Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance - Hardcover

Hutchinson, Alex

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062499866 ISBN 13: 9780062499868

Publisher: William Morrow, 2018

Synopsis

From the National Magazine Award-winning Runner’s World columnist, frequent NewYorker.com contributor, and Cambridge-trained physicist: a fascinating and definitive exploration of the science of endurance and peak performance

From the two-hour marathon to the summit of Mount Everest, we're fascinated by the extremes of human endurance. How high or far or fast can humans go? And what about me-what defines my personal limits? According to a century's worth of physiology textbooks, the answers lie in the size of your heart, the capacity of your lungs, and the strength of your muscles. But a wave of dramatic findings over the past decade has completely overturned our understanding of human limits. Endure, from Runner's World and NewYorker.com contributor Alex Hutchinson, brings this radical new science of endurance to a general audience for the first time, leading to a surprising conclusion: It's the brain that dictates your limits-and that means they can always be pushed a little farther.

Hutchinson traces our attempts over the last hundred years to understand human fatigue, from the crude experiments of the early twentieth century (physiologists cutting the legs of frogs and electrocuting them) to the use of sophisticated brain imaging technology. Hutchinson presents a wholly new understanding of endurance, untethered from the traditional mechanistic view of human limits (like a car with a brick on its gas pedal, we go until the tank runs out of gas). Instead, he persuasively argues, a key element is how the brain responds to distress signals -- whether heat, or cold, or muscles screaming with lactic acid -- and we can train to improve this brain response.

Traveling to the forefront of the new sports psychology landscape -- from brain electrode jolts to computer-based training to subliminal messaging -- Hutchinson makes accessible a host of startling new discoveries. An elite distance runner himself, Hutchinson shows readers how they can use these tactics to bolster their own performance and get the most out of their bodies.

About this title

Review:

"This book is AMAZING!"--MALCOLM GLADWELL

"We're all intrigued by amazing feats of human endurance, from Everest to marathon world records to global Ironman competitions. How do they do it? Alex Hutchinson's Endure explores the topic from every conceivable angle. An essential read for every endurance athlete."--AMBY BURFOOT, 1968 Boston Marathon winner, Runner's World writer-at-large, and editor of Runner's World Complete Book of Running

"Carefully researched and based on the most current ideas in the science of running, Alex Hutchinson's Endure is written with a fluency that makes it easily accessible for all runners. This is an excellent resource for anyone seeking to better to understand how our minds influence our ultimate performances."--TIM NOAKES, emeritus professor of exercise science at the University of Cape Town

"Examines how we can push beyond our limits. ... Gives a gripping insight into the mind of great athletes, adventurers and peak performers to find out what gives them the capacity to push harder and achieve more."--The Independent (Ireland)

"Persuasive and motivating. ... Transports readers to a realm where psychology, environment, and physiology all intersect."--Booklist (*starred review*)

"[Hutchinson] has a true gift for writing compelling sports stories and combining them with deft analyses of cutting-edge research. ... A captivating and often moving book with something to offer readers interested in health, athleticism, neuroscience, and the human condition."--Kirkus (*starred review*)

"The best popular science book on human performance I've ever read."--Mark Burnley, Ph.D., School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Kent

"A perfect book for the armchair athlete. ... If you ever wonder, How do they do that? Hutchinson has the answers. ... Discovers that what we think of as our limits are set by our minds, not by our bodies."--Success ("AHA! Reading List")

"Cinematic. ... Thrilling. ... Hutchinson excels at making the science cohere around his central question: what limits us, our body or our mind?"--Canadian Running

"A fascinating exploration of the limits of the human body--and, to a large extent, the human mind. .... A must-read. ... Highly relevant for those looking to better understand and improve their performance off the playing field, too. "--BRAD STULBERG and STEVE MAGNESS, authors of Peak Performance

From the Back Cover:

LIMITS ARE AN ILLUSION: A REVOLUTIONARY ACCOUNT OF THE SCIENCE AND PSYCHOLOGY OF ENDURANCE, REVEALING THE SECRETS OF REACHING THE EXTRA POTENTIAL WITHIN US ALL.

The capacity to endure is the key trait that underlies great performance in virtually every field--from a 100-meter sprint to a 100-mile ultramarathon, from summiting Everest to acing final exams or completing any difficult project. But what if we all can go farther, push harder, and achieve more than we think we're capable of?

Blending cutting-edge science and gripping storytelling in the spirit of Malcolm Gladwell--who contributes the book's foreword--award-winning journalist Alex Hutchinson reveals that a wave of paradigm-altering research over the past decade suggests the seemingly physical barriers you encounter are set as much by your brain as by your body. This means the mind is the new frontier of endurance--and that the horizons of performance are much more elastic than we once thought.

But, of course, it's not "all in your head." For each of the physical limits that Hutchinson explores--pain, muscle, oxygen, heat, thirst, fuel--he carefully disentangles the delicate interplay of mind and body by telling the riveting stories of men and women who've pushed their own ultimate limits in extraordinary ways.

The longtime "Sweat Science" columnist for Outside and Runner's World, Hutchinson, a former national-team long-distance runner and Cambridge-trained physicist, was one of only two reporters granted access to Nike's top-secret training project to break the two-hour marathon barrier, an extreme quest he traces throughout the book. But the lessons he draws from shadowing elite athletes and from traveling to high-tech labs around the world are surprisingly universal. Endurance, Hutchinson writes, is "the struggle to continue against a mounting desire to stop"--and we're always capable of pushing a little farther.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0062499866
• ISBN 13: 9780062499868
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320