Becoming a Supple Leopard, 1st Edition: The Ultimate Guide To Resolving Pain Preventing Injury And Opti

by Kelly Starrett, Glen Cordoza

LEARN HOW TO HACK HUMAN MOVEMENT

Join the movement that has reached millions of athletes and coaches; learn how to perform basic maintenance on your body, unlock your human potential, live pain-free…and become a Supple Leopard.

Improve your athletic performance, extend your athletic career, treat body stiffness and achy joints, and rehabilitate injuries—all without having to seek out a coach, doctor, chiropractor, physical therapist, or masseur. In Becoming a Supple Leopard, Kelly Starrett—founder of MobilityWod.com—shares his revolutionary approach to mobility and maintenance of the human body and teaches you how to hack your own human movement, allowing you to live a healthy, happier, more fulfilling life.

Performance is what drives the human animal, but the human-animal can be brought to an abrupt halt by dysfunctional movement patterns. Oftentimes, the factors that impede performance are invisible to not only the untrained eye but also the majority of athletes and coaches. Becoming a Supple Leopard makes the invisible visible. In this one-of-a-kind training manual, Starrett maps out a detailed system comprised of more than two hundred techniques and illuminates common movement errors that cause injury and rob you of speed, power, endurance, and strength. Whether you are a professional athlete, a weekend warrior, or simply someone wanting to live healthy and free from restrictions, Becoming a Supple Leopard, will teach you how to maintain your body and harness your genetic potential.

Learn How to:
Prevent and rehabilitate common athletic injuries
Overhaul your movement habits
quickly identify, diagnose, and fix inefficient movement patterns
Problem solve for pain and dysfunction in austere environments with little equipment
Fix poor mechanics that rob power, bleed force, and dump torque
Unlock reservoirs of athletic capacity you didn't know you had
Identify and fix poor movement patterns in children
Reverse the aging process
Develop strategies that restore function to your joints and tissues
Accelerate recovery after training sessions and competition
Create personalized mobility prescriptions to improve movement efficiency
Improve your quality of life through regained work capacity
Run faster, jump higher, and throw farther

Genres: Fitness, Health, Nonfiction, Sports, Reference, Bodies, Self Help

400 pages, Hardcover

First published February 10, 2013

Reviews

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommended if you are an athlete, trainer, coach, or someone with a physically strenuous job. I don't really fall into any of those categories but the book was for me too.

If you weight train, I'd call this book essential. You need to know you're performing your lifts correctly to both maximize your potential and to prevent injuries that can be exacerbated by repetitions over time. The book is full of photographs demonstrating a variety of exercises and common faults to avoid.

How does this relate to me? A lot of the gym exercises are models for movements we use in everyday life. Picking up laundry, your kids, or any lifting really. How many times do you sit down and stand up in a day? Squats are a model for how to do that without ruining your knees.

If you don't want to be a hunched over, pain-ridden person when you get older, this book matters to you.

I first saw Kelly Starrett on a segment of a Creative LIVE workshop. He has a doctorate in physical therapy, owns a CrossFit gym, and has worked with thousands of athletes to resolve injuries and improve their performance. He has seen his work in action.

I was intrigued by his talk about mobility and started watching and trying his free Mobility Workout-Of-the-Day videos from the beginning.

I've been doing what I call easy yoga for years with little change. I've always been inflexible and figured that's just how it was. After doing some of Kelly's MWODs, I noticed some improved flexibility. Kelly believes we can all improve our mobility, and I am on board.

It's not fast or easy, but with his test, do a mobilization, and retest approach, you can see the results. Even if I skip the test/retest, I can usually feel the difference.

Chances are you don't realize how matted down your tissues are and the amount of mobility you are missing. A lot of us spend a lot of time sitting in front of computers every day. That takes a significant toll on the body.

The book contains over 170 pages of mobilizations broken down by parts of the body with text and photographs demonstrating the actions and what they help or improve.

Many are scaled for different levels of ability, which is good because even when I look at something and think, "Oh, I can do that," I often find I'm too stiff.

