Faster, Better, Stronger by Eric Heiden
February 10th, 2009Title: Faster, Better, Stronger
Author: Eric Heiden, M.D.
Publisher: Collins Living (2008)
Did you know that Eric Heiden is an M.D.? I didn’t For some reason I was totally shocked that I didn’t know…as if I have a store of knowledge about Eric Heiden. Actually, the extent of my knowledge is that he was a really fast speed skater and won a bunch of gold medals in 1980. And now I know that he is a physician. Also, he knows what he is talking about when he writes on exercise science.
Heiden, and co-author Massimo Testa, M.D., run a company that specializes in training high class athletes. In Faster, Better, Stronger, they give you lessons on how to train like a professional athelte. ”But I’m not a professional athelte!”, you say. That’s OK. the first half of the book is about exercise science. Why you should do certain exercises, why you should eat certain things, etc.. The 2nd half of the book lines out a program for you to follow based on how you perform in some fitness tests. There are 5 levels of programs to follow.
I think the most important thing they write about…and they go back to it a lot…is that proper health and getting in shape takes time. People expect to be fit after 1 week of exercise…but that’s not going to happen. They warn you not to expect real significant progress until you have been exercising regularly for 6 months. I think it is important that they addressed this point so much.
This book was so inspiring to me that I am actually going to exercise more now. And I hate exercising without chasing a ball of some kind. Hopefully I can keep it up and will have the physique of a professional body builder in 2 weeks. Er…I mean 6 months.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
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February 18th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Wow, I remember Eric Heiden! A doctor huh….I can’t believe that was 1980…lol
But besides that, the book sounds very interesting. Not like I am going to follow the program but just as information.