Stronger: The Untold Story of Muscle in Our Lives

by Michael Joseph Gross

A groundbreaking, richly informative exploration of the central role of muscle in human life and health, Stronger sounds an urgent call for each of us to recognize muscle as “the vital, inextricable and effective partner of the soul.”

“Even if you’ve never picked up a weight—Stronger is for you.” —Arnold Schwarzenegger

Stronger tells a story of breathtaking scope, from the battlefields of the Trojan War in Homer’s Iliad, where muscles enter the scene of world literature; to the all-but-forgotten Victorian-era gyms on both sides of the Atlantic, where women build strength and muscle by lifting heavy weights; to a retirement home in Boston, where a young doctor makes the astonishing discovery that frail ninety-year-olds can experience the same relative gains of strength and muscle as thirty-year-olds if they lift weights.
 
These surprising tales play out against a background of clashing worldviews, an age-old competition between athletic trainers and medical doctors to define our understanding and experience of muscle. In this conflict, muscle got Simplistic binaries of brain versus brawn created a persistent prejudice against muscle, and against weight training, the type of exercise that best builds muscular strength and power. 
 
Stronger shows muscle and weight training in a whole new light. With warmth and humor, Michael Joseph Gross blends history and firsthand reporting in an inspiring narrative packed with practical information based on rigorous scientific studies from around the world. The research proves that weight training can help prevent or treat many chronic diseases and disabilities throughout the lifespan, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, and depression. Stronger reveals how all of us, from elite powerlifters to people who have never played sports at all, can learn to lift weights in ways that yield life's ultimate the ability to act upon the world in the ways that we wish.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Health, Biology, History, Fitness, Audiobook

479 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 11, 2025

Reviews

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 3 out of 5]

We were without power for 36 hours because of an awful storm, so I used the day to power (heh) through this. I had drifted away from it since the early chapters were getting mighty boring, even though the introduction was stellar.

I wanted to like this more than I did. It does a good job in demonstrating the abundant health benefits of lifting weights. Lifting heavy has gotten a bad rap over the years (centuries!), but it's clearly vital in counteracting sedentary lifestyles and in maintaining mobility and independence in our later years.

It's exciting to think something so simple - moving around dumbbells - can keep us healthy, but the writing and organization of this book felt like a slog, even when the information was fascinating.

[Emma Hinkle · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who studied muscle development during my PhD, I was intrigued by the concept of this book and the story it would tell about muscle. Gross takes the reader on a journey through muscle beginning in ancient Greece, then in the earlier days of weightlifting/powerlifting, and to more modern day. He does this by focusing each section on a person and following their love of muscle and how they value strength training.

This book was long. I felt that the stories of the people could be more tightly wound together instead of hopping back and forth between describing what was going on in a certain time period and what the person was learning in their life. The book shone in the second and third section and especially when Gross discussed exercise as medicine and highlighted that exercise should be prescribed like we prescribe medications.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC!

[Rick Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite interesting and generally well told, just kind of massively bloated. I felt like I was reading the same archetypal story (person discovers the wonder of muscle! But they’re not your stereotypical meathead… oh wow! The crowd goes wild!) in about eight different ways and after the third time I got a little irritated. Should’ve been about half the size.

Takeaway:muscle good. Muscle also mysterious, but not overly so.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book in a goodreads drawing.

This is study of the muscles of the human body, tracing the science and history of strength training. There's a whole lot of propaganda, but a lot of information as well.

[Eliza Pillsbury]

When one hears the word “muscle,” the first person one probably imagines is a tanned, male bodybuilder who has taken anabolic steroids to superficially enhance his biceps and quads. Michael Joseph Gross wants to intervene with that instinct. With the help of two Longhorns, his new book proves that muscle matters to everyone.

Read my interview with the author here!

[jrendocrine at least reading is good · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at p 70.

This is hodgepodge. It’s unreadable. Not really sure even what it’s about? Training is good? The Ancient Greeks trained? Muscle contracts?

Should have known by the book subtitle: “the untold story of muscle in our lives”.