There are a lot of different actions to try. I found myself reading, then going back a few pages to try something out before continuing. It's a great reference that I will be using often.

I'm committed to his 15-20 minutes a day for mobility work. The beauty is you don't even have to do it all at once. You need to do 2 minute chunks to effect change generally, but you can split it up and fit it into your day.

I dinged it a star for typos and no index though the contents are pretty good. I also wish he'd put his basic approaches for the mobilizations in the glossary for easy reference (e.g. smash & floss, pressure waving, paper-clipping). I bookmarked that section so I can refer to it as I assimilate his vernacular and try out his MWODs.

The book is a lot of info to take in, so might want to see what his Mobility WOD videos are like to see what you think first. I really like that he loves the scifi movie Dune even though he's a big, athletic, flexible guy. I also enjoy reading and hearing about how the body's muscles, bones, and fascia interrelate. His content is smart and accessible.

If you're not ready to put in some effort (2+ minute chunks!) that may be uncomfortable to effect change, you might not be ready for this book. I still recommend it though since there are things you can incorporate into your day.


ETA 11/12/15: Sounds like the 2nd edition is a significant improvement as it includes an index, 80 or so more pages of content, and has been rearranged some to make it easier to use.

[R · Rating 1 out of 5]

crossfit noise

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are you tired of being told that your aches / paints / injuries / etc. will go away if you "just do more yoga / strength work / stretch more"? Do you feel like you're just cobbling together a mix of common sense & pseudo-science & hoping for the best without any clear idea of what is *actually* causing your problems and what is *actually* likely to fix things?

If so, you might at the very least find this book interesting. Starrett's philosophy is that “All human beings should be able to perform basic maintenance on themselves,” which I can definitely get behind. Relying on doctors & PTs & trainers & whatnot to diagnose & fix every little ache & pain that comes up is just not tenable in the long-term.

This book is for:

* Athletes who have been hurt
* Athletes who think they might be getting hurt
* Athletes who would like to not get hurt
* Athletes who want to perform better at their sport
* People who move their bodies
* People who want to keep moving their bodies happily for as long as possible

By way of explaining the title:

"When I was fourteen I watched 'Gallipoli,' a World War I movie about two Australian sprinters going off to war, with my dad. There's a memorable scene in the beginning of the movie in which Archy, a rising track star, is being trained by his uncle Jack. The pep talk goes something like this:

Jack: What are your legs
Archy: Springs. Steel springs.
Jack: What are they going to do?
Archy: Hurl me down the track.
Jack: How fast can you run?
Archy: As fast as a leopard.
Jack: How fast are you going to run?
Arch: As fast as a leopard!

"For whatever reason, the 'fast as a leopard' mantra stuck with me. But it wasn't until a Navy SEAL buddy of mine said to me, "You know, Kelly, a leopard never stretches' that this notion of becoming a supple leopard drifted into my consciousness

"Of course a leopard doesn't stretch. A leopard has full physical capacity available at all times. It can attack and defend with full power at any moment. Unlike humans it doesn't need to prep for movement. It doesn't need to activate its glutes; it doesn't have to foam-roll; it doesn't have to raise its core temperature--it's just ready.

...

Metaphorically speaking, if you want to become a supple leopard, you need to understand how to move correctly in all situations. You also need the tools to deal with stiff and adaptively short tissues that restrict range-of-motion. This is the basis of my movement and mobility system."

At nearly 400 pages, it is a hefty tome, but it's also well- (and entertainingly) written, medically & scientifically precise without being overly technical, easy to read & follow, & filled with lots of pictures showing The Right Things and The Wrong Things pretty clearly. Also, it's clearly designed with average people who work at desk jobs & drive in cars in mind as much as more competitive / serious athletes.

Parts of it I think are designed to just be read, and other parts of it are designed as reference material. I would recommend reading Chapters 1-4, 6, & the first 20 pages or so of 7. Chapter 5 & most of 7 I think can be consulted as needed. Look at particular sections of Chapter 5 ("Movement Hierarchy") as you are working on each particular movement (air squat, jumping & landing, push-ups, etc.), & whatever specific sections of Chapter 7 pertain to your problem areas in terms of tightness / injury / lack of mobility / whatever.

