Skip to content
I've Got an AWESOME video for you, and although it is a bit long (12 minutes), these are the books that have shaped and even changed my life....
So, grab some coffee, or a protein shake or maybe some fruit and veggies....but NOT all of them at one sitting!! ha ha
Enjoy this video and drop a comment to add your own "Favorite" list when done!
I'm psyched to hear about your list of favorite strength & conditioning books!
I left a few books out and will have to catch up on them for you soon enough 🙂
Next time I might do my favorite books on mind set, after that, favorite books on business.
If you wanna see those videos give me a "Hells Yea!" in the comments area below and don't forget to add your own list of favorite bodybuilding, sport training, powerlifting and strength training books.
Below are some links to most of the Books I just featured.
All ya gotta do is Click on the book title for more info.
Westside Barbell Book of Methods & Bench Press Workout
Secrets of Russian Sports & Fitness Training
Jim Wendler's 5 3 1: The Simplest & Most Effective Training System for Raw Strength
Supple Leopard by Kelly Starrett
Yuri Verkoshansky's Special Strength Training: Manual for Coaches
And of course, my own book, The Encyclopedia of Underground Strength & Conditioning.
My Encyclopedia is timeless, it will be on book shelves for generations. I KNOW you will love it because I cover MORE than training. As I always say, TRUE strength must transcend the weight room, it must go beyond the numbers of your squat, bench, clean, deadlift, etc.
Above, The Encyclopedia of Underground Strength & Conditioning guarded by Joe DeSena's Pit Bull while training at SPARTAN HQ in Pittsfield, Vt.
You can Get my book on Amazon or Dragon Door.
___________________________
More Highly Recommended Books:
- Arnold's Original Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding
- Underground Secrets to Faster Running
Now it's time for you to list your own favorites in the world of muscle building, strength & conditioning.
Drop a comment and add your list...
Peace!
--Z--
Get The Encyclopedia of Underground Strength & Conditioning HERE
30 Responses
Yo! Zach!
Guess I got a lot of time on my hands recovering from surgery. Doc said I could start doing whatever I felt like again, but in two weeks I go back for more work so I might be layed up for a week or two after that.
Then, it’s gonna be time to really crank it again. But in the meantime I have two weeks to train as I can so I will make good use of that time.
With your encouragement I just ordered Dan John’s book. I was going to get it a while ago and fogot all about it. Couldn’t remember where I saw it. Thanks for the link!
A partial list of some of the books I have:
Viking Warrior Conditioning
Beyond Bodybuilding
Arnolds Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding
The Weightlifting Encyclopedia by Arthur Drechsler
Doug Hepburn Course
Olympic Style Weightlifting by Jim Schmitz
Super Squats
Brawn
Rock Iron Steel
The Naked Warrior
Power To The People
Beyond Stretching
Bullet Proof Abs
And a bunch more…
Walter
Hells Yea, great stuff zach
You have to add Infinite Intensity by Ross Enamait to that list. The best training book I have for sure.
oh man andrew, I have Ross’s stuff – that dude is awesome, I would love to see combat athletes have his book and anyone else who does NOT train at a gym.
Ross is f**ing awesome!
Walter – niiiiice!!!
Pavel – all of his books are awesome.
Kenneth Jay is a beast, I interviewed him for my kettlebells for combat dvd set and he unleashed awesomeness!!!
Super Squats – sheesh, how can I miss it!!
Keys to Progress – amazing stuff!!!!
5/3/1 is actually now on hardcover from EFS!
strong together is an amazing little book and 1 of my favs!
and i freaking left out the original edition of arnold’s encyclopedia of modern bodybuilding!
–z–
Good list Zach. I have a huge collection of training books, most of them pretty good. Out of all of them, these three are the one’s I wish I had at the start of my adventures in weight training.
Power to the People! – Pavel Tsatsouline
Starting Strength – Mark Rippetoe
Super Squats – Randall Strossen
Looking forward to your mindset and business picks
Damion u rock bruddah, I gotta get Coach Rip’s Books BIG time!!!
Being strong and lifting heavy is in my DNA, it’s f**ing imposisble for me to stray away!
Best training books I have, have never been translated to English… I just wonder what the Eastern Europeans have that has never been translated!
Other favourites aside from few Finnish olympic lifting books(by Bruno Nyberg and Kaarlo Kangasniemi):
Steve Justa – Rock Iron Steel (I’ve heard that the original unedited by Randall Strossen is even better)
Jim Wendler – 5/3/1
Pavel Tsatsouline – PTP,BB and BS
Doug Hepburn biography
Rocky Marciano biography
Arnolds Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding
Robert Kennedys books… lots of old school info in those.
Charles Poliquin – The Poliquin Principles
Mark Rippetoe – Starting Strength
Marty Gallagher – The Purposeful Primitive (This book is a bit insulting but the stories about lifters are good)
There’s probably more but I can’t recall all.
Couldn’t agree more with Never Let Go. A must.
Callum
Rick
U brought gold to the table baby, I gotta check them Finnish books
Louie Simmons said how many of the Finns are BIG deadlifters because they work at the paper mill, and they load up the stacks of paper from lumber yards onto sleds and drag the sleds forwards and backwards
The sleds make their lower body incredibly strong and overall conditioning is great.
I like learning from stories like that, reminds us what to do!
Callum
heck yea bruddah, great minds think alike
did Dan John influence you yet to rock the Litvi squat – sprint superset??
That is my favorite chapter thus far!
Hey Zack nice collection you should do more of these it is cool to know what you recommend. I have most of those books but another good one is Fit To Fight by Jason Ferrugia. Peace Out
Zach, the lifters back then did have tremendous background with manual labour. Kumpuniemi, Välineva, Malinen etc.
