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

by Matt Fitzgerald

From Triathlete magazine––the most popular source for triathlete information––comes an essential guidebook of weekly training plans for all skill levels.

As popular as the swim-bike-run sport has become in recent years, triathlon training remains a daunting physical and mental challenge. From short sprints to Olympic distance events, this guide from Triathlete magazine provides athletes with different plans for every skill level, and shows them how to build up their training to reach their ultimate goal. Good-humored narrative text accompanies detailed workout schedules, guidelines, weekly goals, and coaching tips. Including off-season training advice and photo-illustrated stretches and exercises, this is the book triathletes need to stay at the top of their game.

Genres: Fitness, Nonfiction, Reference

480 pages, Paperback

First published April 19, 2006

About the author

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of numerous books on sports history and endurance sports. He has enjoyed unprecedented access to professional endurance athletes over the course of his career. His best-sellers include Racing Weight and Brain Training for Runners. He has also written extensively for Triathlete, Men's Fitness, Men's Health, Outside, Runner's World, Bicycling, Competitor, and countless other sports and fitness publications.

Reviews

[Kevin McGill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great novel for all triathletes. There are a number of training plans for all levels of triathlons.

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent resource for training plans, from beginner to elite. Probably best used as a reference guide rather and start-to-finish read. Another great offering from Matt Fitzgerald!

[Douglas Lord · Rating 5 out of 5]

Done a couple tri’s? Want to do more, perform better, see how far you can take yourself? Self-coached athletes who have a solid skill base need look no further than this road map of training plans. Fitzy’s book has plans for sprint distance all the way through 11-12 workouts per week Ironman. Introductory matter helps identify abilities and limiters and then guides you toward setting a 24-week, race-specific training plan for the season. The manual pretty much takes out all the guesswork, (no more training in the grey zone!) so all you need to do is execute. Presented as series of tables with coded workouts, the method ramps up athletes slowly and appropriately, using cycles of three intense weeks followed by one recovery week. By week 9 or 10, you’ll be accomplishing more than you thought you ever could. By week 24, you’re ready to kick some ass. Scattered throughout are bits of wisdom and focus points that can help center your thoughts when you’re amid a grueling workout, (e.g., tilt forward to correct overstriding on the run).

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this one to train for Ironman Maryland in 2014. I made copies of all the pages I needed and bound them into a workout plan that, by the time I finished with it, looked about as beat-up as I felt at the end of the race.

I like Fitzgerald's approach to fact-based training. He obviously eats his own dog food, and is an avid student of the art/science of human performance.

I docked one star because the format of the training plans is less than ideal. He provides a list of running distances, for example, each with its own code (e.g. "LR2" is the code for a 45-minute long run). Then in his training schedule he provides only the code, which forces you to cross reference the two tables. This is useful when the workout specified by the code is complex (like a swim workout), but doesn't provide any real value when the decoded description of the workout (1.5h run) would fit where the code is used.

So, five stars for content, -1 star for presentation.

[Amanda Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent mapping of workouts tailored to where you are in triathlon.