Give the Gift of Fitness Knowledge

Compiled by Real SOLUTIONS Editors

Every year, starting with the Friday after Thanksgiving, all the way through Christmas Day, people fill the malls and shopping centers across America looking for the "perfect" gift for loved ones. Something that shows how much they care.

Instead of the warm woolly sweater, DVD, or latest fad gadget, we believe the best gifts are those that say, "Hey, I really enjoy having you in my life. And I want you to stick around for years to come."

In that light, you could help your friends and loved ones put together an exercise plan. Or share how to create a healthy eating plan.

On the other hand, you could let the experts do all the work for you. That is, pick one of the fantastic books on our list of the ten most useful fitness books below. Then provide the best fitness gift you can: support as your family and friends take steps to improve their health and fitness throughout 2011. Because after all, knowledge is not power unless it's applied.

The Lean System Success Plan

Real SOLUTIONS' Editor-in-Chief, Stephen Adele, has taken everything he's learned from the past 15 years helping individuals build stronger, healthier bodies, and created—bar none—the best work he's ever created. It's called The Lean System Success Plan. There's no other fitness plan like it. See, unlike other books that expect you to follow a "one-size-fits-all" approach, The Lean System Success Plan contains a complete step-by-step nutrition, training, and supplementation Plan customized to your unique metabolic body type.

Body-for-LIFE

Bill Phillips' classic fitness book Body-for-LIFE is a great introduction to fitness. It's written for the beginner in mind and explains everything clearly and simply: from what a fat is to how to do a biceps curl. His complete plan includes how and when to work out. How and when to eat. And some basic information on supplementation. The book also comes with plenty of built-in inspiration with dozens of before and after transformation photos and stories.

The 21-Day Ultimate Energy Plan

Mental and physical exhaustion is the body's natural response to physical exertion, emotional stress, or lack of sleep. The fact is, we are busier than ever before—especially this time of year. So naturally we need more energy than ever before. Unfortunately, in today's world of quick fixes, too many people are relying on soda, coffee, candy, and pep-up pills like ephedrine. Sadly, these stimulants actually "rob" energy from your body, lasting an hour at best, leaving you feeling worse than before, after they wear off. That's why "lack of energy" has become the number one complaint when people visit their doctors. This is America's "energy crises."

Fortunately, Stephen Adele provides a guide, The 21-Day Ultimate Energy Plan, that's a practical solution to this epidemic. Learn to work with your body's natural ability to produce energy to provide yourself with safe, long-lasting energy—whenever you need it. By following his 10 simple, powerful ways to energize your life... over the course of 21 days, you will learn how anyone can restore and increase their energy, more and more every day.

5-Factor Fitness

One of the most talked about celebrity trainers in Hollywood, Harley Pasternak, M.Sc., provides a quick and simple plan based on five factors; hence, the name: 5-Factor Fitness. His program is five weeks. It's based on five meals a day that take five minutes to prepare. His workouts are broken into five-minute phases. And there are five workouts a week. This is another useful program for beginners, especially those who would rather ease into a program. (Harley starts with easier workouts and then increases the intensity as you gain more experience.) Plus, he includes photos of all of the easy-to-perform exercises.

Maximum Growth

Author Stephen Adele reveals how you can increase your strength in days... and build muscle mass in weeks with his Maximum Growth 8-Week Muscle Size and Strength Program. The remarkable step-by-step guide delivers the latest scientific research and a complete diet and workout program to build tremendous strength, massive size, maximum definition. Get stronger in days... bigger in weeks... and more defined in a month!

Arnold's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding

From elite bodybuilding competitors to gymnasts, from golfers to fitness gurus, anyone who works out with weights must own this book—a book that only Arnold Schwarzenegger could write, a book that has earned its reputation as "the bible of bodybuilding."

Inside Arnold's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, Arnold covers the very latest advances in both weight training and bodybuilding competition, with new sections on diet and nutrition, sports psychology, the treatment and prevention of injuries, and methods of training, each illustrated with detailed photos of some of bodybuilding's newest stars.

Plus, all the features that have made this book a classic are here:

• Arnold's tried-and-true tips for sculpting, strengthening, and defining each and every muscle to create the ultimate buff physique
• The most effective methods of strength training to fit your needs, whether you're an amateur athlete or a pro bodybuilder preparing for a competition
• Comprehensive information on health, nutrition, and dietary supplements to help you build muscle, lose fat, and maintain optimum energy
• Expert advice on the prevention and treatment of sports-related injuries
• Strategies and tactics for competitive bodybuilders from selecting poses to handling publicity
• The fascinating history and growth of bodybuilding as a sport, with a photographic "Bodybuilding Hall of Fame"
• And, of course, Arnold's individual brand of inspiration and motivation throughout.

