All of these books are awesome. This list is not ordered by value of information provided in these books.
Becoming a Supple Leopard 2nd Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance
by Kelly Starrett and Glen Cordoza
This book shows approach to mobility and maintenance of the human body and teaches you how to hack your own movement, allowing you to live a healthier, more fulfilling life. Kelly Starrett has his own website and he started the whole movement all over US with adepts who use this approach.
Athletic Body in Balance
by Gray Cook
This book is much of the same domain as previous one.
Gray Cook is exceptionally awesome. Check these posts to gain a basic understanding of what he is doing and implementing: posts in a category Gray Cook.
Adding absolute strength and power often creates muscle imbalances and mobility limitations that cause injuries and limit skill training. This book demonstrates how to identify and correct muscle imbalances, mobility restrictions, and stability problems.
Free+Style: Maximize Sport and Life Performance with Four Basic Movements
by Carl Paoli
Freestyle: Maximize Your Sport and Life Performance with Four Basic Movements is an interactive way to learn how the body is designed to move through space and how to interact with our constantly changing surroundings. Using this framework and four basic movements, Paoli will help you maximize your efforts in sport and life, regardless of specialty.
Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement
by Katy Bowman, her other books are also great and easy to read.
Why going to GYM regularly DOES NOT necessarily means healthy lifestyle. It’s all about healthy daily movement habits.
This book explains the science behind our need for natural movement. It examines the differences between the movements in a typical hunter – gatherer’s life and the movements in our own. It shows the many problems with using exercise like movement vitamins instead of addressing the deeper issue of a poor movement diet. Best of all, Move Your DNA contains the corrective exercises, habit modifications, and simple lifestyle changes we need to make in order to free ourselves from disease and discover our naturally healthy, reflex driven selves.
Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training (3rd Edition)
by Mark Rippetoe
Personally I don’t like weight training per se. However, this book is a fantastic manual to build a foundation of proper movements which are hardwired in our daily lives. And, if you like me, are not so much excited with weight training, don’t neglect this book. A series of proper exercise of PROPERLY DONE deadlift will give you much more to build healthy movement patterns then doing something else.
Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists, 3e
by Thomas Myers
Reading this book is the first best step to enter the world of fascia.
Born to Walk: Myofascial Efficiency and the Body in Movement
by James Earls
The average person may not give much thought to how they walk or what exactly makes walking possible. But if you are a physical therapist, a massage therapist, a chiropractor, an osteopath, or any type of holistic practitioner, you know that everything in the body is connected, including gait.
Author James Earls has created an analysis of the human gait that is investigative and multi-dimensional in “Born to Walk.” He presents a clear vision of what happens when a person’s whole body walks, with all bones, joints, and tissues working together. But why do humans walk the way they do? What led to the unique human gait? Earls addresses these questions in a way that is easy to understand for those new to the concepts, but not so basic that those in movement-based fields won’t find a lot of great information to incorporate into their practices.
Exploring the practical approach to fascia and self fascial treatment. Great technique is explained for self releasing respiratory muscles. Don’t overlook it.
The next 2 books are of the same topic. The second is more expensive but more comprehensive. The first can be read faster.
Why one should read it. If you don’t, you’ll never know why it’s impossible to get rid of belly if you spinal muscles are not relaxed because of bad posture. Or why you’ll never have your glutes mobilised while your iliopsoas muscles glows from overtension.
Muscle Energy Techniques: A Practical Guide for Physical Therapists
by John Gibbons
Muscle Energy Techniques
by Leon Chaitow
All book of Leon Chaitow are awesome. However, they are for those who want to delve deeper. Not quite suitable for ordinary fitness enthusiast. Just my opinion.
