Review of Fast After 50 by Joe Friel

While the title of this book, Fast After 50, may lead you to think it is only for us aging folk it’s
content is important for any athlete – but especially those that are getting older and still want to stay competitive.  Even if you are younger many of the topics will apply as many of the principles apply for all athletes but duration and and quantity may change as we age.  Also, I encourage most people’s training to have a longer range view than just the next workout but to look years down the road.  Sure there may be those with short term goals but for the majority of us, even those who are competitive, a longer range goal exists, or should – to be competitive for a long time.

With that in mind Joe Friel speaks to the aging athlete and, yes, primarily those who are competitive.  If you are not competitive you can take much away from this book.  However, those of us that seek to eke out the best from out bodies as we get older will benefit even more.  Let me stop here a moment and make sure you understand that “competitive” does not have to mean “winning” races but simply that you want the best out of yourself when you race and compete be it at the front, middle or back of the pack.  You may not win but you can still compete by putting out your best and having trained to do so. Thus, do not limit the idea of being competitive only to those at the front of the pack.

One other aspect of this book I want to touch on at the start is that while Joe has written mostly on riding in the past and the book has a cyclist on the front it is far from being about only riding as all athletes from many sports can benefit from this book.  Of course many times cycling is used as an example but other sports are mentioned and, again, you can take the principles and spread them across a full range of sports.

Fast after 50 is broken up into 2 parts:

• Part 1 – Older Slower Fatter
• The Aging Myth
• The Ageless Athlete
• Over the Hill
• Part 2 – Faster Stronger Leaner
• The High Performance Senior Athlete
• Training Basics
• Advanced Training
• Rest and Recovery
• Body Fat

Part 1 deals with the myths and truths of aging.  Joe does not sugar coat that yes we do slow as we age and our training will need to change.  But in doing so he asks the correct questions as to why this is so.  In this he shows that while there is a degree of loss that comes with aging what is often seen is loss due to a backing off in training and thus not all attributable to age itself. The idea being that while we will all slow down it is often our intentional, or unintentional, backing off, too much, in training that can exacerbate this loss.   So much of what will be put forth later in the book is to help the older athlete work to not back off too much, while being aware and still realizing they are not what they once were.  Personally this is something I have known for a long time but for those of us that have been at this for some time can be hard to get a grip on.  That is the understanding that we cannot train as we once did but this does not mean slowing down but changing what and how we do things.  The goal is to not simply just do less but be smarter with, and in, what we can do.

Joe makes things simply by breaking down endurance fitness into 3 categories:

• Aerobic Capacity
• Lactate Threshold
• Economy

Thus all workouts are be done to work on one or more of these three categories.  By breaking it down to these three the rest of the book then applies workouts to one of these areas and this makes things easier to keep straight.   Also, by breaking things down to these three areas it can make it easier for the athlete to see what area they may be weak in, or has been ignored, so that area can be worked on.

I will say that depending on how you look at training things may be confusing initially, especially if in the past your view of training was to simply go out and run or ride as you feel – or till exhausted.  Joe seeks to help the reader be able to work things out for themselves but in a intelligent and intentional way.  He also does a good job of repeating things through out the book to get ideas across.  But, even then you may need to read back over things if this is all new to you, but it will be well worth it.

Bottom line with Part 1 is that while getting older does affect the athlete it does not have to be as severe as we often see if we realize that often this change is not only from aging but is also often exacerbated by cutting back on training too much in fear of injury or from a misunderstanding of aging.  As will be seen in Part 2 over-doing it with training can also be a cause of issue as you age.

In Part 2 Joe begins to work on more specifics of training in covering training basics, looking at advanced training, delving into rest and recovery as well as looking at diet and body fat.  All of these are key to success of the aging athlete and ones that need to be looked at by anyone looking to remain a competitive athlete as they age.

Basically Part 2 takes the needs shown in Part 1 and begins to flesh out how to accomplish them and work them into your training plan - or make one if you have never done so.  In Part 2 you are provided the tools, in the form of differing workouts and concepts, that you can then take and put into a plan to improve training and thus your performance.  I did appreciate the continual reminder to make sure one gets enough rest between higher intensity workouts that are required of aging athlete to hinder the loss of performance.  Also, as listed in the topics covered, Joe deals with diet and while not putting forth a particular diet he does touch on the need to change ones diet as we get older to combat the natural tendency to gain fat.

Many of you may know I tend to train at what is known as MAF (Maximum Aerobic Function – as set forth my Phil Maffetone) which stresses training largely at a much lower HR than many of us do.  While Fast after 50 does not directly deal with MAF there is talk about aerobic training and once you read the book you will see how you can indeed use the books ideas in the context of MAF.  This is because MAF is not for everyday, except maybe in particular blocks of easy aerobic training,  so you can filter in much of what the author shares on those days when higher intensity training fits in.

That was just a quick overview of this book, a book I think every older athlete can gain much from whether you ride, run, swim or do some other activity – the principles apply.  Fast After 50 is a book you should add to your library.  Read it as often as needed and use the principles in laying out your training plan to increase your performance in what ever sport you partake in.