Customer Reviews

Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week-by-Week Training Guide: Plans, Scheduling Tips, and Workout Goals for Triathletes of All Levels

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this book for more access to training plans. The variety of plans and number of different fitness levels it offers is great. The key in it is great and fairly user friendly. I found that the plan I chose based on my "fitness level" according to the book seems a little ambitious so I found myself editing a lot of the plan. Also, some of the training plans require knowing where a 5-6% grade hill is that takes at least 1 min to bike up. I don't really know where one is and so that makes some of the workouts unable to do or extremely limiting. I also find some of the swimming workouts get to be very redundant, just adding on one extra hundred yards to the same workout every week. More importantly, I feel that for a beginner swimmer, these workouts require a lot of yardage and perhaps pushing too hard, too soon. I have been a competitive swimmer for 14 years so I can tune these practices to the ability of the swimmer, but if my boyfriend would've picked up the book and tried to do some of these workouts I think he might injure himself (shoulders). Overall, great book to get ideas, but some of the workouts are a little difficult to make it easy to fit into your schedule and location.

When I was recommended this book, my first instinct was to not buy it because of how detailed the training plans are (I thought I preferred flexibility). I soon found out that there's a good reason why top performance requires discipline. This book is for anyone - beginner to Ironman contender. If you follow the exercises as prescribed, you'll see outstanding results. I shaved my 5k time by 3 minutes in just 4 weeks, learned how to swim well from being an absolute novice, and have gained enormous confidence in a sport that I thought would never be possible. This is a must-have training guide.

This seems like a great book and I only wish I bought the hard copy. The training schedules make up the majority of the book. The schedules are in table format and are NOT displaying correctly on the Kindle. The messed up display on the kindle is incredibly frustrating and renders the book unusable as you cannot decipher which workout codes go with what days. I am training for an olympic tri and was thrilled to get on a set training schedule. Now, I just feel ripped off. This should never have been offered under the Kindle edition and I am very upset that amazon and the publisher would allow this to happen. Paying $10 is not a lot, but its more than I am comfortable throwing away for nothing. If you want this book DO NOT BUY IT ON THE KINDLE!

This is a great book for a self coached athlete. The training plans are very well described and easy to follow. 10 levels at all four distances provide plenty of flexibility when you change race goals and/or "level up" your fitness. I used the level 3/4 ironman training schedule and completed the my first Ironman in 11h18m in my first season (lets not even get into the problems with a rookie ironman). If you are willing to do a little learning about the science of training and take control of your training then this is a great book.

I have a shelf of triathlon training books--they all have certain strengths and weaknesses. But this particular book is the best of the lot. It gives specificity along with and overview for each plan. Simply the best book around for beginner through expert ironman racer.

I used this guide to get ready for an Ironman. I have done two Ironmans and found this training guide to be exactly what I needed. I was more than ready for the races.

I followed Level 6 in the IM distance for my first Ironman. The plan is well thought out, giving you one rest week in every four and builds you to peak week gradually, but methodically. Every workout has its purpose .... you're not wasting a moment of training. I won't say I never got tired, but I was never bored. I highly recommend this book to all triathletes!! I finished my first IM at Florida last weekend in 10:40. The plan works!!

I'm new to the world of triathlons, and this book is fantastic. It tells you exactly what to do everyday in terms of training. It makes me feel like I've got a lot of structure in my weekly workout routine. Highly recommended to anyone that likes having a professional tell them what to do in their workouts, instead of trying to figure it out on their own.

In my opinion the book is very useful for experienced triathletes looking for training program.
I think novice will found it not detailed enough.

I wasn't sure how much I would use this resource; I do plenty of coaching, so I know how to write my own training plans. But this text has been especially helpful for me in two respects: First, if I need to give someone a very basic, beginners' plan, or if I'm not getting paid (ahem) for writing an in-depth training program, I can just pass on one of the programs in this book. That way I'm still helping them out, but without giving away a bunch of my time for free. Second, I usually don't have the energy to write a detailed plan for myself from scratch. I do it for a living, you know? So it's hard to make myself do it in my free time. But these training plans give me a starting plan, and from that point, I usually have the energy and desire to tweak it to fit my needs.

If you're really serious about your triathlon training, this isn't going to be enough--you should really hire a coach, or at least hire someone to write a race-specific training schedule for you. But if you're just wanting a little more guidance in scheduling your workouts, or if you're just getting started, this is a good book to have on your shelves.