Heart Zones Cycling: The Avid Cyclist's Guide to Riding Faster and Farther (Heart Zones) [Paperback]

Sally Edwards (Author), Sally Reed (Author)

Book Description

Series: Heart Zones | Publication Date: May 12, 2006

Begin a smarter cycling lifestyle with this no-nonsense training philosophy. Edwards and Reed are the authorities on training with a heart rate monitor, and Heart Zones Cycling takes the proven advantages of heart zones training one step further. You can build a plan that works for your specific body type, your unique abilities and limitations. And equally important is life off the bike meaning your training plan must be realistic, adaptable, and challenging. Whether you are training for a big race or simply a fitter lifestyle, you ll find the program you need and plenty of inspiration along the way. Features over 50 outdoor training rides and the latest cycling technology. Paperback. with charts and tables throughout. 7 3/8" x 9 1/4", 288 pp.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Active Cities USA Review Heart Zones Cycling: The Avid Cyclist s Guide to Riding Faster and Farther Cycling has steadily gained popularity both in the United States and around the world. Lance Armstrong is a household name and on a beautiful summer day you will often find as many bikes on back roads as cars. From the casual weekend warrior to highly competitive racers, athletes have made cycling a huge sport, apparently with a reputation for a convoluted training regimen and enough scientific data to require a PhD to unravel it all. Heart Zones Cycling aims to combat this. Sally Edwards and Sally Reed are singularly qualified to write this book. They are the foremost authorities on heart rate monitors and combine decades of experience as athletes and sports industry participants. Edwards is the national spokesperson for the Danskin Women s Triathlon Series and founder and CEO of Heart Zones. She is also an author and professional athlete. Reed is the athletic director at a Bellevue, Washington, health club, the founder and master trainer of Heart Zones as well as a Level 2 cycling coach. These women break down the rather complicated and difficult science of cycling training into a manageable and comprehensive book. Heart Zones Cycling takes the methodology behind the training program and puts it in layman s terms, empowering the reader to understand what he or she is doing and to tweak it to fit his or her individual needs. The book is incredibly detailed while still managing to be practical and understandable, and covers everything from the basics to highly intricate levels of training. The first two-thirds of the book cover in detail the basis of the training regimen, including: how to set your goals by what kind of rider you are; determining your anchor heart rate as the base of all the training you will do; how to set your heart zones and how to ride within those zones; varying your training to build endurance, speed, and power; and how to personalize your program and design your training plan to fit your individual goals and fitness level. The final third of the book includes a variety of appendices that delve deeper into what has been presented. There is a glossary with every term you ll need to know to understand cycling and your training. Appendix A has a list of over 30 different rides that can be customized to individuals based on their needs and what they ve learned. Appendix B is a thorough list of Heart Zones resources with charts and graphs, and Appendix C goes into more detail on heart rates. This book is no-nonsense and at first a little intimidating, but once you dive in you discover that it really is highly readable and you don t need to be a scientist to understand and apply the principles that are presented. Reed and Edwards do a wonderful job of taking a subject that could be incredibly dry and sleep-inducing (not to mention next to impossible to understand) and making it practical, usable, and even inspiring. For anyone who is looking to up their cycling game, this is the book for you! --Active Cities USA Review

About the Author

Sally Edwards is the "Head Heart" and the founder and CEO of Heart Zones. A former Master's World Record holder in the Ironman Triathlon, as well as a World Record Holder in the Iditashoe 100-Mile Snowshoe Race, Sally has spent the last 30+ years as a professional athlete. She has competed in some of the hardest races on the planet, including numerous multi-day adventure races and the Western States 100-Mile Run (which she won). From the time she ran the 1984 Olympic Marathon Trials using her heart rate monitor, Sally has been at the forefront of a revolution in fitness training. Never one to trust in guesswork, Sally combined her Master's degree in exercise physiology with her experience as a professional athlete and created the Heart Zones Training System. A founder of the sport of triathlon (and a Triathlon Hall of Fame inductee), most of Sally's recent races have been performed in her role as the National Spokeswoman for the Danskin Triathlon Series. Sally has finished every Danskin Triathlon (as of 2005, sixteen years worth) dead last, as the "Final Finisher," inspiring more than 100,000 other women to make it across the finish line in front of her. The year 2004 marked her 100th last-place Danskin finish in Denver, Colorado on July the 17th. A prolific author of more than 20 books and 300 articles on fitness and sports, a motivational keynote speaker, and (with a second Master's degree in Business Administration) an entrepreneur, Sally is committed to helping others improve their health, fitness, and finish by listening to their hearts. Sally lives in Sacramento, California

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: VeloPress; 3rd edition (May 12, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931382840
• ISBN-13: 978-1931382847
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #568,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars 12 step plan for cycling, March 5, 2007

By 

ricknwaco (Waco, TX USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Heart Zones Cycling: The Avid Cyclist's Guide to Riding Faster and Farther (Heart Zones) (Paperback)

I was really disappointed with this. I was looking for a book that would explain the use of heart rate zones and help me use it to improve my cycling. This is a 12 step program to zen cycling! It is overly complex and involved way too much "process." Almost every paragraph introduces a new idiosynchratic piece of jargon - microcycles, mesocycles, and macrocycles - give me a break! This book outlines an entire plan without detailing the plan! You must make a goal and write it down. You must decide whether you want to use "threshold" heart rate or maximum heart rate. You must calculate your zones. You must then periodize your training and then personalize the periodization (or maybe you personalize first and then periodize). It is simply too evangelical to be of any use unless you buy into the zen program. For someone who has a specific goal, this book may help you achieve it. If you just want to be a better cyclist, this is a waste of time.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, July 26, 2006

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A Sturdy Girl (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heart Zones Cycling: The Avid Cyclist's Guide to Riding Faster and Farther (Heart Zones) (Paperback)

Years ago I read Sally Edwards' first book on heart rate monitor training. Great book. Very helpful. However I loaned it to the wrong person and never got it back. So years later I buy a slighter fancier heart rate monitor to replace my bare bones one that died. I thought it would be a good idea to get this new book which is specific to cycling and which I expected would be updated with all the latest thinking from the last decade of research. Instead I discovered a poorly edited book which is unclear about its target audience. I expected a book for avid cyclists, not people who would need words like drafting and cadence defined in the glossary (which looks like a bunch of filler pages). Now that a whole industry has grown up around coaching amateur and recreational athletes (runners, cyclists, triathletes), this book seems more interested in recruiting customers for Ms. Edward's business than in sharing the up-to-date information. My recommendation is to try one of her earlier titles and hope for better luck. Heart rate training IS worthwhile, even if it seems a bit complicated at first, but this is not Sally Edwards at her best.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, just not that good., July 6, 2007

By 

Benjamin E. Sauter (SLC, UT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Heart Zones Cycling: The Avid Cyclist's Guide to Riding Faster and Farther (Heart Zones) (Paperback)

This book was a fairly interesting read, although I don't think it adds much that hasn't been said elsewhere. I've read a couple books about cycling and heart rate zone based training. This is a fairly simple and decent overview. It just seems a little light compared to the rest. Still, it covers all the basics. I recommend finding it at the local library. You can get through it in a couple of days.