STRENGTH SENSEI BOOKSHELF
The Best Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of
By Nick Nilsson
If you agree with Charles R. Poliquin’s idea that variety is key to developing maximum muscle mass and superior athletic fitness, Nick Nilsson has just the book for you!
Giving credit where it’s due, Bill Pearl’s Keys to the INNER Universe set the standard for reference books on bodybuilding exercises. With over 1500 drawings of exercises for all the major bodyparts, the Mr. Universe’s classic sold over a quarter of a million copies. Nilsson expands on Pearl’s work with The Best Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of: SHOCK Your Body Into New Gains!
Nilsson, known as “The Mad Scientist” of the fitness world, has a degree in physical education and is a prolific writer. His work has appeared in Men’s Fitness, Reps Magazine, and Muscle & Fitness.
The Best Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of is a reference book of 89 exercises. It breaks down as follows: Abdominals (12), back (11), biceps (10), calves (6), chest (10), hamstrings (8), quads (12), shoulders (10), triceps (10). Let’s look at one of his abdominal exercises, a variation of an abdominal plank.
Most planks are performed on the floor and become relatively easy quickly. Consider that on August 6, 2021, Australia’s Daniel Scali held a plank for nine hours, 30 minutes, and 1 second! Not much of an overload. Not so with Nilsson’s variation!
Nilsson has you performing the exercise where you suspend yourself between a bench and a barbell set in a power rack. You rest your arms on the bench and hook your toes over the barbell. Nilsson believes placing your feet on the floor, as with a conventional plank, increases the work of the legs and hip flexors, thus reducing the work of the abs. By resting your toes over the bar, he says your core muscles work harder. From here, Nilsson show how to transition into a more challenging dynamic, straight-arm plank.
Don’t think that this is just a book of single exercises. For the biceps, Nilsson came up with a clever way to superset barbell curls with chin-ups. Performed inside a power rack, you perform a set of barbell curls, then immediately hook the barbell on the supports and use it as a chin-up bar. He then offers another variation involving a reverse-grip curl and pull-up.
Each exercise in The Best Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of is demonstrated with photos and easy-to-understand instructions. It’s 226 pages, but with large type and photos, it can be read in about an hour. However, it’s primarily a reference book, so like Liberty Mutual insurance, “you only need to read what you need.”
If you’re looking for unique exercises to challenge your muscles (and don’t mind getting some strange looks at your gym while you perform them), invest in The Best Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of. (TSS)
[You can purchase The Best Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of by Nick Nilsson in paperback and Kindle editions through Amazon.com.]
— lead photo by Miloš Šarčev
