Athletics Books

After running one lengthy race following the schedule they put out, I decided to do something different for an upcoming half marathon I'd like to run. Received info on this book and decided to check reviews and then purchase. Very glad I did! It's been a great resource for me. I've referred back to it many times and I'm sure that will continue. Although I may have read some of the info formerly in Runner's World, I've found it very helpful to have it all compiled into one book.

If you are looking for a comprehensive book that covers everything you wanted to know about running, this one stands out. This books relies quite a bit of past articles in Runner's World but if you have not read this magazine recently, almost everything in this book would seemed new to you. My only wish is that Katie shared more of her running experience. That would make the book more personal and not read like another Runner's World compilation.

Everything you need to get started or improve your running skills in one place. Includes helpful instructions, motivation, nutrition advice and beneficial cross training tips. Enjoyable read, especially for the beginner runner.

Easily the most disappointing running book I have owned. The title and publisher would lead one to believe this is a real guide to running faster and competing; what this book actually feels like is an attempt to recycle miscellaneous Runners World articles in a somewhat organized format. Less than half the book is devoted to road racing; most of it is devoted to pictures of someone stretching and doing strengthening exercises, miscellaneous recipes, and the like. For anyone who really wants advice on racing, try Pfitzinger, Higdon or Glover.

I just wanted to let you know that your book is awesome. It has so much information in it, in one place. Usually I have to one thing here and go to another website for something else. But this book has tons of information all in one place, so it is great and a time saver! Also some of the stuff I notice while browsing through the book I don't remember seeing in books before. I have ran other races (5K, 10K, and 5 milers), but this spring I am training for my first half marathon (LV Half Marathon & helping to put it together with the LVRR) this book will be a great resource for me and other races to come. Thank you so much!

I ordered a couple of his books and while one may be interesting they are kind of redundant. If ordering just try one first.

Get in shape for ski season with this guide to stretching. These easy exercises work well as a morning wake-up call.

This is a good book - a relatively inexpensive book to help know how to get in shape for skiing season. I also purchased Fitskiing (hardback) which is more exhaustive (and was more what I was looking for), but this book is worth the cost.

I'm a personal trainer working in a New York City gym and when a client of mine wanted some exercises for his favorite sport, I did a search and found this book. It has been excellent. All I needed to tailor a program for him, and even exercises he can do on the mountain in full gear. Clear, honest and effective. I highly recommend it.

It is well established that stretching improves agility and quickness of skiers. Resistance exercises strengthen the muscles, but they also shorten them. Stretching makes muscles longer again. This leads to flexibility (greater range of motion in the joints) which allows to get the most out of your training program and helps to ski longer, in better control, with less fatigue. Many books in the past emphasized primarily physical training during off-season period. In the last few years, flexibility and stretches got increasingly large attention. This book is entirely focused on stretches. It contains a well-illustrated 10-20 minute warm-up and stretching routine, and several additional excersises to improve balance. The exercises are very easy, and can be done, e.g., in the morning before work. They help to wake up and to feel better. Additionally, there is a section on warm-up and stretches recommended for the slopes before skiing (partly with the skis on), and a few exercises on skis to improve balance.

The authors emphasize that it is important to do these stretches every day since the result will be nil if you do them irregularly. However, it is not quite clear what kind of progress you can expect if you do them every day. While I appreciate the importance of stretches, I strongly suspect that the result may be rather insignificant if you do these routines every day, but nothing besides them. Stretches obviously work best when they are combined with more vigorous exercise program, such as strength training or aerobics. It is a pity that this book includes very few of those - if it did, it could be an indispensable source for pre-season conditioning. The good part, however, that practically all suggested exercises can be done at home on the floor or standing against the wall, with the equipment which can be purchased at a local harware store, or with no equipment at all.

The subtitle of the book (see the bottom of the book cover) is misleading as it says "flexibility, fitness, and conditioning for better skiing". Flexibility is definitely there, and is very well written; fitness and conditioning - sorry, guys, I did not see much of it in the book. Four stars.

I was under the impression this book was strickly a "volleyball weight training" guide, which it is not. I did however enjoy the weight training sections that were quite generic in nature but informative none the less. If you are looking for a generic overview of weight training for sports, this is your book. If you want an intense guide into volleyball specific weight training, look into another series.

This weight training guide is full of great drills for volleyball players. Increase your jumping and endurance, and keep training with these programs in the off-season.

a really good book about weight training, with specific drills for volleyboll. I have already increased my jumping and endurance.

This book is straightforward, unlike Complete Conditioning for Volleyball. I know exactly when and how to work out.

The off and pre-season programs are very solid.

The only thing I wish it had in it is more agility and plyometrics programs.

