Recommended Reading

Although there have been some posts on books and articles to read there is not any specific one and they are mostly lost down the forum. I think is a good idea to make an sticky with a book list editable (by the moderators) with new titles when they appear in other posts, that way we will have an unified source of recommended or interesting book titles about gymnastics, strength training, nutrition, etc...

I´ll take a chance beginning with:

·BUILDING THE GYMNASTIC BODIES, Basic strength by COACH SOMMER.

TRAINING (STRENGTH, SPORTS SPECIFIC...)

·"Supertraining" by Mel Siff

·"Muscle Revolution" by Chad Waterbur

·"Modern trends in strength training" by Poliquin- Simple, short, good

·"Poliquin principles" by Poliquin

·"Mastery of hand strength" by John brooks

·"Food and western disease" by Stefan Lindeberg

·"Dinosaur training" by Brooks Kubik

·"The Training of the Weightlifter" by Robert Roman. This book is like, "Wow, so much information is old news. Volume (lots of it), linear periodization, weekly periodization, daily undulating periodization, twice a day training, not going to failure, going to failure...it is all really old crap.

·"Designing Resistance Training Programs" by Fleck and Kramer. Divides strength training into its components and then presents multiple studies on various components (sets, reps, rest, concentric, eccentric, isometric). Gets you past many of the nagging issues like 1 set vs. multiple, machines vs. barbell, 2x a week or more, so you can just see the real data and put it into perspective. Although, I have some uncertainties about things like an eccentric progression, and constant external resistance vs. variable external resistance, I don't beat a dead horse over the minute anymore.

·"Fitness and Strength Training for all Sports†by Hartmann and Tunnemann

·"Optimal Muscle Trainingâ€by Ken Kinakin

·"Children and Sports Training" by Jozef Drabik

·"Science of Sports Training"-Thomas Kurz

·"Facilitated Stretching"-McAtee

·"Neuromechanics of human movement" by Roger Enoka,

·"Charlie Francis Training System" by Charlie Francis

·"Block Periodization 1 and 2" by Vladimir Issurin

·"Biochemical Monitoring of Sport Training" by Atko Viru

·"Explosive power and jumping ability for all sports" by Starzynski

·"Weightlifting Encyclopedia" by Arthur Drechsler

·"Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe

·"Power to People" by Pavel Pavel Tsatsouline - lots of good information on old time strongmen with pictures and an excellent book on strength training

·"Power to the People Professional" by Pavel Tsatsouline - Similar as above but geared more around powerlifting

·"The Naked Warriror" by Pavel Tsatsouline - Same as Power to the People but around bodyweight training

·"The Purposeful Primitive" by Marty Gallagher - An excellent book from a powerlifting coach legend. This guy trained Ed Coan amongst a few other legendary powerlifters.

·"Weightlifting, Olympic Style" by Tommy Konno. A must for any Olympic Weightlifter or even someone who just wants to learn the lifts, Tommy Konno is a former world champion in Olympic Weightlifting during the era when steroids weren't around.

·"Beyond Brawn" by Stuart McRobert

·"Biochemical Monitoring of Sport Training" by Atko Viru, Mehis Viru - A good book on the bio mechanics of sport and the human body.

·"Science and Practice of Strength Training" by Zatsiorsky and Kraemer. These guys have been one of the most influential figures in strength training. Their information is constantly translated and used by American Strength coaches and for a good reason. Oh and Poliquin use to read these guys before their work was translated and accredits some of his success to basically having the information before other strength coaches.

·"Never Gymless" by Ross Enamait.

·"Kelso´s shrug book" by Paul Kelso

STRETCHING

·"Stretching Scientifically"

· "Relax into Stretch"

·"Stretch to win" by Ann Frederik, Chris Frederik

NUTRITION AND WAY OF LIFE(Maybe I should differentiate this two)

·"Amino acids and proteins for the athlete " by Dr Mauro di Pasquale

·"The paleo solution" by Robb Wolf

·"Protein power: lifeplan"

·"Achieving victory over a toxic world" by Mark Schauss

·"The Perfect Health Diet" by the Jaminets

·"Lights Out" by T.S. Wiley

·"The Metabolic Diet" by Mauro di Pasquale

·"Protein Power" by Dr. Eades

·"The Paleo Diet" by Cordain

·"Natural Hormonal Enhencement" by Faigin

·"Neaderthin" by Audette

·"Protein Power" (the original book), best book I have read on nutrition and allows for a MUCH better understanding of others (like the paleo diet)

·"Gourmet Nutrition" by John Berardi. Cook Book with lots of tasty recipe. The recipes are divided into post workout (Higher Carb) and anytime meals (Low carb).

