to new heights.
To understand the true value of Strength, Muscle and Power, we must first analyze the author in some depth. Brooks Kubik is a rare individual who has built himself into a world-class lifter despite having only ordinary genetics. He became a five-time national bench press champion in drug-free competition not because of natural talent, but because he acquired and consistently applied a knowledge of productive training which very few people possess.
When Brooks was a senior in high school, he had six years of weight training behind him. Nonetheless, the young Kubik could only handle about 225 pounds in the bench press, and only slightly more in the squat. His accomplishments in the gym during his early years were hardly an indication that he would one day become a national lifting champion. But, fast forward to May, 1991. The place is St. Louis, Missouri, and Kubik is participating in the 198-pound class at the NASA National Masters and Submasters Powerlifting and Bench Press Competition. All that stands between him and a national bench-press championship is a 396-pound barbell. Brooks takes the heavy barbell at arm's length, lowers it firmly onto his chest, waits for the signal, rams the weight to the lockout position, and racks it to the delight of the audience. Brooks has just become a national champion.
Let's put Kubik's victory into perspective. Here was a guy who showed no early promise as a lifter and who was (and remains) drug free. To make his situation even tougher, Brooks worked a demanding full time job as a lawyer. From a purely statistical perspective, the odds certainly were not in his favor to become a champion lifter, or even a moderately good lifter. Yet, the statistically-beaten Brooks Kubik found ways to crush the odds, build an incredible amount of muscle, and become one of the strongest drug-free lifters in his weight class on Earth.
Before we take a look inside Kubik's new book, I would like to relate something which I learned from Mike Mentzer some years ago. Mike emphatically pointed out in his many books and articles that, in general, there exists no correlation between the size of somebody's muscles and the amount of knowledge they have about productive bodybuilding. Mike did not mean that a pencil neck could be an expert strength coach. What he meant was that the vast majority of "title winners" achieve their development or great strength to a significant extent due to genetic advantages and heavy drug use, not because they know more about effective training than the next guy. This is why the vast majority of strength books on the market are next to useless for the typical student of physical culture. I doubt very much that Arnold, Dorian Yates, or Ronnie Coleman has any first-hand knowledge about the obstacles the average strength enthusiast faces, least alone how to help him grow bigger and become stronger. Brooks Kubik, on the other hand, is a genuine strength expert and one of the most knowledgeable in the world. And, he possesses a kind of knowledge that is relevant to nearly all strength enthusiasts. This fact will become apparent when you read Strength, Muscle and Power, and even more evident after you apply Kubik's teachings in the gym.
Although Brooks Kubik authored Strength, Muscle and Power, this new book is not based solely on the ideas of just one man. Far from it. When you read through this new work, you will be learning from the same great strength masters whom Brooks learned and prospered from during the last 40 years. We are talking about giants in the Iron Game such as Peary Rader, Bradley J. Steiner, Tommy Kono, Dr. Ken Leistner, Jim Schmitz, Harry Paschall, Reg Park, and DOZENS of other strength authorities. Never before has a single book captured the ideas and teachings from so many great and powerful iron men.
Consisting of 29 chapters and 356 pages, Strength, Muscle and Power is a big book. It is essentially a collection of the best articles Brooks Kubik penned (excluding the Dinosaur Files) from 1991 through 1997. These are articles which were originally featured in top-class publications, such as Hardgainer, MILO, and The Iron Master. New information is also presented throughout the book to provide explanatory notes, or to supplement original material with the author's latest findings and training practices.
In a very real sense, Strength, Muscle and Power is a book that tells a story about progression and how to achieve it. It is a fact that the majority of weight trainees make little or no progress year after year, and even Brooks struggled to make meaningful gains during his early years of training. In his new Book, the bench-press champion describes his early struggles, how he overcame them, and how you can benefit from what he learned.
During the time period when Brooks wrote the bulk of material featured in Strength, Muscle and Power, his primary focus was powerlifting. Today, his training is more oriented towards the Olympic lifts. Reflecting his current training methodology, much of the material presented in Strength, Muscle and Power has been updated to include an application of the presented principles from an Olympic-lifting perspective. Thus, whether you favor a program based on the strength lifts or the quick lifts, what you learn in Brooks' new book will be directly applicable to your training preference. And, if you are primarily a bodybuilder, don't run away. The principles and routines featured in Strength, Muscle and Power will prove to be invaluable for building more muscle, greater strength, and improved body symmetry.
