Championship bodybuilding book review
Bodybuilding,  Book Review,  Reviews,  Training

Championship Bodybuilding Book Review

Chris Aceto is known for creating bodybuilding champions like Jay Cutler. He wrote Championship Bodybuilding in the 1990s. Before reading the book, I had an extremely difficult time putting on muscle. My goal was to show off my muscles without having to flex. In 2005, I obtained my personal training certification from the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA). I learned the basics of weight training, nutrition, and training phases (beginner, intermediate, and advanced). However, the course was geared toward general fitness, not for people with bodybuilding aspirations. At that point, I had been working out exclusively at home for five years, and I had a fairly lean, unimpressive physique. My frustration caused by a lack of gains drove me to search and search online and ask for advice from anyone who had the physique I wanted.

Finally, in 2007, I found out about and quickly read Championship Bodybuilding. In it, Chris Aceto introduced me to the concept of progressive overload and stressed the need for training variety and access to high poundages and equipment. Because I had a limited number of weights (and a lean budget), I joined a public gym for the first time after reading his book. I’ve been a member ever since.

I put on more muscle six months after reading Championship Bodybuilding book than in the five years that I trained at home. Armed with nothing but Aceto’s book, I also competed in a figure competition that year.

From 2009 Texas Round Up - the only competition I entered.

Breakdown of the book

The book is only for people who seek muscle growth. It’s not well suited for tone, fat loss, or general fitness.

  • Aceto covers the form and technique of bodybuilding exercises. Drawings and descriptions included.
  • Aceto details set/rep schemes for different fitness levels (beginner, intermediate, or advanced)
  • Aceto explains how to obtain optimum muscle fiber recruitment via peak contractions, forced reps, and partner-assisted cheat reps.
  • Training schedules: Aceto details split schedules and offers multiple options for beginner, intermediate, and advanced trainees.
  • Types of sets: Aceto explains drop sets, pyramids, supersets, and so on.
  • Nutrition: Aceto covers off-season and on-season nutrition.

Championship Bodybuilding is so much more than what I can write in this blog post. It has helped me greatly. In fact, the five years of training I did prior to reading the book, did not produce one month worth of the results I received after following Aceto’s principles.

championship bodybuilding book review

 

As an athlete for over 21 years and a broke single mom for most of that time, I created brokesinglemomfitness.com, now LLAFIT.com, to aid anyone who believes the road to fitness requires a lot of cash or time. In reality, the way to fitness is paved with knowledge and firm principles; teaching readers how to master both is the goal of this site. LLAFIT - Lifelong Applied Fitness

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