80/20 Triathlon: Discover the Breakthrough Elite-Training Formula for Ultimate Fitness and Performance at All Levels

by Matt Fitzgerald, David Warden

A breakthrough program for triathletes -- beginner, intermediate, and advanced -- showing how to balance training intensity to maximize performance -- from a fitness expert and elite coach.

Cutting-edge research has proven that triathletes and other endurance athletes experience their greatest performance when they do 80 percent of their training at low intensity and the remaining 20 percent at moderate to high intensity. But the vast majority of recreational triathletes are caught in the so-called "moderate-intensity rut," spending almost half of their time training too hard--harder than the pros. Training harder isn't smarter; it actually results in low-grade chronic fatigue that prevents recreational athletes from getting the best results.

In 80/20 Triathlon, Matt Fitzgerald and David Warden lay out the real-world and scientific evidence, offering concrete tips and strategies, along with complete training plans for every distance--Sprint, Olympic, Half-Ironman, and Ironman--to help athletes implement the 80/20 rule of intensity balance. Benefits include reduced fatigue and injury risk, improved fitness, increased motivation, and better race results.

Genres: Sports, Fitness, Nonfiction, Health, Audiobook

320 pages, Paperback

Published September 18, 2018

About the author

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of numerous books on sports history and endurance sports. He has enjoyed unprecedented access to professional endurance athletes over the course of his career. His best-sellers include Racing Weight and Brain Training for Runners. He has also written extensively for Triathlete, Men's Fitness, Men's Health, Outside, Runner's World, Bicycling, Competitor, and countless other sports and fitness publications.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matt's other books have been some of the best I've read, racing weight and the endurance diet in particular. I didn't feel like there was a lot of new information in here that you wouldn't find in articles Matt has written online. I also wouldn't say this is a 'complete' training guide that would help you build your own training plans, as there is only some brief chapters on swim, bike and run specific training, and not a lot of detail about how you should structure training blocks leading up to an event. There are a lot of sample training plans in the book, with several for each distance at different levels. They are very hard to read though as they use a code system, where you have to go look up what each code translates to in the appendix. It's hard to see the logic behind why you're doing each workout at that part of the plan or even where the recovery weeks are. It's still valuable to reinforce keeping the right mix of intensity. I think it's worth the read but at least read something like the triathletes training bible as well.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m excited to try the Level 1 training plan outlined (there are multiple levels offered based on experience and higher or lower volume to train for each type of tri) for my first Olympic distance this summer. I really liked 80/20 running and found a lot of useful information here for how to carry that principle over to the other two disciplines. I wish there would’ve been some information about how to fuel during training and race day, but overall thought this was a quality book.

[Lluís Merlos Pieri]

Place holder hasta que vea si funciona o no

[Lars · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not differentianted, masked as backed by science

I was amazed by The Endurance Diet: Discover the 5 Core Habits of the World's Greatest Athletes to Look, Feel, and Perform Better (which is very good btw), so I wanted to read this book next. And I have to say I was disappointed: The author does not deal porperly with the question whether 80/20 is the right system for you, but instead presents it with an almost religious faith and cherry-picks research to support his opinion. My "favorite" part was that "Empirical research and observation confirm that the best cadence is almost exactly 90 rpm.", which is simply wrong. (scientists like Stephen Cheung say that it is individual, Brett Sutton is even an active proponent of low cadences) This was just one example of cherry-picking and undifferentiated presentation. I have other very high quality sources and they pointed out several reasons why these things are a lot less clear than the author presents them to be. If he would point out that it is just his personal opinion, I would be absolutely fine with it. But I absolutely hate his tendency to present his opinion as the undisputed truth - which many points actually aren't, as I found out through further research.

The only upside, however, is that gives you a very concrete training system which you can use. But if that is what you want, you should just read The Triathlete's Training Bible: The World's Most Comprehensive Training Guide, which does a better job at this and is a much better triathlon training book overall.

[Beck Conway · Rating 4 out of 5]

What’s fascinating is that this book written less than 10 years ago, and introduces then new concept of zone 2 training making up the majority of your training. Which i think is now very widely known and celebrated in the running community (thanks to runfluencers) on that, what was noticeably lacking was nutrition and race-fuelling - the new ‘fad’ with tiktok influencers

[Dale Singer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do not do as an audiobook.

