"Fastest, Highest, Strongest" presents a comprehensive challenge to the dominant orthodoxy concerning the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport.
Examining the political and economic transformation of the Olympic Movement during the twentieth century, the authors argue that the realities of modern sport require a serious reassessment of current policies, in particular the ban on the use of certain substances and practices. The book includes detailed discussion of:
- The historical importance of World War II and the Cold War in the development of a high-performance culture in sport.
- The changing Olympic project: from amateurism to a fully professionalized approach.
- The changing meaning of "sport."
- The role of sport science, technology and drugs in pursuing ever-better performance.
- The major ethical and philosophical arguments used to support the ban on performance-enhancing substances in sport.
"Fastest, Highest, Strongest "is a profound, critical examination of modern sport, of interest to both students and scholars in the field of sport studies, as well as sociologists, political scientists, policymakers, sports administrators, and athletes themselves

"This is a powerful, richly nuanced, evocative work; a stunning and brilliantly innovative pedagogical intervention. It provides ground zero-the starting place for the next generation of theorists who study the self, narrative theory, and the place of games and sport in everyday life. A stunning accomplishment by one of America's major social theorists." Norman K. Denzin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Games of many kinds have been played in all cultures throughout human history. This wide-ranging book explores the social and psychological processes involved in the playing of games. One player (or team) seeks to outwit another by undertaking various physical and communicative moves-not unlike conversations. Games have well-formed "narrative" structures, analogous to myths, that are enacted by each participant to give play to his/her self and its attendant emotions. These plays of the self enable each agent to seek adventures and heroic moments. Going beyond the mythmaking and catharsis that may be achieved by individuals, the author shows how games have been devised and played in particular societies and eras as means of promoting specific ideologies of a society, even social ideals such as utopias.

Social psychology in sport has grown impressively in the last decade, but no single text has addressed all the important topics in the field--until now. Through the contributions of an international group of established scholars and creative young minds, "Social Psychology in Sport" offers readers a global perspective, a broad base of knowledge, and the latest thinking on topics such as social relationships, communication, coach leadership, team cohesion, motivation and motivational climate, audience effects, and morality.

This text allows readers to gain insight into the interactions and dynamics that affect sport performance and the sport experience for youth and adults. Using the latest research in the field, "Social Psychology in Sport"-provides a complete and current analysis of the field, exploring the social aspects of interactions, relationships, influences, and perceptions;

-addresses a broad range of topics from theoretical, empirical, and applied perspectives;

-delves into established areas of interest such as group dynamics and coach-athlete and peer relationships; and

-dissects emerging topics such as relational efficacy, passion, and cross-cultural issues.The book is designed to allow readers to study issues in isolation or as part of a course or a module. The five main parts are Relationships in Sport, Coach Leadership and Group Dynamics, Motivational Climate, Key Social and Cognitive Processes in Sport, and The Athlete in the Wider Sport Environment. Each chapter is cross-referenced and provides a clear description of the topic and a concise theoretical overview along with a discussion of existing research. The chapters also introduce new research ideas, suggest practical research applications, and conclude with summaries and questions to help instructors engage the class in discussion and to help students follow the key points.

By following a progression of theory, research, and application, "Social Psychology in Sport" offers a framework that other sport psychology books often don't provide. With this approach, readers can appreciate the historical context of social psychology topics while also studying new, exciting, and developing social psychological questions.

Through the applicable nature of the research, "Social Psychology in Sport" will fuel more research interest, ensuring that the recent growth in the field continues well into the future. As such, this text should be of great interest to students in upper-undergraduate and graduate courses and to researchers interested in the psychosocial aspects of sport. It is an ideal book for social psychology of sport and physical activity courses as well as courses in the psychology of coaching, sport psychology, and sport sociology.

This book discusses human-computer interaction (HCI) which is a multidisciplinary field of study which aims at developing and implementing tools and techniques to attain an effective and efficient interaction between the humans (the users) and computers. In recent years, there is an increase of interest of HCI researchers and practitioners in the inclusion of gaze gestures which can greatly enhance the communication between the human user and the computer, as well as other more "physical" communication involving all what can be learned from movements of the human body, from face, hand, leg, foot, etc., to the whole body movement, even extending to the involvement of groups of agents, even society. These explicitly human-centric issues in the development, design, analysis, and implementation of the HCI systems are discussed in the book. A comprehensive state of the art is given complemented with original own proposals. As opposed to more traditional formal and IT based analyses, the discussion is here more focused on relevant research results from psychology and psychophysiology, and other soft, cognitive, etc., sciences. Remarks on the relevance of affective computing are also mentioned.

