'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 enter world literature, to the Victorian-era gymnasiums where women build strength and muscle by lifting heavy weights, to the retirement home in Boston where a young doctor discovers 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.

"The very definition of cutting-edge . . . Stronger is an elegant, sophisticated, and substantial piece of work . . . It's absolutely enthralling, written with a masterly zip and zing - an eye for the arresting visual detail and an ear for the striking quotation" - The American Spectator

"At the intersection of the biomedical and social sciences... colorfully traces a historical tug-of-war between athletic trainers and bodybuilders, on the one end, and medical doctors, on the other" - The Wall Street Journal

"[E]ngaging ... draws on the expertise of physicians, historians, athletes and others to emphasize the complexity of muscles" - Nature, Best Science Picks

"A convincing argument for appreciating and maintaining your muscles and health" - Booklist