If you own Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training, by Mohamed F. El-Hewie, you do NOT need to purchase this abridged edition. The simple concept of axial strength training has its roots in the civil engineering of massive structures. The spine is the main axis of the human skeleton. As such, axial training emphasizes strengthening the low back, with every weight training or aggressive exercise that generates great momentum, such as running or jumping. The very basic secrets of axial training is exercising the low back, then the legs, then the shoulders in every exercise session. The variation and choices of exercises are subjective and individual and will evolve over the course of years as you gain deeper insight into the art and science of strength training. The essential role is the even distribution of strengthening over those three body regions, with the low back at the very center of attention. Anatomically, the spine is anchored to the pelvic girdle at the low back. On the top of the spine lies the shoulder girdle. Think about an anatomical musculoskeletal girdle as the cross roads of forces, from two limbs to the main axis or the spine. The pelvic girdle connects the forces of the lower limbs to the spine through the antagonistic hip flexors and extensors. The shoulder girdle connects the forces of the upper limbs to the spine through the flexors, extensors, elevators, and rotators of the shoulders. Each girdle has a massive bony structure through which forces link and divert course of action. The skull and the chest cage are the bony bases of the shoulder girdle. The ilium, sacrum, and pubic bones are the bony base of the pelvis girdle. Weightlifting balances the forces on those bone structures such that the body frame remains balanced during the explosive, ballistic muscular contraction. Like building a cathedral, from the ground, up, weightlifting training must stabilize the body frame on the stable feet arches. Even if you do not intend to perform aggressive sports, you have no choice in performing essential living chores, which entail explosive and ballistic muscular contraction. Examples of those essential biological functions are sneezing, coughing, bearing down, shouting, laughing, reacting to sudden and acute changes in visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli. Therefore, all people are required to perform aggressive muscular actions in order to stay mobile, safe, and capable of coping with the demands of living. All aggressive muscular contractions utilize the two anatomical musculoskeletal arches of the body: the spinal arch and the feet arch (or arc). The spinal arch, which is the subject of the book, shoots the head as an arrow during each explosive muscular contraction. Try to sneeze without shooting your head and fixing your lower back on stable ground. You seen realize that sneezing utilizes the archery function of the spine of fixing the low back as a base and energizing the head as an arrow. That aggressive sneezing action clears the respiratory passages from any lodged material and maintains the flow of gases between the body and the outside. Similarly, the feet arch performs the archery function of shooting the body mass upwards every time we shift our weight from one foot to the other. As you grow wiser in managing your training energy, you will learn to curtail your desire from over emphasizing one region than the others. In other words, performing few exercises with even proportion, over the low back, legs, and shoulders, is superior to performing very lengthy exercise list that emphasizes one region over the other two. The best example of the latter flawed training is the notorious fad of designating certain days of the week to exercise certain regions of the body. Here, the author would not endorse the isolation methodology as it defies the common sense of developing balanced musculoskeletal system. Mohamed F. El-Hewie
