Books in Review: Kettlebell RX, Marcelo Garcia’s Advanced BJJ, Grappler’s Manifesto

Victory Belt Publishing recently released three instructional sports books; Marcelo Garcia‘s Advanced Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Grapplers Manifesto, and Kettlebell RX.

I had an opportunity to review the mentioned above trio.

The first that comes to mind when holding a Victory Belt book is the print quality. It feels like a book and looks like a book. The covers are very creative, and will add some color to every bookshelf.

Things get serious when you open the book and proceed to its content. The first book I read from the series was Kettlebell RX, by the legendary Jeff Martone. Kettlebell RX offers dozens of full kettlebell workouts, perfectly demonstrated throughout the book. In fact, the best thing about Kettlebell RX is that it also shows you the “do nots”, making sure that every move demonstrated in the book could be performed with maximum precision. The pictures are high quality, and follow the movement in all of its crucial steps.

The third part of Kettlebell RX provides an introduction to the kettlebell sport, its stars, records, and performance normative by gender and weight class. This is something other books in that category fail to do – to give reader the basic understanding of what he’s reading and why. I strongly advise to purchase Kettlebell RX to anyone interested in adding another dimension to his/her workout in form of a somewhat unorthodox kettlebell exercises. This one could definitely bring your training to a whole new level.

Marcelo Garcia: Advanced Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Techniques book continues the same pattern of high quality printing.

Garcia is probably the most decorated grapplers on the planet, his book concentrates on Gi arm drags, takedown-to-submission drills, back control, and neck chokes. To fully understand those techniques, you need hours mat-time and numerous in-depth explanations from your coach.

Marcelo Garcia’s book does an excellent job in providing the necessary base of understand before practicing the moves in your training partners. The pictures are sharp, and the shooting angles are good enough to prevent from the Gi being an obstacle in showing the full positioning of arms and legs during the demonstration. Garcia is an unorthodox BJJ practitioner, and I learned a lot about hip movement and correct upper body positioning within a few hours on this book.

My favorite book in the series is Grappler’s Manifesto: The Guide to Strangling, Torquing, & Bludgeoning. Featuring Forrest Griffin, Randy Couture, Greg Jackson, Jon Fitch, Dave Camarillo, Rogerio Nogueira, and many other top-tier MMA fighters and coaches, Grappler’s Manifesto is 345 pages of highly effective Mixed Martial Arts techniques.

As always, the pictures are sharp, but this time the moves are shown from different angles, making sure that the reader fully understands every single aspect of the demonstrated technique. I really enjoyed reading about the submissions demonstrated in Grappler’s Manifesto; Rolling Quarter Nelson Choke, Far-side Arm Triangle, Head to Head Anaconda Choke… and so on. You get the point – the techniques explained in Grappler’s Manifesto are unorthodox (just like in Marcelo Garcia’s Advanced BJJ book), and will give you a valuable knowledge advantage on the mat.

All books are valued on the cover at $34.95, however, Marcelo Garcia’s Advanced BJJ Techniques can be purchased for just $21.31 on Amazon.com, $21.46 for Kettlebell RX, and $20.55 for the awesomeness for The Grappler’s Manifesto.