The Science of Lifting

by Greg Nuckols, Omar Isuf

Genres: Fitness, Nonfiction, Health, Bodies, Science, Sports

98 pages, ebook

First published March 25, 2015

Reviews

[Daryl]

I love the premise: simple models for the complex system that's your body under stress. The charts were great, informative but not overly precise. And the generalizability means that I have a foundation to build useful knowledge while sifting through the thousands of fitness resources.

[Joeyarnaudgmail.Com]

The art and science of lifting are great books to read as a beginner in order to save time figuring out what is important in diet and training and what types of things tend to work rather than finding i through trial and error.

[Bret Gourdie]

I was looking for something more actionable, I suppose. Writing style was weird

[Hersh]

A little deeper dive than it’s companion book. Covers the basics

[Azam Ch.]

i learned very little,
it read like a bunch of random articles glued together,
not well organised and just throws random information and theories at you and moves on

[Michal Palczewski]

Pretty straight forward read. Lift more, but not too much to make muscle gains. Novices don't need to train as much, advanced should train more with more volume. It's a little more nuanced that that, but not much. Overall I thought it was interesting and I will take it to heart when designing my workouts. I don't think this will make as huge of a difference as something like Starting Strength, but it will make a positive improvement.

[Joni H]

A great continuation of The Art of Lifting. Goes over the scientific fundamentals of training and diet (largely training) and it'll certainly set the reader up for more "specialized" books

[Matěj]

This book will save you a lot of time on research. Concise and clearly argumented.

[Sharon]

Much like The Art of Lifting, this is more of a quick handbook about what is and isn't BS, as opposed to a comprehensive explanation of exercise physiology. This book definitely feels more substantive though, maybe because there was more content that was new to me.

I really appreciated the graphics in this one, especially the ones for the models about workload and recovery. Probably the most important thing for me was finally being convinced of the value of deload weeks. I'm also glad to have learned why hypertrophy is important -- not that I was opposed to increasing muscle size before, but I didn't quite understand the relationship with strength.

Overall I think these were good books to read after putting Liftoff: Couch to Barbell into action. I still think they'd be confusing for someone with *no* fitness experience, but that's okay.

[j]

Continuation of The Art of Lifting with a little more science to it. Breezy read. The book is focused more on building strength rather than hypertrophy, though hypertrophy is still mentioned a few times throughout the book.

[Jonathan Pinlac]

An overview of some exercise science. There's definitely a few gems in here that I'll be incorporating into my routine.

I would love a more broad and in-depth overview, but I suppose that wasn't the goal of the book.

[Thomas]

A great guide that offers models for how to think about training rather than being a big list of prescritive instructions. If you've spent any time on Nuckols' website most of it won't be terribly new, but it is nice to have the information all together in a condensed way.

[Tiago F]

Great book. Not too long but with all the important information. Highly recommend it.

[Jim Cummings]

Really enjoyed this book as it cut through the clutter of all the different advice out there about lifting and strength. Only ~100 pages so it is a great bang-for-your-buck!

[Dean]

Definitely a reread in the near future.

[Aitor Villarón]

Just what I expected. Read The Art of Lifting first to understand well what is written in The Science of Lifting.

[Jeff]

Probably a great intro read for someone unfamiliar with exercise science and strength training

[Stephen]

Pretty informative book. As a pretty new lifter, pretty new to educating myself on weightlifting, I learned quite a bit from this. Enjoyable to read, and supported by scientific studies.

[Guilherme Zeitounlian]

This book is a companion to The Art of Lifting, and, in many ways, the more interesting of the two.

It dives deeper into models, with more references, charts, and structured insights—while still keeping a down-to-earth and practical tone.

It delivers solid knowledge in relatively few pages, making it both efficient and engaging.

Still, the tone is down-to-earth and practical, and it gives good knowledge in relatively few pages. I enjoyed it very much, 5/5.

[Tibor]

A great first read if you're trying to get into the science of lifting. The book serves as a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals, which makes it the perfect start for newly interested readers of the scientific side of strength training.

For further reading, I suggest Scientific Principles of Strength Training.

[DW]

Such a smart, reasonable presentation of advice. Not one size fits all.

It helped to temper some other unreasonable advice I'd gotten from other sources.