My Favorite Books For Sports Healthcare Providers
Dive deep into movement, therapy, and holistic health with my favorite books packed with insights on manual therapy, the nervous system's role in movement, fascia, and more. I was going to pick just 5, but you’ll learn why that was nearly impossible! But more importantly, you’ll learn how and why these specific books have impacted my career and have influenced my approach with clients in the sports world and beyond.
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Anna Hartman: Hey there, and welcome. I'm Anna Hartman, and this is Unreal Results, a podcast where I help you get better outcomes and gain the confidence that you can help anyone, even the most complex cases. Join me as I teach about the influence of the visceral organs and the nervous system on movement, pain, and injuries, all while shifting the paradigm of what whole body assessment and treatment really looks like.
I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Unreal Results podcast. Whoo, I have been rushing around this morning, or today, I guess it's not morning anymore. Um, Packing for trip. I'm gonna be gone three weeks about and It's just a lot because I'm also teaching this weekend. And so it's like two separate things.
I'm packing for Multiple different types of weather plus it's the time of year where the weather can be literally anything so It's hard and I don't like to check a bag, but I'm going to just because it seems so It's easier to deal with all of that. Um, so, yeah. And then, too, on top of that, when I'm gone for that long, I like to sort of, like, clean up the house and, like, I gotta take all the food out of the refrigerator that's gonna spoil and, like, water the plants and take out the garbage and all the things.
And so, um, it's just a lot to do. Um, with that said, I wanted to record a podcast Um, Before I left just to have sort of like one in the in the shoot um, because I know, you know for the next like probably five days i'm gonna be like settling in and You know, i'm not sure what kind of microphone I have. So it's just a lot.
Um And then too I was like, what do I want to talk about? I've been wanting to do like a 10 year anniversary episode for my business, but I still haven't like sat down and like reflected on my thoughts For the 10 years. And then, um, my friend Erica Webb, she has a podcast called, uh, the self, ooh, I don't know what it's called, but her business is like the self kind hub.
She's a somatic therapist, psychotherapist, um, and movement practitioner, um, down in Australia. And, um, on her podcast recently, I saw that she did a. like five books and I was like, Oh, you know what? That would actually be a good episode to do because I get asked a lot about books, like books I would recommend books that I recommend for my courses, books that I recommend in general.
So that's what today's podcast is going to be about and there's no way I keep it to five because that's just, that's just unrealistic for me. Uh, but also, um, of my whole bookshelf, let me, So here's the thing. I love to read like for fun. That is like when I want to relax or when I know I am like well regulated, I have the space in my brain and body to relax enough to read for fun.
So, um, obviously this podcast I'm not going to share with you my favorite for fun books. Um, cause it's not relevant to the topic of podcast, but just know that I love books. Big book lover. My family, I grew up in a big book loving family, all big readers, my mom's side of the family. Um, and so that is part of why I have so many textbooks even too, because when a course recommends a book, I'm like, yeah, I'll buy it.
I love the book. With that said, I don't read all the books. I don't read many of the books, even the ones that I'm supposed to read for the courses. And that's my like. You know, my secret, my bad habit is I have a lot of books that look cool on my shelf, but I've never read them and But they're there for reference, which I like.
A lot of the ones I'm gonna share with you today I have read a lot of. I still haven't, I'll let you know as I go which one I've actually, which ones I've actually read before. cover to cover. Um, but yeah, and then obviously it's not a exhaustive list of like my favorite books, but just kind of today what I pulled from the shelf and I was looking through of like, oh yeah, this would be good.
This would be good. So hopefully you enjoy this episode and, uh, I'll try to tie it into all the things. Actually, this one is already on my desk because I was sharing it with, um, some people I do consulting with the other day. They asked me like, is there a book to read that would prepare you? Or prepare us to like talk to somebody else about how you evaluate like the LTAP that kind of thing Here's the thing.
I made the LTAP up based on all my knowledge from other practitioners from other courses And that kind of thing so there's not a book on the LTAP um there's not even a book that really sums up obviously the movement rev methodology because I haven't written a book and So it's hard when people ask me to What books to, um, have to prepare themselves for my courses because I'm like, it's not that black and white.
There's not going to be a book that is like I'm teaching from or always directly speaking to but this one I do like obviously you see there's a lot of like little notes in here. Um, I have not read it cover to cover. I will fully admit that, but it's by, um, Alain Crobillet. He is a instructor in the Barral Institute, um, like Jean Pierre's partner, really.
