Exercise RX: The Lifetime Prescription for Reducing Your Medical Risks and Sports Injuries

Which exercises will help your heart? Which will help you age more slowly? Lose weight faster? Are any exercises more harmful than helpful? In this hefty how-to manual, author Gary Yanker presents exercise programs that prevent and rehabilitate illnesses and conditions. You fill out profiles that evaluate your age, gender, fitness level, activity preference, family health history, medical risk factors, and physical weaknesses or disabilities. Backed by a team of medical experts, Yanker presents programs that improve heart health, psychological state, the immune system, and more. "Prevention ExRx" shows you how to delay or prevent diseases and injuries through aerobic, strengthening, stretching, and postural exercises. "Rehabilitation ExRx" helps you manage pain and restore health after injuries, with an exercise prescription of strengthening and stretching based on your injury.

The amount of information may seem overwhelming, but it is presented clearly, with jaunty chapter titles and subtitles ("Why Thicker Bones Are Better than Thinner Thighs" and "Buns of Steel, but a Heart of Mush," for example) and plenty of self-tests and line drawings. Yanker, a long-recognized authority on walking and moderate exercise, is the also the author of ExerciseWalking. --Joan Price