San Francisco writer Erick Alvarez takes us into the secret world of muscle boys. Having spent over a decade as a prominent personal trainer in San Francisco's heavily gay-populated gyms, Erick presents in his bestselling book an examination of the gym that reaches beyond exercise and fitness to the social institution it has become.

In Muscle Boys: Gay Gym Culture, Erick delves into the history of the male athletic ideal, exploring 2,500 years of gay influence and the evolution of modern bodybuilding, male body image, and muscle-laden media. From the rise and fall of the ancient Greek gymnasiums to Michelangelo's carving of David during the Renaissance to the resurgence of bodybuilding during Victorian times to the modern day homoerotically charged media campaigns of Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch, Erick reveals the influence of gay culture in the creation of the ideal image of man - straight or gay.

Erick then invites us into the minds, hearts, and bodies of modern gay men and explains what drives gay body culture today and its powerhouse role in modern gay life.

In the largest research study of its kind, Erick Alvarez interviewed and surveyed almost 6,000 "Muscle Boys, Poz Jocks, Athletes, Circuit Boys, Muscle Bears, and Muscle Daddies" around the world. Muscle Boys: Gay Gym Culture is a fresh and bright perspective that will tell you everything you wanted to know and more about one of the fastest growing and most influential modern gay subcultures today: gay gym culture.

Muscle Boys: Gay Gym Culture was published by the Haworth Press/Taylor & Francis Group in February of 2008 and quickly become an international bestseller. By the end of the year, Muscle Boys: Gay Gym Culture had made it on bestseller lists (often in the coveted #1 spot!) for gay nonfiction in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, United States, and the UK.