I'm a multi sport athlete who trains all year round regardless of what sport I play. I bought a few of these Ultimate Guide to Weight Training books, and they definitely helped me train specifically for the different sports that I play. Then about a year later I received an email from amazon that there was a new edition out. These upgraded editions are even better than the originals, with more articles and a lot more sport-specific information. I would definitely recommend this series to anyone who plays a lot of sports or wants to specifically focus on training for one sport in particular.

Digger tells an interesting story of his rise in coaching but there is no real life changing leadership or self improvement tips that have not been written about already. Based on a brief appointment by Bush 1 he thinks about running for Pres. God Luck. But I will give him kudos for being the only coach I know of that has the ballz to speak of UCLA legend Coach Wooden with anything but praise. He really calls him more of a poor sport. No wonder he never coached after Notre Dame again.

The is a wonderful book - part memoir and part practical advice on living - from a sports icon! And you don't even have to be a Notre Dame basketball fan to enoy it.

This is not a basketball book although there are many entertaining stories of Digger's two decades at ND...It's about a man who has a passion for makeing this planet a better place when it's his time to leave...He believes in "giving back" had has donated much of his time as well as money to make "life" for others better....all proceeds go to Katernia victims...

If this were a basketball book I wouldn't have bothered to buy it. It was exactly as promised, life lessons from an American icon. Digger Phelps is so much more than a basketball coach. He's worked for the first President Bush, he served as an election monitor in Cambodia, he's building homes for people still sufering from the effects of Katrina. He learned as an undertaker's son that it's best to do what you have to today, because tommorrow might not come. The book is full of great advice for anyone, not just basketball fans. I read it in one sitting.

early pr release on this book indicated that Digger would have provided lots of inofrmation about basketball: teams, players, recruiting, why he resigned, etc. There is very little about basketball, while it is his life's perspective and he's entitled to say so, to an outsider, the book is a major disappointment. if you are looking for basketball insight, do not buy it. if you want life lessons, you'll enjoy it. Frankly, I'd like my money back.

As a competitive 800m runner the information outlined in this book proved to be informative and useful to my own training and to others.

The book gives good guidelines to long distance racing, but it is geared to older children and was a little too technical for me.

While this book covers all of the key elements of good training and racing, there are better books available on nutrition and training strategies (especially since the book is now almost ten years old). The book focuses on Sebastian Coe and uses him as an example. This only works to a point since most people didn't end up with his genes. If you are coaching young runners (many without Sebastian Coe's body or personality) and tried to use the mental conditioning section uniformly with each runner you would lose or ruin a good share of them.

Peter Coe has put together a short, highly readable volume that will benefit both coach and runner. He discusses in depth all things related to running the 800 and 1500. His multi-paced training program makes a lot of sense. I found myself underlining a lot of passages. Well Done!!

I found this book well-written and to the point. I like it very much as it does not have the scientific mumbo-jumbo frequently found in training guides. It also included some race strategies which I found very helpful. After following the training schedule for a few months, I found that my times had improved significantly. I'm recommending this book to all my runner friends!

I have always heard (and observed) that runners have better endurance and overall fitness. I had tried jogging, mostly after dark, to try and get "up to speed" with other people in my biking club, but gave up after feeling faint. After reading this book, running doesn't seem as intimidating; I am gradually improving my cardiovascular fitness, so I can excel at the sports I love. The discussion about breathing, form, and stretching were especially helpful. The book was inspiring to me.

This is a superb book for beginners. Anyone who questions its "slow and easy" approach has never watched friends take on fitness programs with great enthusiasm, only to get hurt or lose interest a couple of months later. This book's number one goal is to keep that from happening by setting goals that Salazar describes as "so easy that you'll always be wanting more." It gains credibility coming from Salazar, who was renowned for his grueling training schedules. My guess is that a lot higher fraction of people who listen to him will be running a year from now than of those who risk an accelerated program not suitable for untrained beginners. The book is also loaded with answers to questions that beginners ask all the time, including many that will apply to beginning racers. If you've been running for a year or two, you may already know most of the answers, but in those first few months it's all new, and this book covers the ground nicely, in a pleasant, easy-to-read style. It's also loaded with entertaining a necdotes. Did you know that Salazar once ran several miles of a marathon with a side stitch so bad it hurt for weeks afterward? No wonder he had what it took to win! Also fun is the fact that Salazar shares the stage with his co-author, giving the book a mix of world-class and "average runner" perspectives. It's an unusual approach that works nicely, because the co-author can write from experience about issues that front-running Salazar never had to face. Bottom line: if you've been sedentary for a few years and are wanting to do something about it, this is your book. If you've been running for a few years (as I have), it's a great gift for that friend who's thinking about starting an exercise program.

