We swim in freezing Arctic waters and piranha-infested rivers to test our limits. We swim for pleasure, for exercise, for healing. But humans, unlike other animals that are drawn to water, are not natural-born swimmers. We must be taught. Our evolutionary ancestors learned for survival; now, in the twenty-first century, swimming is one of the most popular activities in the world.Why We Swim is propelled by stories of Olympic champions, a Baghdad swim club that meets in Saddam Hussein’s palace pool, modern-day Japanese samurai swimmers, and even an Icelandic fisherman who improbably survives a wintry six-hour swim after a shipwreck. New York Times contributor Bonnie Tsui, a swimmer herself, dives into the deep, from the San Francisco Bay to the South China Sea, investigating what about water—despite its dangers—seduces us and why we come back to it again and again.

    Illustrated throughout in two-color and featuring a 96-page full-color section, Beauty is filled with step-by-step how-tos, professional techniques, brand and product comparisons, and inside tips gleaned from a pro's pro who's covered the world of beauty for The New York Times Magazine, Elle magazine and other national publications. The book tackles all three major categories-The Face, Hair, The Body. The emphasis is on simplicity and a healthy, natural approach, and the range cuts across all ethnicities and ages. There are five minute skin regimes, facials, makeup tricks and health tips. How to reduce stress in the bath and pamper yourself with an easy home spa. The long and short of hair care-including what to do on bad hair days. Remedies for beauty emergencies (eyes puffy from fatigue? do what the models do and use a dab of Preparation H). Plus make-overs, recipes, historical lore, stories, time-lines, and an extensive glossary and list of resources. It's a knock-out.

    Now, with one small device, you can apply the latest technology, science, and research to take the guesswork out of training, monitor progress, and see results. Heart Rate Training will show you how!From functions, features, and operational advice for your device to interpreting and applying the results, Heart Rate Training is a step-by-step guide to optimizing performance. You’ll learn how, when, and why monitors can, and should, be incorporated into your workouts, training, and conditioning program to produce maximum results. In Heart Rate Training, authors Roy Benson and Declan Connolly show you how to determine deficiencies in training and performance, create targeted programs to increase endurance, raise lactate threshold, increase speed and power, and monitor your recovery between workouts. And the sample programs allow you to manipulate the training components to design a long-term training plan across eight endurance sports: walking, running, cycling, swimming, triathlon, rowing, cross-country skiing, and team sports.When you’re ready to take training and performance to the next level, turn to Heart Rate Training and achieve your personal best.

    

    The Intellectual Devotional is a secular version of the same—a collection of 365 short lessons that will inspire and invigorate the reader every day of the year. Each daily digest of wisdom is drawn from one of seven fields of knowledge: history, literature, philosophy, mathematics and science, religion, fine arts, and music.Impress your friends by explaining Plato's Cave Allegory, pepper your cocktail party conversation with opera terms, and unlock the mystery of how batteries work. Daily readings range from important passages in literature to basic principles of physics, from pivotal events in history to images of famous paintings with accompanying analysis. The book's goal is to refresh knowledge we've forgotten, make new discoveries, and exercise modes of thinking that are ordinarily neglected once our school days are behind us. Offering an escape from the daily grind to contemplate higher things, The Intellectual Devotional is a great way to awaken in the morning or to revitalize one's mind before retiring in the evening.

