Bodybuilding Revealed by Will Brink

Rating: Highly Recommended!

If this book were available in 1983 when I started bodybuilding, it would have changed my life. It took me three decades of floundering and self-experimentation for me to learn what’s in this book. To gain muscle, you need proper nutrition and this book tells you how to do it and maximize your bodybuilding progress. If you only could buy one book, this is the one I would recommend. The $47 Bodybuilding Revealed book is an amazing value but don’t pay $30 more for the “Deluxe Edition”, its a waste of money. More on that later in the review.

First let me start out by saying that Bodybuilding Revealed is an amazing book. If there were a university level class for personal trainers of professional athletes, this would be the textbook. As I mentioned before, you can find ALL of this information for free somewhere on the internet; however, it could take you a lifetime to assemble it all and figure out what information you found was real and what is BS. This is a great book for a beginner or intermediate bodybuilder, the only people who don’t need this book are IFBB pros. Bodybuilding Revealed covers everything: nutrition, training, cardio, and supplements. Honestly, I think this book is worth more than $47.

Lets start with the basics. Not only is Bodybuilding Revealed very well written and professionally edited, but its the only bodybuilding book I have seen that gives research references at the end of every section. If you question anything he says, you can look at the research and see for yourself. It goes without saying because of his scientific rigor that he does not make any ridiculous, exaggerated claims. Not only that, but the book is engaging and funny without being unprofessional. I have always loved Will’s sense of humor! He sets the tone in the introduction:

“This plan was not smuggled out of an Eastern Bloc country during the Cold War. Nor was it given to me by aliens, or even invented in a super secret lab in the bowels of the CIA designed to make super soldiers”

Before I get into the review, let me mention that Bodybuilding Revealed is more than a book – it’s a complete organization with a “members area” and other services. To test out their customer service, I sent them two really stupid questions of the “I forgot my password” and “How can I view this document” variety and to their credit, they answer within 90 minutes each time and were very professional and helpful despite my idiotic questions. A+ for customer support! I’ll cover features in the members area later.

There are two excellent reasons to buy Bodybuilding Revealed, the nutrition section and the supplements section – either is worth the $47 alone. Will Brink does a great job laying down the foundation of nutrition. Basic nutrition textbooks are not tailored to muscle building. Bodybuilding nutritional info is usually lacking in accuracy, depth and scientific rigor. Will Brink pulls the best of each together into a concise nutritional information for the bodybuilder. He doesn’t drone on about irrelevant stuff nor does he omit important stuff. This chapter on bodybuilding nutrition is one of the best I have read. Just one little point I disagree with him on, its his premise is that you have to add a little bodyfat to gain muscle. I respectfully disagree on this point but hey, maybe I am wrong. I worry that the excuse they have been looking for to get fat. What I love about Will is that like myself, he is a skeptic. He demands solid research to prove points and has little tolerance for those silly myths that have become “common knowledge”. For example, in his discussion of daily protein intake requirements and meal size, he does a great job of debunking the myth that the body can only digest 30g protein at a time. There is a great section on Essential Fatty Acids that tells you what you need to know without making your eyes glaze over. The nutrition section has the best discussion of carbs, insulin, and glycemic index that I have even seen and its in terms us bodybuilders can understand. He spends a long time on the important subject of glycemic index and its importance for endurance, bodyfat reduction, and performance. I wish I could claim credit for thinking this up but Will Brink did, here is “Brink’s Universal Law of Nutrition” which skillfully sums up all of nutrition in my opinion:

“Total calories dictate how much you lose or gain, and macro nutrient types and ratios dictate what you lose or gain”

Brilliantly put. He then goes on to explain TDEE, RMR, EMR, TEM, EEPA in terms that the nonmathematically minded can understand and use. I love his enlightened and scientific look at the daily protein requirements of bodybuilders! I’ve been bodybuilding for nearly three decades and I still don’t know it all. The sections on fat was very enlightening to me, turns out I have always been doing the right thing without knowing why. Now I can point to research that shows what I instinctively knew from experience.

OK, everybody knows I’m anti-supplement but just for the record, I’m not against supplements for some philosophical reason, just a practical reason. Since the supplement industry is not regulated I don’t trust them to safely deliver products to me that are what the label claims. If I knew I could get pure, safe, non-toxic supplements there are some I would gladly take. Will Brink’s excellent supplement section is the only impartial and scientific review of supplements you will find. He doesn’t rate brands of supplements or even mention them. What he does is talk about ingredients: what each is, what it does, real world experience, and medical research backing the claims. What a refreshing breath of fresh air! Use this section to help weed thru the supplement-jungle of exaggerated, ridiculous claims and tell the gems apart from the crap. Will Brink also gets five gold stars for his handling of pro-hormone supplements.

There is a short discussion of cardio and the benefits of HIIT but this is not a major focus of Bodybuilding Revealed. If you are a triathlete or marathon runner and want to improve your endurance, this book wont be of much help.

There is a fine little weight training section for beginners but Bodybuilding Revealed is not an encyclopedia of exercises, it just has the basics. Its perfect for setting up beginning or intermediate routine but it doesn’t pretend to give you IFBB pro workout routines. Five gold stars for the great user interface to view the exercise videos, its the best I have ever seen. You just click on the muscle on the anatomy diagram and then in the pane to the right you see a demo video and a text description of the exercise.

One objection, I don’t like the fact that he pays $1000 for success stories. That just is asking for misleading before-after shots. Hey, I just give out t-shirts for people who are on my success stories page!

So that’s it in a nutshell, buy Bodybuilding Revealed for the nutrition and supplements sections.

