Forgotten Secrets of The Culver City Westside Barbell club revealed: Featuring the entire original Westside Barbell Crew, the Wild Bunch of West Virginia and the men who trained with them

First I would like to thank Mr. Yarnell for this excellent compilation of articles on the members and training methods of the Westside Barbell club in Culver City. A majority of the articles are taken from vintage issues of Muscle Builder/Power, which, if you have checked eBay, are not inexpensive. This is an essential book for anyone interested in the history of powerlifting. Unfortunately, this is an editor's nightmare. The typesetting is confusing, some of the pictures (including the cover image!) are of extremely low resolution. Most of the articles are re-copied from the original source, but there are few articles that are scanned from the original magazine and they can be frustrating to decipher. Mr. Yarnell also uses internet sources and inserts some of his own commentary. Since there is not a consistent font size for each different voice, I am not always sure of whose text I am reading. This seems like a print-on-demand book and that may account for some of the confusion. Also, it may work better as an e-book as there are web links included in this printed book. All-in-all, I think that the value of the material mostly overcomes the problematic presentation.

Enjoyable read if you're a lifter(or were, in my case). A little choppy and hard to follow in places, might have something to do with how Kindle separates pages.More of a compilation from numerous sources. Some of my favorite parts were where he had an interview next to a previous published article so the subject could verify what was written in said article. Also, Joe Demarco explaining the "Belly Toss"- I never knew the bench was only 9" high - makes much more sense now. The lifters and lifting in West's garage really created a stir in its day among other lifters. Reminds me of the Nautilus fervor among bodybuilders at around the same period, with many making pilgrimages. Bodybuilders to Deland, Florida, and lifters to Culver City, CA.

I grew up during the period remembered, and was a teenager, and in my twenties when the events and activities took place, so I am familiar with the personalities involved and there impact on those that followed the sport. My being inducted into the California Powerlifting Hall of Fame in 2004 is a testament to the positive influence this period had on my life. Excellent reading of that period of time with plenty of the original articles that were published, emphasizing there importance at the time. Anyone who is a fan of Power training will enjoy this rich history of Southern California Lifting and lifters.

I was a little disappointed that there were not a lot of complete training programs featured, and the pictures and formatting are kind of low quality. Also, a lot of the referenced articles can be found for free online if you look hard enough( I had already seen a lot of them). It is still nice book to have if you are really into obscure history of powerlifting and bodybuilding, but there are not really any "secrets" about Westside that you probably haven't already seen elsewhere.

For all those Powerlifters who want to know where it all started there is no better source. Dave did a fine job of pulling together many pieces of the powerlifting puzzle. Will read it many times again. Thanks Dave!

What an incredibly weird book. The author appears to have copied and pasted a massive number of forum posts, scans of old muscle mags, and articles from e-magazines into a giant word document, then printed it out. There's no discernible structure to the material, no table of contents, and no index. Indeed, individual articles are often interspersed with apparently completely unrelated digressions. It's a little bit like inspecting a medieval manuscript, with multiple amendations and inputs over many years by various authors and editors, some named and some not. I give it two stars because of the historical interest of a lot of the material and the sheer weirdness of the book (thing?) as an object. If you love the sport of power lifiting, this will be perfect for your coffee table (or for your bathroom). However, if you are hoping to learn the methods of the Culver City Westside Barbell Club and the Wild Bunch of West Virginia, you're going to have to do quite a bit of digging and reconstruction. There's a lot of material in here, but it's buried pretty deep.

Absolutely loved it. If you want to know who old school Powerlifters of America are. This the book to read. So many great stories.

This guy has provided tons of good material -- although it can mostly be found online if you reallyyy know how to look -- but is in DESPERATE need of an editor.

If you read the reviews on amazon.com you will see that, yes, this book appears to be a part written/part photocopy pastes and somewhat disjointed and at times confusing layout- HOWEVER- as I learned, you can sift thru it at your leisure and find a stack of priceless information, all kinds of real life stories and accounts from some very famous, not so famous, or little heard of legends...Bill 'Peanuts' West, Steve Merjanian, Arnold, Dan Vadis, Chet Yorton, George Frenn, Pat Casey, Armand Tanny, Paul Anderson, Superstar Billy Graham, Lyle Alzado.... tons of guys and masses of original detail. Honestly, there is allsorts of things to learn here if you can see past the format.So much history, prints of old articles from magazines, the early roots and development of Powerlifting and raw strength training, partial tendon/ligament training, famous gyms like Gold's and Zuver's Hall of Fame. Loads and loads and its entertaining too. I used book marks for some of the stuff if I got a bit lost. The author has put together a tremendous amount, some of which I have never come across trawling the internet. You could spend hours and hours online and still not find some of the stuff this book has to offer. For the money it is worth it as a collection, even if you just pick out odd bits. I have come back and re read certain sections many, many times.I paid about £14 odd for this and to me personally its been worth every penny.

Some great some not great content overall worth buying for students of the game. Bill peanuts West knowledge is in this book and worth hearing

Excellent reading . Gives a deep insight of the training methodology of the greats. Very inspirational.

Interested in these old time strength men, useful training information.