Athletic Body In Balance: Optimal Movement Skills and Conditioning for Performance

Great athletes make difficult moves look effortless with a combination of skill, strength, and balance. Traditional conditioning builds a fitness base, but modern sports training takes into account athletic movement patterns. The Athletic Body in Balance book and DVD first of its kind to show you how to train for smooth, fluid movement and prevent muscle imbalances, mobility restrictions, stability problems, and injuries.

Physical therapist and sports conditioning expert Gray Cook has proven the effectiveness of his approach through the performances of athletes in the NFL, NBA, NHL, WNBA, and Reebok(R) University's sports training system. Whereas other books concentrate on maximizing your strengths, the Athletic Body in Balance book focuses on exposing and overcoming your weaknesses to form a foundation for long-term training gains. Cook will help you identify functional weaknesses; correct imbalances; explore your potential; and refine sport-specific movement skills such as jumping, kicking, cutting, and turning. You will see where conditioning is breaking down and how to get your body back on track.

The Athletic Body in Balance DVD then covers five assessment tests to help you find the imbalances in movement patterns, sample corrective exercises to improve mobility and stability, and ways to integrate these exercises into a regular training program. The tests include

-deep squat--assessing the mobility and stability of the hips, knees, and ankles

-hurdle steps--evaluating bilateral mobility and stability of the hips, knees, and ankles

-in-line lunge--determining hip mobility and stability, quadriceps flexibility, and ankle and knee stability on both sides of the body

-straight leg raise--gauging hamstring flexibility

-seated rotation--measuring uppertrunk stability during a combined upper- and lower-body movement

Move more efficiently and achieve real gains in performance with the Athletic Body in Balance book and DVD.

Human Kinetics DVDs are coded for universal playback and can be played in all regions of the world.

Gray Cook is a physical therapist, board certified in orthopedics. He also is a certified strength coach with experience in several sports at the youth, college, and professional levels. Cook is a nationally recognized lecturer and consultant to the NFL, NBA, NHL, and WNBA as well as numerous college sports medicine and conditioning facilities. His innovative research and applied work are found in many rehabilitation and conditioning publications.

Cook is the director of orthopedic and sports physical therapy at Dunn, Cook & Associates. He also serves as the creative director of sport-specific training for Reebok(R) and is Reebok’s(R) first master coach.

Gray Cook received his graduate degree in physical therapy education at the University of Miami School of Medicine with a focus on orthopedics and sports rehabilitation and research in motor learning. Cook is a faculty member of the North American Sports Medicine Institute and is the codeveloper of the course titled Functional Exercise Training and Rehabilitation. He lives in his hometown of Danville, Virginia.