Books about Workout from Amazon.com

Between your full-length mirror and high-school biology class, you probably think you know a lot about the human body. While it's true that we live in an age when we're as obsessed with our bodies as we are with celebrity hairstyles, the reality is that most of us know very little about what chugs, churns, and thumps throughout this miraculous, scientific, and artistic system of anatomy. Yes, you've owned your skin-covered shell for decades, but you probably know more about your cell-phone plan than you do about your own body. When it comes to your longevity and quality of life, understanding your internal systems gives you the power, authority, and ability to live a healthier, younger, and better life.

The flagship book of the YOU series, which spawned three subsequent New York Times bestsellers, has now been expanded and updated to make you understand your body even better—perhaps too well.

YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition challenges your preconceived notions about how the human body works and ages, then takes you on a tour through all of the highways, back roads, and landmarks inside of you. In this update, the doctors have included a new chapter on the liver and pancreas, which will finally demystify the most exotic parts of our bodies; a new workout chapter that will finally get you moving; and nearly one hundred Q&As asked by you, the reader. It has also been updated throughout to give you up-to-the-minute know-how to not just understand what to do to keep fit, but also why and how.

The book opens with a quiz, "How Well Do You Know Your Body?," which sets the stage for the following chapters. After taking the quiz, you'll learn about all of your blood-pumping, food-digesting, and keys-remembering systems and organs, including the heart, brain, lungs, immune system, bones, and sensory organs. Each chapter also contains common myths of the particular body part that the authors will debunk.

Just as important, you'll get the facts and advice you need to keep your body running long and strong. You'll find out how diseases start and how they affect your body—as well as advice on how to prevent and beat conditions that threaten your quality of life. Complete with exercise tips, nutritional guidelines, simple lifestyle changes, and alternative approaches, YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition gives you an easy, comprehensive, and life-changing how-to plan for fending off the gremlins of aging. To top it off, this new edition includes even more great-tasting and calorie-saving recipes as part of the Owner's Manual Diet—an eating plan that is designed with only one goal in mind: to help you live a younger life.

Welcome to your body. Why don't you come on in and take a look around?

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Price: $13.82 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Bill Phillips had been publishing bodybuilding magazines and marketing nutritional supplements for years when he had a weird revelation at a trade show: many of the most loyal and enthusiastic readers he had were totally out of shape. From that uncomfortable realization came his popular Physique Transformation Contest (top prize that first year: Phillips's own Lamborghini), now world famous, and this book.

The three-times-a-week weightlifting program in Body for Life is deceptively simple. If you've spent any time in the gym, you've already done all the exercises. But Phillips includes a couple of high-intensity sets at the end of each exercise that should compound the training effect on each muscle group. Same goes for the cardiovascular exercise he recommends: just 20 minutes, three times a week. But those 20 minutes are spent jacking the intensity up and down, accomplishing more in less time.

Phillips arranges all this into a 12-week program, along with nutritional and motivational tips. Be warned that the nutritional advice gets a little spacey. For example, he puts "carbohydrates" and "vegetables" into separate categories, and recommends three daily doses of a nutritional supplement called Myoplex, which his company manufactures. (Fortunately, he gives tips on how to make each dose taste different, such as by adding drops of peppermint extract.) Despite this strangeness, Body for Life still motivates because so many others have achieved astounding results in similar 12-week windows, and the pictures and testimonials are here as evidence. --Lou Schuler.
Price: $4.80 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Take two-they're small. And they perform miracles. Suffering a career-ending, potentially crippling injury to her back and right leg, a young dancer named Elaine Petrone tried everyone from orthopedists to yogis to turn her pain and prognosis around. Nothing worked-until she healed herself through a unique program of therapy and exercise based around the use of two small, squishy balls. From there she turned her passion into a mission that is helping the thousands of people who visit her classes conquer pain, stress, and injury.

Now, for relief for sufferers everywhere, comes The Miracle Ball Method, a healing kit containing two miracle balls and a fully illustrated book, all packaged together in an attention-getting clear plastic cylinder. The work itself is simple. Take a sore back: By resting your aching back on the grapefruit-sized balls and letting your body sink into them, you're unworking the muscles that hurt. Pain and tension drain out of the body. Petrone shows how proper breathing (which she demonstrates) works in conjunction with a range of unexercises that call for placing the balls under the back, head, knees, hip, elbow-wherever there's pain-and then resting, rolling, or rotating on them. She points out that relief can come in surprising ways: Lower back pain may be helped by placing the ball under your neck, or a bad knee might be helped by hip work. It's arevolutionary program of relief, from head to toe..
Price: $11.71 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Now in its third edition, Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning is the most comprehensive reference available for strength and conditioning professionals. In this text, 30 expert contributors explore the scientific principles, concepts, and theories of strength training and conditioning as well as their applications to athletic performance.

Developed by the NSCA Certification Commission, the certifying agency of the National Strength and Conditioning Association, Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning is the most-preferred preparation text for the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) exam. The research-based approach, extensive exercise technique section, and unbeatable accuracy of Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning make it the text readers have come to rely on for CSCS exam preparation.

The third edition presents the most current strength training and conditioning research and applications in a logical format designed for increased retention of key concepts. The text is organized into five sections. The first three sections provide a theoretical framework for application in section 4, the program design portion of the book. The final section offers practical strategies for administration and management of strength and conditioning facilities.

• Section 1 (chapters 1 through 10) presents key topics and current research in exercise physiology, biochemistry, anatomy, biomechanics, endocrinology, sport nutrition, and sport psychology and discusses applications for the design of safe and effective strength and conditioning programs.

• Section 2 (chapters 11 and 12) discusses testing and evaluation, including the principles of test selection and administration as well as the scoring and interpretation of results.

