Reddit mentions: The best books about pilates

The weight loss can be done without any exercise. Or starvation. That 50lbs is really putting a huge strain on an already strained spine.

If you have access to a warm pool, that is a great way to get some gentle movement and stretching, and it feels good. Obviously you should stay away from any impact activities.

I promise you - with a healthy diet you can lose those 50lbs without doing a single minute of exercise.

I strongly recommend you strengthen your core. You have to. Your abdominal and back muscles have become very, very weak.

I used this book at home. I just plop a yoga mat on the ground. Its helped a LOT. It will take a lot of patience and of course you should modify the exercises to start off very gently and do nothing that causes a major flare up. A mild flare up may be unavoidable. The first three months for me were awful - but, I didn't need to push as hard as I did.

Its very important that if you have not already, really learn how the core muscles function together to support and stabilize your spine. This book is by far the best with explanations and plenty of exercises you can do on your own. Quality is far more important than quantity. I downloaded it to my ipad and do them 3x a week.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pilates-Anatomy-Rael-Isacowitz/dp/0736083863/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452832285&sr=8-1&keywords=pilates+anatomy

The illustrations are perfect and the first few chapters focus on teaching you what muscles get affected, how important core strength and posture is, when and how to breath during the exercises, etc. Most books just throw up a 2 page "strong core is important" blurb then put up exercises but without giving you any idea of which muscles you should be focusing on, or how to do it properly.

I know you are suffering, and I truly hope it gets better, but you will feel better if you start doing these home exercises a few times a week and overhaul your diet. For me, it was like I had some semblance of control. And as you get stronger, you'll be pleasantly surprised with how much stronger your core can get.

(Note: My spinal vertebrae and nerves are damaged due to tumors and radiation, and I cannot support my own healthy body weight when I stand up without experiencing instant, agonizing levels of pain. These are floor exercises (I can't do the twisting ones) so its certainly do-able. Also, if you don't already, read up on gently stretching that would be helpful for your particular condition.)

Best of luck.

In general I have had a hard time coming by any training/exercise books with just as high a quality as overcoming gravity.I have also heard a lot of praise for Becoming a Supple Leopard, but the little I have read of it (some of the crossfit boxes I come at have it for the members to use) had not really been my style.I have instead opted to incorporate Yoga in my mobility and flexibility routine, mostly because I like doing Ashtanga yoga but seldom have the time for it.Here a lot of the theoretical stuff on building a training and such from overcoming gravity has proved helpfull in combination with Power Yoga for Athletes, as I have been able to create my own practice. There are also a lot pre-made practice in the book. Every pose is well described as well as showing where the stretches are and even giving advice to which sports it will benefit (I do however believe that you need to create a practice which works the whole body instead of only doing things which will benefit a certain sport). Edit Note, remember yoga is not about getting into the exact same position (as one who has practiced for years) or look good, but to feel the stretch, then it dos not matter how far you go, it will come with time.

In addition to this I have relied on youtube, here Tom Merrick have a lot of good videos on stretching, mobility and flexibility. Emmet Louis has some good videos, especially on shoulder and overhead mobility.And if you want to take an approach more in a yoga style I will recommend Saturno Movement.

Right now I am following a yoga program by Saturno Movement through his academy (paid web platform) and like it, but I would look into the other things to see if they fit my need before signing up for it, especially if you only feel that mobility and flexibility are the only areas you need more guidance/inspiration in.

I know you said one, but I'm going to recommend two books as a totally comprehensive study. The first is Light on Yoga because it's a complete compendium of all the asanas you'll ever want to do with step by step instructions. However there a no modifications in the book itself.

For that, I highly recommend Your Body Your Yoga by Bernie Clark. (https://www.amazon.com/Your-Body-Yoga-Alignment-Skillful/dp/0968766536/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486140527&sr=8-1&keywords=your+body+your+yoga)
It's an extremely thorough explanation of body mechanics and is enlightening for figuring out how and why your body moves and how to listen to make sure your modifying asanas so they work best for you.

Between the two, you'll have an understanding of asana and how to make them work for you. If you're savvy, you should be able to get both books slightly used, or even new for about $20 (check abebooks.com and amazon 3rd party sellers).

Lastly, if you're truly on a budget and can't afford to get both at once, or want to preview the books before you buy, check out your library. Even if they don't own the books, you should be able to request them through interlibrary loan. This is what I did, I think I borrowed over 20 books over the course of 3 months and eventually settled on the two I mentioned above as a "complete" home yoga library that I use regularly.

As a novice (read: getting back into) in the weightroom, basically anything you do will improve your fitness level.

