Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Friday, July 2, 2010
Exploring the Body with Books - kinesiology live and in colour
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After hearing so much about kettlebell swings or presses or squats, ever wondered how our bodies support these movements? How muscels, joints and tendons combine with nerves and blood supply to get it going? Me too. So wanted to offer a few pointers to some of the references i really enjoy for exploring body movement, and in particular to highlight a new one to me, the Atlas of Living and Surface Anatomy for Sports Medicine -(US Link || UK link). 
I'll come back to that one in a sec.
The Power Three In writing about the shoulder last week, i referenced a couple of the anatomy/kinesiology books i like like, including the trail guide to the body
and the Anatomy of movement
, but especially the manual of structural kinesiology
- the latter being in about it's zillionth edition.
Why i personally enjoy the Manual of Structural Kinesiology so much has to do with its design elegance and economy: it's a thin book that lies flat but is remarkably well packed with focused information, great illustrations and photos, and fabulous tables summarizing joint action, planes of motion, neves involved (why do i have to keep going to wikipedia to get the femoral arteries providing the blood supply to these limbs?)
The amount of information packed into this book is also fabulous, and make learning about the interconnections of body movement highly tractable. The exercises at the end of each chapter really do make testing whether i've learned anything from a chapter about joint type or specific joints a real and valuable reality check. Surprisingly, the book has the best discussion of first, second and third class levers in the body i've encountered. It's surprising how much one slim volume can do well. It also well-models analyses of all the main joints involved in physical movements from push ups to pull ups. IF one has any questions about what closed and open chain movements after this, well, read again.
Anatomy of movement in contrast has fabulous line drawings and a greater focus on exploring exactly the relationship of movements to the joints of the body whether that's leaning back looking at the stars, or where our forearms most comfortably rotate when seated. By using recognizable movements, it also helps translate ideas like the various planes of motion, and what happens if a muscle isn't there. In fact a strength of the book is that illustrations of the movement go right beside descriptions of joint action.
What the book does not have is the kind of analytic summative pages of movements as in the Manual, but it does go into more detail it seems about the small muscles of the hands head and feet.
Trail Guides to the Body
likewise is without the summative tables, but is designed more particularly to help someone get hands on with the body and feel the movement of the joints doing their work. Hence the notion of trail guides: to find various physical milestones for boney bits, for instance, and likewise to find what are the optimal positionings of a limb to be in to feel or palpate where a particular muscle is. Even so, i still have a dickens of a time separating out the adductors.
When you just want to be Skin Deep. The book that is really blowing me away - that is fitting into an exact niche that has been missing at least for me in these other texts - including the Trail Guides - is this aptly named "atlas of living and surface anatomy.
" That is, it's great to see drawings of the musculature, but since we usually deal with people in their bodies, it's useful to get a sense of what all the bits and bumps actually translate to under the flesh. The Manual of Structural Kinesiology does offer photos of people in various positions with labels of what we're seeing underneath BUT NOT ENOUGH - at least not for me.
The Atlas not only shows real photos of real bodies labelled, but, taking it up a notch, shows photos of real bodies under the skin. The kind, wonderful people who have let their bodies be used for study are presented here. These folks are science heroes for sharing their reamains with us. Thank you.
Coordinating layers of Representation. It's a remarkable thing to be able to see how the various muscle tissues that in texts are highlighted abstractly in red or blue, actually just run together, not unlike white and red meat. TO be able to map x-rays to cadavers to abstract drawings is a potent combination. Some of the photos that show the real and delicate tracery of the nerves under the skin in particular especially contribute to making the physical real. Many muscle, manipulation and palpation tests are included. Like the Manual for structural kinesiology - but here illustrated in color - we also get charts of what normal ranges of motion are for all limbs discussed. Now where's a goniometer?? A google book preview is available for the text, though not the images
I have some greater confidence now of coming to grips with where the teres major is looking at one's shoulder blade. I am making sense of the flat bits of the trapezius, that from drawings i had taken to be more full. The short head of the bicep, and the insertion of the pec major all have had "ah ha moments." I can imagine the Big Desk version of this book including pictures of peopel of various heights, weights and ages for each of these postures being the Delux learning resource.
Other than Anatomy. Each of these more kinesiology-oriented books listed here, just for information, is quite different from a raw anatomy text like the amazing Netter's Anatomy
.
While beautiful to have for a deep reference of drilling down and into the body, the book does not provide analysis of movements supported by the limbs described. The text is rather an innert presentation.
That said, such an anatomy text is that: a full bore presentation of anatomy examining where all the tissue rests, from eyeball lenses to kidney dissections. Its concern is beyond the particular scope of movement. While important to have (and know) to put the whole body at least in context, for movement study, i do not find it as helpful as the above texts. I'm still looking for an ultimate general physiology/anatomy text, if such a beast exists. Netter is beautiful and perhaps classic.
Summary If you are interested in getting more out of getting into how the body moves, these books are each recommended - they complement each other really well, but if you want to oh ah yourself, the Atlas is a great eye-openner - especially if you don't have a whack of bodies at your disposal to prod with a copy of any of these beside you. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
I'll come back to that one in a sec.The Power Three In writing about the shoulder last week, i referenced a couple of the anatomy/kinesiology books i like like, including the trail guide to the body
and the Anatomy of movement, but especially the manual of structural kinesiology - the latter being in about it's zillionth edition.Why i personally enjoy the Manual of Structural Kinesiology so much has to do with its design elegance and economy: it's a thin book that lies flat but is remarkably well packed with focused information, great illustrations and photos, and fabulous tables summarizing joint action, planes of motion, neves involved (why do i have to keep going to wikipedia to get the femoral arteries providing the blood supply to these limbs?)The amount of information packed into this book is also fabulous, and make learning about the interconnections of body movement highly tractable. The exercises at the end of each chapter really do make testing whether i've learned anything from a chapter about joint type or specific joints a real and valuable reality check. Surprisingly, the book has the best discussion of first, second and third class levers in the body i've encountered. It's surprising how much one slim volume can do well. It also well-models analyses of all the main joints involved in physical movements from push ups to pull ups. IF one has any questions about what closed and open chain movements after this, well, read again.
Anatomy of movement in contrast has fabulous line drawings and a greater focus on exploring exactly the relationship of movements to the joints of the body whether that's leaning back looking at the stars, or where our forearms most comfortably rotate when seated. By using recognizable movements, it also helps translate ideas like the various planes of motion, and what happens if a muscle isn't there. In fact a strength of the book is that illustrations of the movement go right beside descriptions of joint action.What the book does not have is the kind of analytic summative pages of movements as in the Manual, but it does go into more detail it seems about the small muscles of the hands head and feet.
Trail Guides to the Body likewise is without the summative tables, but is designed more particularly to help someone get hands on with the body and feel the movement of the joints doing their work. Hence the notion of trail guides: to find various physical milestones for boney bits, for instance, and likewise to find what are the optimal positionings of a limb to be in to feel or palpate where a particular muscle is. Even so, i still have a dickens of a time separating out the adductors.
example of surface anatomy labelling
(not from the Atlat; the Altas is WAY better )
When you just want to be Skin Deep. The book that is really blowing me away - that is fitting into an exact niche that has been missing at least for me in these other texts - including the Trail Guides - is this aptly named "atlas of living and surface anatomy.
" That is, it's great to see drawings of the musculature, but since we usually deal with people in their bodies, it's useful to get a sense of what all the bits and bumps actually translate to under the flesh. The Manual of Structural Kinesiology does offer photos of people in various positions with labels of what we're seeing underneath BUT NOT ENOUGH - at least not for me.
cover art from The Atlas of Surface Anatomy illustrating the quality of the image content
The Atlas not only shows real photos of real bodies labelled, but, taking it up a notch, shows photos of real bodies under the skin. The kind, wonderful people who have let their bodies be used for study are presented here. These folks are science heroes for sharing their reamains with us. Thank you.
Coordinating layers of Representation. It's a remarkable thing to be able to see how the various muscle tissues that in texts are highlighted abstractly in red or blue, actually just run together, not unlike white and red meat. TO be able to map x-rays to cadavers to abstract drawings is a potent combination. Some of the photos that show the real and delicate tracery of the nerves under the skin in particular especially contribute to making the physical real. Many muscle, manipulation and palpation tests are included. Like the Manual for structural kinesiology - but here illustrated in color - we also get charts of what normal ranges of motion are for all limbs discussed. Now where's a goniometer?? A google book preview is available for the text, though not the imagesI have some greater confidence now of coming to grips with where the teres major is looking at one's shoulder blade. I am making sense of the flat bits of the trapezius, that from drawings i had taken to be more full. The short head of the bicep, and the insertion of the pec major all have had "ah ha moments." I can imagine the Big Desk version of this book including pictures of peopel of various heights, weights and ages for each of these postures being the Delux learning resource.
Other than Anatomy. Each of these more kinesiology-oriented books listed here, just for information, is quite different from a raw anatomy text like the amazing Netter's Anatomy. While beautiful to have for a deep reference of drilling down and into the body, the book does not provide analysis of movements supported by the limbs described. The text is rather an innert presentation.That said, such an anatomy text is that: a full bore presentation of anatomy examining where all the tissue rests, from eyeball lenses to kidney dissections. Its concern is beyond the particular scope of movement. While important to have (and know) to put the whole body at least in context, for movement study, i do not find it as helpful as the above texts. I'm still looking for an ultimate general physiology/anatomy text, if such a beast exists. Netter is beautiful and perhaps classic.
Summary If you are interested in getting more out of getting into how the body moves, these books are each recommended - they complement each other really well, but if you want to oh ah yourself, the Atlas is a great eye-openner - especially if you don't have a whack of bodies at your disposal to prod with a copy of any of these beside you. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
PDF
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Fitness Geek Gift Book Recommendations
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Time for thinking Presents Thoughts. If the shops are driving you crazy, you can always have a gift sent to your favorite Fitness Geek through the miracle of the internet. Here's a couple of book recommendations you may wish to consider:
Pain & Change. If your fitness geek suffers from chronic pain, besides putting a card under the tree to say you're giving them a session with a z-health trainer (here's a list), consider helping them get a model of what's going on with chronic pain. A fabulous book in this regard is David Butler's Explain Pain.
This is a great plain-language, illustrated text on what we know about the neurology of pain, what's going on when pain goes from acute to chronic, and most particularly, what are strategies for getting a real handle on one's chronic pain to reduce it.
No surprise, movement is discussed
as a great way to help actually rewire the nervous system which can get a bit screwed up (described further in this post on chronic back pain). But the main thing this book offers is a model of the pain process: how pain is perceived by the nervous system, translated by the brain as pain or not, and how we can work with that knowledge to turn down the volume on pain.
If you know your geek really enjoys this area of research, another book that's interesting is The Body has a Mind of Its Own
Again, this book is looking at our neurology in terms of how we are plastic people: we adapt constantly. By getting a handle on that plasticity, we can begin to work with that more directly for our well-being.
Another one in this space - that shows great examples of this plasticity in
action is the Brain the Changes Itself. This book got me totally jazzed about how we are always adapting. In particular it inspired me to look into the work going on at Posit Science that's helped kids and now the elderly to reclaim their brains. That's only one example of the work that's described that's been looking at everything from stroke rehab to dyslexia to autism to supposed senility.
Aside: Elder Brain Care And that reminds me, this is not a book, but if you do have elders whom you care about, and where they or you or both of you sense that mental acuity, hearing, related, seems to be deteriorating, please consider looking into Posit Science's products yourself.
There's a great online evaluation that's just listening to tones/patterns that you can sit down and do with your elder or ask them to do on their own to give them a baseline of what their perceptual age seems to be.
The brain tools that are part of the programs are like games that the participant plays that rebuild perceptual and conceptual accuity. It is amazing it's so effective. The design is not like the brain games stuff that we see on hand helds. This stuff has been evaluated a LOT to check real results. The packages are a couple hundred bucks, but when we think about the costs of assisted living/care, and just quality of life, they pay for themselves over and over.
FOOD & Change
Sometimes for some people, food is as painful to contemplate as an ongoing ache. If there's one thing you can do for these folks is give them an e-book that
de-stresses the cooking, food-making process. RD Georgie Fear's DIG IN really does this in spades. The recipes are simple, delictious, tasty, and totally lean-eating friendly so no worries on over-dosing calories for the food geek.
The book is overviewed here, with indicative recipes also provided, and a list of any utensils actually needed, and an interview with the author linked in. What's not to like.
Oh and the book is cheap, too, AND you can have it now via instant download, or you can have it sent to someone really easily for that on time delivery - either download or physical copy. The pics are fab.
Perhaps you yourself are a fitness geek, and someone you love is actually having a hard time with getting their eating to a place where they're getting the body comp results they want. Maybe because you're already pretty fit, you're not sure how to help them. No kidding. Diet change work can be frought. Now i'm a long time fan of Precision Nutrition, and there's a free e-book way you can offer your special person a way to check it out, just click here.
A related approach that it diet-free by Martha Beck, simply focuses on working through stages of change. As Beck argues, a lot of dieting goes crazy not cuz people lack discipline but because we don't have great strategies (a) to plan for what usually is CHANGE to the way we do something like the conditions under which we eat and (b) we don't therefore know how to plan for success.
Beck's 4 Day Win: the Way to Thinner Piece is a fab and engaging workthrough and work book for eating change that if practiced (and she makes the practice be whatever is absolutely doable for the person reading the book - so it's YOU driven and based) that it's guarenteed to help get that person to a Happy Place - whatever diet you choose. It's so not about the food, but about what we do, and this book helps support those processes of doing change.
Patterns & Change & Opportunity
And just for fun? I've written about it before in the context of the Perfect Rep Quest, but Michael
Gladwell's book Outliers brings together a whole whack of work well known within sociology but not so well known beyond that takes on the story of the Loan Great Individual. Gladwell does a pretty convincing job to demonstrate that no genius on the scene has emerged without - besides being smart/talented - having put in their 10 thousand hours of work in their field. That's a powerful fact. Even in music - the great and talented there - there is evidence of the ten thousand hours.
Gladwell unpacks how to get to these ten thousand hours before others sometimes means pretty special access to the resources and opportunities to enable this 10k of time, or by some standards, literally being born early enough in a season to have the right development in place by the time a selection is made for say a sports team.
Some have argued against these points saying pishaw there are too geniuses - not everyone who plugs in 10k hours at something is brilliant.
This may be true, but the corollorary is not. Indeed, the point remains that even with native talent, without putting in the time with attention and will but the time nonetheless, a person just doesn't get to carnegie hall.
Why is this a fitness geek book selection? Am i just showing a bias for a canadian author? As i wrote about last year, the role of the rep towards the perfect rep is no small thing. The PR lift may be as much about form as it is about strength, eh? If strength is a skill then a lot of practice with attention will be a good thing.
Real Fitness Books for Fitness Geeks.
If you're interested in more traditional lifting and muscle and related books (and other necessities) for your fitness geek, i proposed a whole bunch in last year's fitness geek giving guide. They can all be found in this post. I hope you enjoy, and can use these tips to shop faster and spend more real time with the fitness geeks you love.
All the best of the season to you!
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Pain & Change. If your fitness geek suffers from chronic pain, besides putting a card under the tree to say you're giving them a session with a z-health trainer (here's a list), consider helping them get a model of what's going on with chronic pain. A fabulous book in this regard is David Butler's Explain Pain.
This is a great plain-language, illustrated text on what we know about the neurology of pain, what's going on when pain goes from acute to chronic, and most particularly, what are strategies for getting a real handle on one's chronic pain to reduce it.
No surprise, movement is discussed
as a great way to help actually rewire the nervous system which can get a bit screwed up (described further in this post on chronic back pain). But the main thing this book offers is a model of the pain process: how pain is perceived by the nervous system, translated by the brain as pain or not, and how we can work with that knowledge to turn down the volume on pain.If you know your geek really enjoys this area of research, another book that's interesting is The Body has a Mind of Its Own
Again, this book is looking at our neurology in terms of how we are plastic people: we adapt constantly. By getting a handle on that plasticity, we can begin to work with that more directly for our well-being.
Another one in this space - that shows great examples of this plasticity in
action is the Brain the Changes Itself. This book got me totally jazzed about how we are always adapting. In particular it inspired me to look into the work going on at Posit Science that's helped kids and now the elderly to reclaim their brains. That's only one example of the work that's described that's been looking at everything from stroke rehab to dyslexia to autism to supposed senility.Aside: Elder Brain Care And that reminds me, this is not a book, but if you do have elders whom you care about, and where they or you or both of you sense that mental acuity, hearing, related, seems to be deteriorating, please consider looking into Posit Science's products yourself.
There's a great online evaluation that's just listening to tones/patterns that you can sit down and do with your elder or ask them to do on their own to give them a baseline of what their perceptual age seems to be.
The brain tools that are part of the programs are like games that the participant plays that rebuild perceptual and conceptual accuity. It is amazing it's so effective. The design is not like the brain games stuff that we see on hand helds. This stuff has been evaluated a LOT to check real results. The packages are a couple hundred bucks, but when we think about the costs of assisted living/care, and just quality of life, they pay for themselves over and over.
FOOD & Change
Sometimes for some people, food is as painful to contemplate as an ongoing ache. If there's one thing you can do for these folks is give them an e-book that
de-stresses the cooking, food-making process. RD Georgie Fear's DIG IN really does this in spades. The recipes are simple, delictious, tasty, and totally lean-eating friendly so no worries on over-dosing calories for the food geek.The book is overviewed here, with indicative recipes also provided, and a list of any utensils actually needed, and an interview with the author linked in. What's not to like.
Oh and the book is cheap, too, AND you can have it now via instant download, or you can have it sent to someone really easily for that on time delivery - either download or physical copy. The pics are fab.
Perhaps you yourself are a fitness geek, and someone you love is actually having a hard time with getting their eating to a place where they're getting the body comp results they want. Maybe because you're already pretty fit, you're not sure how to help them. No kidding. Diet change work can be frought. Now i'm a long time fan of Precision Nutrition, and there's a free e-book way you can offer your special person a way to check it out, just click here.
A related approach that it diet-free by Martha Beck, simply focuses on working through stages of change. As Beck argues, a lot of dieting goes crazy not cuz people lack discipline but because we don't have great strategies (a) to plan for what usually is CHANGE to the way we do something like the conditions under which we eat and (b) we don't therefore know how to plan for success.Beck's 4 Day Win: the Way to Thinner Piece is a fab and engaging workthrough and work book for eating change that if practiced (and she makes the practice be whatever is absolutely doable for the person reading the book - so it's YOU driven and based) that it's guarenteed to help get that person to a Happy Place - whatever diet you choose. It's so not about the food, but about what we do, and this book helps support those processes of doing change.
Patterns & Change & Opportunity
And just for fun? I've written about it before in the context of the Perfect Rep Quest, but Michael
Gladwell's book Outliers brings together a whole whack of work well known within sociology but not so well known beyond that takes on the story of the Loan Great Individual. Gladwell does a pretty convincing job to demonstrate that no genius on the scene has emerged without - besides being smart/talented - having put in their 10 thousand hours of work in their field. That's a powerful fact. Even in music - the great and talented there - there is evidence of the ten thousand hours.Gladwell unpacks how to get to these ten thousand hours before others sometimes means pretty special access to the resources and opportunities to enable this 10k of time, or by some standards, literally being born early enough in a season to have the right development in place by the time a selection is made for say a sports team.
Some have argued against these points saying pishaw there are too geniuses - not everyone who plugs in 10k hours at something is brilliant.
This may be true, but the corollorary is not. Indeed, the point remains that even with native talent, without putting in the time with attention and will but the time nonetheless, a person just doesn't get to carnegie hall.
Why is this a fitness geek book selection? Am i just showing a bias for a canadian author? As i wrote about last year, the role of the rep towards the perfect rep is no small thing. The PR lift may be as much about form as it is about strength, eh? If strength is a skill then a lot of practice with attention will be a good thing.
Real Fitness Books for Fitness Geeks.
If you're interested in more traditional lifting and muscle and related books (and other necessities) for your fitness geek, i proposed a whole bunch in last year's fitness geek giving guide. They can all be found in this post. I hope you enjoy, and can use these tips to shop faster and spend more real time with the fitness geeks you love.All the best of the season to you!
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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