Eric Heiden M. D. - Faster, better, stronger: a customized, scientific approach no mat

There are many people whom I would like to thank. I feel that I should start with my parents, Tina and Matteo Testa, for teaching me the value of a good education. A very special thank you goes to my wife, Julie, and our children, Sara and Marco, for their love and understanding during my years of traveling around the world for yet another big bike tour.

During my career working with athletes, a few people made a difference in determining my focus on exercise and health. One of these was my mentor, Professor Renzo Minelli, M.D., who taught me the interesting field of exercise physiology, and the superior value of preventing rather than curing disease. Another special person is Jim Ochowicz, who in 1985 gave me support and my first opportunity to apply training science to his professional cycling team. I am also really grateful to Eric Heiden for his friendship of over twenty years. Because of his vision of a comprehensive sports medicine program, I was able to start a new chapter of life in the United States. This book comes as a result of our collaboration and a common vision of considering every athlete a special one. However, this book would never have happened without the contribution of DeAnne Musolf, who gave words in an organized sequence to our working experiences. Thank you, DeAnne, for your hard work.

I also would like to thank my working partners at TOSH, within the Department of Sport Science and Medicine, and the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation. Every day I learn something from them.

To conclude, I would like to thank all my patients and athletes who trusted me with their varied challenges. I always felt that what I learned from them was more valuable than what I was able to give.

M ASSIMO T ESTA , M.D.

I would like to acknowledge those who came before us and discovered the foundation of knowledge we use every day to help our patients and clients, those who allowed us to contribute and participate in their athletic success, and Max for being a good friend and professional colleague.

E RIC H EIDEN , M.D.

I am grateful to Max and Eric for allowing me the privilege of working with them to bring this valuable information to light. You are truly great human beings, not to mention kind, funny, very talented, and wise. Your genius in this field is only outsized by your tremendous care for other people.

Kathy Huck, thank you for your expert guidance. You really knew how to get to the heart of the matter and this book is so much the better for it. Thank you, Helen Song, for your stellar attitude and your great work. We also extend our appreciation to the other members of our team at HarperCollins: Matthew Benjamin, Teresa Brady, Angie Lee, Cassandra Gonzalez, and Meryl Sussman Levari. Thanks to each of you for your superb efforts on this book. Farley Chase, thanks for believing in this.

To the extraordinarily insightful Anthony Guffanti, without whom I might still be looking for a worthwhile book project and Eric and Max might still be dreaming of doing a book someday.

I am on my knees with gratitude to the brilliant and insightful reader, writer, and dear friend Em Yates, who likened my writing this book (while doing two other jobs and single parenthood) to Ginger Rogers, who danced as well as Fred Astaire, but backward and wearing high heels. Thank you, Em, for your generous spirit. And to Gina Simmerling for her heroic efforts to bring fitness to the world through Active Cities magazine, and to Ashley Simpson and Elise Marton for their fabulous editing and support while also dancing backward in high heels, to Sara Hare for her sage advice, and to Julie Dow and Amy Raymond for their tireless assistance when I needed it. To my mother, Janice Nephew, for her fantastic faith, good spirits, and love; to Tammi Musolf for her expert insight into health matters and her never-ending energy and enthusiasm for my ideas; and to Jamee Klosters and Beth Yates for their lifelong friendship. All of you have shown me all that women can do.

We are also indebted to experts Mike Lardon, M.D., Marlia Braun, Ph.D., and Fran Mason, M.D., for their amazing work and invaluable contributions to our motivation, nutrition, and sleep content respectively, and to artist Kat Weiss, for bringing a bit of beauty to our otherwise plain pages. All kind and smart people.

Julie Testa, thanks to you, too. Every time I see you I am in awe; I want to shake your handsall eight of them. To Sara and Marco Testa, thanks for the Ping-Pong, biking, and bubble blowing between work sessions, and the enchanting Connor, Zoe, and Karen Heiden for letting me come and stay in your wonderful, warm home.

I also want to acknowledge the substantial influence of my father, Bertram Musolf, who with my mothers help was committed to daily exercise and a low-fat diet long before it was fashionable. In northern Minnesota, if you were out for a run in those days, people pulled over and offered you a ride. Though he died when I was only eight years old, Dads love of exercise and the outdoors unhindered by rain, blizzards, darkness, cold, a 95 job, and myriad logistics shaped my life.

Last, I want to acknowledge the person who makes my life a joyful adventure today: Ryan, my six-year-old son, who also constantly works my flexibility, strength, and cardiovascular system.

Ryan said to me the other day, I love you, Mom, all the way to Neptune and back a million times, which astonished me, because this is exactly how much I love him.

D E A NNE M USOLF

THE TALE OF TWO DOCTORS

I n the last few decades, there has been explosive growth in exercise science. We have witnessed it as doctors and in our own athletic endeavors, huffing around speed-skating rinks and bounding up Alpe dHuez andmore importanthelping others do it. We offer this book as a means of spreading those discoveries.

People continually come to us with the same questions about exercise, repeated tales of wasted months and years without the fitness or the health they sincerely seek. Its not for lack of trying. Millions slave away at one-size-fits-all fitness programs, not even tailoring them to their individual exercise needs. Many dont even know they have individual needs. And people in general, no matter their starting level, are overwhelmed by misconceptions about exercise heaped upon them, few of which are based on medical reality. Sadly, we see people spend time, energy, and money committing the same training errors.

Before coming to us, that is.

Our experience is that people are genuinely eager to exercise, and that they can be disciplined and effectiveif they know where to start and exactly what to do; they need a fitness philosophy that works, that they can embrace for life. So what works? Herein lies the problem. People who know exercise science and people who exercise never talk to one another. Most doctors read only medical journals, and not much about training science, while sports scientists who develop and analyze training research often dont work with individual athletes. And if people see a sports doctor at all, its for an injury, not for training advice. So relatively little of the great techniques developed by exercise scientists ever reaches people who exercise. Instead, fitness-seekers get training advice from a nurse they know from the gym, from a trainer certified online (which we would caution againstmany athletic training certification sites require only a fee, no course work or testing), or from a brief list of tips, and none with respect to their current condition. Or people exercise the way they always did, based on what their coach told them to do in high school.