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

Brilliant overview of the physiological and psychological factors impacting on performance, and the developing understanding and exploration of the relationship between the two. Alex Hutchinson has done a job that combines his rigour as a scientist with his superb writing skills which see him tell a compelling and pragmatic narrative. In an age of quasi science and the sound bite as an accessible book this stands right out in having real credibility, such as when presenting a balanced view of alternative explanations, as well as readability. For those who want to go deeper into any of the subjects raised it is made clear where to go for more. For those wanting to step back and go for something more foundational Astrand and Rodahls Textbook of Work Physiology should be a go to text. If you like Endure and haven’t yet done so Steve Magness’s Science of Running is another one to read.

When you read books about leadership, athletes and Navy Seals, you understand that many things are possible with the right mindset. Hence “Endure: Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance” Endurance Reaching the limits of endurance is a concept that seems yawningly obvious until you actually try to explain it. He defines endurance as “the struggle to continue against a mounting desire to stop.” And the mind plays a huge role. However, the brain’s role in endurance is, perhaps, the single most controversial topic in sports science. Not dead, could have done more He quotes a coach’s observation about a second-place Olympic marathoner jogging around the track waving his country’s flag. “Do you notice he’s not dead?” he asked. “It means he could have run faster.” Pacing Studies have found that we can’t avoid pacing ourselves: your “maximum” force depends on how many reps you think you have left. It also turns out that, whether it is heat or cold, hunger or thirst, or muscles screaming with the supposed poison of “lactic acid,” what matters in many cases is how the brain interprets these distress signals. Body and mind With the rise of sophisticated techniques to measure and manipulate the brain, researchers are finally getting a glimpse of what’s happening in our neurons and synapses when we are pushed to our limits. They found that brain and body are fundamentally intertwined, and to understand what defines your limits under any particular set of circumstances you have to consider them both together. Smiling The British military has funded studies of computer-based brain training protocols to enhance the endurance of its troops, with startling results. Even subliminal messages can help or hurt your endurance: a picture of a smiling face flashed in 16-millisecond bursts, boosts cycling performance by 12 per cent compared to frowning faces. Frame of mind Another British study in 2012 showed that cyclists in a heat chamber went 4 per cent faster when the thermometer was rigged to display a falsely low temperature (26 instead of 32 degrees Celsius). The right frame of mind, in other words, allows you to push beyond your usual temperature limits. You are operating at 65% The brain’s task is to protect you. It is a survival machine. Read “Solve for happy“. Which is why pacing instinct is not entirely voluntary: your brain forces you to slow down, long before you’re in real physiological distress. So the brain plays a role in defining the limits of endurance. Most of us can summon about 65 per cent of our theoretical maximum strength. Switch of the safety switch For example, the fact that people can dive to three hundred feet or hold their breath for nearly twelve minutes tells us that oxygen’s absolute limits aren’t quite as constrictive as they feel, that we are protected by layer upon layer of reflexive safety mechanisms. Change the settings Average strength increases of 26.5 per cent after hypnosis. So the question is how can you change the settings of your brain? Can you gain access to at least some of the emergency reserve of energy that your brain protects? There’s no doubt that some athletes are able to wring more out of their bodies than others, and those who finish with the most in reserve would dearly love to be able to reduce that margin of safety. But is this really a consequence of the brain’s subconscious decision to throttle back muscle recruitment or is it, as a rival brain-centred theory of endurance posits, simply a matter of how badly you want it? The science of anticipatory regulation They found that the importance of any underlying physiological signal depends in part on how your brain receives and interprets it. The science of “anticipatory regulation”: getting your brain to use the knowledge that is gathered consciously, like an impending dive or a looming finish line, to activate or deactivate safety mechanisms that are otherwise purely unconscious. Endurance as second stage thinking. Managing a cognitive trait called response inhibition, which involves overriding your initial instinct, as a key. The other things That does not mean that you can ignore simple things such as temperature, oxygen, lactate, calories, proteins, fat, dehydration, pain tolerance and mostly effort. So how do you improve your response inhibition and effort? Manage perceived exertion Pain training (apparently pain is fundamentally a subjective, situation-dependent phenomenon) Train the brain to become more accustomed to mental fatigue Test your capabilities, whatever you’ve done before, you can do again plus a little more Create placebo effects Create lucky charms Apply acts of random kindness Use drugs Apply virtual reality (running against yourself) Training in resilience Training in non-judgmental self-awareness Training in mindfulness Again performance and mindfulness meet All the techniques you find in most self-help books. Mind techniques to become a better athlete (or CEO). Teaching athletes that they can do more than they think they can. Knowing that their fiercest opponent will be their own brain’s well-meaning protective circuitry. In short, there is more in there, if you’re willing to believe it.

