If your early education was anything like mine, it focused on the three R's, which was a very good place to start. By beginning with them, we learned how to take in meaning, how to communicate meaning, and how to compute. And if your cycling education was anything like mine, it focused on three R's as well: riding, riding more, and riding harder. That constellation of R's, however, was not quite so beneficial as its grade school counterpart because it succeeded in leaving out nearly everything of value in Ed Burke's excellent book.

As Burke sees it, training isn't simply about exercise, about cycling. Training has its R's too:

• Restoring fluids and electrolytes;
• Replenishing glycogen supplies;
• Reducing muscle and immune-system stress;
• Rebuilding muscle protein.

Burke calls these the R4 system, the heart and substance of this volume.

After five brief chapters explaining how muscles work, and what causes both their fatigue and their soreness, Burke delineates in scientific detail precisely how these exercise-induced problems, difficulties and challenges are overcome.

Rehydration, Burke insists, ought to be aimed first at limiting the loss of fluids and electrolytes, and then at restoring them. While water is fundamental to this process, it is not enough. Indeed replenishment tied to water only could easily lead to hyponatremia, or water intoxication, a condition resulting from the extreme dilution of sodium in the bloodstream. In long distance events such as those normally undertaken by ultra cyclists, adequate salt ingestion is critical, whether from tablets, V-8 juice, pickles, or even a ham sandwich. Salt, like water, is not optional. For athletes who employ sports drinks, Burke advises they select a drink with at least 75 milligrams of sodium for every 8 ounces. But sodium, of course, is not the only electrolyte we require. Chloride, magnesium and potassium are equally important for endurance cyclists, who must not overlook dairy foods, bananas, oranges, potatoes, tomato juice and kiwi fruit, the combination of which keeps the body's electrolyte stores fully charged.

To replenish glycogen levels both fully and rapidly, Burke insists that athletes consume a combination of carbohydrate and protein immediately after strenuous training, at about a 4-to-1 ratio. When undertaken within the first two hours following exercise, and when administered according to Burke's handy glycemic index chart (which indicates how quickly various sources of carbohydrates influence the blood glucose levels), the athlete will be able to maximize the energy accessible for the next round of exertion.

Strenuous exercise leads to muscle damage. But the effects of such damage can be mitigated, even minimized, if one works to forestall the destructive effects of free radicals and of oxidative stress. To neutralize their detrimental effects, one needs to supply the body with the proper antioxidants, such as vitamins A, C and E, as well as with beta-carotene and selenium. Vitamins C and E work in effective conjunction, doing together what neither could do alone, namely to scavenge the body for free radicals. Burke also emphasizes the importance of glutamine in supporting the immune system, and he recommends raw spinach or parsley as suitable sources for it.

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Damaged muscles require protein for rebuilding. But protein needs to be part of a carefully considered diet. In addition to taking in carbohydrate and protein after exertion in a 4-to-1 ratio, Burke recommends that athletes make protein part of a 60-25-15 diet, wherein the numbers indicate the percentage of calories derived from carbohydrate, protein and fat, respectively. In short, the message of Burke's book is that you are what you eat - which for most of us is bad news indeed.

Burke's latest volume is a scientifically sound explanation of muscle recovery for non-specialists, one that is readable, practical, and immensely informative. The wide learning and broad experience of its author, its simple and systematic presentation of otherwise difficult concepts, its glossary and its exhaustive bibliography, all combine to make Optimal Muscle Recovery a physio-geek's delight. It is just the sort of book one has grown to expect from Ed Burke, one by which the ultra-cycling community will be greatly served and for which it will be enormously grateful.

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