Damn good offering form Joel Friel. Good insights and really challenged some of my assumptions about high intensity work. Broke dicks under 50 will get plenty out of it and as ever, his description on developing lactic threshold intervals that can be measured is always useful. I've been reading his stuff since the mid 90's and he continues to develop his approach...and he changes his mind. i like that in sciencey guy.
Also, makes the most cogent argument for using VO max as a metric.
"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that." JS Mill
Will check it out...did you ever read the VO2 Max book from Health For Life? Really guided my rugby conditioning work until I got polluted...its at once dated and still ahead of most books published on the topic today
I haven;t read that bit Shaf...I will snoop it out once I'm done with the current crop of stuff.
One thing I really like about the way Joel sets up his intervals is that he drives home the central importance of Pace. It's super easy to get caught up in the metrics of HR/perceived exertion, wattage etc, all of which fluctuate based on external factors. He really drives a point home that all endurance training is really about understanding pace. None of that shit matters unless you can go faster/ longer. The speedo/stopwatch is is still your most trusted ally.
"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that." JS Mill
Turdacious wrote:BD, is it cycling specific or generally applicable to other endurance sports?
It's intended to be broadly applicable to endurance sports generally. Cycling is his own sport of choice so it's pretty resonant with that crowd. I could apply it to Cycling, Skiing or skating pretty much equally. I'm out of my depth with running but he does take effort to discuss where running may be different from some of the other endurance sports.
"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that." JS Mill
Phaedrus wrote:Is it this an update of his Cycling Past 50 book?
That I do not know. The TOC has some similarities but the focus on performance and VOmax looks different. He has also included a bunch of inserts from folks like Mark Allen, Ned Overend and John Howard I found interesting but probably not worth it on their own.
Given Friel's propensity to cover the same ground in multiple books I'd guess it's about 30% new.
"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that." JS Mill
Turdacious wrote:BD, is it cycling specific or generally applicable to other endurance sports?
It's intended to be broadly applicable to endurance sports generally. Cycling is his own sport of choice so it's pretty resonant with that crowd. I could apply it to Cycling, Skiing or skating pretty much equally. I'm out of my depth with running but he does take effort to discuss where running may be different from some of the other endurance sports.
Thanks, sounds like I'll have to put it on my list.
"Liberalism is arbitrarily selective in its choice of whose dignity to champion." Adrian Vermeule
