Ballistic
The New Science of Injury-Free Athletic Performance
by Henry Abbott
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Pub Date 6 May 2025 | Archive Date 30 Apr 2025
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Description
Injuries are not destiny. This revolutionary new account of the science of injury prevention shows how “ballistic” movement can help you get strong, stay healthy, and be elite.
The biggest victories of medical science—over polio, smallpox, heart attacks, and the like—are stories of prevention. Then there’s sports, where we just run around until something breaks, leading to pain, frustration, and sometimes even expensive surgery. Injuries are a major cause of society’s growing mobility crisis. What if we could predict and prevent them?
Blending cutting-edge science with gripping storytelling, award-winning data journalist and competitive amateur athlete Henry Abbott reveals that we are on the cusp of a new era in sports medicine, built around the science of ballistic movements—leaping and landing—and the unique fingerprint of your body’s physics.
Abbott’s inspiring narrative tells the story of sports scientist Dr. Marcus Elliott and the Peak Performance Project (P3), who use technology to study how athletes move and why they get hurt. Applying machine learning and lessons from biomechanics, medicine, and physiology, doctors at P3 can now detect elevated risk of an ACL tear or a pulled hamstring like an echocardiogram can see warning signs of a heart attack.
Their data-driven findings are full of surprises. Your body’s most important defense against knee and ankle injuries are the little-known muscles in the lower leg and hip area, which typical workouts rarely target. Similarly, the glutes—not the core—do the most to prevent back pain. Transformative benefits flow from training underappreciated kinds of athleticism like rotation, deceleration, and relaxation. Most of all, science shows that the best athletes don’t avoid ballistics—they master them.
Through riveting stories of elite athletes overcoming injuries and pushing themselves to the limit, Abbott presents an evidence-based case for intervening early to protect our bodies. And he suggests that we can all harness the science of ballistic movement not just to run fast or jump high but to move with joy and lead fulfilling athletic lives.
Advance Praise
"Ballistic is a fascinating, narrative tour of a new science of human movement that has the capacity to predict—and prevent—injuries before they happen. You will never think about your hips the same way again." -David Epstein, best-selling author of The Sports Gene and Range
"It’s not easy to write precisely and engagingly about movement, but Henry Abbott has done it brilliantly. Ballistic has changed the way I think about sports, bodies, and movement—which is to say, it’s changed my life." -Louisa Thomas, staff writer at The New Yorker
"Data has unlocked so many sports insights. Henry Abbott’s?Ballistic?alerts us to the power of granular movement data, which has already begun improving the health and performance of elite professional athletes, and unlocks promising solutions to the aches, pains, and limitations that keep so many of us from moving with joy." -Jessica Gelman, CEO Kraft Analytics Group (KAGR) and cofounder of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference
"What if we could unlock peak performance without sacrificing our long-term health and well-being? In Ballistic, Henry Abbott shows us that our bodies are not machines to be pushed but intelligent systems designed for joyful, powerful movement. A must-read for anyone interested in sport or exercise. Ballistic rewrites the rules of athleticism, showing a path towards moving, feeling, and living better." -Steve Magness, author of Do Hard Things and Win the Inside Game
"Henry Abbott’s deep dive into the murky science of sports injuries features great storytelling, clear explanations, and a welcome embrace of complexity over quick fixes. Best of all, you’ll come away believing that injuries aren’t inevitable after all." -Alex Hutchinson, author of Endure and The Explorer’s Gene
"Gifted storyteller Henry Abbott inspires us with stories of transformation and healing, in elite athletes and weekend warriors alike . . . [showing] how we can safely go ballistic—airborne!—and enjoy the thrill of explosive movement at any age." -Dr. Steve Ilardi, clinical neuroscientist
"If you have hips, buy this book." -Pablo Torre, Host of Pablo Torre Finds Out and ESPN commentator
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781324050131 |
| PRICE | US$31.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 304 |
