Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance [Hardcover]

Kelly Starrett (Author), Glen Cordoza (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 23, 2013

LEARN HOW TO HACK HUMAN MOVEMENT

Join the movement that has reached millions of athletes and coaches; learn how to perform basic maintenance on your body, unlock your human potential, live pain free…and become a Supple Leopard.

Improve your athletic performance, extend your athletic career, treat body stiffness and achy joints, and rehabilitate injuries—all without having to seek out a coach, doctor, chiropractor, physical therapist, or masseur. In Becoming a Supple Leopard, Kelly Starrett—founder of MobilityWod.com—shares his revolutionary approach to mobility and maintenance of the human body and teaches you how to hack your own human movement, allowing you to live a healthy, happier, more fulfilling life.

Performance is what drives the human animal, but the human animal can be brought to an abrupt halt by dysfunctional movement patterns. Oftentimes, the factors that impede performance are invisible to not only the untrained eye, but also the majority of athletes and coaches. Becoming a Supple Leopard, makes the invisible visible. In this one of a kind training manual, Starrett maps out a detailed system comprised of more than two hundred techniques and illuminates common movement errors that cause injury and rob you of speed, power, endurance, and strength. Whether you are a professional athlete, a weekend warrior, or simply someone wanting to live healthy and free from restrictions, Becoming a Supple Leopard, will teach you how to maintain your body and harness your genetic potential.

Learn How to:

prevent and rehabilitate common athletic injuries

overhaul your movement habits

quickly identify, diagnose, and fix inefficient movement patterns

problem solve for pain and dysfunction in austere environments with little equipment

fix poor mechanics that rob power, bleed force, and dump torque

unlock reservoirs of athletic capacity you didn't know you had

identify and fix poor movement patterns in children

reverse the aging process

develop strategies that restore function to your joints and tissues

accelerate recovery after training sessions and competition

create personalized mobility prescriptions to improve movement efficiency

improve your quality of life through regained work capacity.

run faster, jump higher, and throw farther

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Coach Kelly Starrett received his Doctor of Physical Therapy in 2007 from Samuel Merritt College in Oakland, California. He currently runs his own physical therapy practice at San Francisco CrossFit—one of the first 50 CrossFit affiliates—and focuses on performance-based Orthopedic Sports Medicine with an emphasis on returning athletes to elite level sport and performance. His clients see exceptional results from his progressive blend of manual physical therapy and strength training. Since 2009, Kelly has been traveling the country teaching his "Movement, Mobility & Maintenance Course" in an effort to spread his message that good mobility and proper movement are the keys to good performance and that all humans should be able to perform this basic maintenance on themselves.

Kelly's clients have included Olympic gold-medalists, Tour de France cyclists, world-class extreme skiers and X-Games medalists, dancers with Smuin, San Francisco, and Sacramento Ballet Companies, military personnel, and competitive age-division athletes.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Victory Belt Publishing; Hardcover with Jacket edition (April 23, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1936608588
• ISBN-13: 978-1936608584
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.5 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (253 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Coaching > Training & Conditioning
  • #1 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Exercise & Fitness

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 103 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy it, Read it (all of it), Implement it all NOW!! April 27, 2013

By Dr. Eric Lane

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I must first let you know that I am not one to review books. I wrote my first book almost 2 years ago and I understand the incredible task it is to undertake something that Kelly has done. I have read hundreds of books in my life. Going through Pre-Med and then on through Chiropractic School I was expected to read every book having to do with anatomy, physiology, neurology, and you name it. I have spent over 20 years treating patients for back, neck, shoulder, hip, elbow, wrist, knee, and ankle problems. I have attended over a hundred seminars dedicated to teaching me to better understand the dynamics of the human body and how to help my patients heal faster and completely. I have also dedicated a large percentage of my practice to treating athletes and the injuries they suffer. Also being licensed in Physiotherapy I have always tried to stay as competent as I can to help them heal from their injuries and most importantly to help prevent them.

I came across Kelly's work over a year ago through his mobilityWOD.com site. I was so impressed with the dedication he showed by posting a daily video on helping others not only treat but prevent injuries. When I heard of his upcoming book I can say for the first time in a long time I was very excited for a new book to read. I pre-ordered it many months ago and continued to check for its release like a kid waiting for Christmas. I received my copy early this week and after spending about 4 days and unable to put it down, reading it at every opportunity, let me summarize my thoughts on what I can say without question is the absolute best volume of information I have ever seen compiled in one book that addresses the human body.

