Book picks similar to
Strongman: The Doug Hepburn Story by Tom Thurston
fitness
autobiography-biography
biography
health
Rescue Pilot: Cheating the Sea
Jerry Grayson - 2015
At age seventeen, he became the youngest helicopter pilot to ever serve in the Royal Navy. By age twenty-five, he was the most decorated peacetime naval pilot in history.For the Navy's Search and Rescue pilots, getting to work is both an adventure and an ordeal. Whether rescuing a wounded fighter pilot who has ditched in the sea, saving desperate survivors from a sinking ship, or picking up a grievously ill crewman from the deck of a nuclear-armed submarine that is playing a cat-and-mouse game with the Soviet navy, Jerry Grayson has lived a life of unparalleled excitement and adventure.His finest hour came during the infamous Fastnet Yacht Race of 1979, in which twenty-five yachts were lost. When a catastrophic storm enveloped the competitors, he and his crew pushed their Wessex helicopter to its absolute limit and put their own lives at risk, flying into hurricane-force winds to winch shipwrecked sailors from heaving tempestuous seas. An investiture at Buckingham Palace with Her Majesty the Queen was the result.Being a rescue pilot is a fast-paced career because there is no choice. Lives are at stake and pilots must move and think fast. Jerry Grayson's inside view of this heroic service is as inspirational as it is celebratory. Excitingly told, frequently funny, but also very poignant, Jerry's story is not an account of just one man's deeds, it is a salute to all the men and women he worked with who were able to turn tragedies into triumphs.Foreword by HRH the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, Commodore-in-Chief of the Fleet Air Arm.
You'll Never Walk
Andy Grant - 2018
He had a broken sternum, two broken legs, a broken elbow and shrapnel lodged in both forearms. He had a severed femoral artery, while sustaining nerve damage to his hands and feet as well as facial injuries. He had been blown up during a routine foot patrol in Afghanistan. Within days of coming to his senses, a doctor told Andy that because of the blast he would no longer be able to have children. You’ll Never Walk is his story. This is the tale of a Scouser who had to cope with losing his mum at the tender age of 12. The story of how a dream career in the Royal Marines descended into nightmare at the hands of the Taliban. The painstaking account of how he grew back six centimetres of shattered bone in his leg and learned to walk again. However, Andy wanted to run and push himself to the very edge of his limits and so he made a colossal decision. Against doctor’s advice and pleas from his father, he chose to have his leg amputated. The operation was a success, although there was a minor twist. Where once Andy’s treasured Liverpool FC tattoo had carried the message ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, surgery to create a stump removed a key word from the slogan. The scars of his amputation had been decorated with an ominous new motto, which read ‘You’ll Never Walk...’ Andy would walk again – he would do much more than that. Armed with a running blade he learned to run and play football, scaled mountains in South America and Italy and claimed two gold medals at Prince Harry’s Invictus Games. Through public speaking he brought hope to people right across the country. In 2016, he set his sights on a 10k below- the-knee-amputee world-record and completed the run in an unprecedented 37 minutes 17 seconds. And, most preciously of all, after every obstacle placed in his path, Andy became a father to a little girl.
Corps Strength: A Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant's Program for Elite Fitness
Paul J. Roarke Jr. - 2010
Corps Strength applies the same techniques used to develop and maintain each Marine's combat readiness to a day-to-day program for top-level fitness. Every aspect of training is incorporated into the program including warm-ups, stretching, upper body, core strength, lower body, cardio, running, goal-setting, and motivation. The author has trained thousands of people and witnessed time and again the amazing results achieved by these proven techniques. Regardless of current fitness levels, this personalized training methodology will enable readers to begin today and immediately progress in absolute strength, muscular endurance, aerobic capacity, and joint flexibility. The workouts in this book are packed with grueling mind- and body-draining tasks that test the mettle of any athlete while bringing him or her to top physical form.
On Jiu Jitsu
Chris Matakas - 2017
When our environment fails to challenge our depths, we are tasked to create one which does. Practitioners across the globe continue to use Jiu Jitsu as a tool for personal development. For many, the Jiu Jitsu academy is the one place in which we purposefully practice virtuous action. "On Jiu Jitsu" seeks to codify the mechanisms by which Jiu Jitsu shapes the individual, as the character traits required to achieve mastery in sport are the same which our highest humanity requires. It is the hope of the author that the articulation of these benefits will ensure the reader's continued practice of self-mastery through this sacred medium.
The Emotional First Aid Kit: A Practical Guide to Life After Bariatric Surgery
Cynthia L. Alexander - 2006
Alexander, PsyDThe second edition of this book is written for anyone who wants to change his or her life through bariatric weight loss surgery. Learn realistic and practical strategies for dealing with emotional difficulties encountered before and after your weight loss surgerystrategies that help you:* Relieve stress without using food* Modify unhealthy behavior* Overcome hurdles to establishing a consistent exercise program* Deal with negative reactions by friends, family, and spouse to your weight loss* Prevent relapse...and more.ABOUT THE AUTHORDr. Alexander is a psychologist with the Cleveland Clinic Florida in Weston and the 17th Circuit Court of Florida.
The Summit Seeker
Vanessa Runs - 2013
In The Summit Seeker, Vanessa Runs explores trail and ultra running on an emotional, psychological, and spiritual level. Vanessa started running to battle her demons, to heal her deepest wounds, and ultimately, to find her peace in the mountains. Her vivid descriptions of spectacular trails call you into wild places where you will find rugged beauty, expansive wilderness, and deep personal insights. Weaving her personal stories of struggle, hunger, and adventure, Vanessa tugs at our heartstrings and appeals to our most primitive drive as a species: to survive.
