Athletics Books

Mychael Urban's book takes a different view than Michael Lewis' "Moneyball" does. Urban goes in-depth to show you what goes on in the minds of Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder. Hudson, Zito, and Mulder are about as different as three men can be, but all three have one big thing in common: They are all driven to be the best.

Urban's book discusses the trials and tribulations of the Big Three's and the A's 2004 season. It was a unique year for the A's, as they missed the playoffs for the first time since 1999. Urban had earned the trust of the Big Three, therefore all three let their guards down and talked about what makes them all tick. You'll read about Hudson's battle through an injury-plagued season, the always confident Mulder struggle through his first moment of self-doubt, and Zito's various musings.

The book wraps up with the frantic few days during the 2004 off-season in which Hudson and Mulder were traded within two days of each other. This book is both a nice look back at the A's 2004 season and an excellent look at an interesting topic in the Big Three. A's fans will likely hang on to this book and look back in upcoming years on what a fantastic trio Hudson, Mulder, and Zito were.

I was looking forward to this book, as I'm a big fan of the A's system and was intrigued by the possibility of the story of the last season these three spent together. However, author Mychael Urban is kind of all over the place; he says that it's not a "team" profile or the profile of the season, but in fact that's prety much what it is. He tries to write around major aspects of the team's 2004 season -- the failure to find a closer for the first half of the season, injuries to Chavez and others -- but ends up spending quite a bit of time discussing them. The interviews with the 3 pitchers are interesting but not much different than one might find in a daily column or extended SI profile. Not a bad book for fans looking for a closer look at these three players, but the look isn't that much closer and there's not much suprising or unusual. "Moneyball" has much more of a take, and "Three Nights in August" conveys the day-to-day ball activity in a much richer manner.

Aces is a great insight into the minds of three very good pitchers who have different personalities. Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito are known as the Big Three, three fantastic young pitchers on the Oakland A's staff. This book, by a daily newspaper beat writer, covers the three pitchers through the season. Although its about the A's, and Billy Beane wrote the foreward, its not like the famous book by Michael Lewis, Moneyball, at all. There's little in it about Beane's approach to baseball, except how the Big 3 feel about the A's lack of spending money. They aren't happy about not bringing in free agent talent due to their limited funds. The book goes through the mental aspects of the game, how Mulder and Zito both dealt with failure at different points in the season. Mulder had a great start but faltered in the 2nd half of the season, while Zito had a bad start but pitched well in the latter part of the season. After reading this book, its hard not to root for these three pitchers, even though they pitch for three different teams now. Urban did a great job.

This book was a delight to read as I love to see inside the world of the players, and Urban does it with a breezy and fun style that is worth reading out loud (as I often did to my boyfriend, or whoever was nearby if they knew about baseball). The "big three" in Mulder, Hudson and Zito provide a study in contrasts that illuminates everything from what goes on inside a pitcher's head (or doesn't) while he's on the mound, to the importance of pitching coaches. I found myself wanting to copy out various sentences from the book to make sig quotes out of, sometimes from what the players said, sometimes from Urban's pithy and hip take on modern major league life.

The book's only possible drawback is that I wanted more! There are some great personal moments (that also give insight into baseball), as with Zito using his guitar case as an illustration of Gary Sheffield's 'hitting zone', but I wanted more of them. The book was designed to cover just one season, but honestly I could have used a little bit less of a chronicle of the A's ups and downs in a season that wasn't that memorable and more of the pitchers talking pitching. Perhaps Urban will write another book that will satisfy me on that score later--I would buy it in a second. He's definitely one of the up an coming baseball scribes worth watching.

This book is awesome. It goes deep into the minds of these "Big Three", as pitchers and people. Through early season bullpen woes, to the dogdays of summer, to their slim loss of the division lead in the end of the season. The pitchers minds are dissected, from Zito's quirkiness and tendency to get too deep into his thoughts, to Mulder's calmness, to Hudson's aggressive "bulldog" mentality. This book is for anyone who loves sports, espessialy baseball, and anyone who respects the A's dominant run through the early 2000's. It is masterfully written, and a beautiful recount of, not only the "big three" we have grown to love, but the 2005 season, and the A's playoff hopes. It shows the breakdown off a pitchers mind before his start, and the other 4 days in between, and how these supposed "super humans" are just people. Mychael Urban's quick wit, and smooth style of writing make this memoir much more than just the report on each game's happenings, and make it into something special to share and read.

