Unified Fitness: A 35-Day Exercise Program for Sustainable Health: Western and Chinese Fitness Solutions to Chronic Health Problems

by John Alton

Book Overview

Your health is your own natural resource. Like any resource, health will decline and eventually disappear if it is not nourished and sustained. This text - a synthesis of Western and Eastern exercises created by martial artist and self-healing expert John Alton to maximize health - addresses the physical, immunological and psychological aspects of fitness. From the first non-Chinese practitioner in the United States to be recognized as a qigong master...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1571742247
• ISBN13: 9781571742247
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing Company
• Length: 337 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Finally, a mind-body program with tangible results!

Unified Fitness is awesome! As a high stress, type "A" person, I've tried every mind-body practice out there: biofeedback, mindfulness-based meditation, yoga, etc. Unified Fitness is the only practice that has provided tangible results and real, lasting benefits. By combining traditional exercise with mind-body techniques that actually work, John Alton has created a program that resonates with those of us who are not completely comfortable with many of the new age or purely spirituality-based practices that one typically finds. It takes some effort and time, but the results are nothing short of astounding! Buy it, read it, practice it and you just might change your life.

Powerful integration of healing and contemplation

John Alton's Unified Fitness presents a powerful new practical vision of traditional Asian healing and contemplative practices. Working with an intimate knowledge of traditional Chinese practices, he has reformulated the entire system from the ground up based on its core principles to create a new process designed to suit contemporary lifestyles and realities. The book cuts through the difficulties of traditional presentations, as well as the superficiality of so many contemporary "manuals", to achieve a rare and powerful synthesis with potent results for personal physical and mental health. Despite being an associate Professor at the University of Virginia in Tibetan Buddhist Studies specializing in contemplative systems with many years of research in Tibet itself, I have seen few contemporary models so deeply based in Asian healing-contemplative traditions, and yet so precisely and powerfully reorganized for a contemporary audience. I highly recommend Unified Fitness.

Healing For Me

I am a 22 year old living in Charlottesville, Virginia. I have had my fair share of chronic injuries: knee, stomach, shoulder, back. I went to physical therapists, massage therapists, orthopedist, etc. None really could do anything, mainly because my injuries never showed up on their MRI's, flexibility tests, etc. I passed with flying colors. But I still had a lot of pain, and it prevented me from being a normal kid my age.I started doing Unified Fitness a couple of years ago and have fixed my knee, stomach and shoulder. My back is the last big hurdle, and I will have that fixed soon. But note that I said I fixed it. I did it myself. With the help of this book and my teacher John Alton, I have overcome things that doctors told me "These are things/pains you just learn to live with." Unified Fitness gives you a toolbox to fix physical, emotional, and mental injuries. As I explored my physical problems with Unified Fitness I began to understand myself a lot more and that understanding alone was enough to ignite the healing process. The book is just it for people who feel like they have tried "everything." This is different. It is detailedm thoughtout and medically supported. The book offers a step by step approach. Good luck!

Piercing The Veil

John Alton's personal journey and the subsequent sharing of that journey in his book, 'Unified Fitness', defines a dedicated and socially conscious character that inspires one to continue that effort in one's own life and to pass it on to others. Unlike many other health gurus and notables who publish, Alton does not hesitate to place responsibility where it belongs, in the hands (and bodies) of each individual. Hence, you will not find the rote, simplistic approach to health care espoused in other exercise and diet books. Not that Mr. Alton's approach is too complex or rigorous, but he does ask us to consider more than the Western mind deems comfortable. That distinction is made because Alton has undertaken the daunting task of combining the Eastern and Western medical paradigms. A job not unlike Ken Wilbur's efforts to present a unified field theory of consciousness. While not as intricate as a philisophical treatise, 'Unified Fitness' can be seen as an initial step in the integration and comprehension of the long disparate histories of Eastern and Western approaches to health care. As indicated, the Unified Fitness program is not for the pill-popping, quick-fix mentality. It takes a dedication and commitment that is not often seen until people are faced with life-threatening deseases (of mind and body). It will take a major shift in social consciousness, as Mr. Alton mentions in his book. So while 'Unified Fitness' may not make the New York Times best seller list anytime soon, it is an essential and groundbreaking work that deserves serious consideration and application.

It's made me a believer

This book, easy to read and understand, has affected my health in amazing ways. Nearly 18 months ago, when chemotherapy was no longer helping my cancer, I traveled to Boston for nutritional counseling. The counselor said to me, "You live in Charlottesville, Virginia? You have a healer right in your backyard!" He then referred me to John Alton and said, "Some people have been healed by only doing Alton's Unified Fitness program."I returned home and contacted John Alton, and have been studying with him on and off since then. All the cancer sites I had at that time have now become scar tissue; additionally, I have been able to ward off several "common" infections, involving my ears and sinuses. I was able to feel the infections and then direct my immune system to target them. I KNOW it sounds weird and, believe me, I am a "westernized" medicine type of person. I don't go for the flashing lights and hocus pocus stuff. But this works. You have to be dedicated and you HAVE to be devoted to practice as John talks about in the book. Try it for yourself and you'll see.