I really tried, but it’s just too awful.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected this book to be more of a medical approach to the science of muscle (once again, thwarted by cover art), which meant I was surprised by 200 pages of Greek history and the Victorian culture of powerlifting. The subjects were unexpectedly fascinating, but I wonder if it would've helped to structure the book differently. Gross makes the interesting choice in the first two sections of his book to focus solely on the life experiences and research of one source each: first, a professor/ weightlifter specializing in the cultural history of the body and second, another professor/ weightlifter studying women and sport. While these two individuals were unique, it did make for a biased perspective. And it was a little strange to just synthesize and rehash their research for 100 pages! I would've loved to get more of an overview with different voices, a broader understanding of the subject before jumping into such highly specialized perspectives. Gross spends a lot of time claiming that we undervalue muscle, but the book’s take that strength is somehow the underdog doesn't seem to fit the current cultural narrative of our time.

I still enjoyed the book, but finished it still wanting a clearer discussion of the subject I had just spent 360 pages reading about.

(Also, for such a long book, it could have benefited from some more aggressive editing. There were multiple repeated anecdotes — if a section has to remind you “oh hey, here's that thing I already mentioned a couple of times”, it probably doesn't need to be included again!)

Notes

One of Selye’s books, The Stress of Life, shows how stressed develops in a process called the general adaptation syndrome, consisting of three phases: the alarm phase, the resistance phase, and the exhaustion phase. The alarm phase begins as soon as the body perceives a stressor, a stimulus imposing any kind of demand. The body shifts to fight or flight mode by triggering "a generalized call to arms of the defensive forces in the organism." The resistance phase is response to the stress or demand, as the body draws on reserves of energy and activates various biological systems. Hormones surge, pulse and breathing quicken. But if demands never let up or if demands keep increasing, the body loses its ability to adapt, finally reaching the exhaustion phase, because "the living organism can be maintained continuously in a state of alarm." If a body experience is total exhaustion, Seyle ominously concluded, "then death ensues." (PG. 40)

The sport-specific paradox encapsulates a problem that strength coaches are supposed to solve. The problem is, skill seeds its own ruin. "How do you get better at a sport? By doing it. But the more you do it, the more you overuse certain muscles in a certain range of movement. And eventually you reach a point where you can no longer do your sport." To solve that problem, "one of the first jobs of a strength coach is to rebalance the body so that it can continue to, say, throw a baseball or kick a soccer ball," he says.

… Some people think that if an athlete wants to kick more, and kick harder, "you need to work your hip flexors a lot because you use your hip flexors a lot." But, Stocking says, "No, it's the opposite." Athletes want to be great at kicking "have to do more of the opposite movements" at levels of intensity and in volumes of work comparable to the intensity and volume of their work on the field. (PG. 67-68)

Anthony Esposito, an etymologist at the Oxford English dictionary who has studied strong and related words, tells me how strang spawn strong: "String is something that you bind things up with, it's made of material that is twisted together tightly. But seems to have been the original core sense of the word strong is this idea of tightness." The connotation of bodily power, he says, "is secondary to that, it's come later, it's developed out of that. Originally, strong seems to have had quite a specific literal sense of something tight. And as a result of being tight, it's hard. As a result of being hard, it's powerful." (PG. 119)

Jan Todd says that lifting weights helped prepare her to be an academic historian. "I think the main thing I learned from training was the importance of discipline and regularity," she tells me. "I had no expectations when I started that I was going to lift 500 pounds. But I discovered: go to the gym, take that small bite of work every day, and the small bite eventually becomes a feast" –and the same thing happened to Todd when she went to the library every day.

She adds that, for doing research, "lifting also taught me patience. You can't expect to change or transformation, whether intellectual or muscular, to happen immediately. You have to give it time for adaptation to occur. You've got to build the frame and build the muscle so that you can support the work." (PG. 207-208)

[Kitten Kisser · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best thing about this book for me was that it was very motivating to keep up with strength training, aka weight lifting. The author makes a strong case as to why we all need to perform strength training in our daily lives. Age is irrelevant. Young or in a nursing home, we all need to lift weights. This isn't about being a body builder. Instead it's about building health through muscle. NO propaganda!