I found this DVD very helpful. I was able to create a 6 hour CE class for massage therapy.

As a massage therapist I often work with muscle injuries. This book is a must have for both therapeutic technique and for client education. I highly reccommend it.

As a runner and horseback rider, I have always subscribed to the theory that stretching is critical for performance. However, finding an effective stretching system has been a long and arduous search. Some books are difficult for the lay person to understand. Some books do not have a fundamental theory underpinning their exercises. And some books promote stretches that are actually harmful. I have found Facilitated Stretching to be the best of the bunch. The illustrations are clear, well-organized and large enough to follow. The text is written clearly and concisely: I can figure out what to do the first time I read it. The cd is excellent: slow, well-narrated and easy to follow. Best of all, the results are immediate. My partially frozen shoulders are starting to move in response to a combination of massage therapy and facilitated stretching (as advocated in the book). My hamstrings have finally let go so now I know what it feels like to walk as normal people do! In short, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It has met all my stringent requirements. This new edition is even better than the second edition which I studied before buying this book.

As a Personal Trainer, I was looking for a book that was practical with stretches that I could teach my clients that were beyond the normal static stretches. After some weeks with a flexibility program designed with stretches from this book, there is a noticible difference in positive range of motion. It is well written and easy to follow. For my purposes, I found it to be an excellent book.

This 3rd edition is a wonderful upgrade from the 2nd. The DVD does an exceptional job of visualizing spiral diagonal patterns and demonstrating the facilitated stretching technique. The book is upgraded as well as the information on specific body locations is easlier to find and readily accessable for use in my bodywork. I use both frequently.

i got this book because I have some experience lifting weights, but I wanted a program to follow. this book is very good - it has programs that you can use and you can start working out very quickly. If someone is very, very experienced, then this is not the book you are looking for. however, for most people out there who aren't semi-pros, this book will be fine.

This book is only good if you have never stepped foot in a gym. More than half the exercises are longer than 60 min and no mention of diet.

This is the most helpful book I have found for advice on locating or constructing a weight lifting program to meet your goals. The authors are obviously experts because their advice is backed with reason and covers a wide spectrum of needs - just what you expect from consultants who know both theory and practice of their field. Whether you are a beginner or advanced lifter, young or old, this book will put you on a progression of good programs for a very long time.

The book helps you assess your current readiness for weight lifting, and encourages you to think about your goals as being in one of three areas: muscle toning, body shaping, or strength building. Of course there is overlap between these since any program will accomplish some of these elements, but it is a matter of emphasis in the program you will follow. Then the book has nice color coded charts for 6 different zones which are basically your starting experience level for any one of the three goals. There are also alternate week and month ideas to really help you get the most time out of these plans. The recommended programs usually last one month and then encourage you to switch to another for continued progress. Most programs introduce slight variations at week 3 as well. There are 2, 3 and 4 day a week programs depending upon your goal and experience (color zone).

There are lots of charts and helpful calendars, etc. You can copy the charts to track your progress. By using these tools you can learn more about how to design your own programs and the authors talk you through that as well.

It is important to know what this book is not. It is not a detailed exercise manual showing lots of different exercises and their variations. There is an exercise appendix so if this were your only book, you could do the programs, but exercise details are not the emphasis of this book. Nor is nutrition, or detailed anatomy diagrams - both are mentioned briefly.

This is a great book of sound weight lifting programs for most of us. I say most of us, because expert body builders will probably find most of this book too easy or obvious for their needs. But for most of us it represents a tremendously helpful set of programs and ideas to get us from wherever we are to being more advanced lifters.

This book has a decent amount of basic material and is worth the ten dollar price tag. A good chunk of the book is filled with mostly repetitious tables about color coded training 'zones', information which could have been compressed into a few pages. I was looking for more details about diet and fat loss which I didn't find.

Apart from that, the binding quality is poor and the pages are coming out of my book after only a couple of months of use.

