Joan Price: Return To Glory Days

The Return to Glory Days is a book you'll want to keep handy if you're over 30 and active in sports or exercise. Our bodies just aren't as resilient as they used to be, darn it. We're less flexible, weaker, more susceptible to injuries. We take longer to heal, and we're more likely to get re-injured. Fortunately, the solution isn't to abandon vigorous activity in favor of the remote-control boogie.

The Return to Glory Days is a practical, easy-to-use guide to preventing, treating, and rehabilitating sports injuries. The authors present their best medical advice in a format that lets you get instant information about what ails you. Injuries are categorized by body part, then by pain, so you don't even have to know what the injury is called to look it up. Each entry presents all this information about the injury: "The Pain" (what you felt when it happened and afterwards), "Inside Story" (scientific explanation of what happened and why) "First Day Treatment" (what you should do immediately and in the first 24 hours), "Risk Rating" (how serious your injury is, and what will happen if you ignore it), "Return to Action" (when and how to get back to your sport), and "Rehab and Prevention" (a program for strengthening and stretching the injured area after healing, and how to prevent this from happening again).

The style is friendly and inviting. The book also offers 60 pages of illustrated stretching and strengthening exercises, categorized by body area. This book is so interesting to read that you'll find yourself looking up every injury you've ever had. Whether you're hurt or trying to avoid getting hurt, this book should be on your bookshelf or in your gym bag. (Pocket Books, 1997, $14 U.S./ $19 Canada.)