Strength Training Basics Electronic Edition

The reliable electronic version of "Basics of Strength Training" that is currently available is given priority through the official digital mall of People's Posts and Telecommunications Press and the official WeChat reading authorized library. The digital resource port of domestic university libraries can also access the authentic translation for free. More than 90% of other online disk and forum resources circulated through informal channels have problems with translation errors, missing illustrations, and confusing training plan layout. It is not recommended for novices to use it directly.

I first came into contact with this book when I was in my junior year of college in 2018. My brother in the upper bunk of the dormitory went to the gym every day to practice bench press. He gave me a network disk link and said it was the "Bible" of the fitness circle. After I saved it, I didn't think much about it. I practiced according to the movements in it for less than two weeks. My right shoulder started to snap and it hurt when I raised my hand. Later, I went to the rehabilitation department of the school hospital to see a doctor for almost a month before it healed. Later, when I looked through the original paper book bought by my classmate, I discovered that in the version I saved, the foot position diagram for the bench press was printed upside down. The label of "all feet on the ground, center of gravity between shoulder blades and buttocks" was mistakenly placed on the wrong movement of "lifting heels and leaning forward with center of gravity." This meant that I had fundamentally distorted the movement pattern.

Don't mention it, there are at least seven or eight electronic versions of "Basics of Strength Training" circulating on the Internet. The two most mainstream versions are the two. One is the official translation by People's Posts and Telecommunications Publishing House in 2016. The terminology is unified and the illustrations are clear. Even the weight conversion table at the back has been adjusted for domestic use. The other is a private version spontaneously translated by fitness enthusiasts in the early 1980s and 1990s. Many fitness veterans born in the 80s and 90s were introduced to this version, and the emotional filter is particularly thick. But to be honest, the translation of this version contains a lot of slang words from the past. For example, "low bar squat" is translated into "powerlifting-specific squat." If a novice reads tutorials of other systems at the same time, it is easy to confuse the concepts. There are also many circulating versions that directly cut off the injury prevention content in the last chapter. In fact, that part is what pure newbies should read first. Many people rush into the 5*5 training plan without even understanding the weight progression logic of the warm-up. They only go back to find out the reason after practicing.

Of course, many people think that the electronic version is not as useful as the paper version. After all, when you practice, you can put it next to the equipment and turn it around. You can also record your training weights directly in the margins. I felt the same way in the past two years. Until last year when I was preparing for a powerlifting competition, I only had 3 minutes of rest between sets, and it took me half a day to look through the paper book to find the details of the movements. Later, I bought the official electronic version and stored it on my tablet. I could jump to the corresponding chapter by searching for keywords, and I could also enlarge the picture to see the signs of muscle exertion. It was much more efficient than looking through the paper book. Now I have three versions saved on my tablet. The paid version is a genuine version that I watch on my daily commute and make annotations. The high-definition scanned old version is occasionally pulled out for nostalgia when chatting with old guys in the fitness circle. There is also a simplified text-only version stored in the memo on my phone. I pull it out before practicing to review the key points of the exercises, so I don’t have to take out my phone and watch short videos and lose track of time.

There is a popular saying in the fitness circle nowadays, saying that the "Basics of Strength Training" system has long been outdated. Today's training concepts are more subdivided. If you want to build muscle, you should have differentiated training for bodybuilding. If you want to improve explosive power, there is the CrossFit system. There is no need to read this old book. This is actually true. The core logic of this book is originally designed to serve the introduction of powerlifting. If your goal is to develop full chest muscle lines and sculpt abdominal muscle details, then its plan is indeed not suitable. However, for novices with zero training foundation, it dismantles action patterns. The solution and explanation of the logic of exerting force are by far the most down-to-earth. The advantage of the electronic version is that you don’t have to hold the entire book to chew on it. You can just pick out the content you need. For example, if you only practice squats recently, you can directly search for keywords to jump to the corresponding chapter, and repeatedly pick out the details of the movements.

One final word, don’t believe those electronic resources with the gimmick of “comes with an exclusive training plan”. I have seen many versions before. The plan attached directly adapts the original book’s 3 training and 5*5 training plan per week for novices to a high-capacity plan of 6 trainings per week. This is purely a trick for novices. Originally, the recovery ability of novices cannot keep up. If they practice for two weeks, they will either get tired of training or get injured. It is completely outweighing the gain. To put it bluntly, whether it is an electronic version or a paper version, they are essentially tools. If you can really calm down and understand the key points of the movements inside, even if you spend more than ten yuan to buy a genuine electronic version, it is better than if you have saved more than ten gigabytes of fitness resources and never opened them.