Total Women's Fitness: Releasing the Inner You Paperback – January 23, 2006

Great stuff, love this reference. Motivating, informative!

First of all, WOW, this book is HUGE! There are over 500 pages of fitness advice, photos, and motivation. It begins with a breakdown of equipment, including safety equipment. One thing I enjoy is it also goes into the physiology of how the body works and how it is affected by what we do with it. It has chapters for beginning strength routines, and also intermediate and advanced, so you can grow with this book, which is really nice. There are also separate chapters for each of the specific muscle groups. Name it, it's in here. Cardio, nutrition....even information on fitness careers and taking it to the competitive level. The nutrition section goes into vitamins and other nutrients as well as womens' health issues. I really enjoyed the chapters "Staying Motivated" and "Getting in Shape Doesn't Have to be Boring", because let's face it, losing motivation can be a killer to keeping up a fitness regimine. Throughout the book are photos of the beautiful fitness pros you see in Oxygen Magazine, I find these ladies to be very motivating to look at. I highly recommend this book, especially if you like Oxygen Magazine. The authors show both knowledge and sensibility, and it is very motivating and well balanced.

It's definitely geared towards aspiring fitness models and competitors, not women just looking to lose weight and get healthy.And all the pictures of scantily clad fitness models were just really annoying! It's like this is a book about women's fitness written for men, seriously. Not to mention it promotes a VERY unrealistic image of what a fit woman should look like...Add to this the chapters on plastic surgery (because looks are important in life - I'm paraphrasing here, but that is what it says) and make up tips??? Plastic surgery and make up have NOTHING to do with a woman's health and fitness! I was so insulted by this I returned this book for a refund!So yeah, I'd say if you can ignore the scantily clad, fake tanned, siliconed models and the chapters on make up and cosmetic surgery, you can get something out of this. But trust me, there are MUCH better books out there than this one (and that don't insult your intelligence!).Check out books by Denise Austin - they are well researched, and she has been in the business for years, plus she has a degree in exercise physiology.For resistance type exercises, Margaret Richard is one of THE best - she has one book out called 'Body Electric' which is excellent - her dvds and videos are great, too! (plus her routines don't require a gym, though you could easily do them there, since they are all free weights, or in some instances, no weights).For weight training in general, you can't go wrong with Bill Pearl's books - Getting Stronger is top notch, and Inner Keys to the Universe is the size of a phone book with LOADS of great info and exercises (which took him 4 years to write and research).

This was an interesting read- it does have alot of good and interesting information- but it seems more geared toward someone getting into figure competitions than your average Jane looking just to get healthy and not hide under a towel in her bathing suit. So if you're serious about competing- give it a read. If you're looking for a general fitness book- pass on this one. MHO.

There are other ways of getting the very basic information that is in this book. Save your money.