Secrets of Giants

A Journey to Uncover the True Meaning of Strength

By: Alyssa Ages

Narrated by: Alyssa Ages

Everyone wants to know if they could do the impossible. Few of us will ever try.

Alyssa Ages was the strongest she’d ever been, able to flip monster truck tires and walk with 300 pounds on her back. She felt invincible, until the day her body betrayed her, leaving her vulnerable and grasping for control. Rebuilding her strength slowly brought her back to life. She began to wonder: What if strength isn't about how much we can lift? What if it's about how we manage life’s struggles?

In Secrets of Giants, Ages, now a mom of two, embarks on an immersive journey to the fringe of the weight-lifting world, the sport of strongman. She hoists kegs and lifts boulders in suburban parking lots, attempts to pull a 50-ton truck using only a rope, and occasionally frightens her neighbors by dragging a sled full of weights down her quiet tree-lined street. She meets a powerlifter-turned-boxer who shares how lifting taught her to become a master of the mundane. A ten-time World’s Strongest Man competitor is brought to tears illustrating how the gym helped him survive an abusive childhood. A pro strongwoman muses on managing setbacks before stepping on stage to deadlift the weight of a baby grand piano. Psychologists, researchers, and coaches offer insights into the fascinating ways that the pursuit of strength can permeate every aspect of our lives, from building resilience and confidence, to finding joy in discomfort, to teaching us to handle adversity.

Part personal narrative, part research mission, part reckless midlife crisis odyssey, Secrets of Giants uncovers why physical strength matters, and how it teaches us that we’re capable of so much more than we know.

©2023 Alyssa Ages (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

SELF’s 11 Wellness Books that Helped Us Live Better in 2023

The Skimm’s The Best Health, Wellness, and Self-Help Books (So Far) This Year, Reviewed

Outside Magazine’s The 2023 Sweat Science Holiday Book List

Zibby Media’s 2023 Zibby Awards: Best for the Strong Woman

Men’s Health’s 52 Upcoming NonFiction Books in 2023

The New York Times’ The Joys of Spite Exercising

Well + Good’s Lifting Weights Doesn’t Only Make Us Physically Stronger—It Can Support Trauma Healing, Too

CBC’s What Heavy Lifting Taught Alyssa Ages About True Strength

Bustle’s Lifting is How I Learned to (Literally) Take Up Space

A fascinating and moving book. Secrets of Giants reveals not only why the pursuit of strength matters, but also that you are stronger than you know, and we are stronger when we face challenges together.—Kelly McGonigal, PhD, author of The Joy of Movement

Enthusiastically researched and authentically lived, this in-depth exploration into the world of strongman goes behind the scenes of the flashy feats like pulling trucks and hoisting stones to uncover what really drives us to test our physical limits. With unvarnished honesty, Alyssa Ages takes readers on a relatable journey that's about gaining so much more than just muscle.—Haley Shapley, author of Strong Like Her

Along with salient insight into female anxieties about becoming “bulky”—rooted in cultural notions that “a woman who takes up space is threatening”—Ages weaves a lively, research-rich appraisal of the hidden psychological depth of a deceptively primitive human pursuit.—Publishers Weekly

a fresh take on strongman from a woman's perspective

as a female strongman athlete I've been SEARCHING for a book exactly like this. Alyssa goes through what it's like being a woman ins strongman, not only through her own experiences, but through other influential strong women as well. so much of this book resonated with me and some of it is exactly what I'm facing right now. I have recommended this book to every woman strength athlete I know.

Good Not Amazing

Well-researched, well considered self reflection with many stories of others’ achievements and their insights into what made them happen. I was looking for more broad strokes especially by halfway into the book rather than specific strongman/ competition details which became repetitive, and I found myself skipping ahead to try to pull out the main points. Also, I applaud the effort to read one’s own work but most of us can’t, and it sounded a little robotic. Still, it was a good book, just a little too long on this particular subject for me.