Title: 91 Day Wonder Body
Author: Frank Zane
Year: 2016
Publisher: Zananda Incorporated
Review
Legendary bodybuilder Frank Zane, now in his eighties, continues to inspire thousands of bodybuilders around the world. He’s still a very active man who trains, coaches, runs a website and writes articles and books.
Only a few weeks ago we reviewed one of his books called “91-Day Wonder Abs” and gave it the top marks it deserves. Another book from Frank’s library is the “91-Day Wonder Body” ebook and it’s another one well-worth reading, let’s see why.
18 Training Programmes
“91-Day Wonder Body” contains 18 training programmes to develop your body to higher levels. Based on routines from three of Frank’s other books (High Def Body, Let’s Grow, and Symmetry) this book is structured to share the knowledge and wisdom of the three time Mr. Olympia.
To start off the training programme, full body workouts are performed three times during a week. Each workout has up to 14 exercises and you have the freedom to choose how many sets you perform for each – Frank recommends 2 or 3 for each exercise.
Modern Body Split Methods
The workout structure changes every couple of weeks to keep the gains coming. For instance, push/pull splits and upper body/lower body splits are used. The commonplace body part splits that most modern day bodybuilders are familiar with are used towards the last few days of this programme.
There are a good range of exercises in the book to suit all levels of bodybuilders, lifters, and athletes. For building raw muscle and strength, the all-important compound exercises like squats, presses and rows are used regularly throughout the 91 days.
Isolation Exercises
Essential for complete physique development, you’ll find an ample selection of isolation exercises here, including leg extensions, lateral raises and concentration curls. Being an avid trainer of lower arms and grip strength, I was delighted to see that reverse curls, wrist curls and grippers are featured in many of the workouts.
As you advance through Frank Zane’s programme, the workouts gradually get a bit tougher.
The training session frequency increases from three times a week to four or five per week. On the rest days, lots of attention is given to stretching, posing, and doing non-lifting physical activities that you enjoy; Frank gives fine examples of swimming and archery.
Learn How to Keep Your Body Lean and Your Fitness High
To keep your body lean and your fitness high, a number of aerobic exercises are utilised in the 91-day programme, from the typical gym rat’s choices of treadmills and rowing machines, to the slightly less conventional methods of hiking and skipping.
Nutrition Advice is Included
Admittedly, I find the nutrition part of any bodybuilding book relatively boring compared to the training sections. However, in the 91-Day Wonder Body, Frank offers the just the right amount of diet, nutrition and supplement advice to keep the reader engaged.
There is a varied list of fairly straightforward recipe ideas (Frank’s formula for protein ice cream sounds delicious) to keep you fueled up during the programme. Each day, Frank gives diet recommendations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There’s also handy advice about intermittent fasting and a useful tip on using stomach vacuums to stave off hunger.
Mindset is All-Important According to Frank
One of the strong points of this book in my humble opinion, is the weekly review pages. Here, Frank explains some “Mind Muscle Meditation” techniques for you to use. For example, mantra power phrases. A short phrase (eg. “I have already won”) is repeated to oneself for twenty minutes, this procedure is beneficial for strengthening your own internal dialogue.
Some of the other methods he teaches you are: “mind juggling”, “third-eye focusing”, and an interesting meditation technique called “Vipassana“. Reading about these concepts has definitely motivated me to start meditating more. As you approach the end of the thirteen-week programme, it’s inevitable that you will have made a substantial amount of gains.
Every muscle will have had several thorough workouts, and the ab circuits and supersets will surely make your midsection stand out to polish off your physique. And with all the posing practice you will have had, your front double biceps and side triceps poses will be well up to scratch when you take some pics of the hard-earned muscle you now own.
Summary
The “91 Day Wonder Body” ebook presents an intelligent and methodical approach to raising your game and striving to attain your best physique. It’s certainly something a little bit different from the rest of the crowd and there’s the right balance of info about training, mindset, and recovery to ensure the reader makes solid gains.
To sum up, this is another excellent piece of work from the “King of Aesthetics”.
Favourite Quotes:
“It’s not how big you are, it’s how complete you are.”
“Your mind is your muscle and your muscle is your mind.”
Book Rating: 9.5/10
