Athletics Books

This is an excellent introductory book for parents of children who want to play hockey. It covers all the types of equipment involved, and offers suggestions on how to buy what you need. It discusses how to be a responsible hockey parent, and how to support and encourage your young player. Special attention is paid to the unique needs of girls (there aren't many for kids in the age group being covered by this book), and also the particular needs of goaltenders. I checked this book out from my local library, but have decided to buy a copy to keep at home for reference.

This is the best book for first time hockey parents. I had no idea how to tape a stick, buy shoulder pads, skates or even that there was such a thing as a neck guard.

The book is written by a physician and hockey lover, who knows his stuff. It has given me a lot of confidence when dealing with "more knowledgeable" parents and coaches. It has also helped me make it more fun for my kid.

If you have a kid who is going to play hockey: BUY THIS BOOK!!! The information on equipment and injuries is worth the price alone. Knowing how tape a stick and buy equipment has saved me a lot of time and money.

If you're a Notre Dame fan, and don't know the names, Johnny Lujack, Angelo Bertelli, Creighton Miller, George Connor, Jim Martin, Leon Hart, Emil Sitko, John Panelli, Bill Fischer, or Frank Leahy, you need this book. These players, and many others, played at a time (1940's) when you played both offence and defense. During this period, Notre Dame won 4 National Championships, produced 3 Heisman Trophy winners, 2 Outland Trophy winners, and numerous All-Americans.

Jack Connor has written a lively and entertaining book about these great players with many personal stories and insight, and he should know, he was one of them.

This book is a wonderful chronicle of the men who played for Frank Leahy and the impact that he had upon them as they progressed beyond Notre Dame. My grandfather played fullback for Leahy and I had him sign copies for my kids as a lasting momento of the experience he had while playing at Notre Dame.

Michigan: Champions of the West provides a year-by-year look at one of America's longest-running success stories. Starting with the late 19th Century and progressing up to the present day, the book delivers a year-by-year history of University of Michigan Athletic events, legends, lists and facts that cannot be found in any other source. A must for any Michigan alumnus or supporter, the book clearly shows how we all must "Hail, Hail to Michigan, the Champions of the West."

If you are looking for facts, figures and insight into the athletics at the University of Michigan, this is the book! Madej covers every collegiate sport at the school, providing details of many minor sports.

I have finally found a copy of Mike Mentzer's comptete book of weight training. Thanks to Amazon.com marketplace sellers, mysearch has ended. This book is wayahead of it's time when it comes to weight training. Most trainerstoday train 5-6 days a week, lasting an hour or longer. Mentzerrecommends 3 days a week, 20-30 minutes per day. Now would anyone want to train 5-6 days a week?I don't think so unless you're onsteroids. Most people don't have the time to train either due to their job or other reasons.If your not getting good results from your present routine, then itmay be time to try Mike Mentzer'smethod. If you can find this book,I would certainly recommend it.RIP-MIKE & RAY MENTZER

Seize the opportunity to learn scientific methods
to building ultimate muscle-size, in minimum time.

Mike's techniques are a must and have been applied
to top bodybuilders like Dorian Yates.

The fundamental principle on weight-training
is to break down the muscle during exercise
and build-it back thicker and stronger
via proper recuperation.

Highly recommended by
George Papazoglou
...

See my review of Super High Intensity Bodybuilding: Nautilus Principles Applied to Free Weights, also by this book's author; my comments regarding Dr. Darden's inspirational writing and photography apply equally here. For bodybuilders of an advanced level, the routines and techniques herein are simply unmatched in intensity and WILL stimulate growth unlike any other regimen you're likely to employ; THIS I can say from personal experience...my best gains ever in my years of working out. You've simply GOT to be willing to outlast, out-suffer, and just plain out-stubborn rhe pain and nausea you'll endure if you've got it in you to follow the directions therein to the letter. For a passionate musclehead as myself, however, sustaining such motivaton isn't quite so forbidding a possibility when you're actually stronger and taping out bigger every two weeks or so.