Mega-events have long been used by cities as a strategy to secure global recognition and attract future economic investment. However, while cultural mega-events like the European Capital of Culture have become increasingly popular, cities have begun questioning the traditional model of other events such as the Olympic Games with many candidate cities cancelling bids in recent years. This approach to planning and developing cities through mega-events introduces a broad range of physical effects and nuanced institutional changes for cities, particularly for the more sensitive heritage areas of cities. This book explores these issues by first examining the dynamics of cities' attempts to reduce overall costs and increase the sustainability of these large events by further embedding them within the existing fabric of the city and second by studying in depth the impact on the heritage of host cities. This book investigates three World Heritage Cities: Genoa, Liverpool and Istanbul, each of which have hosted the European Capital of Culture and introduced a variety of opportunities and risks for their heritage. The book highlights the potential benefits and challenges of integrating event and heritage planning to provide lessons that can help future historic cities and heritage decision makers better prepare for such events.

Sport Integrity examines sports integrity from a range of disciplinary perspectives that will help to enhance the reader's understanding of this burgeoning problematic in sports management. Securing and promoting the integrity of sport has become one of the critical tasks for the governance and management of sport at professional, elite and non-elite levels. Threats to the integrity of sport manifest themselves in an array of guises, and include problems such as match-fixing, corruption, and the poor governance and management of sport. To reflect these diverse difficulties, this volume brings together authors from different nationalities to examine specific problems from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Together, these contributors enhance the empirical and theoretical foundations of sports integrity and place ethical considerations at the heart of the discussions to improve the management of sport. Sport Integrity will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners of sport management, sport and ethics and sports governance. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Global Sport Management.

As the woman who trained the great Best Mate to win three consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cups, no one could be better qualified than Henrietta Knight to discover what makes today's top jumps trainers succeed.

From eccentric, outspoken Yorkshireman Mick Easterby, to elegant, aristocratic Venetia Williams, from Irish wizard, Willie Mullins, to perfectionist champion trainer, Paul Nicholls and young pretender, Dan Skelton, here is a dazzling cast of extraordinary characters, all with their quirks and foibles, but with one single-minded ambition – finding first-class horses and training them to win big races.

Henrietta shares their dramatic journeys, methods and secrets of working in a tough, competitive industry. For the trainers, every win reignites the thrill of the sport and a craving for success that never dies. Their stories are fascinating, each one illustrated with unique photographs from private albums.

Drawing on rich empirical material from elite French sport, this book offers a detailed history of how the concept of doping evolved from the twentieth to the twenty-first century. The first study to span the period from 1950 to 2010, it sheds new light on the extraordinary world of elite sport in France - a world governed by its own moral standards and defined by extreme expectations of physical performance and highly medicalised training regimes. Including exclusive insights from athletes and their doctors, it explains how the use of drugs became an integral part of training in elite French sport. Considering the complex and paradoxical moral arguments that frame this phenomenon, it explores the decades-long social and political process that resulted in the normalisation of this doping culture. Drawing on examples from cycling, athletics, weightlifting, wrestling and bodybuilding, this book compares doping practices in these sports and questions the effectiveness of anti-doping policies. This is fascinating reading for all those interested in the use of drugs in sports, the ethics and philosophy of sport, or sports history.

It is beyond dispute that physical activity is good for us, but what are the benefits, challenges and impacts of sport on health? This is the first book to focus on football in the context of health from individual, public and population-level perspectives. Football as Medicine examines the effects of football training on the three main types of fitness (cardiovascular, metabolic and musculoskeletal) and on specific target populations (for example, children, type 2 diabetes patients, cancer patients, people with mental health conditions, the socially deprived and older people). It discusses the significance of football for public health and assesses the efficacy of football interventions by clubs and community sport development programs. With its multi-disciplinary approach, this is a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners working in physical activity and health, public health, health promotion and medicine, as well as football and sport business management, sport and exercise science, and the sociology of sport.

Written as a resource for both pre-service and in-service educators, this theory-to-practice book focuses on the foundations and applications of constructivism applied to the teaching and learning of invasion sports and games.

