Book excerpt: World-renowned strength and performance coach Mark Verstegen has trained top athletes and countless workaday warriors into the best shape of their lives. He's spent years developing a proven system for a wide range of clients, and he knows the essential keys for building lean muscle, shedding excess fat, increasing strength and endurance, and breaking through plateaus. For the first time, Verstegen tailors the Core Performance System specifically for women. Core Performance Women helps you develop the right mindset for success, while presenting a targeted nutrition and workout plan to guarantee results. Essential to Verstegen's system is his focused approach to proper recovery and muscle regeneration, which helps athletes gain full advantage of their time in the gym and prevent injury and everyday aches and pains. Verstegen offers his strategies for success, revealing his "non-diet" plan and simple rules for nutrition, even providing fast-food meal plans for women on the go. He teaches readers how to boost their "rear view" and homes in on the core movements that will whip every body into shape. The book is filled with powerful advice interwoven with inspiring vignettes of women who take charge of their health. Packed with full-color photographs detailing each exercise, along with full workout routines and integrated meal plans, Core Performance Women takes every woman to the top of her game.