Taking Steps to Table Tennis Success

Table Tennis: Steps to Success combines knowledge and experience with essential table tennis techniques and strategies for today’s player.

Using a unique 11-step approach designed to maximise table tennis instruction, you’ll learn the proper grip for your style of play, execution of the basic strokes and the correct way to apply spin to the ball.

You can then, build on these core techniques by adding masterful footwork, serves, returns and stroke combinations.

Charity Netball Tournament
Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, St Georges Road, London, SE1
Saturday 12th September 2009.

This netball tournament and after party is being organised by ‘books n balls’ to raise money for Cancer Research’s new campaign ‘It’s a girl thing’ which aims to galvanise the support of women across the UK to help beat breast cancer – a disease that will affect one-in-nine women in the UK at some stage in their lives.

Well worth a punt

In Football Kicking and Punting, Ray Guy, the greatest punter in American Football history, provides you with expert kicking and punting instruction.

Whether it’s on the gridiron or the rugby pitch the fundamentals of kicking the oval ball remain the same and kickers in either code will benefit from the help advice in this book.

So whether it’s pinning your opponent inside the 20 or drilling that last-second kick through the uprights, let Football Kicking and Punting elevate your play and ensure winning performance.

What the expert says

“Although targeted primarily at American Football, many of the drills, techniques and exercises within Kicking and Punting are a fantastic training supplement for any aspiring rugby kicker. In the England setup we have used a lot of these drills to perfect and hone our skills to compete at the highest level.”

Matthew Tait
England & Sale Sharks RUFC

Price: £13.99 I €18.20
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Best teachers are a class apart

According to new research, the best teachers are not necessarily those with the most experience but are the ones with enthusiasm for their work, high aspirations for the success of every pupil, positive relations, high motivation, commitment and resilience.

Combining good knowledge of their subject and teaching practice and providing support tailored to the individual needs of each child, these teachers focus on building self esteem, engendering trust and maintaining respect.

A life of health and wellbeing

This book provides a blueprint for teaching students aged 15 and upwards, personal health and lifeskill lessons that will help them maintain a healthy lifestyle throughout their adult years.

It covers diverse and often sensitive topics ranging from fitness, nutrition and weight management, relationships, reproductive choices, pregnancy and childbirth and healthy aging and wellness throughout life.

Health and Wellness for Life also has a range of ancillary items which are available online and can be downloaded free of charge by purchasers of the book.

Price: £39.50 I €51.40
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Free school packs

Change4Life, the government initiative aimed at helping people adopt a healthier lifestyle, is offering a free promotional pack to all schools in the UK.

The materials in this pack make it easy for you and your school to start getting involved in Change4Life and to extend your Healthy Schools approach by encouraging parents to think about their family’s own diet and activity habits.

There are also materials that you could display around your school to spread the message that you are supporting the campaign.

Find out more >>

Become a better tennis coach

Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical Skills is a practical resource that will help you become a better school, club, or university tennis coach.

You’ll first learn coaching and evaluating skills and then focus on the technical and tactical skills of tennis, including quick tips on detecting and correcting errors in your players, cues they should be aware of in various tactical situations and key information they need in order to make the appropriate decisions on the court.

Whether you are a veteran coach or just a beginner, this book will help you take your coaching to the next level by providing you with the tools you need to teach the game of tennis.

Price: £18.99 I €21.95
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Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical Skills is also available as a downloadable e-book

Price £16.99 I €18.70
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Playing Volleyball to win

Challenge every point, dictate the pace of the game and walk off the court a winner. This is Aggressive Volleyball, the guide to fast-paced, high-intensity championship play.

Aggressive Volleyball will help identify the most effective tactics based on the strengths of the team and the talent of the players on the floor. Readers will learn to recognise their opponents’ tendencies and make in-game adjustments to shut them down and take over the game.

From offence and defence to out-of-system and transition play, learn to develop the skills, tactics and competitive mind-set necessary for aggressive play. Then, with the game’s best situational drills, improve each player’s individual skills, team execution and on-the-court decision making.

