Stronger

The Untold Story of Muscle in Our Lives

De: Michael Joseph Gross

Narrado por: Dan Woren

'Even if you've never picked up a weight, Stronger is for you' - Arnold Schwarzenegger

No matter how you think of yourself - strong or weak, large or small - you are substantially made of muscle. To the last day of your life, your ability to stand and go where you want to go, your agency and effectiveness in the world, will depend on it. But what is muscle?

From the battlefields of Homer's Iliad, where muscles first entered world literature, to the Victorian-era gymnasiums where women built strength and muscle by lifting heavy weights, to a retirement home in Boston, where a young doctor discovered that training at high intensity can produce the same relative gains for frail ninety-year-olds as for thirty-year-olds, Stronger places the science and significance of our muscles in an astonishing new light.

Ancient binaries of brain versus brawn created an enduring prejudice against muscle, and against the type of exercise that best builds strength. Yet the research proves that weight training can help prevent or treat many chronic diseases and disabilities throughout life, including depression, cancer, and diabetes. All of us, from elite powerlifters to people who have never played sports at all, can learn to lift weights in ways that yield life's ultimate prize: the ability to act in the world.

©2025 Michael Joseph Gross (P)2025 Orion Publishing Group Limited

Reseñas de la Crítica

'At once a meditation on the relationship between soul and body and a practical guide to growing old. It is thoughtful, richly reported and totally compelling. The first thing I did after finishing it was buy a set of weights' (Elizabeth Kolbert)

'I started lifting weights in 1956, when I was fourteen. When Stronger is in readers' hands, I'll be eighty-three - I'll still be lifting. From the Histories by Herodotus to Pumping Iron - from Ancient Greece to Arnold Schwarzenegger - this is the enlightening history of weight training. I'm a full-time writer. I spend every day sitting on my glutes. Do your glutes a favour - read Stronger' (John Irving)

'A pioneering narrative - a fascinating exploration, years in the making, of a hugely important part of human life and culture. It raises the question that great books do: Why has this not been written before?' (William Langewiesche)