[Betsy Solorio · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think you need a degree in statistics for this book to be very useful.

[Jess Y · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good tips. So many training plans & workout combos

[Mary Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

clear and exciting :)

[Mert Topcu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Matt Fitzgerald and his books, like Race Weight and How Bad Do you Want.
In this book, he convinced me to try 80/20 approach to my back to Triathlon training after my 4 years break from it.
4 stars just because it feels a little light on the breadth of the topics however it covers all the aspects of 80/20 training including how to setup your own training plan and 4-5 plans for different Triathlon distances.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been a Matt Fitzgerald training fan for eight years and this latest book really digs into the science behind his plans. One can use this book to build their own triathlon plan for any distance or just simply better understand the why behind one purchased through Training Peaks. It feels odd to do so much training at low intensity and I will update my review if it fails me at my first 140.6 this fall.

[Cory]

It has some helpful calculators for zone training. Overall it was tedious with vague references to research. There are a lot of detailed data sets or plans that I didn't look at very closely, because they didn't hold my interest.

[Tommy Felice · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea of 80/20 training has turned me into someone who couldn’t run .25 miles to completing Ironmans! The formula just works!

[Valerie Thibaudeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

My new bible 🙏🏻

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

My background--I grew up playing basketball, baseball, soccer, and later, volleyball. It wasn't until I was in college that I had interest in endurance sports. I eventually got into cycling when I was 21, and a little later I did a local Thanksgiving sprint triathlon. I went back the next year, at which point I realized that while I hated the running and merely survived the swimming, I kicked everyone's butts on the bike. So, I went with that and spent the next five years or so racing road bikes, eventually retiring as a cat 1 racer. Then I started running (which I decided I didn't hate anymore), and I've spent the last 8 years or so running daily and racing one or two road marathons or trail 50ks each year.

About two weeks ago, I felt the sudden urge to start riding again. So I pulled my bikes out of the she where they'd been collecting dust, and went for a couple of rides. I realized how much I miss bikes, but I'm also not quite ready to stop running. So, naturally, I thought about trying another triathlon for the first time since (I think) 2005. That's where this book comes in. I'm not a triathlete, but I'm thinking about moving that way. At least for a race or two.

Anyway, I geek out about things. I ready many books on cycling during my career as a cyclist, and I've read many books on running during my career as a runner. I've also read a couple of books by Matt Fitzgerald--namely, Racing Weight and 80/20 Running. Both are excellent, so when I searched for "triathlon" in the Kindle store and this book popped up at the top of the results, I pre-ordered it right away. Lucky for me, it came out the next day, so I read it right away, too.

Fitzgerald's strength is that his approach is rigorous, but simple. It's a nice counterpoint to someone like Joe Friel, who prescribes heart zones to ranges of less than 5 BPM. (Side note--I know many disciples of Friel, and they get results. His stuff is great. I just don't want to go into that level of detail). In fact, 80/20 Running has been the book I recommend to people I know who want to start running. That's because it does such a great job of driving home the thesis--most people need to slow down most of the time. It's true--if you're on Strava, take look at the workouts of your enthusiast friends. Specifically, look at their heart rates (now that pretty much everyone has a wrist-based HRM). Now go look at your elite friends. If you're friends are anything like mine, you'll see heart rate around the 160s for the first group, in the 130s or 140s for the second. I don't offer unsolicited advice to my friends, but if they asked, I'd tell most of them to slow down and run more. (The exception is the non-competitive ultrarunners. I love you guys, but pick it up a bit, okay? And read Jason Koop's book while you're at it.)

I didn't get this when I tried to start running back in 2000. I would leave my dorm, start to hammer, be out of breath a mile later, suffer back home, and then lose all interest for a few days. If I had understood the basic principles of the 80/20 books, I would have enjoyed it more and gotten much better. Oh well.

