Fast After 50: How to Race Strong for the Rest of Your Life

This is a great book that reviews the available scientific evidence for how to train if you want to race and are over 50. Its also well written. There are sections that he tells you to skip if you don't want technical detail, but I thought these sections were excellent. He tells you the strength of the evidence and when evidence is lacking. Admittedly, I am a physician scientist, who likes to know why I'm supposed to do something instead of just being told what to do, but this book really convinced me that I need to continue hard intervals. There are numerous references if you want to look up something in more detail, but he does a great job of summarizing the literature in a readable book.

Ageing and the impact of ageing on the competitive athlete beyond age 50 is something that has not been written about in book form before. Friel has undertaken a substantial task and done a very good job with the subject matter. The physiologic changes that negatively affect athletic performance beyond age 50 (and to a lesser extent beyond age 40) are fairly drastic as any committed senior athlete can tell you. Friel develops a detailed framework to allow one to understand these changes and the ramifications on performance and then offers a training approach to slow down or possibly even delay the rate of decline. The current state of understanding is nicely summarized in a quote from page 108 of the book: “This brings us back to the big three- the primary determiners of performance decline with age according to sport science. To refresh your memory, these are declining aerobic capacity, increasing body fat, and loss of muscle mass.” Friel’s recipe for combating age-related performance decline therefore involves a primary focus on high-intensity workouts, methods for reduction of body fat, and heavy load strength workouts. It is proposed that these three areas are the keys to high performance as a senior athlete. The book is structured in two parts where Part I (about 1/3 of the book) reviews the literature and describes Friel’s own experience with physiologic changes going on in the human body. This establishes a base-line of what we are up against. Part II describes the various ways that the changes discussed in Part I can be addressed from the perspective of a competitive athlete. Part II includes a substantial amount of guidance on training plans and suggested workouts (along with good appendices that elaborate on work outs in greater detail) as well as discussions of diet and recovery. It is quite comprehensive, if you subscribe to this style of training. Friel has done a good job of dancing around the whole “diet” morass that is extant. Although he lauds a so-called Paleo diet (and has co-authored a book on the subject with one of the Paleo cult’s pseudo-scientific leaders) he is quick to point out that there is no one diet that works for everyone and that the task is to to determine what works for you. Friel has written a comprehensive and detailed guide to development of athletic excellence for the senior endurance athlete. The book also provides detailed training recommendations and structures with specific work out descriptions. For the senior endurance athlete, this book will serve well as a reference and as the basis of an operative program for achieving one's potential. Highly recommended.

The author readily admits that his turning 70 and losing cycling capability are the motivators for this book. It is his claim, backed up by a good deal of evidence, that large declines in performance can be avoided with training and habits that counter physical changes in older athletes. Of the two essential elements of training, that is volume and intensity, it is intensity that must be emphasized to counter the effects of aging. And that is contrary to the advice often given that older athletes must take a long, slow approach to training. Of all the declines in athletes, it is the reduction of VO2-Max, the ability of an athlete to process oxygen that most severely limits performance. After describing that change and others common to aging athletes, for example gaining fat and losing muscle, the author introduces a rudimentary training plan to address those issues. Key to his plan is the inclusion of aerobic-capacity and lactate-threshold intervals of varying intensity and duration. In addition there are more conventional elements like longer aerobic threshold efforts and weightlifting. His plan is tailored for those in any endurance sport. Periodization of training is also discussed with the elements of training adjusted based on where one is in a racing cycle. The main point of the book, that is the emphasis on training intensity, is noteworthy. In so far as the author sticks to supporting and explaining that idea, the book is good. However, there is some redundancy and the inclusion of bits of miscellaneous testimony from older athletes does not add much. The author also veers into general health topics of the aged such as sleep, fat, insulin, and diet. The book is a corrective to the notion that people somehow have to substantially decline in old age.

Great news here: The studies of fitness with aging show big declines because most of them are based on athletes that stop trying because they read that there are a big declines with age! He covers all aspects. What is a given and how training, sleep and diet need to change as we get older. And importantly how we need more time for recovery. I’m turning 70 and this answered all sorts of questions and makes my next 10 years in CrossFit look very exciting.