Coach Starrett also has TONS of videos & other references on his mobility WOD website, so those make great follow-up materials as well.

[Leo W. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read it cover-to-cover and found it one of the worse written books in my experience. Endlessly repetitive. Author invents words for movements and stretches that are well-known and places them in 'his' system. First part, which is about a quarter of the book in length, could easily have been written in 5 pages. It basically tells you how to stand and what muscles to engage before undergoing a movement. Not useless info, but hardly qualifies as insightful. The second introduces basic lifts. Done much better by others. e.g. Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training. The third section introduces some (active) stretches. These are largely conventional. A major disappointment.

[Sandy Abel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am fascinated with the mechanics of the human body. This book was awesome! I wish I discovered this earlier in my life but I'm not dead yet! You are never to old to learn. Also, it is so important to keep moving as we get older to keep our joints lubricated, muscles and bones, strong. It is a good preventive maintenance book plus you learn great form and function.

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

The absolute best reference on keeping your body pain-free while getting fit. Kelly not only knows his stuff, he makes it understandable to the layperson.

The detailed pics & descriptions make this book a must-have

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is good info here - but you have to plough through some CF noise and jargon. I think Starrett's more recent work had moved away from this.

Still, a valuable resource for mobility and strength work.

[Kim Pallister · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished the book a while back but am just getting around to posting a review.

Kelly Starrett is really well known in the Crossfit community. As a Crossfit gym owner and Doctor of Physical Therapy, he has carved out a really niche of expertise as being the "joint, form and mobility guy" of crossfit. In addition, he has posted a ton of really useful videos to youtube over the past couple years that have made him a well known name. So, when he announced the book, many people pre-ordered and I was one of them.

The book is good, though it has a couple flaws (I'll get to those later). It's organized in two main parts.

The first section deals with categorizing all the major crossfit movements from gymnastics, olympic lifting, etc. Deadlift, Clean & Jerk, Pullups, Handstand Pushups, and many more are organized based on the degree of difficulty (mostly having to do with how dynamically one has to stabilize the load & form). I liked this section, as the logic made a lot of sense, modulo the flaws below.

The second section discusses all the major muscles & joints in the body, and covers a range of techniques of how to better stretch, mobilize, floss, and otherwise work them into better range of motion and stability. This section was also useful, but made less sense to read logically back to back, rather than a reference to build a program from and/or to mix up a program of mobility work.

The flaws I found with the book are threefold. Two are relatively minor.

First, Starrett uses a little too much 'bro-speak' in his language. It's fine, and what we've come to expect, in his videos, which are quite conversational in tone, but in print it feels a little cheesy. This is a minor complaint

Second, given the huge number of videos he's posted in the past, there's probably very little here that you can't get by watching all the videos for free. However, I didn't mind paying some extra to have all of the same information in a logically organized form. It would also be nice to provide some reference/link to any youtube videos where those made sense to add clarity to the text/pictures in the book.

My third, and only major complaint, is that the book could have really benefited from spending some money on an anatomical illustrations. When Starrett talks about torque in the shoulder capsule, it would be nice to have some actuall "under the hood" illustrations.

These things aside, I still found the book useful and would recommend it to all crossfitters.

[Zahwil Dossa · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can go through life, especially youth, not realizing you're doing a lot of basic things wrong. As middle age creeps in, things like bad posture, too much sitting, and back rounding start to manifest in various ways.

Starett takes nothing for granted. He tells you how to properly stand (by screwing your feet into the ground, squeezing your butt, and bracing your midsection), how to do a pushup, how do jump and so forth.

Starett breaks down all the movements into the basic archetypes of squat, hinge, and press. The movements are the same whether you are performing them with a loaded barbell, or just picking up a bag of groceries. The key is what he terms "midline stabilization", which means you are always maintaining a neutral back and bracing your stomach as though you are about to receive a punch in the gut.

The chapters are comprehensive and include detailed guidance on squats, deadlifts, benchpress and overhead press. They also include the more advanced "Olympic lifts" such as power cleans, and snatch.

