But did you know that the traditional way of stretching—lock your knees, bounce, hold, hurt, hold longer—actually makes muscles tighter and more prone to injury?There’s a new and better way to stretch: Active-Isolated Stretching. And with The Whartons’ Stretch Book, the method used successfully by scores of professional, amateur, and Olympic athletes is now available to everyone.This groundbreaking technique, developed by researchers, coaches, and trainers, and pioneered by Jim and Phil Wharton, is your new exercise prescription. The routine is simple: First, you prepare to stretch one isolated muscle at a time. Then you actively contract the muscle opposite the isolated muscle, which will then relax in preparation for its stretch. You stretch it gently and quickly—for no more than two seconds—and release it before it goes into its protective contraction. Then you repeat. Simple, but the results are outstanding. The Whartons’ Stretch Book explains it all.Part I contains the Active-Isolated Stretch Catalog, with fully illustrated, easy-to-follow stretches for each of five body zones, from neck and shoulders to trunk, arms, and legs—over fifty stretches in all. Part II offers specific stretching prescriptions for over fifty-five sports and activities, from running, tennis, track, and aerobics to skiing, skating, and swimming. You’ll also find advice on stretching for daily activities such as driving, working at a desk, lifting, and keyboarding. Part III discusses stretching for life, with specific recommendations for expectant mothers and older athletes. It also includes specific stretching exercises that could help you avoid unnecessary surgery.Give Active-Isolated Stretching a try for three weeks. You’ll never go back to your old stretching routines again.

    What you might not know is that many of those targeted stretches have a much broader application, one that you can easily incorporate into your daily routine: pain relief.PrescriptiveStretching features full-color anatomical illustrations and step-by-step instructions for 40 of the most effective stretches to eliminate pain, alleviate muscle soreness, improve balance and flexibility, and prevent common injuries. In addition, you'll find sample stretching programs that you can follow as is or personalize to meet your body's needs.Best of all, PrescriptiveStretching shows you how to quickly assess your pain and identify the stretches to reduce discomfort. Specifically, you'll find recommendations for these common ailments:-Headache-Back pain-Neck stiffness-Shoulder soreness-Golfer's elbow-Tennis elbow-Runner's kneeWhether you're looking to increase range of motion or simply eliminate muscle pain and discomfort, PrescriptiveStretching has you covered. Comprehensive yet easy to use, it's the guide you'll turn to again and again.

    Hard workouts tear down the body, but rest allows the body to repair and come back stronger than before.The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery is the first comprehensive, practical exploration of the art and science of athletic rest. Certified cycling, triathlon, and running coach and yoga instructor Sage Rountree guides you to full recovery and improved performance, exploring how much rest athletes need, how to measure fatigue, and how to make the best use of recovery tools.Drawing on her own experience along with interviews with coaches, trainers, and elite athletes, Rountree details daily recovery techniques, demystifying common aids like ice baths, compression apparel, and supplements. She explains in detail how to employ restorative practices such as massage, meditation, and yoga. You will learn which methods work best and how and when they are most effective.Recovery is critical to performance gains. The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery offers recovery plans that target various training and race distances, in events from short distance bike races to ultramarathons, as well as examining recovery between seasons.This invaluable resource will enable you to maintain that hard-to-find balance between rigorous training and rest so that you can feel great and compete at your highest capability.

    Whether you're looking to lose the baby weight, that last ten pounds, or several hundred, this is the program that can change your life forever. They share their most effective secrets for weight loss success through diet and exercise and go into detailed focus on how to develop a powerful, sustainable mental change to keep the weight off forever. With their help, readers will "see" the hidden path of transformation; be guided through fast and fun exercises; enjoy loads of recipes (both quick and gourmet) along with advice for food shopping, preparation, and more! With an incredible expansion of the Carb-cycling core that has driven Chris's first two national bestsellers, the Powells guide you from the very first step to reach your ideal weight and transition to lifelong maintenance--high-impact results in as little as three weeks.

    From suburban Hopkinton, Massachusetts, to the center of metropolitan Boston, the author takes the reader through the mile-by-mile sights and sounds experienced by the runners, past and present. For this new edition, author and lifetime Bostonian Michael Connelly conducts interviews with runners of the 2013 Marathon and those preparing to run in 2014 – which will prove to be the Marathon’s most historic, celebrated, and highly attended. While still containing the wonderful trivia, history, and traditions from the original edition, this updated edition will bring a wider point of view, weaving in the shocking events surrounding the 2013 race, the aftermath, and Boston’s resilience and commitment to make the 2014 race something special.

