This text is an interesting exploration into the foundational theories behind human physical and mental endurance, as well as a detailed discussion of research into key variables in athletic training: pain, muscle, oxygen, heat, thirst, and fuel.
One of the benefits of reviewing the scientific literature on athletic training is that you can learn tips and tricks to benefit your own training (smiling reduces perceived effort, swishing and spitting out sports drinks can have a similar effect to actually consuming the drink, positive self-talk can help you push past the wall, etc). One of the disadvantages to reviewing the scientific literature on athletic training is that you may incorporate information that agrees with your current approach/perspective/biases and disregard anything that doesn’t – if I’m perfectly honest, I think I fall into this category a lot. If I read something that tells me that running for a lot of hours is bad for you or that you must focus on only one sport to truly excel or that sleeping less is ideal for performance…I’m going to move right along and ignore it.
That said, I think there’s value for most of us non-professional but still goal-driven real-life athletes in learning more about performance hacks for strength, technique, endurance, and fuel. If you haven’t done much reading in these areas, this is a great book to start with. I also found it easy to pick up for 10-15 minutes at a time, which makes it highly practical for busy, over-extended athletes with day jobs and families and adulting responsibilities.
A couple of quick info hits for you:
- “Starting in the late 1990s, a South African physician and scientist named Tim Noakes began to argue that…it’s actually the brain alone that sets and enforces these seemingly physical limits we encounter during prolonged exercise.” (38)
- The results of a pain study by Mauger and Marcora “suggested that the pain you experience in the extremes of sustained exercise is fundamentally different, from your brain’s perspective, from the pain you experience while dunking your hand in ice water. All pleasure is alike, as Leo Tolstoy might have put it, but each pain hurts in its own unique way.” (94-95)
- Multiple study findings indicate “that the benefits of sports drinks and other mid-race carbohydrates for short bouts [generally 90 minutes or less] of exercise are irrelevant as long as you don’t start out with an empty stomach and depleted fuel stores.” (191)
