How can we manage our exercise, lifestyle, and nutrition habits to overcome the obstacle of joint dysfunction? That is the central question that BUILT FROM BROKEN, winner of several indie publishing awards (including the 2022 IR Discovery Awards), seeks to answer.

Author Scott Hogan is a personal trainer, exercise specialist, and founder of the nutrition website Saltwrap.com who, exhausted from dealing with his own chronic aches and pains, decided that mainstream methods of physical fitness just weren’t working. In search of a better schema, he dived into the scientific literature (BUILT FROM BROKEN cites nearly 300 peer-reviewed articles) and came up with what he calls a “science-based guide to healing painful joints, preventing injuries, and rebuilding your body.” The phrase “built from broken,” he explains, emphasizes the process rather than the result. It means that you are rebuilt from broken pieces. Despite some overtones of the tenants of Alcoholics Anonymous, this is a unique and alluring re-imagining of the ancient process of getting into shape.

Readers familiar with self-help books may have found that a lot of them share the same two qualities which tend to be at loggerheads: they are relentlessly upbeat and totally nonspecific. The authors’ cheer-leading personas make you feel like you can do anything, but their actual advice is so vague that you don’t know what that “anything” should be. You are, in other words, no better off after reading the books than before. Hogan’s work is not in that mold. He addresses the whole person–mind and body–without coming across as mystical or far-out. His tone is that of a been-there-done-that advisor, a guide who will get you over the humps, a soldier in the foxhole with you. It is exactly the tone the self-help industry needs but too often lacks. Whether you look like The Rock or The Blob, you can benefit from this book.

With an abundance of checklists, illustrations, and training plans, plus a style that is equal parts science and anecdote, Scott Hogan’s award-winning and entertaining BUILT FROM BROKEN is an amazing effort.

~Anthony Aycock for IndieReader