Human Endurance! Can Science Help Athletes Break Their Limits? How Important Is Belief In Getting Humans To Go Faster And Further? Are We Wrong About Hydration, Using Ice, and High Carb Diets?

The Best Paragraph I’ve Read: Worsley, in trying to cross Antarctica on his own, had embarked on a mission that exceeded his body’s capacity, and no amount of mental strength and tenacity could change that calculation. But if that’s true, then why is death by endurance so rare?  Why don’t Olympic marathoners and Channel swimmers and Appalachian Trail hikers keel over on a regular basis?  That’s the riddle of a young South African doctor named Tim Noakes posed to himself as he was preparing to deliver the most important talk of his life, a prestigious honorary lecture at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine, in 1996: “I said, now hold on.  What is really interesting about exercise is not that people die of, say, heatstroke; or when people are climbing Everest, it’s not that one or two die, “he later recalled.  “The fact is, the majority don’t die – and that is much more interesting.” This paragraph comes from the book: Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance.  The book is written by Alex Hutchinson.  You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Endure-Curiously-Elastic-Limits-Performance/dp/0062499866 Zac and Don discuss the concept of human endurance and some of the key ideas from the book.  They talk about whether it’s the human mind that is the most important aspect to increasing endurance.  In addition, they talk about whether conventional wisdom has been wrong about hydration, using ice after competition, and consuming diets high in carbohydrates. Zac and Don also talk about Henry Worsley, the man who attempted to ski across Antarctica.  You can read the New Yorker article here: https://www.amazon.com/Endure-Curiously-Elastic-Limits-Performance/dp/0062499866