The Complete Handbook of Sports & Agility Cones

I run a small training facility and I've been buying cones on gut feeling for years. This book finally explains why some cones last two years and some last two months. The material science stuff in Chapter 1 was genuinely helpful. My only issue is that the book gets a bit dry in places, and I wish they had included a simple comparison table of popular models. Still, worth the money for the maintenance section alone.

Solid reference, but not what I expected. I thought Chapter 1 would be more about drill uses and practical training applications, but it spends a lot of time on plastic chemistry and durability testing. That's fine if you're a buyer or a reseller. I'm a coach and I wanted more about setup for specific drills. The later chapters do get there, but the opener felt slow. Good information overall, though.

Finally, someone wrote the book on cones instead of making me read 40 different product listings. The breakdown of why a 9-inch cone is better for small-space agility work versus the classic 12-inch was exactly what I needed. The troubleshooting chapter helped me save a batch of cones that were starting to crack by adjusting how we stored them. I deducted one star because they don't cover every niche brand out there, but the core knowledge is very solid.

I purchased this for our high school PE department because the description made it sound like a definitive reference. It is thorough, I'll give them that. But the writing is very dense for a topic like this, and the chapter on choosing the right cone feels like it overcomplicates things. My background is teaching, not manufacturing, and some terms took me a while to get through. That said, the rental pricing breakdown in the business chapter helped me understand why our local supplier charges what they do.

As someone who maintains the equipment for a local sports club, this handbook has been a real help. The chapter on maintenance alone paid for the book: I learned to rotate cone inventory and keep them out of direct sunlight when not in use, and they're holding up noticeably better. The specs chapter is useful too, though I do wish it had more photos. Text is fine, but I'm a visual learner. Overall, a good investment for anyone who looks after equipment.

This is the book I wish existed ten years ago when I started my rental business. The chapter on business opportunities is worth ten times the price, especially the part about damage fees and how to price for cone replacement. But what made me genuinely excited is that the first chapter actually explains why a cone works the way it does. You don't just learn that a wider base prevents tipping; you learn the relationship between base width and center of gravity. That kind of detail is everywhere. I've bought copies for all my part-time staff.

Decent reference book, but a bit hit-or-miss for me. I do speed and agility training with adult athletes, and the sections on selecting cones for turf versus gym floors were useful. But there's a lot of material devoted to materials science and manufacturing that I honestly skimmed past. I also felt the chapter on future trends was too short. That said, the troubleshooting guide is written by someone who clearly has field experience, and it saved me from buying new cones twice. Three stars feels fair.

I'm a youth soccer coach who also helps with the club's equipment budget, and this book straddles both of those roles perfectly. The buying chapter helped me argue convincingly to our board to replace cheap plastic cones with a more durable grade, citing the actual cost-per-hour math from the book. Chapter 1's explanation of how cone flexibility affects injury risk was new to me. Not a page-turner, but a genuinely useful manual. I only wish it had more diagrams showing setup layouts for drills.