I've read a lot of workout books. These are the ones I've tried.
Power to the People by Pavel. This doubled my shitty overhead press and got me to a 345 lbs deadlift. I did not build a lot of muscle though, so I ended up rounding this pulling strength out with other programs. This book has to be the fastest way to get stronger out of any of them I've ever tried, but you will build very little size. If you've been bodybuilding for a while and you want to see what your maxes are at after a couple months, give this a shot. You can not fail.
Sidenote: The Russian Bear routine is retarded. Don't ever attempt it with the deadlift, your back will not take kindly to it. For every positive review I've read, there are at least 5 negative reviews of this program that involved career ending, yes career ending injuries.
If you're going to do it, use it with something that isn't technical or as heavy. Bodybuilders don't waste their time with overally technical movements because technique breaks down after so many reps.
Starting Strength by Rippetoe. This built up my legs a decent amount and my upper body lagged behind quite a bit. I've done SS a couple times, I used to do it for a month or two after a layoff, but I've since found better programs for that. It seems like every time I started doing this program, I'd inevitably get derailed after a month or two of decent gains.
Enter the Kettlebell Program Minimum : I did this program for a week and thought it was retarded. Turkish getups do not replace presses, swings are great though.
Convict Conditioning : I did not get anywhere with training Convict Conditioning
to the letter. Every time I used CC, I ended up using just the exercises and doing my own rep/set schemes with periodization. If you go on the Dragondoor forums, you'll find this to be the case for everyone who sticks with CC and gets somewhere. They use their own rep/set scheme. A common change is to only go up to 15-20 reps in a set and hit each exercise at least 2 times a week. An A/B format for M/T/Th/F would work well here.
Building the Gymnastic Body : I did not do any sort of "program" from this book, but the book has many concepts that I still use today. I love the "Steady State" protocol because it allows you injury free gains and basically a lifetime of training longevity if you have a decent program.
I also did the front lever + planche program for a couple months (until I got injured, pushed too hard for no good reason) from
the BtGB article in 2004.
Foundation One. This program was badass. I did it for 6 months. I developed a lot of flexibility and rounded out my strength. My leg strength suffered but I also took my time with the leg progressions, so that might have been why. No injuries and nothing but strength and mass gains. A+ program from me.
Jame Lewis aka Chaos and Pain Issuance of Insanity: He doesn't really have a program, but he advocates lifting very heavy weights for singles, doubles and triples. On your "off days" you'll do stuff like 100 pullups or "The Bear", which is a barbell circuit routine. You basically spend your off days getting a pump. I had a lot of fun lifting this way, but I burned out hard after six or eight weeks.
It seems the older I get, the more patient I get with this stuff. I got leaner and stronger with all that training volume, but my joints hated me so I quit doing it. Right now I've been doing a combination of Bryce Lane's 50/20 and the Steady State Training Cycle (from Building the Gymnastic Body). SSTC is where you stay at the same rep/set range for 8-12 weeks and then you bump it up. You pick an exercise that is challenging but not quite to failure and you work with it for 8-12 weeks until it's a feather. Your periodization model looks like overload - moderate load - underload (or deload). This knowledge right here has been the most useful out of every single book I've read.
Bryce Lane's 50/20 is where you take an exercise and try to rep it out 50 times in 20 minutes. You get strength and mass gains and a cardio benefit. This is easily one of my favorite programs because you just set a stopwatch and do work.
Here is a link :
http://affectinggravity.blogspot.com/201...-5020.html