Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance
by Stuart McGill

This book was written with a focus on performance training, specifically focusing on training the whole athlete, with advice to the clinician on keeping the demands of their specific sport to the forefront of thinking when designing a training program.The first chapters are intended to lay a scientific foundation. A thorough explanation of functional anatomy, and current theories of exercise science, regarding the low back are included. Flaws and strengths of current theories, and expansion upon them regarding normal and injury mechanics follow. This is done in such a way that encourages the clinician to think like a civil engineer regarding spinal biomechanics.
The following section addresses Individualizing Programs for not only the elite athlete, but also the low back patient. The three chapters contained in this section introduce movement patterns, teach the clinician how to identify aberrant patterns of movement, introduce principles for optimizing performance and safety, give tips on injury prevention, and introduces specific tests to evaluate the athlete/patient.
The final part of the book is focused on developing programming for building the ultimate performer. While much of this section does focus on the elite performer, all of the information gained in these chapters including specific rehabilitation exercises, and progressions, can also be used for the injured or poorly performing painful low back. This enables the clinician to envision a manner in which these rehabilitation techniques can be utilized within their own practice on patients be they elderly or elite.