With nearly 400 pages and bound like your college textbooks (Large and Hardcover) it is built to be used and last. You know that book you have. The one that has been taken with you most everywhere. Has stains and abrasions all over it. Marked all up with highlighters, underlined and has sticky tabs or folded pages to help you quickly access those impressive parts-it will be like that one. If you are like me once you get your first copy, you will not only buy a second for the office but download the digital copy for your iPad/Iphone or electronic device. Believe me you will be referencing this book thousands of time in your life so you will want a copy with you whenever you have a few minutes to read.

Next you will be impressed with the outline-the way the book is laid out. From the stunning photo's that are easy to understand to the overall layout and how easy it is to access sections of the book. You will find it easy as you read to understand the way Kelly teaches you, not only how to treat injuries but much more importantly how to prevent them. With that being said I know many will take this book and head straight to the second half of the book where Kelly goes over each part of the body and teaches you how to treat injuries you are dealing with. The approach he uses is detailed and 100% on spot. You will see instant results with these treatments. You will be amazed that he has taken the complex body and in small easy steps teaches us how to fix/treat problems that are effecting the quality of our lives. But if you only spend time at the back of the book you will be missing in my mind the GENIUS of this work. You see the first half teaches you WHY you hurt, and WHY if you don't change you are going to have that prosthetic knee or shoulder someday. WHY you back hurts all the time. I don't think most people understand unless they suffer from back pain how debilitating it is. I see it everyday in my office. It ruins peoples lives-it not only effects the individual it effects entire families. So please don't cut yourself short and bypass the first 1/2 of this book. Study and learn the WHY's of your problems as Kelly teaches you a detailed easy to implement way to begin to change immediately.

If you are like me you won't put this thing down. I am going through it a second time as I write this. I have already recommended it to all my patients, and this will be a staple in my office and it is a must read for anyone that has a BODY-I guess that covers all of you reading this. In closing I have spent thousands of dollars on seminar after seminar. I can say unequivocally that this book has more information in it, which by the way is very simplistic for you to implement, than all of the education I have received on the dynamics of the human body. I have spent ten's of thousands of dollars on rehab equipment. With a $5.00 Lacrosse Ball, some exercise bands, and Kelly's book you can treat your body more effectively than any of that equipment. As the title of my review states, "Buy it, Read it (all of it), Implement it all NOW!! I can promise you whoever you are. Old or young, male of female, athlete or non athlete you will conclude as I have this is a instant classic and as Kelly says on the front cover: This is the " Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance." You have a billion dollar body-- With this book, now you have the owners manual on how to take care of it.

94 of 104 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Check Yourself Before you Wreck Yourself April 23, 2013

By Yoga Tune Up® Jill

Format:Hardcover

Kelly has written a book that breaks down walls between consumers and clinicians, he's removed barriers between coaches and athletes and offers secrets of self-assessment and better yet, SELF-FIXING that exceeds any manual ever written. He democratizes processes and practices that have traditionally been held captive behind closed doors, accessible only with a prescription. Kelly teaches you to open your body and free it from being held captive by pain and limited somatic imagination.

His methods work across every fitness milieu - obviously a perfect match for hard-core athletes, but students of yoga, pilates, dance, group fitness, CrossFit and more will be emancipated from aches, pains and diminishing returns on performance. I've used his Voodoo® Floss methods with my Yoga Tune Up® students, his mobility magic with my clients in chronic pain and have referred thousands to his Mobilitywod.com website.

The book offers detailed self-care practices on every single aspect of the body, from the ankle to the neck and everything in between. This is REQUIRED reading for anyone that is serious about living longer, optimizing potential and modeling better structural health-care strategies for humankind.

111 of 136 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Gettin' down with the Supple Leopard (AKA BASL) April 25, 2013

By Forrest Griffin

Format:Hardcover

Length: 5:29 Mins

This is a video explaining my deepest, darkest feelings about Becoming a Supple Leopard. Overall, I found the book to be extremely helpful in dealing with and alleviating nagging injuries...One of the main things that impressed me about the book is an explanation of lifting movements. It details exactly how to perform basic lifting movements; for some reason, I was never taught these in high school gym class. Many of the concepts were new and helpful to me, even after a lifetime of lifting. I truly believe this book will help you perform better athletically (lift more, run faster, jump higher) with less injuries... PS. The perfect book, except for the title. However, my wife now tells me I make leopard noises in my sleep.