Run for Life: The Injury-Free, Anti-Aging, Super-Fitness Plan to Keep You Running to 100 Review

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(More customer reviews)Here's a backhanded compliment. On the one hand, in Run for Life author
Roy Wallack has produced what looks like a very effective life plan for
running, with new ideas and tools that ought to make you a healthier,
stronger runner. Although many ideas were new to me, I found myself
nodding to myself at times "of course that makes total sense-----I'm
going to do that from now on' ------ such as those "Ultra-Interval"
30-second sprints, which I did on land and in the pool, and felt
stronger after a week. After three weeks, I beat my best 5k time over
the last 5 years on a treadmill by 12 seconds, and wasn't even really
pushing it. I can't wait to do a real race and see what happens. On
the other hand (here comes the backhand) , Wallack shot himself in the
foot with his marketing hook of "Running to 100'--- which will make
people think the book is only for old people. Listen people: It's
definitely not. It's not even just for people over 35, "when the body's
natural deterioration begins, as Wallack puts it. I would go as far
to say that a 16-year old beginner highschool cross country runner
would do himself a lot of good to use this book as his bible. The
detail about non-heel striking form, pedulum arm swing, and barefoot
running is invaluable, and thats just the tip of the iceberg here.
But alas, "young" people ---- and I mean fit, non-injured runners under
40 probably won't pick up this book because of that "age 100" angle.
Even older runners may not, like Bill Rodgers, who in his fascinating
interview said "Run to 100? That's so far away I don't even think about
that." That said it all to a marketing man like me. Bill's over 60 now
(just finished Boston the other day in 4 hours) and has even broke a
bone his tibia due to over-running, but the "100" angle still does not
resonate with him yet. It's a shame. The book could have stood stonger
on its own without this angle. Run for Life IS a great book, engaging
from the get-go even merely as entertainment, but it's fatally flawed
marketing hook may scare away the running masses of ALL AGES who could
benefit from it.

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Want to run fast and injury-free for the next 50 years? In Run for Life, the co-author of Barefoot Running Step by Step lays out a comprehensive plan designed to help you do just that. L.A. Times fitness columnist and endurance athlete Roy M. Wallack says new muscle- and joint-preserving techniques and technologies put life-long running within everyone's reach. "Yes, you can run to 100," he says. "And not merely live to 100 andshuffle along when you get there, but do what few, if any, have everdone: Actually run a 5k, 10k, or even a marathon on your 100thbirthday." Traveling the running world from Kenya to Tahiti and Bostonto Badwater in search of super-fit running longevity,Wallack talks to top coaches, athletes, and researchers andsynthesizes new running methods, products, and fitness regimens into a life plan for runners he summarizes as: * Run Soft * Run Less * Run Stronger * Run Flexible * Run Straighter * Run Faster. At the core of the Run for Lifeplan is a one-two punch that addresses the two oft-ignored factors thatcripple all runners: the natural muscle and VO2 Max deteriorationthat starts at age 35, and the joint deterioration caused by runningitself. Featuring 10 oral-history interviews and advice fromgreats such as Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, Rod Dixon, HelenKlein, Laszlo Tabori, Bobbi Gibb, and Dr. Kenneth Cooper, Run for Life brims with innovations:·Soft Running form: The proven way to cut knee-shock -- and injuries -- by 50%;·Barefoot Running: Why it strengthens feet and can even eliminateimpact.·Vertical Arm Swing: Why a perfect pendulum is faster and safer than cross-chest swings;·HGH Strength Training: Radical high-intensity exercises that fight aging and injury;·Ultra Intervals: Short, hard sprint workouts that cue muscle growth and instant speed gains;·High-tech Water Running: Joint-safe pool tools used to set the half-marathon world record;·Runner-specific Yoga: Exclusive runner's warm-up from famed multisport yogi Steve Ilg;·Bionic Hips and Knees: The operations rejuvenating broken-down Baby Boomer runners;·Perfect running posture: Unique postural exercises to straighten you out and speed you up; ·Runaway Weight Loss: Slight changes in diet timing that can cut fat and race times.

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Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports Review

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(More customer reviews)Girls are suffering ACL injuries (which can take as much as year to recover from) at an alarming rate in soccer games and similar sports. Sokolove reviews the evidene about these injuries and suggests valuable training reforms that might spare these girls from such devastating injuries. This is a "must read" for any dad or mom whose teenage daughter is in competitive soccer, basketball, lacrosse, or similar sport.