Joe was one of the world's top cycling and triathlon coaches for decades. He provides the viewpoint of an experiences coach, a serious athlete, and a scientist. This book represents a tremendous amount of work; almost everything he says is backed by peer-reviewed scientific refeences. As an Exercise Physiologist, professional coach, and athlete myself I have read many books on training and this is as good as any I've come across.

As we get older, our bodies change but it’s easy to miss these changes and then one day, you find that what was once easy has become difficult. This is what motivated me to buy and read this book. Yes, I’ve read it from cover to cover and made my notes. It’s an easy read and the author, Joe Friel knows what he’s talking about. We need to make changes to our lifestyles, changes that will bring a broad range of benefits, regardless of our age and sporting ambitions. You are responsible for your own health, not the government or you doctor, you. If like me you take your responsibilities seriously, then you owe to yourself and those that love you, to fight aging, not use it as an excuse. This book will help you win that battle.

Now I am over 50, in fact over 60, and still try to be a competitive endurance athlete, I have been looking for the science on aging and how to stay strong as long as possible. Joe Friel does not disappoint in his research and writing. He starts out by stating that those who read this book are outside of the normal statistics on aging and athletic decline. He shows studies that track the performance of Olympic athletes who medaled since 1940, and how different ones stayed fit well into their 80's. Next, he talks about the true nature of fitness and how it is measured. I am about half way through, but already my training has changed. In the summer, by primary sport is mountain biking, and I have change my climbing patterns from Long Slow Burn (LSB) to High Intensity Training Sprints (HITS), Within two months, by average speed on a 15 to 20 mile ride has increased from around 6.1 mph to 7.9 mph; and I am usually less worn out after a ride. Thanks for this great tome on staying fit, aging, training and motivation. I bought four copies and gave them away to several of my athlete friends.

Just OK. I think the book could have been a real winner, but it felt like it was full of fluff most of the way through. Much was common sense and there was a lot of repetitiveness. I also felt as though the target audience was not particularly clear. Is the reader someone who was a high-level athlete as a youngster, moved away from competitive sports after getting a job, and at age 50 wants to reclaim the fountain of youth? Or is the reader someone who was a high-level athlete as a youngster, slowed down athletically after college but kept doing workouts recreationally, and at age 50 wants to get fast again? Or is the reader someone who was highly athletic and competitive throughout life and at age 50 is now worried they cannot keep being athletic and competitive? Through much of the book you see the phrase “maintaining performance with aging.” And since you can only maintain performance if you have it in the first place, I must assume the targeted reader is someone who was a high-level athlete at least during their youth. But here's the rub, a 50-year-old who has let his or her high fitness level disappear or tank altogether isn't really interested in “maintaining” performance if they want to be “fast after 50” as the book's title suggests. This book isn't really going to help those folks reclaim the fountain of youth. And the funny thing is, the folks the book seems to be written for really don't need to read the book because maintaining performance is probably a no-brainer for them. They'll just keep doing what works for them. The author would like you to think he is informing you that you need to keep doing high intensity workouts to remain fast. You wouldn't be fast at 50 if you didn't already know this! This book could have gotten 4 or even 5 stars from me if it had focused at the get-go on explaining what a former athlete who was a high performer in his or her youth can expect when trying to reclaim the fountain of youth after turning age 50. If that person doesn't reclaim the fountain, then that person is not going to be fast. And the book's title says it will tell the reader how to be fast after turning 50. There is good information in this book, but as I say above, the book comes across a being full of fluff, it's repetitive, and basically talks common sense. The whole thing could have been condensed into a well-written magazine article. My take away after reading the book is that older people are in a different stage of life than a young person and thus are kind of lazy when it comes to physical work. Also, older people do not regenerate physically (i.e., recover or heal) as quickly and easily as a young person. As a result, older people must be more strategic when it comes to getting fitter so they can perform better athletically. They still need to do high intensity workouts, but they need to take bigger breaks between those intensive workouts in order to avoid injury, burnout, excessive fatigue or overtraining. And they need more sleep during those breaks. This required increase in recovery time not only slows down fitness progress for the older athlete, but it also gives him or her more time to spend eating – something that the person should probably be doing less of than more since less training time translates into less calories burned. So the older athlete trying to make a comeback of sorts has to be patient with his progress, learn to eat less and better, struggle to stick with high intensity workouts (since he is inherently lazy at this age), and constantly worry about not getting injured. 3 stars!