Step onto the court with confidence knowing your team is in control. Play smart and play aggressive with Aggressive Volleyball.

Price: £14.99 I €16.50
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What makes a great footballer?

While most fans are in awe of what their football heroes can do with a football, the source of their remarkable skill remains strangely mysterious.

Although being in excellent physical condition undoubtedly helps, few people actually believe that intense physical training alone can turn the average bloke into a Gerrard.

Now, scientists from the University of Queensland have decided to study what this “something else” might be. Dr. Robbie Wilson talked about the details of this study and the results that have been obtained so far in his talk at the Society of Experimental Biology Annual Meeting in Glasgow on Sunday 28th June 2009.

The International Sports Science and Sports Medicine Conference
Newcastle upon Tyne, 20-22nd August 2009

This important event is bringing together national and international experts, alongside those who work in the world of elite sport — looking at a range of issues in the build up to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and beyond.

The programme will consist of two days during which parallel sessions in Sports Medicine and Sports Science will run. Each afternoon will feature one Plenary Session open to all Conference delegates.

On Day three, a series of presentations will translate the medicine and science into practical messages for coaches, team doctors and sports science support staff.

More information >>

Surviving as a school football coach

You volunteered to coach the school football team, but are you really ready? How will you teach the fundamental skills, run effective training sessions and harness the energy of your young team? Fear not help is at hand in the form of Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Soccer.

In Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Soccer, experienced coaches share their experience and provide advice you can rely on from your first training session to the final game of the season.

Develop your players’ dribbling, passing, shooting and goalkeeping skills with the Survival Guide’s collection of the game’s best training regimes. From basic plays to match-day coaching tips, it’s all here—the formations, the set-piece moves and best of all, the fun.

School Sports Week gets out of the blocks

Lloyds TSB National School Sport Week kicked off on Monday 29th June with over 10,400 schools and school sport partnerships across Britain are participating in a week of activities.

While some schools are theming lessons such as art and maths around sport, others will replace timetabled classroom lessons with Olympic focused PE classes.

All activities are designed to motivate pupils and fulfil objectives for PE and school sport using the inspiration of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Values.

The underlying principles of qualitative inquiry

Qualitative research is increasingly more common in the health professions, but most general research texts are limited in their discussion of the guiding principles of qualitative research.

As a result, it is difficult for students and practitioners in the fields of athletic training, physical education, fitness and health to identify and apply the concepts involved in this method of research.

Qualitative Research in Physical Activity and the Health Professions overcomes any confusion or misunderstanding about this type of research. The text clearly explains the underlying principles of qualitative inquiry, making it easy for students and practitioners to understand how to design, conduct and evaluate qualitative research studies.

Price: £26.50 I €29.20
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New Human Kinetics Website goes live

After almost twelve months of design, development and testing the new Human Kinetics website has at last gone live.

Anyone who has ever been involved in the production of website will know only too well that agreeing on the content and layout is just the start. The amount of fine tuning necessary to weed out all the bugs and glitches is almost beyond belief, but all the hard work and sleepless nights endured by the Human Kinetics ‘IT Crowd’ has really paid dividends.

We now have a website that is more comprehensive, attractive and easier to navigate than ever before.

It contains details and links to our facebook page, video downloads, new blog, authors’ podcasts, book extracts and many other features that I’m sure you will find of great interest.

The only way to appreciate fully the range of new features is to visit the site which I hope you will do on a regular basis and you can start by clicking here >>

New guidelines on young athletes’ concussions stir controversy

When it comes to concussions, children and teens require different treatment, according to international experts who recently published consensus recommendations.

New guidelines for the care of youth athletes who sustain concussions are causing controversy among brain-injury experts, reigniting the debate over whether strict rules regarding concussions can actually leave athletes at greater risk for injury.

An international panel of neurologists, updating their recommendations on concussion care in the May issue of The British Journal of Sports Medicine, said that any athlete 18 or younger who was believed to have sustained a concussion during a game or practice should never be allowed to return to the playing field the same day.