Bullet-Proof Abs: 2nd Edition of Beyond Crunches

by Pavel Tsatsouline

Discover How to Gain Maximum Muscle-Strength in Minimum Time, Using Breakthrough Techniques That Blow the Roof Off Traditional Ab Exercises.As a former Soviet Union Special Forces conditioning coach Pavel Tsatsouline already knew a thing or two about how to create bullet-stopping abs. Since then, he has combed the world to pry out this select group of primevally powerful ab exercises-guaranteed to yield the fastest, most effective results known to man. According to Pavel, Crunches belong on the junk pile of history, next to Communism. 'Feeling the burn' with high reps is a waste of time! Save yourself countless hours of unrewarding, if not useless-if not damaging-toil. Get with the program. Make fast gains and achieve blistering, rock-hard abs now.Fry your abs without the spine-wrecking, neck-jerking stress of traditional crunches-using this radical situp designed by the world's leading back and muscle function expert, Professor Janda, from Czechoslovakia.No one-but no one-has ever matched Bruce Lee's ripped-beyond-belief abs. What was his favorite exercise? Here it is. Now you can rip your own abs to eye-popping shreds and reclassify yourself as superhuman.When it came to wanting titanium abs yesterday, the Soviet Special Forces didn't believe in delayed gratification. Pavel gave them what they wanted. If you want abs that'll put you in the world's top one percent, this cruel and unusual drill does the trick.

Genres: Fitness, Health

128 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2000

Reviews

[Mark Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book in regards strengthening the abs and being better conditioned as an athlete. There are great suggestion present in this book.

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth borrowing from library; definitely not worth buying. I say that as a big Pavel fan, too. Pros and cons of the book:

Pros:
1. Relatively easy to read. Helpful pictures.
2. He does a good job steering the trainee away from metrosexual exercises like "crunches." A lot of people never reach their ab potential simply because they think if they want the coveted "six pack" they have to do hundreds of crunches a day. Few things are more boring. Pavel shows simpler (yet equally difficult) ways to get there.
3. His section on the ab-anatomy is helpful, exploding some myths about people wanting only to train the "lower abs" (look in an anatomy book. There is no such muscle).
4. Has a few decent pointers and a reasonable goal setting.

Cons:

~1. Spends the first few pages advertising his own products as a safer alternative to sit ups. This is very close to a bait-and-switch. I dropped the rating two stars simply for this.
~2. Correct sit ups aren't as difficult as he makes them out to be.
~3. Hanging leg raises are probably the best exercise. Pavel warns against them because gymnasts develop hip flexor problems. Maybe they do, but few people ever approach that intense level of training. Doing 4 x 10 hanging leg raises 5-6 days a week won't give you hip flexor problems. In fact, it will strengthen your entire core to insane levels.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only thing I really don't like about Tsatsouline's books is that they are spread out with big pictures and big repeats of in-text only made large to get the book volume. Aside from that there is some good information here for progressively stronger ab muscle. I do not know about using his "device" but performing sit ups properly is a big plus till you work up to using an ab roll. Also something that is absent from this book is leg raises which would develop enough muscular strength to do at least ab roll outs on the knee. The key is to away keep the intensity high so that your muscles keep developing.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good, non-traditional exercises for the abs. A whole book on abs gets a bit old though. It does have some great explanations for why his way works and why you shouldn't do what everyone else does.

[Chrisx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really good tips, but the ads for the "abs pavelizer" make it sadly sound like any other commercial that promises you abs.