Athletic Body in Balance

by Gray Cook

Great athletes make difficult moves look effortless with a combination of skill, strength, and balance. Traditional conditioning builds a fitness base, but modern sports training takes into account athletic movement patterns. Athletic Body in Balance is the first guide of its kind to show you how to train for smooth, fluid movement and prevent muscle imbalances, mobility restrictions, stability problems, and injuries. Physical therapist and sports conditioning expert Gray Cook has proven the effectiveness of his approach through the performances of athletes in the NFL, NBA, NHL, WNBA, and Reebok® University's sports training system. Cook's methods will help you identify functional weaknesses; correct imbalances; explore your potential; and refine sport-specific movement skills such as jumping, kicking, cutting, and turning. You will see where conditioning is breaking down and how to get your body back on track. Whereas other books concentrate on maximizing your strengths, Athletic Body in Balance focuses on exposing and overcoming your weaknesses to form a foundation for long-term training gains. Learn how to maintain what you gain and build on your improvements. Make this comprehensive assessment tool your training guide. Prepare and repair your body for ultimate athletic performance with Athletic Body in Balance .

Genres: Health, Fitness, Nonfiction, Sports, Science

232 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2003

Reviews

[Joanna Fassl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paving the way for changing our perceptions on what qualifies as a fit and functional body. Gray Cook defines fitness not by how many miles you ran nor by how much you sweated. Instead he stresses functional biomechanics w a focus on bilateral symmetry, agonist/antagonist symmetry and the perfect blend of stability, mobility, power and endurance. I think I'm in love. :)

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent manual to look beyond sport specific skills. Sports involve so much more than just sport specific training. Should be a required reading for coaches of any sport to learn that the fundamentals of mobility, stability, strength, endurance, etc should be taught first. So many injuries could be avoided...

[Nathan Coumbe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book. My only criticism is that quite a bit of the information is outdated, but a lot of the content is still relevant, especially some of the corrective exercises and the jumping rope programs. Also, the principles are still sound—it's just some of the tactics that are a bit outdated.

[Chuckdee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book from one of the first trainers who actively coached “functional strength.” I’ve found several areas that need improvement and some new ways to look at strength endurance. This books contains some good information for my kids, both teenaged athletes.

[Lisa Kucharski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally the human body considered as a complete thing not just parts and pieces! Gray Cook has some really nice ideas on how to get the body to move better and gets his ideas across clearly.

These book is really for the audience of "athlete, even avid amateur athlete, trainer & coach." It's a great look at home to get the entire body to work in balance (right and left side) and to encourage full ROM and stability before piling on weight.

Basically this takes the "bone-head" ideas of pain is gain and throws them out the window. If you want to read one of the more current way to get people to move better and to be able to provide testing to give a person feedback... (proof if your workout is working) you should check this out.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eminently simple and yet thorough, a rare combination. Cook boils everything down to a nonsensical approach to the basics, avoiding hype and backing up all ideas with solid reasoning, and then he shows you how to go from start to finish, including evaluation and targeted exercises to fix problem areas. No fads here. No unsupported statements. No one-size-fits all moves.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I base my profesional practice on the principles and techniques Cook presents in this book. Truly a revolutionary approach to exercise and training.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the first books I've read on training. It taught me more about movement and movement screens than any other book.

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my fitness philosophy. Train to be able to do real things.

[Russ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the intro text / philosophy. Most of the exercises i feel like i already get at crossfit.

[Dave Manning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simply excellent. This should be on ever trainer's, therapist's, athlete's, and weightlifter's shelf. Read it, work it, re-read it, work the new stuff, repeat.

[Bojan Avramovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Otkrijte kako je nastalo FMS testiranje. Stil pisanja Gray Cook mi se uopšte ne svidja

[Rachel Pawloski]

love the voice.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome resource.