William Hinbern provides an excellent foreword to kick things off in Strength, Muscle and Power. He tells a story about a young Brooks Kubik who sent him a special hand-written note and an order for a well-respected muscle-building course. I won't spoil Hinbern's story, but I'll tell you that the training course Kubik ordered has helped hundreds, probably thousands, of bodybuilders and lifters build greater strength and bigger muscles. In his new book, Brook's expands on this famous course, and he offers some variations of it to help lifters with special needs.
Following Hinbern's foreword, Brooks gives a brief introduction to the book. He explains that Strength, Muscle and Power is the result of his near life-long quest to develop as a lifter, overcome the "silliness" of the muscle mainstream, and educate the world about sensible weight training and healthful living. This book is proof that Kubik has succeeded at all three of these goals.
In the world of physical culture, to achieve more you often must do less. This is not a contradiction of logic. Abbreviated training programs, a topic thoroughly covered in the first chapter in Strength, Muscle and Power, can provide near miraculous gains in size and strength even when all else has failed to work. Kubik used an abbreviated training program to win five national bench press championships, and it is doubtful that he would have won even a single trophy had he used the insane marathon routines commonly pushed by the mainstream muscle media. In this first chapter, Brooks outlines a killer program that has you training just three times per week with only two exercises per session. The author gives plenty of exercise details, and he gives suggestions for altering the exercise selection to fit your training goals and special needs.
Dear to the heart of any "Dinosaur" is heavy power rack training. This type of training allows you to overload your muscles and skeletal structure with extremely heavy poundages in complete safety. Use of a power rack also allows you to start your squats, benches, presses, and deadlifts from any desired position. But as effective as power rack work can be, this advanced training technique must be used properly and at the right time if you are to realize the full benefits that this type of training can provide. Kubik devotes two full chapters of his new book to show you exactly how and when to use power-rack training for ultimate results. In Chapter 2, Brooks tells you why power-rack training works. In Chapter 3, the author further elaborates on the principles of effective power rack training, and he also provides plenty of rack programs to try. Additionally, the author covers exercise selection, training frequency, intensity cycling, and even how to eat while following a heavy power-rack program.
It is relatively easy for a beginner lifter to pack on pounds of muscle and gain strength rapidly. However, as a strength enthusiast matures and grows stronger, progress will typically slow down and eventually come to a halt. Most trainees try to combat a decline of progress by spending more time in the gym. They falsely believe that adding more sets, more exercises, more repetitions, and more workouts into their training program is the remedy for stalemate. You can't blame them for believing this falsehood. Many a muscle magazine has promoted this type of thinking over the years. Fortunately, Kubik busts this type of thinking in Chapters 4 and 5. These two chapters are devoted primarily to advanced lifters, especially those who find themselves in a training rut. Brooks offers these folks a more sensible training approach to get the wheels of growth moving again.
We have all heard the proverb "Give a man a fish and you feed him for day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Perhaps a proverb more appropriate for iron men is, "Give a man a good lifting routine and he will grow for a short time; teach a man how to design a productive training program and he will continue to make progress for many years."
What does this proverb stuff have to do with Strength, Muscle and Power? Plenty! Unlike the vast majority of other strength authors, Brooks does not merely throw training routines at you. If that is all he did, you wouldn't learn much from him at all. Rather, in Chapters 6, 7, and 8, Kubik arms you with proven strength-building principles, and then he teaches you how apply them to design an effective training program that will meet your own special needs and desires.
I first learned about rest-pause training while reading Mike Mentzer's Heavy Duty Journal some years ago. In his journal, Mike stated that his strength and muscle mass "sky-rocketed" shortly after introducing this type of training into his routine. But, Mentzer was not the first person to utilize and profit from rest-pause training. In Strength, Muscle and Power, Kubik points out that this advanced training technique was first used in the 1950s by the bodybuilding community, and even beforehand in one form or another by virtually all Olympic weightlifters. Brooks covers rest-pause training in detail in Chapters 9 and 10. Many variations of this powerful training technique are discussed, and the author provides several example programs. Along with rack work, Brooks gives credit to his variation of rest-pause training for bringing him five national championships in the bench press.
Pick out virtually any muscle magazine and you are sure to see body-part specialization articles aimed primarily at young and inexperienced bodybuilders looking to build the "showy" muscles. The problem is, as Brooks points out in Strength, Muscle and Power, these younger folks have no business following specialization programs, and the programs touted by the muscle magazines generally offer little or no useful information to advanced lifters. Recognition of this problem inspired Brooks to develop a more rational and more effective approach to body-part specialization. Kubik's approach is detailed in Chapters 11 and 12. In these two chapters, the Dinosaur Man puts forth 10 commandments that a specialization program must be based on for it to be effective. The author also provides a number of sample routines, including specialization programs for building bigger arms, developing a thicker chest, broadening the shoulders, thickening and widening the back, and building bigger and more powerful legs.