    Lions, rhino, and buffalo roam the plains on either side. But I haven’t come to Kenya to spot wildlife. I’ve come to run.”   Whether running is your recreation, your religion, or just a spectator sport, Adharanand Finn’s incredible journey to the elite training camps of Kenya will captivate and inspire you. Part travelogue, part memoir, this mesmerizing quest to uncover the secrets of the world’s greatest runners—and put them to the test—combines practical advice, a fresh look at barefoot running, and hard-won spiritual insights.   As a boy growing up in the English countryside, Adharanand Finn was a natural runner. While other kids struggled, he breezed through schoolyard races, imagining he was one of his heroes: the Kenyan long-distance runners exploding into prominence as Olympic and world champions. But as he grew up, pursued a career in journalism, married and had children, those childhood dreams slipped away—until suddenly, in his mid-thirties, Finn realized he might have only one chance left to see how far his talents could take him.   Uprooting his family of five, including three small children, Finn traveled to Iten, a small, chaotic town in the Rift Valley province of Kenya—a mecca for long-distance runners thanks to its high altitude, endless running paths, and some of the top training schools in the world. Finn would run side by side with Olympic champions, young hopefuls, and barefoot schoolchildren . . . not to mention the exotic—and sometimes dangerous—wildlife for which Kenya is famous.   Here, too, he would meet a cast of colorful characters, including his unflappable guide, Godfrey Kiprotich, a former half marathon champion; Christopher Cheboiboch, one of the fastest men ever to run the New York City Marathon; and Japhet, a poor, bucktoothed boy with unsuspected reservoirs of courage and raw speed. Amid the daily challenges of training and of raising a family abroad, Finn would learn invaluable lessons about running—and about life.  Running with the Kenyans is more than one man’s pursuit of a lifelong dream. It’s a fascinating portrait of a magical country—and an extraordinary people seemingly born to run.

    This book will identify YOUR individual needs and teach you how to address issues that may be preventing you from looking and feeling your best. Follow this proven four-step program that has helped thousands of people look and feel their best. Step 1. Fill in the Questionnaires. Step 2. Develop a Unique Eating Plan for YOU. Step 3. Build a Personalized Exercise Program that Fits YOUR Needs. Step 4. Fine-tune a Healthier Lifestyle that Fits YOUR Routine. Whether you want to lose weight, change your body shape, overcome a health challenge, or optimize an already healthy lifestyle, this book will teach you how to achieve all your goals!

    This acclaimed book delivers beautifully illustrated information for learning palpation and the musculoskeletal system. It makes mastering the essential manual therapy skills interesting, memorable and easy. With 504 pages and 1,400 illustrations covering more than 162 muscles, 206 bones, 33 ligaments and 110 bony landmarks, this text provides an invaluable map of the body.This new edition includes an extensive 56-page appendix that describes the common trigger point locations and pain patterns of 100 muscles. Trail Guide to the Body is a highly recommended textbook for the state licensing tests administered by both the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB) and the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB) and is one of only five books on their official examination reference lists. In addition, the Board of Certification program for athletic trainers in the U.S. uses our high-quality Trail Guide to the Body illustrations in their various products, including exams.Whether you are a massage therapist, physical therapist, sports trainer or student in any bodywork modality, Trail Guide to the Body is for you!

    For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.With a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons. Born to Run is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.

    With elite cycling coach Chris Carmichael’s innovative, time-saving approach, busy cyclists will develop fitness, speed, and power in just 6 hours a week. Now powered by Strava, this updated third edition of The Time-Crunched Cyclist training program taps into the most popular cycling social network to help cyclists get fired up to crush their workouts, one segment at a time.Through his popular endurance coaching service, Carmichael noticed that many busy cyclists are unable to make performance gains using conventional training methods; they simply don’t have enough time to train. So CTS developed a new approach—the Time-Crunched Training Program—to help cyclists achieve competitive fitness and power without the impossible time demands of traditional training methods.The Time-Crunched Cyclist shows cyclists how to build fitness on a realistic schedule by tapping the power of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts. Cyclists learn the science behind this alternative approach to training before performing the CTS field tests to get a baseline reading of their fitness. Nine comprehensive training plans include effective time-crunched workouts, nutrition guidelines, and strength training to develop the speed and endurance for a wide variety of cycling races and events. The new Time-Crunched Training Plans cover: · New and Experienced plans for criteriums, road races, and cyclocross· New, Experienced, and Competitive plans for century rides and Gran Fondos· Gravel racing and ultraendurance mountain biking plans· Intermediate and Advanced plans for commutersThis new, third edition integrates Strava, the popular ride tracking and analysis program. Powered by Strava, the Time-Crunched program becomes interactive, social, highly motivating—and focuses riders on the training data that matters most. It also adds the Time-Crunched Diet, a sports nutrition approach designed to help riders optimize their power-to-weight ratio with new guidelines on eating behaviors and delicious recipes from chefs Michael Chiarello and Matt Accarrino. A new chapter on hydration and managing heat stress will show athletes simple ways to avoid overheating that lead to better performance. The Time-Crunched Cyclist can help you capture your best performance—all in the time you have right now.