Sport Education is an exciting approach to the teaching of PE. Sport Education: Research Based Practice presents teachers with a framework for developing units of work that will provide their students with challenging and enjoyable sporting experiences that involve them in an array of roles. In Sport Education students are not only players, they also become skilled and knowledgeable as captains, coaches, managers, match reporters and more. This book provides a complete guide to using the Sport Education model in PE and sport in schools including: * key issues in PE such as inclusion, assessment, cross-curricular learning; citizenship and lifelong learning. * sport Education in the context eg National Curriculum for Physical Education. * real world examples of how Sport Education has been used in both primary and secondary PE. * sport Education in the context of games, gymnastics, athletics, swimming, outdoors and adventurous activities. Sport Education is based upon original research and is the first collection of its kind. It will be an important resource for trainees, teachers and teacher educators looking to try Sport Education in their schools and training institutions.

Written as a resource for both pre-service and in-service educators, this theory-to-practice book focuses on the foundations and applications of constructivism applied to the teaching and learning of invasion sports and games.

A fly-on-the-wall account of the greatest drama in modern sporting history by the New York Times cycling correspondent. As Lance Armstrong's precipitous fall from grace continues, New York Times sports reporter Juliet Macur takes the reader behind the scenes to bring to life the astonishing twists and turns of the scandal that has rocked the world of cycling. With unprecedented access to the key players in the drama - from Armstrong's fellow cyclists and top cycling officials to doctors, trainers and wives - Cycle of Lies reveals how Armstrong built a fortress of people around him to protect his image and upend the lives of anybody who stood in his way. As America's fallen idol faces potential perjury charges, Cycle of Lies widens the focus to expose corruption at all levels of the sport in a thrilling, page-turning work of contemporary narrative history.

Why did Michael Jordan quit basketball and take up baseball? Why was Martina Navratilova so successful as a professional tennis player? These and many other questions about aspects of motivation and emotion in sport are addressed in this book which is newly available in paperback. Reversal theory's systematic conceptual framework allows a unique perspective for interpreting behaviour in sport contexts. Within each chapter, real-life examples are combined with research findings to provide an understanding of the emotional background and changes which accompany the individual's unique experience in sport. In addition, suggestions as to alications of reversal theory in new areas of sport psychology and the future direction of reversal theory-based sport research are outlined. For those interested in a truly insightful understanding of human behaviour in sport, this book will be required reading.

Biofeedback (BFB) in practical sport and exercise is under used and misunderstood, despite recent remarkable technical advances. It is a vital method of training athletes which increases individual awareness and control over the body and reduces habitual physiological tensions.

Written by leading international experts, this ground-breaking book brings together, for the first time, current research and applications and shows how different BFB approaches can be used in various sports. Unique features of this book include:

• How to transfer BFB training from the lab to the field

• BFB intervention for the daily training process

• BFB training geared to a specific sport

• How to measure athletic self-regulation

• An appendix detailing the latest BFB devices

"This text is long overdue and combines knowledge gained through psychophysiological research and applied to the implementation of biofeedback techniques with athletes. In my view there is no comparable publication to date. It should be useful as a resource for students and practitioners alike." Dr Jan Graydon, Head of Sports Studies, University College Chichester, UK

The emerging field of body ecology offers fresh insights into how the body engages with its surrounding environment through consciousness, perception, knowledge and emotion. In this groundbreaking collection, leading scholars of sport, leisure and philosophy draw on research on topics as diverse as surfing, freediving, slacklining, parkour, bodybuilding, dance and circus arts to flesh out the concept of body ecology and its potential for helping us understand our connection with the world around us. Touching on theories of subjectivity, embodiment, pleasure and play, this book explores different approaches to studying body ecology as a way of conceptualising the experience of being immersed in nature, in the elements and in one's own body through the power of awareness. An experience becomes emersive when it involves the production of new emotions in the body: emersion is the activation of what is living within the body itself. Shedding new light on the possibilities of physical cultural studies, Body Ecology and Emersive Leisure is fascinating reading for all students and scholars with an interest in sport, leisure, philosophy and the body.

Increasing numbers of professional teams and athletes look for assistance with the psychological factors of their performance, and there exists a growing body of professional sport psychologists ready to provide support. Despite this, it seems at times there remains a significant gap between the real needs of sport performers and what is delivered by traditional sport psychology. The existential approach described by Mark Nesti offers a radical alternative to the cognitive and cognitive-behavioural approaches that have dominated sport psychology, and represents the first systematic attempt to apply existential psychological theory and phenomenological method to sport psychology. This much-needed alternative framework for the discipline of applied sport psychology connects to many of the real and most significant challenges faced by sports performers during their careers and beyond. Existential Psychology and Sport outlines an approach that can be used to add something of depth, substance and academic rigour to sport psychology in applied settings beyond the confines of MST and good listening skills.

