Really concise usable knowledge around workouts. Not outdated yet, but there is recent evidence to refute some of the 2011 knowledge (RICE for ankle sprains is out, for example) ( )

With thousands of books written on health and fitness, with lots of hype in many of them, and little evidence to back them up, it's refreshing to read this book as an antidote. The book covers many central exercise topics, like the utility of stretching, and how much of what type of cardio you should do - all grounded by scientific evidence. For this reason, I think anyone interested in exercise should read this book, so that they get a good sense of what the scientific consensus is on a range of subjects. Very usefully, the end of each chapter has a summary sheet, which means it's easy to refresh your memory. Only very occasionally does the book actually give you specific training advice, though, so on its own this book is definitely not sufficient for getting fit.

The way that the science is covered is generally very clear, and it feels reasonably comprehensive. Occasionally I wasn't really sure what to take from the description of the science, but perhaps that was more to do with how surprisingly young and immature some of the science is. In some ways on occasion I would actually have preferred more background scientific detail, so we can move towards what is most plausible based on mechanism, but the science was universally covered in quite a superficial way, with nothing gone into depth.

The book is better for people who centre on cardio, and even better for runners (I think the author's main activity). It's not so strong on strength training, and there were some clear gaps that I would have really liked plugging. For instance, creatine is an extremely popular strength training aid, but its merits weren't discussed at all in the book.

So not as comprehensive as it could have been, but still leagues above almost almost all other books in providing conclusions that have such solid scientific backing. ( )

re-visit when I am ready to learn more ( )

This is not likely to become a book for the ages. Hutchinson reviews many recent results in sports science. The basic problem is that recent results in science are always ephemeral. There is a great nutrition book, Eat Drink and Be Healthy, by Walter Willett. Willett points out this problem. He advises his readers to ignore recent scientific results. The science to live by are the old results that have stood the test of time, that stopped being newsworthy decades ago. Science is a slow winnowing process. The latest reports published in journals and conference proceedings have only passed the very preliminary filters. Other researchers will come at those topics from different directions and get somewhat different results. After five or ten years some sort of rough consensus will form and appear in a review paper. Another five or ten years go by with some more sorting out and deeper understanding, and clear picture is presented in a monograph. Finally the subject becomes boring and appears in undergraduate textbooks. The boring textbook science is what you want to live by. If you are in desperate straights then maybe you could gamble with notions out of review papers. But if you are not so unlucky, it is smarter to play safer.

Another problem with the book is that it focuses on competitive sports. It is not at all clear that competitive sports are a smart way to stay healthy. Rather the contrary, sorry to say. Yeah, somehow one needs to push oneself out of the comfort zone... some stress and risk is necessary for healthy living. Competition is one way to generate that kind of push. But competition can be playful. One can keep the goal of winning in perspective, as just a tactic in the larger game of staying healthy.

It's a nice puzzle, actually. What is it go be healthy, or fit? Fit for what? The practical tasks of living involve both routine and extraordinary challenges. And then these change decade by decade, as we age, as our circumstances change, and as our world evolves. In some times and places the only practical way to get around is by automobile. Other times and places allow for pedestrian locomotion alongside automobiles. In yet others automobiles are difficult and the easiest way to get around is on foot. Daily life can demand certain types of fitness and also promote it. A fourth floor walk-up apartment could even change a person's diet, just to reduce the weight of groceries to be carried up!

I will say, this book inspired me to go out for a run. I hope I manage to keep running regularly as part of my regular rotation! So it's definitely a book one can learn from and be inspired by. But I don't plan ever to enter into any sort of athletic competition. Maybe I will do some interval training even though I am not interested in competition. But how do I adapt training program to optimize by fitness for the routine and extraordinary physical challenges of my coming decades? This book doesn't help me much.

For example, its discussion of stretching is a bit odd. Hutchinson looks at whether static or dynamic stretching before an athletic competition will improve my results. But if I don't care about winning races, what difference to my overall practical fitness does it make, whether my muscles are tight or loose? If my muscles are so tight that my posture is pulled out of alignment? A dedicated competitive athlete might even ruin their own health to win. Look at the use of performance enhancing drugs! Somehow the emphasis of this book on winning... while it surely will increase the book's appeal in a sizable audience... doesn't increase its appeal for me! ( )