Building The Elite Athlete, From American Scientist
Review by Adam Sinicki4/5 Stars
Building The Elite Athlete is actually a collection of papers written for the journal American Scientist. As you can imagine then it is a scientific and well-researched title that looks at training from a very scientific perspective.
Specifically it is looking at cutting edge methods, phyiscal enhancement, and the technology that will be used to enhance our athletes in future. The book is not a how-to and can't be used to improve your workout but it certainly gets you thinking and is quite transhumanist in its themes. Among the advances discussed are the drugs currently used by bodybuilders as well as future gene-doping, space travel, nano-technology (for use in equipment) and new drugs.
While this all makes for fascinating reading, the nature of the book means that the chapters vary greatly in quality and writing style and what's worse, they often repeat themselves. They also often repeat themselves (annoying huh?). This on top of the layout (which utilises many blank spaces) means that you don't get nearly so much information as you would expect from a book of its size.
While a price-cut would be nice however, the book is very interesting and a good starting point for those interested in extropian ideas. Further more it provides a fascinating look at a possible future.
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