Martial Arts After 40 by Sang H. Kim
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Book Reviews of Martial Arts After 40
Book Review: Worth the price!
Summary: 5 Stars
Master Kim gives you a great workout program and makes you feel good about being 40..:)Book Review: Reasurring and Eye-Opening for Newcomers Over 40
Summary: 4 Stars
It would be difficult to write a better book for newcomers over 40.
As I was reading this book, I thouhght to my 48 year-old self, this is comforting. I've been doing martial arts for twenty years and there was not a great deal of new materials, however, I put myself in the shoes of the target audience. If you are approaching 40 or over 40 and have dabbled in martial arts or are in to it as I am, you should read this book just to ensure that you have a firm grasp of the changes that occur as you age and how to compensate and embrace them.
Dr. Kim has a clean, clear and easy to follow writing style. It is like water that you can look through easily to see the points he is trying to make. Basic content, but it is the basics that we always overlook. The range of topics in this book is very comprehensive and provides the reader with a complete encyclopedia of issues to consider, learn, practice and embrace. Injuries are key, understanding that we don't always have to perform a killer workout to stay very healthy and remain quite capable of doing the essential techniques that we might need to in a self-defense situation.
This book does an excellent job for martial arts newcomers of introducing them to the full range of topics in training, health, fitness, personality, life experience and performance that you should consider when starting out in the martial arts mid-life.
Highly recommended. And for those of us who tend to have very high expectations of ourselves and our abilities regardless of age, it provides a nice perspective to help balance our view of ourselves as we age. Get this one.
Kevin Brett
Author: The Way of the Martial Artist: Achieving Success in Martial Arts and in Life!"
Book Review: If it is your first book, buy it; otherwise take a pass
Summary: 3 Stars
The hardest I've ever been hit was by a 57 year-old Japanese martial artist who nearly broke my leg with an arm block, a truly amazing feat. If you truly understand the techniques and bio-mechanics, age matters not in the martial arts.
This interesting book covers attributes of fitness, flexibility, power, reflexes, coordination, speed, and endurance with a focus on older martial artists. There is pretty good coverage on the effects of aging and how to train hard without hurting yourself. The sections on injury prevention, self-care, and over training are worth the price of admission. If you've never practiced martial arts before, the sections on progression in the martial arts, sparring, and forms are also very good. They are not particularly useful if you've been doing this a while, however. The introduction and the first few chapters are very basic indeed. The section on weapons forms near the end is a nice bonus though.
All in all the vast majority of material in this tome has been covered better in other books, some written by Kim himself. The target audience is the middle-aged beginner who is interested in pursuing an education in martial arts. If you are over 40, new to martial arts, and only going to purchase one book, this is it.
If you have been training for a while I wouldn't put this too high on the priority list. I'd recommend "Ultimate Flexibility: A Complete Guide to Stretching for Martial Arts" by Sang H. Kim along with "The Fighter's Body: An Owner's Manual: Your Guide to Diet, Nutrition, Exercise and Excellence in the Martial Arts" by Loren W. Christensen instead. Yeah, it's two books rather than one, but I think that combined they have the depth advanced practitioners require.
Lawrence Kane
Author of Surviving Armed Assaults, The Way of Kata, and Martial Arts Instruction
Book Review: Expected more technical insight on aging...
Summary: 3 Stars
Although this book is very well written and is a great guide if you do not have any other martial arts technical book on your shelf, after reading the other reviews, I was expecting some more technical insight on the aging issue and on the specifics of over-40 training. This info is there but in my opinion it's rather superficial and introductory. More than 2/3 of the book feels like a "beginner's guide" on stretching, strength, speed and general training techniques that already exists on hundreds of other "training guides" with more detail, and that every Martial Arts practitionist already knows from experience.Book Review: Okay for Newer Folks
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is a pretty well written fast read. It does contain some interesting thoughts and tidbits, especially towards the end, which could be valuable to anyone. The problem is, if you're over 40 and have spent any significant time at the gym or in martial arts, you probably won't find alot of useful information here. There's alot of generalities which are not age specific and are well known to any excercise enthusiast. If you're fairly new to working out and/or the martial arts, this is probably a pretty decent book.