Friday 14 March 2008

Dump your Trainer by: Ashley Marriott and Marc L. Paulsen

Dump Your Trainer
Ashley Marriott, Certified Personal Trainer
and Doctor Marc L. Paulsen
BookSurge Publishing

ISBN 9781419680236


Some books are self-published or as some call them, "vanity press books" - and for a reason. This happens to be one of them. Over the last decade or so I have read a number of fitness books from Body for Life, to Sly Moves and from most I can take away some useful information and apply it to my life. I cannot even say that about this book. The book is touted as being a fun guide to weight loss and fitness, humorous and insightful. To be honest, I did not find it any of those things.

The book has a number of things against it from the get go. The cover is a joke and the photos that are supposed to show you how to do exercises are small, dark and grainy. The margins are too big, and the amount of whole space per page makes the book look unfinished, unprofessional and like it is a draft version not a finished product.

The book makes a number of claims that just seem unfounded and irrational. It claims that you can burn three times the calories playing some video games as you can in a training session with a personal trainer. It also states that some programs with a personal trainer can cause you to gain weight. In my experience that may be true, but in gaining that weight it is more lean muscle mass and dropped body fat and inches from the body. So gaining that weight is actually a good thing and a sign of progress. Marriott is a certified personal trainer, and I bet her rates went up after this book published. The book is supposed to be a tool to work out on your own and not spend money on trainers, yet Marriot's biography states that she has a wide range of clients and still teaches group classes. Dr. Paulsen claims that he lost over 50lbs using this program and has kept it off for over 8 years. Did he not use Marriott as a personal trainer to lose those pounds? The contradictions in these things make you not want to trust anything in the book.

On a positive note the book will teach you how to do a personal fitness assessment. It does include sample shopping lists, and meal plans and a number of healthy recipes. Marriot also touts the Wii as an exercise tool, but why wouldn't she? She is developing a video game for it based on this book. It's said that the best way to make money from writing is to write a self-help book, a romance novel or a fitness book. Marriott has done just that and given it a clever title that will attract attention and some hype. So in conclusion, Marriott is great at marketing and self- promotion but the book in my opinion is no different from a lot of others on the market and not as good as some of them, and therefore not worth the time or effort. Besides, who has time to read a fitness book, when you can go and play your Wii and call it today's workout?

(First Published in Imprint 2008-03-14.)

Other Fitness Articles:
Fall 2011 Programs
Workout program March 2012
My Gear February 2012
Fitness My Retrospective

TRX Articles:
TRX an Introduction
TRX Force

TRX Force Tactical
TRX Essential Flexibility

My P90X Series:
Phase I, Phase II, Gear, Phase III, Fitness Options, P90X at 120 Days Out

Health & Fitness Book Reviews:
The Primal Blueprint 21 Day Total Body Transformation - Mark Sisson
The Ten Commandments Of Lifting Weights - Jared Zimmerer

Toadally Primal Smoothies - Todd Dosenberry
Caveman Resurection - Jeff Pickett
40 Days to Optimal Health - Dr. Scott Morris
Eat Stop Eat - Brad Pilon
The Primal Blueprint - Mark Sisson
The New Rules of Lifting - Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove
Bench Press by: Sven Lindqvist
Sly Moves by: Sylvester Stallone
Fit for Eternal Life: A Christian Approach to Working Out, Eating Right, and Building the Virtues of Fitness in Your Soul by: Dr. Kevin Vost
Body for Life 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strenght by: Bill Phillips
Lose Fat Not Faith by Jeremy R. Likeness
Living The Good Life: Your Guide to Health and Success by: David Patchell-Evans
Dump your Trainer by: Ashley Marriott and Marc L. Paulsen

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