A comprehensive manual for women bodybuilders gives exercise programs from beginning training to competition

From the man who trained Schwarzenegger and Ferrigno comes an easy-to-follow manual on bodybuilding.

An inside look at the fascinating and largely unknown world of women's bodybuilding. Slice-of-life observer Maria R. Lowe introduces us to a world where size and strength must be balanced with a nod toward grace and femininity. For WOMEN OF STEEL, Lowe interviewed more than 100 individuals, from the bodybuilders themselves to trainers, family members, spouses, judges, and sponsors. 20 photos.

In the depths of the Great Depression a scrawny, dirt-poor Jewish kid with a seventh-grade education picked up a barbell and got hooked on weight training. Building his muscles gave him confidence and hope for a better life. He pledged to make the great, transforming power of strength training available to everyone and to give bodybuilding all the glory it deserved.The kid, Joe Weider, enlisted his younger brother Ben in his quest, and together the Weider brothers accomplished things much bigger than Joe's boyhood dreams. The little muscle magazine Joe started, working at his family's dining room table, grew into a publishing empire. From a backyard barbell business, Joe and Ben built equipment and food supplement companies each as big as Weider Publishing. And they transformed bodybuilding into a hugely successful sport, organized under one of the largest and best-run athletic federations in the world.The Weider brothers are heroes to bodybuilders and fans all over the world. They're heroes because they're revolutionaries. The Weiders changed the way people think about exercise, health, and what makes a body beautiful. They changed the world and Brothers of Iron tells their fascinating story.