Customer Reviews

The Body in Action: You Can Keep Your Joints Young

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.