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Get Strong: The Ultimate 16-Week Transformation Program For gaining Muscle And Strength―Using The Power Of Progressive Calisthenics
How to Build a Better Body Fast Where do you belong on the strength continuum? And where do you want to be? Too often, we know what we should be doing to gain strength, but we lack direction, a plan, motivation and intelligent guidance to make appreciable gains over the long haul. We have no real goal, no proper focus and therefore underachieve—going nowhere with our strength… Get Strong is a guidebook for those who are dissatisfied with their current rate of progress—and who want to effect lasting changes, fast. Your great advantage with the Get Strong program is the intelligent realism of its plan. While the Kavadlo brothers have achieved supreme feats of calisthenics strength—like the one-arm pull up, the human flag and the back lever—they have also spent decades helping thousands of clients meet and often exceed their training goals.
- GenresFitness
220 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 2018
3 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 27, 2021
The good
- Presents a solid, progressive bodyweight routine that will likely work well for most people.
- The routine starts easy enough to work for almost any fitness level and works up to a solid intermediate level.
- It's a routine that consists of 4 phases, each 4 weeks long, with really nice "tests" to do at the end of each phase to make sure you're ready to go on to the next one. This creates a clear, unambiguous way to see your progression, which is very motivating.
- The routine includes a good range of upper body, core, and lower body exercises. There are a few items missing, but that's intentionally done to make the routine rely on as little equipment as possible (i.e., only a pull-up bar) and as accessible as possible (it doesn't go into advanced exercises). There is a section on supplemental exercises that covers some of the missing pieces if you do have the equipment / ability.
The not so good
- The routine doesn't extend into more advanced levels. If you want to push your bodyweight fitness further, Convict Conditioning is probably a better fit.
- The book doesn't cover how to deal with a lack of equipment and how to creatively use your environment to be able to truly train anywhere. Your Body is Your Gym is stronger in this area.
- I felt like the details on how to do the exercises were a little thin. There are descriptions, and photos, and if you've been training for a while, that's probably enough. But I worry that for beginners, there are a lot of critical tips that are missing: e.g., for most newbies, a full-depth two-legged squat, let alone the one-leg version, is a significant flexibility challenge, and it feels like the book doesn't spend nearly enough time addressing that, talking about the importance of keeping your heel on the ground (and what to do if it refuses to stay down), properly engaging the posterior chain in the squat, and so on. Similarly, for the pushing exercises, there's not enough mention of the proper way to position your shoulders to keep the rotator cuff safe. So if you do follow the routine in this book, make sure to go out and watch videos of how to do these exercises to learn how to do them efficiently and safely.
- The routine and supplemental exercises fill only about half of the book. The other half is mostly motivational essays, random thoughts on exercise / mindset / diet, and a bunch of ads for other books at the end. And given that almost every page has huge photos of the Kavaldo brothers, it feels a little bit like filler content: i.e., "well, we wanted to share this great routine with the world, and we did that, but it's not quite enough for a proper book, so let's pad it out with random other content." I'm sure some people will find those essays helpful, but I found myself skipping most of them.
- Presents a solid, progressive bodyweight routine that will likely work well for most people.
- The routine starts easy enough to work for almost any fitness level and works up to a solid intermediate level.
- It's a routine that consists of 4 phases, each 4 weeks long, with really nice "tests" to do at the end of each phase to make sure you're ready to go on to the next one. This creates a clear, unambiguous way to see your progression, which is very motivating.
- The routine includes a good range of upper body, core, and lower body exercises. There are a few items missing, but that's intentionally done to make the routine rely on as little equipment as possible (i.e., only a pull-up bar) and as accessible as possible (it doesn't go into advanced exercises). There is a section on supplemental exercises that covers some of the missing pieces if you do have the equipment / ability.
The not so good
- The routine doesn't extend into more advanced levels. If you want to push your bodyweight fitness further, Convict Conditioning is probably a better fit.
- The book doesn't cover how to deal with a lack of equipment and how to creatively use your environment to be able to truly train anywhere. Your Body is Your Gym is stronger in this area.
- I felt like the details on how to do the exercises were a little thin. There are descriptions, and photos, and if you've been training for a while, that's probably enough. But I worry that for beginners, there are a lot of critical tips that are missing: e.g., for most newbies, a full-depth two-legged squat, let alone the one-leg version, is a significant flexibility challenge, and it feels like the book doesn't spend nearly enough time addressing that, talking about the importance of keeping your heel on the ground (and what to do if it refuses to stay down), properly engaging the posterior chain in the squat, and so on. Similarly, for the pushing exercises, there's not enough mention of the proper way to position your shoulders to keep the rotator cuff safe. So if you do follow the routine in this book, make sure to go out and watch videos of how to do these exercises to learn how to do them efficiently and safely.
- The routine and supplemental exercises fill only about half of the book. The other half is mostly motivational essays, random thoughts on exercise / mindset / diet, and a bunch of ads for other books at the end. And given that almost every page has huge photos of the Kavaldo brothers, it feels a little bit like filler content: i.e., "well, we wanted to share this great routine with the world, and we did that, but it's not quite enough for a proper book, so let's pad it out with random other content." I'm sure some people will find those essays helpful, but I found myself skipping most of them.
February 18, 2019
I thought this ebook was underwhelming, while Al Kavadlo's other stuff is actually very good. The content was mostly a rehash of earlier material. I didn’t learn much new things, except for the Valsalva maneuver – which is a nice tip, btw. The "stay strong" plan is another good pointer to give to calisthenics noobs, because after people reach their goals, they often don't have a plan to stay strong and get fat and/or weak again.
Two tips I didn’t see were this: 1) write down your daily routine and results and evaluate and 2) use youtube – you will learn a lot from just watching others, especially if they’re good. If you’ve read plenty about calisthenics, I’d advice to skip this book, btw. If you’re new to calisthenics, I’d advise you to read DragonDoor’s other calisthenics-classics first, namely “Convict Conditioning” (both part 1 and 2). Matt Schifferle also wrote a good calisthenics ebook “Fitness Independence”; Ross Enamait has produced some great stuff, also.
Anyway, I’d love to join a Kavadlo brothers fitness clinic some day. If they’d ever visit my country, I’d pay good money to see them do their routine and ask them for some tips on mine.
Two tips I didn’t see were this: 1) write down your daily routine and results and evaluate and 2) use youtube – you will learn a lot from just watching others, especially if they’re good. If you’ve read plenty about calisthenics, I’d advice to skip this book, btw. If you’re new to calisthenics, I’d advise you to read DragonDoor’s other calisthenics-classics first, namely “Convict Conditioning” (both part 1 and 2). Matt Schifferle also wrote a good calisthenics ebook “Fitness Independence”; Ross Enamait has produced some great stuff, also.
Anyway, I’d love to join a Kavadlo brothers fitness clinic some day. If they’d ever visit my country, I’d pay good money to see them do their routine and ask them for some tips on mine.
September 9, 2017
My son, a strength and conditioning coach, turned me on to the Kavadlo brothers. This book presents a great routine that even a weakling like me can start out with. The exercises are explained well and interesting enough that I plan to continue for a long time. Plus no gym required. Perfect for misanthropes like me.
March 7, 2023
Good series of progressions, but far too much filler material
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews