Books about Workouts 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: $14.24 [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: $3.95 [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: $9.58 [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: $10.28 [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: $14.04 [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. You'll 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.

Whether it is increased flexibility or reduced muscle soreness or tension, Stretching Anatomy allows you to see and feel the benefit of proper stretching technique..
Price: $12.30 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $10.49 [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: $9.15 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $6.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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