A New York Times Sports and Fitness Bestseller “The definitive tour through a bewildering jungle of…claims that compose a multibillion-dollar recovery industry.” —David Epstein, best-selling author of The Sports Gene Acclaimed science journalist Christie Aschwanden takes readers on an entertaining and enlightening tour through the latest science on sports and fitness recovery. She investigates claims about sports drinks, chocolate milk, and “recovery” beer; examines the latest recovery trends; and even tests some for herself, including cryotherapy, foam rolling, and Tom Brady–endorsed infrared pajamas. Good to Go seeks an answer to the question: Do any of these things actually help the body recover and achieve peak performance?
All athletes, from Olympians to weekend warriors, must find the balance between training and recovery to maximize the benefits of workouts and reach optimal performance. For the longest time, coaches and training manuals have emphasized training. However, studies show that recovery is a crucial component of exercise training and it may even be the most important one. Good to go is the first definitive account of this new frontier in sports and exercise, from ice baths and cryogenic freezing chambers, to Usain Bolt's love of chicken nuggets and Tom Brady's recovery pyjamas. Full of eye-opening revelations, Aschwanden takes us on a jouney through the science and potions of sports recovery and debunks the junk to give a clear picture of what we should actually be doing to achieve peak performance.
The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery is the first comprehensive, practical exploration of the art and science of athletic rest. If you've hit a wall in your training, maybe it's because your body isn't recovering enough from each workout to become stronger. Hard workouts tear down the body, but rest allows the body to repair and come back stronger than before. Athletes who neglect their recovery will gain little from workouts, risking injury, overtraining, and burn out. The Athlete's Guide to Recovery offers a full exploration of rest and recovery for athletes. In her book, certified triathlon and running coach and pioneering yoga for athletes instructor Sage Rountree will guide you to full recovery and improved performance, revealing how to measure your fatigue and recovery, how much rest you need, and how to make the best use of recovery tools. Drawing on her own experience along with interviews with coaches, trainers, and elite athletes, Rountree details daily recovery techniques, demystifying common aids like ice baths, compression apparel, and supplements. She explains in detail how to employ restorative practices such as massage, meditation, and yoga. You will learn which methods work best and how and when they are most effective. The Athlete's Guide to Recovery explores: • Periodization and overtraining • Ways to measure fatigue and recovery including heart rate tests, heart rate variability, EPOC, and apps • Stress reduction • Sleep, napping, nutrition, hydration, and supplements • Cold and heat like icing, ice baths, saunas, steam rooms, whirlpools, and heating pads • Home remedies including compression wear, creams, and salts • Technological aids like e-stim, ultrasound, Normatec • Massage, self-massage, and foam rolling • Restorative yoga • Meditation and breathing Then you can put these tools and techniques to practice using two comprehensive recovery plans for both short- and long-distance training. This invaluable resource will enable you to maintain that hard-to-find balance between rigorous training and rest so that you can feel great and compete at your highest level.
A New York Times Most Anticipated Book of the Summer A taboo-busting romp through the shame, stink, and strange science of sweating. Sweating may be one of our weirdest biological functions, but it’s also one of our most vital and least understood. In The Joy of Sweat, Sarah Everts delves into its role in the body—and in human history. Why is sweat salty? Why do we sweat when stressed? Why do some people produce colorful sweat? And should you worry about Big Brother tracking the hundreds of molecules that leak out in your sweat—not just the stinky ones or alleged pheromones—but the ones that reveal secrets about your health and vices? Everts’s entertaining investigation takes readers around the world—from Moscow, where she participates in a dating event in which people sniff sweat in search of love, to New Jersey, where companies hire trained armpit sniffers to assess the efficacy of their anti-sweat products. In Finland, Everts explores the delights of the legendary smoke sauna and the purported health benefits of good sweat, while in the Netherlands she slips into the sauna theater scene, replete with costumes, special effects, and towel dancing. Along the way, Everts traces humanity’s long quest to control sweat, culminating in the multibillion-dollar industry for deodorants and antiperspirants. And she shows that while sweating can be annoying, our sophisticated temperature control strategy is one of humanity’s most powerful biological traits. Deeply researched and written with great zest, The Joy of Sweat is a fresh take on a gross but engrossing fact of human life.
We live in a world where there is a new fad diet, superfood, supplement or nutrition theory every month. There are so many tricks to optimizing workouts, peak performance, burning fat, living longer, sleeping better and biohacking your immune system. Wellness has become a part of mainstream discourse like never before, and the result is an overwhelming barrage of seemingly contradictory information. But here's one simple truth: good health impacts every aspect of life, be it productivity at work, interpersonal relationships or a balanced family life. In Hacking Health, Mukesh Bansal takes on the mammoth task of demystifying the science, simplifying the research and tracing the story of our relationship with our body. Through a combination of personal experience and cutting-edge science, this is a book that draws from ancient wisdom and also debunks unscientific myths to help you make smart choices in pursuit of good health. From nutrition and fitness to sleep and immunity, weight management and mental health to ageing and longevity, this book delves into the breadth and depth of holistic health and helps you navigate the lines between science and pseudoscience. Can we use science to hack the human body's functioning and be our most efficient, fittest and happiest selves? Hacking Health takes a 360-degree approach to answer this very question and help you unlock your body's potential.
