Why Dick Fosbury Flopped: And Answers To Other Big Sporting Questions

Author: Justin Kemp

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $29.95 AUD
  • : 9781741144949
  • : Allen & Unwin
  • : Allen & Unwin
  • :
  • :
  • : March 2006
  • : 230mm X 152mm X 20mm
  • : Australia
  • :
  • :
  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

  • :
  • :
  • : Justin Kemp
  • :
  • : Paperback
  • : 1
  • :
  • :
  • : 796.02
  • :
  • :
  • : 240
  • : Sports & outdoor recreation
  • : 16 full-colour photographs
  • :
  • :
  • :
  • :
  • :
  • :
Barcode 9781741144949
9781741144949

Description

From the authors of Run Like You Stole Something, a collection of facts, fallacies, explanations and anecdotes: sporting technologies and techniques explained in everyday terms.

Following up on the success of Run Like You Stole Something, Why Dick Fosbury Flopped looks at sporting technologies and techniques from a popular science perspective, and discusses current-day sports science issues from an historical bent. The many informative, weird and fantastic anecdotes will provide entertaining reading for sports fans of all levels of experience and knowledge.
The authors answer some really big sporting questions:
* What did Dick do to have a flop named after him?
* How did the golf ball get its dimples?
* Upon which great and disastrous attempts from past decades are today's records built?
* How would the great sporting names and the great events of the past match up on today's stage?
* How have athletes' bodies changed over time?
* What effects have performance enhancing drugs and drug tests had on world records?

If you want to win friends and influence people with impressive explanations of amazing human feats and quirky facts about sporting paraphernalia, you need this book.

Author description

Damian Farrow works at the Australian Institute of Sport. He is a regular contributor to numerous scientific journals. Justin Kemp is the Exercise Psychologist at the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne. He also regularly contributes to numerous scientific journals.

Table of contents

Chapter OneInnovations in Equipment (Winged Keel, Superbikes for cycling, nasal strips, ice jackets, clap skates, tennis racquets, etc)Chapter TwoInnovations in Technique (Fosbury Flop, V-Style Ski Jumping, Bending a ball like Beckham, etc)Chapter ThreeEvolution of the Sporting Body (AFL/Rugby, Sumo, Jockeys, Horses, Tour de France v Olympic Track cyclists, etc)Chapter FourBeating the Cheats (drugs like EPO, steroids, blood doping, etc, gene doping, chucking in cricket, bat tampering in baseball)Chapter FiveIn the Lab (evolution in measurement techniques & equipment: stop watches to cyclops, film to digital video, etc)Throughout:- Breaking the Barriers (eg history of four-minute mile, 10 sec for 100 m sprint, Dawn Fraser beating 60 sec for 100 m, Sergei Bubka beating 20 feet in pole vault, etc)- Comparing past athlete with today's athlete - Tables/Timelines for improvements in records