There's plenty of conventional wisdom on health and fitness--but how much of it is scientifically sound? The truth is: less than you'd think.

In Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights?, physicist and award-winning journalist Alex Hutchinson tackles dozens of commonly held beliefs and looks at just what research science has--and has not--proven to be true:

Should I exercise when I'm sick? - Do I get the same workout from the elliptical machine that I get from running? - What role does my brain play in fatigue? - Will running ruin my knees? - To lose weight, is it better to eat less or exercise more? - How should I adapt my workout routine as I get older? - Does it matter what I'm thinking about when I train? - Will drinking coffee help or hinder my performance? - Should I have sex the night before a competition?

This myth-busting book covers the full spectrum of exercise science and offers the latest in research from around the globe, as well as helpful diagrams and plenty of practical tips on using proven science to improve fitness, reach weight loss goals, and achieve better competition results.

This is a self-help book written by John M. Kirsch, M.D., an Orthopedic Surgeon for the common man. It is the result of 25 years of research into a new and simple exercise to prevent rotator cuff tears and impingement syndrome in the shoulder, as well as treating these conditions and frozen shoulder. Testimonials and research CT scan images are included as well as images of the exercises performed by models and patients.

If you think that you have to retreat to a cave in the Himalayas to find the enlightenment that yoga promises, think again. In this second edition of Living Your Yoga, Judith Hanson Lasater stretches the meaning of yoga beyond its familiar poses and breathing techniques to include the events of daily life--all of them--as ways to practice. This edition includes three new chapters (Relaxation, Empathy, and Worship), a full index, and new interior and cover designs. Using the time-honored wisdom of the Yoga Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita to steer the course, she serves up off-the-mat practices to guide you in deepening your relationships with yourself, your family and friends, and the world around you. Inspiring and practical, she blends her heartfelt knowledge of an ancient tradition with her life experiences as a daughter, sister, partner, mother, friend, and yoga practitioner and teacher. The result: a new yoga that beckons you to find the spiritual in everyday life.

Get in shape with exercise that's fat-blasting, portable, and fun
RopeSport is the revolutionary fitness program people across the country are using to get fit, lose weight, and have a great time doing it.
Now you can, too
If you want a high-energy, low-impact way to tone your body, get a complete cardiovascular workout, and burn up to a thousand calories an hour, RopeSport is for you. This book covers everything from the benefits and basics to extreme jumps and alternative workouts. The step-by-step approach helps you become proficient in just a few workouts. RopeSport:
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Progresses from basic jumps, combinations, and workouts to intermediate and advanced routines
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Features four complete, detailed workouts for each skill level
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Has more than a hundred photos that show you how it's done, jump after jump
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Includes success stories from real people who love jumping rope
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Is a workout endorsed by celebrities, including leading fitness expert Kathy Smith, Eric Nies of MTV, and Kelly Packard of Baywatch
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Keeps you challenged with extreme jumps like the Matador, Running Doubles, and the Inverted Jump
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Shares tips for a healthy lifestyle, effective training, and building athletic skills
You'll learn the techniques and get the tools to create your own RopeSport full-body workout program-one that you can vary any number of ways and do almost anywhere.

Get in shape with exercise that's fat-blasting, portable, and fun

RopeSport is the revolutionary fitness program people across the country are using to get fit, lose weight, and have a great time doing it.

Now you can, too!

If you want a high-energy, low-impact way to tone your body, get a complete cardiovascular workout, and burn up to a thousand calories an hour, RopeSport is for you. This book covers everything from the benefits and basics to extreme jumps and alternative workouts. The step-by-step approach helps you become proficient in just a few workouts. RopeSport:

Progresses from basic jumps, combinations, and workouts to intermediate and advanced routines

Features four complete, detailed workouts for each skill level

Has more than a hundred photos that show you how it's done, jump after jump

Includes success stories from real people who love jumping rope

Is a workout endorsed by celebrities, including leading fitness expert Kathy Smith, Eric Nies of MTV, and Kelly Packard of Baywatch

Keeps you challenged with extreme jumps like the Matador, Running Doubles, and the Inverted Jump

Shares tips for a healthy lifestyle, effective training, and building athletic skills

You'll learn the techniques and get the tools to create your own RopeSport full-body workout program--one that you can vary any number of ways and do almost anywhere.

