Physical Therapy Books

Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning

List Price: $75.00 By: Human Kinetics Publishers - Model: HK-0873226941 Amazon Marketplace: 73 new & used starting at $9.93

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Exercise & Fitness -> Injuries & Rehabilitation
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Exercise & Fitness -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Exercise & Fitness -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Evidence-Based Exercise Info at its Best 5 out of 5 stars.
45 of 46 people found this review helpful.

When it comes to telling people how to train, I want to know that the advice I give is based on evidence, not what on other people say, and not on what I "think" is going to work. While you could dig around on various electronic databases, such as Medline to get such information, its nice to have all the latest excercise recommendations based on sound research at your fingertips. And if you're looking for such a book, well, look no further.

Readers who regularly read sports science research will see some familiar names on page vii, which contains the list of people who contributed to the book. To me, knowing that people like Kraemer, Faigenbaum, or Hatfield had a hand in this book puts it on solid ground.

And the book is thorough too. Covering just about every aspect of conditioning and training, from basic exercise physiology to how many sets of an exercise should I do, its just a plain fact that there's not much that has been left out. Of course all the major areas such as strength training, endurance training, and flexibility are there as well. Also notable are the great pictures of stretching and strengthening exercises as well as little numbers (2) to refer the reader to the study the info was taken from. Right on!

My criticisms of this book are picky and few. For example I did notice that on page 299 the book advocates holding a static stretch for 30 seconds to become more flexible. Experts in the field who keep up on the research may not agree with this. While the 30 seconds rule applies to a lot of muscle groups, it does not apply to all- like stretching the calf muscles to increase dorsiflexion (see The 5-Minute Plantar Fasciitis Solution for a nice updated literature review on ankle stretching). In case you're wondering, 30s won't cut it to increase ankle ROM.

In conclusion, as a researcher and trainer, I was really impressed with the evidence-based information and the thoroughness of the text. I think it would be of most benefit to coaches, athletic trainers, personal trainers, or anyone who wants a good resource to guide their exercise prescriptions.

Editorial Review:

This cousebook for students working towards careers in strength and conditioning and/or personal training, mirrors the 35 primary content areas in the US' National Strength and Conditioning Association's examination. It includes self-assessment tests.

ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription

American College of Sports Medicine

Amazon Price: $37.95 List Price: $37.95 Not yet published By: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $35.30

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Exercise & Fitness -> Injuries & Rehabilitation
Subjects -> Medicine -> Allied Health Professions -> Physical Therapy
Subjects -> Medicine -> Specialties -> Sports Medicine

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

useful resource 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book appears to be a pretty darn good resource for fitness prescription and testing. I have read much of it and it is pretty well written and quite clinical. So if that's what you need, then this book is it.
However, I was intending to get books to study for the ACSM Personal Trainer certification. This is NOT the book for that. Now granted, they recommend this book on their website, and it may be helpful, but the intended primary study source is the ACSM's resources for the personal trainer...book. So if that's what you are trying to do (like i was) then get that book, not this one. If you want a bunch of cool knowledge about exercise prescription, then this is the book for you.

Editorial Review:

The single most internationally read and referenced text in sports medicine, exercise science, and health and fitness, this manual succinctly summarizes recommended procedures for exercise testing and exercise prescription in healthy and diseased individuals. This gold-standard text is a convenient, one-stop resource for the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) that must be mastered by candidates for all ACSM certifications. Written by international experts in numerous fields, the Eighth Edition contains the most current public health and clinical information and state-of-the-art, research-based recommendations. A companion Website for instructors will offer a test generator, an image bank, PowerPoint slides, and a WebCT/BlackBoard-ready course cartridge. A student website will offer the fully searchable text.

Anatomy of Movement

Blandine Calais-Germain

List Price: $28.50 By: Eastland Press Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $7.92

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Medicine -> Allied Health Professions -> Physical Therapy
Subjects -> Medicine -> Basic Science -> Physiology
Subjects -> Medicine -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An excellent visual anatomy reference 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Anatomy of Movement is a reference book consisting mostly of diagrams of the body's muscles, bones and joints, along with brief descriptions of how they work together to create movement. The drawings are easy on the eye and excellent in helping to understand how the joints are put together and how they function. It is especially helpful to see each muscle, bone and joint isolated, allowing you to study and understand them individually in contrast to texts that show them all at once. I would highly recommend this book for personal trainers, fitness instructors, sports conditioners, anatomy students, beginning bodyworkers, and others who are interested in a visual representation of the body's anatomy.

Editorial Review:

Anatomy of Movement presents a dynamic, integrated approach to the study of the physical structures of the musculoskeletal system and their functional relationship to the movements of the human body.

In clear and concise text illustrated with more than a thousand graphic drawings, the author guides the reader on a lively tour of the muscles, bones, ligaments and joints of the arms, legs and trunk. The focus throughout the book is on anatomy not for its own sake, but in its functional relationship to the actual movements of the body in dance, exercise and other physical disciplines.

