There is this series on the human body on The Discovery Channel that is rather interesting - last night I watched the episode about human strength. I love the animation they do by putting animation of the human anatomy doing what we had just seen actual humans doing.It had a lot of interesting facts about the body's ability to adapt to the regular demands put on it. Or how the body is able to endure major trauma and come out of it ok. One thing was interesting to me is if, for example, you're a runner - your bones form to compensate for this extra use. Every organ in the human body (except eyes) regenerates and essentially we have a new one every 7-10 years. This includes bones. So if you're a runner then your bones tend to be thicker in the legs. I just never thought that we could do anything to change the thickness of our bones. Nor would I have ever thought that the bone regenerates - I thought the skeleton we have as adults is the same bone we have until the end.
You can learn alot about athletic conditioning for your body, how it works and what to do, from the 'Strength' episode of this series. Additionally you learn alot about how people are able to do draw on "super human" strength during times of crisis. I'm probably not doing the show justice - but I'd recommend watching it. It's very interesting.
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