Running always appealed to me but everytime I considered taking it up I had second thoughts because of all the injured friends I know who are runners. This didn't seem healthy, so I thought "Why run?".

I ran across this book in a book review in a local paper and was intrigued because it said you could run with a much reduced possiblity of injury by following the plan outlined in the book. Reading it made a lot of sense and I could see many places where my running friends had made mistakes that probably lead to their injuries. I've read other books that back up what the author says so he isn't advocating some "out there" method but rather a method that will allow you to run to improve your health, which is what most of us are probably looking for.

It's sad that one of the greatest distance runners of his generation has lent his name to a book that purports to require a couple of hundred pages to transform people into 12-15 mile per week fitness joggers.

Here's how to do it in 150 words, instead of 50,000:

(1) Buy appropriate running shoes from a running store (they'll tell you what's appropriate for you).

(2) Go outside and walk/jog for 15 minutes, or until you are really tired, whichever comes first.

(3) Repeat step (2) three to five times per week, increasing both the percentage of time you are jogging rather than walking, and the total time spent moving briskly, until you reach a point where you are jogging for at least 30 minutes without walking or stopping. Reaching this stage will take some people a few days and others several weeks. (Salazar recommends taking 52 weeks to reach this level, which is absurd).

That's all there is to it -- really. You don't need to pay a former world class marathoner for this information.

Book was received right away. It was a new copy, but the print on some of the pages is too light to read.

While the subject is quiet interesting, the book is poorly written and edited. The author keeps on repeating himself over and over and over and over again. And again. One is reminded of college papers where a student is stretching a 2 page point over 10 pages to fulfill the length requirement, constantly restating the same thought with synonymous nouns and adjectives. Could have been a much more fun 150 page read with some good editing, or a great 10 page New Yorker article. The book does improve in the second half.

I got to "meet" Fred Lebow and learn about his creation of the New York City Marathon and his impact on the world of distance running while working with author Ron Rubin's extensive material. "Fred Lebow was a dreamer...the kind of dreamer who pursued his dream and made it a reality. And today, more than thirty years later, the world is still reaping the rewards of his vision and hard work.... Fred Lebow's life was [truly] a story just waiting--and deserving--to be told." -- From the book's Preface.

Exactly what Fred's vision was and how he worked to bring it to fruition--the history of the marathoning culture as we know it today--is developed in the first 11 chapters of the book.

> According to KATHRINE SWITZER, who knew Lebow well:
"Lebow's lifetime creation, the New York City Marathon, parallels his life story, and nobody's told it better than Ron Rubin in 'Anything for a T-Shirt...'. Rubin shows us how this modest but complex man, who was himself exhilarated with the transforming effects of fitness, took an obscure footrace and turned it into an extravagant festival that brought joy to the world's most glamorous and competitive city and attracted millions of everyday people to distance running. It is a case study in sports marketing, event management and psychology..."

The remainder of the book is dedicated to the heartwarming story of Lebow's struggle with cancer and his momentous first running of his own marathon in 1992 -- a cancer survivor accompanied by a host of friends led by Grete Waitz.

> SWITZER's review of these final chapters states:
"The book's climax is superb, reeling the reader up very dramatically, day by day, then mile by mile. Rubin pulls no punches as to how Fishl-the name I always called him and the one he would return to before he died-ran in his own creation for the first time, between bouts with the brain cancer that eventually took him from us, on guts and will. 'Anything' paints a vivid picture of Lebow's inherent survival determination, heard from a dozen concerned voices in his entourage. While the whole book is well-written, this chapter is dazzling."

As Dick Traum wrote in his amazon review, "If you run, read this book!" As a non-runner who had never heard of Fred Lebow before working with the book, I can add:

"EVEN IF YOU DON'T RUN, read this book." I came to know both Fred & Fishl through the eyes of the 120-plus people Dr. Rubin interviewed and the numerous authors of articles and stories written during Lebow's illustrious life and in his memory. His life is an uplifting story of hope and inspiration.

Everything I've heard so far indicates that this book is truly the inspiring, motivating & heartwarming tribute to Fred Lebow that Ron Rubin set out to create. A relatively non-athletic, academic-type university professor, Rubin is himself one of the millions of middle- and back-of-the-pack runners who would have never considered attempting a marathon had it not been for Lebow's "creation." He wound up running NY six times!

I look forward to reading what YOU think -- about my review and about the book!

"ANYTHING for a T-Shirt" captures Fred's character as an artist might do with a brush and paint. While describing Fred's life, the author delves into his motivation and goals. He skillfully shows how Fred Lebow, an immigrant from Romania, progresses to developing the most exciting mass participation sporting event in the world.