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Amy Steadman was destined to become one of the great women's soccer players of her generation. "The best of the best," Parade magazine called her as she left high school and headed off to the University of North Carolina. Instead, by age twenty, Amy had undergone five surgeries on her right knee. She had to give up the sport she loved. She walked with a stiff gait, like an elderly woman, and found it painful to get out of bed in the morning. Warrior Girls exposes the downside of the women's sports revolution that has evolved since Title IX: an injury epidemic that is easily ignored because we worry that it will threaten our daughters' hard-won opportunities on the field. From teenage girls playing local soccer, basketball, lacrosse, volleyball, and other sports to women competing at the elite level, female athletes are suffering serious injuries at alarming rates. The numbers are frightening and irrefutable. Young female athletes tear their ACLs, the stabilizing ligament in the knee, at rates as high as eight times greater than their male counterparts. Women's collegiate soccer players suffer concussions at the same rate as college football players. From head to toe, female athletes suffer higher rates of injury, and many of them play through constant pain. Michael Sokolove gives us the most up-to-date research on girls and sports injuries. He takes us into the homes and hearts of female athletes, into operating theaters where orthopedic surgeons reconstruct shredded knees, and onto the practice field of famed University of North Carolina soccer coach Anson Dorrance. Exhaustively researched and strongly argued, Warrior Girls is an urgent wake-up call for parents and coaches. Sokolove connects the culture of youth sports -- the demands for girls to specialize in a single sport by age ten or younger, and to play it year-round -- directly to the injury epidemic. Devoted to the ideal of team, and deeply bonded with teammates, these tough girls don't want to leave the field even when confronted with serious injury and chronic pain. Warrior Girls shows how girls can train better and smarter to decrease their risks. It makes clear that parents must come together and demand changes to a sports culture that manufactures injuries. Well-documented, opinionated, and controversial, Warrior Girls shows that all girls can safeguard themselves on the field without sacrificing their hard-won right to be there.

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Until It Hurts: America's Obsession with Youth Sports and How It Harms Our Kids Review

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(More customer reviews)Having no children of my own, I recently attended a friend's child's Little League game, and was taken aback at the intensity and unhappiness of the whole experience: Coaches yelling at players constantly, parents yelling and agonizing about their kids, kids outright bawling following a strikeout. Wow. I thought sports was supposed to be fun.
My experiences with youth sports were largely similar. I can say that pickup games, backyard basketball, endless wiffleball games with other kids on my street, these are the best sports memories from my youth. Not organized games with annoying coaches and cloying parents.
This is an outstanding book that all parents, umpires, and coaches of young kids need to read and think about. Sports are supposed to be fun. Ask yourself this question: does my son or daughter actually enjoy and look forward to playing basketball, baseball, soccer, etc? If not, maybe they, and you, should look to put their energies in another direction.
Highly recommended.

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Near the end of a long season, fourteen-year-old baseball pitcher Ben Hyman approached his father with disappointing, if not surprising, news: his pitching shoulder was tired. With each throw to home plate, he felt a twinge in his still maturing arm. Any doctor would have advised the young boy to take off the rest of the season. Author Mark Hyman sent his son out to pitch the next game. After all, it was play-off time. Stories like these are not uncommon. Over the last seventy-five years, adults have staged a hostile takeover of kids' sports. In 2003 alone, more than 3.5 million children under age fifteen required medical treatment for sports injuries, nearly half of which were the result of simple overuse. The quest to turn children into tomorrow's superstar athletes has often led adults to push them beyond physical and emotional limits.In Until It Hurts, journalist, coach, and sports dad Mark Hyman explores how youth sports reached this problematic state. His investigation takes him from the Little League World Series in Pennsylvania to a prestigious Chicago soccer club, from adolescent golf and tennis superstars in Atlanta to California volleyball players. He interviews dozens of children, parents, coaches, psychologists, surgeons, sports medicine specialists, and former professional athletes. He speaks at length with Whitney Phelps, Michael's older sister; retraces the story of A Very Young Gymnast, and its subject, Torrance York; and tells the saga of the Castle High School girls' basketball team of Evansville, Indiana, which in 2005 lost three-fifths of its lineup to ACL injuries. Along the way, Hyman hears numerous stories: about a mother who left her fifteen-year-old daughter at an interstate exit after a heated exchange over her performance during a soccer game, about a coach who ordered preteens to swim laps in three-hour shifts for twenty-four hours.Hyman's exploration leads him to examine the history of youth sports in our country and how it's evolved, particularly with the increasing involvement of girls and much more proactive participation of parents. With its unique multiple perspective-of history, of reporting, and of personal experience-this book delves deep into the complicated issue of sports for children, and opens up a much-needed discussion about the perils of youth sports culture today. Hyman focuses not only on the unfortunate cases of overzealous parents and overly ambitious kids, but also on how positive change can be made, and concludes by shining a spotlight on some inspirational parents and model sports programs, giving hope that the current destructive cycle can be broken.

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