Functional Training Handbook By Craig Liebenson

Posted by Hans Lindgren DC on 27 September 2014 | 0 Comments

Tags: Worth reading

Craig Liebenson has once again produced a great read which I would recommend to everybody who is interested in functional training.

The book is a unique amalgamation of highly reputed practitioners and coaches/trainers. Craig has done a marvellous job getting so many of the leaders of the rehab/performance field to contribute with their extensive knowledge and experience. Besides Craig himself, contributors include: Pavel Kolar, Michael Boyle, Eric Cressey, Sue Falsone, Stuart McGill, Clayton Skaggs, Charlie Wiengroff, Chad Waterbury, and Michael Reinold - just to mention a few of the big names involved in the creation of this book.

Covering a broad spectrum of specific sports, the book details the individual challenges involved in improving performance, preventing injuries, and rehabilitation for each of the sports covered, as well as providing generic functional strategies of benefit to everybody.

It was very interesting to see how well the DNS concept from the Prague School has been incorporated into many of the different approaches, which is understandable since so many of the contributors are trained in DNS.

This book explains the advantage of an athlete centred model where practitioners, trainers and coaching staff are collaborating to meet the specific needs of each individual athlete and sport.

The importance and methods of evaluations and assessments to identify an individual athlete’s weak link is explained, as well as approaches to correct the identified flaws in movement patterns.

General strength and conditioning is extensively covered, as well as more area specific conditioning approaches to prevent injuries in the most commonly affected regions of the body.

Craig has authored quite a few chapters either by himself or in collaboration with others, and his  “Principles of Athletic Development” and “Coaching Fundamentals” chapters demonstrate his deep understanding and interest in these rather complicated topics.

Another very cool feature is an interactive eBook version (included) which can be downloaded and read on most devices, and enables readers to have easy access to the material from mobile devices whenever desired.

The “Functional Training Handbook” is a great publication and I want to congratulate Craig for producing yet another cutting edge publication that will make an important addition to the knowledge library of any coach/practitioner looking to improve their understanding of the functional approach to training and rehabilitation.