Ironman’s “Ultimate Bodybuilding Encyclopedia” is years overdue. I could have achieved my bodybuilding goals much faster and saved years of trial-and-error if this book had been available when I was in the competitive stage of my career.

The book takes the guess-work out of training and is loaded with photos of the greatest bodybuilders performing the exercises. There is nothing about the book that I can find fault with. As always another tremendous job by Pete Sisco and Ironman.

Ironman’s Ultimate Bodybuilding Encyclopedia is exactly what I needed to really jumpstart my workouts. Most books on the topic of weight-trainging are written by a single person and, therefore, only express one person’s experiences. However, everyone is different; what builds muscle for one person may leave another no larger than 6 months before. This book gives multiple opinions by some of the country’s most renowned body builders. Sometimes their opinions conflict, sometimes they coincide. Regardless, the reader is given a very thorough overview of the different possible routines to follow. In addition, this book provide the most eye-opening section on the negative effects of drug-use in body-building that I have ever seen; it really makes you think.

Other than regular access to a good gym with all the right equipment and all the necessary nutrition, nothing is so important to the aspiring bodybuilder than information, and everyone from the neophyte to more experienced muscle bombers will find everything they need to grow into the body they dream of in this wonderful bodybuilder’s encyclopedia. Culled from a variety of sources from deep within the culture of the west coast bodybuilding havens of Venice Beach and Santa Monica, this compendium of relevant information and sage advice has been produced by veteran bodybuilding coach Peter Sisco, who used extensive interviews with bodybuilding stars and the mounds of information produced by research technicians associated with Ironman magazine, who also produced a wide variety of helpful publications such as this one. You will find everything you need here, from the best way to flare your quadriceps to the best way to widen your shoulders by bombing the lateral heads of the deltoids.

Given all this, the book is both highly informative and quite inspirational, showcasing a number of recent bodybuilding luminaries, using both photographs and drawings to illustrate correct exercise performance, useful training techniques, and the latest in scientific breakthroughs that are on the very cutting edge of what contemporary bodybuilders are using to constantly attempt to get even bigger, stronger, and more striated and cut. Using the treasure-trove of Ironman’s photographic archives, Sisco has produced one of the best single volume works covering the waterfront of bodybuilding yet. It compares well to the standard Weider’s “Ultimate Bodybuilding”, Schwarzenegger’s version of the book, and even Bill Pearl’s superb “Keys To The Inner Universe”. This is a book that works well for the bodybuilding enthusiast wanting or needing a handy reference volume he can throw in his gym bag and read between sets at the local iron dungeon. Enjoy!

This book is a compilation of articles from Ironman Magazine. They’ve been carefully chosen by the editor, Pete Sisco. The articles on training are the best ones that the magazine has to offer. As with all bodybuilding books, you’ll want to pick-and-choose which routines and advice you want to adopt. I thought the book was a 4-Star book rather than a 5-Star book for the following reasons: 1) The section on Nutrition was weak. It didn’t really address cutting edge nutrition questions, but focused–unusually, I thought–on variations (e.g., vegetarianism), and 2) it’s a 2-color book. This is probably a nit, but the magazine is 4-color, and 4-color photos reproduced as 2-color lose something (especially if they haven’t been “color corrected”). But these aren’t really slams on the book as a whole…4-Stars is pretty good. The one thing I wanted to say above all else, is that Pete Sisco has done the bodybuilding world a huge service by including the anonymous interview with a “Top Pro” bodybuilder and his use of steroids and other drugs. What an eye-opener. [Good job, Pete.] This chapter will let you see why steroids and other drugs are such a disaster for the long-term health of bodybuilding athletes. I hope younger bodybuilders will read that chapter especially, and make the commitment to train as “naturals”. It’s a really good book, and you’d do well to have it in your bodybuilding library.

I’ve been reading this Ultimate Bodybuilding Encylopedia for the last few weeks and I find it very useful and motivating.

This is very different than Arnold’s encylopedia, not better or worse just different. If you want a systematic and comprehensive guide to bodybuilding exercises and their performance then Arnold’s is what I would recommend. Note that (in my opinion), many of the routines are geared more for someone w/ performance enhancing drugs and would severly overtrain most natural bodybuilders. Still, Arnold’s book is incredibly comprehensive and has been updated since the original release.

The Ironman encyclopedia is more of a collection of articles from Ironman issues over the years. The great thing about that is you get a variety of points of view and approaches which is excellent.
The price of the book is VERY inexpensive compared to what one would have to pay if you were to buy the same volume of valuable information in magazines.

Personally I’m not a big fan of the overall direction bodybuilding has gone with the extreme juice monsters, but this book has a mix of material that can cater to a natural bodybuilder as well as those into the more extreme aspects of the sport. In addition to the many excellent articles, there are photographs which contain bodybuilders from both “schools” of bodybuilding which is not something you find very often.

I’ve recently purchased the Ironman Natural Bodybuilding Book which is also excellent for those interested in focusing specifically on a drug free approach (though certainly some of the extreme supplementation used by “natural” bodybuilders almost approaches a middle ground between completely natural and pharmaceuticals).

For me the most important thing has been learning the difference between how to approach training from a natural point of view. I train for health and appearance, but not even remotely with the idea of competition, and it’s been great to learn so much about how to workout hard without overtraining, especially for someone drug free like myself.

A lot of attention is paid to the fact that natural bodybuilders/weight trainers really have to learn how NOT to overtrain, something I most definitely did many years ago. I worked out way too much and really hit a wall.