Each year, thousands of strength enthusiasts across the globe give up their dream to become bigger and stronger because they are discouraged by lack of progress. In their mind, they have tried everything under the sun to build muscle, all to no avail. If you are getting discouraged by lack of progress, don't join the quitting crowd. Instead, read Chapter 13 of Brooks' new book as soon as possible. This chapter is appropriately entitled, "There Are No Hopeless Cases!". After reading it, you will be ready to forget your troubles and head straight to the gym. The introductory story in this chapter is extremely inspiring.
Chapter 14 outlines the merits of home training, and I couldn't agree more with the reasons Brooks provides for canceling your gym membership and setting up camp in your garage, basement, your backyard, or other area of your home. If you are currently training at a typical commercial gym, reading this chapter will most likely be an eye opener.
These days relatively few weight trainees pay any attention to the muscles which give the body speed, stability, athleticism, power, and great strength. In other words, today's typical bodybuilder concentrates more on show than on substance. This is a mistake caused largely by ignorance and by mass-media marketing. Kubik recognizes this fact, and the author gives "a hodgepodge of training advice" in Chapter 15 to help ensure that the big muscles you build will be as strong, powerful, and functional as they look. If you are not aware of the many benefits which can be attained by ground-based training, Olympic lifting movements, and a "proper attitude", then this chapter alone makes this book a must read.
What did Joseph C. Hise, William Boone, Bob Peoples, Paul Anderson, Doug Hepburn, John Grimek, John Davis, Clyde Emrich, Harold Ansorge, and Reg Park have in common? Well, for sure they all had large muscles, and each of them was super strong. However, more fundamentally, each of these iron men developed enormous muscular development by generally following an "ultra-abbreviated" strength program. This is reason enough to delve into Chapters 16 and 17, both which discuss in detail how to benefit from an ultra-abbreviated or simplified training program. In these two chapters, Brooks explains when to use ultra-abbreviated training, and he provides eight situations where this type of training can prove to be extremely beneficial. Additionally, both chapters are crammed with plenty of ultra-abbreviated and simplified training programs to try.
To acquire "real" strength, you must build your tendons and ligaments to an extraordinary degree. Based on information straight from George Jowett, Kubik provides a superb explanation of ligament development and its importance in Chapter 18. This chapter begins with a very motivating and moving story, one which provides a great lesson about strength. Following this breathtaking story, Brooks examines Jowett's system of "ligament thickening." The author concludes the chapter by showing you how to build enormous ligament strength and muscular power by performing heavy partials and lockouts inside a power rack. By the time you get done reading this chapter, you will never want to use another chrome-plated machine again.
Bob Hoffman had some special things to say to John Davis in the Fall of 1938 just before the young lifter boarded a passenger liner and set sail towards Europe. What Hoffman told Davis just before he set sail helped him to win the 181 pound class at the World Weightlifting Championships at the age of 17. Through a remarkable true story, Brooks reveals in Chapter 19 the words Bob Hoffman spoke that gave John Davis the added strength he needed to secure a world title. It is a great story, and it is one which all Iron Game members should read. Following this motivating story, Kubik then turns things over to Mark Berry, Harry Paschall, and Bob Hoffman (again) to pound home the central message of this important chapter. What these three legends of iron say can help you build pounds of muscle and enormous strength.
Make no mistake about it, barbells are great for building muscle and strength. However, barbell training alone will not develop all the skills and body strength required to lift heavy awkward objects, such as big stones and hefty logs. In Strength, Muscle and Power, Brooks provides several alternatives to the barbell, all which can pack your body with additional strength, help you develop super strong hands and fingers, and improve your ability to handle "real world" heavy objects. These "recreational" lifts were once popular with bodybuilders and strength athletes years ago, and the benefits derived from performing them were extraordinary. Among the most popular of these recreational forms of training was barrel lifting, and Brooks discusses this effective form of training, along with keg lifting, in Chapter 20. Another popular recreational form of exercise was the lifting and handling of heavy bags, and this exiting form of strength building is explored in Chapter 21. In this chapter, the author also gives some excellent tips for making your own sandbags. And, as an added bonus, Kubik describes a sandbag lift Arthur Saxon regularly performed to demonstrate his prodigious strength.