·"The Art of Non-Conformity" by Chris Guillebeau, this one is about changing the way you live (no nutrition), it has a blog.

·"Nutrition and physical degenaration" by Weston Price

·"food and western disease" by Staffan Lindeberg

·"The primal blueprint", by Mark Sisson

PREHAB-REHAB

·"Pain Free" by Peter Egoscue

·"The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook"

·"Back Pain a Movement Problem" by Josephine Key

·"Light on Yoga" - BKS iyengar

SCIENTIFIC OR RESEARCH BOOKS

·"biochemistry 6th edition" by Jrmy Mark Brg

BLOGS, WEB PAGES

·http://bretcontreras.com/

·http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

·http://robbwolf.com/

·http://benbruno.blogspot.com/

·http://myplanchetraining.com/

·http://www.beastskills.com/

·http://www.rosstraining.com

·http://thebodyweightfiles.blogspot.com/

·http://springysteel.blogspot.com/

·http://chaosandpain.blogspot.com/ (not safe for work or family)

·http://www.paleonu.com

FORUMS

ARTICLES, STUDIES

VARIOUS

-"Bruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human Body" by John Little, more of an insight into the training of a legend than anything else

·"The art of war" by Sun Tzu

Please let me know if someone sees any mistake.

I think it's a great idea!

"Pain Free" by Peter Egoscue is probably a good one too.

Flexibility:

The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook

Stretching Scientifically and/or Relax into Stretch

General knowledge of how training works and how the body responds:

Supertraining by Mel Siff

Muscle Revolution by Chad Waterbury

Nutrition:

Everything by Robb Wolf

I have a huge book collection, but those should be where people start I think. I'm not 100% sure about Muscle Revolution being the most complete book regarding training but it's good for beginners. Been a while since I've that one, but it was the most recent general training book I have read and I was impressed with the basic info.

Lifestyle (heavily related to training though!!!)

Lights Out by T.S. Wiley

-Currently reading the above and it is very good so far! I feel it should be a book that everyone should read just like Robbs Paleo book which has already been mentioned.

Advanced nutrition:

Amino acids and proteins for the athlete - Pasquale (at some points this is too advanced for me but still a good read, and of course I'm re-reading it in a year or so and I'll probably understand more.)

Training:

Science and practice of strength training 2nd edition- Vladimir M. Zatsiorsky, William J. Kraemer

-advanced but very interesting

Modern trends in strength training- Poliquin

-Simple, short, good!

Other books I want to read but have not read yet, uncategorized:

Protein power: lifeplan

Achieving victory over a toxic world- Mark Schauss

Poliquin principles-Poliquin

Mastery of hand strength-John brooks

Food and western disease- Stefan lindeberg

Dinosaur training -brooks kubik

biochemistry 6th edition- jrmy mark brg

and like a 1000 others, some already mentioned. Those are my top picks but I still want to read everything by poliquin and pasquale, most of robb wolfs recommended book list on amazon, poliquins recommended book list on his site and much more!

Razz said:

Lifestyle (heavily related to training though!!!)

Lights Out by T.S. Wiley

-Currently reading the above and it is very good so far! I feel it should be a book that everyone should read just like Robbs Paleo book which has already been mentioned.

Advanced nutrition:

Amino acids and proteins for the athlete - Pasquale (at some points this is too advanced for me but still a good read, and of course I'm re-reading it in a year or so and I'll probably understand more.)

Training:

Science and practice of strength training 2nd edition- Vladimir M. Zatsiorsky, William J. Kraemer

-advanced but very interesting

Modern trends in strength training- Poliquin

-Simple, short, good!

Other books I want to read but have not read yet, uncategorized:

Protein power: lifeplan

Achieving victory over a toxic world- Mark Schauss

Poliquin principles-Poliquin

Mastery of hand strength-John brooks

Food and western disease- Stefan lindeberg

Dinosaur training -brooks kubik

biochemistry 6th edition- jrmy mark brg

and like a 1000 others, some already mentioned. Those are my top picks but I still want to read everything by poliquin and pasquale, most of robb wolfs recommended book list on amazon, poliquins recommended book list on his site and much more!

I will 2nd the reading of "Science and practice of strength training" by Zatsiorsky. That book is like, "Wow, I never knew muscles functioned that way."

I would add "The Training of the Weightlifter" by Robert Roman. This book is like, "Wow, so much information is old news. Volume (lots of it), linear periodization, weekly periodization, daily undulating periodization, twice a day training, not going to failure, going to failure...it is all really old crap.