• Section 3 (chapters 13 and 14) provides techniques for warm-up, stretching, and resistance training exercises. For each exercise, accompanying photos and instructions guide readers in the correct execution and teaching of stretching and resistance training exercises. This section also includes a set of eight new dynamic stretching exercises.

• Section 4 examines the design of strength training and conditioning programs. The information is divided into three parts: anaerobic exercise prescription (chapters 15 through 17), aerobic endurance exercise prescription (chapter 18), and periodization and rehabilitation (chapters 19 and 20). Step-by-step guidelines for designing resistance, plyometric, speed, agility, and aerobic endurance training programs are shared. Section 4 also includes detailed descriptions of how principles of program design and periodization can be applied to athletes of various sports and experience levels. Within the text, special sidebars illustrate how program design variables can be applied to help athletes attain specific training goals.

• Section 5 (chapters 21 and 22) addresses organization and administration concerns of the strength training and conditioning facility manager, including facility design, scheduling, policies and procedures, maintenance, and risk management.

Chapter objectives, key points, key terms, and self-study questions provide a structure to help readers organize and conceptualize the information. Unique application sidebars demonstrate how scientific facts can be translated into principles that assist athletes in their strength training and conditioning goals.

Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning also offers new lecture preparation materials. The instructor guide includes new student lab activities that instructors can assign to students. The instructor guide also provides course syllabi and tips for planning and teaching. The PowerPoint presentation package features full-color slides of illustrations from the text and includes tables, key concepts, and a complete lecture-discussion outline for each chapter. These tools can be downloaded online and are free to instructors who adopt the text for use in their courses.

Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning, Third Edition, provides the latest and most comprehensive information on the structure and function of body systems, training adaptations, testing and evaluation, exercise techniques, program design, and organization and administration of facilities. Its accuracy and reliability make it not only the leading preparation resource for the CSCS exam but also the definitive reference that strength and conditioning professionals and sports medicine specialists depend on to fine-tune their practice..
Price: $54.74 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Finally, a weight-training book that doesn’t treat women like weaklings!

If you believe what most women’s magazines tell you, muscles can be “shaped,” “toned,” and “sculpted” with nothing more than a little dumbbell that weighs less than a can of peas. But muscles aren’t modeling clay, and the only way to transform them is to strengthen them. The New Rules of Lifting for Women is for the woman who’s ready to throw down the “Barbie” weights and start a strength and conditioning program that will give her the body of her dreams. The book puts to rest the shop-worn notion that women who train with heavy weights will bulk up. Nonsense! Women simply don’t have enough testosterone to pack on muscle like a bodybuilder. Here’s the truth: lifting weights not only makes you stronger, it also makes you leaner. In fact, most women would have to run twice as long to receive the same fat-burning benefits as weight lifters. A better workout in less time may sound too good to be true, but champion trainer Alwyn Cosgrove creates six months’ worth of workouts that will build strength, burn fat, and rev up the metabolism. His total body workouts target all the major muscle groups, and each exercise is accompanied by clear black and- white photographs that illustrate proper technique and form.

A nutrition plan is another key feature of the book. To gain strength you have to feed muscle, and nutritionist Cassandra Forsythe has designed a regimen to achieve this goal. She strongly recommends small, frequent meals and offers meal plans, along with fifty recipes, to satisfy women’s special needs through breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. The New Rules of Lifting for Women will become the standard for smart women who take their fitness goals seriously..
Price: $14.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]

See inside every stretch--and maximize flexibility! Stretching Anatomy will arm you with the knowledge to increase range of motion, supplement training, enhance recovery, and maximize efficiency of movement. Youll also gain a detailed understanding of how each stretch affects your body. Stretching Anatomy is like having an X-ray of each stretch, only better. Not only do you see full-color illustrations of the muscles in action, but you also find out how changes in position can alter the muscle emphasis and difficulty and how variations can improve safety and effectiveness. Each exercise includes detailed instruction on how to stretch, when to stretch, primary and secondary muscle emphasis, and which muscles are activated for support. Stretching programs provide three levels of difficulty, including light stretching that can be used as a warm-up or to aid in recovery from soreness or injury. And summary movement tables show how to customize stretching programs to focus on key problem areas..
Price: $12.33 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Something The World Hasn't Yet Seen -- You Can Forever Be More Flexible

The Technique: RESISTANCE STRETCHING® offers immediate, cumulative, and permanent increases in flexibility, takes the pain out of stretching, and protects you from injuring yourself by overstretching.

The Program: THE MERIDIAN FLEXIBILITY SYSTEM® provides stretches for sixteen unique muscle groups with physiological and psychological benefits.

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Price: $10.01 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The BODYMINDER is the ultimate physical fitness diary. With a focus on workouts, it can also be used to keep track of any and all other exercise

Each "day" consists of two pages with an organized, easy-to-use layout for recording workout details...from equipment & settings, to reps & sets, to difficulty level, to heart rate, to muscle groups, and more. There is also space for listing the details of other (non-gym) exercise...from walking the dog, to playing a sport, to dancing up a storm! In addition, each day's meals can be recorded as well as any vitamins or supplements taken.

The 224-page book is spiral bound with a durable leatherette cover. There are 91 days' worth of daily records and thirteen Weekly Schedule forms to help you keep on track. Other sections include food counts on over 100 common foods, heart and blood pressure range charts, progress charts, personal game scores, fitness expenses, and more. In the back there is a vinyl pocket for holding photos, notes, cards, etc.

The BODYMINDER is compatible with virtually all popular exercise and fitness plans and can, indeed, be your key to reaching and maintaining your fitness goals..
Price: $8.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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