Considered to be among the best advanced technique bodybuilding books ever published, the book covers fundamentals as well as in-depth advanced techniques and training methodology. It has detailed (yet easy to follow) text as well as numerous photo diagrams and charts. A must have reference for any serious bodybuilding enthusiast. -- (now out of print in any form, the book has become quite a sought after item by personal trainers as well as individuals)

This is possibly the most definitive college football statistical book ever written. It just gets better every year. Has more stuff than you can imagine and, if you are a football fan, it is nirvana. The research is top-rate and the gathering of material must be a full-time job for someone. I thought this might be a coffee-table picture book when my wife got it for me, but was I surprised with the detail presented. I am really happy with this book.

This is possibly the most definitive college football statistical book ever written. It just gets better every year. Has more stuff than you can imagine and, if you are a football fan, it is nirvana. The research is top-rate and the gathering of material must be a full-time job for someone. I thought this might be a coffee-table picture book when my wife got it for me, but was I surprised with the detail presented. I am really happy with this book.

If you are wanting to lose weight and have tried everything on the market you may have missed out on a big secret: Running Burns Fat Fast! I got this book and followed the 10K training guidelines and have lost weight rapidly and feel better than I have in years. I started out huffing and puffing and could barely run for a straight minute but I stuck with it and you can too! This book will encourage you to make it to the finish line; whether that finish line is the New York City Marathon or your neighborhood post office, this book will help you get there!

This is the greatest resource for runners that I have ever encountered. It provides information on everything from nutrition to training schedules, injury prevention to local running clubs, stretching suggestions to cross-training hints... you get the idea! It addresses the needs of beginning runners to experienced marathoners, and everyone in between. Highly recommended!

I loved Coach Gagliardi's methods. Although, I don't agree with everything he believes in that it can be transferred to the workplace; I do think he has a outlook that more businesses should look at. Simple quick read.

I manage a large staff in a financial services firm. Since I started the position a year ago, I've had problems dealing with the various personalities on staff and keeping productivity at an acceptable level. After reading this book a few weeks ago, I immediately started implementing the suggestions in "No How Coaching." Now, I can tell everyone that I've already seen results, which shocks even me because nothing else has worked. Productivity has increased. My staff is working better together. This book is amazing! If you are a company president or the lowliest peon, read this book and your business WILL IMPROVE!

Bob Seebohar is an experienced professional who not only teaches optimal health, but lives it every day. His reasoned and balanced instruction reflects both his work with the top athletes in the country as well as his personal passion for achieving the best state of fitness possible. I found the information in this book highly relevant even as a wanna-be athlete who only competes with the treadmill. Learning more about food and supplements has helped me fuel my workouts and maintain my weight--important goals for anyone!

This book is awesome. A friend of mine recommended it to me and it is a brilliant concept. The author is very knowledgeable and very experienced. I highly recommend this read if you are a serious athlete.

I am here reviewing C. M. Bowra's translation of "The Odes of Pindar" for the Penguin Classics, not Richmond Lattimore's version from the University of Chicago Press, my review of which has been appearing under this heading as well. Fortunately, I rank Bowra's work as highly as Lattimore's, so I won't have to quibble over how many stars should be assigned. Lattimore's translation is, at the moment, out of print; one hopes that Penguin will keep Bowra's available. I will refer to a third translation, as well.

Pindar was one of the most famous poets of ancient Greece, and besides fragments (which are all that survive of most of his rivals) we have four reasonably intact books out of a much larger collection. As it happens, the four books contain celebrations of victors at major Games (Olympic and three others, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean), and are otherwise unlike what moderns think of as typical poetry. They are also densely allusive, and in a Greek which is generally acknowledged to be as difficult to follow as it is beautiful. My own command of Greek is too small to judge, but Bowra is one of several modern translators who have managed to persuade me to read him for pleasure, rather just than for his allusions to myths and heroic legend.

