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Anonymous
Posted October 10, 2004
THIS MEANS YOU! (TOO)!
The title of Anita Goa¿s ¿Your Best Body Ever¿ captures the spirit of her book: hope, ambition, seriousness, and reward. You or I might hope for just a better body, but this book quietly and practically encourages us to go for the best. Her method for doing this, starting with a base of yoga, and building through posture, core strength and breathing, is of value to people starting at all different levels. Everyone has a physical preference: stretching in front of the TV or in a pool; running or biking or swimming for the cardio oriented; lifting weights and strength work for serious athletes and people whose joints have taken them out of contact sports. Rarely, though, do people manage effectively on all fronts: flexibility, strength and aerobic fitness. The Goa system guides you through all three. This is not a fancy coffee table book with Mapplethorpe photographs of celebrity models, nor is it a twist-by-twist big picture exhibition by some impossibly contorted gymnast / yogini. This is a book you can use. There are modest, informative pictures of final positions, accompanied by a clear step-by-step description of about how to get there, what to concentrate on, and how it should feel. And, for the yoga poses, there is stage-by-stage direction shown by charming orange ¿stick figures¿ that capture the heart of each movement surprising well! The book spends a little more time on detailing the yoga elements which will be less familiar to the general reader, but concentrates in the strength and aerobic sections on integrating breathing, balance, and focus into those parts of the workout with which readers may otherwise be familiar. Uniquely, at every step the correspondences between different yoga poses, resistance exercises and cardio activities are explained and interrelated. This enables the reader to understand why she or he is doing what s/he does. No review of this book would be complete without noting the wry humor and quiet enthusiasm of the author meant for the general reader. I think Anita Goa¿s experience as a personal trainer shows here. Apparently believing that if you want to have your best body ever you cannot expect a ¿free lunch,¿ she manages to place a little anecdote here and a little observation there to keep you company and lighten the implicitly no nonsense / no wasted effort approach she takes. (How can you get frustrated with a little orange stick figure?). You feel as if she is there with you. So, even though I have not yet achieved the great weight loss of one of the success stories mentioned in the introduction, I notice I am standing straighter, have a little more spring in my step, and feel like I¿m on the right track. I recommend this book to people at all levels of fitness seeking to start or re-energize their efforts to look and feel fine!
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Anonymous
Posted October 7, 2004
This Means You
The title of Anita Goa¿s ¿Your Best Body Ever¿ captures the spirit of her enterprise: hope, ambition, seriousness, and reward. You or I might hope for just a better body, but this book quietly and practically encourages us to go for the best. Her method for doing this, starting with a base of yoga, and building through posture, core strength and breathing, is of value to people starting at all different levels. Everyone has a physical preference: stretching in front of the TV or in a pool; running or biking or swimming for the cardio oriented; lifting weights and strength work for serious athletes and people whose joints have taken them out of sports. Rarely, though, do people manage effectively on all fronts: flexibility, strength and aerobic fitness. The Goa system guides you through all three. And, as you get older, you find flexibility becomes more and more important. Like many folks who used to do a demanding sport, I had retired to periods of doing lots of running, bouts of weight of training, and, oh yes, lots of injuries. Here an ankle, there a hamstring, then the occasional bad back and, and every boomer¿s friend, middle-age spread. So, even though the author suggests that if you are already active you can skip to the second or third of the three levels she takes her reader through, I found it helpful to go back to the basics and start with Level One. Even if you can push around a fair amount of weight or run five miles on any given day, you may find that standing on one foot in ¿tree pose¿ or looking over your opposite shoulder with one hand on the floor is surprisingly challenging. Or you may find it very hard to manage the stepper breathing only through your nose without the TV or a magazine to distract you. And if you are as fit as you think, Level Two and Level Three await! This is not a fancy coffee table book with Mapplethorpe photographs of celebrity models, or a twist by twist big picture exhibition by some impossibly contorted gymnast / yogini. There are modest pictures of final positions, accompanied by clear step by step directions about how to get there, what to concentrate on, and how it should feel. And, for the yoga poses, there is step by step direction shown by charming orange ¿stick figures¿ that capture the heart of each movement surprising well! The book spends a little more time on detailing the yoga elements which will be less familiar to the general reader, but concentrates in the strength and aerobic sections on integrating breathing, balance, and focus into those parts of the workout with which readers may otherwise be familiar. Uniquely, at every step the correspondences between different yoga poses, resistance exercises and cardio activities are explained and interrelated. For this reason I suspect the book may first reach an audience of personal trainers who will recognize its value and use it with their clients before it finds it rightful place with the general public. Which would be a shame, because a review of this book would be incomplete without noting the wry humor and quiet enthusiasm of the author. I think the Anita Goa¿s experience as a personal trainer shows here. Apparently believing that if you want to have your best body ever you cannot expect a ¿free lunch,¿ she manages to place a little anecdote here and a little observation there, to keep you company and lighten the no nonsense / no wasted effort approach she implicitly takes. (How can you get frustrated with a little orange stick figure?). You feel as if she is there with you. So, even though I have not yet achieved the great weight loss of one of the success stories mentioned in the introduction, I notice I am standing straighter, have a little more spring in my step, and feel like I¿m on the right track. I recommend this book to people at all levels of fitness who looking to reenergize their efforts.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.