Natural Born Heroes

When Chris McDougall stumbled across the story of Churchill's 'dirty tricksters', a motley crew of English poets and academics who helped resist the Nazi invasion of Crete, he knew he was on the track of something special.

To beat the odds, the tricksters-starving, aging, outnumbered-tapped into an ancient style of fitness: the lost art of heroism. They listened to their instincts, replaced calories with stored bodily fat and used their fascia, the network of tissue which criss-crosses the body, to catapult themselves to superhuman strength and endurance.

Soon McDougall was in the middle of a modern fitness revolution taking place everywhere from Parisian parkour routes to state-of-the-art laboratories, and based on the know-how of Shanghai street-fighters and Wild West gunslingers. Just as Born to Run got runners off the treadmill and into nature, Natural Born Heroes will inspire casual athletes to dump the gym membership for cross-training, mud runs and free-running.

'A fascinating edifice of ideas ... But the pleasures of the book are as much to do with the fascinating panoply of characters, war heroes all, British, Commonwealth and Cretan, whose exploits contributed so much to Hitler's downfall. Independent
An undeniably ripping yarn. One for sofa surfers and adventurers alike. Independent on Sunday
A marvellously eclectic book ... the perfect tonic for the paunchy, jaded He-Man in your life and comatose inner heroes everywhere The Times
Praise for Born to Run:Part how-to manual, part scientific treatise but throughout a ripping yarn, this book will inspire everyone who reads it to think on their feet. Independent
A fascinating and true adventure story, destined to become a classic Ranulph Fiennes
Not just a book for runners, but for anyone who has dreamed of venturing beyond their comfort zone Tim Butcher
A really phenomenal book Jon Stewart

Christopher McDougall is a former war correspondent for the Associated Press and author of the international bestseller Born to Run, an anthropological study of endurance, fitness, and what makes ultra-runners tick. He does his own running among the Amish farms around his home in rural Pennsylvania.

When Chris McDougall stumbled across the story of Churchill's 'dirty tricksters', a motley crew of English poets and academics who helped resist the Nazi invasion of Crete, he knew he was on the track of something special. To beat the odds, the tricksters-starving, aging, outnumbered-tapped into an ancient style of fitness: the lost art of heroism. They listened to their instincts, replaced calories with stored bodily fat and used their fascia, the network of tissue which criss-crosses the body, to catapult themselves to superhuman strength and endurance. Soon McDougall was in the middle of a modern fitness revolution taking place everywhere from Parisian parkour routes to state-of-the-art laboratories, and based on the know-how of Shanghai street-fighters and Wild West gunslingers. Just as Born to Run got runners off the treadmill and into nature, Natural Born Heroes will inspire casual athletes to dump the gym membership for cross-training, mud runs and free-running.

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