Becoming a Supple Leopard 2nd Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance

Fundamentally, this book is an organization and systemization of the material that Kelly Starrett has posted on MobilityWOD.com. It covers his axioms of human movement, applies those axioms to teaching correct form on fundamental strength exercises, and provides a set of techniques to address mobility issues preventing you from moving correctly. There's a lot more here than just a bunch of 'stretching exercises'- it's really treating the human body as a complete system and provides a manual for basic maintenance.

I can say from years of experience that this stuff works. Without hyperbole, Starrett's techniques have been life-changing for me; I can walk to work without pain shooting down my leg and squat below parallel with good form. show more I've always recommended his work to people struggling with pain and stiffness, but it's pretty daunting to have to slog through two and a half years of videos to get the whole picture. I'm grateful that I can now simply recommend they buy this book. show less

There is some good info here, but it's obscured under layers of needless over complication.
The book is divided into 3 parts, the first tries to present a systematic approach to mobility, including various laws, rules, archetypes, and hierarchies. Maybe other physical therapists or sports professional will find the terminology useful, but for normal people it doesn't provide much enlightenment.
Part 2 covers the basic Crossfit movements, describing how to perform them correctly and how to avoid the common fault modalities, along with suggestions on which body parts to focus on to enact a fix. Which leads directly to Part 3, which hits each area and provides several massage and stretching techniques to loosen tough tissues, mostly show more incorporating an array of bands, balls, sticks, rollers, and various assorted torture devices in difficult and painful looking contortions.

The main issue is that most of the movements in parts 2 and 3 are better demonstrated than described, and there are plenty of good videos on YouTube (including a whole bunch by the author) that do just that. Writing it all down and attempting to capture dynamic movements with a few still photos just isn't all that effective. A 21st century version of the book with links to the relevant videos for each section or exercise would be tremendously more useful, combining the orderly organization of the book with the appropriate content delivery mechanism.

The secondary issue is that although the basics apply to everyone, the actual movements are centered around CrossFit, which makes it less enticing for people who don't aspire to do things like ring muscle ups or kipping pull ups. Athletes in other sports won't find much here that helps them in the movements that they need to perfect, or how to avoid or deal with injuries associated with those activities. show less

Напоследък се навъдиха една камара фитнес-експерти, рехабилитатори, кайропрактори и всякакви други шарлатани, според които всяко изкривяване, травма, схващане, неправилна стойка или какъвто и да е друг физически проблем са резултат от "мускулни дисбаланси", "прищипвания", "съединителна тъкан" в мускулите и т.н. Тяхната основна цел е да убеждават хората, че за да стоят и за да се движат нормално, вместо да show more спортуват, е нужно да правят какви ли не изчанчени разтягания, стойки и упражнения, за да "коригират" гореспоменатите "дисбаланси".

Авторът на книгата очевидно разбира от спортни науки, но още по-очевидно му се иска да изкара повечко пари, а за целта са му нужни клиенти, убедени че имат именно гореописаните "заболявания", поради което никой друг не може да им помогне, освен горепосочените упражнения, с които книгата а пълна.

Не, фактът че имаш трудности със ставането от стола не е защото имаш "дисбаланс между свивачите и разгъвачите на бедрото" и това не се оправя като чупиш описаните в книжката стойки. Ти просто си дебел и мускулите ти са слаби и това се оправя като отслабнеш и тренираш за да влезеш във форма... show less

Floss your nerves. You'll look like a pervert, but your joints and fascia will thank you for it.

Reading this book felt like buying a used car. I honestly don't have the expertise to critique his methods, but I got a bad vibe from the book. I'd try checking his study references, but there were none. It didn't help relieve the feeling that I was being sold a bill of goods when I went to his mobilitywod web site and found that 90% of the material there is pay-walled.

Very sound, thorough and transferable content here that crosses the gender and age barriers often found with fitness books. Every high school library should have a copy of this desk reference fitness bible.

Kelly Starrett is the absolute ultimate authority on the body and musculature related to stretching, mobility and injury recovery. I have not seen a better book than The Supple Lepord on these areas. It's a big book and so well illustrated it's like a text book. It's in valuable resource to any athlete and has an important spot in my library.