You're likely going to want to invest time in learning mobility and maintenance drills. That book will also help you correct form faults in the Olympic and other bigger lifts. If you get any book in this post, get the one mentioned in this paragraph.

Clean and Snatch variations for explosive power. Squat and Deadlift are full-body workouts. You can't clean more than you deadlift, so think of squat and deadlift as your strength leaders while clean and snatch are your explosive exercises. Since you're just starting 3setsx5reps is a good place to start.

Get into yoga or Pilates on the ball to work your core muscles.

You're going to want to work your shoulders, so side/front raises, etc. Triceps/biceps (If you work one side, work the other at least for balance) are important so dips or tricep extensions are useful as are pullups/chinups. Pushups and/or bench press variations.

Don't do jump training (which are Plyometrics)[1][2][3] until you have a strength base in your squat of 1.5x-2x your bodyweight. This is partially because plyos don't build strength, they train the CNS for the stretch-shortening cycle and your "explosiveness", so to speak, is a percentage of your strength (a loose guide of maximum strength is how much weight you can safely squat). Learn how to use plyos before actually doing them. They are fairly low rep, full-recovery type exercises. Maybe 100 jumps in a training session (remember, this are meant to be trained more explosively than the 300+ jumps in a match and your CNS gets tired).

Essentially look at the movements you're performing and do the exercises that fit. The big lifts (cleans/snatches/squats/deadlifts) will teach you how to set your body when jumping. You need to twist your core to start your swing to hit a ball, you'll need to have a stable shoulder so that you can finish your swing up through your pec/tricep/forearm.

If you're interested in learning more about squatting, etc this book is as good a place to any to start, but the book mentioned in the first paragraph can get you started as well.

[1] Basic Plyos

[2] More Plyos

[3] Higher Level Plyos

here are 4 i found online, all under $20:

Real Men Do Yoga: amazon

The Athlete's Guide to Yoga: amazon again

Power Yoga for Athletes: guess what it's amazon (This one looks especially good for healing injury type things)

Wear and Tear: Stop the Pain and Put the Spring Back in Your Body: yknow (So I know this is kinda for an older age group but it looks really good for joint pain)

Hope these help :)

I just thought of another book to recommend: Joanna Field's A Life of One's Own. I thought of it because you offered a trick to draw a straight line: focusing your mind and eye on the destination and letting the unconscious take care of the details (which is what brought Wilson's book to mind). Field describes a variety of such tricks to get the mind to engage in certain ways: mental dodges that result in a change in engagement. Difficult to describe in general terms, but you'll see what I mean.

Joseph Pilates writes in the introduction to A Pilates Primer: The Millennium Edition (in the florid style of his generation) of how "Contrology", which was his name for the discipline, gives a person control over his/her muscles and body. To gain that control, the brain develops new synapses and pathways. I talk about it some in this post, but for more you can browse through my various Pilates posts. Those provide a record over time of what I noted about Pilates.

So what you're describing, doing pilates on BWF rest days, is what I initially set out to do. The problem with Pilates is that the better you get at it, the more taxing it becomes. Eventually I just couldn't recover successfully.

What I do now is 4 days a week of Pilates. I do squats first as a warm up for pilates, then do my pilates workout, incorporating some BWF movements in at the end. For example, the last movement of the Pilates traditional mat sequence is pushups, so that is easy to work in. I also do pullups at the end as well. Two days a week I finish off with wind sprints.

I don't do anything for core, because why would you need to? All in all it is working extremely well. I feel very strong, much more flexible, and don't have any of those nagging pains that I used to deal with.

If you really want to get going serious into pilates, I highly recommend the book linked below:

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Pilates-Men-Performance/dp/0060820772

Pilates Anatomy book is a good reference for every exercise, Rael Isacowitz goes into a lot of detail though I'm not sure he mentions imprint in every exercise. I've linked to the book on Amazon but there's a free PDF floating around online.

As you're in the UK, you may remember that when Pilates got some attention years ago the main variant that was all over the place was "Body Control" fronted by Lynne Robinson. You can see a lot of her stuff's been uploaded to Youtube. I tried it for a while so remember that her bio was that she had big back problems and she took up Pilates and actually got a few inches taller. Since you can't really grow in adulthood (despite what many dodgy websites say) it was mostly about Pilates straightening her spine which wasn't straight.

From what I've seen from online videos, not all Pilates is the same because Body Control seemed to put a greater emphasis on very strictly engaging the core muscles before doing anything and constantly lengthening the spine, so that particular version might be worth a look though it is a very slow and boring version. I see there's a specific Back book on Amazon by Robinson but know nothing about it.