"Designing Resistance Training Programs" by Fleck and Kramer. Divides strength training into its components and then presents multiple studies on various components (sets, reps, rest, concentric, eccentric, isometric). Gets you past many of the nagging issues like 1 set vs. multiple, machines vs. barbell, 2x a week or more, so you can just see the real data and put it into perspective. Although, I have some uncertainties about things like an eccentric progression, and constant external resistance vs. variable external resistance, I don't beat a dead horse over the minute anymore.

Ok I´ll add them to the upper list, what do you think about categorizing them from 1 to 10 or something similar. Being 10 a MUST READ and 1 ONLY WORTH FOR STRUCTURAL USES( suporting a table 8) ), of course a number one is not very likely to appear at the list but just to keep thinks in perspective.

The Perfect Health Diet by the Jaminets

Pain Free by Pete Egoscue

Some books that are worthwhile, though not related to training:

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Slizzardman what's that book on shrugging called?

This is recommended reading, not recommended books, so I suppose it doesn't exclude online articles. In that case, I recommend reading a lot of the articles by Dr. Joseph Mercola on mercola.com. They're awesome and very informational.

Razz said:

Slizzardman what's that book on shrugging called?

Kelso's Shrug Book. I forgot about that one!

Strength/sport:

Fitness and Strength Training for all Sports-Hartmann and Tunnemann

All of Poliquin's books

Optimal Muscle Training-Ken Kinakin

Children and Sports Training-Jozef Drabik

Science of Sports Training-Thomas Kurz

Stretch to win-Frederik

Facilitated Stretching-McAtee

Neuromechanics of human movement-Roger Enoka

Charlie Francis Training System-Charlie Francis

Block Periodization 1 and 2-Vladimir Issurin

Biochemical Monitoring of Sport Training-Atko Viru

Science and Practice of Strength Training-Zatsiorsky

Explosive power and jumping ability for all sports-Starzynski

Weightlifting Encyclopedia-Arthur Drechsler

Nutrition: what others have mentioned plus: Jonny Bowden, James LaValle, Portman/Ivy, William Llewellyn and Robert Crayhon.

These are most of my books at present but I am continually searching for material and trying to learn.

That are a lot of titles, I´ll edit them when I arrive home!.

This was a great idea for a topic!

I will sit in front of my bookshelf and add some more i'm sure-

For now here are a few

Starting Strength - Mark Rippetoe

Light on Yoga - BKS iyengar

Back Pain a Movement Problem - Josephine Key

Slizzerman, I will not go into my specific post workout formula perscriotion, but I do suggest you educate yourself on the matter. A lot has been written about that by great experts in nutrition science like Charles Poliquin, Mauro Di Pasquale MD, Eric Serrano MD, etc...

Instead of listening to some fat weightlifter with no nutritional understanding/background, a macho aproach and a body fat percentage higher than the age of my grandpa, I suggest you start reading material from people who has been experimenting and researching post workout supplementation for many years.

Ido Portal said:

I have many books that paint part of the picture, but not even one that contains the whole Shabang.

Here are some:

The Metabolic Diet / Mauro di Pasquale

Lights Out / Wiley

Protein Power / Eades

The Paleo Diet / Cordain

Natural Hormonal Enhencement / Faigin

Neaderthin / Audette

I can go on and on. I am an obsessed reader. I read many books at the same time and on many topics.

I also recommend to get my good friend's upcomming book - Robb Wolf on nutrition. If you are smart you will make this book a part of your library as I will.

Ido.

Ido Portal said:

My top 15, without special order, and not all training related.

Modern trends in strength training / charles poliquin

Supertraining / Mel Siff

Master & Margarita / bulgakov

The Prince / Niccolo Machiavelli

Change / Watzlawick, Weakland, Fisch

Amino acids and proteins for the athlete / Dr Mauro di Pasquale

Nutrition and physical degenaration / Weston price

A Street smart song / Nestor

The narrow road to oku / matsuo basho

The complete Sherlock Holmes / sir arthur conan doyle

The charm school / Nelson demille

A book of five rings / Miamoto musashi

Science of sports training / Thomas Kurz

Dona flor e seus dois maridos / Jorge amado

And my numero uno:

The Bumper Astrerix Omnibus / Goscinny and Uderzo

Ido Portal.

To add a few in no specific order:

Power to People - Pavel Pavel Tsatsouline - lots of good information on old time strongmen with pictures and an excellent book on strength training

Power to the People Professional - Pavel Tsatsouline - Similar as above but geared more around powerlifting

The Naked Warriror - Pavel Tsatsouline - Same as Power to the People but around bodyweight training

The Purposeful Primitive - Marty Gallagher - An excellent book from a powerlifting coach legend. This guy trained Ed Coan amongst a few other legendary powerlifters.