The author starts with Greek times and then goes into more current events with the focus on a particular individuals weight training journey. This back and forth repeats for the entirety of the book. Initially, I was okay with this, but it became frustrating rather quickly. I would have much rather the author started in the past, then moved the reader through to the present. Save the silly jumping around for the fiction writers.

Each individual in the book has certain challenges to overcome. For example, determining that particular movements caused pain, the individual figured out the strength exercise to correct this issue by strengthening another area of the body. This is very interesting to me. Learning how to fix the cycle of exercise, pain, rest, repeat by understanding which areas of the body need to be strengthened in order to keep the body in balance is something I think we'd all like to know.

Frankly, just about anything mentioned in more current times was fascinating trip through the more recent past. From woman in weight lifting, to runners, to the elderly, Stronger shows how incredibly important it is to utilize resistance training in order to improve cardiovascular and bone health. How aerobics, walking, and balance exercises simply are not enough. Instead, to get the most "bang for your buck", weight train.

My father was a body builder. He instilled this into me. Plus I grew up watching Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Personal experience has taught me exactly what the various people in this book discovered, weight lifting improves health. It improves self confidence because you can do the thing. You feel good in your own body. It's not about dieting or weight loss or gain. It's about strength and mobility. Retaining ones independence to move through the world.

Sadly, while highly motivating, the book is also lacking. The back and forth between Grecian times to more recent was frustrating. Adding to this frustration was that there wasn't a chapter showing or at least describing in great detail the various movements that were so beneficial in the various studies that were done.

Due to how dense of a read it is, I think this is one of those books I'd like to have an audio as well or maybe instead of in print. Normally, I like to have physical copies of non fiction books so that I can book mark, take notes, flip through the pages at will, etc. But with this book not providing any actual guidelines, a printed copy doesn't really seem necessary. It's just a story. Not so much a guide or how-to. Granted, it is not promoted as such, but I cannot help but think the book would have been greatly improved had this been added.

Thank you NetGalley, Michael Joseph Gross, and Penguin Group Dutton for the Kindle copy of this book.

[Jung]

In "Stronger: The Untold Story of Muscle in Our Lives", Michael Joseph Gross explores the hidden, overlooked, and often misunderstood force that shapes not only our bodies but also our health, independence, and overall quality of life. He begins with a simple but powerful idea: muscle is far more than a symbol of vanity or athletic prowess; it is the closest thing humanity has to a fountain of youth. Gross challenges the cultural fixation on cardiovascular exercise and quick fixes, showing instead that the true secret to long-term vitality lies in the strength we carry within us. By weaving together history, science, culture, and inspiring stories, he demonstrates that whether one is young or old, male or female, a casual mover or a trained athlete, building and maintaining muscle is essential to thriving at every stage of life.

Gross reminds us that modern society has left vast stores of human potential untapped. Our ancestors relied on muscular power daily for survival, but in today’s sedentary world, we are often disconnected from our most vital resource. The gluteus maximus, once the engine of hunting and survival, has fallen into what physicians now call 'gluteal amnesia,' a condition in which the nervous system forgets how to activate this crucial muscle. The irony is sharp: ancient civilizations like Greece may not have understood muscle physiology at a cellular level, but they lived in a way that developed extraordinary bodies. Modern humans, by contrast, have unparalleled knowledge of how muscle functions yet often fail to use it meaningfully in daily life. Gyms, apps, and programs attempt to simulate the movements that once came naturally, highlighting just how far we have drifted from our physical origins.

The book also uncovers how history distorted our view of strength. In early Greek thought, mind and body were united, with the soul only separating at death. Yet philosophers like Plato and later physicians like Galen carved a split that would haunt Western culture for centuries. Galen, embittered by his own wrestling injury and steeped in treating brutalized gladiators, denounced athletics as harmful and claimed muscle development dulled the intellect. His influence, combined with cultural mishaps such as the death of athletes, pushed society toward a false choice: health or strength, but never both. As Gross makes clear, this false division still shapes how we treat doctors and trainers as rivals rather than collaborators, and how we undervalue the integrated relationship between mind and body.