What I like most about Supple Leopard is the focus on maintaining our bodies with a variety of daily work such as rolling muscles and enhancing mobility with a lacrosse ball, rollers, resistance bands, etc.

Our bodies don't come with instruction manuals, and no one teaches us how to move through life while playing sports, bearing loads or just sitting and standing. Yet we only get one body and it has to last our whole lives through.

Supple Leopard fills the gap. It reads like an instruction manual to protect your body, from head to toe, against the wear and tear of life. It deserves a 5-star rating!

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last section of this book is my favorite. It has a diagram of the body that is color coded by regions. For each region there is a corresponding set of exercises to relieve pain in this part of your body. It is incredibly useful and worth every penny of the book. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the rest of the book is also a useful reference that includes a theory of exercise and lots of exercises that you can do at home.

[Simon Stelzl · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 Stars. Contains some useful advice, but also filled with lots of pseudoscientific nonsense. It's more or less impossible for people without medical/physiotherapeutic background to tell the difference, or more specifically sort the given Informationen into one of these two categories. Thus I cannot fully recommend this book to everyone.

[Johnny Altomonte · Rating 1 out of 5]

What an absolute prick of a human being. Reading anything other than the exercise-specific information is absolutely unbearable. Somewhere in the internet exists a blog post that sums up the key points- read that instead

[Peter Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starrett views training in the gym as a means to get the perfect technique in "archetypical" movements and then teaching the athlete to combine movements to practice transitions, to ultimately remove pain in daily life and enhance athletic performance. It's a pretty comprehensive book, covering topics ranging from principles of healthy movement, how to sit, stand up, perform strength exercises and to mobilize.

Starret introduces the idea of creating torque, which he seems pretty proud of, considering he sees everything wrong in the world as a lack of torque which can be solved by screwing your hands into the ground and flexing your butt. Many workout instructions can be summarized as such: Screw your hands/feet into the ground, create torque, squeeze your butt and brace your core. The instructions got monotonous after a while.

Starrett's case against stretching is a good one: our mobility issues aren't merely muscular. It is a factor of the mobility of joints, motor-control, nerves, connective muscle-tissue (fascia) and even skin. Stretching a lot can invite injuries because it increases the range-of-motion without learning motor-control for that newly acquired length.

Starret makes the point that when you restore range or function to a joint or tissue, it must reflect in the training, you must utilize the mobility if you want to retain it without perpetually stretching.

To solve this problem, Starret introduces rubber bands and many other gadgets to mobilize the joints and other fun stuff, not only the muscles. I might be awfully conservative here, but the book failed to convince me that gadgets and better to prevent injuries than moving with your body weight. I'm afraid that Starrett is so inventive in his techniques as a sort of way to leave his personal imprint on the fitness world. It seems to me that the people who are hyper-focused on injury-prevention are those who always get injured.

Starrett is the kind of guy that would be focusing on creating external rotation, creating torque and screwing his hands into the bed when he makes love. Or goes to social events and laughs because it's healthy for his internal organs.

I was enthusiastic about the premise of the book, namely to be like a leopard, that's always ready for action, and doesn't stretch for warm-up or keep its mobility. However, the second half of the book is dedicated in hundreds of ways to use weird gadgets to "mobilize" your joints and muscles without stretching. It seems like we've come full-circle, haven't we?

Some tips seemed off to me, for instance, that the feet should be straight forward during squats, shouldn't this be a personal preference due to one's physiology?

It's clear that Starrett knows his physiology, and he gave me many ideas for my training, but the enthusiastic Californian attitude is not my cup of tea.

"Are you ready to become self-actualized by stroking yourself with the VooDoo Floss Band™ and increasing consciousness by mushing a Supernova® ball into your face?"

Although I am not particularly enthusiastic about the presentation and remain sceptical to the general approach, I have picked up a lot of interesting technical tweaks to many exercises. There is genuinely good advice in the book, such as seeing the spine as three parts and to aim for a global arch. Meaning that the lumbar, thoracic and cervical spine should be a part of the same extension in relation to each other. This idea is useful, for instance, when we sit slouched, we tend to try to fix it by overextending the thoracic spine to compensate, which isn't good for the spine. Better would be stand up, brace to create a neutral spine and then sit back down.

