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Ultimate Performance Consulting

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Human Kinetics Publications: If you are interested in purchasing one of the Human Kinetics publications, please click on the image of the book cover and you will be taken directly to the book's location on the Human Kinetics website where you can purchase the publication.  To find out more about Human Kinetics publications please click on the Human Kinetics logo.

Recommended Reading for Athletes

Must Reads for Golfers

Must Reads for Coaches & Officials

Must Reads for Golfers

Must Reads for Coaches & Officials

Must Reads for Athletes

& Performers

Must Reads for Students

Must Reads for Everyone

Must Reads for Students

Must Reads for Everyone

Book review: The books on this page either have been reviewed or are in the process of being reviewed by UPC.  If you have a book you would like to see recommended, please e-mail the suggestion to moilanen@ultimateperformanceconsulting.com.

Integrating concentration, confidence, mental imagery, and energy regulation at practice with softball-specific drills will result in players reaching their potential far sooner than practicing any of these aspects alone. Applying the information in Focused for Fastpitch is the best way to gain the advantage.

Boost your energy, manage stress, build muscle, lose fat, and improve your performance with the all-time best-selling sports nutrition guide! Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook will help you make the right food choices in grocery stores, restaurants, drive-throughs, and your own kitchen. Whether you’re preparing for competition or simply eating on the go, let sport's leading nutritionist show you how to get maximum benefit from the foods you choose and the meals you make. You’ll learn how to eat before exercise and events as well as how to refuel afterward for optimal recovery. Updated and on the cutting edge, the fourth edition includes the latest sports nutrition research on hydration and fluid intake, vitamins, supplements, energy drinks, organic foods, and the role of carbohydrate and protein during exercise. You’ll also learn about the new food pyramid and the American Heart Association’s latest dietary guidelines.

Golfers at all levels benefit from golf-specific training. This expert program begins with evaluation and moves through targeted strength, power, core, and flexibility exercises. Pete Draovitch, personal trainer and physical therapist to PGA star Greg Norman, and Ralph Simpson, former physical therapist and trainer on the PGA Tour fitness van, have teamed up to create a comprehensive program to help you in these areas: Generate explosive power for increased driving distances. Improve flexibility for a more fluid and precise swing. Build muscular endurance for greater shot control through the final hole. Maintain strength and flexibility from round to round and throughout the year. Prevent common injuries. Return to the course quickly with modified rehab exercises.

Finally, a book that delves into the warped and obsessive mind of today’s golfer. Whether your idea of golf is an occasional round with fellow duffers at the local muni or frequent forays to far-flung courses in search of the perfect round, you’ll identify with this book like no other. Popular golf humorist George Fuller will have you laughing as he makes light of the idiosyncrasies of otherwise sane people who are addicted to this holy, wholly frustrating game. I Golf, Therefore I Am—Nuts! brings out the humor in situations that all golfers can relate to: Looking for Mulligan, the patron saint of forgiveness The hype architects and developers use when describing a new course Quirks, quips, and superstitions from the PGA Tour If your eyes light up every time you read about a new driver, your TiVo has golf programming that originally aired in 2004, you receive holiday cards from greenskeepers, or your golf wardrobe doubles as business casual, then I Golf, Therefore I Am—Nuts! is for you.

Sports in American History: From Colonization to Globalization journeys from the early American past to the present to give students a compelling grasp of the historical evolution of American sporting practices. This text provides students with insights that will allow them to develop new and alternative perspectives, examine sport as a social and cultural phenomenon, generate a better understanding of current sport practices, and consider future developments in sport in American life. This expansive text is the most comprehensive resource on sport history, providing coverage of sport by historical periods—from the indigenous tribes of premodern America, through colonial societies, to the era of sport in the United States today. Unlike previous sport history texts, Sports in American History examines how women, minorities, and ethnic and religious groups have influenced U.S. sporting culture. This gives students a broader knowledge of the complexities of sport, health, and play in the American experience and how historical factors, such as gender, ethnicity, race, and religion, provide a more complete understanding of sports in American history.

Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Fourth Edition, the new edition of the best-selling sport and exercise psychology book on the market, continues to provide a thorough introduction to the key concepts in the field. Written by internationally respected authors, it provides students and new practitioners with a comprehensive view of sport and exercise psychology, bridges the gap between research and practice, conveys principles of professional practice, and captures the excitement of the world of sport and exercise.

Sport Psychology for Coaches provides information that coaches need to help athletes build mental toughness and achieve excellence—in sport and in life. As a coach, you’ll gain a big-picture perspective on the mental side of sport by examining how athletes act, think, and feel when they practice and compete. You’ll learn to use such mental tools as goal setting, imagery, relaxation, energization, and self-talk to help your athletes build mental training programs. You’ll also see how assisting your athletes in developing mental skills such as motivation, energy management, focus, stress management, and self-confidence leads to increased enjoyment, improved life skills, and enhanced performance. And you’ll discover how to put it all together into mental plans and mental skills training programs that allow your athletes to attain and maintain a mind-set that fosters peak performance.

