This is the first history of exercise physiology written from a systems perspective. The significance of human exercise experiments is emphasized, and the range of coverage is very wide. Among the figures whose thinking or work are discussed are Galen, Avicenna, Descartes, Edward Smith, Seguin, Krogh, A.V. Hill, Henry Taylor, Zuntz, Ingle, Palladin, Galbo, and Bloor. Throughout the book controversies are acknowledged and differences of viewpoint presented. After an introductory chapter on early ideas about the physiology of exercise and the training of athletes, there are eleven in-depth accounts of the development of scientific thinking about the responses of key physiological systems to the conditions of acute and chronic exercise, as well as their coupling with integrative responses. They cover the neuromuscular, cardiovascular, respiratory, autonomic, oxygen transport, metabolic, renal, endocrine and temperature regulation systems, among others. The authors of these chapters are very well-qualified. Two have received the Olympic Prize in the sport sciences, seven the Honor Award for Research in sports medicine and exercise science, and five have given the Adolph Lecture in environmental and exercise physiology for the American Physiological Society. No other volume offers such a broad and authoritative set of historical perspectives on exercise physiology.