Product Details
Functional Training for Athletes at All Levels: Workouts for Agility, Speed and Power

Functional Training for Athletes at All Levels: Workouts for Agility, Speed and Power
By James C. Radcliffe

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Product Description

Top athletes have long utilized functional training to zero in on the muscle groups they need for peak performance during competition. This book teaches all athletes — from weekend enthusiasts to pro players — the functional training exercises that will produce the best results in their sport by mimicking the actual movements they utilized in that sport.With these unique programs, athletes can simultaneously improve posture, balance, stability, and mobility. Each exercise progresses from simple to complex, low-to high-intensity, and addresses all aspects of athletic movement. The movements target specific muscle groups, while working related muscle groups and toning vital stabilizer muscles.Throughout the book, helpful icons show readers when an exercise applies to their sport and when it is useful for specific movements like sprinting, throwing, jumping, or changing direction. From there, the sport-specific workouts go beyond merely getting in shape to prepare the reader for shaking off a defender, spiking the ball over the net, or beating the throw to home plate.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #55379 in Books
  • Published on: 2007-01-16
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 176 pages

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Customer Reviews

Full of Great Ideas But Some Complaints4
I'm a certified personal trainer and a large part of programming for all of my clients is based of functional fitness. I also
utilize agility based training for most of them as well. By making appropriate modifications most anyone can get tremendous benefits from
a more athletic based approach to fitness. This type of training works the body in all the planes of motion and stimulates
the neuromuscular system more thoroughly than just the typical sagittal plane cardio-machine and machine based resistance training approach.

I bought this along with another book on agility to aquire more tools for my "toolbox".

On the positive side, I feel that the author was extremely thorough and covers a lot of ground, both in explaining the background information and by including a large variety of exercises.

On the less-positive side, there are quite a few times where I felt the presentation could have been laid out more clearly throughout the text. I've re-read
several parts, several times and I'm still a bit unclear of "exactly" what he meant, especially in the execution of the more complex exercises.

This book would greatly benefit from a companion dvd or at least online accompanying online video because there are some subtleties that are almost impossible to explain with words and photographs alone. This is particularly apparent in the "Sprint Training" section of the book and is a huge oversight in my opinion which I hope they will correct in the future.

I'm not saying they have to show "every" exercise, but those that are the most complex in nature. In fact, the other book I purchased at the same time "Training for Speed, Agility and Quickness" (Human Kinetics) includes a dvd to cover the most complex drills and usefull tests included in the book. This makes a huge difference in terms of the the superior effectiveness of that book as a teaching tool.

All that being said, James Radcliffe did do a great job of putting together a compendium of exercises and a system for using it specific to a wide variety of sports. He should be highly commended for his efforts. In fact, if they just had that accompanying footage it would be almost perfect (and surely I'd have given it 5 stars!) :)

I don't like having to criticize this book at all because the positives are heads and tails above the negatives, but I felt I should be honest in my assessment of all aspects of the book.

A "functional book" about functional training 3
Well written and complete from warm-up to power. You can find good
exercises for your functional training program.

book review5
I have enjoyed reading the book and it has shown me some fundamentals of exercise that I had forgotten. I enjoy the descriptions of the exercises and the muscle groups working. overall I am quite pleased with this book and use it to show me how to do the exercises properly.

Tony