Heiden's book offers tips on fitness, training for all

With the recently completed Olympics thrusting the likes of Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt into our sporting stream of consciousness, many wonder how certain athletes can so thoroughly dominate their sports and competitors.

Is it genetics? Is it science? Is it coaching? Is it training? Or is it doping?

Casting aside the dopers — they don't dominate, they cheat and lie to win — it's usually a combination of the first four.

But long before Phelps and Bolt — heck, long before Carl Lewis — there was Eric Heiden.

Heiden wasn't the first dominating Olympic athlete. But he was without doubt one of the best.

In 1980, a young kid from Wisconsin arrived in Lake Placid and won everything there was to win in his sport. His five gold medals stunned the world, and the accomplishment is often overlooked as an Olympic standard of excellence — after all, the Miracle on Ice stole a lot of the thunder that year.

Yet, Heiden, who now lives and works in Utah as an orthopedic surgeon at TOSH, is nonetheless a living Olympic legacy.

What made his feat so impressive and hard to duplicate is that he won everything he could possibly win in his sport.

He won gold in the 500-meter sprint race. He won gold in the 1,500-meter race and he won gold in the 10,000-meter race. Whether it was an all-out sprint or a long, grinding endurance race, Heiden was untouchable in 1980. He set world records in the 1,000-, 1,500-, 3,000- and 10,000-meter races multiple times during his short yet prolific speedskating career.

And when he decided to hang up his skates, he changed gears by hopping aboard a bicycle, where he became the U.S. national champion and raced in the 1986 Tour de France as a founding member of the old 7-Eleven cycling team.

In short, Heiden is one of the greatest athletes the United States has ever produced. And now he wants to share some of what made him successful with you.

While he can't help you out with genetics, he can help you with science and training.

A 1991 graduate of the Stanford University Medical School, Heiden has teamed with Dr. Massimo Testa to write "Faster Better Stronger" — a guide to fitness and training for athletes of all abilities, including those wishing nothing more than to lose a little weight and become a little more active.

Testa, an Italian doctor with nearly 30 years experience working with professional cyclists ranging from Heiden to Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, is recognized around the world as one of the foremost experts in high-level training.

Together, Heiden and Testa have toned down their expertise so the average person can benefit from their knowledge and experience.