Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Congruent Exercise - Part 1

It is rare that I am truly excited by a book, that writing will really stimulate me intellectually, with sets of ideas that connect and make sense.  I like it when that happens, when you find something "new" but which makes so much sense because it is not really new, it is obvious when you put the pieces together.  It is the logic of it I like, when things hold together in consistent ways.

Bill DeSimone's new book, Congruent Exercise, is exciting me!  I will put up a proper review in a few days, but I am really savouring it at the moment.  As I read each page there is a pencil in my hand and I am marking up key paragraphs.....then I find that I am marking the whole thing!

In this new book, Bill is covering much of the same material that was in his first book - Moment Arm Exercise - but he has refined his presentation and the whole argument is very clearly presented.

Moment Arm Exercise fascinated me and I used to study it like a text book, I still dig it out to check out the worth of different movements.  Congruent Exercise is more like a manifesto, a simple pulling together of premises to give a clear and logical prescription for exercise.  Safety is key to all this, designing movements that reflect proper joint and muscle function, informed not by "feel" or dogma, but anatomy and mechanics.

As I say, I'll put up a proper review in a few days, but for now suffice to say that this is the best book I've read this year.  You can get a copy at Bill's eBay store here, or read about the book on its Facebook Page.

I intereviewed Bill way back here and it is  interesting to see that some of the things we touched on in that interview are developed a bit in the new book - such as the role of postural muscles.


You can see some of his videos here.

1 comment:

Todd Hargrove said...

Just bought it!

I liked the first book too. Clear thinking.