Functional Training for Sports

Rating:
Summary: Functional Training for Sports
Review: I am currentley a high school strength coach who has been in the field for 17 years. I have integrated many of the exercises in this book into our program. This has been one of the most useful books I have come across in many years. It does not matter what your training style is, there is something in this book for everybody. My athletes love the new exercises that I have added to our program from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I have never written a review before but this book was so good I wanted to make others aware. Finally someone has written a book about functional training that makes sense and shows practical progressions.
I could never understand why I was always pulling my hamstrings on the court in spite of doing tons of machine leg curls. This book does a great job of explaining why using machines make you good at lifting a lot of weight on that machine, but doesn't help your athletic performance. Excellent explanations without bogging you down with technical jargon. The exercise progressions are clearly explained. The only small deficiency in my mind is that I would like to see a healthy shoulders section (although he does touch on this in various places).
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the most current techniques in athletic training. Far, far better than Rosemarie Gionta Alfieri's mess of a book and much more accesible and practical than Gambetta's Guide to Functional Training. So far I haven't seen anything else like it on the market. I hope there will be more books like this.

Rating:
Summary: Required reading for Athletes
Review: If you're a sports athlete, don't train like a bodybuilder. Michael Boyle does an excellent job of explaining the difference and why it's so important. He gives easy to follow instructions to assess your current functional strength and identify your weaknesses. He then describes how to evaluate your sport and consider your strengths and weaknesses so you can develop an individualized training program to improve your sports performance. He gives instructions on how to begin and how to advance, with lots of pictures and detailed instructions on how to do each exercise. Really an excellent book.

Rating:
Summary: Required reading for Athletes
Review: If you're a sports athlete, don't train like a bodybuilder. Michael Boyle does an excellent job of explaining the difference and why it's so important. He gives easy to follow instructions to assess your current functional strength and identify your weaknesses. He then describes how to evaluate your sport and consider your strengths and weaknesses so you can develop an individualized training program to improve your sports performance. He gives instructions on how to begin and how to advance, with lots of pictures and detailed instructions on how to do each exercise. Really an excellent book.

Rating:
Summary: Good Examples ... No Backing
Review: Let's start out with the good: there are lots of exercises, many of them creative, to give the athlete or coach new tools to use in their program. Michael Boyle brings lots of experience to the table through his involvement at his training facility.

But I was also very dissappointed with this book as it has no research backing and is opinionated. The entire book has only has 7 references, none of them being research articles.

Boyle states that functional training is based on the "latest scientific research" yet there is no research presented in the book at all. He states that he wanted it to be simple and to be able to be read and used by diverse people. I am not sure if he purposely left out research or not but it is research that truly tells me if something works or not. My conclusion with his findings are that he derived them from his experiences and from the books he cites in his references.

Boyle also seems to hold a grudge against exercise physiologists and is in love with physical therapists. He concludes that problems with top amateur and professional athletes' training regimens in the 80's were due to the dumbfounded exercise physiologists that teams employed. Not only is it harsh to generalize to all exercise physiologists, it's also just not right. On the contrary, all throughout the book though he quotes numerous physical therapists about how revolutionary their ideas are.

The book has plenty of pictures of exercises which is great. Unfortunately, photos showing action or movement have this ghost figure overtop of the regular figure that make the whole picture hard to decipher. I have no idea what some of the exercises are because the motion picture obscures the regular photo leaving it useless to me.

On pg. 86, Boyle addresses the problem of when to train abs. He states that some people argue for training abs at the end of the workout because otherwise you would be fatiguing muscles important in stability. He disagrees with this but gives no reason why but continues on with what he believes is the best progression.

Another opinion that is brought up is how athletes focus on "mirror muscles." I guess you can't both look good and perform well.

Overall, I think the book could have been better. I think Boyle pretty much just wrote about his experiences throughout his career without thinking about any backing for his thoughts. Many thoughts are incomplete and opinioned with not much backing. The exercises are great for incorporating into a program for diversity but I was not sold on how great the performance enhancing aspects of functional training are from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Good Examples ... No Backing
Review: Let's start out with the good: there are lots of exercises, many of them creative, to give the athlete or coach new tools to use in their program. Michael Boyle brings lots of experience to the table through his involvement at his training facility.

But I was also very dissappointed with this book as it has no research backing and is opinionated. The entire book has only has 7 references, none of them being research articles.

Boyle states that functional training is based on the "latest scientific research" yet there is no research presented in the book at all. He states that he wanted it to be simple and to be able to be read and used by diverse people. I am not sure if he purposely left out research or not but it is research that truly tells me if something works or not. My conclusion with his findings are that he derived them from his experiences and from the books he cites in his references.

Boyle also seems to hold a grudge against exercise physiologists and is in love with physical therapists. He concludes that problems with top amateur and professional athletes' training regimens in the 80's were due to the dumbfounded exercise physiologists that teams employed. Not only is it harsh to generalize to all exercise physiologists, it's also just not right. On the contrary, all throughout the book though he quotes numerous physical therapists about how revolutionary their ideas are.

The book has plenty of pictures of exercises which is great. Unfortunately, photos showing action or movement have this ghost figure overtop of the regular figure that make the whole picture hard to decipher. I have no idea what some of the exercises are because the motion picture obscures the regular photo leaving it useless to me.

On pg. 86, Boyle addresses the problem of when to train abs. He states that some people argue for training abs at the end of the workout because otherwise you would be fatiguing muscles important in stability. He disagrees with this but gives no reason why but continues on with what he believes is the best progression.

Another opinion that is brought up is how athletes focus on "mirror muscles." I guess you can't both look good and perform well.

Overall, I think the book could have been better. I think Boyle pretty much just wrote about his experiences throughout his career without thinking about any backing for his thoughts. Many thoughts are incomplete and opinioned with not much backing. The exercises are great for incorporating into a program for diversity but I was not sold on how great the performance enhancing aspects of functional training are from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great training book for anyone who wants to become better
Review: Michael Boyle has done a great job with this book. This is the best and most informative book on the market. The exercises and progressions are easy to follow. I strongly recommend this book. It goes nicely with Gray Cook's "Athletic Body in Balance".

Rating:
Summary: Good Starting Point For Functional Training
Review: This book is a good basis for functional training for anyone who is attemtping to make the switch from traditional training philosophies to more sport specific functional training philosophies. Although it lacks a tremendous amount of scientific backing, the concepts as a whole make sense and can be a valuable tool to make the transition to functional training. This book is not for the person who already has incorporated functional training into their own program design or the program design of their athletes. If you are already using functional training methods, this book will seem basic and simple with little or no new information from what you are already applying in your workouts, but if you want to understand why the deadlift is superior to prone hamstring/leg curl for speed development and why push-ups are better than traditional bench press then this book may be right for you.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of hype, little substance
Review: To the un(der) qualified person looking to incorporate some new exercises into their fitness regime this book will serve your purpose. If you need anything more, look else where!

Boyle disregards science and evidence-based practice for gimicks and fallacies: drawing in your abs - read McGills "Low Back Disorders", "instability" training = "functional" training - read Siffs "Facts and Fallacies of Fitness" and "Supertraining"... and so it goes on.

7 References in a book that keeps on about "the science behind..." Enough said.

All in all, a forgettable book in a world that relies on hype and gimmicks.