[.ca] Serious Training for Endurance Athletes-2nd Edition (ISBN 0873226445)

Excellent primer for a successful training program:
I bought this book on the recommendations of Amazon customers and I must admit that I wasn't disapointed. Sometimes you don't know what you're going to get when everyone gives a book 5 stars. Sometimes it's hard to get an unbiased review. I was pleased with the book and what others have said is true. I recommend this book to endurance athletes looking for reasons and explanations on why to train a certain way and what it will do for your body in the long run. However, I am a competetive rower and there were few topics that took rowing into account. Most of the training is geared towards running/cycling/triathetes and not specific to rowing as much as I was hoping. Also, there is way too little emphasis on resistance training. Most of the book is about setting up a mathmatical training plan and says to devote time sparingly to strength training. I'm not an expert on other sports, but I do know that power through strength training is vital for a strong pull on those oars. I suggest devoting more time in the SERIOUS formula to weight training in the gym than the book suggests, especially in the early training weeks. As for the rest of the book, it's great, but it takes a *LOT* of paperwork. Fortunately my wife is handy with MS Excel and plotted all the charts for me with forulas that makes it all easy. However, without her I know that I would be daunted and discouraged at the task of making all the charts and calculations by hand. In a future updated edition (I hope that they make one) the book should come with a CDROM loaded with all the charts and formulas, or at least a web site link for downloading them. In the 21st century it's good practice to have online content and I hope to see it with this great text book.

Good book:
This is a good book for people who have never done a sport at a high level, because it will show you how to do a good training and give you ideas for exercises, it is also for people who plan to do some sport for a special event (for example, training for a 1 week and more mountain hike) I would not really recommend this book to people who already do high level taining and who allready are in a training program, because they probably allready know most of the exercises and ideas of this book (or at least something equivalent)

A Must Have for Any Endurance Athlete:
I bought SERIOUS Training for Endurance Athletes to develop a training regemin for adventure racing. After a few months of following the advice presented in the book, I raced sucessfully in a two-day 148km race. After the race I developed a one year training program and I am now 7 weeks into it. I'm looking forward to the upcoming race season. If you want to learn more about endurance training and suceed in endurance sports, this book is for you!

"A Must For SERIOUS Athletes":
Although I rarley compete in races of any sort, the SERIOUS system enabled me to architect graphs and charts to acknowledge my strengths and liabilities in my fitness plan. The SERIOUS acronym also clarified my elemenatry misconceptions of Speed, Endurance, Race/Pace, Intensity, Overdistance, Up/Verticle, and Strength. Implementing a training log was also beneficial for stratifying new plans, goals, and highlighting accomplishments. If your a genuine competitor who seeks the extra winning edge, I highly reccomend that you incorporate the SERIOUS system into your training arsenal. -AllotofVision- Marshall University, Huntington, W.Va

"A Must For SERIOUS Athletes":
Although I rarley compete in races of any sort, the SERIOUS system enabled me to architect graphs and charts to acknowledge my strenghths and liabilities in my fitness plan. The SERIOUS acronym also clarified my elemenatry misconceptions of Speed, Endurance, Race/Pace, Intensity, Overdistance, Up/Verticle, and Strength. Implementing a training log was also beneficial for stratifying new plans, goals, and highlighting accomplishments. If your a genuine competitor who seeks the extra winning edge, I highly reccomend that you incorporate the SERIOUS system into your training arsenal. -AllotofVision- Marshall University, Huntington, W.Va