Challenging Beliefs: Memoirs of a Career

NOW UPDATED! Extra material including "Why the Springboks lost the 2011 RWC" and "How a low-carb, high-protein diet will improve your health"

Tim Noakes is one of the world’s leading authorities on the science behind sport and a successful sportsman in his own right. Through a lifetime of research, he has developed key scientific concepts in sport that have not only redefined the way elite athletes and teams approach their professions, but challenged conventional global thinking in these areas.

In this new and updated edition of Challenging Beliefs, Noakes shares his views on everything from the myths perpetuated by the sports-drink industry to the prevalence of banned substances, the need to make rugby a safer sport and the benefits of a high-protein, low-carb diet. The teams and athletes with whom Noakes has worked make fascinating backdrops to these topics, highlighting the importance of science in sport in human terms. In providing an intimate look at the golden threads running through Noakes’s life and career, this remarkable book reveals the landmark theories and principles generated by one of the greatest minds in the history of sports science.

"What a book! I believe that it will one day rival one of the great books of science non-fiction written by a South Africa. I refer to professor JLB Smith's Old Four Legs. The Story of Coelacanth, published in the 1950s, which was translated into 14 languages and reached an audience of tens of millions. It is still in print 60 years later. Challenging Beliefs and Old Four Legs have in common a ruthless search for the truth, a revealing dissection of the character and views of the author, and an inspirational take-home message."
- Professor Mike Bruton, Director of Imagineering MTE Studios