A fascinating cultural history of fitness, from Greek antiquity to the era of the "big-box gym" and beyond, exploring the ways in which human exercise has changed over time—and what we can learn from our ancestors.We humans have been conditioning our bodies for more than 2,500 years, yet it's only recently that treadmills and weight machines have become the gold standard of fitness. For all this new technology, are we really healthier, stronger, and more flexible than our ancestors...

In its first English-language edition, this detailed training manual is a complete guide to Gao baguazhang, as preserved through the lineage of Liu Fengcai. The youngest of the major bagua lineages, Gao bagua shows the influence of taiji quan, xingyi quan, and shuai jiao. It incorporates traditional bagua weapons, pre-heaven palms, and animal forms in addition to sixty-four individual post-heaven palms and their accompanying two-person forms. A unique synthesis of health-building technique...

By 1971 no Lions team had ever defeated the All Blacks in a Test series. Since 1904, six Lions sides had travelled to New Zealand and all had returned home bruised, battered and beaten. But the 1971 tour party was different. It was full of young, ambitious and outrageously talented players who would all go on to carve their names into the annals of sporting history during a golden period in British and Irish rugby. And at their centre was Carwyn Jones – an intelligent, sensitive rugby mast...

Hockey lovers will be fascinated by the truth about how the National Hockey League was founded and how, through less than savory means, it captured permanent possession of the Stanley Cup.Deceptions and Doublecross begins with the 1917 conspiracy among a Montreal contingent of the National Hockey Association to oust Toronto owner Edward James Livingstone from the league. The result was the transformation of the NHA into the NHL, with Frank Calder as president, leaving Livi...

“An intimate portrait of a man whose life off the field was equally as captivating as his unparalleled baseball career.”—Yankees MagazineBorn into a small-town California ranching family, Vernon “Lefty” Gomez rode his powerful arm and jocular personality across America to the dugout of the New York Yankees. Lefty baffled hitters with his blazing fastball, establishing himself as the team’s ace. Now, drawing on countless conversations with Lefty, more than ...

A best selling book on my top 25 picks on what’s Best About Sports wouldn’t be complete without a complementary book on my top 25 choices on what’s Worst About Sports.As I penned in my previous book - Best About Sports - the subject of sports always triggers debate.Pick a player, celebrate a team or remember a championship moment, regardless of the sport, and I guarantee that a lively discussion will quickly follow.In a relative’s living r...

It might seem at first thought that, considering the great number of books on golf that have already been written by the most famous masculine players and students of the game, a book especially for women is unnecessary, and cannot hope to compare in usefulness with the dicta of the great ones who have so amply set forth the facts concerning their theories and their practices. There is another aspect of the subject, however, that has for some time appealed strongly both to my reason and to...

Since the inception of the National Hockey League on November 26, 1917, the sport of hockey has been one of the most popular games across the globe.After the National Hockey Association (NHA), which had been founded in 1909, ceased operations, the NHL took over and became a mainstay for the sport. While there had been teams that dated back to the 1800s and many that came and went through the years, there are six teams which are considered to be the Original or Traditional Six: the ...

College football is a sport of rivalries—and no two teams were ever more perfectly matched than the Miami Hurricanes and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. In Perfect Rivals, award-winning sportswriter Jeff Carroll takes us inside the locker rooms and onto the gridiron, as two storied programs with very different cultures battle for national supremacy, school pride, and the soul of the game itself.Beginning with the Hurricanes’ nationally televised 58–7 pasting of the Irish at the Oran...

The Olympic Games have had two lives—the first lasted for a millennium with celebrations every four years at Olympia to honour the god Zeus. The second has blossomed over the past century, from a simple start in Athens in 1896 to a dazzling return to Greece in 2004. Onward to the Olympics provides both an overview and an array of insights into aspects of the Games’ history. Leading North American archaeologists and historians of sport explore the origins of the Games, compare the ...

A book on the club like no other, The Hibernian FC Miscellany is packed with facts, stats, trivia, stories and legends. From a European Cup semi-final to the Famous Five, from beating Barcelona and Real Madrid to losing to Stranraer and Edinburgh City, it's all here. Can you really afford not to own a copy? Did You Know? There have been four Willie Millers to don the famous green and white jersey for Hibs. Hibs legend Eddie Turnbull only received his Scotland cap ...

The city of Columbus, Ohio, had always struggled to support any professional sports franchise. It’s a town where Ohio State University reigns supreme, and everything else is less important. That was until 1991, when the Columbus Chill, a minor-league hockey franchise, arrived. Using Veeckian marketing tactics and on-ice shenanigans, the Chill became the talk of the city and gained a religious local fan base. Based on the success of the Chill, from 199199, the city of Columbus was awarded ...