This book is superb for anyone who is considering weight training for fitness. The different spectrum levels guide you through workouts geared to the level of YOUR athletic ability, from absolute beginner to seasoned athlete. The book offers clear instructions on how to perform the suggested exercises without becoming overly technical. It gives you what you need to know, and not too much more. The section on designing your own workout is worth the price of the book.

This book is great for logging your training and has great quotes in it to keep you motivated weekly.

This was okay. I wish there was a little more room for comments on each day. However, I LOVE the tips and the quotes of the day! I would recommend this product to anyone...

I HAVE BEEN USING THIS JOURNAL FOR YEARS AND HAVE GROWN ACCOSTUMED TO LOGING MY ENTRIES IN A CERTAIN MANNER. THE EDITORS HAVE SEEN FIT TO CHANGE THE ENTRY FORMAT MAKING IT DIFFICULT TO ENTER THE SAME INFORMATION IN A MANNER THAT IS MEANINGFUL TO ME. NOT A PROBLEM TO SOMEONE STARTING OUT. THIS JOURNAL IS AN INVALUABLE AID IN THE FUTURE FOR VIEWING HOW FAR YOU'VE PROGRESSED OVER THE YEARS. A MUST FOR ALL SERIOUS AND COMPETATIVE RUNNERS.

I LOVE this training log. This log is perfect for the busy runner. It has just enough room for all you need to record, but the only drawback (to me) is that there is not a section for the weather. I do, however, like the shoe history and Rave Run sections. I have owned at least 10 of these journals from Runner's World, and I have never been disappointed. The advice that is given in the journal can be found in their magazine, but for the casual runner, they aid in performance and additional information. I highly recommend this log to runners in place of a simple notebook or calendar. It includes so much information that you may forget before you have the time to record it.

I agree with other reviewers about the lack of space to write notes in this edition. The previous edition was a joy to use.

This is really a fine histury of the 1936 Olympics in addition to a review of Jesse Owens career leading to the Olympics. This should be required reading for all of the current sports writers and editors. it should be read especially by those that thought that Clay was even close to being the outstanding athlete of the century. It would be a five star book if the author hadn't inserted some of his personal biasis.

We ordered this work for our grandson who was doing a school project on Owens. The text captured his interest and proved a helpful source for his sixth grade research project.

Here we have a mostly victorious investigation into Jesse Owens' historic performance at the 1936 Olympics in Hitler's Germany. The story is hugely inspiring and all readers will become fans of Owens for both his athletic prowess and his personal qualities. Jeremy Schaap untangles the pervasive racial politics surrounding this historical episode, as both the Americans and Germans badly over-interpreted and exploited (in many different ways) the presence of Owens and his black teammates at the Olympic games that Hitler tried to turn into a showcase for his regime's hateful ideas of Aryan superiority. Schaap also untangles the legends of Hitler's apparent refusal to personally meet with Owens, which may have been a more complex situation than the simplistic racial snub that historians have assumed in the decades since.

But despite the inspiration offered by Owens and the exciting coverage of his many victories, this book suffers from some serious underlying problems. Most important is Schaap's use of invented dialogue and fanciful constructions of inner thoughts. The Notes section proves Schaap's diligent and frequent use of authentic sources for real historical events and occasional direct quotes, but citations are suspiciously rare for conversations between the persons covered and their supposed inner decision making. One especially worrisome example is the episode in which Owens decided not to show his coach a telegram he had received from the NAACP, in which Schaap gives no sources for Jesse's internal thoughts as presented in the book. Meanwhile, Schaap apparently couldn't decide if the book should be a biography of Owens or a historical account of the 1936 Olympics, leading to an inconsistent timeline, tiresome tangents into related events (like the petty parliamentary struggles surrounding an American movement to boycott the Games), and gaps in the thematic explorations of Owens' true influence on the issues of his day and on the future of sports. Regardless, Jesse Owens shines through for the reader, but Schaap's inability to avoid some of the weaknesses of standard sports reporting leaves the reader wanting more of the man who made history. [~doomsdayer520~]

Take a trip back to the days of World War II in this historical account of Jesse Owens and his trip to the Berlin Olympics.