He writes a lot of the books with Jean Pierre. Um, he, this book is called From Manual Evaluation to General Diagnosis, Assessing Patient Information Before Hands on Treatment. So it's actually a lot about subjective information. but it goes over a lot of objective assessments as well. So this is a really good one of sort of like looking at the orthopedics as well as the visceral and neural components and sort of like blending them together a little bit.
So that is a good one. This one, I talk about this a lot. I've talked about this on many podcasts, on many Instagram posts. This is one I have read cover to cover, multiple times actually, um, and it is from my mentor, Philip Beach. Philip Beach is, uh, osteopath from New Zealand. He's also a, um, Chinese medicine practitioner, uh, acupuncturist, and, uh, amazing human.
Uh, this book describes his, um, model of movement called the contractile field theory, and it's called Muscles and Meridians, the Manipulation of Shape. So this one, I teach a lot of his stuff, especially within the Revitalize Mentorship, but you'll hear me reference his work a lot. So the thing about this book, though, the first Um, probably the first, uh, let's see, six?
No. The first three chapters, so the first sixty six pages, are really all about embryology. And, um, evolutionary biology. And, so So, but definitely very thick embryology. So I actually recommend people skip the majority of the embryology at first and then dive right into the different contractile fields and then the sort of more practical application and then go back to the embryology.
Embryology is very confusing, especially when you're reading it and don't have pictures. So he was limited at how many images he could use in this book when it was published. So. That makes it hard to teach embryology. I really did not appreciate the embryology chapters of this book until I had taken multiple courses from Phillip in person where he was able to show and describe the embryology, you know, with models and pictures and all the things.
So, um, I think the embryology piece is fascinating and a super part of his, It's a super important part of the movement model, um, but in order to get through the book, because the book does have so many gems in it, I just usually tell people to skip that first part and then go back to it.
This is another one I've read, cover to cover. You'll see a theme here, if the book's small, I would have read it, if it's big, no chance. Um, But this is a classic one from Jean Pierre. This one in our Barral Institute classes often are, um, recommended to give to your patients. So they sort of understand the connections of the viscera to the body.
But the book is called Understanding the Messages of Your Body. how to interpret physical and emotional signals to achieve optimal health. So like I said, it's by Jean Pierre and it basically goes like organ through organ and talks about the emotions associated with them, the body parts associated with them, and um, sort of the general constitution of people who have um, challenges with them.
Great, great reference. This is another one I've read cover to cover. Um, This book actually goes with VM5, so visceral manipulation number five, the fifth class in the sort of the core visceral manipulation courses. It's called Manual Thermal Evaluation. And even if you don't know how to do manual thermal information, the information in this book I find is very helpful.
It talks about a lot of like connection between the organs and the different parts of the body, relationships of organs to themselves, relationships to obviously thermal changes, that kind of thing. So, um, I think it's a really good reference and super interesting. And if you can gain the knowledge from it to understand how to address or assess thermal things, it can be helpful too.
This one is one I recommend, um, in my mentorship program. Um, and I reference quite a bit, though, even though I've referenced it quite a bit, I have not actually read the whole thing. I've read bits and pieces of it. The bits and pieces of it I've read have been great. I'm not really sure why I haven't read the whole thing, except for sometimes books like this become redundant.
And, um, that's, that's it. Good for some people, um, because redundancy helps to, like, get it in your head, but for someone like me who tends to have a little bit more of, like, a photographic type memory, redundancy just seems boring for me. So, I mean, I don't know, I'm weird. So, but, this book has some really practical applications of how to, um, connect into your parasympathetic nervous system.
It is where I got this. the basic exercise from. So if you've taken the results sheet code or you're planning to take the results sheet code coming up, the basic exercise is by far a lot of people's favorite exercise to address cranial tensions. And it is from Stanley Rosenberg out of this book, accessing the healing power of the vagus nerve.
So this one, um, I have not read cover to cover, but I've read many parts of it. Um, it is the book for the first neural manipulation. Class of the Barral Institute, um, well first and all of them actually, but it's like, you know, that's where you're first recommended to buy the book and read it to prepare for class.
It's called Trauma and Osteopathic Approach is by Jean Pierre and Alain, and it is excellent. It makes you really open your eyes to the effect of whiplash forces on the body and what that does to the osteoarticular and visceral articular system. And it is one I reference a lot, especially when it comes to, um, restrictions around the central nervous system.
But it really talks about everything in that trauma book talks about the central nervous system, the peripheral nervous system, the visceral system, all, all the parts that are affected in trauma because the entire body is affected. When we have, mechanical trauma. So that's the other thing too, trauma nowadays in the world is like buzzword, more from a psychotherapy standpoint and obviously important information, important stuff to unpack and to learn how to deal with that affects the somatic body too.
But this book trauma is actually discussing mechanical trauma, physical mechanical trauma to the body.