Within this historical context, Gross introduces figures who redefined strength, especially for women. Jan Todd, once inspired by watching another woman deadlift, shattered global records in the 1970s and became the first woman to total more than 1,000 pounds across powerlifts. Her story was not only about personal achievement but also about demolishing the cultural wall that barred women from strength training. At a time when medical authorities dismissed weightlifting as unsafe, Todd proved otherwise, both in practice and through her later academic work. She showed that women could build strength proportionally equal to men, often exceeding them in leg power relative to size. Her achievements helped shift attitudes in science and media alike, culminating in the endorsement of resistance training by mainstream medical organizations in the 1990s. Todd’s legacy demonstrates how deeply entrenched myths about female fragility have been and how much progress can be made when those myths are challenged.

Gross then reveals that these myths are not grounded in biology but in culture. Women in the nineteenth century, for example, performed pull-ups and dips at levels that rival modern standards, proving that physical capacity has always been present but suppressed or distorted by social expectations. Fitness history swings between extremes: at one point, strongwomen were celebrated as both powerful and beautiful, while at another, lifting was condemned as dangerous after the premature death of an early exercise advocate. Even language shaped acceptance - when physician Thomas DeLorme rebranded his 'heavy resistance exercise' program as 'progressive resistance training,' the medical establishment suddenly welcomed the same regimen it had previously rejected. Such examples show that our perception of strength has always depended more on cultural framing than on genuine scientific evidence.

The book’s most striking revelations come from research on aging. For decades, people assumed muscle loss with age was inevitable, with sarcopenia seen as an unavoidable decline. Gross presents transformative evidence that this belief is false. Elderly individuals, even those in their nineties, can make dramatic gains through targeted resistance training. In studies, nursing home residents doubled or tripled their strength in mere weeks, regaining abilities like standing from a chair or walking without assistance. Muscle tissue retains its regenerative potential throughout life, producing new proteins and adapting at the cellular level just as it does in youth. The tragedy lies in society’s neglect: while media focus on fringe concerns like steroid abuse, millions of older adults suffer preventable weakness, unaware of the powerful medicine sitting within their own bodies.

Gross illustrates that this 'medicine' is not a metaphor but a biological reality. Muscle responds to specific doses of stress much like the body responds to drugs. Prescribing exercise with precision - choosing the right type, intensity, and progression - can treat conditions ranging from depression to diabetes, arthritis, and hypertension. For some, strength training has even matched or exceeded the effectiveness of medication, often without side effects and with lasting benefits. Stories like that of John, a builder who learned to overcome degenerative muscle disease by targeting his triceps to compensate for weakened legs, highlight how exercise, when prescribed carefully, can restore independence and dignity even in the face of illness. Other accounts, like that of Ramanee, who went from crippling arthritis to walking stick–free mobility, show that persistence and gradual progression yield life-changing results.

Despite this evidence, Gross laments that medical education rarely includes exercise prescription. Most doctors still find it easier to prescribe pills than to design movement programs, leaving countless patients without knowledge of the transformative benefits that resistance training can deliver. Yet the science is overwhelming: muscle is central to metabolic health, joint stability, mental clarity, and independence at every age. Our failure to embrace it as essential medicine is one of modern health’s greatest blind spots.

In conclusion, "Stronger: The Untold Story of Muscle in Our Lives" makes a compelling case that muscle is not a niche concern for athletes or bodybuilders but a universal human resource that every person can and should cultivate. By tracing the historical biases that led to our current neglect, highlighting the pioneers who challenged those assumptions, and presenting the latest scientific evidence, Michael Joseph Gross restores muscle to its rightful place as the foundation of true health. His message is urgent yet empowering: whether you are a young adult seeking resilience, a middle-aged professional hoping to stay sharp, or an elderly person longing for independence, the power to transform your life is already within you. Building muscle is not just about looking strong - it is about living stronger in every possible sense.

[Eva]

DNF at 38 %. This book has one central message - strength training/weightlifting is the best thing in the world and is guaranteed to save your life - but it tries to prove it in an unbelievably boring and disjointed way. I hoped that once we got through the endless list of Greeks who liked muscles it would pick up a bit but that was not the case so I'm giving up before I get too angry.