A bold and revolutionary perspective on the science and cultural history of menstruation Menstruation is something half the world does for a week at a time, for months and years on end, yet it remains largely misunderstood. Scientists once thought of an individual’s period as useless, and some doctors still believe it’s unsafe for a menstruating person to swim in the ocean wearing a tampon. Period counters the false theories that have long defined the study of the uterus, exposing the eugenic history of gynecology while providing an intersectional feminist perspective on menstruation science. Blending interviews and personal experience with engaging stories from her own pioneering research, Kate Clancy challenges a host of myths and false assumptions. There is no such a thing as a “normal” menstrual cycle. In fact, menstrual cycles are incredibly variable and highly responsive to environmental and psychological stressors. Clancy takes up a host of timely issues surrounding menstruation, from bodily autonomy, menstrual hygiene, and the COVID-19 vaccine to the ways racism, sexism, and medical betrayal warp public perceptions of menstruation and erase it from public life. Offering a revelatory new perspective on one of the most captivating biological processes in the human body, Period will change the way you think about the past, present, and future of periods.
Discover how cutting-edge treatments are helping people of all ages reverse common health issues and live longer, healthier, pain-free lives—and how you can start your new life today. Pain, disease, and complications of aging are universal problems, but “right-away” wellness is far more accessible than most people realize. Restore is a preventative approach to wellness based on a simple principle: therapies that make you feel better in the short term lead to consistent, long-term improvement. You don’t need a cryo chamber to reap the benefits of cryotherapy. This book will teach you how to get the most from these techniques, whether or not you have access to specialized treatments. With clear, supporting science, Restore Hyper Wellness cofounders Jim Donnelly and Steve Welch share the real-life success stories behind paradigm-changing technologies—and how to use the power of those technologies in your everyday life for an immediate, palpable boost. This much-needed guide will change the way you think about your health, arming you with insider knowledge such as: The science and history of cryotherapy, red light therapy, nutrient-infused IV drips, and infrared saunas How restorative practices are used to relieve and even reverse major health issues, including chronic pain, arthritis, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and anxiety Simple adjustments to everyday factors—like sleep, movement, oxygen, light, and connection—that can lead to tangible changes in energy, mood, and overall health How to leverage proven treatments for a lasting healthspan and lifespan No matter who you are, where you live, or how old you are, Restore highlights practices and modalities that can help you treat and prevent health struggles, level up your wellness, and live longer, so you can do more of what you love.
Are you ready to take your swimming to the next level and unlock your full potential in the water? Look no further than "Dive In: The Ultimate Guide to Swimming Mastery"! This comprehensive guide is the first of its kind, offering a wealth of expert techniques, training methods, and life lessons that will transform the way you approach swimming, no matter your age or skill level. Inside, you'll discover: - Proven techniques for mastering all four competitive strokes, from freestyle to butterfly - Cutting-edge training programs designed to maximize your speed, endurance, and efficiency in the water - In-depth analysis of the physics and biomechanics of swimming, giving you a deeper understanding of how your body moves through the water - Mental training strategies to help you overcome fear, build confidence, and develop a champion's mindset - Nutritional guidance and recovery techniques to fuel your body and optimize your performance both in and out of the pool Whether you're a competitive swimmer looking to shave seconds off your best times, a triathlete seeking to improve your swim split, a masters swimmer pursuing lifelong health and fitness, or a beginner learning to conquer the water for the first time, "Dive In" has something for you. With its unparalleled depth and breadth of knowledge, engaging storytelling, and practical, real-world advice, this book is the ultimate resource for anyone who wants to take their swimming to the next level and experience the life-changing benefits of this incredible sport. So what are you waiting for? Take the plunge and "Dive In" to the world of swimming mastery today! With this book as your guide, there's no limit to what you can achieve in the water and beyond.
From soda to water to milk and juice, this refreshing follow-up to There's No Ham in Hamburgers is full of fun facts and origin stories of some of America’s most popular drinks. People have been inventing drinks for thousands of years. Kinda weird when you consider that humans only need two liquids to survive—water and milk—and we don’t need milk once we can eat solid foods. So, why did humans, unlike other mammals, begin concocting new beverages? It likely started with safety—boiling water to make it safer to drink, and then adding in berries or leaves or roots to make it taste better. Sometimes, it was thought that enhancing drinks made them healthier (i.e. bubbly water restored vitality). Did you know that some of the most popular sodas were created by pharmacists? Americans spend approximately $150 billion on soft drinks, coffee, and tea each year. Why? This book offers some possible answers!
This encyclopedia explores exercise and physical activity from a variety of angles, including anatomy and exercise science, health benefits and risks, the wide array of sports and recreational activities available, and the sociocultural context of physical fitness. Exercise and Physical Activity: From Health Benefits to Fitness Crazes is a one-volume encyclopedia featuring more than 200 entries that cover a multitude of exercise-related topics. Content is divided across five broad themes: anatomy, exercise science, sports and activities, health benefits and risks, and exercise and society. The anatomy theme includes entries on all the major skeletal muscle groups and associated connective tissues. Within the exercise science theme, entries focus on topics within the fields of physiology, kinesiology, and sports psychology. Profiles of more than 70 sports and recreational activities are included. Entries under the theme of health benefits and risks explore the effects of exercise on many of the body's physiological processes and related systems, as well as specific sports-related injuries. Exercise and society entries profile influential individuals and organizations, as well as fitness trends. Together, these themes support a holistic understanding of exercise, encompassing both the theoretical and the practical.
