American College of Sports Medicine, vol. 17, Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews.

This book is part of an annual series of reviews sponsored by the American College-of Sports Medicine. Each volume is designed to provide timely reviews in 12 or more broad areas of interest that include biochemistry, exercise physiology, motor control, sports medicine, biomechanics, and rehabilitation. Two areas new to this year's series are epidemiology and physical fitness.

Each chapter was written by one or more invited experts. At least 7 of the 14 chapters in the current volume should be of interest to physical therapists.

Chapter 2 is concerned with the metabolic and physiologic factors that contribute to human skeletal muscle fatigue. Chapter 3 complements chapter 2 by examining factors that limit exercise performance in various skeletal muscle disorders. Eccentric muscle action is the topic of chapter 5, which provides the physical therapist with useful information on the physiology and response of muscle to eccentric exercise. Chapter 6 focuses on the biomechanical analysis of muscle action in multijoint motion. Included is an overview of the mathematics of the dynamic systems approach to deriving muscle and joint forces, moments, and torques as it relates to the problem of segmental interaction in multi-articular movement. Chapter 9 includes a thorough summary of the current state of knowledge about physiology and adaptation to aerobic exercise during pregnancy. The information presented would be extremely valuable to any health care professional who is interested in developing guidelines for setting up physical conditioning programs to be used during pregnancy. The epidemiology, etiology, and classification of stress injuries to bone is the focus on chapter 11. Chapter 13 covers various models of skill acquisition and performance that may be useful to physical therapists in a variety of clinical settings.

Overall, the reviews in this volume are clearly written, well-organized, and comprehensive. The number and quality of graphs and illustrations is adequate to amplify the concepts presented. The editor provides current information on many diverse topics of general interest. I believe the extensive list of citations that follows each chapter would make this book particularly useful to students, educators, researchers, and clinicians who want to put together a focused knowledge base in one of the areas of interest covered.