Tanner and Gore (National Sport Science Quality Assurance program, Australian Institute of Sport) assemble 33 chapters on assessing high-level athletes to help exercise physiologists and coaches understand and enhance their performance. Australian sport scientists compile current standardized physiological test procedures for 18 different sports played by elite athletes in any country and include rationales and normative data for them. These include basketball, cricket, cycling, hockey, netball, rowing, rugby, sailing, swimming, triathlon, and water polo. They also discuss quality assurance in the exercise laboratory, athlete preparation prior to testing, and generalized test procedures for the determination of anaerobic capacity, concepts for the measurement of maximal aerobic power and blood lactate thresholds, and guidelines for the use of altitude and hypoxic exposure and the preparation of athletes for hot and humid environments. In addition, they detail principles and protocols for common assessment tools for physique, agility, and strength and power, and field-based assessment. This edition adds new chapters on data collection and analysis, ergometer-based maximal neuromuscular power, altitude training, heat, physiological recovery, perceptual-cognitive and perceptual-motor contributions to performance, and Australian football, rugby, sprint kayak, and volleyball, with updates to data and reference material. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)