Becoming a Supple Leopard, 2nd Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance

Excellent information! This is a great book with detailed descriptions and photos so you can apply the knowledge you learn immediately. Highly recommend if you are looking to have your body feel better and stronger.

‘All human beings should be able to perform basic maintenance on themselves.” It’s almost a call to arms, a revolution in who we are and how we treat our bodies. It shouldn’t be of course, but the idea that you can do work on your own body is one I have come to embrace. Not just lifting and building muscle but fixing your own injuries. Digging deeper into your own body, learning what is wrong with it and working through a path to fix it yourself. The idea behind this book is that everyone should be able to move well, like jungle cats. That the body was designed for optimum movement for a long time. If you can’t now that doesn’t mean you can’t in the future. Supple Leopard is the guide to better movement and performance. It can help you resolve any problem issues and how to do it yourself. Kelly Starrett is an athlete, a former high level kayaker, the owner of San Francisco Crossfit and a Doctor of Physical Therapy. The guy knows a bit about movement. He’s used his experience as an athlete and physio to turn his gym into a testing ground, a lab for physical movement and how to get better. Supple Leopard is a textbook, like a dictionary for your body. When I have a physical issue from jiu-jitsu training or lifting weights this is the first place I turn. It’s a thick, dense read that is best chipped away at or pulled out and used when needed. His message that you have control over your own health is empowering. You can sort out and resolve many of your physical problems. But it won’t be easy and it might not be quick. Kelly wants you to commit to ten minutes a day of basic maintenance. Find your weak points and work on them. Can’t squat? He’ll show you a progression how to get there and then you best be doing some squat practice everyday. Bad shoulders and can’t lift overhead? There’s plenty for that too. He talks about fundamental movement patterns and positions that we should all be able to get into. and how we should all be able to get into them. If we can’t something is wrong. So we then we should fix it. Much of what we do all day everyday goes against how our bodies evolved. Sitting down, reaching forward all day tapping at keys or swiping at phones. Wearing huge soles between us and the ground as we drink and eat poor quality food. And then we try and exercise. Is it any surprise when that doesn't go well? Starrett thinks the human body is an amazing machine that can take an obscene amount of abuse. When it breaks it can break hard but it doesn’t have to. Check out his website MobilityWOD for great free content including hundreds of videos. He’s gone on to write a book on how to run without pain, Ready to Run. And has just come out with Deskbound on how to stand up from the desk and change your life. He and wife Juliet run Stand Up Kids where they try and get standing desks in schools. To stop our kids from getting messed up like we did. They are super heroes. This is a big expensive book but if you are going to be harder to destroy it’s a must. It gives you the tools to make yourself better and more awesome. This one is a lock for the shelf.

Gifted to a friend. Zero complaints. They shared that the information, descriptions and even the photos are super helpful for comprehension and true understanding of pains and body mechanics.

I was borrowing my friend's copy of the first edition of this book and that was a great book. This version is even better. I could not be happier that I bought it. As a coach and trainer, everything in this book helps me help my athletes and clients. As a gym rat and CrossFitter, this book has saved my life. This is the best fitness/movement book I have ever read. The biggest differences between the first and second editions is that in the new edition there are sections where you can look for mobilizations based on the location of your pain (which includes mobilizations for muscle groups around the area that is hurting to address the causes of your pain which are not always simply an issue with that muscle group only), and there is an improved section based on muscle group you want to mobilize. Another thing I love is that there are little icons on the side of the mobilization pages that indicate what "architypes" (basically what exercises, movements, or positions) will be helped or improved by the mobilizations. Example: some shoulder mobilizations indicate that it will help your front rack position, overhead position, external rotation, etc. This book is perfect for people who want to know more about human movement but don't have an educational background in related subjects. It is very easy to understand and has a great balance between scientific writing and casual english so you can learn without getting frustrated about not knowing crazy terms and concepts related to exercise science and kinesiology. Overall an extremely good investment for anyone even if you're not an athlete or coach and just want to help yourself get rid of pesky pain from your job or lifestyle.

There is a lot more information in here than I thought. The actual quality of the book is top notch. Based on that, I get why its on the pricey side. Feels a lot like a college textbook. As far as content, I wish I had bought this when I first started lifting. After reading it, the first day I applied it to my workout, everything changed. My hips were tight from sitting too long the previous day and normally I would have chalked it up to being sore after squatting. Since it was Bench day, I would have normally just benched, which would have put my hips in a bad position, which would put my spine in a bad position, zap my leg drive, and cause my shoulders to roll forward, most likely giving me shoulder pain which I would have blamed on weak shoulders when all the while it was my hips that were the problem. So I did some hip mobility work, smashed the glutes and lower back. 15 minutes of that and I was a new man. Bench felt better than it had in a while and I deadlifted after, feeling great. I read some bad reviews on here but when put to the test it worked wonders for me. Im on board for doing daily mobility sessions now. 15 minutes is totally worth the way it makes you feel. Still have a ways to go. Turns out my knees and ankles have terrible mobility but this book will turn that around. $50 on this book is worth saving your joints after years of bad lifting. I'm extremely lucky I haven't completely blown anything out.

