The Body in Action: You Can Keep Your Joints Young [Paperback]

Sarah Key (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 28, 2007

For those who suffer from aches, pains, and creaky joints, this handy reference shows how to keep the body's skeleton young and healthy. Including a series of stretches, this guide explores how muscles, joints, and bones work, how and why they wear and tear, and how to combat stiffness and pain. Treatments focus on the lower back, thoracic spine, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, ankles, and feet. Further advice teaches the warning signs of imminent joint problems, immediate action necessary for restoring mobility, and how to break the bad habits of a sedentary lifestyle. Extensive diagrams of the body and how-to illustrations of exercises encourage patients to actively manage their pain. A daily 30-minute strengthening regime is also outlined for continued movement and flexibility.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sarah Key is the author of Back in Action and Back Sufferer's Bible. She is the official physiotherapist to Britain's Royal Family, for which she was made a Member of the Victorian Order in 2001. Her private practice treats back-pain sufferers and trains medical professionals in back care.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin (May 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1741141184
• ISBN-13: 978-1741141184
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #578,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A godsend for creaky stiff joints, April 18, 2008

By 

Doris Hasslocher (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Body in Action: You Can Keep Your Joints Young (Paperback)

The material in this book is invaluable. There are between 6 and 8 excercises for each major joint or spinal segment in the body, graded from beginner to advanced. They are all beneficial, I have tried them. All can be done safely by the average person with osteoarthritis, spinal aches and pains and stiffness/loss of mobility of all causes. For more complicated musculoskeletal problems, physio supervision would be required. You only need about an hour to do the whole lot, but I find it easier to break it up and do two joints/areas per day, which takes about 15 minutes and makes the whole day go more smoothly. If you only have one problem area, you can just do the exercises for that area. The areas she describes and prescribes for are: feet, ankles, knees, hips, lumbar spine, thoracic spine, cervical spine, shoulders, elbows and wrists. She explains in detail how each area works, what goes wrong and then describes the excercises to fix it. The book could have done with some more editing, it is a bit unclear at times, and more wordy than necessary. However, it is well worth the effort of decoding and abbreviating the info to suit your particular problem areas. It has totally improved my knees, thoracic spine and neck, more than any massages or other physio exercises I have had before, and understanding the mechanisms of dysfunction helps gain control of symptoms too.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, January 26, 2011

By 

Andrew Breton (Hawaii) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Body in Action: You Can Keep Your Joints Young (Paperback)

I can't believe this is not reviewed more. This is a very good book. As the previous reviewer mentions, she takes body part by body part. She covers the usual suspects like hips and shoulders, she covers the back in three different sections (low, thoracic, and neck), as well as areas not usually covered like ankles, knees, wrists, and feet.

The beginning of each step shows the anatomy of the joint saying how it works and showing with diagrams, followed by a section called "how the joint can go wrong".

The part everyone is interested in is "What can be done about it". The movements and postures for remediation have their roots in yoga, but most (if not all) are easier variations. She also liberally borrows from other sources and creates her own. There is an advanced section in each chapter with more challenging exercises.

These are stretching exercises and, like yoga, strengthening through stretching and holding positions.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!, August 28, 2011

By 

Dadof5 - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Body in Action: You Can Keep Your Joints Young (Paperback)

This is a great book and well worth reading and implementing the stretches it describes. I've been using it while teaching my boy scout troop about stetches they can implement as part of their Personal Fitness merit badge. I'm amazed at how little flexibility young teenagers have, but the stretches we learned in the book are helping all of them become more flexible.