Pushing himself to power by John E Peterson

Search Google images of recent Arnold Schwarzenegger shirtless pictures and you might find a sad and depressing picture of the greatest bodybuilder in world history. Perhaps it is simply the stress of governing the state of California, it is not an easy task. Maybe it’s the aftermath of the steroids he allegedly admitted taking. Maybe you’re just eating too much and no longer exercising two hours a day like you used to say.

It’s not the way you do it anymore though, the 2009 Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t an advertisement for the long-term health and fitness benefits of weightlifting.

Compare today’s Terminator to the author of this book, who is only five years younger.

Which one would you rather see when you are their age?

Now that you must be convinced that bodyweight exercises can keep you looking young and strong, Peterson has written a book full of many ways to strengthen your muscles with his Transformetrics Training System.

The author contracted polio at the age of 4 and was left with broken legs that forced him to use crutches. After an encounter with a bully at age 10, his grandfather and a friend introduced him to the Charles Atlas and Earle Leiderman courses. It hasn’t stopped since.

It begins by listing the 7 attributes of dynamic functional fitness: strength, flexibility, endurance, speed, balance, coordination, and aesthetics.

There are twelve lessons and he prescribes a ten-week program that begins with lessons one and two. However, lesson one includes some extremely advanced push-ups that are not for beginners.

For my part, it was not clear exactly which exercises to start with. Although he says you should exercise for 30 minutes at a time, doing even the warm-ups from Lesson One would take more than that. Also, that lesson includes what he calls the three most important: Hindu push-ups (or furey), Hindu squats (or furey), and Atlas push-ups.

This is a problem that I have noticed in other workbooks. They give you the exercises, tell what each one is for, make suggestions on how to do them, but it is still up to you to change the schedule that is best for you, based on your condition and the time you have available.

The final section of the book illustrates the problem. He promises that no matter how weak he is right now, in six weeks or less he can do 500 push-ups a day. Not necessarily all at once, but 500 in total. And it tells several success stories.

Then provide photographs illustrating 13 push-up variations. So it just says to make as many variations as possible every day.

That’s? Should I keep running? How about other exercises? Maybe, like the military man who went from 50 pounds overweight to stud in just one month just by doing push-ups, that’s enough.

It’s worth a try.