“This is a highly enjoyable and well presented book that I recommend for any clinician from student to experienced practitioner. It is suitable for all physiotherapists, manual therapists, sports physiotherapists/therapists, strength and conditioning coaches, sports scientists, athletes and patients who would like to understand, recover and improve their range and ease of movement.”
Jimmy Reynolds, Head of Sports Medicine – Academy, Ipswich Town Football Club, Oct 14
- Helps transform thinking about the therapeutic value of stretching and how it is best applied in the clinical setting
- Examines the difference between therapeutic and recreational stretching
- Focuses on the use of stretching in conditions where individuals experience a loss in range of movement (ROM)
- Explores what makes stretching effective, identifying behaviour as a main driving force for adaptive changes
- Discusses the experience of pain, sensitization and pain tolerance in relation to stretching and ROM recovery
- Contains over 150 photographs and 45 minutes of video describing this new revolutionary approach
- Applicable to a variety of perspectives including osteopathy, chiropractic, physical therapy, sports and personal trainers
- Ideal for experienced practitioners as well as those taking undergraduate and postgraduate courses
Most stretching gets you better at stretching, when in fact what we want is to improve our ability to perform.
Lederman covers research, practical experience from gymnastics and martial arts with his clinical expertise and experience. This gives a very balanced view.
I like the background and also the exercises and suggestions that will help me and my athletes improve. Useful video links too.
A must read for coaches.
Things I liked: this book does a very good job of integrating the patients beliefs, motor learning principles, and keeping the patient the locus of control within the framework of ROM restoration. If you read his neuromuscular book you will be familiar with some of the aspects. He does a great job laying a framework and discussing how to approach your goal within this framework. The last chapter gives a lot of practical examples of how to apply it.
The things I didn't like: basically his entire discussion on how we get ROM increases. For a book that in general really relied on a solid research foundation I felt this part really underdelivered with a significant portion of the argument being an appeal to "common sense" and analogy.
So in the end I enjoyed the book, took a lot away from the process, but found a few sections to be rather weakly defended. All in all its well worth reading.