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Ben Musholt

Mad Skills Exercise Encyclopedia: The World's Largest Illustrated Exercise Encyclopedia Paperback – October 2, 2013

by Ben Musholt (Author)

60 ratings

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Mad Skills is the world's largest illustrated exercise encyclopedia and contains over 700 unique exercises to build strength and mobility. It is designed as a reference tool for athletes, trainers, and coaches, to help steer creative movement selection for effective workouts. Categories of exercise movements include: barbell lifts, kettlebell skills, gymnastics conditioning, whole body movements, yoga postures, stretching, partner skills, and more!

Print length

322 pages
Language

English
Publisher

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Publication date

October 2, 2013
Dimensions

8.5 x 0.67 x 11.02 inches
ISBN-10

1492139408
ISBN-13

978-1492139409
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Just flipping through Mad Skillsis enough to get you excited to train. It's a complete reference honoring the full cross-section of physical culture without favoring any one particular discipline." - GoldMedalBodies.com"Anyone of just about any fitness level could use this book to learn new exercises or to improve moves they already know." - The Oregonian"While the encyclopedia does have a section called "Cooking It Up" that helps functional fitness enthusiasts put together their own workouts, it's also relatively easy to add several movements to your existing workouts" - CoolHunting.com

About the Author

Ben Musholt is a physical therapist and APEX Movement certified Parkour and Freerunning coach in Portland, Oregon. He is a cofounder of the 'Beyond the Clinic' rehabilitation practice, and also runs BPM Rx, Inc. His writing has been featured on the Men's Fitness and Breaking Muscle websites. He also blogs at ParkourConditioning.com and posts workouts to StrengthMob.com. His movement-training background spans from gymnastics, to martial arts, and board sports. His goal is to help fellow athletes have the fitness needed to excel in their favorite sport.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1st edition (October 2, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 322 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1492139408
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1492139409
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 0.67 x 11.02 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,264,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #24,132 in Exercise & Fitness (Books)

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60 ratings

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Lorenzo

Diversity of Movement

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 26, 2013

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This is an excellent book that illustrates a huge variety of physical movement. It includes: warm ups, locomotion exercises, bodyweight conditioning exercises, elements from floor gymnastics, a lot of push up variations, barbell exercises, kettlebell exercises, dumbbell exercises, gymnastic rings techniques and movements, pull up bar techniques and movements, squat variations (weighted and bodyweight) , core exercises (floor and with pull up bar), paralette exercises and yoga based stretches, balancing and general joint mobility. The book is also great because within all those categories there are techniques and exercises that are being used from well recognized disciplines such as parkour, capoeira, gymnastics and martial arts. There is enough variety here for those who do not have any access to exercise equipment because the book presents a lot of floor gymnastic based movements, parkour exercises, challenging push up variations, bodyweight conditioning, plyometrics and agility work. There are also lot of exercises for those with access to gymnastics rings, pull up bars, jungle gyms, parks, paralettes and dumbbells or barbells. It truly is an exercise encyclopedia and you will greatly enjoy the artwork of each exercise along with the detailed explanations for each. The emphasis of the book is to not see exercise as a burden or like a fixed boring routine that you do like a robot. Instead he encourages you to embrace movement in your everyday life since that is what the human body evolved to do, to move constantly and in a variety of ways. So use these techniques to "play" whenever you get the chance and keep your whole body mobile and away from sedentary lifestyles that are the cause of many modern diseases. There are so many exercises and techniques here that stimulate so many different parts of the body that your opportunities to get creative everyday are endless.

3 people found this helpful

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Jose

Good book to have

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 5, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book shows a lot more body weight exercises which is very helpful it does not give you a plan or how many sets or reps the author actually explains to you why which is very helpful..

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 22, 2014

Verified Purchase

The author clearly enjoyed creating this book. I wanted to see how the crowdfunding process would work for a book, and I kind of bought it on a whim.

This is not an encyclopedia, this is more like a comic book. There are a lot of tips and tricks to master the techniques of many of these exercises, and this is simply not very detailed.

While I appreciate the fact this was a labor of love, I find it hard to believe that beginners get much out of it, although it does remind more advanced trainees of exercises they might have forgotten about.

I like this book, but I don't love it, nor could I really recommend it over some of the outstanding instructionals out there. Sorry, Ben. I was hoping for something more in depth with a higher production value.

21 people found this helpful

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Lemmel

Great Resource!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 24, 2014

Verified Purchase

This book has a huge array of exercises to spice up your exercise routine. Simple, concise, and clear instructions on how to execute each exercise are given. As an average active person who strives to push herself a little more each day, I like that it's direct, to the point, and not text heavy. The pictures are illustrated, which I really like, and the models are diverse and I can see myself represented among them. i think that experts as well as average folk would benefit from this book and have as a reference tool. Ben also has the credentials, experience, and love of movement to give solid grounded advice. Great job, Ben Musholt!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 2, 2014

Verified Purchase

As a fellow Physical Therapist and active guy, I was excited to receive this book and use it as reference. I think its a great book straight forward, no filler. One thing I feel can make it better is more pictures or additional explanation for exercises with multiple movements. Other than that its a good reference to keep your workouts fresh or give you treatment ideas. Maybe make a youtube channel, for workouts and tutorial! I would totally subscribe.