Covering every level of experience, The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding will help you achieve your personal best. With his unique perspective as a seven-time winner of the Mr. Olympia title and all international film star, Arnold shares his secrets to dedication, training, and commitment, and shows you how to take control of your body and realize your own potential for greatness.

Strength Ball Training

Develop sport-specific strength, power, and flexibility with strength ball training. Used by elite athletes in all major sports, Swiss ball and medicine ball exercises develop balance and stability while stimulating muscle growth for fitness and performance.

Written by strength and conditioning experts to the pros, Strength Ball Training presents 69 exercises—among them flexibility, joint stabilization, and strength exercises—that target all of the major muscle groups. More than 140 photos show the precise steps in performing each exercise.

Poliquin Principles

Bodybuilding is a tiny universe comprised of huge people, and those who want to be huge but aren't there yet. Inside that insular world, a handful of individuals have made a ton of money selling advice based on shaky science—if any science was involved at all. Poliquin, a Canadian strength coach, set out to discover what the rest of the world knew about building strength and muscle but hadn't told us yet. From obscure European journals, he found a ton of information on such arcana as the speed at which an exercise should be performed and the amount of rest that should be taken between exercises. These seem like tiny issues, but they can make a big difference in how fast a muscle can grow and how strong it can become.

Besides that advanced information—packaged here for serious bodybuilders—Poliquin peppers his book with darkly funny jabs at the muscle world's reigning brain trust. He pokes fun at one famously unstable guru's obsession with Ayn Rand, and points out that much of the training information in bodybuilding magazines is really created by editors and writers for those magazines, since the bodybuilders themselves rarely bother to tell the truth about what they do in the gym (and the drugs they use outside of it).

Poliquin Principles is a rarity in the muscle world: a serious training manual that's also a lot of fun to read. —Lou Schuler, Amazon.com

"Six-pack" abdominal muscles have long been viewed as the sign of ultimate physical fitness. Although many people strive for this level of fitness, lasting success evades them. Bodybuilders, advertising models, and professional athletes make achieving a "washboard" stomach look easy. So why do so many people have trouble getting lean abs and lowering their bodyfat? Can you get six-pack abs and maintain this level of fitness permanently? Sure you can. When you realize that there's no "magical" solution for losing excess weight and that quick fixes and short-term diets just won't work on a long-term basis, you'll be ready for The Six-Pack Diet Plan.

The plan described in this book is a long-term weight-loss solution that specifically targets problem areas such as the abdominal region. It uses your body's natural components, such as hormones, to help you win the battle of the bulge and create a fat-loss-friendly environment in your body. The Six-Pack Diet Plan offers researched-based concepts to optimize each facet of the fat-loss puzzle. And like any puzzle, it takes all the pieces to make it complete: proper nutrition, quality training, optimum supplementation, and perseverance to create a fat-loss program you can live with.

The Curvelle Lifestyle

Quite arguably, Jenny Hendershott possesses one of the most admired physiques in the world of women's fitness.

In fact, she has worked hard to become America's most recognizable face and sought-after body in the fitness community. And after holding the two most prestigious titles in women's professional fitness, the Ms. Fitness Olympia and Ms. Fitness International Champion, twice, at the same time, that is respectably so. But ask anyone who has met her, and they'll tell you she is not only one of the hardest working women in fitness, but she is absolutely the most passionate and energetic fitness competitor you will ever meet.

Jenny has since turned her passion and love for helping others into the world-famous Phat Camps, where she focuses on encouraging women to develop self-confidence by improving the way they look and feel through healthy nutritional practices and regular exercise. And now, inside The Curvelle Lifestyle, Jenny reveals her highly coveted secrets and personalized plan to help you sculpt your best body and live your absolute best life.

INSIDE THE CURVELLE LIFESTYLE, YOU'LL DISCOVER:

• All the powerful, proven techniques Jenny has learned in her 15-plus years, boiled down to a personalized 9-week plan.
• One dynamic blueprint (including easy-to-prepare recipes) that makes eating fun, delicious, as well as nutritious!
• How to turn ordinary, boring workouts and cardio into fun, exhilarating, body-sculpting exercises you'll actually look forward to doing.
• An action-promoting format guaranteed to take your body to the next level, as you learn how to maximize your efforts from working out (even in the comfort of your own home).
• How you can burn fat faster than you ever imagined… slim your thighs, re-shape and tighten your buttocks, and finally reveal your natural, beautiful, sexy curves!

In conclusion

If you haven't already found the "perfect" gift for your friends and loved ones, we encourage you to pick up a copy or two of any of these fantastic fitness books to give in great conscience. (It really is much better than a bag of gourmet chocolates or the latest popular DVD collection.)

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