It's Monday, March 18th, 2019, and you're listening to Inquiring Minds.

I'm Kishore Hari.

Each week, we bring you a new in-depth exploration of the space where science, politics, and society collide.

We endeavor to find out what's true, what's left to discover, and why it all matters.

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Loyal listeners probably know that I'm a big sports fan, huge sports fan, in fact, mostly hockey,

but I also love football and basketball. And sports has increasingly become big business,

with more pressure than ever on athletes to deliver their peak performance consistently.

And so naturally, we've seen athletes become more rigorous, not only in their training, but in how they recover from their

training and their games. This recovery has become a science. Athletes wear by supplements,

the word hydration has become common parlance. Even strange

treatments like cryotherapy where you walk in a booth and it shoots you when liquid nitrogen

mist are sworn upon by athletes to keep them at their peak. These approaches have crossed over

from the world of athletics to the home warrior,

birthing a billion dollar industry. But is this all actually science? Our guests this week

tackles the question in spades. Christy Ashwondon is the lead science writer at 538, an author of the

new book, Good to Go, what the

athlete in all of us can learn from the strange science of recovery. And I want to emphasize

the word strange here because there are so many tales in this book that defy belief.

Christy lends her skeptical eye towards all of these products, whether beer can actually help marathoners recover post-race.

...