    Jacobs tackles his most challenging experiment yet: a yearlong mission to radically improve every element of his body and mind—from his brain to his fingertips to his abs.From the bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically and The Know-It-All comes the true and truly hilarious story of one person’s quest to become the healthiest man in the world. Hospitalized with a freak case of tropical pneumonia, goaded by his wife telling him, “I don’t want to be a widow at forty-five,” and ashamed of a middle-aged body best described as “a python that swallowed a goat,” A.J. Jacobs felt compelled to change his ways and get healthy. And he didn’t want only to lose weight, or finish a triathlon, or lower his cholesterol. His ambitions were far greater: maximal health from head to toe. The task was epic. He consulted an army of experts— sleep consultants and sex clinicians, nutritionists and dermatologists. He subjected himself to dozens of different workouts—from Strollercize classes to Finger Fitness sessions, from bouldering with cavemen to a treadmill desk. And he took in a cartload of diets: raw foods, veganism, high protein, calorie restriction, extreme chewing, and dozens more. He bought gadgets and helmets, earphones and juicers. He poked and he pinched. He counted and he measured. The story of his transformation is not only brilliantly entertaining, but it just may be the healthiest book ever written. It will make you laugh until your sides split and endorphins flood your bloodstream. It will alter the contours of your brain, imprinting you with better habits of hygiene and diet. It will move you emotionally and get you moving physically in surprising ways. And it will give you occasion to reflect on the body’s many mysteries and the ultimate pursuit of health: a well-lived life.

    Every athlete ought to have the ability to take the first steps at addressing these minor injuries. They shouldn’t have to wait weeks for a doctor’s appointment, only to be prescribed pain medications and told to “take two weeks off lifting” or, even worse, to “stop lifting so heavy.” Dr. Aaron Horschig knows your pain and frustration. He’s been there. For over a decade, Dr. Horschig has been a competitive weightlifter, and he understands how discouraging it is to tweak your back three weeks out from a huge weightlifting competition, to have knee pain limit your ability to squat heavy for weeks, and to suffer from chronic shoulder issues that keep you from reaching your goals. Rebuilding Milo is the culmination of Dr. Horschig’s life’s work as a sports physical therapist, certified strength and conditioning specialist, and Olympic weightlifting coach. It contains all of the knowledge he has amassed over the past decade while helping some of the best athletes in the world. Now he wants to share that knowledge with you. This book, designed by a strength athlete for anyone who spends time in the weight room, is the solution to your struggles with injury and pain. It walks you through simple tests and screens to uncover the movement problem at the root of your pain. After discovering the cause of your injury, you’ll be able to create an individualized rehab program as laid out in this book. Finally, you’ll be on the right path to eliminate your pain and return to the activities you love.

    Illustrated.

    This best-selling text has been updated with new examples, guidelines, insights, and ideas that demonstrate how group leaders can apply the basic issues and key concepts of the group process to a variety of groups. Offering up-to-date coverage of both the "what is" and the 'how to' of group counseling, the Seventh Edition features a greater focus on group work with children, the elderly, issues in both women's and men's groups and in school settings.

    Lance's return road to glory took courage, determination, and a top-notch training program. Now Lance's winning strategies-- developed with coach Chris Carmichael-- can be yours, too! Whether you're a cycling novice or a competitive racer, The Lance Armstrong Training Program will teach you how to:* find the right bike for your body* know when to brake (only as a last resort!)* corner, climb, and descend like a pro* develop your explosive power to sprint* incorporate cross-training into your schedule* build necessary mental toughness...* and much more!Simple and focused, Lance's proven program will transform you into the rider you want to be-- in just seven weeks!