Book review: Fast after 50: How to race strong for the rest of your life
Joe Friel
Available from Amazon
A very comprehensive book about the not so well-developed science of performance of the ageing athlete.
There is a lot (!) in this book and is a good reference book. Joe explains that there are three issues in an athlete’s fitness, aerobic capacity (VO2 max), lactate threshold and economy. It is the aerobic capacity that declines mostly when ageing, but mainly because this aspect is trained less and athletes tend to stick more to long LSD training.
My biggest take-home message is that when you are ageing, you can slow down the decline in your performance by focusing more on high intensity training, so this is something that we should not forget! You might have to recover a bit longer when older but being old is no excuse to forget about those high intensity interval trainings.
The book provides examples of high intensity interval training, and touches on topics like rest and recovery, body fat, and advanced training.
Not a quick and easy read, but you will be coming back to this book again and again, and it will provide you with the motivation to keep training for the rest of your life!
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