BOOK REVIEW: High-Performance Training for Sports

Title: High-Performance Training for Sports
Author: David Joyce, Daniel Lewindon (Editors)
Publisher: Human Kinetics, ISBN: 9781492592907
Details: Paperback, 456pp
RRP: AUD$76.50 OR $41.31 when you use the code AFN2020 at the checkout to SAVE an additional 10% off already discounted rates HERE. 

Reviewed by Tony Boutagy, PhD, AEP, AES

The prize for the ‘Stop What You’re Doing and Get This Book’ Award goes to High Performance Training for Sports by David Joyce & Daniel Lewindon.

Now in its second edition, High-Performance sets the benchmark for excellence in textbooks for sports performance training. The twenty-seven chapters are authored by over forty world experts in their respective fields and covers a diversity of topics, including nutrition, flexibility, training all athletic capabilities and program design.

The revised edition is divided into three parts: the first, titled Establishing & Developing Resilience, comprises 8 chapters covering testing, working with young athletes, mental health, movement efficiency, core strength, flexibility, nutrition, and monitoring performance.

The second part of the text, 10 chapters long, is devoted to the development of athletic capabilities and includes detailed coverage of strength, speed, jumping, agility, anaerobic, and aerobic training. There are also sections on cuing for training and performance, transference of training to performance and managing mental stress.

The final part of the book includes 9 chapters on enhancing and sustaining performance, looking at program design, pre-, in- and off-season, warm-ups and cool downs, peaking, recovery, learning and dealing with injuries.

Even after almost 30 years as a strength and conditioning coach, my copy of this book is now full of yellow highlighted paragraphs, dog eared pages and notes in the margin as the new knowledge and profound wisdom flowed on every page.

No other book contains such relevant detail for sports coaches across all the potential themes encountered in the real world that can be immediately applied. Congratulations to the editors for assembling such a stellar international team of authorities. High-Performance is an absolute ‘must have’ and required reading for every thinking strength and conditioning coach working in sports, and has clearly set the standard for many years to come – or until the 3^rd edition!

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