Following On: A Memoir of Teenage Obsession and Terrible Cricket
Emma John - 2016
England fans heralded the dawn of a new era.Instead, it turned out to be the start of England's arguably worst streak in any sport--a decade of frustration, dismay, and comically bungling performances that no fan will ever forget. The English cricket team became infamous for their ineptitude and a byword for British failure. By 1999, the team had reached its nadir, losing at home to New Zealand to become, officially, the worst test team in the world, ranking below even Zimbabwe.With spectacularly poor timing, fourteen-year-old Emma John chose 1993 to fall in love with cricket and, mystifyingly, with that terrible English cricket team. One day, with nothing better to do, she asked her sports-fanatic mother to explain the rules of the game on TV. Within a fortnight, Emma was a full-fledged cricket geek.Nearly a quarter of a century later, she goes back to England to meet her teenage heroes and find out just what was going on in the Worst English Cricket Team of All Time. As she traipses back through her adolescence, Following On is also a personal memoir of what it was like to grow up following a team that always lost--and why on earth anyone would choose to do it.
Falling Hard: A Journey Into the World of Judo
Mark Law - 2009
Falling Hard is Law’s love letter to judo—the culture, drama, history, and practice. With journalistic zeal, he delves deeply into the sport’s history and lore, and interweaves his own judo experiences with the development of judo in Japan, the life and vision of its founder Jigoro Kano, the export of judo to the West, the emergence of women in the sport, and detailed descriptions of competition on the world championship and Olympic levels. Law’s account is as much for the sports writing fan and armchair enthusiast as for the judo practitioner. With humor and skill, he describes grueling training sessions and matches (including his own), famous Olympic bouts, and legendary rivalries between judo players and national teams, and he speculates on the future of the sport.
Fitness Habits: Breaking the Barriers to Fitness
Amaresh Ojha - 2021
So many of us start enthusiastically, but give up somewhere along the way.If you have tried to keep pace with fitness and faced obstacles in sticking to it, this book is a step-by-step guide for you to win the game and make it a part of your day-to-day life.FITNESS HABITS is a compilation of a wealth of research and studies that challenge the most common notions about fitness. This book suggests sure-fire ways to stick to your fitness routine and helps you to create an urge to go back to your fitness routine – every single day.• Learn to acknowledge your failure in fitness as your progress and get motivated to continue.• Ready reference for beginners, those who started in the past but couldn’t continue, and those who have an on-and-off relationship with fitness.• Find an integrated model that will change the way you perceive fitness and help you make fitness a habit.An operating manual that gives you tried and tested methods of making fitness a habit.
Model Patient: My Life As an Incurable Wise-Ass
Karen Duffy - 2000
Then her whirlwind life of celebrity parties came to an abrupt, grinding halt when she was stricken with a serious illness in one of its rarest forms: sarcoidosis of the central nervous system.Duffy soon realized that the only way for her to survive was not to take the disease too seriously. Instead of hiding from life, she chose to run toward it. She learned to embrace the chaos of a life-threatening disease with a wit and humor that helped her to find the love of her life at a time when things seemed darkest.Model Patient is a gripping, inspiring, and hilarious memoir that recounts the singular triumphs and tragedies of coping with a chronic, life-threatening disease.
The Doper Next Door: My Strange and Scandalous Year on Performance-Enhancing Drugs
Andrew Tilin - 2011
Soon wielding syringes, this forty-something husband and father of two children becomes the doper next door.During his yearlong odyssey, Tilin is transformed. He becomes stronger, hornier, and aggressive. He wades into a subculture of doping physicians, real estate agents, and aging women who believe that Tilin’s type of legal “hormone replacement therapy” is the key to staying young—and he often agrees. He also lives with the price paid for renewed vitality, worrying about his health, marriage, and cheating ways as an amateur bike racer. And all along the way, he tells us what doping is really like—empowering and scary.
The Juice Master's Slim 4 Life: Freedom From The Food Trap
Jason Vale - 2002
The "Juice Master's" workshops and roadshows contain such antics as the "Who Wants to Be a Slimionnaire" game. Jason Vale is the ultimate health coach - the "Juice Master" - and in this book he reveals how everyone can get slim, get fit, and get energised - or "juiced". His lively style and irreverent text nonetheless contains clear health messages for everyone: give up what he calls "drug foods" - those nutritionally worthless addictive substances, such as sugar and caffeine and return to a fresh diet. Eat the freshest plant ingredients and feel the health benefit of raw juice which is full of healthy enzymes- hit out at the food industry and reject its brainwashing advertising- use food combining to help your digestion
Cinderella Man: The James J. Braddock Story
Michael DeLisa - 2005
His boxing career blighted by broken hands, the New York Irishman had won five of his previous 21 bouts and had been forced to quit. The Great Depression was at its height. When work dried up on the Hudson River docks, Braddock was forced to claim welfare relief to feed his young family.Then came a visit from his old manager, asking if he wanted one more fight. Desperate for money, Braddock had no choice but to say yes. Four wins later, he was the heavyweight champion of the world in the greatest upset in the sport’s history.Braddock’s rags-to-riches success led Damon Runyon to call him the Cinderella Man. His story captivated the nation in much the way the racehorse Seabiscuit’s would a few years later. Braddock came to represent the struggle for survival facing many families in mid-1930s America.James J. Braddock was born in New York City in 1906, one of seven children. He developed an early taste for fighting and quit school to work a series of menial jobs before resolving to pursue his boxing dream. Over the next decade he became a contender, before injury ruined his prospects. Redemption came on the night of June 13, 1935, with his famous victory over the outrageous champion Max Baer. Braddock would later lose his title to the great Joe Louis, but his place as the people’s champion was cemented forever.Author Michael DeLisa is historical consultant on a major motion picture entitled The Cinderella Man, starring Russell Crowe and Renée Zellweger, to be released in the summer of 2005.