If you run, read this book! This is the best book ever written on Fred Lebow and marathon running.

My book called Arther and the Best Coach Ever. It is for boys and girls.I will give this book five stars.If you like sports,you can read this book. It is a fun book! Elise

Are you a cell-phone toting, work-a-holic parent? Busy cutting business deals on the soccer field? Then this book will leave you feeling a little sheepish. I know of quite a few sports parents who could stand to read this book for the lesson it teaches. As for the kids, maybe what they learn is that they should keep trying their best no matter how miserable their coach is!

I have watched the episode based on the book. It was a great episode and I'm sure that the book would be just as good.

"Arthur and the Best Coach Ever" is the fourth of six books in the 2001 Arthur Good Sports series. This is a great series that teaches kids about sportsmanship in an interesting as well as humorous way. However, this book, "Arthur and the Best Coach Ever," shows are startling lack of coordination between those working on the television show and those were developing the book series.

Both the television story and the book share a couple basic plot points. The soccer coach for Lakewood Elementary is no longer able to coach the team and Ed Crosswire is brought in as a replacement. In both versions, none of the kids are very happy, as they liked the old coach and Ed's coaching abilities are rather questionable.

The similarities stop about right there. In the book, Ed is presented as an inept coach who knows nothing about soccer and is always ignoring the team while he tries to run his automotive business from the sidelines. The team members begin to feel like they don't care about them, although really he's just caught in a pickle because he has no understanding of basic soccer concepts, or how to coach a team.

The exact opposite happens in the television episode. In the TV version, Ed seems to be quite knowledgable of soccer, even having played in the past, and tries to run the team like a machine, putting them through overly demanding drills.

Overall, "Arthur and the Best Coach Ever" is an okay story and in my opinion, somewhat better than the television version. Still, the lack of synergy between the TV show and the book causes confusion among followers of the seires and I'm not entirely certain what exactly this particular book teaches kids about good sportsmanship. Also, some of the humor found in the other "Arthur" books is missing. Pass on this one, and try one of the other, better, "Arthur" books instead.

Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook: 2002-2003 by Chris Dortch breaks down all the NCAA top level basketball teams for the coming season, 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. An excellent book.

This book covers every single college in the country. On one hand that is great because it can be an excllent source of information. But on the other hand, it's too much to get a real review on the upcoming season.

There is not one person who can go out and syudy all of the teams, so what this author has to do is surf the internet, cut 7 paste and put together a patch work of basketball reviews for each team.

The bottom line is that you get a book that gives you data (teams, coaches, roster, previous records, etc.) But when it comes to acurately projecting the field, this book is worthless. Just look at who they predicted to "win-it-all". It's like predicting the weather. The sad part is that this book is really authored by people who really know nothing about the teams.

I began buying Blue Ribbon before the 1999-2000 season (when Michigan State won it all), and it is, without a doubt, a must have for any serious college basketball fan. The 2002-03 edition features some changes, though none of them dramatic. First, the traditional Top 40 section was trimmed to a Top 25 to be on a pair with the rest of the major polls, and to have some more space for the new schools that join the Division I this year. Also, the recruiting info is back, with rankings of the top 25 classes for 2002-03, top 200 high school players in the country and top freshmen entering college. The only major blow this year is the lack of the 2001-02 Division I individual statistics, which is, at least for me, a big omission. Overall, it's a great book to buy; it's amazing all the information that contains. It takes me almost half a year to completely read it all.

This annual tome is THE source for college basketball fans. This book has been published annually for 22 years by Chris Dortch. It covers ever division one team. In particular if you root for a mid or low major team then you cannot be without this book. It is the only comprehensive review of division one. It is written by regional experts that cover these teams for a living. It is well organized and absolutely full of useful and unique information on every division one team.

College President Dolores Cross takes marathoning to a different level with her candid autobiography of "breaking through the wall," both personally and professionally. This story is a must read for everyone, particularly young people and those who feel that the odds are often against them. Dolores Cross shows how the art of marathoning for her has served as a figurative and literal victory for her success. We can all gain a great deal from this woman's provocative, sometimes painful, journey through life.

Reaching a successful goal in higher education is not easy but can be accomplished. This fantastac story outlines the challenges and obstacles one face in overcoming life's problems, attending and graduation from college, and securing a higher degree beyond undergraduate.

I found this book to be very inspirational and motivating to anyone who has obstacles in life to overcome. Self determination, hard work and confidence break through walls that present challenges in life. As a result of reading Breaking Through The Wall: A Marathoner's Story, I made significant changes in my life.

I am a runner and a advid reader. I purchased this book hoping it would give me some insight as to how she completed and trained for a marathon. This was not the book's goal. It turns out to be her life's story.