A gripping, science-backed exploration of what truly limits human performance and how the mind, not the muscles, often holds the key…. excellent marathon training companion.

super fast in great condition

This is a good and fairly easy read. In some of the more in-depth sections you may have to concentrate a bit, but that's no bad thing! The book really asks two questions: 1) What stops us from running ourselves to death? 2) ...And how can we push ourselves a bit closer? The general idea is that our brain acts as a controller and makes sure that although we can push ourselves into the red zone, we stop before we explode. The degree to which this is conscious or subconscious and how this management information is shunted about the body makes up quite a lot of the book. The other part is how we can push ourselves closer to our absolute limit. The author covers everything from the benefits of motivational words to playing metabolic tricks on the body and running electric currents through the brain. Unfortunately I came away a bit unsatisfied. The author himself points out that there seem to be a whole of ways to get a 1-3% boost. But these are not cumulative; using three of them simultaneously doesn't give a 9% boost... The conclusion, then, is that the body holds back a bit more than 3% in reserve. You can access this various ways, but there simply isn't much else available! (I guess that's not a criticism of the book as such, it's just a pity that the conclusion ends up being a bit banal...)

I am a 31 year old man, have always been sporty (tennis and football), an on-and-off runner for the last 2-3 years but only taken up running regularly over the last year. I am quite mentally weak when running so purchased this book after hearing about it on the radio to see if it could help my running psychology. I've only read the first 4 chapters so far but have just been out for a run and taken 1 minute and 8 seconds off my 5km PB! There are already some fascinating insights and analysis into human psychology and I can't wait to get back and read the rest of the book!

Hard read only got to chapter 5 ,but a good book if you like facts and figures

I really enjoyed this book, lots of tricks to try out, new things about running that I didn’t know, fascinating stories about explores in a well written form. 100% recommended for anyone interested in performance

Very nice book to gain confidence to rebuild

What a great read. It's a real page turner if you are an endurance athlete trying to learn more about how your brain influences performance. Alex is an excellent writer and brings a real passion for endurance athletics to this book. This is a balanced and scientifically sceptical view of how athletes, science and corporations like Nike and Red Bull are pushing the boundaries of human performance. The hook for me was the story of the sub 2 hour marathon attempt from 2017 that was spread throughout the book.

This is one of the most fascinating books I have read in recent memory. Hutchinson, writing in a style reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell (who actually wrote the book's foreword) or Freakonomics investigates how the human body works and how it can be pushed to its limits - or beyond what we often perceive as our limits. The book was initially inspired by the chase to run a marathon in under two hours - a conquest many believe to be beyond the limits of human capability. The record has since been broken, but only in a very controlled and optimized setting, leaving questions remaining, but opening the door for the possibility much wider than previously considered. This is one of many principles Hutchinson looks at to bridge where psychology and physiology interrelate to define our limits. Once something is proven to be possible, it suddenly becomes attainable to a far wider audience; this is one of the clear psychological barriers. While the book does not definitively conclude how much is mind vs how much is body in defining limits, it clearly uncovers that the mind plays a much larger role than we like to give credit. Hutchinson references, and indeed observes, many ingenious studies aimed to identify what the true physiological limits are - from explorers in wild conditions, to elite athletes, to living and dead animals having their muscles stimulated by electrical currents. One of the central pillars is that the human body has many self-regulatory systems that act as a governor to keep us from approaching anywhere near our actual limit. As one of many examples, he considers the limits of oxygen deprivation. By looking at ultra free divers, a familiar pattern emerges that they must psychologically manage. Holding one's breath for an extended time begins with discomfort, a signal to the brain that oxygen is needed. If one continues to avoid breathing, the diaphragm will begin to spasm to try to force a breath. If one continues to refrain the task actually becomes easier for a time and a second wave occurs allowing the extension of holding one's breath. This is because the spleen sequesters a cache of oxygenated blood to be released in case of emergency. The true limit is far beyond what most people consider because few will willingly push themselves to the point of the spleen anticipating death and offering a final boost (clearly, this is not something a normal person should strive for). There are obviously much more pedestrian examples like how, if racers are running all out in an olympic race, is it possible that most are able to increase their pace in the last stages of the race? Or why, if access to glycogen stores is critically important, do most top marathoners allow their glycogen stores to deplete over the course of the race rather than keep them topped up? Or, more psychologically, it has been revealed that rinsing one's mouth with carbohydrate rich solution and spitting it out has a nearly identical impact on performance to actually drinking it (the suspicion here is that there is an as-yet unidentified pathway from the mouth that signals to the brain carbohydrates are coming, allowing an override of the governor that would otherwise signal you to reduce your effort). There are dozens of studies, real world examples, and fascinating stories, backed up by the biology and chemistry of how it works, that reveal so much about how our bodies work in the everyday and in the extreme limits of exertion. All of it is remarkably digestible and written almost like a series of mysteries to resolve. Simply put: this is a brilliant, enlightening, and entertaining book that will teach you about the limits of that which we're capable and why, even if it doesn't necessarily provide all of the answers.

Great book

Ce livre contient énormément d’informations sur la façon dont le corps humain utilise ses ressources pour courir, faire du vélo, grimper sur les montagnes, se démener et rester en vie. Il explique avec beaucoup de détails l’utilisation des hydrates de carbone ou des graisses pour réussir des exploits. Des informations très utiles pour comprendre comment notre corps fonctionne.