The story becomes dry in places...And only true weight lifting devotees will find the history of late-19th-century German gyms edifying. More successful are Kunitz’s portraits of the eccentrics who challenged dogma to push sometimes-eccentric notions of fitness and how best to achieve it ... Lift works best when it stays personal, as when Kunitz recounts his own entry into what he calls the “new frontier” of exercise.
Kunitz’s insightful premise isn’t well-served by flecks of a fitter-than-thou attitude that can be off-putting. Throughout the book, he belittles low-to-moderate-intensity workouts.
