1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of potential, but disappointing, August 6, 2011
This review is from: Strength and Conditioning for Team Sports: Sport-Specific Physical Preparation for High Performance (Paperback)
I was excited to receive this book as I had had my eye on it for a while. I had read some of Paul Gamble's work in journals previously and had generally been impressed at his approach to important problems and issues in strength and conditioning.
When starting this book, you can see that the author's intensions were good as he obviously took a lot of time to review the literature. This is the way that it should be done, but questions are raised a little when you look into the quality of some of these references.
As we all know, there are many schools of thought on topics in strength and conditioning such as periodization, unstable training, rotational strength, and the development of power. The author seems to have attempted to present evidence backing the majority of these "schools". Again, the intention behind this is probably good, but I can see a young strength and conditioning coach new to the profession being extremely confused about the optimal way as there is little into how to bring all of these forms together into a long term plan. Essentially everything works, as far as this text is concerned, even though many of these forms of training may be contradicting and result in sub-optimal adaptation. More theoretical and practical information on periodization may have helped avoid this. The important periodization section is just 18 pages long.
Looking at the title, one would expect to see extensive sections exploring the challenges that face us when working in team sports: a long competitive season, extensive on-field training (and how to quantify this and react to it), and long term athletic development when winning every game is important. This is what being successful with team sports is all about. Sadly these subjects are barely touched upon which is disappointing.
There is some really good information in this book, but it is surrounded by a myriad of conflicting advice. If you have a good grasp on training theory and on periodization and therefore can pick out the useful info, then pick this up. If you are new to strength and conditioning then I would not recommend it, not because it is an advanced text, just because it may be difficult for you to apply what you are reading to a yearly plan.
More reviews of books like this are on my blog, which is listed in my profile.
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