Very good history lesson. The book flows well and gives a good account of what America and the world was like during Mr. Owen's life. Would encourage the reading of Triumph

This book, if you really read and reflect on it in depth, will deepen and enhance the way you look at the world fundamentally, not only in sports but in all areas of life. There are hundreds of insights here into all types, strengths and weaknesses, preferences, tendencies. *Note: Readers should realize many insights and tips are spread over the various sports' sections, so one should read the commentaries on *all* the different sports, i.e. read the golf and diving sections even if you don't play golf or dive, because there are likely major tips that apply to every aspect of life. I've read this book up and down and continue to refer to it again and again. I find myself watching sports on TV and identifying all the players' types pretty easily.

This is a fascinating book. Jonathan attempts to tie physiology to principles that have been discussed for years as being psychological. It can be liberating to know that people are not being difficult, but they are the way they are because of their "hard wiring" which causes them to see the world differently. One problem is the self testing for brain typing. It can be tricky to pick the correct type even when you've been as honest as you can with the questions. It can also influence your expectations for children's development. This is a seminal work that needs to be developed further by the scientific community.

Jon's book and research, have proven, time and time again, that determining and understanding a person's brain type gives you a great advantage in understanding your own behavior, and the behavior of others. Instead of always wondering why people are the way they are, or, as many do, trying to change the basic behavior of another person, you gain insight on how that person's mind and view of life work. And as you coach, manage and work with others, you can encourage them in area's of strength, or preference, base on their unique braintype.

There is a great deal of misunderstanding and misinformation in the understanding, and utilization, of the Myers-Briggs model. Jon's braintype model helps to clarify, scientifically, what is really going on, inside that mind.

I am a student of this book; and have used it extensively in my coaching and business career. It is one of the best investments a person can make in helping them understand themselves; and others....

Daniel Dyk, ISTJ

Although Mr. Niednagel wants us to believe that the product he is pitching, Brain Typing, is scientifically based, it is really nothing more than just another weary entry from the productive and fertile field of pseudoscience. He uses anecdotes and testimonials to pitch his product with absolutely zero controlled studies that even hint at its effectiveness. The irony of using athletes to promote his product is the common knowledge of athletic superstition.

He has every right to sell a product that relies on the expectations, dreams, and wishes of the buyer. This is what American commerce is all about. But, pleeeese!! Don't try to tell us it has any relationship to real science.

The author is, in my opinion, a lot better at self-promoting than he is at Typing celebrities. The guy made a splash by (in all likelihood) Typing two football players correctly, Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf, when there was tons of dollars on the line. Unfortunately, this single success is being parlayed into a non-scientific snake-oil salesmanship. Better yet: his line of reckless conjecturism is taking the once scientific field of MBTI into the realm of phrenology. Great. Nothing could discredit Isabel Myers-Briggs and David Keirsey's studies more quickly. (though, truth be told, the Keirseys have been getting a lot heavier into pure conjecture lately, and offer less and less empirical backing)
What is even more disturbing, if you check the author's website, is his alarming tendency towards an elitist (and often radically errant. IMO) Typing of US presidents. Apparently, this author maintains, on pure conjecture of course, that only ENTs can ascend to the presidency. Thus does he mis-Type (and now for my own conjectures, which i can back up at least as credibly as this author) ISFJ GW Bush as an ENTJ; thus does he mis-Type ESFP Bill Clinton as an ENTJ; thus does he mis-Type ENFP Ronald Reagan also as an ENTJ. You see a lot of "ENTJs" in his findings, right? (I am betting the author is an ENT himself. Naturally.) Anyway, such purely conjectural favoritism, in addition to resurrecting a kind of phrenology, is, I'm afraid, because the author is also putting forth a form of "Master Racism/Typism" agenda. Very worrisome, should some psychological Hitler ever come along. Think about it.
Of course, a lot of ENTs do indeed circulate in the halls of US leadership--they just should not be confused with the theatrical muppets we call presidents: indeed, those darned NT mystery men are often found hovering around our presidents, in the form of what may be called "The Establishment." You know, the Cheneys and the Rumsfelds and the Brzyzinskis--these guys may indeed be the braintrusts of NT power that the author thinks he is seeing when he looks at the bogus media image that the Establishment and the controlled major media gives to clear-cut Sensors like Bush and Clinton (clear cut when you study their previous actions and speeches, not just the scripted answers these Sensor presidents read to scripted questions by the major media). Anyway, if this guy who sells himself so well can be so duped by the media image of a man, I wouldn't trust much of any of his conjectures.

Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook: 1998-1999 by Chris Dortch braks down all the NCAA top level basketball teams, and looks at the year before. It gives information on positions for players, likely minutes, depth, possible performance and a lot of other information you wouldn't find anywhere else in one source. A top notch work.

I have been buying Blue Ribbon since it was first published. I have every issue and refer to them quite often. Blue Ribbon is by far the "best" college basketball reference guide available. I am a Kentuckian, by birth, an avid UK and college basketball fan!! This "reference" book is a "must have" item for all college basketball fanatics!!!! Go "Blue Ribbon" and go "Cats"!!

I have also bought this book for the last several years and was extremely disappointed that the TOP 44 high school profiles was deleted. That section was the major reason I enjoyed the book - to be able to know the stars of the future. I didn't buy the 2001-02 edition and probably will not in the future.

Blue Ribbon remains the best preview of college basketball in existence. It has comprehensive, well written reviews of every team in Division I, with detailed analysis on every player. However, it has gone downhill this year because it omits the section on high school players, which was always fascinating. In my case, it was often the first way I heard about the future stars of the game. In addition, Blue Ribbon appears to have eliminated its early season update and the NCAA tournament preview (written after Selection Sunday and delivered by Wednesday), both of which were excellent. Nonetheless, if I bought only one basketball publication per year, this would still be the one.

I have gotten this book every year for a while now, but this years edition was terrible because it did NOT have the recruiting profiles of the Top 44 as they have and years past and that they CLAIM they do now.

The book "The Lion in Autumn:A Season with Joe Paterno and Penn State Football" is a good book to be read by a Penn State football fan. The book takes you through the Nittany Lions 2004 season where they finished the disapointing season at 4-7. The book travels through the rough season with an inside look at Penn State football. Week by week the book takes you in depth into what happened during the 2004 season. The book goes in chronological order game after game with recollections of Nittany Lion football pasts along the way. At the end of the book there is an afterword about the Lions next season whre they went 11-1 and finished 3rd in the country. I recommend "The Lion In Autumn" to any Penn State football fan who is looking for something to read.

I thought the book was very good. Would recommend it to Penn State fans as well as any other football fans.

One of the great joys of Penn State football fandom is reading books about Coach Paterno and his program. As both a fan and a reader, any disappointment I had with this one was chiefly due to the limited access given to the author. After a nine-loss season in 2003 that marked the nadir of precipitous competitive slide, and an increasing number of off-field incidents, Coach Paterno was understandably guarded -- even abandoning a longstanding tradition of meeting with reporters over cocktails the night before game day. (Stiffing reporters in this fashion was probably an unwise political move that helped to contribute to the "JoePa Must Go" sentiment.)

What then is a writer to do? One approach could have been to chronicle the growing division within the Penn State community -- former players, alumni, students, and the media -- over the tough times in Happy Valley, using a few colorful and outspoken characters as a catalyst for that division.

Instead, Mr. Fitzpatrick delivers a fairly straightforward chronicle of the 2005 season's aspirations and disappointments. He does an adept job for those readers who may not be familiar with the programs history, but for those readers who are the chapters on glories past provide no new insight and interrupts the narrative of the current season.

Penn State's decline was primarily attributable to lackluster recruiting that produced players unable to compete effectively in the Big Ten, and Mr. Fitzpatrick is spot on when he writes that Paterno was mindful of this: "Other teams had more talent than Penn State. But to admit that too often in public was to demean his players.... [He] understood that the quickest solution to the Nittany Lions' troubles would be to search harder and more selectively for talent." (p. 287)

Once again, Coach Paterno's refusal to publicly contemplate life after football is highlighted, where is prospective retirement activity has changed over the years from collecting stamps to cutting grass. With the almost immediate death of Alabama's Bear Bryant after his retirement, Mr. Paterno is quite candid about his deep seated fears: "I'm alive. I don't want to die. Football keeps me alive." (p. 276) This outlook is quite tragic and perplexing, given his successes off the field as an educator, philanthropist, community leader and family patriarch.