[Kenzie | kenzienoelle.reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love anatomy and physiology and I am passionate about strength training and progressive resistance training and this book absolute hit those loves! I could write an essay about this book but I frankly don’t have the energy to😅

I don’t think this needed to be this long but overall so good.

[Jodi Hawkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 2nd half of the book was much better than the first.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty interesting history of weight training and what aspects it does or does not help. many examples of real people. inspiring :)

[Jesse Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book. a little dry but really good information

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly, a wonderful book on so many levels. He is a compelling storyteller and really brings the lives of all of these people into deep focus. I’ve got the message and I’m going out to buy more kettle bells to make sure I hang on to my muscle so that I can live a long, healthy, mobile life.

[Madison T · Rating 2 out of 5]

Look, the important thing is that I’m done and I can read something else. This book was too long, too heavy and frankly just not my kind of book. I felt like it was a 360 page history lesson on muscle and while interesting for some, I am unfortunately not a history girl

[Jared Cominsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

lift big, live big baby

[Nupur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muscle and strength training is a topic I'm very interested in, so I truly wanted to love this book. While it's filled with fascinating information and valuable insights, the reading experience was a slog. The writing felt disorganized and repetitive, with chapters that were disjointed and titled in a way that didn’t always reflect their actual content. The book centers on a few individuals and their work, but their stories were scattered throughout rather than presented in a cohesive, compelling way. With tighter editing, this could have been a much stronger read. Still, I came away with a few useful takeaways and moments of inspiration.

- There's a lot of Greek history related to muscle development in the early part of this book. I skimmed over most of it, but an interesting tidbit is the tale of Milo, the strongman of Croton, who got stronger by lifting a calf every day. It grew bigger over time and he grew proportionally stronger, an early if apocryphal example of progressive overload.

Some of my other notes

On muscle
-Muscle is one of the body’s most plastic tissues, changing its size and properties based on people’s habits of diet and care, work and rest.
-If you can choose only one form of exercise, it should be progressive resistance training.
-To thrive, muscle needs to work hard, it needs rest, and it needs nutritious food, especially food rich in protein.

On muscle and mind
-For ages, people have been raised on mind-body dualism- brain vs. brawn; in fact mind and muscle are the best of friends.
-“Attentional focus” on moving a load builds more strength, and attentional focus on moving a load may build more size, a quirk of neuromuscular engagement.

On muscle and age
-In old age, muscle increasingly decides who can live independently and who cannot.
-Your independence, autonomy, agency- your effectiveness in the world- will depend on muscle.
-High-intensity progressive resistance training can strengthen and build muscle even for the oldest people (people in their 90s!), with life-changing effects.
-Strength training is safe even for the oldest people.
-A gentle exercise class for senior citizens is usually no more effective than no exercise at all- it is “placebo exercise”. Most exercise programs in nursing homes are flexibility and stretching based but in fact they don’t add any strength or balance or aerobic capacity.
-Changes in muscle are not maintained for long periods of time in the absence of continued training, for anyone, at any age.


-Almost all of the fears we have and the barriers we set for ourselves as women are in our minds.
-There are tensions between athletics and medicine. Athletics focuses on striving and extreme physical efforts; medicine focuses on steady, balanced health.
-Even as evidence is accumulating, weight training is widely scorned, slighted and dismissed as hedonistic and extreme, tainted by the anabolic steroid abuse of a few.

On muscle and health
-Function is largely determined by how much fat and muscle a person has, and where that fat and muscle are located.
-Exercise can interact with traditional medicine, as a standalone treatment, or alternative treatment or adjunctive treatment.
-Research on strength training as an antidepressant: lifting weights affects the brain like a drug. And because exercise has no adverse side effects for most people, it has a more favorable risk-benefit ratio than drugs.
-Muscle is the biggest sink for glucose disposal in the body, so people who have proportionally less muscle are unable to metabolize glucose as well as people who have more muscle.
-Sensitivity to insulin is directly related to muscle mass and inversely proportional to adiposity.
-It is time that the recommendation of “weight loss” be replaced with “muscle gain and fat loss” as a standard medical recommendation for people with diabetes and anyone who is overweight and obese.