Kubik continues his discussion of recreational lifts in Chapter 22. Here, he introduces us to exercises which he calls "finishers". These are exercises which are so taxing that they must be done last in your workout. The main aim of doing a finishing movement, according to the author, is to trigger a metabolic response which will encourage muscular development throughout the entire body. The farmer's walk is an example of a great finishing movement, and Brooks details how to effectively implement this excellent strength and endurance builder. In this chapter, Kubik also covers anvil training and stone lifting, and he has plenty more to say about how to build super strength and power with sandbags, barrels, and kegs. Along the way, you get to read some very motivating strongman stories, and you are introduced to the "lugging and loading" method, a powerful type of training derived from the World's Strongest Man competition.
The old timers often used thick-handled barbells and dumbbells in their training, and doing so helped them build enormous strength and muscular size. And, if you are seeking a bone-crushing grip, you can't go wrong if you incorporate thick-bar training into your workouts. You can learn all about training with thick handles in Chapter 23. In this chapter, Kubik tells you why thick bars build more muscle, how to effectively use thick bars in your training, and where you can find thick-handled barbells.
There exists a largely forgotten exercise that can pack muscle and power throughout your entire body, and performing it can give you a gorilla-like grip to boot. This exercise requires only a barbell and a set of plates to perform, and it can be practiced virtually anywhere. The old timers used to practice this movement regularly, and doing so made the tendons and ligaments in their hands as strong as steel chains. If you want to be a strongman, then this is a lift that you do not want to ignore. We are talking about the one-hand deadlift, and Brooks has much to say about this amazing exercise in Chapter 24. In this chapter, you will learn six reasons why the one-arm deadlift is one of the author's favorite exercises, and why it should be one of your favorites too. You will also learn the three styles of the one-hand deadlift, and the correct way to perform each. After much muscle-building instruction, Kubik concludes this chapter with a look at some of the greatest one-hand deadlift feats ever performed.
In Chapter 25, Brooks tells a great story about a vacation he and his wife shared on a small island off the coast of North Carolina. The story is quite funny and entertaining, and it also delivers a powerful truth about training equipment and the kind you really need in your gym to build powerful muscles. You may be surprised to learn how effective a bare-basics gym can be. In this chapter, Kubik also gives some good tips for securing basic strength equipment at a rock-bottom cost.
In Chapter 26, Kubik revisits the deadlift, and he reveals how Hermann Goerner, who arguably had the strongest pair of hands in history, trained with this exercise. Brooks guides us through two of Goerner's specialization programs and one based on the one-hand deadlift, the other based on the two-hands deadlift. Goerner's training programs are not for wimps, and implementing them into your workout will likely cause a few side effects. These side effects include added bodyweight in the form of rock-hard muscle, and the attainment of a grip that could become lethal if not properly controlled.
Throughout his new book, Kubik stresses that focusing on basic compound movements is the best and most efficient way to gain muscle and develop strength. In Chapter 27, Brooks tells you which exercises fall into the "basic"category, and he explains why these basic lifts work work so well. The strongman also details a basic training program for you to try. Many of the strength-building techniques, methods, and principles covered in the earlier chapters of Strength, Muscle and Power can be found in this program.
Brooks reiterates the value of using an abbreviated training program in Chapter 28. He also provides another abbreviated workout routine for you to try, and it is very similar to the one he used when he was 41 years old (Brooks is currently 52). If you are stuck in a training rut, the program presented in this chapter may be just what you need to force your complacent muscles to respond and grow.
Chapter 29, the final episode in Strength, Muscle and Power, is entitled "Some Closing Remarks." In this chapter, Brooks guides you through a series of selected workouts to help you discover a training program that is best suited for you. To provide guidance, Kubik offers many suggestions and tips. However, you are encouraged to determine by past experience, and by trial and error, the exercises, the weights, and the set/rep system that provide you with the best results. The bench-press champion finishes the chapter and the book by explaining that your training requirements will likely change as you mature as a lifter. For this reason, you will probably need to use a variety of training tools and methods throughout your lifting career. This is one reason why so many different training programs and methods are presented in Strength, Muscle and Power.
By the time you finish reading Strength, Muscle and Power, you will have a firm grasp of the most powerful muscle-building principles ever developed. You will know how to train to build "real" and functional muscle, and you will possess a mentality conducive for the attainment of great strength and lifting success. Strength, Muscle and Power is arguably the single best book ever written about sensible and productive strength training. Your strength library will not be complete without it. You can order this fantastic book at www.brookskubik.com. The cost is $34.95 + shipping and handling.