This is a favorite. It's been a favorite for a really long time. It is the Donald Newman kinesiology book. I believe there's a new edition out. I do not have the new edition. Um, I use it mostly as a reference. I've not read it cover to cover, though I have read many of the chapters, full chapters, um, depending on what I'm looking at.
It is my go to reference for any sort of mechanical, biomechanical thing. The way he describes things is amazing. Um, the diagrams are amazing. Many of the diagrams you'll see in Shirley Sahrmann's work use the use are from him. Um, this is obviously actually, maybe not obviously, but that's where I heard about him.
And this book from originally was when I took the long term movement impairment syndromes course from Charlie Shirley, Shirley Sahrmann. So, um, it's a great book, great reference for movement and biomechanics.
Another great. Reference or I have read this one pretty much cover to cover Not fully, let's be honest, but the majority of it, the majority of the chapters, the practical chapters, the first two chapters are more theory, and I've brushed through them. Um, but, it's a great book, especially if you're looking to increase your knowledge on where you can access peripheral nerves.
of the upper and lower extremities. It is called Manual Therapy for the Peripheral Nerves and it is, um, by Jean Pierre Barral and Alain Crobillet.
This one, it's small, so what do you know? I've read the whole thing cover to cover. It's a great book, um, It is about breathing. It is recognizing and treating breathing disorders, a multidisciplinary approach. It is edited by Leon Chaitau, Dinah Bradley, and Christopher Gilbert. Um, this is great. Chalked full of different perspectives, different ideas.
pieces of everything to do with breathing from a mobility to a physiology to a stability to vocalization All the things so it is really great um, i've referenced it quite a bit and Like I said one of the rare ones that i've read cover to cover
This is an oldie, but a great one. I've read this cover to cover. Um, it was a book that I had to have for grad school or, um, one of our sports medicine classes. I don't even remember the name of the class, but it was all about tissue healing. This book is called Musculoskeletal Trauma. So again, more about pain.
Mechanical Physical trauma implications for sports injury management from the goat, the og Gary Delforge, one of the original, um, athletic training faculty at, uh, university of Arizona and then Arizona School of Health Sciences. Um, so this is great if you wanna understand the stages of rehab from a tissue standpoint and why we care about things like that.
This is the, this is the book. And actually now that I flipped through it, I flipped right open to like a thing about the cerebellum. So as You know, this is a cool thing. And this, and the homunculus, somatosensory map. This is just a really great book when it comes to rehab.
I love it. Look at this, and a whole map of the cerebellum and relationship to the body. Sounds like I'll be reading this again. And it's cool too. We can think about it. Cause it's like what grad school was 20 something years ago. And, uh, I was a whole different clinician back then. I was a whole different human.
I was a baby. I didn't know, hadn't really touched a whole lot of bodies from a treatment perspective yet. And so, um, sometimes books are really cool like that. Um, or even courses are cool like that. Taking them again, reading things again, when you're more of a seasoned professional and you pick up so many different things.
And that's also, um, You know, I, sometimes when I teach, people are like, so worried about getting all the information in their head. This is a good example. And this is a good thing to remember that you will take away from a course or a book, what you need to know at that moment. Everything else is just not important for that moment of time.
And. That's the beauty. You go back through it and you'll take away more information. And so it sort of takes the pressure off of learning too. It's like, you don't have to, which I think too, is why I'm never really worried about finishing a whole book because I recognize that whatever I need from that book, I don't need the whole thing right now.
And one day it'll be on my bookshelf and I'll go back to it and I'll read wherever I open up to that day will be helpful. So it just takes the pressure off learning. There's no reason why we have to remember everything, which is also a lot of people always ask me about the anatomy and like where to learn the anatomy better.
And they get really, um, worried about like, Memorizing the neural anatomy and like knowing where things are because they hear me like just ramble it off like it's just always in my head, but it's only in my head because I Reference it a lot in books and on the internet At no point did I pressure myself that I had to have memorized one That's how my brain works.
But then two i'm like it doesn't matter whether my brain remembers it or not I have a brain phone in my hand most of the time that I can pull up pictures from and when I don't have my phone And i'm at my house. I've got all my atlases like there's nothing wrong with pulling up the information We're not computers and our patients don't expect, our patients don't expect us to be computers.
So take the pressure off of feeling like you have to learn everything and stuff it in your head and keep it and know how to use it constantly. That's just not how it works. Next one, also another classic in the movement world, Shirley Sahrmann, Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes. Now, I don't necessarily treat from this anymore, but man, I still use the movement diagnoses.
