Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance

In "Becoming a Supple Leopard" Kelly Starrett and Glen Cordoza have scored big. This book is the basics of human movement patterns well presented and well taught. Throughout Kelly and Glen present good posture and proper movement techniques as enabling enhanced superior athletic performance, with echos into occupational body mechanics and ergonomics, and also into military evolutions.Kelly starts with simple standing and shows us how to do it properly, with tests to determine if we are doing it properly. He progresses into torque and lever mechanics as they apply to the human body. The majority of the book is explaining and demonstrating with well designed pictures the basic athletic exercises (deadlift, pushup, dip, etc). He does the same with stretching and development of flexibility techniques.Many may think this book is too simple, too basic. But the fact remains that many of us damage ourselves over time with improper movement and posture habits. Our human body is designed do millions of repetitions of every movement. If we put undue stress on various areas by poor mechanics, we will weaken and damage our bodies. Many great athletes get by for a time with poor body mechanics, but it does catch up with them. Yes, we age and are mortal, but we let ourselves age far too fast through improper uses and mechanics of our bodies. The vast majority of Americans stop being active just at the moment they need to be more active. But, we have let (Kelly's list page 25) no warm up, no cool down, sleep deprivation, dehydration, poor nutrition, prolonged sitting, chronic inflammation, stress and insulin sensitivity rob of us the use of our body far before we should. This book is not about those errors, but about the body mechanics necessary to maintain the ability to perform for many more years than average in our society.Kelly stresses that we will perform as we practice. Kelly stresses that many tasks are mechanically identical using the same postures and strengths and self support systems to the basic exercises. Example from this book: round back deadlifts lead to round back tackles with a much higher incidence of injury. Kelly's point is that if we teach proper movement mechanics, we will perform better, perform longer, have less pain, have fewer injuries, have less wear and tear failures (e.g. ACL tears, disc herniations, spinal stenosis) and feel better and look better far longer than average. And the best place for this teaching is in the gym, concentrating on the basic movements.There should be at least one well used copy of this book in every coach's office, in every PT department that deals with athletes and the aging, in every gym, in every sports medicine clinic. Kelly's point is that the practice of correcting dysfunction and exercise mechanics is neccessary and needs to be done in the gym as we teach our youth to move, our young adults to move and perform, and our aging to age gracefully.This book is another notch in Victory Belt Publishing and Glen Cordoza's ventures moving from MMA technique books, to paleo diet books, to exercise. From Victory Belt Publishing we now have Marthone's "The Kettlebell Rx," MacKenzies "Power Speed Endurance," Starrett's "Supple Leopard." And forth coming is "Beyond Parallel," due out late May or early June . Victory Belt has a winning formula in taking great Crossfit coaches and publishing their wisdom. Let's hope they keep it up.The book reads well. The book is well organized and well laid out. The pictures are excellent elaborating on the text. This book will become a standard text filling a need for many years to come.

I have had the pleasure and honor of watching Kelly Starrett slowly, methodically, and tirelessly change the landscape of what trainers and athletes call fitness. The much anticipated Becoming a Supple Leopard has given us a Bible. The detail, clarity and reasoning behind the work is nothing short of brilliant and long over due.Starrett's work as a healer is big-hearted and generous. He prefers not to fix you on his table, but to give you the tools to understand your body, prioritize your approach to movement and make responsible and clear decisions that will help you attain your goals.Starrett shows how we evolved, what demands modernity has put on our systems and how we need to go back to moving our bodies with the abilities we were born with. Becoming a Supple Leopard teaches how to get this beautiful machine to reach it's full potential without injury, undue stress, and to communicate it's full expression through movement and athleticism.We humans are always searching for that magic number. How fast can I run? How high can I jump? How long can I run? How heavy can I lift? And the list goes on. That's all well and good, but Starrett changes that to asking FIRST - How well can you move? Only after that should you ask how fast? How high? How long? How heavy?Becoming a Supple Leopard is a must for all fitness trainers from Pilates to badminton and everything in between. You can choose to train people with a singular and narrow knowledge of the sport with little success, or you can choose to broaden your understanding. Becoming a Supple Leopard will allow you to approach your work in a multi-dimensional and holistic way. No injury and a body that can function efficiently. What more can one ask for?Science and common sense dictates that any machine that has a part that is not functioning as it should, may be able to complete a task, but not to it's full potential. When it comes to the body, it will at some point fail and then it may be too late. Starrett offers you many choices to avoid the mess in the first place.I have watched him day after day hammer these issues into his coaches and athletes alike. Now the rest of the world has access to his wisdom. Becoming a Supple Leopard is an explosion of information that is invaluable. There is nothing in this book that is too intricate, hard or reserved just for the elite athlete. The instruction is straight -forward, simple and easy to follow. Don't underestimate their simplicity. They are the most effective ways of keeping our bodies working at their best, ready to take on any challenge that is thrown at it.This book is for all of us who move. That is - all of humanity.