Therapeutic Exercise: Foundations and Techniques (Therapeutic Exercise: Foundations & Techniques)

Carol Kisner, Lynn Allen Colby

Amazon Price: $45.00 List Price: $64.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: F. A. Davis Company Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $45.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Exercise & Fitness -> Injuries & Rehabilitation
Subjects -> Medicine -> Allied Health Professions -> Physical Therapy
Subjects -> Medicine -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Perfect 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I am quite athletic and injured some muscles/tendons. I was in physical therapy and wanted to know more about why specific exercises were helping more than I had expected. This is a perfect book for the aging athlete who will start getting more and more minor problems from wear and tear, that seem to take longer and longer to heal. This book describes quite clearly and completely activies that help both in prevention and recovery. The knowledge it contains will help anyone heal as quickly as possible and avoid reinjury.

Editorial Review:

Thoroughly updated to highlight current evidence to support best practice, Kisner & Colby's new 5th edition offers the most up-to-date guidelines for managing musculoskeletal conditions. Now even more extensively illustrated, it provides principles of therapeutic exercise and manual therapy. It describes pathologic conditions and surgical procedures commonly encountered by therapists in the clinical setting. This renowned manual remains the authoritative source for exercise instruction for the therapist and for patient self management.

Trigger Point Therapy for Myofascial Pain: The Practice of Informed Touch

Donna Finando, Steven Finando

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Healing Arts Press Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $11.96

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Acupuncture & Acupressure
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Massage -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Massage -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A clinical reference manual for the evaluation and treatment of muscle pain

• Contains detailed illustrations of pain patterns and trigger-point locations

• 15,000 copies sold in first hardcover edition

Myofascial pain syndromes are among the fastest growing problems that physicians, osteopaths, acupuncturists, and physical, occupational, and massage therapists encounter in their patients. In Trigger Point Therapy for Myofascial Pain Donna and Steven Finando have organized vast amounts of information on treating myofascial pain into an accessible "user's manual" for healthcare practitioners. They examine a wide range of pain patterns and present evaluation and palpation techniques for reducing trigger points--and thereby alleviating pain--in the most clinically significant musculature of the body.

This comprehensive yet easy-to-use reference guide to treatment of muscle pain begins with chapters on the concept of Qi and its relationship to myology, specific trigger point location and activation, and palpatory skill-building techniques. Subsequent sections provide detailed information on each muscle to teach clinicians to locate quickly and accurately individual points of pain and compensation. A visual index allows easy identification of the muscles that may be involved. Trigger Point Therapy for Myofascial Pain provides necessary and invaluable information for sufferers and any professional involved with myofascial disorders.

Quantum Touch: The Power to Heal (Second Edition)

Richard Gordon

List Price: $18.95 By: North Atlantic Books Amazon Marketplace: 25 new & used starting at $6.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Energy Healing
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Healing
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 61 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

better for those new to energy healing 1 out of 5 stars.
7 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This book did not contain information or techniques that were new or helpful to me. I appreciate Gordon sharing his personal healing experiences, and the brief description of how he developed his method of laying on hands, but the book has painfully little specific information. his writing seems confused and simplistic at times, and most of the book focuses on techniques other than his own. if you are completely new to the concept of energy healing, this might be a decent place to start.

i found that barbara brennan's "hands of light", vianna stibal's work on theta healing, donna eden's work to be infinitely more specific and helpful. these are authors who can actually see energy fields and auras, and therefore have much more informed and specific techniques to teach.

gordon's basic assertion that raising one's vibrations to tune the client (who he confusingly names "healer"), is step 1 of many energy healing modalities. this is not something that you need to read a book about to learn. it is embedded in any healing teaching, and intuitive to many natural healers.

Editorial Review:

This easy-to-follow manual teaches a new hands-on healing practice called quantum-touch. Quantum-touch uses special breathing and body-focusing techniques to elevate the body’s energy. With a light touch, even novices can see postural corrections as bones gently glide into their correct alignment. The book presents a technique that “may truly allow us all to become healers” (C. Norman Shealy).

Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists

Thomas W. Myers, Leon Chaitow, Deane Juhan

Amazon Price: $57.55 List Price: $63.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Churchill Livingstone Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $53.38

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> General AAS
Subjects -> Medicine -> Allied Health Professions -> Physical Therapy

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Easy Reading 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

A huge topic with tons of minutia that is broken down in an easy reading format. I really liked the way the book is set up. Great way to look at the body as a whole and to start thinking about alternative and complimentary modes of treatment up the kinetic chain that you may not think about before reading this book.

