Stronger

The Untold Story of Muscle in Our Lives

By: Michael Joseph Gross

Length: 12 hrs

Publisher's summary

A groundbreaking, richly informative exploration of the central yet underappreciated role of muscle in human life and health, Stronger sounds an urgent call for each of us to recognize muscle as “the vital, inextricable and effective partner of the soul.”

“Even if you’ve never picked up a weight—Stronger is for you.”—Arnold Schwarzenegger

Stronger tells a story of breathtaking scope, from the battlefields of the Trojan War in Homer’s Iliad, where muscles enter the scene of world literature; to the all-but-forgotten Victorian-era gyms on both sides of the Atlantic, where women build strength and muscle by lifting heavy weights; to a retirement home in Boston where a young doctor makes the astonishing discovery that frail ninety-year-olds can experience the same relative gains of strength and muscle as thirty-year-olds if they lift weights.

All these surprising tales play out against a background of clashing worldviews, an age-old competition between athletic trainers and medical doctors to define our understanding and experience of muscle. In this conflict, muscle got typecast: Simplistic binaries of brain versus brawn created a persistent prejudice against muscle, and against weight training, the type of exercise that best builds muscular strength and power.

But Stronger shows muscle and weight training in a whole new light. Michael Joseph Gross blends history and firsthand reporting in a profoundly inspiring narrative, conveyed with warmth and humor, that’s packed with practical information based on rigorous scientific studies from around the world. The research is compelling. Weight training can help prevent or treat many chronic diseases and disabilities throughout the lifespan—including cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, and depression. Unforgettably, Stronger reveals how 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 upon the world in the ways that we wish.

©2025 Michael Joseph Gross (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“When I heard about Stronger, I was in heaven. The history, science, and practice of lifting weights, all in one place? That’s my kind of book! It tells the inspiring stories of athletes and scholars such as my friend Jan Todd, the pioneer of women’s powerlifting, and it shows the powerful research that proves that building strength and muscle could be a type of medicine for all kinds of people. Even if you’ve never picked up a weight—Stronger is for you. But be careful: Something tells me that by the time you finish, you’ll find plenty of reasons to try out resistance training.”—Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Governor of California, seven-time Mr. Olympia, and bestselling author of The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding and Be Useful

“Stronger is 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, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Sixth Extinction

"Stronger is 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, author of American Ground