If you’re looking for fitness books to read, it can be surprisingly difficult to know where to begin- even if that means you've been taking workout seriously. There is no shortage of advice telling us how to train, videos on what to eat- the whole bowl kibble lovers, how to recover, how much to sleep, and even how to think about our bodies.
These eight books explore fitness from rather different angles, from the science of athletic performance and the strange business of recovery to running as a creative practice, finding something to enjoy in movement again, understanding your body and food as something that has far more nuance than a list of macros.
Born to Run has become one of the best-known books about running, and Christopher McDougall starts with a very simple question: why does his foot hurt? From there, the journalist heads to Mexico's Copper Canyons, follows the Tarahumara runners and investigates the physiology, history and culture surrounding long-distance running.
It is part adventure story, part running history and part investigation into what humans are capable of doing with their bodies, and it's a fun exploration, to say the least. McDougall's enthusiasm runs hotter than the evidence, so it is best read with a reasonably sceptical eye, but the book is still an excellent reminder that running can be approached as something more interesting than just a calorie-burning exercise. There is beauty in its technique, biology and community, and somewhere underneath all the mileage, McDougall explores a great deal of pleasure.
Haruki Murakami began running after leaving his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, eventually completing marathons, an ultramarathon and triathlons, and this book grew out of his reflections on training for the New York City Marathon and the strange, productive relationship between running and writing.
It's particularly good for anyone who has ever discovered that their favourite part of exercise isn't necessarily getting fitter, as Murakami writes about repetition, solitude, boredom and the satisfaction of doing something simply because you have decided to keep doing it. There is something comforting about the psychology of repetition, and that might not always be a bad thing. There are training logs and race stories, but the book is really about what movement does to your mind, and you don't need to be a marathoner to appreciate that.
If you've ever wondered why something that is so good for us can also be something we spend an extraordinary amount of time avoiding, Daniel Lieberman's Exercised is worth your attention, especially because it looks at exercise through the lens of human evolution and asks why modern life makes movement feel so unnatural when physical activity has always been part of human existence.
The Harvard evolutionary biologist gets into walking, running, strength, aging and the ways our bodies respond to exercise, while also examining why humans don't necessarily love doing something that is supposedly very good for them. It is useful precisely because it takes some of the drama out of fitness, reminding you that you don't need to treat every workout as a test of character and that sometimes the body just needs to move.
The recovery industry would like you to believe that your body is one expensive gadget away from being fully restored, with cryotherapy, foam rolling, recovery drinks, infrared pyjamas and an endless parade of other products promising to get athletes back in action faster, so Christie Aschwanden asks a rather simple question: do they work?
In Good to Go, the science journalist investigates the evidence behind the booming recovery business, testing some of its most popular claims herself, and the result is a mix of sports investigation and a lesson in how science gets interpreted, marketed and occasionally stretched beyond what the evidence can support. For anyone currently surrounded by recovery gadgets and in need of a balanced take on the whole thing, this is a useful reality check.
Kelly McGonigal's The Joy of Movement is interested in the part of exercise that tends to disappear when fitness becomes an optimisation project: pleasure. Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, anthropology and evolutionary biology, alongside stories from runners, dancers, swimmers, weightlifters and walkers, McGonigal explores why movement can create feelings of connection, mastery and belonging.
That makes this a refreshing read for anyone who feels like they're sinking in the discourse around exercise and thinking about movement primarily in terms of numbers. There is a whole other vocabulary available to us, where movement can feel social, expressive and like a whole lot of fun.
Ayesha Billimoria's Run! is a three-time national champion in the 200 metres and an athletics coach and movement specialist, and in this, she approaches running through strength training, alignment, warm-ups, breathing, nutrition and the mental side of training.
What makes it useful here is that there is an emphasis on understanding how the body moves and how training can be approached as a process of awareness and education.
Fitness culture has a very complicated relationship with food. One minute it's fuel, and the next it's a list of numbers and things you're apparently supposed to stop eating immediately, including things you've been eating half your life.
Food Fix zooms out, with Mark Hyman looking at food through the much larger systems surrounding it and connecting what we eat to public health, agriculture, economics, politics and the environment. You don't have to agree with every prescription Hyman makes to find the broader crux interesting, and for anyone interested in fitness, it's a useful reminder that eating is way more complicated than calculating your protein intake. Food exists in a culture and a food system, and your dinner didn't always arrive with a macro breakdown attached.
How much athletic ability comes from training, and how much are we born with? This is what David Epstein's The Sports Gene juggles with, exploring the relationship between genetics, training and extraordinary athletic performance while examining elite athletes, unusual physical traits and the science behind the much-discussed idea of the 10,000-hour rule.
It's a good antidote to the idea that everyone can become anything if they simply want it badly enough, because hard work matters, and so do biology, environment, opportunity and the sport itself. For anyone interested in fitness beyond before-and-after photographs, this is the one to pick up.