In conclusion, a useful handbook for athletes and coaches in many ways, and despite my scepticism of the general approach, I'd still recommend it.

[Jessenia Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love to work out with my main areas being Crossfit, Olympic Weightlifting, and general weightlifting in the gym. My coach recommended this book very early on into my Crossfit journey. I thank the heavens for Kelly Starlett, his books and his website MobilityWOD. There are so many people that come into the box dealing with previous injuries, mobility issues, or are currently dealing with injuries. I've spent a lot of time observing individuals and one big difference is the amount of time people spend on warming up, stretching, and general mobility. I attribute this book to being generally injury free. The two minor injuries I've had were due to technical errors and they were VERY MINOR. I am generally super mobile and have improved in the few problem areas I've had--mostly mobility and flexibility in the lats/front rack position. I always refer to this book when dealing with certain issues and have been a big fan of his vlog series on MobilityWOD.

As for the book, it is well organized. It is divided in to sections/areas of the body, which makes it easy to navigate to the areas you are interest in. I suggest reading the book from beginning to end at least once. Once you have done so, you can use it as reference and go to the sections you want to focus on. The text comes with supplemental pictures that enforces the concept he is trying to convey. Overall, after reading this book, I have gained sufficient knowledge to be able to pay more attention to my body and attempt to fix things I see or feel are off.

[Tayvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I kind of want to give this book four and a half stars instead of five because even though I absolutely love this book and its easily my most useful I feel it has a few flaws.

1. Starrett seems to have gone commercial completely siding with Rogue making his website something you have to pay for and this book showing a lot of product placement.

2. I feel even though this is 400 page it could have been longer and more stuff could have been put into it. I remember WODs present on the site that aren't present in the book and that makes me think he is going to come out with another which makes me hopeful and kind of dismayed that he didn't cover as much as he could.

3. There was no test-retest in this books which I always felt was a huge part of his site. He just gives the mobility portion without showing or telling us how we should test the position out even though it is mostly common sense and if you've been following him long enough you should only know. This is only a gripe for the beginners who just jumped in and some of his less obvious mobilizations.

Otherwise this is a perfect book and if you care about your body and your performance it needs to be apart of your life.

[Chelsea Lawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is/was a life-changing book for me, up there with Marie Kondo’s Magic of Tidying and Essentialism. I have such a deeper understanding of body mechanics and how to go about training in order to handle loaded movements with proper alignment, grace, and power... like a leopard.

A few things I’ll be ruminating on and integrating into my exercise routines in the coming years:
- Start with focusing on the default position of an organized spine and neutral jaw
- Movements come down to motor control (technique) and range of motion
- Move from stable position to stable position. Think of the body archetypes and tunnel concept
- Mobilize in the positions you are trying to improve
- Try different mobilization techniques- pressure wave, smash and floss, and contract and relax
- Stay on the tissue until you feel a change
- Test and retest, no days off, no pain face

Everyday movements provide endless opportunities to notice areas of limitation and practice good positioning. I‘m excited to up my game in the contexts I work in like slacklining, dance/hula hooping, running, golf... as well as trying new sports, like swimming!

[Livio Dinaj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely changed the way I viewed motion, and has done the most in furthering my understanding of the human body in terms of its functionality. I realised that my hyper mobility was causing my chronic lower back\hip pain. The heuristics of the "two hand rule" in checking whether I've been hyper extending my spine has prevented so many injuries, just to name an example. When I see a physio, I can actually understand a lot better what his interventions and therapeutical exercises are meant to do. I'm also far more capable of self intervening and fixing my own body without needing a physio save for the most persistent and chronic injuries. Combined with the online app The Ready State, it becomes your bible for functional movement.

[Vahn Parsons · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You cannot make basic lifestyle errors and expect your body to be able to absorb the consequences when you are working in a performance-biased paradigm."