In short, this volume does not quite rise to the level of incisiveness of Ken Denlinger's "For the Glory" or Coach Paterno's decades-old autobiography, which is in desperate need of an update. But it reads quickly and provides and admirable journalistic account of Happy Valley's darkest days in the Paterno era.

I just finished the book a couple of days ago and as it settled it my mind, two impressions came over me.

One is that there is a big part of Joe Paterno who still feels deep inside that he is not as good as his rich college classmates at Brown and how he has to prove to them that he belongs.

The second is that while Saint Joepa Paterno can talk all he wants about the excesses in college athletics, he is not willing to forgo any of the excesses that reward him. You don't see him turning away any of the huge salaries or the other luxuries, do you.

Paterno comes across as a control freak, if he is trying to prepare his players and assistant coaches for the outside world, why does he restrict acccess to them so tightly.

I am a big sports fan of college and pro sports but I have major issues with people glorifying coaches the way they do. They are just athletic coaches. They are not helping solve the problems of the world, just entertainers.

Joepa also comes across as humorless, a man who takes himself way too seriously.

It is a shame that Fitzpatrick was denied access to so many sources. It would have been interesting to find out why Joepa's son is unwilling or able to get a job on his own instead of depending on Daddy.

As noted above, Joepa was influenced greatly by his days at Brown. I would have loved to learn how in the world an Italian kid from Brooklynin the 40s made it to the Ivy League.

This is not a puff piece on the man, that is a great accomplishment by the author.

I hesitated picking up this book because even though it was published only one year ago, it is arguably outdated since Penn State football finally bounced back and had a very good year. That said, I am glad I read it because the book goes beyond the marketed "A Season with Penn State" storyline and provides a very good historical synopsis of Joe Paterno and his role in the history of college football.

Since Paterno has been around so long, people tend to forget his importance in the development of college football. Once he retires, he will undoubtedly be remembered in the same breath as Bear Bryant, Knute Rockne, Daryl Royal, Bud Wilkinson and the other Legends (with a capital "L") of college football.

This book provides interesting insights into his personal history and the development of Penn State University, which Paterno literally transformed from a backwater agricultural school into a well-known and successful state school. I doubt any coach in college sports history has been more important to his school's development than Paterno has been to Penn State.

The parts about the actual season are fairly boring, since PSU was horrible the year Fitzpatrick followed them but it is worth picking up if you are a fan of college football history.

This book is key in begining a triathlon lifestyle. The calculations that are required for the year-round training program seem labourous but once you get started, it is well worth your time. The section on bike maintenance is simple and includes most everything to make you feel like you've been doing the sport for years. Great!

I am a previous distance runner (high school and college) who also enjoys mountain biking and recreational swimming. I have never competed in a triathalon before. For a beginner, this book focused too much on the technical aspects of training for professional triathletes.

Much of the book focused on complex training cycles and tracking methods. I had hoped to see recommended programs for beginners, such as base level resistance training to increase muscle tone and endurance, and base level cardiovascular workouts, followed by guidance for moving to the next level.

I also would have liked a listing of organizations in my area that organize triathalons.

For the most part, this book assumes the reader is already familiar with triathalons and training. I would recommend beginners look elsewhere.

This was the first book I owned on the subject and could not believe the amount of training that the authors recommended one need do to finishi a triathlon. Given that the book is a bit old, I believe that these recommendations are a sign of those times. Nowadays, people know that one can do very well at the sport of triathlon on significantly less training, and I point the interested reader in the direction of books such as "Time-saving ..." and Sleamaker's "SERIOUS Training...". These books are equally scientific, but do not put as much emphasis on having to cover so many miles, but rather inform you on how to spend whatever time you actually have to train.

I would not recommend this book to a newcomer, nor to a seasoned triathlete anymore, but a few years ago I might have...

This is a good book for everyone thinking about triathlons. It offers good advice on choosing equipment, techniques and training programs.
Instead of relying on distance, its programs focus on time and percentage. Since biking encompasses usually 50% of the race, training should focus 50% on biking (unless you're very weak in one of the other legs).

