Breakthrough Triathlon Training: How to Balance Your Busy Life, Avoid Burnout and Achieve Triathlon Peak Performance [Paperback]

Brad Kearns (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 2005

The perfect trathlete training guide—whether you’re a beginner or are simply looking to improve your performance

Breakthrough Triathlon Training helps you discover your own abilities, identify weaknesses, and overcome pitfalls on the way to triathlon success. Brad Kearns shows you how to set realistic goals, and provides all the nuts and bolts of training, including sample exercises and flexible workout schedules to fit the demands of everyday life.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Breakthrough Triathlon Training will help you connect with that deep love of the sport that can be your greatest weapon for success."
--Lance Armstrong, from the foreword

Get on the journey to peak performance with this inspirational training guide

From former top-ranked professional triathlete and thirty-time winner Brad Kearns, this simple and refreshing guide to reaching your personal best will help you discover your own abilities, identify your weaknesses, and overcome pitfalls on the way to triathlon success. Like having your own personal trainer to guide and inspire you, this unique book covers much more than just physical conditioning, giving you the mental preparation and toughness you need on the road and in the water.

Using a holistic approach as he addresses every level of the sport, Kearns shows you how to:

• Use the power of pure motivation to perform at your ultimate potential
• Train your body properly for peak performance
• Discover the secret regimens of top endurance athletes and how to make them work for you
• Design a personalized weekly, monthly, and annual training schedule
• Give every single workout a specific purpose to avoid burnout

Filled with sample exercises and flexible workout schedules, this inspirational guide helps you fit the demands of triathlon training into everyday life--and enrich the way you live every day.

About the Author

Brad Kearns is a noted speaker, author, and coach in the fitness world. During his career as a triathlete, he was one of the world's top-ranked professionals, amassing more than thirty wins worldwide on the pro circuit. He lives in Auburn, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (November 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071462791
• ISBN-13: 978-0071462792
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #969,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My interesting personal attributes are too numerous and complex to mention in this small corner. Plus there are too many "toot their own horners". Especially with the internet, it's hard to separate fiction from fact. Everyone's an expert, even if they lack tact.

You can visit bradventures.com for my bio. Everything published there is true, no digitally enhanced pictures or other fru fru.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kearns' book joins the best titles on triathlon:, December 30, 2005

By 

Thomas Demerly ": Founder, Bikesport, Inc." (Dearborn, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Breakthrough Triathlon Training: How to Balance Your Busy Life, Avoid Burnout and Achieve Triathlon Peak Performance (Paperback)

It's a refreshing and informed read from one of the sport's great semi-unsung stars.

Kearns looks into the very foundations of training for our sport with a very heavy emphasis on the lifestyle surrounding training for triathlons. Perhaps more than any book in recent memory Kearns also (for better or worse) delves into the training and, more importantly, lifestyle regimes of the top pro triathletes. He isn;t recommending their workouts, but more illustrating their lifestyle habits and especially their pro-active rest and recovery routines.

The Phil Maffetone/Mike Pigg relationship is re-hashed here as it is in Maffetone's own books. For those not exposed to the (now out of print) books by Phil Maffetone this is eye opening stuff. I wager few athletes, especially new athletes, would ever have the patience to ascribe to a Maffetone style program in thie age of "13 weeks to an Ironman" style fast-food, on line coached programs, and this different slant on training philosophies is one many athletes ought learn about, especially new athletes.

Kearns writes extensively about motivation, particularly his concept of "pure" motivation. His discussions of secluding oneself and training in exile return such a pleasant simplicity to the notion of the sport. If nothing else, this part of the book painted a beautiful picture of th best part of sport: Self-indulgent, dedicated and simple training. That is the ultimate luxury. Since I am headed to a ten day traithlon training camp in about three weeks the timing on reading this couldn't have been better.

When I started doing triathlons in 1984 there were no books in print on how to prepare for the sport. Now Amazon lists 138 titles. I have read over half of them. Most are quite poor. Brad Kearns' new book, Breakthrough Triathlon Training is a worthy and welcome edition to the few very good books on the sport. It joins The Triathletes Training Bible and Going Long as well as a fewothers as "must read-must own" books for every triathlete.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too Redundant, August 4, 2006

By 

Steven P. Wieland (Boise, ID) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Breakthrough Triathlon Training: How to Balance Your Busy Life, Avoid Burnout and Achieve Triathlon Peak Performance (Paperback)

This book is easy reading, chock full of anecdotes from the arena of ultra-competitive triathletes. While it acknowledges that the reader is probably more of a casual athlete, the book offers still offers too little concrete advice. Rather, Kearns prefers to let you go your own way, rather than offering practical advice.

I'll summarize the main ideas in this book to save you the time:
1) Train only for the enjoyment of reaching "peak performance." The author calls this "pure motivation." I thought this was simply too abstract to be helpful.
2) Aerobic training is the indispensible base for triathletes - anaerobic training must come second and be built upon the long-distance training you accumulate and maintain over time.
3) Rest adequately between "key workouts," the workouts that push your limits, are planned fluidly around your life, etc.
4) Gradually intensify workouts as you become more fit. Do the workout that benefits you most. One suggestion: the 100/10 "brick" (ie 50 miles biking followed by a 5 mile run).

There, I saved you $10. This book is a standout guide for building your mental toughness and motivating you to enjoy your amateur triathlon career. It, however, should be regarded as a companion to other books that can offer you more concrete information about training, especially if you're new to the sport.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A nice difference from other tri books, November 30, 2005

By 

Dan Von Spanielle - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breakthrough Triathlon Training: How to Balance Your Busy Life, Avoid Burnout and Achieve Triathlon Peak Performance (Paperback)

I have read many triathlon training books - some excellent, some pretty lame. The focus of most seems to be mainly on physiology, schedule planning and racing strategy. Kearns's book takes a different angle as he talks about real life issues like balancing work and training, avoiding overtraining and getting into the right frame of mind for peak performance. His writing style is very entertaining too. I would give this book a top score for the many excellent insites I have obtained from it.