BookBonnie Tsui
Summary: "Cardiac, smooth, skeletal--these three different types of muscles in our bodies make our hearts beat; push food through our intestines, blood through our vessels, babies out the uterus; attach to our bones and allow for motion. Tsui also traces how muscles have defined beauty--and how they have distorted it--through the ages, and how they play an essential role in our physical and mental health" -- From publisher's description "In On Muscle, Bonnie Tsui brings her signature blend of science, culture, immersive reporting, and personal narrative to examine not just what muscles are but what they mean to us. Cardiac, smooth, skeletal -- these three different types of muscle in our bodies make our hearts beat; push food through our intestines, blood through our vessels, babies out the uterus; attach to our bones and allow for motion. Tsui also traces how muscles have defined beauty -- and how they have distorted it -- through the ages, and how they play an essential role in our physical and mental health. Tsui introduces us to the first female weightlifter to pick up the famed Scottish Dinnie Stones, then takes us on a 50-mile run through the Nevada desert that follows the path of escape from a Native boarding school -- and gives the concept of endurance new meaning. She travels to Oslo, where cutting-edge research reveals how muscles help us bounce back after injury and illness, an important aspect of longevity. She jumps into the action with a historic Double Dutch club in Washington, D.C., to explain anew what Charles Darwin meant by the brain-body connection. Woven throughout are stories of Tsui's childhood with her Chinese immigrant artist dad -- a black belt in karate -- who schools her from a young age in a kind of quirky, in-house Muscle Academy. On Muscle shows us the poetry in the physical, and the surprising ways muscle can reveal what we're capable of."-- Provided by publisher
Contents:
Introduction
Strength. What's power, in a body?
Muscle as potential
A heavy lift
The making of a hero, then and now
Form. The ideal body
Who's afraid of a lady Hercules?
Shoulders, squared
Action. Your muscles are talking
Jumpology
The movement is the message
Flexibility. Muscles, fast and slow
I comes from unity
Rememberances of exercises past
Endurance. What we carry
Running to remember
True grit
Going the distance
Kissing the ground in equilibrium
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
RequestLocation
Version
Call Number
Items
New Books: Duck Room
QM151 .T78 2025
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