And the assessments and everything I do. It's just now, I view it differently on how the movement dysfunctions or compensations, what they're driven by. Right? Now, I appreciate that they may be driven by a visceral piece or they may be driven by a neural piece. But understanding how to assess them in the first place is a big part of helping to figure things out.
So, it's a classic OG book. She has a second book that I have on my bookshelf. I haven't read it. I haven't even opened it, to be honest. I don't know why. I've never really taken the time. Um, but the first one is classic. It is a lot when I put all these books on my shelf. I'm like, listen, man, Anna, you could have narrowed it down.
But no, I could not have. So these two books, they're all kind of put together. They came out kind of around a similar time back. Um, shoot, maybe early 2000s.
Oh no, 2010s. Early 2010s. So, um, this book, Fascia, the Tensional Network of the Human Body, it was edited by Robert Scheip, Thomas Finley, Leon Scheitel, and Peter Huebing? Huebing? I'm not sure if that's how you say his last name. But, um, first of all, take a second, rest in peace Thomas Finley and Leon Scheitel, two amazing minds in the fascial world who have passed away since.
Since these books were published. But this is a great one. At the time when this came out in 2020, 20, 2012, um, there, it was hard to find a lot of information on fascia. And so this was like, kind of a bible. And it really is a lot of like, different articles and That, you know, eventually became research articles or publish articles, and it was just a really good reference at the time.
I still think it's a great reference. You could finally probably find a lot of it in journals and articles now, too. Then this one came out maybe, um, A little, yeah, a few years after. It's the more practical edition of that one. So that one's a little bit more of the deeper science, um, and this is a practical application of that information.
So it's called Fascia in Sports and Movement. It is also edited by Robert Schleip, um, and Amanda Baker. It's great. One of my mentors, Elizabeth Larkham, her work's in here too, which then turned into an entire book of hers called Fascia in Motion. Great, great references. All right. The last few, another book from the Barral Institute.
This is, um, written by Eric Marlin. He's one of their teachers, uh, from Europe. He teaches the course vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system. And this book is basically that course. So it's called the new approach to the vagus nerve and that autonomic nervous system. It's a great course. I think I just recently referenced it in one of the podcast episodes.
Um, but. If you can't make it to the course or you don't have the prerequisites for the course, this book is a great substitution. I've not read it cover to cover, but as I flip through it, I've recognized that a lot of it was from our study guide. So, I feel like I've read it. But I reference it quite a bit.
Quite a bit. Quite a bit. This one is small, so guess what? Read it cover to cover. Um, it is a OG, Classic for Manual Therapy, Brian Mulligan's book, Manual Therapy, Nags, Snags, and Mobs with Movement. I use this manual therapy literally on a daily basis. Some of the best tape jobs have also come from this book, but it is a must in everyone's catalog of references.
if you have not already purchased it. And then last, but definitely not least, Katie Bowman's book, Movement Matters. So this is a little bit more of a fun read versus a reference read, but it has a lot of practical information. It goes very nicely with Phillip Beach's Muscles and Meridians, but basically an entire book of essays on movement science, movement ecology, and the nature of movement and how.
We need more movement in our lives and how to sort of arrange your life style and your life to include more movement and how that is different from exercise. So, really great book, really great read. That's it. So that's a lot of books. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16 books. I told you I'd never be able to do five and it would be really hard to be honest to pull out from those Five.
I'm gonna try. I'm really gonna try. Let me look at the backs of them if I were to take these 16 and And boil it down to five it would be muscles and meridians understanding the messages of the body
The peripheral nerves.
Um,
accessing the power of the vagus nerve. One, two, three, four. Ooh, it's my fifth one. I'm going to be And movement matters. That's the fifth one. So, no surprise they're all the smaller books, but that makes them more readable. So, Philip Beach, Muscles and Meridians, Jean Pierre Barral, Understanding the Messages of Your Body, Stanley Rosenberg, Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve, Jean Pierre and Alain Courbillet, Manual Therapy for the Peripheral Nerves, and then Katie Bowman.
Movement Matters. That's my top five of those top 16. Obviously, I love all the books So I'm never gonna tell you not to get a book. Hopefully you enjoyed that little Book fair and I'll make sure Joe links in the show notes a link to my Amazon store, which I believe has all these books in it I will double check and make sure they're all there and Check them out if you want if you don't want to use my Amazon link, no worries Buy them wherever you would like.
The Barral books often are not available on Amazon anymore. So you'll have to go to the Barral Institute for that. But the rest of them probably are available from Amazon. Or whatever bookseller you like to use. Barnes and Nobles. An independent one. Directly from the publishers. Whatever. You don't always have to support Jeff Bezos.
And, uh, that's it. I hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you next time.