The Anatomy of Stretching, Second Edition: Your Illustrated Guide to Flexibility and Injury Rehabilitation Paperback – October 4, 2011

Great pictorial book

Helps with learning about the body

The older I get , the tighter I feel. This book will loosen my muscles and so forth

This book is overall very helpful. There are 135 color coded stretches categorized by muscle group(s). The first chapter is information of anatomy of muscles and kinesiology. The second chapter has information on different types of stretching techniques and workout structure. The remaining chapters go on to describe all of the stretches with pictures, description of techniques, muscles stretched, sports and injuries the stretches may be helpful for and references to complementary stretches. It ends with the top 5 stretches for each sports injury and sport and a glossary of different types of injuries. I am giving this book 4 stars instead of 5 because I would not recommend following his 4 point warmup structure before working out. I found it way too time consuming and it goes against what most physical therapists would recommend for the beginning of a workout. The information of stretching technique and the 135 stretches were very helpful. For that reason, I would recommend this book to anyone as a good resource for their workout routine.

I'm 54 and have lifted weights on-and-off (mostly off) for many years. I've accumulated many injuries - torn or overstrained muscles, achy joints, etc. I recently started working out again and it wasn't long before all those aches and pains came back. My shoulders, triceps, elbows and forearms felt extremely tight and downright painful. Even with a pre-workout warmup routine, several of my exercises were limited not by the weight, but by how much discomfort I could stand.So I picked up this book and went through the shoulder and arm stretches. I probably only did each stretch for 15 seconds or so, but there are quite a few of them and so the routine was rather comprehensive. Immediately I felt the muscle tightness had been vastly decreased. The next day, prior to my workout, I went through the stretches again, and lo and behold, felt no discomfort in any of my weightlifting exercises.I can't recommend this book highly enough to people who have tight, sore muscles. I spent almost twice as much money on a bottle of pills that were supposed to help with joint soreness and it basically did nothing for me. The stretches in this book fixed me up completely in only a day.

The first section of the book talks about the physiology of muscles and the components of good stretching. The rest of the book is organized by area of the body. Each of the pages provides a clear diagram of what the stretch looks like and what muscles are involved and provide a brief description of the injuries or sports that benefit from that stretch. While it's very straightforward and clear, I wish it provided a little more commentary about each stretch to enhance your understanding of the context surrounding each stretch.

This book is absolutely wonderful and a great addition for every Massage Therapist like myself or anyone who is interested in how stretching works, how it affects the muscles, which muscles get affected by what kind of stretch and where exactly those muscles are in the body part. Wonderful section in the end of the book about different sports injury and the best corresponding stretches to help relieve symptoms and tight muscles.Stretching is the absolute most important thing everyone needs to do, not just athletes or people who work out a lot. Too many people come for massages to me complaining about tightness and restrictions but they either don't stretch or stretch only a little. This book also explains on the different type of stretching and what is right or wrong. If your care about your body: Get this book. Massage Therapist: Go ahead, add it to your variety of books you have it is worth it and a quick review guide since it is also sectional divided into the different body's region so you don't have to read the whole book to find a special area, e. g. the neck, to look up some stretches and the muscles involved.

Great book. Very informative. Definitely recommend it.