    

    Anyone who trains will enhance their injury resilience and performance employing these principles proven over and over with athletes. In the highly competitive world of strength athletics, a back injury is seen by many as the ultimate career-ender. In truth, if handled properly, it is far from a death sentence. Follow the journey of international powerlifting champion Brian Carroll, who can attest to this first hand. This remarkable athlete went from 1100 lb squats and 800 lb deadlifts to unending pain and disability after a massive spinal compression injury. After a fortuitous meeting with leading back expert Professor Stuart McGill, he reset his training and his life to fight his way back to the top of the winner’s podium. Glean expertise from McGill and Carroll, both masters in their field, and learn how to orchestrate your own triumphant comeback. Whether you are a former champion yourself who has fallen on hard times, or someone starting a new foray into the world of strength training who wants to avoid injury and maximize training, the wisdom found within these pages is sure to take your resilience and lifts to the next level. Over 200 full color, rich illustrations demonstrate technique.

    No machines. No space. No hassles! With Your Body is Your Barbell, a reader will have no excuse not to get into the best shape of his or her life…simply, easily, and in just 4 weeks in the convenience of his or her own home. How? Using nothing more than what God blessed—a body with unlimited potential.Metabolic training expert BJ Gaddour, CSCS, who Men's Health magazine calls one of the "100 Fittest Men of All Time," has created a remarkably efficient and effective body-transforming diet and workout program based on just a handful of simple moves, the Bodyweight Eight. These no-equipment-required exercises are all one needs to build a strikingly symmetrical, perfectly proportioned, and classically beautiful physique, just like BJ's. (Not long ago, he was a fat guy with bad knees and an addiction to ice cream sundaes.)But it doesn't stop there. Once readers master each legendary fitness feat with perfect form, he will use BJ's "Sweat Spectrum," scalable, step-by-step progressions to go from ground zero to super hero. From these exercise variations, readers can construct hundreds of personalized workouts. Dozens of sample workouts are already demonstrated through big, bold how-to photographs within the book, and organized by goal, duration, intensity, and targeted body zone. This is the only book a man or woman needs to achieve the body he or she has always wanted anywhere…and without gear.

    Gravity is a compilation of Q&A posts from Mark Rippetoe s StrengthMill forum. Edited for brevity, efficiency, clarity, accuracy, and taste (in a loose sense, sorry), Mean Ol' Mr. Gravity adds to the information available in Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training and Practical Programming for Strength Training by tailoring it to the individual through his responses to questions posed by actual humans regarding their own training. It preserves the coarseness, humor, and candor that have become Rip s trademark style. A Question. Goombahboy: Hey Rip, why would you make a book out of a bunch of posts that are already available on the web? What could you possibly have been thinking? Mark Rippetoe: An excellent question. I have no idea, other than the fact that a book like this makes an excellent bathroom companion. The reading-kind of companion. Information and humor in small, easily managed chunks. Conveniently digestible pieces, as it were. Well, you know what I mean. Bozo1988: Yeah, what were you thinking? I mean, I know there s a lot of information here, I know that all of the really stupid stuff that would waste my time while reading it online has been removed, and that the videos posted on the board don t load very fast in a book format anyway, but why a book? Mark Rippetoe: Look, just read the damn thing, okay? You ll be fine.

    

    A top athlete in her field, not to mention a fan favorite and the first woman to rule in her male-dominated sport, Danica approaches every aspect of life with the utmost intensity. Now, she shows you how you can apply her daily principles and transform your life for the better--and have fun while doing it.Danica's 90-day high-intensity workout, protein-rich, paleo-inspired eating plan, and mental-conditioning program will get you leaner, stronger, and healthier than you've ever been before. By mixing full-body training and stretching exercises, her accessible workouts hit the holy trinity of fitness: strength, endurance, and flexibility. Bolstered by a customized eating plan for all-day energy, her program will also help you cultivate a mindset for limitless success. You will learn to aim your sights high, confront challenges and setbacks with confidence, and cross the finish line every time. Whether your goal is a stronger core, better skills in the kitchen, or a promotion at work, Danica's Pretty Intense plan will help you reach your highest potential.

