In my 20s I was both saved and blown away by Stuart McRobert's 'Brawn'. McRobert challenged the Schwarzenegger style of programming with an emphasis on smaller numbers of exercises, limited sets, staying away from failure etc. When I first read it, I couldn't believe anyone could build muscle that way but I put it into practice and made the best gains of my life. I'd been beating myself up on high volume, multi-exercise, 'blast the muscle' type programs. You know: bench, overhead, decline and incline press, multiple sets, close to failure. It was madness! With hindsight, my body was primed for growth but I wasn't giving it a chance. I switched to one exercise per bodypart and increased the rest days and grew like a weed. My friends accused me of being on steroids, which I definitely wasn't (at that stage ). That was how big the improvement was.