Weightlifting, Olympic Style - Tommy Konno. A must for any Olympic Weightlifter or even someone who just wants to learn the lifts, Tommy Konno is a former world champion in Olympic Weightlifting during the era when steroids weren't around.

Beyond Brawn - Stuart McRobert

Biochemical Monitoring of Sport Training - Atko Viru, Mehis Viru - A good book on the bio mechanics of sport and the human body.

Science and Practice of Strength Training - Zatsiorsky and Kraemer. These guys have been one of the most influential figures in strength training. Their information is constantly translated and used by American Strength coaches and for a good reason. Oh and Poliquin use to read these guys before their work was translated and accredits some of his success to basically having the information before other strength coaches.

Gourmet Nutrition - John Berardi. Cook Book with lots of tasty recipe. The recipes are divided into post workout (Higher Carb) and anytime meals (Low carb).

These are plenty more but I consider these (along with Dinosaur training which someone already mentioned) to be my top 10.

My list:

only two on nutrition/training books to add

-Protein Power (the original book), best book I have read on nutrition and allows for a MUCH better understanding of others (like the paleo diet)

-Bruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human Body by John Little, more of an insight into the training of a legend than anything else

Some biographies/autobiographies

-A Doctor's War by Dr Rowley Richards, the memoirs of an Australian POW on the burma-railway

-Young Stalin by Simon Montefiore

-History de ma vie (The story of my life) by Casanova

Some fiction

-Animal Farm by George Orwell

-One flew over the cuckoo's nest by Ken Kessey

Some I'm hoping to read soon

-The Vitamin D Solution

-4-hour Work Week

Ed

Assessment and Treatment of Muscle Imbalance:The Janda Approach

Phillip Page, Clare Frank, Robert Lardner

Netter's anatomical atlas 5th edition (I don't prefer english version, because it's not in latin, Slovenian is though but still the best pictures of body you can get with 3D cd).

Robert S Beknke - kinetic anatomy

I'm surprised no one mentioned Ross Enamait's work. "Never Gymless" is a great book, even for gymnastics enthusiasts.

Thanks Felipe I did´t remember that post(the original one!), Mr. Brady or Slizzard is it possible to make this thread or the previous one a stickie so it is up there , and doesn´t get lost down the forum.

It is going to take me some time to edit all that titles, but I am short of time today so I´ll do it this weekend or so, also I´ll add youtube channels as Ido´s one.

Gregor said:

Netter's anatomical atlas 5th edition (I don't prefer english version, because it's not in latin, Slovenian is though but still the best pictures of body you can get with 3D cd).

Robert S Beknke - kinetic anatomy

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! 3D Pictures of everything? Can you rotate them?

I think yes, SO Our anatomical teahcer said, I seen atlas, but need to get cd in my hands:D

slizzardman said:

Gregor said:

Netter's anatomical atlas 5th edition (I don't prefer english version, because it's not in latin, Slovenian is though but still the best pictures of body you can get with 3D cd).

Robert S Beknke - kinetic anatomy

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! 3D Pictures of everything? Can you rotate them?

From an amazon review-

Although this electronic atlas has all the Netter plates, and quite a few nice new ones, as well as some radiographic views, it is nearly unusable in practice. The images are scanned at such low resolution that many important details are simply not visible. The program can only display images at 640 x 480 x 256 colors, regardless of your monitor or video card (it even says so right in the documentation). Part of the horizontal resolution is used up by the navigation bar, so the actual plate image resolution is even lower than 640. If you estimate a typical plate to be 10" x 10", that works out to maybe 50 dpi. Many of the smaller features on the original art cannot be seen on tne electronic version, and often it is impossible to tell where the leader lines are going. The quality does not change when you print or zoom in. All the other bells and whistles, like the study lists, searching, etc. just do not make up for the fact that the image quality is absolutely awful. And the user interface is terribly archaic, nonstandard, and hard to use. The font for the lables is horrible. Also, I'm not sure I like the pronunciation of the speaking feature: "pec-tor-AY-lis major"? If you have the cash to spare, it makes a nice toy, but it is not worth the price.

I have some of the primal '3d' anatomy (the anatomy trains one)

It sounds like a great idea, but in practice these tend to be very clunky to work with and very small on the screen.

I wich there was a good one. I used to do 3d solid modeling, and its possible to make a model that you can zoom in on, rotate, and take or add parts at will. These commercial 3d anatomies don't live up to that yet.

omegant said:

Mr. Brady or Slizzard is it possible to make this thread or the previous one a stickie so it is up there , and doesn´t get lost down the forum.

Sorry omegnat, i don't have the power to do that. I do think this is a sticky worthy thread though.