The New Rules of Lifting Book Review - Relevant For Runners?

The New Rules of Lifting is was written by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove and presents the basic premise that it is not which muscles you work out at the gym that makes a real difference in your body, but how you move those muscles.

The New Rules of Lifting are based upon using muscles in tandem and in very natural ways, rather than isolating your muscles and working your muscles in a way that your body will never need outside of a gym. I think that the programs in the book could be especially relevant for runners looking to cross train. The book provides a year’s worth of workouts comprised of 6 basic movements:

• 
  The Squat
  


• 
  The Deadlift
  


• 
  The Lunge
  


• 
  Pushing
  


• 
  Pulling
  


• 
  Twisting

The book is divided into six sections, but it can easily be broken into three basic parts.

Part 1

The first part of the book contains the “Facts” and “Techniques” sections, which give a very broad overview of weight lifting in general and The New Rules of Lifting specifically. There are 20 rules spelled that make up the “new rules”, the first 19 of which appear in these two sections.

The six basic movements are introduced and briefly explained, and there is a specific warm-up plan that prepares the body for those six movements. I do not completely agree with how the authors feel on the importance of flexibility, but my main athletic pursuits are on the road and not in a gym.

I feel that better flexibility is important for preventing injury, and especially as a runner it can give you a competitive edge.

Part 2

The second part of the book contains the “Exercises” and “Programs”. The “Exercises” section is broken into each of the six movements, where a detailed description of the movement is given. The muscles that are used to complete the movement and the necessary technique to safely complete the movement are provided for each, as well as describing the functional importance of that movement outside of the gym. There are a few different exercises shown for each movement with variations and descriptions. Most of the exercises are illustrated with black and white photos.

One of the things that bothered me about the “Exercises” section was that each exercise lists which programs that it is used in. That is a good thing, but there has been nothing but passing references to those programs up to that part of the book so the reader is left with no idea what those programs are about.

Granted, the names are not particularly complicated (Break-In, Fat Loss, Hypertrophy, and Strength levels I through III), but the first page to the “Programs” section should have been included before the “Exercises”, followed by all of the exercises and then followed by the programs.

Part 3

The third part of the book contains the nutritional information. Explaining how carbohydrates, fats, and proteins are processed by the body was fairly straightforward and basic. There is a good description of how the metabolism works and time is spent describing how too much of a caloric deficit is counterproductive.

Unfortunately, the actual food lists were not particularly useful. Throughout most of the book, humor is used sparingly but well. The humor in the “Clean Eating” chapter makes the food lists next to worthless. You can go off of the “A” list of things you should definitely be incorporating into your diet, but past that the author even tells you he doesn’t agree with what he is writing.

Mention of his own favorite foods would have been fine as an example that deviation is all right, but I do not want to have to read an entire description to find out that something is ranked higher than it is supposed to be.

I also completely disagree with the author’s stance that caffeine is harmless.

Conclusion

The book is a great primer for beginners that will get them set off in the right direction for runners who want to cross train and incorporate a weight routine. I also think that this book would be well received by intermediate lifters such as college athletes, who may know a few programs to help them with their sports but who have not spend a lot of time developing their own programs. If you are in a funk, then it may be worth taking a look at the book no matter how experienced you are, if only for the specific programs listed in the book.

However, most experienced lifters should probably either give The New Rules of Lifting a pass or just skim it at the library as most of it is very foundational.

In my own experience, I’ve used a few of the fat loss programs during my marathon training to good effect and would recommend that you should start there if you are looking to improve your own racing.

The New Rules of Lifting Book Review - Relevant For Runners?