Futureproof your body and relieve chronic pain resulting from sitting, slouching, and other bad lifestyle habits with this easy-to-perform set of daily stretching and exercise routines - from an innovative physical therapist who coaches dozens of celebrity clients. What if we could easily acquire long-lasting protection for our bodies and escape the chronic pain caused by our sit-all-the-time, slouch-too-much lifestyles? Vinh Pham is a world-class physical therapist - a member of a new breed that dissects how people really move. He has worked with a broad range of clients, from Olympians to NBA stars to Mixed martial arts-fighters to Golden Globe and Grammy Award-winning artists. Early in his career, he discovered a disappointing truth: most of his patients came to him already in pain. They had poor, deeply ingrained lifestyle habits that misaligned their joints and tightened their muscles. And the recent epidemic of prolonged sitting - which represents an all-day assault on the body - has only made things worse. If you're sitting for more than 30 minutes at a time without getting up, you may be heading toward a world of hurt. Vinh's answer to the host of muscle maladies that ails us has been a revolutionary concept: why not future proof? Instead of reacting to chronic pain after it flares up, what if we focused on a movement discipline that not only prevents injuries but leads to longer lives, healthier bodies, and a clearer mind? Sit Up Straight outlines a process that starts with a daily posture hygiene regimen. Performed correctly, these exercises will lock in protection for the rest of the day. But Vinh goes further. He provides stretching and exercise routines for many of the specific ailments that affect us - from hamstring pulls to sciatica to rotator cuff problems - and, best of all, he offers a series of customised movements based on age, gender and the kind of work we perform. A precise and simple toolkit for tweaking the way we move (or refuse to move), Sit Up Straight shows that the solution to becoming pain-free is easier than we think.

Structural Yoga Therapy has been written for teachers and serious practitioners who want to use yoga to bring complete balance to the body. Mukunda Stiles begins by providing a comprehensive overview of the spiritual philosophy of yoga, and its many branches. He discusses everything that a beginning student needs to consider when choosing a practice, including how to find a yoga teacher. He also shares his solid understanding of anatomy and kinesiology (how specific muscles and bones react during movement) so that you can understand how each asana affects your body. Structural Yoga Therapy "TM" involves a series of 24 asanas. You'll learn "body-reading" to determine what your posture reveals about muscular imbalances. You'll find out about joint mobility and muscle strength and learn how to work with a series of joint-freeing exercises to strengthen muscles. Once you are fully acquainted with your individual needs, Stiles teaches you how to synthesize a personalized program from the 24 Structural Yoga asanas to optimize health and healing. This valuable textbook is also useful for anyone working in physical therapy, myofascial release techniques, or other forms of massage.

This title offers instant energy and relaxation exercises using easy-to-follow yoga techniques. It offers a clearly explained guide, illustrated with specially commissioned step-by-step photographs. Counteract the stresses and strains of today's hectic lifestyle with quick yoga sequences that leave you feeling calm and refreshed, supple and renewed. Exercises include tired and aching leg revivers; abdominal tension relievers; instant fatigue revitalizers; tension and backache relievers; flexibility enhancers; waking-up stretches; and exercises to relieve anxiety, aid breathing, increase blood flow and improve posture. Tried and tested ways to ease tension and restore energy whenever you need to, using simple exercises that are easy to perform in your everyday life. Over 200 photographs clearly show each yoga sequence in detail. Drawing on the ancient art of yoga, this clear and simple book guides you through a series of exercises to help you achieve a fit, supple body and relieve your body of strain and tension. The main part of the book consists of invigorating exercises that will stretch, tone, revive, enhance or relax different parts of the body, to leave you feeling calm, refreshed and better able to cope with stress. After a warm-up routine, special stretches are shown for a multitude of purposes and to treat a variety of aches, pains and ailments. The exercises are simple to do, and take around 10 minutes. Clear instructions, combined with step-by-step photographs, will guide you confidently through the quick-and-easy sequences. Whether you wish to counteract the pressures of a hectic daily routine, improve your posture and muscle tone or become more supple, this practical handbook will set you on your way.

