What Doesn't Kill Us
How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength
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- €19.99
Publisher Description
What are our bodies really capable of?
We like to sit in air-conditioned comfort, yet each year millions of ordinary people train in CrossFit boxes, compete in Tough Mudders, and challenge themselves in Spartan races. They are connecting with their environment and, whether they realise it or not, unlocking their hidden evolutionary potential.
No one exemplifies this better than Wim Hof, whose remarkable ability to control his body temperature in extreme cold has sparked a whirlwind of scientific study. Through him, we are just beginning to understand how cold adaptation might combat autoimmune diseases and chronic pain — and possibly even reverse the development of one of our greatest killers: diabetes.
Award-winning journalist Scott Carney investigates the astonishing and sometimes dangerous world of body transformation. He reveals techniques you can try at home, but his own journey culminates in a record-bending, 28-hour climb to the snowy peak of Mt Kilimanjaro — wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and running shoes.
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As this engaging autoethnography relates, anthropologist and investigative journalist Carney was skeptical upon encountering a photo of a nearly naked Wim Hof sitting on a glacier in the Arctic Circle. Hof, a Dutch fitness guru who runs a training camp in Poland's wilderness, claims he can control his body temperature and immune system solely with his mind; though Carney set out to prove Hof a charlatan, he was instead won over. Carney documents his interactions with Hof and the many others who have learned to control their bodies in seemingly impossible ways: he learned Hof's breathing techniques for tricking the body into doing things it isn't evolutionarily designed for, and underwent training to face extreme cold while barely clothed. It is this training that enables Hof and Carney to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro in 28 hours while wearing shorts. This is part guide and part popular science book; readers will learn about how Neanderthals used the body's "brown fat" to keep warm and how exposure nearly reverses the symptoms of diabetes. The accomplishments Carney documents are unbelievable and fascinating; this isn't a how-to for those looking to perform extraordinary feats, but it is an entertaining account that will appeal to the adventurous. 16 pages of b&w photos.