Bowra, who also wrote a major work on Pindar, provides useful annotations to a very attractive translation. He also decided to arrange the poems according to their likely dates, or at least the dates assigned to them by ancient scholars who had list of victors in the various games. There are inherent problems with this, since some of the Odes actually relate to victories in other Games, and some were certainly performed at delayed celebrations. On the whole, however, it does give some sense of Pindar as a developing poet, and of the Victory Ode as a form continuing to grow during his career.

The real drawback is the need to consult a table of references to find any given poem. This can be a real annoyance for a student if Bowra is the only translation you have on hand, and you really want to check a statement supported by a reference to, say, Olympian 3, lines 7 to 10. In most translations, you can just follow the page headings.

Bowra's critical writings on Pindar are now considered obsolete -- at least for the moment His translation remains worth reading, and compares well with Lattimore's, and with Richard Stoneman's recent expanded edition, with excellent critical material, of G.S. Conway's translation of the Odes, which first appeared a few years after Bowra's.

This last was Issued as "Odes: and Selected Fragments," in the Everyman Paperback Classics series, and I have reviewed it, with a more extended discussion of Pindar and related critical disputes. I am glad to have all three; it would be nice if all of them were all in print simultaneously. A fourth alternative, with a translation facing the Greek texts, is the Loeb Classical Library edition, re-edited in two volumes by William H. Race (1997), which is probably a bit too intimidating for the merely curious reader.

The late Richmond Lattimore was a poet and a classical scholar. He held, in the opinion of many, an outstanding place among American translators of the classical literature. In the role of a scholar of Greek, he published late in life of series of translations from the New Testament, eventually collected in one volume; it is dedicated to the sense of the Greek text, without theological commitments. In a combined role he was responsible for a long series of distinguished translations, alone and with collaborators, or as an editor.

He appeared as all three in the University of Chicago Press "Greek Tragedies," and as translator-poet of the "The Iliad," "The Odyssey", Hesiod (Theogony, Works and Days, and Shield of Heracles), and, in the case at hand, the large-scale lyrics of Pindar (c. 518-438 BC). Originally published by the University of Chicago Press in 1947, and reprinted in paperback in that form, it was reissued in a revised translation in 1976, a few years after C.M. Bowra's British translation had appeared as a Penguin Classic. The Odes are songs for public performance in honor of athletes and other victors (owners of horses and chariot teams) at the major Games of classical Greece in the years around the Persian Wars.

Although Lattimore's Homeric translations are quite well known, and seem to remain continuously in print, his version of Pindar seems to have suffered from the relative obscurity of this magnificent, but difficult, poet, who has almost always found more favor with classical scholars than the public. Given the difficulties in translating his rich, densely allusive, and often terribly obscure poems celebrating long-forgotten athletic contests, this is not surprising.

Lattimore manages to give exceptionally clear translations, without masking the difficulties in following Pindar's lines of thought. His commentary is pretty sparse (as usual), which at least spares most of it from becoming outdated as approaches to Pindar shift. As in most translations (but not Bowra's) the Epinician (Victory) poems are presented in their traditional order, in sets according to the Games (Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian) with which ancient scholars associated them (not always correctly).

Another translation of the Odes, by G.S. Conway, has been reprinted in Everyman Paperback Classics as "The Odes: and Selected Fragments," with an excellent introduction, expanded notes, and translations of additional texts, some fairly substantial, by Richard Stoneman. Stoneman provides a good account of trends in Pindar studies; I have discussed some of the issues he raises in my review of that volume.

A fourth alternative, with a translation facing the Greek texts, is the Loeb Classical Library edition, re-edited in two volumes by William H. Race (1997), which is probably a bit too intimidating for the merely curious reader.

It should be noted that this and several other translations of Pindaros (the full Greek form) have been appearing on the listings as the work of "Peter Pindar". (Or formerly were, when this review was first written, and for quite a while after I reported it to Amazon.) This was a pseudonym for John Wolcot, an eighteenth century physician and author from Cornwall, and seems to have been used by others as well. Its only connection with the Greek poet is the borrowing of his name.