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

[S.]

Read: March 10, 2021

Notes/Feedback:
As a runner this was a very interesting book. The author is an ex national long distance runner with prior attempts at Olympic trials. He covers the general concept of endurance in running, biking, swimming, etc. Throughout the book he covers areas that might contribute to our physical limit such as pain, muscle, oxygen, heat, thirst and nutrition. But the main purpose of the book is to see how much impact our mind has on our endurance. He attempts to find whether or not we have a central endurance governor in our brain. And if so, can we manipulate it. Each chapter covers case studies and examples from early 20th century to present day. There a lot of interesting case studies done on the impact of our brain and psychology that seems to impact our physical limits. If you are tired mentally how will that impact your physical performance. Does physical endurance translate to mental endurance? What if you are positive vs. negative before a run? What if you are shown a simple smiley face vs. frowny face before your and during your run? Why are humans slow to break seemingly impossible records but once they do many other will follow quickly? Why don't we see the same behavior in racing horses? Many interesting examples and case studies and the author is clear to state which study was peer reviewed and which one was double blind vs just unverified data submitted.

A word of caution, the author does tend to bounce back and forth across multiple studies and timelines within the chapters so it does take some headspace to keep track of what lane the story is on while you are reading.

Recommendation:
I would recommend this book to anyone already in, or looking to get started in, any endurance sport such as running or biking.