Movement by Gray Cook
Maybe my favorite book of the all, Gray Cook’s Movement has set the standard for assessment movement and recognizing moving dysfunction. As the write-up on Amazon says, author Gray Cook crosses the lines between rehabilitation, conditioning and fitness, providing a clear model and a common language under which fitness and rehabilitation professionals can work together.
Advances in Functional Training by Michael Boyle
Though functional training has received a bad rap over the years due to people not truly understanding what functional training is, Michael Boyle’s book was a game-changer for strength coaches. You are hard pressed to find a strength coach that has had a bigger hand at changing the industry for the better and this books let you get inside his head and see how he goes about training some of the best athletes in the world.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Written over 60’s years ago, How to Win Friends and Influence People should be a must read for anyone, not just strength coaches. Carnegie’s book focuses on becoming more successful through building relationships with everyone you encounter as well as improving your likeability just by changing some of the words you choose and the way you interact with other people.
Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes by Shirley Sahrmann
Simply put, Sahrmann changed the way physical therapist looked at physical therapy and the way that strength coaches look at strength training and injury prevention as well as the ability to diagnosis and understand potential movement dysfunction and muscles imbalances. Published in 2002, the book presents a “classification system of mechanical pain syndromes that is designed to direct the exercise prescription and correction of faulty movement patterns.” A true game changer for all health professionals.
InsideOut Coaching by Joe Ehrmann
Joe Ehrmann hit a homerun with his book InsideOut Coaching. Ehrmann writes out the platform that coaches have and the ability to transform the athletes they coach, though most coaches fail to use this platform mentor and teach their athletes. Ehrmann calls this transformational coaching, when coaches go beyond the X’s and O’s and mentor athletes on the Y’s of life.
Becoming a Supple Leopard By Kelly Starrett
If you have any interest in movement, correcting movement dysfunctions, and/or mobility, then Kelly’s Becoming a Supple Leopard is as good as it gets. The book goes into detail about how to prevent and rehabilitate common athletic injuries, identify and fix movement dysfunctions, increase recovery from session to session, and create mobility programs for yourself or athletes.
Make Today Count by John C. Maxwell
In the area of personal development there is no better book than Make Today Count. The book goes in depth on the art of making good decisions every single day in order to create the successful and rewarding life. Maxwell goes through what he calls his twelve life-impacting decisions and how one can manage those decisions on a daily basis to become more successful one day at a time.