Dr Kelly Starrett certainly has a controversial and unconventional take on strength, conditioning and mobility (very few traditional static stretching routines appear, for instance), but the core concept that most pain and injury can be avoided by correcting basic postural and movement patterns or at least managed with aggressive and holistic mobility work, is intuitively convincing. Perhaps the most important contribution is the recognition of the importance of physical movement to the health of the human body in an increasingly sedentary world.

Ideas such as focusing on spinal stabilisation before branching out into motor control, range of motion, and movement archetypes provide a solid theoretical framework from which to understand and diagnose injuries or restrictions at a systemic rather than an acute level. The practical sections utilise an excellent system of indexes and tables to quickly direct the reader from symptoms to diagnoses and then to prescribed treatments. In fact, the best way to utilise this work is to simply gloss over the theory and go directly to finding a diagnosis that matches the symptom and try the prescribed treatment.

In my own sporting experience, I found some of the suggested techniques to be uncovered treasures or a complete waste of time, with a few in between. Due to its focus on general good movement patterns and stable posture, there are gaps when it comes to recovery of specific injuries and weak points that simply go beyond mobility work and I found better addressed by a Physiotherapist or Osteopath consultation. However, as a reference guide for those with a high standard of fitness, this work remains unparalleled in its practical depth. It is a solid starting point to identify the problem and at least try a solution (that works most of the time for the average pain or stiffness) yourself before seeking medical attention, where an actual injury or restriction has been identified.

[Braydon Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book about movement and mobility. The principles outlined in this text is concise and easy to implement. I came to this book after some back pain from constant sitting, and over developed musculature on one side.

The first principle on spinal stability and bracing the spine whenever performing most movements, and that our spine is not designed to bend all that much, (our body is essentially a giant hinge and we're supposed to bend at the hips and keep the spine tight and straight) was very eye opening and once you read about it you'll notice the body performing spinal faults constantly (in yourself and especially other people).

If you care about longevity, being able to move around in your old age and to prevent or rehab injury this book is probably your best read.

I'll be coming back to this text as a reference probably for the rest of my life.

[Travis Tazelaar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book on exercise I've read in many years. Think you're in a good position because that's what you learned in high school? Have pain in your hips? Travel a lot and forced to sit? This book will help you figure out how to fix that pain and get into good position when you're training or even just walking down the street. I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone. Even if you hate exercising you'll find very useful tips in here to help mitigate pain.

[Oliver Marsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned so much from this and I think it will forever change how I view my everyday movements. If any of my muscles or joints are ever tight, swollen or in pain, I'll come back to this book, using the comprehensive glossary of mobilizations to systematically work through the problem zone.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An sich vier Sterne, aber die eBook-Version war einfach katastrophal.

[Grégory Nicouleau · Rating 5 out of 5]

A life-changing book. All you need to know about movement, pain and performance. A must-have!

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are so many things Starrett says about correct movement mechanics that would leave me inured. This book does not take diverse physiology into account. I did like many of the mobility suggestions.

[Kris Muir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Today I finished reading “Becoming a Supple Leopard” and I put it #3 on my list of books read in 2016. Kelly Starrett has taken something so simple and ubiquitous--movement--and given us a theoretical framework and practical prescriptions for how to improve how we move on a daily basis at home, at work, in the gym, and in athletic competition.

There are some daily reminders that we can all implement, like how to properly brace yourself and create torque before sitting or picking up any object, whether it’s box at home or a 185-lb barbell in the gym. And there apparently is an optimal way to text as well. Sitting, as we know, is the new smoking. This book recommends that for every 30 minutes of sitting we need 4 minutes of mobility, with something like the Couch Stretch. That’s a tall task for any of us, but it gives us something at which we can aim. Another technique to optimizing your movement is to spend 15 minutes every day on routine maintenance, not static stretching but mobilizing your problem areas with rollers, lacrosse balls, bands, etc. 15 minutes daily. No excuses.

Aside from everyday movement cues that I picked up, I now have a deeper understanding of the movement archetypes and how those can help me. I have certain athletic goals--overhead squat, pistol squat, etc.--and this book has given me a recipe of mobilizations to help achieve those goals. Whether you want to ameliorate your lower back pain or improve your back squat, investing in how you move will not only make you feel better but will likely enhance your quality of life.

