The Power Of 4

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Paula Owen's book The Power of 4 is a comprehensive overview of steps that may be taken to improve your well-being.

The b0ok, while only six chapters long and a mere 256 pages, is jam-packed with information to try to get you on the right path to accomplishing many wellness related goals.  It's an easy read in as much as it isn't terribly difficult to comprehend.  It is nicely laid out and the subsections within each chapter make stopping after a few pages easy to do if you only have a few minutes at a time to read.

Now, when I say it is jam-packed with information, I mean there are pages upon pages that are written with each sentence being a new statement of wellness information.  To be honest, if you sat down and actually read the book word for word, it could very easily be overwhelming because there isn't much discussion that takes place for each point.  It is more like a handful of important topics and then as much information as possible about each topic packed into a reasonable area.

Pros and cons to this:

Pro:  If you are looking for a reference with many possible answers that isn't a bulky encyclopedia or text book, this would be a reasonable place to start.

Con:  If you are looking for the "why" or "how" of almost anything that is presented in this text, you aren't going to find it.

**Disclaimer** I read the first edition of this book.  Since it's publication, a second edition has been released.  It is very possible that any issues I see in the first edition could be eradicated in the second and I would be none the wiser while writing this review.

Here are my two main issues with this text:  While I feel a lot of the information presented is high-quality and I believe to be true, almost everything in the book is written as an absolute, meaning there isn't room for the interpretation that maybe the information presented just isn't quite right for your body and your situation.  When dealing with the human body, it is very very very difficult for me to speak or write in absolutes.  It is just too highly individual of a subject for statements written or spoken as absolutes to actually be accurate 100% of the time.

Second, while I do believe the information to be quality, I cannot say for certain whether that is true.  There is a long list of references at the end of the text, which is great, but it does not allow me to know which reference belongs to which statement.  And because the book the comprised of statement after statement of alleged facts with little to no discourse after each, it is difficult to dig deeper than what is immediately on the page at that moment in time.

Here is my suggestion for reading this book: skim it.  Find areas that seem pertinent to your inquiries and use the statements presented as a starting point for digging further into the information.  I think there really is a lot of good information presented, but the book is essentially a composition of sound bites, so it is very difficult to get much more from it than sound bites.

One final thought:  If you want to read the section on exercise, go ahead, but lead with caution.  There is some good stuff, but then there are some statements that make me question how much Ms. Owens has explored the subject herself as opposed to simply repeating what others have told her, in particular when it comes to the use of machines while strength training.

Once again, I read the first edition of this book.  The second one may be completely revised so as to eliminate all of the concerns I brought up in the post, making this edition more or less of a rough draft to the current one.  So do not judge off of someone's rough draft, but rather go in with the understanding that that is what this edition may very well be.

I recommend this book to someone who is looking for a solid start of possible topics to research further concerning their health and overall wellness.

Your body.  Your training.

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