What is Reddit's opinion of The Triathlete's Training Bible: The World’s Most Comprehensive Training Guide, 4th Ed.?

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I was recommended Joe Friel's The Triathlete's Training Bible. This year is the first I'm using it to develop a plan and follow through to 2-3 70.3s next year. In it are some good tools to develop a season and come up with your own plan with sample workouts, etc. The book is wonderful at laying out how to plan an entire season, but my biggest complaint is that the info on how to develop a single workout or week is scattershot across several sections and kind of confusing to plan out.

I'm about 6 weeks into the plan I came up with. So far I feel productive and more confident in certain skills, and I like how he suggests you take every 4th week to recover and test yourself to determine whether the workouts are effective.

Curious what others think about it as a way to self-coach.

I would recommend keeping lifting to 2-3x/week doing a full body routine, that should be sufficient to maintain muscle mass while on a cut (in combination with getting enough protein).

If you're wanting to train for a tri on a cut just keep in mind it will probably take longer due to your body not being able recover as well. So dont expect to be able to increase your distance and your pace at the same time while on a deficit, attempting to do so is just going to lead to injury. I highly recommend The Triathlete's Training Bible by Joel Friel to help plan your training sessions.

Personally since weight loss is a short term goal and triathlons the long one I would just working on building your cardio base by slowly increasing distance and lifting weights 2-3x/week until you're at the weight you want then shift into maintenance calories and get more serious about increasing triathlon performance.

edit: also /r/triathlon and the individual subs for running/cycling/swimming will likely be able to help you much better on the finer points of training once you get started

There's your problem. Training should not be based on your max HR but on your threshold HR. Do this 30 minute test. This gets your anaerobic threshold, which is a much more useful physiological point than max HR.

I do this test less frequently than I used to because the values change less as you get more training under your belt (you may already be at that point, I don't see anywhere where you mention your current fitness or past training), but as a starting point, I'd recommend doing it about every 6 weeks until you get a feel for what your HR response is to training.

Also note: For running, HR is really only super useful for sustained efforts due to its laggy nature. It's a great tool to make sure your easy runs are easy, your tempo runs are at an appropriate effort, your longer intervals (>1mi) are paced appropriately, and as a means of checking your effort in a race. Once you get under 1mi intervals, you won't be able to really get your HR set in properly to really use it to guide you. Those should definitely be pace and/or RPE based (e.g. Daniels' pacing zones). After you finish your interval sets, you can definitely look at things like drift and compare them to past performances within a training block to get an idea of where you're at.

Once you get really familiar with your HR and get an idea of where it should be for different efforts, you'll be able to use it as a tool to judge things like hydration status, how you're handling heat, as a heads up for overreach/overtraining, etc. It really is a useful tool once you learn to use it generally and get used to what your values are generally supposed to look like.

If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up. I've just recently switched to running full time, but I've spent the last 5ish years training for triathlon using HR. If you want more in-depth info, I'd recommend The Triathlete's Training Bible. Specifically chapter 4, though the entire book gives a great overview of training principles and how to structure workouts.

There are a ton of plans out there that will give you a better answer. Check out https://beginnertriathlete.com/ for some basic free ones that will give you a sense of what to do. MyProCoach has some paid (but reasonable) plans if you want to DIY.

And i'm old, so i still remember when information came in books - and that's why I'd also suggest getting something like The Triathlete's Training Bible (https://www.amazon.com/Triathletes-Training-Bible-Worlds-Comprehensive/dp/1937715442). It gives a great overview of what periodization means and how to do it, and insight on how to put together your own plan. It sounds like that's what you're looking for.

This book sould be a great help for his or her training

https://www.amazon.fr/dp/1937715442/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabt1_Q4IWFbWXZ9GMD

> Also, I've never done much swimming but with very little training I was able to swim 2000m in around 55 minutes a year ago

Get swimming and into competing. Swimming 2000m in a pool is one thing, but swimming 3800m in open water with about 300 gazillion people trying to get into the same direction while punching you with their hands and feets is something completely else. So try to go to the pool at least 3 times a week.

As for your training, you should focus on building a base in running, cycling and swimming for the first 3 or 4 months. Depending on where you live you might consider getting a bike trainer. Here is a great ressource on how to structure your base phase. In this phase throw in some short distance sprint and Olympic distance races to get your equipment and transition straight. Also, it is just pure fun to pin on a number and chase some chaps down instead of running alone. You might want to consider doing a 70.3 specific build/peak/taper period after that base to do a long distance race.

Then take a week or two off and jump into the 6-month ironman training plan. For plan recommendations, I find it best to pick up the Training Bible by Joe Friel. After reading this book you might not necessarily be able to design the perfect training plan for yourself but you'll be able to judge if the things written in a training plan are in line with your goals (or limiters).

If you want a more fine-grained answer please provide some additional information like age, current fitness (5k/10k pace, 60 - 100k Bike performance) and athletic background. Have you done triathlon races before? Also, how many hours of training do you have available a week? And what are your goals? Just want to finish? Any specific time in mind? Without it's hard to answer your question. A competitive runner transitioning into triathlon has to train differently from a college swimmer or somebody who hasn't been active in 5 years. Everybody has different weaknesses and with a year of training, you have the possibility to work on them.

Edit: Sorry for the long wall of text. Did not want to intimidate you.

Alright. Quickly checking the results page for the 2016 USAT National Championships yields a 20:21 swim, 59:09 bike and 36:31 run(01:58:26 overall) for the male 20 - 24 age group winner. So you have to almost run your 5k pace for a 10k. Coming from a running background this should be the easiest step for you.

Without numbers for a 40k ITT and a 1.5k swim I can't judge your current swimming/biking fitness but you now have some numbers for orientation. So basically, same question as /u/propell0r: Have you finished an olympic triathlon yet and have some numbers for us?

Also, think about regeneration. You should dial in at least one rest week every 4 weeks and maybe even one rest day every week. Personally, I prefer doing 2 or 3 days with two trainings a day and have one full day of rest, but thats something you have to figure out yourself.

That all being said, you might want to think about getting a coach if you want to be competitive. Just because these people usually can structure your training to maximize your benefits. If you don't want to or can't do that:

• What does your macro planning look like? Your periodization?
• What are your biggest restricters in each of the disciplines?

I might suggest that you take a look at Joe Friel's Triathlon Training Bible propably the most comprehensive ressource on triathlon training.