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Editorial Review Product Description
Warning:This synopsis of The Weightlifting Attic is an abbreviated version of the unabridged book. It contains seven chapters that covers the attic training over twelve months. Therefore, if you own the unabridged voluminous edition, you should not purchase this edition.
Lifting weights to enhance physical health is only one of many goals which the authors of this book were set to achieve. Initially, we did not have a definitive or legible outline of our goals, or the means to achieve them. Yet, we both shared the fascination with defying gravity and attempting to stay tall and fit for as long as we would live. With old age came the maturity and clarity of thoughts that empowered us to go against the tradition of slowing down and sitting on the side lines as we grew older. The first author published his two daring textbooks on a sport that is hardly known to the populace. Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training (Essentials, for short) touched many students of knowledge, those who sought a mean to structure sound and reliable strengthening programs. Essentials required twenty years of hard work in order to get published. The reward was getting the second author to make sense of its prophecy.
Essentials introduced Olympic Weightlifting in a context of interdisciplinary amalgam, where biological and medical sciences were applied to the mechanics of the human body during exercise; physical and mathematical sciences to the techniques of lifting and statistics of combining lifting routines and achieving predictable outcome; and finally, psychological and behavioral sciences to the mind setting and planning of the trainer and the trainee.As such, Essentials unveiled the secrecy of the exclusive sport of iron men, they who trained in abandoned and remotely connected gyms, with highly experienced coaches who in turn lacked the means of disseminating the knowledge of training for ultimate strength with the safest precautions.Another imminent hurdle that Essentials had to overcome was introducing Olympic Weightlifting to educational institutions that shied away from an apparently aggressive sport. Surprisingly, schools put Olympic Weightlifting in the same ranks as Boxing as opposed to the high skill required in implementing the laws of mechanics in Weightlifting.Today, most schools in the United States sanction high-risk sports such as rope climbing which appealed to the local community as an inevitable skill for firefighters in saving lives.
Smorenburg was one of many silent readers whose intuition led him to sense the immediate need to stand tall and strong in order to better his lifestyle and help others do the same. With perseverance and consistent search and training, Smorenburg triumphed over the inevitable failure of health clubs in educating their members on the proper methods of training. Opening a private health club for weight lifting defies all rules of sound investment, since those who are willing to train and remain fit and healthy must also have extra means of securing their basic needs before indulging in the playful activities of weight lifting. Even if a health club was fortunate enough to have affluent patrons who could make it profitable, it is almost impossible to recruit capable and dedicated trainers due to the enormous length of preparation and the complexity of studying multiple disciplines in order to be competent in physical education. Finally, the relationship between trainers and trainees, that must last for many years before significant improvement in health and fitness could materialize, is a bar on private gyms.
The Weightlifting Attic was a logical consequence of the aforementioned hurdles that confront private health clubs, finding the right trainer, and planning a sound and reliable training routine.
Mohamed F. El-Hewie
Woodland park, New Jersey, July 2010.
Sjaak Smorenburg
Houten, The Netherlands, July 2010.
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