Members Area

Now lets talk a bit about the members area, if I read this correctly you get lifetime access when you buy the $47 book.There is a forum, ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz – not a big deal, there are plenty of free forums out there.

The highlight of the members area is the meal planner! Nutrition is the hardest part of bodybuilding, especially for beginners and intermediates and the meal planner makes it easy. The first day or two it will be a bit time consuming to use because you will be entering all your meals as you eat them but since it lets you save meals, the tool will quickly become fast and easy. What I like about it is that it makes you very, very conscious of what’s going in your mouth and makes you realize that the quality of every calorie counts. One very minor complaint, the drop down list of foods is a bit cumbersome to use.

The online video exercise demonstrations is available in the members area as well as the book. As I mentioned before, I love the user interface. There are anatomical illustrations of the body and you click on the muscle you are interested in and the demo video appears in the right pane along with text descriptions. Very cool! This is really valuable for beginners to help them jumpstart their lifting. A lot of times, beginners are just baffled by the overwhelming information. With this you just click on the bodypart and it gives you exercises to do. For intermediate or advanced bodybuilders the videos are not of much value because they are limited to a very few basic exercises that intermediate bodybuilders already know.

The Deluxe Edition

OK, now lets cover why I said not to waste that $30 extra for the “Deluxe Edition”. It comes with six extra reports (not written by Will Brink) and none of them is even close to the quality of Will Brinks book (Bodybuilding Revealed) which I discussed above.

DOMS report – ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz
Avoiding Injury report – In all fairness, this was excellent and well written but its only 10 pages. If the author expanded this into a 200 page book, it would be excellent
Best Arm Exercises You Have Never Heard Of – If you have ever wanted new arm exercises but didn’t couldn’t think of one, this book has a zillion! Problem is that the book is very amateurish and the quality is poor. Because these exercises are so unusual you really need to watch the videos as the still photos are not sufficient to explain the movements clearly. The illustrative videos are impossible to view from a mac. The way the videos are incorporated into this book I find very awkward and hard to use. The correct, easy to use, way to do this is the way Will Brink does in his Bodybuilding Revealed book. I’m sure there are lots of good exercises in this book but I don’t have the patience to deal with its poor quality.
How to build muscle at home – It makes a big deal about “Turbulence Training” being “scientifically proven” but doesn’t explain it at all or how it relates to building muscle at home. The second bit of confusion is that the title is “How to build muscle at home” yet the photos are all taken in a gym, sends the wrong message in my opinion. The first disclaimer is a warning that you need to have a certified personal trainer show you how to do all these exercises, wow, this “free” program is getting expensive because now I have to hire a personal trainer for a few hundred bucks to show me how to do these exercises. Since this short 23 page “program” does not have any videos, you probably would need to hire a personal trainer because the tiny, poor quality photos don’t help you much. I have wasted enough time on this freebe, don’t even bother looking at it if someone gives it to you for free.
Hybrid Training Routine. OK, I liked this short 12 page document aimed at advanced bodybuilders but its the only thing in the “Deluxe Edition” that has any value in my opinion. Don’t even bother reading it if you are a beginner, its a unique training plan. Advanced bodybuilders need to constantly change their routines and sometimes its easy to start running out of ideas, this “Hybrid Training Routine” is a great tool in your toolbox. Its well written and clear but you wont be spoon fed, he doesn’t bother to explain things that an advanced bodybuilder would know – if he did that, this 12 page document would expand into a 200 page book.

Now a little about the author, Will Brink. Will Brink has written about bodybuilding for a long time and has established himself as an expert, I wont bother you with his official bio as you can read that anywhere. Although I have never met or talked to Will Brink, I feel I know him because we have some shared history. In the early days of the internet, all you could do is send emails with a clunky command-line interface and use command-line BBS systems, there was no such thing as FireFox or Internet Explorer. Bodybuilding quickly adopted the internet as a realtime way for people to discuss new supplements and training methods, misc.fitness.weights was where I got introduced to Will Brink. Back then if you wanted to learn about bodybuilding, you could read 30 year old dusty books (isometrics and calisthenics) or you could go do misc.fitness.weights for modern techniques. Will Brink (along with Patrick Arnold) was one of the most prolific posters of information and acknowledged experts and he was always on the cutting edge of supplements. Will Brink consulted for supplement companies way back then. Anyway, if I remember correctly he was the creative genius behind the first pro-hormone supplements (don’t quote me on that).

Summary: Bodybuilding Revealed by Will Brink, highly recommended.

Review Date: 5/10/2010

About eBooks

Don’t be turned off by the slightly sleazy purchase procedure of this eBook – it is legit. This book is infinitely higher quality than the sleazy sales methods would indicate. Personally, I find the 3 mile long web pages full of bold flashing text and never ending testimonials pretty offensive and even more annoying are the popups “Are you sure you want to navigate away?” when you try to leave the page without purchasing. Just grin and bear it, its worth it. I have purchased and reviewed this book and no mysterious charges have ever appeared on my credit cards, nor have I experienced any other problems. The money back guarantee is real. You can return these eBooks for any valid reason within 60 days. They do send weekly motivational and informational emails which I didn’t want but they have not sold/given my email address away to anyone – no mysterious influx of spam emails. If you buy this book and are not satisfied with it, please email me at the below address and let me know why! To the best of my ability, the review here is fair and accurate so your should be getting exactly what you expect based upon my review, and if not, I need to change my review. In four years of selling these books I have never had a single reader complaint, but if you are the first and need help getting your money back, email me at “books @ scoobysworkshop . com” – remove the spaces!

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