LL Cool J's Platinum Workout: Sculpt Your Best Body Ever with Hollywood's Fittest Star

This book is amazing. It takes you through the beginning stages of proper fitness and nutrition, to the end which the result should be a pretty toned up if not muscular body. The workout routines start off simple and easy. If your not used to working out the first 2 weeks of the workout is circuit training to get your muscles used to the wear and tear of whats to come and that works perfectly because by the time you start with the free weights , your body is already acustomed to being stressed and you'll be ready to increase the time you spend on working out as well as the weights you use. Its not just LL making comments in the book but he has a few trainers and specialists in the book giving excellent tips. It starts you off the very first week telling you exactly what to get rid off in your kitchen as far as junk and garbage that you shouldnt be eating and he gives you suggestions of what to replace it with. He also gives you a weeks worth of sample meals with like 6 different meals a day. The one problem that some people might have and I see is the main complaint of some reviews is that this book is mainly for someone with a gym membership. He has some alternate routines but he goes into depth with the gym stuff, not so much with the alternates. When I first started reading it and I got to the part where he started explaining the workout routines, it was nothing but words and some of the names of the actual workouts I had no idea of how to do them. Like "deadlift" and "jackknife". I was like damn... how am I suppoed to know how to do this. This book would be perfect if it had some pictures to illustrate exactly how to do these specific exercises. So I figured I would have to go online to find some pics of how to do them but before I did that I read foward and low and behold... the pictures of all the exercises that he mentioned earlier. Why he seperated them I dont know but it doesnt matter as long as they're in there.There is also a chapter strictly for womwn. The motivation in this book is off the charts.

Dear reader,For the past five years I have been a workout addict. For me it's workout or die. At the age of 14 I was tired of my brother calling me fat, so I took off into the Arizonan desert and ran every day. Since then my success rate of building a fitter body has quadrupled, as I read every fitness article I could get my hands on and was introduced to resistance training. I learned the rules of eating, how to workout and how to maximize recovery. I'm no expert, however, which is why I began buying fitness books from amazon to hear what the experts had to say. I have gained vast knowledge and experience from the high rated books I've purchased but trouble came when I ran into this book. In regards to the rules of working out, LL Cool J's book breaks them all.At first, like anything else, the results were coming as I followed the program. (NOTE: Any kind of exercise regimen, depending on your level of fitness, in the beginning will give you results due to the body trying to adapt to something new.) The book starts off with good tips on what to eat and drink and basic principles such as: you need to get strong before you can build muscle and so forth. It is a very attractive book with vivid pictures and colorful backgrounds and good picture/descriptions of the exercises and stretches. The workout routines are very affective but then become prolonging. LL states that he doesn't like to workout for more than an hour (NOTE: The body begins burning protein [your muscle] as its energy source after 1 hour of vigorous weight training.)and he likes to get out of the gym in 45 minutes, but the workouts thrown at you, plus the cardio, get you out of there in 1:15 to 1:20 minutes.Next, to begin with, the muscle groups selected in the workout were placed in an odd order. This is nothing I became upset about until this happened- Monday: Chest and Biceps; Tuesday: Back and Triceps-? Any person with common sense about weight lifting knows that the triceps are complimentary to the chest and the biceps to the back. This mishap caused my biceps and triceps to weaken on Monday and get completely thrashed and over trained on Tuesday. Another thing, I love pushups and bodyweight exercises, and LL incorporates them, except inevitable over training occurs with this book when you lifts weights one day, and then the next day you are doing a cardio circuit that includes pushups (and pushups sets of 30 seconds, for that matter). Bodyweight exercises are not p***y like some people think and still work your muscles.At this point in the book, I am beat down, my muscles are torn (not literally) and you must understand that I am a person who needs to be in amazing shape. I love to climb buildings do gymnastics and free run. I do martial arts so my fitness has to be superb at all times. Let's just say I can run 8-10 miles at 75% MHR and I don't lose my breath. Anyway, I looked further into the book to see if there were any more workouts I could salvage that wouldn't over train me. I found this- Monday: Chest, Triceps, Back (Note: Back exercises work Biceps too.)and Hamstrings (Note: Can directly or indirectly work Quads.); Tuesday: Quads (Note: May have been worked by Hamstrings exercise on Monday.), Shoulders (Note: Weren't Triceps exercises on Monday? hmmm), Calves, and Abs.- You think that's bad? By the time you get to the featured PLATINUM WORKOUT you are doing this- Sunday: A weight workout is performed in the MORNING of upper body exercises with a 20 min cardio workout attached. EVENING: Consists of another 20 minute cardio workout.- So long to LL's getting out of the gym in 45 minutes.The book is not a total loss, for you get to learn about LL's past and who his idols are and there is solid nutrition advice. Not to mention, the Abs circuits were very effective and well put. Although, I give this book a rating of 2 for trying so hard to impress consumers with the mega rapper's flashy colors, and pictures, and for failing to provide a workout regimen that follows the rules of recovery.Thank you.

My husband is an exercise-aholic. He hits the gym 5-6x a week. I bought this for him for Christmas. He was looking for a new routine, something to break the plataeu he was in. This book was down the earth, easy and fun to read. 'LL' makes it sound like he's talking directly to you in the book. Both my husband and I read it cover to cover in a few days. The workouts start off easy (so you think!) and by week 4 my husband was noticing changes. And for the ladies... he included a 4 week swimsuit shape-up chapter. This book is great! It includes pictures of each exercise. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 was because I had to keep flipping back and forth in the book from the exercise chart to the pictures. If the book came with some workbook that you could tear out pages or download the exercise chart into a computer, that would have been super. And he also recommends using machines in a gym the first 2 weeks instead of free weights. I don't belong to a gym, so I had to do some modified version of his workout using handweights. But the exercises are really good and the diet menu is good too. My husband has already recommended this book to his friends.

I'd recommend this book to anyone looking for a change, starting out or who wants to get a body like LL. I was a bit sceptical when buying this book, I thought it could of been a load of rubbish endorsed by a celebrity to make sales. I was pleasantly surprised when I read the book and realised its actually pretty good, it covers pretty much everything for you to get going from diet to workouts and it has in depth explanations throughout. I'm about 5 weeks into the program and I've already started to look more ripped and feel fitter while maintaining muscle mass, bearing in mind I have been weight training for 4 years before buying this book.

If youre new to exercise then this may be a good book for you, experienced exercsies not soo much.There are some good exercises in the book, but too be honest its not that difficult when you know how many reps and sets build muscle,endurance etc. The book also incorporates part of his carreer but to be honest i skipped that because i just looked at his body on the front cover and wanted to know his workouts.If youre a begginer and a fan then id buy this book. if youre not dont bother, theres far more better books out there

Exactly what I was hoping for, a well written and well thought out Training manual and with some words of wisdom from LL Cool J.

Great book! The things listed really work. I have been doing some of the stuff and I was soaking wet after the bronze work outs. I don't know what's gonna happen when I get to gold and platinum.

I have been using this product for about 8 weeks and I have lost a lot of belly fat. Also I have gained muscle. Do not be fooled I have had to work hard and follow the book very closely.To be honest I don't find the workouts, so far, that hard. The hard part is following and sticking to the nutrition plan. That is where "the magic" happens, if you can stick to it.