    Used as a way of life, clean eating can improve overall health, prevent disease, increase energy, and stabilize moods.Whether you've lived on white bread and trans fats all your life and are looking to clean-up your diet, or are already health conscious, Eating Clean For Dummies embraces this lifestyle and provides you with an easy-to-follow guide to a clean-eating diet, recipes, and budgeting.The foundation of the clean eater's diet More than 40 clean-eating recipes Tips on how to change your eating habits without sacrificing taste or breaking your budget Tips to bring the whole family (even kids) on the path to a clean lifestyle If you're part of the growing population of consumers coming to the realization of the harmful impacts that highly processed and unnatural foods have on your body, or are taking preventive measures to avoid metabolic syndromes and diabetes, this is your hands-on, friendly guide to clean-eating diet, recipes, and budgeting.

    The new edition of Serious Strength Training presents-scientifically based guidelines for periodization workouts,-new information on incorporating popular bodybuilding systems into the periodization plan,-80 exercises that cause the greatest stimulation in the muscles,-a nutrition periodization program that explains how to meet the body's changing dietary needs during each phase of training.Serious Strength Training begins by outlining the basic scientific principles of training for strength and muscle mass--what happens to the body during training and why. Then it sets detailed guidelines for program design, explaining how to calculate training volume, intensity, rest intervals, number of exercises, and loading patterns. Lead author Tudor Bompa demonstrates how to use periodized workouts to peak at optimal times by manipulating six different training phases: anatomical adaptation, hypertrophy, mixed, maximum strength, muscle definition, and transition.This edition also presents a revolutionary metabolically based approach--created by Maura Di Pasquale, an internationally renowned physician--that allows readers to structure their diets to meet their individual metabolic profiles.Serious Strength Training includes programs for strength trainers and bodybuilders as well as for those with special needs and interests. Scientifically sound and research-based, it's also ideal for strength and conditioning experts and exercise scientists who want to know the best methods for developing greater muscle power and mass.

    Jeffry Life before. And if you have, you might have thought, How can this seventy-two-year-old doctor have the body of a thirty-year-old? But his photos are very real, and you can look just as good as he does when you take control of your health. Back in 1998, Dr. Life was sixty years old and a stereotype of the aging man: he was overweight with a noticeable gut and little muscle tone. Even though his own medical practice was thriving, and he thought he knew everything about men’s health, the facts proved differently. His libido was low, which was ruining his self-esteem. He felt tired all the time, yet no amount of sleep made him feel well rested. It wasn’t until a cardiologist read him the riot act that he even considered that change was possible. He then decided to make critical adjustments to his diet and lifestyle, and the results have been nothing short of astounding. More than a decade later, Dr. Life continues to look and feel younger than ever. He knows that if he can make these changes to his body, his sex life, and his health, any man can. In this revolutionary book, he’ll show how you can turn around yourhealth by using the very same program he success-fully created and follows to this day. The Life Plan introduces a healthy aging lifestyle that any man can master, no matter what shape he may be in. It offers: • An action-packed exercise program designed to make working out entertaining as well as improve heart health and increase muscle mass. His program taps into various disciplines—cardio workouts, resistance training, balance and core conditioning, martial arts, and Pilates. • An easy diet, featuring delicious choices, that any man can follow, along with rules for eating out and sample recipes for the single or married guy. • A simple nutrient supplement regimen highlighting the top supplements men may need to halt, and even reverse, the aging process. • A prudent guide to male hormone replacement therapies based on the most up-to-date research.  • Lessons on how to get your doctor to provide the care you deserve. • How to sidestep America’s disease-based approach to medicine and fuel optimal health. • And much more. By following this program you can once again enjoy an active, clear-headed, sexually satisfying, vigorous, and health-filled life, while avoiding late-onset diabetes, heart disease, and other common illnesses and complaints of aging. For men seeking to make over their bodies and turn back the clock, The Life Plan delivers the keys to a fitter body, a stronger immune system, and a richer, fuller life.

    Vijay Vad has spent years researching how to cure back pain using medical yoga and Pilates. Profiled in The Wall Street Journal, his program requires just fifteen minutes a day for eight weeks to restore flexibility and prevent future injuries.Offering a proven alternative to invasive surgery, Dr. Vad’s Back Rx provides the best of mind/body medicine by giving readers three step-by-step exercise series, demonstrated in 130 precise photographs, for implementing his popular program at home. Even readers with severely limited mobility will rejoice in Dr. Vad’s gentle introductory workout. Progressing through his self-paced program, they will discover a new range of exercises, breathing techniques, and tips for self-massage. For those who want to go even further and use this program for more than the treatment of a single injury, an advanced workout is included that puts readers on the road to peak performance.The perfect combination of modern medicine, Pilates innovations, and ancient yoga postures, Back Rx builds important new fundamentals for lifelong freedom from pain.