Pekka Anttila has listed two reasons why forest-work especially is so beneficial: One as you mentioned is the tremendous GPP benefits and other is the unstable surface which causes hip mobility to increase along with tendon strength.
I might send you some pics of the old books I have.
Rick, pls do send some pics and I am gonna hunt those books down.
I LOVE that stuff.
My favorite books will be passed down to my son, and I think this tradition can really stay alive of serious, hard core, strength training / bodybuilding.
Thnx in advance Rick!
I’m honored for your help bruddah!
–Z–
Thanks for the list Boss!
They say if you wanna be successful, read what successful people read…. so, I just coped my copy of Dan John’s book 😉
Peace!
efs forum
martin rooneys training for warriors
keys to progress john mccallum ( a good read and easy to understand for laymen)
combat conditioning matt furey ( gets you away from squat deadlift bench press mentality
dinosaur training brooks kubik ( all about HARD work and pickin up heavy $#!+)
building the ultimate mma athlete diesel crew
supertraining mel siff (when you know what works-heres the answers to why it works)
Hells Yea brutha!
You gotta check out Chad Wesley Smith’s, “The Juggernaut Method.” Awesome stuff.
Wendler’s 5/3/1 is a staple at my gym.
Rip’s Starting Strength is a must have.
That should be enough for anyone to get awesome.
Thanks Zach! Lots of good reading up there, here is one of my favorite books about training and life;
The Art of Expressing the Human Body, by Bruce Lee
This book is what got me into Athletic training (and The Tao of Jeey Kune Do). Is some of the information a little outdated? sure, is there a tremendous amount of knowledge about the mental game to be taken from it? Hell yes.
Quote: “Training for strength and flexibility is a must. You must use it to support your techniques. Techniques alone are no good if you don’t support them with strength and flexibility”
Thanks for list. I am definitely interested in seeing what your favs are for mind set (my favorite subject) and business.
Zach, This crap is awesome man! I was just at Barnes and Noble yesterday looking for some sweet old school books and they didn’t have shit.
I was thinking, I know Zach would know of some pretty pimp options, but how the heck am I going to get ahold of him… taken of bro, thanks man you rock.
Great info Z!
You will learn to love the mac! I have 3 and use nothing else for the last 10 years before everyone thought they were cool!
Keep gettin’ stron Baby!!
my favorites would have to be
supertraining and facts and fallacies of fitness- mel siff
poloquin principals- good luck finding that one. red it once from a friend but have never been able to locate it for myself.
martial arts conditioning- alwyn cosgrove
dinosaur training- brooks kubic
building the ultimate mma athlete-diesel cres
and martin rooneys training for warriors ( i have both additions of this book and still go through both additions)
stones and strength -steve justa
unleashing the wild physique- vince gironda
and and a beat up copy of a russian text the young weightlifter -l.v.dvorkin
i have more but for various different reasons i reckon those are the best.
Bill Hinbern of superstrength.com has many copies of the old-school masters.
by Author
Anderson, Bob
Anderson, Paul
Aston, Edward
Baptiste, Walt
Berry, Mark
Brown, Michael H.
Calvert, Alan
DeLorme, Thomas
Ditillo, Anthony
Furey, Matt
Hackenschmidt, George
Higgins, Henry
Hinbern, Bill
Hoffman, Bob
Inch, Thomas
Jesse, John
Jones, Brian
Jowett, George F.
Kubik, Brooks
MacMahon, Charles
Matysek, Anton
Maxick
McCallum, John
Mueller, Edgar (Hermann Goerner)
Park, Reg
Paschall, Harry B.
Peoples, Bob
Pullum, William
Rader, Peary
Salvati, Michael J.
Saxon, Arthur
Strossen, Randall
Tucker, Rich
Willoughby, David P.
Definitely worth a look if your in the market for quality new and old-school information at affordable prices. I’ve ordered from Bill quite a few times and always got excellent customer service and fast delivery times.
starting strength/practical programming for strength training – rip and kilgore
The weightlifting encyclopaedia – Dreschler
power training/cardio strength training- Dos
athletic development – Gambetta
The new bodybuilding for old school results -Darden (Zach you need to check this. both historical going back to the days of muscle beach as well as theory. been very inspiring. Haven;t even finished reading it and it makes my list)
The way to live -Hack
infinite intensity/never gymless- Ross Enamait
The irony of this list is I’m a kettlebell and body weight guy. go figure.
Hell yeah!! My copy of convict conditioning arrived the other day
This is such a great post, gonna try and get as many of these as I can.
Right now I just read the underground manual the second time from this dude ZEE, yeah I think we’re on his blog or something 🙂 and at the moment for me this is the smartest book so far…it’s like it was a whole new book, guess I learned a lot from the first time I’ve read it 🙂 I gotta admit I only read the newer stuff, gotta blast myself to the past and read all those cool books out there. Also, Nick Nilsson has some incredible methods.
P.S. can’t wait for the business books too tho 🙂
Ditto to a lot of the above! I am also a big fan of Enamait, love his stuff! I think one of his first books was called Underground Training for Warriors and was the tipping point in changing the way I trained forever (unfortunately lost that book in a house fire, but have all his new stuff!). Also reference Kubik a lot and I was influenced early on by Dr. Ken Leistner quite a bit as well. Love the Convict Conditioning book too, a great read with lots of great info in there! Have the Ultimate Underground Strength Kit too, heard that Z is pretty BA too.
Great lists!! I think Marty Gallagher PP is outstanding
Zach’s Encyclopedia rocks
Beyond Bodybuilding is fantastic Pavel
Convict Conditioning for sure
Anything from Dan John
I sincerely believe my Strength Solution Method has spot on the list. Too