Ten unique programs for fat loss, muscle gain, and strength improvement for beginners and elite lifters.
Want to get more out of your workout and spend less time in the gym? Many guys devote so many hours to lifting weight yet end up with so little to show for it. In many cases, the problem is simple: They aren't doing exercises based on the movements their bodies were designed to do. Six basic movements--the squat, deadlift, lunge, push, pull, and twist--use all of the body's major muscles. And, more important, they use those muscles in coordinated action, the way they were designed to work.
"The New Rules of Lifting," now in paperback and with more than one hundred photographs, gives you more than a year's worth of workouts based on these six basic movements. Whether you're a beginner, an experienced lifter looking for new challenges, or anything in between, you can mix and match the workouts to help you get bigger, stronger, and leaner. In addition, the comprehensive nutritional information provided makes "The New Rules of Lifting" a complete guide to reaching all your goals.
If you aren't using "The New Rules of Lifting," you aren't getting the best possible results.
Read Lou Shuler's posts on the Penguin Blog.

From internationally syndicated fitness columnist and author, James Fell, comes a no-nonsense guide on how to get in shape, fix your finances, alleviate depression and change your life for good. We've all been there. Wanting to change your life forever, but only doing it in fits and starts. Feeling inspired to be disciplined one day, then falling back into old habits on the next. Or changing for a few weeks or even months, but then slipping back into familiar behaviours. Bad habits are hard to break for a reason. But you still try because the goal is worth it: slowly and painfully forming new habits to the point where you are able to adhere to a new lifestyle, long-term. Not only do we struggle with all of it but the failure rates of these models are staggering. What if there was a different way? What if sudden moment, which happens to be a surprisingly common occurrence among those who succeed would allow you to skip the struggle of behaviour change and just become a different person in a moment? What if all the motivation they would ever need to change could arrive unbidden because of a life-altering flash of insight? It is the power of epiphany - a triggering event when drive and clarity of purpose for changing one's life is instantly attained. James Fell's THE HOLY SHIT MOMENT is about that who have sustained change. The stories outlined in this book examine an abrupt awakening, where a person's purpose switches course in the space of a few seconds; their life is partitioned into the time before that moment occurred, and what comes after. In an instant, the gradual steps of behavior change are bypassed and life transformation takes hold for good. But is an epiphany something that can be generated? Yes. THE HOLY SHIT MOMENT is a self-help book written in a brash, audacious and informal, your-good-friend-giving-you-the-scoop style, but with the knowledge, research, wisdom and personal anecdotes to back up James' words in the vein of Jen Sincero's You Are a Badass.

While many people practice yoga simply because it helps them feel good, the physiological basis for yoga's effects on the body and mind is often unknown or misunderstood. Understanding these physiological concepts can help to deepen your yoga practice. The Physiology of Yoga separates speculation from fact by examining how the body responds and adapts to yoga within many systems of the body: musculoskeletal, nervous, respiratory, cardiovascular, lymphatic, immune, endocrine, reproductive, and digestive. Straightforward explanations guide you in sorting through conflicting information about what yoga really can help you achieve and in evaluating whether certain yoga methods provide benefits to any or all of those systems. You can experiment with concepts through Try It Yourself sidebars, which focus on mindful movement, meditation, and breathing. The 14 Myth or Fact sidebars explore popular claims about yoga, such as whether a shoulder stand can stimulate the thyroid or if twists can detoxify the liver. You'll get the most current research to determine the validity of various claims so you can avoid practices that could be harmful or counterproductive and can decide for yourself what works for your practice. Finally, experience firsthand how yoga affects your physiology by exploring specific yoga poses and four sequences. Each sequence explains which of the physiological principles from the earlier chapters may be most prevalent in that sequence. With The Physiology of Yoga, you or your students can navigate all the conflicting views and opinions about the impact of yoga and learn to practice yoga while fully enjoying the benefits of mindful movement. CE exam available! For certified professionals, a companion continuing education exam can be completed after reading this book. The Physiology of Yoga Online CE Exam may be purchased separately or as part of The Physiology of Yoga With CE Exam package that includes both the book and the exam.