***I will update the review after I've completed the book and all stages of the 14-day mobility program. I'd like to determine if the recommendations of the book will provide lasting effects.*** Background, I'm a 29 year old male who spent 7 years in the Navy. 13 months of that in Afghanistan as an Expeditionary Combat Trainer/Mentor for the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police. I've got some lingering injuries that I'm getting tired of taking 800mg ibuprofen twice daily to manage. I purchased this book to potentially help isolate these issues and let me get back to powerlifting without fear of pain/injury. I powerlift. I put up great numbers and I do it within the confines of strict form and applied effort. No cheating. That said, I think Crossfit is a strange cult of strange behavior and dangerous movement. I put off buying this book because of all the purported crossfit demagoguery within. Good news is, this book is written in a clear and informative manner with the only crossfit nonsense being some of the rogue branded gear the author wears in the photographs. My biases lean toward EliteFTS, so take that as you will. As the headline says, prepare for rewarding pain. You're going to hurt yourself in ways a physical therapist or massage therapist cannot do to you. My joint pain/mobility problems are: left shoulder (Navy injury), right knee (Navy injury), right ankle (broken tibia/hairline fractured fibula, stage 3 sprained later), and occasional lower back tweaks/pain just above my pelvis attachment. Shoulder: My shoulder hurts very sharply when benching if I don't set my bench up PERFECTLY and even then, I can't do nearly as much weight as I should be able to because it always hurts and I'm afraid of reinjuring it. While doing some of the mobility exercises recommended in the book and burying a lacrosse ball in the posterior area of my shoulder, I a very painful and very hard lump. I assumed this was bone...until it crackled and moved loose. I proceeded to roll it out while whimpering and grunting. Once I stood up, I could rotate my shoulder around with a greater range of motion and with less pain. Not completely pain free yet, but its a marked improvement for 10 minutes of work on it. Great. Knee: Lacrosse ball to the hamstrings. Lots of sticky points, hotspots, and pain. Lots of pain. Also, lots of whimpering. The itchy/painful feeling and general crunchiness in my knee seems to have subsided, but I feel like it needs much more work from the glutes on down to alleviate what I'm feeling. Ankle: Working my bound up ankle was what I would assume to be my own personal hell on Earth. I've got lots of scar tissue buildup on the front of my ankle at the top of my foot. This acts (as the author says) as a doorstop preventing full flexion of my ankle and an inability to point my toes to my knee. It has also impeded full depth during squats. While doing the smash and floss method on the front of the ankle with the lacrosse ball, I assumed that ankles were supposed to have lots of little lumps and pain spots...you're smashing ligaments and tendons, right? Nope, turns out this was lots and lots of scar tissue. Sweet baby Jesus was this inconceivably painful. However, I've probably gain about 20% greater mobility in my ankle after just this one session. Ankle still hurts this next day, but some more ibuprofen is fixing that. At least it doesn't hurt as a result of binding up anymore. Lower Back: Haven't gotten to working it yet because after all the other work I felt like someone had beaten me with an aluminum bat and my back hurts the least of all my problems. Be prepared to spend some money on gear. Sure its cheaper than a chiropractor or therapist, but its still an outlay. I've got a bumpy roller, a smooth roller, a lacrosse ball. What I don't have that are recommended are: double lacrosse ball, little battlestar (can be subbed with a standard roller though), VooDoo bands, stretchy bands (no, rogue brand bands are not any better than others) and an assortment of other balls of varying density, pressure application ability, and size. So far, I'm pleased with the results I've had after a single session of rolling, smashing, and flossing my problem areas. After the 14-day mobility program in its various forms, I'm hoping for a greater improvement in my mobility and pain management.

Teaches you years of trial and error in days and is the most comprehensive and easy to use manual for diagnosing and treating minor injuries and tightness. I've used this and recommended it to clients for over a decade now and it remains the best of its kind. If you are living in a human body, you need to have this book.

This is an encyclopedic guide to movement wellness. A huge heavy book with lots of picture and how-to information that will guide the dedicated to wellness from a large variety of impairments to full motion. Kelly has done a magnificent job of assembling this information and has supplemented it with a full set of videos on YT. If you are SERIOUS about remedying your movement faults, optimizing your workout routine or addressing those chronic pains look no further. Be prepared, though, to spend a fair amount of quality time with this guide in order to incorporate it into your life.