I am doing a bit of a purge right now on fitness books, and have been having fun reviewing some of the titles I have. I have a real weakness for this sort of book in spite of not actually using them to work out nearly as often as I should
I divided my books into as follows:
1) Books I get a lot of use out of: I have been really enjoying the circuit workouts in the new releases by Kim Lyons and Chris Freytag. I would heartily recommend either of these two. Other books I enjoy and use are the Om Yoga books, the yoga books by Rodney Yee and the Body Shop Yoga book. I also have a few Joyce Vedral books that I use often when I am in that sort of training mood.
2) Books I do not use often but find really motivating/want to keep anyway: The Clean Eating Diet Workout book is really pretty, and I like her other stuff. I am not as into her style of training right now, but I can see it being a book I come back to. I also like the Leslie Sansone books. If I am doing a Leslie workout, it's in a video, so I don't know that I follow the routines in these books per se, but I find them very motivating. I also have two Denise Austin books that I don't use as prescribed, but like reading. Sometimes, I will follow her schedule or format, but with my own workouts.
3) Books I can probably get rid of: A few impulse yoga buys (one came with a dvd I wound up not liking) and a book about walking (it turned out to be a bit too treadmill-oriented for the kind of 'walking for cardio' I do. I was surprised there were not more books in this category
I really thought I had more to purge, book-wise, than this. Note to self: stop buying pretty discount-table yoga books, you never, ever use them.
4) Books I am not sure about yet: I keep thinking '8 Minutes in the Morning' is a good one to try as an add-on when I go through my Leslie phases where I hate doing weight training. And yet I have never actually tried this program and am not sure I ever will
Also, a book on 'office yoga' and the Bikram yoga book: entertaining, but I would never, ever follow a program like this, especially not from a book.
So what are your favourite fitness books for having workouts you actually use? Any good ones I've missed?