It offers sample worksheets to set up your own program, based on the type of triathlon-sprint to Ironman.

I'm a new transition to triathlons. This book works well for me because I'm prepared to accept the information the book has to offer. The information is objective and the training methods presented appear well organized with technical reasoning backing up the new concepts I learned here. I feel the author is genuinely concerned about the readers success and therefore disagree with other reviewers comments' that the there is too much (unnecessary) training. My thoughts on this matter are that Triathletes need a sufficient amount of training to efficiently compete and I think once again the author backs up the reasons why the training is important . My interpretation of the general training outline presented is that this will prepare one well for the stresses of half ironman competition, but one can adjust up or down from there to suit their racing needs. For a 1994 copyright, this book is well worth the money because the facts, figures, and methods being used appear to be genuine by even today's standards. If you wish to find something exactly for you please visit your local full service health club and pay several hundred dollars for a genuine taylored plan, this is a serious statement for those being extremely serious about this sport. But for the novice like me, this book tells me everything I need to know at this point. See you on the course friends...

This is perhaps my all-time favorite book. The concepts and exercises will help you with every area in your life where you want to accomplish a goal. As a musician I found it to be wonderful and refreshing. It goes right along with "The Inner Game of Music'" and "A Soprano on her Head." Replacing the sports performance scenes with musical performing situations is a no-brainer. It's incredibly helpful to us performers who tend to be very down on ourselves and notoriously dim about mindset, self-talk, etc..

This IS a book for novices. True Taoists would just have a copy of the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching and draw their own answers through introspection of these two primary documents. While I had hoped that this book would provide something of substance, the whole of the book can literally be summed up with, "Visualize how you want things to be and it will be so. Center. Take five easy breathes. Act as if and it will be so." The authors say this in EVERY chapter and with every chapter being template formatted to this mantra it gets VERY repetitive and exhausting. I cannot believe they got 300 pages out of the same text...

I also have trouble believing that the worldclass athletes alluded to within this book are so undisciplined that they need the simple affirmations provided to open their eyes to their true potential, especially martial artists. The affirmations provided get so much to the point of comedy that it is best to ignore them as you push through the book. (They reminded me of the Saturday Night Live skit, "I'm okay and I like me.")

This is a New Age book, not an enlightening text. (Though I acknowledge that once you decide to become enlightened, you are.) If you are an advanced athlete who understands even the basics of Taoism and how it can be applied to ALL ASPECTS of your life, this IS NOT a book for you.

Thinking Body, Dancing Mind: Taosports for Extraordinary Performance in Athletics, Business, and Life

ANNOTATION
Written by a sports psychologist and a renowned T'ai Chi master, here is a guide to enriching all of life's pursuits through the practice of its simple mental tools and wisdom. Using stories of success from athletes and businesspeople, the authors present techniques and exercises to promote relaxation and enhance performance.

FROM THE PUBLISHER
Why fight your way to the top when you can rise to it? Let go of the obsession to win - and you will be victorious. Acknowledge your vulnerabilities - and turn them into strengths. Find the courage to risk failure - and begin your journey to success.
That is the secret of the TaoAthlete, and in this remarkable book t'ai chi expert Chugliange Al Huang and renowned professional and Olympic sports psychologist Jerry Lynch teach you the time honored principles of successful performance - whether on the playing field, in the office, or in your relationships. By mastering the unique strategies and mental exercises of the TaoAthlete, you'll unlock the extraordinary powers of body, mind, and spirit that will lead you to victory in any field of endeavor.

I am in graduate school for Sports Psychology and this book hits at the heart of what works for athletes. This is an Eastern-thinking text, so if you do not agree with that philosophy, you will not like this book.
Not only can this book be a reference for the athlete, it is also a reference book for living. I love this book.

This book addresses most of the stumbling blocks many athletes encounter in their quest for excellence. It then suggests specific guidelines for achieving not only performance excellence but also an internal sense of calm and satisfaction with the effort and accomplishment.
The format is succinct and easily used as a reference when specific concepts need to be reviewed. It is not a deeply theoretical book. Rather, it is a very practical and, in my experience, highly effective friend. It has totally changed my approach to my sport (and to my life) with wonderful results.