Introduction to Exercise Science (HP 275)

This guidebook deals with nutrition as part of sports. It delves into how diet impacts athletic performance and which types of food should be eaten for particular sports. Full-color photographs and diagrams, a glossary, sources for further reading and research, and a detailed subject index are also included.

Today, it is nearly impossible to separate the achievements of athletes from the scientists who support them. Go behind the scenes of high-performance athletics with a new generation of athletes, coaches, and scientists who are changing our understanding of human physical achievement and completely redefining the limits of the human body.

How has technology challenged the notion of unadulterated athletic performance? We like to think of sports as elemental: Strong bodies trained to overcome height, weight, distance; the thrill of earned victory or the agony of defeat in a contest decided on a level playing field. But in Game Changer, Rayvon Fouché argues that sports have been radically shaped by an explosion of scientific and technological advances in materials, training, nutrition, and medicine dedicated to making athletes stronger and faster. Technoscience, as Fouché dubs it, increasingly gives the edge (however slight) to the athlete with the latest gear, the most advanced training equipment, or the performance-enhancing drugs that are hardest to detect. In this revealing book, Fouché examines a variety of sports paraphernalia and enhancements, from fast suits, athletic shoes, and racing bicycles to basketballs and prosthetic limbs. He also takes a hard look at gender verification testing, direct drug testing, and the athlete biological passport in an attempt to understand the evolving place of technoscience across sport.

SPARK is the first book to explore comprehensively the connection between exercise and the brain. The evidence is incontrovertible: Aerobic exercise physically remodels our brains for peak performance. Research proves that exercise is truly our best defense against everything-- from depression to Alzheimer's.