Editorial Review:

An accessible and comprehensive approach to the anatomy and function of the fascial system in the body combined with a holistic overview of myofascial therapy. Many different therapists now use myofascial techniques to influence postural change and pain relief. This book demonstrates exactly how the muscles connect within the connect tissue to affect posture, compensatory strain, and pain patterns. The aim is to present scientifically sound and often complicated material in a way which can be easily learned, understood, and applied by those who do not necessarily have a scientific background. ANATOMY TRAINS is written and presented in a style that allows this new information on the myofascial system to be easily absorbed by a wide range of readers: from the student, athlete, or client to the most experienced therapist.

A Massage Therapist's Guide to Pathology (Lww Massage Therapy & Bodywork Educational)

Ruth Werner

Amazon Price: $40.15 List Price: $57.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Amazon Marketplace: 59 new & used starting at $30.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Acupuncture & Acupressure
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Massage -> Therapy
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Massage -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Pathology Book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I began learning Pathology in Ruth Werner's 1st edition book in massage therapy school. I just attended her continuing education class in Louisiana and can truly say that this woman is remarkable. I immediately came home and ordered this 4th edition book. Wow, has it grown. The book is everything I expected and needed. The information is so clear and easy to understand and would be very helpful to anyone who has a interest in pathology.

A Massage Therapist's Guide to Pathology 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Purchased for one of my massage students. Delivered in great shape and very quickly. Thanks

Pathology 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Good book to prepare for exam, you would be ready to answer any pathology question

Excellent!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is the text being used in one of my therapeutic massage classes. It is clearly written with great examples. The included DVD is also wonderful!

Editorial Review:

The best-selling pathology textbook for massage therapy is now in its Fourth Edition. The book presents detailed information on the etiology, signs and symptoms, and treatment of over 200 diseases and conditions, emphasizing how massage influences the disease and healing processes and how therapists can maximize the benefits while minimizing the risks.

Deep Tissue Massage, Revised: A Visual Guide to Techniques

Art Riggs

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: North Atlantic Books Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $17.67

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Acupuncture & Acupressure
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Massage -> Reflexology
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Massage -> Techniques

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Featuring more than 250 photographs and 50 anatomical drawings, Deep Tissue Massage is the standard guide to the essentials of touch, biomechanics, and positioning options for a multitude of strategies to treat all major conditions encountered in a bodywork practice.

The book is divided into three sections. “Fundamentals” covers basic skills of palpation, explaining the deeper layers of the body and presenting detailed instruction on working with these layers to release tension. This section gives clear information on the proper use of knuckles, fist, forearms, and elbows in preventing injury to the therapist. “Strategies” offers more precise protocols and treatment plans for the entire body with emphasis on client positioning options to stretch muscles rather than just kneading tissues. “Caveats” details areas in which the practitioner needs to exercise caution.

Deep Tissue Massage presents a wealth of information in a way the therapist can immediately utilize. This new edition has been thoroughly revised and includes a preface to the new edition, a foreword, an index, a Suggested Reading list, and extended sections on integrating deep-tissue massage into bodywork practice and the psychology of treating injuries.

Muscles: Testing and Function, with Posture and Pain (Kendall, Muscles)

Elizabeth Kendall McCreary, Patricia Geise Provance, Mary McIntyre Rodgers, William Anthony Romani

Amazon Price: $56.14 List Price: $79.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Amazon Marketplace: 64 new & used starting at $45.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Medicine -> Allied Health Professions -> Physical Therapy
Subjects -> Medicine -> Basic Science -> Anatomy
Subjects -> Medicine -> Internal Medicine -> Rheumatology

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A book that has stood the test of time. 5 out of 5 stars.
86 of 86 people found this review helpful.

Now in its 5th edition, this book has become "thee" muscle testing book to have. Who's it for? Anyone who has a need to be able to MANUAL muscle test any of the body's muscles. This would include such professionals as doctors, nurses, physical therapists, athletic trainers, personal trainers, etc.

How does the book work? Well, you look up the particular muscle you want to test, look at the picture of the test position, and then simply apply manual pressure to the limb in the instructed direction. If it sounds easy, it is the way this book shows you- included are dozens and dozens of GREAT pictures that show you precisely what to do. So, if you have a need to regularly test muscles, I highly recommend you get this book- it's a little bit more expensive than some of the other muscle testing books, but its the best I've come across so far- in fact it sits right on my desk for reference. Health professionals might also be interested in The Sixty-Second Motivator to help get clients motivated to do their home exercise programs consistently.

Editorial Review:

This renowned classic provides unparalleled coverage of manual muscle testing, plus evaluation and treatment of faulty and painful postural conditions. The thoroughly updated Fifth Edition is completely reorganized and has new, expanded treatment and exercise sections in each chapter. Other features include a new section on post-polio syndrome, additional case studies comparing Guillain-Barré to polio muscle tests, a new full-color design, and a first-of-its-kind chart of upper extremity articulations. A bonus Primal Anatomy CD-ROM contains a three-dimensional interactive model of the human body. Students can rotate the model and add or subtract layers of anatomy to strengthen their knowledge.