[Kate Laycoax · Rating 4 out of 5]

💪📖 STRONGER 📖💪

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (A powerhouse of knowledge!)

If you’ve ever doubted the transformative power of strength training, Stronger will absolutely change your mind! Michael Joseph Gross takes us on a fascinating journey through history, science, and culture, uncovering the hidden legacy of muscle—from the battlefields of ancient Greece to Victorian-era women lifting weights in forgotten gyms, all the way to groundbreaking research proving that even 90 year olds can gain strength through lifting! 🏋️‍♂️✨

What makes this book stand out is its blend of history, science, and real-world application—all delivered with warmth, wit, and compelling storytelling. It challenges the outdated brain vs. brawn stereotype and sheds light on how weight training is not just for athletes, but for everyone looking to improve longevity, combat chronic diseases, and reclaim control over their bodies. While some of it could feel really lengthy and dense at times, I appreciated all of the information I was able to take in because of this book. It really changed my outlook on muscle strength and its importance, and how to get stronger to live my best life.

If you love:
🏛 Deep dives into historical & cultural perspectives on strength
📚 Science backed insights on muscle & longevity
💪 Practical, empowering takeaways on strength training
🔥 A book that will make you WANT to hit the gym

Then Stronger is a must read! Whether you're a seasoned lifter or someone who's never picked up a dumbbell, this book will change the way you think about strength—both physical and mental. I highly recommend it!

Thank you to NetGalley, Michael Joseph Gross, and Penguin Group Dutton for the eARC of this book.

[Sonny Fertile · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knowing what we know now and have known for at least half a century, it's scandalous that doctors are not prescribeing resistance training and vigourous aerobic exercise for prevention as well as treatment for a whole host of the imminent age-related illnesses and chronic diseases that are coming for us all. And this advice should be dispensed to all patient age groups but especially for seniors in 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s knowing that by not doing so, they are in many cases knowingly failing miserably in upholding the Hippocratic Oath they took and as such they are causing undue harm to their patients.
Even highly invasive hip, knee, rotator cuff and the ever increasing full shoulder replacement surgeries can, in many cases, be rendered completely avoidable.
Muscle, strength, power and endurance are not something that should only be associated with young athletes. Although to a lesser degree, they are still vital to maintaining a healthier body as well as a sharper mind. Progressive resistance at any age will guarantee to increase longevity, make us stronger and so more comfortable with significantly less pain, and still bathing ourselves by remaining independently mobile in our 90s instead of sitting in our own feces in a wheelchair in the lobby our wing in the old age home we have been relegated to, staring mindlessly at a second rate TV screen playing children shows for 8 to 12 hours a day just waiting for it all to end along with everyone else in the room.
.

[lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I expressed my disappointment in the book A Physical Education by Casey Johnston a neighbor suggested reading this instead. It's very technical in way that Johnston's book was not, but it's not triggering to read, which earns it an extra star. When the book talked about strength training as it related to real people I loved it. When it talked about the history of our knowledge of muscles and health I liked it. When it went into the weeds with medical studies (many of which seemed dubious, as even the authors of the studies admitted at some point) and science this and that I was pretty bored. (And skeptical; my grandmother was able to bounce back from a stroke at age 74 because of her daily walking and yoga practices; she abhorred weight training, yet was able to keep fit and strong well into her 80s, so studies that show that walking and yoga are useless are clearly. . . well, useless.) However, I did like this so much more than A Physical Education, and it had great information, and I loved reading about Jan Thomas's journey into weight lifting so much more that Casey Johnston's journey.

[Carrie]

Part 3 of this book, “How Muscle Is a Matter of Life and Death” is stellar. It should be required reading for anyone in a health-related field. Really, for anyone who cares at all about health and longevity. It discusses some of the science on strength building, but in an accessible, interesting, anecdotal way. Get the book and then just read the 150 pages or so that make up Part 3.