This book summarizes the latest meeting of the world's leading researchers in sports nutrition, held at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. The aim of the conference was to review the latest developments in the world of sport nutrition, to follow up on developments since the previous 1991 conference, and to draw up guidelines to help athletes and coaches optimise their performance by using nutrition to support training and maximise performance in competition.

Subjects discussed in this cutting-edge collection include:

* energy balance and body composition
* the role of carbohydrates
* the role of proteins and amino acids
* athlete fluid and electrolyte requirements
* the use of dietary supplements for optimum performance and immune function.

College athletes are at the very center of emerging campus debates over their legal, financial, and academic role. Amid ongoing litigation and pressure from internal and external stakeholders, many policy makers and university leaders are scrambling to determine the nature of this role. This timely and comprehensive volume identifies and discusses bylaws and legal decisions that have impacted the college athlete's ability to pursue higher education. It also explains and critiques the formal policies of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and member institutions while examining critical issues relevant to the growing fields of sport management, athletic administration, and sports law. Aimed at anyone seeking to enhance their understanding of the intercollegiate athletics landscape, College Athletes' Rights and Well-Being is divided into four sections. The first lays out the historical foundations that have shaped the intercollegiate athletic experience. Subsequent sections describe the principles, structures, and conditions that influence how athletes experience campus life, as well as the increasingly commercialized business enterprise of college sports. Told from the perspective of athletes and written by leading scholars and researchers, the book's sixteen chapters are enhanced with useful lists of key terms and conversation-provoking discussion questions. Touching on everything from concussion protocols and collective bargaining to amateurism, Title IX's gender-separate allowance, and conference realignment, this important book is designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, scholars, educators, practitioners, policy makers, athletic administrators, and advocates of college athletes.

This book takes a radically different approach to the challenge of coaching in strength and conditioning. In doing so, it addresses many of the paradoxes of strength and conditioning, providing new perspectives that shed light on to the many questions that challenge coaches. Rather than focusing on methods, it delves into the questions of what makes a coach effective. It examines the conditions that are necessary for training applications to become optimal, and the skills necessary to create these conditions. It provides coaches with a flexible pathway towards understanding the challenges of strength and conditioning and by which they can develop the craft of coaching to maximise their effectiveness and potential. The book is essential reading for anyone wishing to pursue a career as a strength and conditioning coach, acting essentially as a prequel to the many scientific and applied texts in the field. It will also appeal to more experienced coaches providing a wider perspective on the challenges they face and providing potential solutions not traditionally considered.

Are pain and injury managed appropriately in the environment of commercial sport?

Is sports medicine a tool to empower or to disempower athletes?

Sport, Professionalism and Pain considers these and other pertinent concerns as it questions whether, in the world of modern sport, it is the participants themselves or the sport's administrators who exert more control over athletes' well being. It is asserted that, because of the distinctive nature of sport, the power to transform medical practice and application of sports medicine lies not with physicians but within the practices of sport itself.

Sport, Professionalism and Pain bridges a perceived space in the literature between medical anthropology, medical sociology and sport studies, examining issues such as:

- the relationship between sports medicine, the body and culture
- the power struggle between sport administrators and participants
- the historical transformation of sports medicine

eBook available with sample pages: HB:041528970X

'The art of coaching is recognising the situation, recognising the people and responding to the people you are working with... that's the big thing, to handle people'. Steve Harrison, Coach, Middlesbrough Football Club. Responding to the fast growing subject in academic sports departments, this groundbreaking new coaching studies text offers a view that focuses the coach as a person and the coaching practice as a complex social encounter. Unlike existing titles in the field which look at coaching as a science, this book examines the personalities, histories, relationships and individual styles of eight coaches at the top of their profession. One-to-one interviews with some of the best-known and respected elite sports coaches include Steve Harrison, Hope Powell and Graham Taylor from football; Ian McGeechan and Bob Dwyer from rugby; Di Bass from swimming; Lois Muir from netball; and Peter Stanley from athletics; and form the basis for subsequent exploration of four key themes in sports coaching: * coaching pedagogy * the coach's role * the coach's interaction with athletes * the coach's power. This text will be of significant interest to students of coaching science and sports science, and will appeal to the considerable body of amateur sports coaches with an interest in the styles of those at the top.