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Base Building
Every great structure has to have a foundation.
Base Building is about all the facets that go into building that foundation. Building strength, mass, and the reinforcing of technique through structured volume are all covered.
This is the book that can help you stack up productive training cycle, one after the other while keeping plateaus at bay, and progress oncoming.
Base Building is about all the facets that go into building that foundation. Building strength, mass, and the reinforcing of technique through structured volume are all covered.
This is the book that can help you stack up productive training cycle, one after the other while keeping plateaus at bay, and progress oncoming.
113 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 18, 2013
13 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Paul Carter
155 books90 followersPaul Carter was born in England in 1969. His father's military career had the family moving all over the world, re-locating every few years. Paul has lived, worked, gotten into trouble and been given a serious talking to in England, Scotland, Germany, France, Holland, Norway, Portugal, Tunisia, Australia, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, Malaysia, Borneo, Columbia, Vietnam, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, Sumatra, the Philippines, Korea, Japan, China, USA and Saudi Arabia. Today he lives in Perth with his wife, baby daughter and two motorbikes.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 9, 2014
I made the decision to buy this book due to Carter's association with blogger/powerlifter Jamie Lewis on the podcast they used to do together. I always thought Carter to be out of his depth on some of the training related topics they used to discuss, but gave him the benefit of the doubt on purchase of this work.
I have to say straight up it's another example of a disappointing cash grab from a blogger with more of a proficiency in Copy-Pasting than any originality regarding exercise programming. The majority of the contents can be accessed from the archives of the LRB website which when at least viewed in their chronological publication give some semblance of order and coherency.
At the same time, the book (can an 80 page copy-paste job be deemed such a thing?) simply assumes too much reader prior knowledge.. As his most recent work, I thought Base-Building might cut through the redundancy; but the reader is forced to search the author’s archives with a fine-toothed comb or cross reference the other books he sells in order to make meaning of it all. I find this tactic to sell books disingenuous, sneaky and fucking annoying to say the least.
As the progenitor of nothing resembling an original idea, Carter is found wanting. He’s known for hitching his wagon to bigger names within the industry - Wendler, Poliquin, Klokov, Coan, Lewis etc, cherry picking (aka ripping off) ideas and concepts and then attempting to meld it into a workable philosophy that he palms off as his own. This might work with the easily exploited newbie market, but anyone who’s been in the game for longer than 20 minutes or even perused the T-nation archives for any length of time can see where most of “Paul’s ideas” were (ahem), “borrowed”.
Obviously rushed, the sequence and editing is sloppy and slipshod. A coherent unifying theme and its details are lost among the numerous anecdotes, endless name dropping and unctuous self aggrandizement. The end result pretty much resembles the author's own physique - a puffy, water-retentive, bloated mess lacking quality and refinement. What Carter also "forgets" to mention in his books is that he’s a long time advocate and user of Performance Enhancing Drugs rendering much of his recommendations as basically null and void for the majority of lifters and natural trainees.
Carter himself is also constantly plagued with injuries - I’ve never seen someone as “Banged” up as this guy. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for his method which preaches minimal volume and frequency….oh, but maybe Paul thinks mentioning his injuries makes him “legit” in the eyes of the “hardcore” crowd. His writing tone masquerades as “badass”, but lacks the verisimilitude and authenticity of someone like Lewis who actually is hardcore and has the records to prove it.
Being a natural trainee I would recommend something like Jonnie Candito's Intermediate Lifting Program which is not only free, but will enable the drug free lifter to maximise their strength levels in a shorter period of time. Practical Programming for Strength 3rd Edition is also an invaluable guide for assisting the novice and intermediate to constructing their OWN programs. For the more advanced lifter, Jamie Lewis’, “Issuance of Insanity” series or “Destroy the Opposition” are much more coherent, original and entertaining reads than this tripe
In summary, Carter's work is a schizophrenic mess that will have the average trainee spinning their wheels, chasing multiple goals and scratching their heads in confusion when they realise they've wasted a chunk of their valuable training lives “Lifting, Running and Banging” their heads in frustration against the wall of zero gains. The book might only cost a tenner, but the time lost reading, cross referencing and god forbid, actually running the “program” is irretrievable.
I have to say straight up it's another example of a disappointing cash grab from a blogger with more of a proficiency in Copy-Pasting than any originality regarding exercise programming. The majority of the contents can be accessed from the archives of the LRB website which when at least viewed in their chronological publication give some semblance of order and coherency.
At the same time, the book (can an 80 page copy-paste job be deemed such a thing?) simply assumes too much reader prior knowledge.. As his most recent work, I thought Base-Building might cut through the redundancy; but the reader is forced to search the author’s archives with a fine-toothed comb or cross reference the other books he sells in order to make meaning of it all. I find this tactic to sell books disingenuous, sneaky and fucking annoying to say the least.
As the progenitor of nothing resembling an original idea, Carter is found wanting. He’s known for hitching his wagon to bigger names within the industry - Wendler, Poliquin, Klokov, Coan, Lewis etc, cherry picking (aka ripping off) ideas and concepts and then attempting to meld it into a workable philosophy that he palms off as his own. This might work with the easily exploited newbie market, but anyone who’s been in the game for longer than 20 minutes or even perused the T-nation archives for any length of time can see where most of “Paul’s ideas” were (ahem), “borrowed”.
Obviously rushed, the sequence and editing is sloppy and slipshod. A coherent unifying theme and its details are lost among the numerous anecdotes, endless name dropping and unctuous self aggrandizement. The end result pretty much resembles the author's own physique - a puffy, water-retentive, bloated mess lacking quality and refinement. What Carter also "forgets" to mention in his books is that he’s a long time advocate and user of Performance Enhancing Drugs rendering much of his recommendations as basically null and void for the majority of lifters and natural trainees.
Carter himself is also constantly plagued with injuries - I’ve never seen someone as “Banged” up as this guy. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for his method which preaches minimal volume and frequency….oh, but maybe Paul thinks mentioning his injuries makes him “legit” in the eyes of the “hardcore” crowd. His writing tone masquerades as “badass”, but lacks the verisimilitude and authenticity of someone like Lewis who actually is hardcore and has the records to prove it.
Being a natural trainee I would recommend something like Jonnie Candito's Intermediate Lifting Program which is not only free, but will enable the drug free lifter to maximise their strength levels in a shorter period of time. Practical Programming for Strength 3rd Edition is also an invaluable guide for assisting the novice and intermediate to constructing their OWN programs. For the more advanced lifter, Jamie Lewis’, “Issuance of Insanity” series or “Destroy the Opposition” are much more coherent, original and entertaining reads than this tripe
In summary, Carter's work is a schizophrenic mess that will have the average trainee spinning their wheels, chasing multiple goals and scratching their heads in confusion when they realise they've wasted a chunk of their valuable training lives “Lifting, Running and Banging” their heads in frustration against the wall of zero gains. The book might only cost a tenner, but the time lost reading, cross referencing and god forbid, actually running the “program” is irretrievable.
July 18, 2014
I really liked this book. I wouldn't say it's quite deserving of a 5 star rating, but definitely 4. While I don't follow any of Paul's routines (I prefer a more Chaos and Pain type style à la Jamie Lewis), I love his general philosophy and mindset which is why I read the stuff he puts out. This book is a nice little read, even if you don't want to use any of the base building routines in it. His advice on the ups and downs of lifting is great, there's nothing surprising if you've read any of his other stuff, but there is some more information in it worth giving a look, and it's always worth looking at the routines to see if there's anything worth incorporating in your program.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews