Your Best Body Ever

Rating:
Summary: The Goa System Works!
Review: As a golfer and biker I find that flexibility is of paramount importance to my performance. I do resistance training a couple of times a week. But I find that without a proper stretching regimen I tend to feel tight in my lower back and hamstrings. I heard about Anita Goa from a colleague of mine, who is a serious devotee.

One of the many things I like about this book is that I didn't have to read 3/4 of it in order to get into the program. Stretching with yoga is so much more fun than traditional stretching exercises. And it has a great mental side benefit. The Goa System's alignment principles under the FOCUS ON FORM section are very easy to understand and keep in mind. The breathing is incorporated in all elements and it makes a huge difference in my performance. Now I realize I was never breathing properly.

I feel more knowledgeable about the different yoga categories. It is valuable to know what muscles are being stretched and strengthened in the various postures and what strength training exercises I can use to improve my yoga postures. Also, it is valuable to know what muscles are being strengthened in the various strength training exercises and what yoga postures I can use to complement and stretch the strength work.

The cardio portion is different from anything I've seen in other books. I like the fact that Anita tells us what yoga category the various cardio activities correspond to so I can work on my form and what yoga category one should counter pose with. It's great to know that I should counter-pose the biking with back bending and twists since my hips and quads get really tight (and it helps my golf as well).

This book is very down to earth. I feel I am in better balance and shape and do believe I'll be less prone to injuries now. I pay more attention to my breathing, my posture, and my energy level. I'm loosing weight. Although Anita does not give any dietary suggestions I find myself paying more attention to what I'm eating. We all know what to eat, we just rarely pay attention to what we eat, but when you feel good, you want to eat healthy. I guess that's a side affect of the yoga that is calming me down and helping me be more cognizant.


Rating:
Summary: This Means You (Too) !
Review: The title of Anita Goa's "Your Best Body Ever" captures the spirit of her book: hope, ambition, seriousness, and reward. You or I might hope for just a better body, but this book quietly and practically encourages us to go for the best.

Her method for doing this, starting with a base of yoga, and building through posture, core strength and breathing, is of value to people starting at all different levels. Everyone has a physical preference: stretching in front of the TV or in a pool; running or biking or swimming for the cardio oriented; lifting weights and strength work for serious athletes and people whose joints have taken them out of contact sports. Rarely, though, do people manage effectively on all fronts: flexibility, strength and aerobic fitness. The Goa system guides you through all three.

And, as you get older, you find flexibility becomes more and more important. Like many folks who used to do a demanding sport, I had retreated to sporadic fits of doing lots of running, bouts of weight of training, and, oh yes, lots of injuries. Here an ankle, there a hamstring, then the occasional bad back and, and finally every boomer's friend, middle-age spread. Like many others, I have been looking for better way to go.

So, even though the author suggests that if you are already active you can skip to one of the higher levels she takes her reader through, I found it helpful to go back to the basics and start with the Goa System Level One. Even if you can push around a fair amount of weight or run five miles on any given day, you may find that standing on one foot in "tree pose" or looking over your opposite shoulder with one hand on the floor is surprisingly challenging. Or you may find it very hard to manage the stepper breathing only through your nose without the TV or a magazine to distract you. And if you are as fit as you think, Level Two and Level Three await!

This is not a fancy coffee table book with Mapplethorpe photographs of celebrity models, nor is it a twist by twist big picture exhibition by some impossibly contorted gymnast / yogini. This is a book you can use. There are modest, informative pictures of final positions, accompanied by a clear step-by-step description of about how to get there, what to concentrate on, and how it should feel. And, for the yoga poses, there is stage-by-stage direction shown by charming orange "stick figures" that capture the heart of each movement surprising well!

The book spends a little more time on detailing the yoga elements which will be less familiar to the general reader, but concentrates in the strength and aerobic sections on integrating breathing, balance, and focus into those parts of the workout with which readers may otherwise be familiar. Uniquely, at every step the correspondences between different yoga poses, resistance exercises and cardio activities are explained and interrelated. For this reason I suspect the book may first reach an audience of personal trainers who will recognize its value and use it with their clients before it finds it rightful place with the general public.

This would be a shame, because a review of this book would be incomplete without noting the wry humor and quiet enthusiasm of the author meant for the general reader. I think Anita Goa's experience as a personal trainer shows here. Apparently believing that if you want to have your best body ever you cannot expect a "free lunch," she manages to place a little anecdote here and a little observation there, to keep you company and lighten the implicitly no nonsense / no wasted effort approach she takes. (How can you get frustrated with a little orange stick figure?). You feel as if she is there with you.

So, even though I have not yet achieved the great weight loss of one of the success stories mentioned in the introduction, I notice I am standing straighter, have a little more spring in my step, and feel like I'm on the right track.

I recommend this book to people at all levels of fitness seeking to start or re-energize their efforts to look and feel fine!