medicine

I am a Personal Training manager with a Physical Education undergraduate degree and Health Preservation and Rehabilitation graduate degree.
I consider that the science of exercise physiology should constitute the basic knowledge for anybody who wants to understands the way the human body functionates and acutely and chronicaly adapts to the exercise stimuli.
No matter you are(or preparing to become) a PE teacher, sport medicine specialist, personal trainer, physical therapist,athletic coach,etc, you should understand the science of exercise physiology.
Dr. McArdle's " Exercise physiology" is definetely one of the most complete books ever writen on the subject. With miriads of grafics and pictures, and tons of scientific research descriptions and results, the book is quite pleasing to read and very convincing.
With more than 1000 pages, definetelly worths its price and even more. Contains as much information as you could find in 3-4 good scientific books and much more than the complete colection of "Muscle and Fitness" starting from 1970.
You can find detailed informations together with all the book ilustrations and even 4 complete chapters at: www.connection.LWW.com/go/mcardle

As a physical therapist/exercise trainer I'm constantly bombarded with books on exercise. This textbook addresses much of what an exercise physiologist knows with solid science, clearly written, enlivened with quiet good humor as evidenced by appealing asides. "The lungs of an average-sized person would cover a surface of 60 to 80 square meters," the authors tell us, which is what you'd expect from a textbook. Then they go on to note this area would be sufficient to cover "almost half a tennis court or an entire badminton court!" giving us not one but two vivid analogies to make the information more memorable. This largess speaks of authors who are not just able scientists, but apt teachers. This generosity extends to the wonderful illustrations (although some of them abound in a somewhat distracting rainbow of superfluous background colors). The common sense discussion of many popular fitness subjects, from exercise selection to steroids to nutrition, make it not just a classic text but good reading for any consumer reeling from the latest fitness marketing.

This book is a great help in understanding what is happening within the body conerning sports training and nutrition. It is based on uncountable research studies and presented in a very readable form with ample graphics illustrations. The book helped me not only to understand more, but also to improve fitness and even loose some weight. It goes very far beyond compared to what one gets told in fitness centers. The main approach of the book is based on energy considerations. Understanding how the body handles energy makes it possible to describe the effects of exercising and performance much more deeply. I would recommend this book to every exerciser, who likes to improve physically and understand background matters. Basically, it's a textbook for sports students. But people outside, like myself, can greatly benefit from it, as well.