Physiotherapy April 2001/vol 87/no 4

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Slack, New Jersey2000 (ISBN 1 55642 431 0). 258 pages

by Denise Wiksten and Carolyn Peters £20.50The authors of this book believe that it is important for athletic trainers to have a multifaceted educationalbackground. However, this is not always the case, and intheir view areas of neglect include nutrition, strength andendurance training, and the needs of special populations.Based on this premise they attempt to redress the balance inthe current text.

The book is written by athletic trainers for athletictrainers, the style being easy to understand, and pitched atan undergraduate level. Following an introductory chapteron the background of athletic trainers in the United Statesand some safety and legal issues, the book is divided into sections on strength training, endurance training,nutritional aids, injury prevention and managementtechniques and finally a section on sport-specific strengthtraining programmes. The chapters on the whole follow alogical sequence apart from a small contribution to speedtraining techniques which comes towards the end of thesection on endurance training. It is not intended for thebook to be read from cover to cover but to provide readerswith an easily accessible source on specific topics.

The content is stereotypical of many of the conditioningbooks on the market, with basic principles being followed.For those practitioners who are dealing with recreationalathletes the book may serve as a refresher, however thedepth and detail are limited and would not contribute

to the knowledge base of practitioners dealing with high-performance athletes.

Current issues of controversy are not addressed, such asthe role of stretching in a warm-up, the emphasis being on stretches of a static nature. Also, from a sport-specificperspective, aspects of dynamic stretching are not discussedand basic principles of open and closed kinetic chains are omitted. Notwithstanding this, in the chapter onsupplemental routines and descriptions, many functionalclosed kinetic chain exercises are detailed, severaldescriptions benefiting from the supporting photographicillustrations. Likewise, the appendix provides an alpha-betical list of weightlifting descriptions; however I hopethese would serve only to refresh experienced practitioners,as the implementation of these techniques by novices purelyon the back of these descriptions would be hazardous.

The contribution made by Mark Kern in the section onnutritional aids is excellent and two concise chapters providean easily understandable overview of pertinent areas, namely hydration, carbohydrate and supplements.

The final chapter on sport-specific programmes is vast andcovers a wide range of sports at various stages of the season.The sessions provide practitioners with a platform on whichto build; however I echo the same concerns as above when it comes to some of the Olympic style lifts.

In summary, the text may serve as a reference point forbasic principles, and could prove to be useful for thosewishing to gain some insight into the role of an athletictrainer, providing a foundation on which more specialistbooks can build.

Richard Hawkins BSc MSc PhD

The Athletic Trainer’s Guide toStrength and Endurance Training

Human Kinetics, Leeds2000 (ISBN 0 7360 0312 6). 324 pages

edited by Jean Jobin, François Maltais, Pierre LeBlanc andClermont Simard £39.50The title of this book does not adequately reflect its content.It is a product of the first Quebec International Symposiumon Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation in 1999. Contributorsto the symposium were invited to submit papers consideringvarious current controversies within the field and this text is a collection of these. This explains the apparent diversityof subject matter and superficial lack of structure to carryreaders through the book.

It is however very interesting and it adds anotherdimension to the increasing volume of books on this topic.The information given is not new; instead there is morecommentary and discussion which is useful for readers

seeking a deeper understanding of the various topics. It ishowever designed more as a reference text for individualswith an already well developed knowledge of the area, whoare searching for further commentary on specific topics,than as a primary text.

The book itself is very much anchored in the realities ofthe 21st century, discussing funding constraints, the role ofsecondary prevention and the need to develop services topatients with cardiac failure. The contributors are of veryhigh calibre and this adds to the overall interest.

A major difficulty with the text is that when looking toaddress cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation side by side,the subject material quickly becomes too broad for arelatively small book. This is however more a product of theorganisation of rehabilitation interest groups outside theUnited Kingdom.

The book remains a useful and very readable referencetext.

Beverley Harden MSc MCSP

Advances in CardiopulmonaryRehabilitation