ABSTRACT
F ormalized areas of study such as chemistry, biology, physics, and philosophy have existed for well over 2,000 years. The scientific and philosophical writings of Aristotle and Plato have shaped modern
thought since 300 to 400 years BCE. Our scientific perspective on exercise science, however, has been cultivated by papers presented and published during the past 100 years, most of which were written within the last 50 years. As described in Chapter 1, academic programs in exercise science have existed only since the mid-to-late 1960s and are largely based on research dating back to the 1920s. Thus, exercise science is a relatively new area of inquiry, and many important discoveries have yet to be made. It is this dynamic, scientific nature of exercise science that has generated much excitement and popularity in recent times.