There is something terribly wrong with the state of exercise as we know it presently. Sales of treadmills, running shoes, gym memberships, and yoga classes are at an all-time high, but so too are our national levels of obesity and Type II diabetes. Ever since the 1960s the exercising public has been told to stretch for flexibility and to perform low-intensity steady-state aerobic exercise for their cardiovascular systems and some form of resistance training to keep their muscles strong. With regard to diet, they have been told to restrict or omit macronutrients such as fats and carbohydrates and given lots of other advice with regard to calorie-counting. Could it be that this information, however well intended, was mistaken? And is it really necessary to devote so much time to the pursuit?

Fitness researcher and pioneer John Little has spent more than twelve years researching the actual science underpinning our most prevalent beliefs about exercise and has come away from the enterprise convinced that we need an entirely new paradigm, one that would involve reliance on briefer workouts. He presents this revolutionary new approach in The Time-Saver's Workout.

Among the fascinating revelations presented in this book:

• Certain types of exercise can actually make you less healthy and fatter.
• Taking large doses of food supplements might actually shorten your life and put you at greater risk for disease.
• Stretching to become more flexible or to recover quicker from injury has been found to do neither of these things.
• Resistance training, once considered to be the weak sister of exercise, is now looking like the best form of exercise one should engage in.

The new protocols that Little exposes offer a far safer alternative for those looking to become stronger, fitter, and healthier without spending their lives in the gym.

“My experience working with Skyhorse is always a positive collaboration. The editors are first-rate professionals, and my books receive top-shelf treatment. I truly appreciate our working relationship and hope it continues for years to come.”
–David Fischer, author

Simple yet effective, the practices in this book will help you get your energies humming. Beginning with a clear explanation of the fundamental concepts of Chinese medicine, the book presents simple meditations and traditional physical exercises based on this theory. Regularly practicing these exercises will lead you into greater awareness of your body, and gradually restore your health from the inside out. The Five Element Questionnaire will help you know your personal Element type so you can target your exercise program to your own needs.

A comprehensive guide to yoga, its history, philosophy and how to incorporate the practice into your everyday life. Expert yoga practitioner Lucy Lucas offers fresh insight into the history, philosophy and science of yoga, helping you to truly understand its ancient wisdom. Includes more than 50 step-by-step sequences. CONTENTS Chapter 1: What is Yoga? Including The history of yoga and Yoga philosophy Chapter 2: How Yoga Works Including How we move and why it matters, How yoga impacts upon the brain and A guide to poses Chapter 3: How to Live Your Yoga Including A practice for hip strength and mobility, A gentle flow for boundaries and Letting in more of the good

With over 45 years of experience in the ring, on the mat, and in the street, Loren W. Christensen understands the daily challenges martial artists face. In this book he has put together a collection of over 400 tips, drills, principles, concepts, and exercises to give you the edge, no matter what style of martial art you practice. Discover quick and innovative ways to improve your punching, kicking, sparring, and self-defense skills-plus dozens of tips to develop speed, power, and flexibility. If you are feeling stuck or bored in your martial arts routine, Loren's no-nonsense style will get you up and training with a fire you have not felt in years. Highlights include: *10 ways to improve your speed*5 ways to increase your power*10 ways to train for self-defense*10 ways to improve health and fitness*Dozens of tips for improving kicks, blocks, and hand strikes*Guidance on psychological preparation Fighter's Fact Book includes hundreds of training methods drawn from the author's vast experience, research, and interviews with top instructors from around the country. This is an essential reference for every martial arts student and instructor.

The Way to Vibrant Health represents over 20 years of Bioenergetic body-psychotherapy techniques. These unique exercises are designed to reduce muscular tension and promote well-being, allowing your to feel more joy and vibrancy.

Do-In is an ancient traditional exercise for the cultivation of physical health, mental serenity, and spirituality. The forerunner of shiatsu, acupuncture, meditation, and other well-known modalities.