BOOK REVIEW: MARTY GALLAGHER’S “PURPOSEFUL PRIMITIVE”

  

My voracious appetite for reading about lifting stuff continues for some reason, and I just put away 692 pages of Marty Gallagher’s “Purposeful Primitive” in about 4 days. 

 

Let me start the review with the ending: this was a great read and I highly recommend it.  It’s only $8.50 on Kindle right now, which is what convinced me to get it in the first place.  I was originally looking for Steve Justa’s “Rock Iron Steel” book, which I intend to read soon, and this showed up as a suggested reading and when I saw the page total, cost and reviews I figured I had nothing to lose.

 

Unlike some of my other reviews, I did not take notes as I went, simply because, at nearly 700 pages, it would have made the reading process INSANELY long.  Instead, I’m just going to go over what I liked and what I didn’t like.

 

QUICK REVIEW OF THE BOOK

 

The book is divided into 4 areas of focus: lifting (iron), the mind, cardio and nutrition.  Each of the 4 areas are, in turn, subdivided into 3 sections: 1 that details the work and philosophy of the “masters” of that area, 1 that constructs a plan to implement the lessons FROM the masters for the reader to use, and from there a series of essays written by Gallagher regarding the topic.  I really enjoyed this approach to the subject matter, but it became a little obvious that the “essays” on the subject were just collections of previously written articles from Gallagher.  Nothing wrong with that necessarily, but I’m getting tired of “books” that are just a bunch of articles put together.

 

The iron section is the most expansive, taking up about a third of the book, but each section contains a large amount of information.  Nothing is skimped over or given lip service.

 

THE GOOD

 

Captain Kirk, being insane as usual

-This is clearly a labor of love, and Marty put a TON of work into it.  I’ve been reading a lot of different books from different authors recently, and it’s become easy to tell who just slapped something together to get a paycheck vs who really wanted to put out a quality product, and this is firmly in the latter.

-This is a completely comprehensive tome.  One of those books you could give to someone and be like “Ok, you wanna know how to train and eat for the rest of your life?  Here you go.”  I love books like that.  Sure, it’s 700 pages, but it’s still so much time and effort saved to have it all in one place.

-Along with that, it’s a VERY easy read.  Marty is a professional author, having written for many publications, and his chops show on that.  It’s not his first time stringing together sentences.  He can attempt to get a little too eloquent at times, but he’s still very talented at his craft.  But along with that, he has walked the walk, with an 800lb squat and various lifting titles earned.

-Every section is VERY fascinating.  Marty’s “Purposeful Primitive” approach is all about stripping out complexity and getting back to basics, which, in turn, ends up going in some VERY unique directions.  I found the nutrition section particularly fascinating, as it basically splits between a dichotomy of very frequent eating of small meals or intermittent fasting via “The Warrior Diet”. 

-To go further into the above, Marty is big on Taoism and, in turn, duality.  His nutrition protocol fits right in there, but much of how he approaches training does as well.  It’s very much about how opposites compliment each other, and works itself out through some old school periodization. 

-Because of Marty’s unique position as an interviewer for magazines as well as a coach for some of the greatest strength athletes ever, he allows readers a very deep “insider look” ito some unique characters.  I’ve relayed this book as what Jamie Lewis’ “365 Days of Brutality” was supposed to be, because while Jamie wrote about what he’d read/heard about great athletes, Marty wrote about what he actually personally witnessed.

 

THE BAD

 

Swing and a miss

-On a few occasions, Marty tries to emphasize how badass he and his friends are in the lifting world, and it just comes across as either cringey or douche-y.  One particular section talking about New Years Resolution “mullets” was really just plain old off putting.  Paul Kelso did a much better job in Powerlifting Basics talking about how we all need to come together as iron brothers, and this was too much “us vs them” stuff.  It’s not often enough to detract from the overall quality of the book, but there were times I felt like abandoning the essay portions because I didn’t think there’d be anything worthwhile with that nonsense in it.  I was happy to be proven wrong.

-Marty sees cardio primarily as a fat burning device and is very big on employing a heart rate monitor to ensure one has their heart rate in the correct zone to employ this.  That’s a fine use of cardio, but as an athlete it didn’t gel with me.  Never cared for heart rate monitors, and my big emphasis is improved conditioning.

-The mind section contains a lot of helpful tips for how to psyche up for the big set in your training, and that truthfully goes against everything I’m about.  I save psyching up for competitions.  Marty’s claim is that you get more out of your training by tapping into this potential, but I find it’s a recipe for burnout.  In turn, I didn’t get a whole lot from the mind sections.

 

SHOULD YOU BUY IT?

 

Unquestionably yes.  No qualifiers.  Anyone with even the slightest interest in physical training should own a copy of this book.  You get a ton of value for your dollar, get to read about a bunch of different experts in different fields, and will be presented with at least ONE new idea, or find out you were mistaken about one you held before.  I thought I knew what the Warrior Diet was, and honestly, after reading the book, I genuinely want to give it a try someday, despite how much I’ve chided intermittent fasting.  I loved learning the logic behind it.  Same holds true with learning about how and why the great ones trained and ate the way they trained.  Add this one to your collection and share it with a friend when you are done, because it’s worth getting out there in circulation.