Customer Reviews

Sports Injury Handbook: Professional Advice for Amateur Athletes

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Alan Levy has done a fantastic job in putting together so much in one book. It has nearly everything an athlete requires to not only stay in shape but also treating all kinds of injuries from little niggles to those that need surgery. And its all been bonded together in a very organized and methodical manner.

To begin with Dr. Levy emphasizes the importance of warming up and stretching before and after workouts and shows how to do this. Next, he explains about nutrition for athletes. After that he lays out the benefits of and what it really means to stay healthy. This is followed by First-Aid for sports.

Starting with the fifth chapter he provides detailed information about what to know about the various parts of the body, their intricacies, and how they are used in sports and precisely what occurs with them when we feel pain or discomfort. For example, chapter 10 is about the Thigh and Hip, Chapter 6 for the Shoulder, and so on. In addition, he suggests various ways of diagnosing injuries correctly and how best to treat them. Whether an economical ready-made arch support will work, or one must see a qualified physician for a particular problem, Dr. Levy seems one not to miss a trick.

Then there is a chapter each on a specific sport and the most likely injuries to take place in every one of those and what all can be done to prevent them but if they do happen, then how to treat them. From Baseball to Running, Golf to Skiing, it has everything.

At the end he also suggests what to look for in a Sports Specialist.

Its only drawback is that understanding some of the material can be a daunting task as the lay person does not possess the expertise of Dr. Levy in Sports medicine.

And last but not the least, my knee ailment got cured courtesy of following the treatment plan outlined in the Sports Injury Handbook.

An excellent book. At the age of 40 I pay for my active lifestyle with some aches and pains; this book is helping me live pain free. Unlike many PT type books, Levy is specific with his advice, not making you waste your time on dozens of stretches and exercises. He'll lead you directly to what you need to know to fix the problem. Other books seem shy about recommending specific exercises for specific problems; Levy's not. I ordered several of these types of books at once and eventually resold all the others. This is the one I kept.

I just got this book today. It's a great idea, a sports injury handbook organized by bodypart **and** sport, but right off the bat, while browsing, I notice a few oddities: on page 221, Dr. Levy claims "exercise machines require you to lift too much weight," which is weird because one can certainly adjust the resistance on most any exercise machine out there -- and he makes that statement while advising free weights! Any bodybuilder or powerlifter knows that it is typically harder to use free weights than a machine: for example, dumbbell curls are much harder than machine biceps curls at the same weight. Also, on page 17 there is an illustration of the behind-the-neck pull-up, which is potentially more dangerous for some people than the regular front-of-the-neck type of pull-up. That's a very strange thing to see in a book on sports injuries! Though it's not exactly a dangerous movement, it does place the rotator cuff at greater risk of injury, especially for people who might have weak muscles and tendons there to begin with. The regular pull-up works the same muscles just as well, but without that slightly higher risk of injury.

I hope I don't find any other strange advice or illustrations in this book....

This book is a step up from common sense in that it has a few more details when dealing with certain injured body parts. But unless you're going to be in the middle of nowhere doing extreme sports, you probably don't need this book. If you hurt yourself, the procedure is pretty much the same for everything: rest and professional help when you need it.

I have not read this book, but the reviews indicate it is for the current athlete with an injury. One reviewer unfairly slammed Marilyn Moffat's book since it was not right for him. I read and evaluated her Physical Therapy book from the library as a guide for my 84 year old father. He was a super fit elderly sculler who wore out his beach volleyball playing granddaughters double sculling for 2 hours at a shot, and was in the hospital for 14 months recovering from surgery to reduce intracranial bleeding, which was followed by seizures, pneumonia, and kidney failure. He essentially woke up a year later a live but terribly weak shadow of himself. He needs rehabilitation from, literally zero strength. He is learning to walk, talk, and eat, and more. He's gone from feeling like 40 to feeling like a hundred, but with no long slide of good memories. Very discouraging. Her book will help me start him back to a pleasant final years, from a zero base. I will buy that book to help him. I may be able to use this book for myself, but he could not.