I would like to see that published separately so it’s more accessible to everyone, even when they don’t have the patience, interest, and time to wade through the first two parts, which are well-written, but too esoteric (and long) for most readers. I would love to see an abridged version of the book that mentions all the stuff from the first 215 pages in one introductory chapter, and then goes into Part 3. It’s a shame to lose audience for that, just because it’s buried after the rest.

[Lindsey Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I enjoyed this book because of how it relates so well to my profession in physical therapy. I especially enjoyed the discussion of mind-body dualism and history of women in powerlifting. However, I will agree with many reviewers that it felt a little disorganized at times by how it would switch back and forth between stories, people and topics. From my understanding of current research, some of the information was actually a little outdated already. Like much of media, I also felt that the book failed to acknowledge the huge role of physical therapy in facilitating strength training in the public or the communities (for example, CrossFit or Barbell Medicine) that are currently making a big push toward strength for health. However, I am aware that I am very biased in this way.

[Kalyan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review reflects my personal experience with the book, and it is purely subjective. As the title suggests, Stronger delves into the history of muscle and the importance of weight and resistance training. The points are clearly articulated, and the book does a good job of addressing its central themes.

However, it didn’t resonate with me personally. I found it dry and unengaging, and it didn’t satisfy my intellectual curiosity. Perhaps I picked the wrong genre or was looking for something more stimulating. While the book can serve as a useful reference or guide, it didn’t captivate me in the way I had hoped.

I would say it’s better suited to those specifically interested in the subject, but it didn’t quite match my tastes.

[Leah Christensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went back and forth on whether this book deserved 3 or 4 stars. It is a slow read. I would have preferred if that the three chapters on Greek history were condensed into one. However, the author presents a perspective on muscle that is largely missing from our culture, but shouldn't be. This book is methodically researched and the author is painstakingly deliberate as he lays out his points. This book has a lot of great information for people interested in the topic.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book could have been tightened—the first section especially dragged for me, with all the historical detail—but overall enjoyed and it makes me feel even more committed to strength training (having recently discovered it can keep me in running shape, which running alone can no longer do). I did find the epilogue slightly strange, in that it seems aimed to be an uplifting story of recovery after a bad car accident, but all I could think was “…wear a seat belt?”

[Billy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stronger is a fascinating book about the importance of muscle strength, especially as we age, and the history of of the study of strength and body building, going as far back as the ancient Greeks. More than half the book is devoted to the history of body building, so if you're just looking for reasons to work out with weights, you may need to skip far ahead. But I found the entire audiobook to be an interesting listen, so I don't recommend skipping any of it.

[Christa Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a powerlifter or a kinesiology student, this might be super interesting for you! If you are not, then it probably won’t hold your attention for long. Tells the story of muscle throughout history: at the Greek Olympics, 20th century American circuses, and modern-day nursing homes. TLDR: lift weights for better health in old age!

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC 💪🏻

[Eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely fascinating exploration of muscle—its science, its symbolism, and its profound impact on our lives. This isn’t just a book about strength in the gym; it’s an exploration of how muscle shapes us physically, emotionally, and even culturally.

Gross weaves together history, cutting-edge research, personal narratives, and compelling interviews to reveal muscle as more than just a biological function—it’s a force that defines human resilience, ambition, and identity. From the athletic elite to those battling illness, from evolutionary biology to the modern fitness industry, the book uncovers the surprising and often overlooked role that muscle plays in our everyday existence.

What makes Stronger so gripping is Gross’s storytelling. He has a gift for making complex science both accessible and deeply personal, connecting readers to the subject in ways they might not expect. His writing is engaging, insightful, and often moving, making this book a must-read not only for athletes and fitness enthusiasts but for anyone interested in the human body and human potential.

Whether you’re someone who lifts weights, runs marathons, or simply wants to understand the extraordinary power hidden beneath your skin, Stronger is an eye-opening and empowering read. Highly recommend!

[Mike Cross · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book with great information and a compelling argument for progressive resistance training (i.e. weight lifting). Only drawback is that it gets weighed down in stories and mini biographies that may add interest to some, but not me. However, the rest of the book was so exceptional that it still earns 4 stars from me. Highly recommended.