Opinions on New Rules of Lifting for Women?

[TexasMama]

I've read NROL/W twice and enjoyed it each time, but felt overwhelmed when I got to the descriptions/layouts for the various phases of the program. Thanks to those who posted the workout logs. They've sparked my interest in actually trying the program!

[Sophie]

I used it to regain strength after a shoulder/back injury. I do agree the layout seems really complicated - I had to make my own spreadsheets to track them and kept the book handy to make sure I was on the right one. I wish I'd known about the ones posted here! But the program itself, I liked quite a bit.

I don't love the author's writing style. But I did like that style of lifting.

[bee1forfitness]

I have the book, to make it easier for those of you who want to download the log here are the words you will need, and you may also need Excel

User Name: perturbation
Password: dominance

[KathAL79]

Originally Posted by Alta-tude

How did you keep motivated? Did you play good music?

That's a good question about the motivation. I like having a program laid out and a routine, so that worked for me. I went with my dh, which helped, too (especially since I hadn't worked out in a gym since college and the weight room at our current gym has decidedly fewer female users than male). He often worked in with me on some of the exercises. But I see your dh has just started Insanity, so that might not be an option. Another major motivation was the improvement I saw. I wasn't as experienced of an exerciser, so strength gains came pretty quickly. And I often found that I preferred one workout over the other, so having that to look forward to helped as well.

As for music, I did this at the gym, and since I prefer not to fiddle with my MP3 player or iPod (although I don't always have a choice whenever the trainers go on the prowl and start trying to talk me into signing up for a session with one of them - just because I'm not a super thin woman does NOT mean I don't know what I'm doing, so bug off...) I had to listen to whatever they're playing. But when I'm acting as DJ it does seem to help, although I need to do a better job of making playlists, because suddenly I'll find myself trying to psych myself up for the last set of whatever as Ella Fitzgerald smoothly glides through a slower paced song. Oops.

[KathAL79]

Originally Posted by Sophie

I don't love the author's writing style. But I did like that style of lifting.

Ditto. But I find Lou (minus the plagiarism allegations, which I think are for NROL rather than NROL4W) less cringe-inducing than Rachel Cosgrove (of The Female Body Breakthrough)...

[Mary09(b)]

I don't love the author's writing style. But I did like that style of lifting.

Yep, me too. Funny thing to me is I loved NROL but I can't remember a thing about NROL4W, except not liking the "Look Like a Goddess" part of the subtitle.

What's this about Lou and plagiarism?

[KathAL79]

Originally Posted by Mary09(b)

What's this about Lou and plagiarism?

Actually, I'm wrong; the accusation is that Alwyn committed plagiarism, although the part of the book quoted as being rather liberally borrowed from another author is attributed to Lou (I thought Alywn designed the programs and Lou wrote the rest, except for the nutrition section), which is why I got confused. I can't find the article mentioning NROL, but here's one by an author claiming Alywn (and presumably his coauthor Mike Rousseau) committed "copyright infringement" in their Warp Speed Fat Loss: Warp Speed Fat Loss by Alwyn Cosgrove Contains Plagiarised Material. Apparently Alwyn / Lou don't catch a mistake made by the person whose words they followed too closely (see Sophie's post on page 4 of this thread). Basically what I take from this is that Alwyn and Lou may design some good fitness programs but really aren't authorities on the science angle, so it's best not to ask them too closely about why they're doing what they're doing.

[Mary09(b)]

Interesting, thanks, Kath. It surprises me less about Alwyn than Lou, who I believe is a writer first of all, who just happens to write mostly for men's fitness magazines, if I recall right. Alwyn seems to be more a well-read personal trainer cashing in on the book and ebook market.

[pattyd0319]

Following the links to Lyle McDonald's website, there looks to be some good nutrition and diet info so I just bought an ebook to check it out.

I have both NROLW and Rachel Cosgrove's book. I would love to see a dvd workout based on NROLW. I did not like the tone of Rachel's book, kind of worse than Jillian Michaels. One quote in there 'Don't let me catch you spreading your legs on those thigh machines!'. Not all the book was that bad but I do not think I paid much attention after that. The nutrition is basically the same as you would find with P90x/Beachbody plans. I will probably end up getting rid of Rachel's book.

I like NROLFW book and listed out all the exercise and compared to all the strength tapes I have. The closest one with similar exercises was P90x Master Sculpt 5-6 and Amy Bento's All Pump Extreme. But that was a while back before Kelly's 30 minute series among others.

[Kyra]

Sorry I'm late to the party. I'm currently one workout away from finishing Stage 6 of the program, and I can tell you my experiences so far.

Like Kath, I decided to use the program to come back from an illness. I was out of commission during the latter half of last year and my fitness base went to less than zero, and this seemed like a nice, comprehensive program to more or less slap the fitness back on me. So far, although I have some quibbles with it, the program has exceeded my expectations.

I like that the movements are more athletic based; since my main interest in lifting has more or less always been to compliment other sports, I like that the program is not hypertrophy based and focuses on larger muscle groups and compound movements. There's nary a biceps curl or triceps kickback in sight, and that's FINE with me. I think the workouts are for the most part laid out in a nice progression (I'll get to the exception in a moment). There is absolutely no question I've gained a lot of strength and good quality muscle. I'm not bulky - never will be - but I'm very pleased with what I can see and feel.

The cons: The Stage 5 workouts are VERY long, especially if you strictly stick to his rest scheme. I didn't, and I still found the workouts just - long. The saving grace is, there are only 8 of them, so it was just two and a half weeks of inconvenience. (If I'd been time pressed, I'd probably have opted to just to three sets per exercise; the Stage calls for 3 - 4, and I did 4 - and would have done the interval work on the day after my weight workout.)

Also, there is some goofiness regarding the structure of the ab work that kind of made me wonder if someone didn't go on autopilot when they were developing the workouts. I had to improvise a lot to keep it sufficiently challenging, and I abandoned his set/rep scheme as written, but kept to the idea of short, killer sets.

I have no comment on the nutrition plan, because of VF guidelines, and, well, because I didn't follow it. I have a WOE that works for me, and so far I've lost about 15# without a whole lot of effort in that department.

I personally don't mind that the workouts are not on DVD. I prefer to work from paper, it seems. I have done most of them at the gym, and some at home (I have a pretty good home gym).

On the whole, I have found this a very worthwhile time investment!