Reach your potential! Whether you are an athlete, a coach, or a promising high achiever in another walk of life, In Pursuit of Excellence provides the expert advice and proven techniques to help you fulfill your aspirations. Author Terry Orlick, an internationally acclaimed sport psychologist, has helped hundreds of Olympic and professional athletes maximize their performances and achieve their goals. In this fourth edition, Orlick provides new insights and a powerful step-by-step plan for you to develop your own personal path to excellence. You’ll learn to focus for excellence and high-quality living. You’ll gain a more positive outlook, a more focused commitment, better ways of dealing with distractions, and strategies for overcoming obstacles. You’ll also achieve greater personal and professional satisfaction and discover better ways to work with teammates, respond more effectively to coaching, and become more self-directed in your thoughts and actions

Overtraining Athletes: Personal Journeys in Sport seeks to communicate the complex subject of overtraining to help athletes, coaches, parents, and sport science professionals understand the dangers of overtraining and take steps toward prevention. Using history and research, current experts’ perspectives, and athletes’ personal experiences, Overtraining Athletes identifies forces that push athletes to overtrain by sharing the struggles of those athletes and the sport professionals who seek to help them. The text employs a nonlinear structure, allowing the flexibility to sample chapters from each of its four parts based on interest and level of knowledge about the topic. By presenting the phenomenon of overtraining from a variety of perspectives and with varying degrees of technicality, the book engages a wide range of readers while presenting significant research and studies in the area. Each of the four parts of the text displays a distinct method for discovering how overtraining affects athletes, coaches, parents, and professionals.

Busy youth sport administrators are sure to appreciate this all-in-one resource for training coaches, parents, and officials! The ASEP Youth Sport Training Kit brings together six of the American Sport Education Program’s most successful training videos into one comprehensive 100-minute DVD:

That’s the question author Shaun Powell poses and ultimately answers with regard to the nature of blacks’ participation in American sports. Neither blacks nor whites—athletes, coaches, administrators, owners, media, parents, and yes, even fans—are without blame for race still being an issue in the athletic arena. And Powell, perhaps like you, is fed up with the excuses. Souled Out? boldly addresses the following dilemmas and more: Do today’s black athletes and coaches have the purpose to follow the leads of pioneers like Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson, Robert Johnson, or Tony Dungy? Is Muhammad Ali’s great legacy being misused to justify the behavior of today’s prima donnas and their preconceived, self-centered celebrations? Why, with tremendous models like Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Venus and Serena Williams, and Candace Parker, is black female participation not more encouraged across a wide array of sports? Are portrayals of professional black athletes, centered on gaining luxury possessions and material wealth rather than giving back to the community, ensuring that a me-first mind-set carries over to the next generation of athletes? Will more blacks break through the glass ceiling in coaching and sports management positions to achieve strong decision-making roles? Can negative attitudes about race, held by segments inside and outside the black community, be overcome so that faster and enduring progress can be made in the future? Powell’s answers will surprise, anger, please, and—most of all—challenge you.

Coaching young players, developing their skills, and cultivating a love for the sport may be the most rewarding experience baseball can offer. Cal and Bill Ripken understand this like few others. From their father, Cal Sr., a legend in the Baltimore Orioles organization for 37 years, they learned to play the game the right way. Those lessons, paired with their combined 33 years of big league experience, helped develop the Ripken Way, a method of teaching the game through simple instruction, solid explanations, encouragement, and a positive atmosphere. In Coaching Youth Baseball the Ripken Way, Cal and Bill share this approach to coaching and development.

If you’re like most who have joined the coaching ranks, establishing team policies may not be as exciting or come as naturally as planning and conducting practices, drawing up new plays, or coaching on competition day. But out of everything you do as a coach, it may have the greatest impact on your program. Your policies reflect your expectations for behavior and ramifications for misbehavior, the values you promote in your sport programs, and who you are as a coach. It’s a task not to be taken lightly. So where do you start? Coaches’ Guide to Team Policies provides you with everything you need to create a comprehensive and fair set of policies that address players, coaches, parents, support staff, and others in your sport programs. The nearly 200 policies presented are organized around six moral values: respect, responsibility, caring, honesty, fairness, and good citizenship. Two variations of each policy are presented, one taking a strict stance and one taking a more general approach

Today’s players are bigger, stronger, and faster than ever before. A focused conditioning program has become essential to on-the-field success. Complete Conditioning for Baseball features a comprehensive training approach that builds players’ physical abilities as well as the baseball-specific skills their positions require. Steve Tamborra, strength and conditioning coach for 60 AP Collegiate All-Americans, 16 first-round draft picks, and more than 100 athletes drafted by professional sports teams, provides exercises, drills, and programs designed to improve the essential elements of the sport—strength, power, speed, agility, and quickness. His programs will help you in these areas: Generate more power at the plate. Strengthen and protect your pitching arm. Increase the velocity of throws. Expand your range in the field. Improve quickness on the base paths

You volunteered to coach the basketball team, but are you really ready? How will you teach the fundamental skills, run effective practices, or harness the energy of your young team? Fear not: Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball has the answers. In Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball, longtime coaches Keith Miniscalco and Greg Kot share their experience and provide advice you can rely on from first practice to final shot. From evaluating players’ skills and establishing realistic goals to using in-game coaching tips, it’s all here—the drills, the plays, the fun. Develop your team’s dribbling, passing, shooting, and rebounding skills with the Survival Guide’s collection of the game’s best youth drills. For plays and sets that young teams can actually run, flip to the Survival Guide’s offensive and defensive playbook. And to get the most out of every practice, follow the ready-to-use practice plans.

Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Steve Nash, Diana Taurasi, and other great players past and present share a special grasp of what is needed in every situation on the court and how to maximize their own effectiveness as well as that of their team. Teams coached by John Wooden, Phil Jackson, Pat Summitt, and Mike Krzyzewski won many championships because of their coaches’ amazing ability to teach, motivate, discipline, and unite players to perform to their potential individually and as a group. Court Sense highlights all those qualities that make players and teams great, and it provides practical ways to improve any area that might be lacking. The first half of the book covers all the basics a player must have in place, on and off the court, in order to excel. The second half features the six Cs that are crucial to on-court performance: coachability, communication, cohesion, capacity to lead, competitiveness, and concentration.