SPORTSPOWER: A Comprehensive Program to Put Power, Speed, and Endurance Into Your Game

Weight training as a sport-in-itself and a supplement to all others--without preposterous claims and with enough extra tips on physiology, diet, and such to make this one of the more interesting exercise guides. The Carneses stress that ""the exercises used to enhance performance in a specific sport must to a certain degree simulate the movements and the strength and endurance requirements of that sport"" (i.e., heavy bench presses will not help you run marathons). Here, they set out instructions for a general conditioning routine, and then recommendations for regimens to support various other sports. The former--of benefit to everyone--consists of a pretraining program (to overcome weak spots and injured areas), followed by exercises for building strength, speed, and endurance of major muscle groups, and ""cluster-training"" for specific muscle groups. Then, basketball and volleyball enthusiasts can concentrate on ankles, knees, hips, and coordination, while golfers work on the arms, upper body, and torso. The diet advice is brief but sensible (far-out diets have no place in athletic training); the descriptions of body types (by build and muscle makeup) can help predict what sports an individual will enjoy. The big drawback, as with all weight programs, is the amount and complexity of equipment needed--especially since all the benefits can be gotten with other regimens. But for those attracted to weight training, the Carneses offer a reasonable, unfanatical program, better suited to novices than the Frank and Christine Zane and Mike Mentzer entries.