Ballistic The new science of injury-free athletic performance

Exploring a new way of keeping fit. Founded by Marcus Elliott, the Peak Performance Project (known as P3) has a clientele that includes an impressive array of big-name athletes. In this enthusiast's account, journalist Abbott spends much of the book detailing how players have used the athletic training facilities to recover from--or train themselves to prevent--injuries. The book chronicles the development of P3's methods as Elliott realized that many athletic injuries are the result of something happening elsewhere in the body--a weakness in an ankle or hip muscle causing a knee injury. So rehabbing the injury doesn't prevent reinjury--a lesson the trainers and coaches of professional teams were reluctant to hear. But the use of force plates to measure the intensity of an athlete's landing from a jump, or motion-detection cameras to analyze body movement in fine detail, gave P3 a level of data that allowed Elliott and his staff to often predict an athlete's susceptibility to injuries that could end a career--and train them to stay healthy. This meant that, despite the resistance from the athletic establishment, many top stars in sports ranging from beach volleyball to ice hockey have made P3--based in Santa Barbara, California--an integral part of their off-season preparation. Basketball players in particular, whose game involves frequent jumps and sudden changes of direction, regularly use P3. Elliott advocates challenging the body to move, a belief he puts into practice in adventures that put the system to extreme tests, from body surfing in the Pacific to jumping from high rocks into pools below waterfalls. The book includes a number of exercises drawn from P3's repertoire, which some readers may be inclined to try for themselves. This will particularly appeal to fans of basketball and fitness enthusiasts; others may find it on the adulatory side. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.