One person found this helpful

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Censorship

stick figure exercise encyclopedia

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 5, 2015

Verified Purchase

This author had the right Idea. Excellent book. A stick figure encyclopedia of exercises for many subjects such as, calisthenics, barbell training, kettlebell, yoga, etc. Make a second edition! Better descriptions on methods, more subjects, what to concentrate on during exercises, pictures instead of illustrations might work better, more exercises!

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avroomer

solid catalog of exercises!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 22, 2013

Verified Purchase

I can see myself using Mad Skills Exercise Encyclopedia as a solid resource to turn to when I need to change up some elements of my routine. The book is well organized and groups like exercises together - making it easier to find trade-out exercises. The coaching cues provided hit the basics to get ya up and running.

2 people found this helpful

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lowrez

Books by Ben? Never again!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 31, 2014

Verified Purchase

1: I contacted the author to inquire about buying a PDF version of the book. I got not a word in return. I guess he's too busy for his fans/customers. Bad form.

2: Some of the moves/exercises in the book have been proven to be dangerous (even when performed properly). There are no warnings or cautions listed anywhere. Personally I feel that dangerous moves should be 100% omitted. If Ben is "in the know" why did he list these moves?

3: All you get is a description of the move, no info about the muscle groups that are worked or anything like that. No science. Given this fact, you could pretty much find all this stuff for free on the net and assemble your own encyclopedia of moves.

4. The illustrations are hideous.

This book is a complete waste of money. If you want something with a ton of moves that isn't a waste of money then I recommend Bodyweight Strength Training Anatomy, ISBN 1450429297. It contains all the moves you'll ever need. Its has high quality illustrations. It has the science to back up the moves.

12 people found this helpful

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Avid reader

Overpriced and basic. Far from being an encyclopaedia

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 26, 2017

Verified Purchase

Before writing this review I went to check what's the definition of encyclopaedia. "noun. 1. a book, set of books, optical disc, mobile device, or online informational resource containing articles on various topics, usually in alphabetical arrangement, covering all branches of knowledge or, less commonly, all aspects of one subject.
The book is far from covering all of one theme or some of several things so, I guess the name is just a marketing strategy to sell the book.
I want to like the book. The opening is good. The author seems like he will bring something new. I was very much looking to checking it out.
Deception! The exercises are pretty basic and, the variations are just a way to fill pages with content.
The author's opening line is that movement is his mistress. And he treats it in the book like a mistress: don't talk much about it and create ways to take the attention from the subject.
The skills aren't not mad. Can't see in which part of the book (if not all) he takes the inspiration to call them mad. They are pretty basic.
Extremely overpriced. For the same price you can get very good and informational books.
Asa physiotherapist he had a great chance to explore movements and make the book fit the title. But fails with mad skills.
The two stars is for the effort in trying to compile the exercises.
Save your money and look for a best foundation or advanced book (this book can't fit in either category).

One person found this helpful

MCU

Sorry, but ...

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on July 17, 2014

Verified Purchase

... even if the Author put in a lot of effort to collect hundreds of exercises, I wouldn't recommend this book.
The demonstrations are poor, the images of a very low quality.
And, worst of all: There are too few (means: nearly nothing) demonstrations of progressions - how do you get from a to z?
For example: Nearly no one can do a pistol squat without doing progressive exercises to finally get there - but this book don't dwell on these important steps.
Perhaps (?) useful for very experienced/advanced athletes.

6 people found this helpful

Christoph Oechsner

Ganz gut

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on January 14, 2018

Verified Purchase

Soweit gut einzig kleines Problem ist das englisch ansonsten Mega Auswahl an Übungen für den ambitionierten Sportler aber auf jeden Fall gut verständlich

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Yan

Man muss kein englisch können

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on February 15, 2014

Verified Purchase

Mann muss kein Englisch koennen. Die bilder erklären schon sehr deutlich.
Trotz dem sollte man schon erfahrung miz kraft und ausfaurrsport gemacht haben , um eine GrundMuskulatur aufgebaut ha, denn beschreibungen auf was man zu achten hat, fehlen!

Trotz dem 4 sterne

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Kayzen

Bof

Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on June 7, 2017

Verified Purchase

Je suis déçu de cet ouvrage, rien d'extraordinaire dans les exercices. Rien d'innovant. Si vous êtes débutant ce livre est pour vous pour les confirmés passez sans doute votre chemin

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Mad Skills Exercise Encyclopedia: The World's Largest Illustrated Exercise Encyclopedia Paperback – October 2, 2013

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Ben Musholt

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