Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
Fry your abs without the spine-wrecking, neck-jerking stress of traditional crunches -- using this radical sit-up designed by the world's leading back and muscle function expert, Professor Janda from Czechoslovakia. No one -- but no one -- has ever matched Bruce Lee's ripped-beyond-belief abs. What was his favourite exercise? Here it is. Now you can rip your own abs to eye-popping shreds and reclassify yourself as superhuman.

Rating : - A Decent Training Manual
I would like to preface this review with the statement that the price of the book is, as with almost everything else Pavel has produced, completely ridiculous. The book itself is good, but I would recommend obtaining it via friend, as the actual substance, while useful, is not the bulk of the text.

That being said, it's possible you're wondering why I gave it four stars instead of, say, three, and my justification is that the six areas of truly useful information it contains detail the only four accessory exercises necessary for a complete 'functional' abdominal component in a decent routine (which, by merit of already containing Squats and/or Deadlifts in some form, already includes some level of 'core' stimulation), and two breathing 'exercises' that are very useful for improving the effectiveness of the valsalva maneuver (for general heavy lifting) and exhalation strength.

However, the bad first:
1) The entire Janda Sit-Up section after the first ~3 pages is a very long infomercial and product manual for the gimmicky Ab Pavelizer, a $170 piece of steel that allows you to do Janda Sit-Ups (outlined in the book) without a partner. The issue is twofold - one, no non-business entity is ever going to spend that much on such a device, and two, even if you lack a partner, it's easy to put together a setup that accomplishes the same thing. The exercise itself is very good; the infomercial, not so.
2) There's a fairly large segment devoted to integrating ab function with the rest of the body once you've gotten to the stage that you can do the Janda Sit-Ups without dying. This is completely superfluous, since anyone who can afford $170 for the Pavelizer can also be reasonably expected to have access to free weights, and most worthwhile free weight exercises involve full-body stimulation, with the midsection providing stabilization. Having an entire section devoted to exercises that aren't necessary is extremely annoying.
3) Much of the last quarter of the book is just ads for his other books and videos, plus more stuff on the Pavelizer.
4) The useful information is really just a more elaborate version of stuff you can find in a number of other places; bodybuilding.com, while normally useless, has some version of every one of them in its exercise directory (except possibly the suitcase single-side deadlift).

Yes, that's right - approximately two-thirds of the book is completely useless. However, the remainder is fairly good, going into some reasonable detail on form for:

Janda Sit-Ups (to the same end as the regular sit-up, but with better abdominal isolation and vastly reduced back stress)
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Saxon Side-Bends (superior to the regular side-bend primarily in that smaller weights can be used to great effect, due to the longer lever arm)
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Full-Contact Twists (arguably the most useful core exercise from a functional perspective, and easily the best twisting exercise)
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Single-Side Suitcase Deadlifts (used primarily to stimulate the quadratus laborum, and helpful for back injury prevention and improved grip strength)
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The Stomach Vacuum (used by older bodybuilders to reduce the apparent size of the stomach and emphasize the chest; it's fallen out of favor now, but can help to reduce the midsection size in those who are already lean)
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"Bending the Fire" (breathing technique; the picture of Pavel inflating a hot water bottle is a pretty good explanation of the benefits it can have for strength of exhalation).

The two breathing exercises also have some carryover to the Valsalva maneuver, frequently used by powerlifters to increase the weight they can lift through increased pressure inside the torso, which helps to stimulate stronger muscle contractions when used.

The descriptions and form details for these exercises are fairly good (if you ignore the fact that most of the Janda Sit-Up chapter requires the pavelizer to be useful), though short, and while you can probably find screenshots of the useful pages online, and the information on either the normal versions or some variants can be found on bodybuilding.com, the book itself is, surprisingly, more useful.

As stated above, it's not worth the price, and, as a few reviewers have failed to realize, it isn't intended as a scientific text. It's a training manual, and should be treated as such. However, if you can get a copy used or for free (ideally through legal means, though I'm told that you can download most of Pavel's books in eBook form for free), or at least obtain scans of some of the pages, the information actually worth having is very useful. As stated above, between the four non-breathing exercises, you've got everything you'll ever need for training forward-bending, side-bending, and twisting movement patterns, and if you train in high-weight, low-rep, high-set schemes, you will indeed have 'bullet-proof' abs within about six months of adding the movements as accessory items in a decent routine.