[standingzero]

Thanks for the review:

I actually have been training with Martin Rooney's book for the last two months and would give it the same give it a 9 or 9.5 out of ten. I've been exercising for over 14 years with some personal training experience and still found a lot of good and new information. Also, I'm in no way affiliated with him or his school. I actually live in Korea and took a gamble on purchasing the book at a slightly higher price than listed. I was planning on doing my own review, but since you had the initiative I'll just post it here.

The strongest points of the book are:
1. It's sport specific: it gives you the kind of strength, speed, endurance, etc. you need for combative sports (wrestling, mma, bjj, etc.) This is SUPER important because "bodybuilding/gym muscle" isn't necessarily the kind of muscle you need for combative sports. Same with endurance; "cross country runner endurance" isn't going to help you as much as intense intverval cardio training. What Martin has done so well is give us guys the tools to make the most of our training sessions.

2. The pictures are good and instruction on the movements is clear

3. The book shows you how to work all muscle groups regardless of what equipment you have on hand. There are bodyweight, partner, free weight, and other types of exercises. I personally think a lot of bjj gyms or wrestling teams without lots of equipment will benefit HUGELY from the different exercises shown.

4. Martin is a highly sought after performance coach as well as a brown belt in bjj, not to mention working with a host of mma fighters. As far as fitness goes I would say he definitely knows what we need.

Some room for improvements are:
1. The nutrition section is good but basic: He doesn't give any guidelines into what someone's calorie ration should be (ie. the percentage of protein, fat, and carbs) That's kind of a bummer because that's really important for guys that need to cut or bulk up in weight. He does give guidelines on how many calories you should take in, but I was hoping for more.
2. Also in the nutrition section he says to add extra calories to make up for the ones you lost during training. It would have been nice if he included a quick reference chart that listed how many calories are burned during different types and durations of exercise.
3. He includes one eight week training program, which is great, but it would have been nice to have a few other programs added in.

So ya, my criticisms are on very minor points which is why I rate the book at a 9 or 9.5 because it is a really good training aid.

Peace,
SZ