Happy Reading!

[Sarah Clement · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is less a book to read from cover to cover, and more a coffee table (or gym, more accurately) resource. I learned a lot from this book in terms of both movement and mobility, and I will return to this as a resource time and gain. I think the beginning chapters are certainly worth reading, however, and I tried to cheat the system by skipping right to the mobility bits and found myself returning to read them. I understand that the format of this new edition is much improved since the previous one, so I think a lot of the kinks were worked out, but I would like to see improvements to the index in future editions. I use indices all the time in non-fiction books, but in this it is especially important, and I think there needs to be more detailed listings for each body part and issues you might be dealing with. I think some of the information is more ideology than fact (simply because there's a lot we still don't know about movement and mobility), so I think that readers need to be cognisant that their movements may never look 'ideal' no matter how closely they follow Kelly's advice. Overall, however, this is an excellent book worth having on your shelves for both active, athletic people and those who spend too much time hunched over desks.

[xDEAD ENDx · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mobility work is useful stuff, but I'm left feeling a little bit limited since I don't have a lot of the equipment here at home (boxes, a stable pole to tie bands onto, barbells, etc.)...

The other half of the book is just silly. There's minimal references to works that would justify what is being said, and there seems to be a lot of contradictions. For instance, one of the trainers Starrett claims to be indebted to specifically says to turn the feet out at about 30 degrees when squatting -- quite different than the "perfectly straight" instructed in this book. Also, a number of the pictures go against the cues. It's almost as if "straight," "parallel," "upright" can loosely be used at some points, whereas at other points there's no margin of difference allowed. On top of all this, there's no mention of modification for those of us who aren't physiologically "perfect"; in fact, we're basically told that we must move in a certain way. I can only imagine the injuries that will result from that.

There is potential in the premise behind this book, but it comes off as just more CrossFit circle-jerking for people who are, like, "professional athletes".

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Kelly Starrett and so I was excited when I first learned about this book. I pre-ordered it as soon as I could. I was expecting to see his helpful Mobility WODs in book form, with lots of illustrations and descriptions.

The book does have a lot of great photos and explanations, but a lot of it deals with the various Crossfit movements, like lifting and even rowing and wall ball. That's helpful stuff indeed, but I'm fortunate to have great coaches at my gym to teach me that already, and there are other in-depth books like Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training for lifting.

I just wanted a book where that I can turn to when I'm like, "hey, my lack of shoulder mobility is driving me crazy. What exercises can I do to work on that?" Only the last third of Supple Leopard is devoted to that.

Also, I wish there were an index. K-Star is a bottomless vessel of Jedi wisdom and I need help navigating it!

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fundamentally, this book is an organization and systemization of the material that Kelly Starrett has posted on MobilityWOD.com. It covers his axioms of human movement, applies those axioms to teaching correct form on fundamental strength exercises, and provides a set of techniques to address mobility issues preventing you from moving correctly. There's a lot more here than just a bunch of 'stretching exercises'- it's really treating the human body as a complete system and provides a manual for basic maintenance.

I can say from years of experience that this stuff works. Without hyperbole, Starrett's techniques have been life-changing for me; I can walk to work without pain shooting down my leg and squat below parallel with good form. I've always recommended his work to people struggling with pain and stiffness, but it's pretty daunting to have to slog through two and a half years of videos to get the whole picture. I'm grateful that I can now simply recommend they buy this book.

[Alec · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not impressed. There appears to be a fairly new movement (market) for this sports rehab/pre-hab/'movement' material. Everything from rolling a foam roller over your muscles to 'functional movement' exercises.
I am skeptical. It screams marketing and sales to me. I've received no real measurable benefit from this category of 'fitness' I'm a marathoner with 7 under my belt so far, to give you an idea of where I'm coming from.

I'll stick to light jogging and dynamic stretching for 10-15 minutes before a hard workout to warm up. It's worked perfectly for me for the past 10 years, and I am still(knock on wood) injury free and healthy. If I need real physical rehab, I'll go see a real sports doc or therapist.