The Female Body Breakthrough: The Revolutionary Strength-Training Plan for Losing Fat and Getting the Body YouWant Paperback – Illustrated, November 10, 2009

I ended up buying this book for my Kindle because - I didn't have a good phrase for it until now - I'm "skinny fat", as Rachel says. She hit the head on the nail when she said I am slender, don't want to drop any pounds on the scale necessarily, and look good in my clothes, but my arms are mush with a bone in the middle! I run half marathons a couple times a year, do P90X once or twice a week (OK or month), and occasionally do some planks for my abs, but have never achieved the body I want and hate wearing a bathing suit. I am 24 so I figure if I can't get it now I'll never get it, so I purchased her book but didn't have too high of hopes since I thought I knew what I was doing.Boy was I wrong! It was my first fitness book purchase and everything I was previously worried about in following a fitness program like this isn't an issue here. For example, I don't want to start a program that lasts a few months and then leaves you with no long-term plan, and I don't want to count every single calorie, and I better be able to drink on the weekends and eat cake on my friends' birthdays. I also don't want to have to think too much about what workout to do on what day, like "Did I lift my biceps last time, or my chest?". And I am a grad student planning a wedding so I also want to use my time efficiently.Her book gave me all this and more! Granted I'm only a couple weeks into it, but if I don't succeed it won't be because she didn't give me all the tools I needed, it will be because I got lazy or something. The rules for eating are very straightforward - I don't need to pull out her book when I'm at a restaurant because I forgot rule 47 or anything - they make sense and don't require any memorization, just common sense. The workout plans are very detailed and strengthen your body in important, natural ways rather than machines at the gym that focus on one muscle that you probably don't use much anyways, and she takes the guesswork out of which body part to train and when.Overall I recommend this book even for those of you who think you know what you're doing but can't figure out why it doesn't show in the mirror! Not only are all the workout plans very detailed, but she gives great analogies and lessons that alone can motivate you to kick your own butt in the gym. The two most important things I've learned so far are that 1) endurance running trains your body to efficiently run for long periods of time... so I've basically trained my body to not get any more fit! Oops. And 2) even if I see skinny girls in sports bras on the treadmill, they probably already had that body type and all that running to nowhere isn't going to get me the body that I want if I don't have it by now!I hope I can stick to her program because I've wasted hours a week (up to 20!) with excess cardio for half marathon training and never gotten the results I wanted. The only thing I don't care for much is all the BITCH talk, because when I'm in my clothes I'm the BITCH everyone talks about ;) and now when I'm in my swimsuit I will be too!

I became familiar with Rachel Cosgrove after discovering "The New Rules of Lifting for Women" (also an excellent book).I read on her blog months ago that she was writing this book and I've been anxiously waiting for it to be published. I am not disappointed. You can tell from the get-go that Rachel is an expert in her field. She has heard it all and she has many answers I have not read elsewhere. She really hits the nail on the head with her advise.What I like most about the exercises is that they build in difficulty over time. The pictures of each exercise are invaluable. The written explanations are also a must. I bring the book into the gym and have it open to what I need. A quick glance is all I need to trigger my memory. (A gym membership is not required right away, but will be after the first 4 weeks.)I cannot recommend this book enough. I was in a rut and burning out and this book put me back on track to fitness. I will not hesitate to pre-order her next book. I know it will be worth every penny and more. For those of us who are unable to train with Rachel directly, this is the next best thing.

This book looks at every aspect of female fitness from the psychology to diet do's and don'ts to exercise. I like it because it is real and do-able for almost anyone. I bought this as a professional trainer to implement the ideas with my clients. Although the information is laid out in a fairly easy to follow manner for the 'at home' user, some of the exercise descriptions and charts could be a little confusing to a novice at home. I like that is for real people and works to get women out of the "diet" mentality into eating and exercising for real. No more starvation, counting calories, yo-yo diets, it is a healthy lifestyle change that can be implemented by anyone. The exercises are weight lifting based to build muscle and get people out of the "I walk for exercise" mode. This book is a great starting point, but to get real results the user may want to get the assistance of a professional fitness trainer to help them through the routines and make possible regressions or corrections to the exercises. All and all, great book and an easy read.

I approached this helpful book with a friendly attitude, having read a couple of Lou Schuler's books (and Schuler collaborates on the technical/program end with Alwyn Cosgrove, who is Mrs Cosgrove's husband). I was attracted to this simply because when you are trying to make major changes, the more cheerleaders you have, the better -- and this after all was written by a woman, who knows what being a woman is, inside out.I like the no-fluff no-frills seriousness of this book. But I do have a critique. For one thing, I do find the talk about a BITCH (it's a clever acronym, see?) very crass. I'm sure I'm not the normal target audience -- I do not have a tattoo and never would, for instance; and I read Victorian books and know some ancient Greek -- but I do think that one can be strong and a lady at the same time. Also, the book constantly refers to sex: it clearly thinks that this is our main motivation. It also discusses at some length both the Pill and menstrual periods, as if we are all both engaged in a sex life and pre-menopausal. I may be an outlier, but my motivation has nothing whatever to do with sex (if anything, I seek the strength of my own body as a physical component of a life otherwise not given to the physical); and I am 47, not 27. The emphasis on sexuality I found not only off-putting but besides the point (my concern is with my own well-being and not with my husband's or anyone else's opinion). Oh, and I hate jeans because I think they're ugly and uncomfortable -- but 'thermometer jeans' are supposedly a means of gauging one's progress to this author.I'm sure many younger (and perhaps less cosily married) women will appreciate the mood of this book. But I have to say: I didn't.