Anyway, the different articles contained in this book has a plethora of interesting information that I think most people interested in pumping iron will find useful and enjoyable to read.

Another thing I really appreciate in the book is the honest discussion of the various drugs being used by non-natural bodybuilders. I especially liked the fact that Ironman had the guts to have interview with the anonymous IFBB Olympia competitor who frankly discusses the insane drug combinations he uses to stay competitive and the dangerous health issues he faces from that use. It’s such an over the top interview that it actually had me going “Is this for real?”, but most certainly it is. I’ve talked with several athletes who have used performance enhancing drugs and they suffered greatly from the side effects so this interview rang true to me.

It still amazes me that the IFBB hasn’t tried to clean up and legitimize this sport into a sport that people can take seriously. Instead, they’ve taken a great sport and turned it into a freak show. They’ve created an environment that is horrific for the athletes, men and woman who should exemplify health and instead exemplify drugs. This Ironman book, while still featuring many “juiced up” bodybuilders, at least doesn’t shy away from the truth about these drugs where many other publications have a “don’t ask don’t tell” approach.

Highly recommended!

I always rely on this book, scanning over and over certain mass-gaining strategies, like the featured article, “Compound Aftershock”, which is an awesome biceps/triceps program that potentially explodes your arms.

This book is awesome because it includes 3 to 5 pages of weightlifting stories from classic natural bodybuilders like Bill Pearl, Larry Scott, Mike Mentzer, Arnold, Tom Platz, and others too. For instance, Tom Platz explains how he made his legs huge and musculur. Also, how Larry made his football-sized biceps grow so huge with his routine. One bodybuilder will tell you that a good triceps exercise for gaining triceps mass is the decline barbell extentions, which is very effective for me when I superset it with dumbell kickbacks. I’ve never seen this type of growth before.

I’ve only read half of the book so far and yet I’m gaining mass.

If you have trouble gaining mass, scan over the “Training With A System” section. It makes you see your mistakes with the possibility of overtraining, using too much weight, inefficient diet, or too much strees. This article shows you how to prevent it.

Ironman’s section on the mental aspects of training is especially motivating and convincing–making you eager to workout and get huge.

The Nutrition aspect of this book is weak though. One article is about vegetarianism, which I have no clue why they introduced such an inappropriate diet for a bodybuilder. However, they still give a few pages of bodybuilding type diets that you can gain mass upon.

This book will never bore you because I find that I am always reading new ways to build mass from reading this book and that has helped me eliminate worthless workout routines. Anybody who bodybuilds naturally should get this book, as this book unleashes very clever and strategic workout routines. Buy it now and you will become more motivated that ever!

I have found this book to very informative in many ways. It contains every exercise needed to develop a strong and lean body. The book also has useful information on diet and supplements. I believe this book to be a necessary tool in my quest for physical wellness.

This book is perfect! I’m not just saying that because my boyfriend is on page 2 and throughout the book…lol! It was very helpful and informative! A must read for newbies! Anthony D’Arezzo Bless your heart on your next journey of life. I will always love you! Love Ashley oxoxox

This book is just jammed pack full of good information and it’s a very good book to read no matter if you’re a rookie or a vet.

I bought this book here along with all the other big popular thick books/encyclopedias, like the Bill Pearl books an the Arnold books, among others. I enjoyed reading the front section on the origins of the bodybuilding made popular from the early days of muscle beach and some of the early figures like Joe Golds’ recollections among others. I am still looking this over, having bought it and many others to add to my bodybuilding personal library, and like I keep on saying in my other reviews, there is no such thing as “if you could only have one book then such and such is it”, it is never true on any one subject, and I bought several books used from Amazon dealers, decently priced, though I bought this book new and on sale.
Some areas of interest in the book so far I have read is for instance the chapter dealing with several greats of bodybuilding fame, Bill Pearl and Arnold Schwarzenegger, where Arnold mentions a great workout routine once used by many called the golden six, and Bill Pearl talks of beginner to advanced workout routine he used, and there are other workout routines outlined of course. I haven’t completely read every page yet, but I can tell this is a fine reference that I will study along with all the rest to give myself the best, fastest, safest route to building more size and ironing out my weak spots in an ironman fashion, so to speak.
Lastly, speaking of the last chapter, “Drugs in bodybuilding,….stop the insanity”, an interview with a mr olympia contender is very interesting about the horrors of this particular subject. In my opinion, just like what Arnold said in this book when interviewed, and what Bill Pearl practiced, just like all the other early successful big names did, that gains in muscle mass can be done without drug enhancements, and it is true. Pretty much folks who abuse substances to become unrealistically large, for winning competitions or getting ahead in any way from looking extraordinarily big and looking artifically athletic and fit, are just junkies. Maybe it is society that is alot to blame, I mean, we see all the shows on t.v about women, models and actresses, even business women, who get breast implants, and suddenly those are the women who get acting roles, modeling jobs, or job promotions above average women who are “smaller” in the chest. Same is true for men of course, I got a job opportunity once over a much younger man once cause I had larger muscles and looked fitter, it was obvious, the employer thought I was much younger and fitter, but technically in that case I was stronger and more able to do the job from being stronger and lifting weights in my spare time and cycling. I don’t think the other guy, that even if he took steroids to get muscle, would have had the stamina and actual built up tendon strength like I did, that took me years to achieve(probably why so many bodybuilders or those dabbling in it and young get injured so much and why evey major book has sections on injury recovery and how to avoid them, so much).