Anyway, back to this book. I think I'm going to start recommending it instead of 80/20 Running, because it seems to be pretty much the same book, with some extra material on cycling and swimming, as well as a discussion of how to balance multi-discipline training. Even if you're a single-discipline athlete, the extra material can't hurt, right?

As an added bonus, all of the workouts described in the book are available on the 8020endurance website as .fit files. That's huge--it means all you have to do is download them, upload them to your Garmin (99 percent of the people reading this will have Garmins), and follow the workout. If you don't want to think too much about your training, you can simply copy one of the plans in this book, download the correct workouts, and hit it like an automaton. You'll almost certainly get better results than you would have doing what ever else you were going to do (unless you're already an experienced athlete, but in that case, you don't need me to tell you what to do). And if you want to build your own plan from the ground up, Fitzgerald walks you through the process, so you can do that, too.

My first criticism is that there seems to be a lot of repeated material from 80/20 Running. But I could be wrong, since I read that one a while ago. Besides, how much new stuff can you say when you're talking about steady aerobic training? My second is that the "80/20" seems a bit over-played (although the actual approach is a bit more flexible). Frankly, the precise ration reads a bit like a marketing gimmick. But I haven't read the studies--just this book that cites them--so what do I know? If you want to read them and tell me I'm wrong, go right ahead.

In short, good book. If you're interested in swimming, running, or cycling, or all three, and if you like reading about them, too, this one is worth your time.

[Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wie in anderen Rezensionen bemängelt, fehlt es dem Buch an differenzierter bzw. distanzierter Betrachtung der angesprochenen Studien. Der Umstand, dass die referierten Studien nur im Fließtext “zitiert” werden - ohne vollständigen Quellennachweis, weder Fußnote noch Quellenverzeichnis - erschwert es dem interessierten Leser, selbst mal ins Original zu gucken.

Zum Thema Wissenschaftlichkeit pikst es zudem im Auge, ausschließlich von Meilen und Yards zu lesen (bezogen auf die Pace und das Schwimmen und natürlich in der englischen Ausgabe). Gleichzeitig ist natürlich die Rede von 5k oder 10k Läufen...
„... swimpace can be done in a pool measured in yards or meters (but we‘ll describe it in yards).“ In die Klammer hätte aber auch eine kurze Formel für die Umrechnung gepasst... Umso schöner dann in der deutschen Ausgabe die Yards 1:1 als Meter wiederzufinden. Klar, Yards und Meter nehmen sich nicht viel, aber ein Nebensatz der Reflexion oder Erklärung wäre doch nicht so schwer.

Wie das Cover aber schon verrät, will das Buch natürlich keine sportwissenschaftliche Abhandlung sein, sondern ein Trainingsbuch (auch wenn ein Kapitel „The Science of 80/20 Training“ lautet). Und diesen Zweck erfüllt es. Es beginnt mit etwas Theorie, dann folgt ein Einschub mit ‚Workouts‘ zur Optimierung von Kraft und Mobilität, dann geht es an die Trainingspläne, vielleicht das Kernelement des Buches, und zum Schluss werden die einzelnen Trainingseinheiten, aus welchen sich die Trainingspläne zusammensetzen, aufgeschlüsselt. Die Akronymflut der Trainingsbezeichnungen überfordert ein bisschen, aber wohl einfach zweckmäßig.

Trainingsbuch heißt auch, dass beispielsweise bei den Übungen nicht erklärt wird, warum sie sinnvoll sind und allgemein sind physiologische Erklärungen Mangelware.

[Drew Herren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second book in my ongoing investigation of “classic” endurance training books. “80/20 Triathlon” is part training guide and part literature review. The general message is that the most effective and productive training schedule requires 80% of total volume be done at a low intensity and 20% at a high intensity. I buy the thesis, but I feel that the book overplays the point a bit. Are there really “gray zone”miles, with intensity between zone 2 and threshold, that are not beneficial (or less beneficial) to an athlete’s progress? And is the literature actually uniformly in favor of an 80/20 intensity split? I suspect that most amateur triathletes (surely the intended audience) will benefit from any kind of training they can do sustainably without injury or fatigue - grey miles or not.

So my general recommendation is to read the book especially for training recommendations but don’t treat it as gospel. Interesting food for thought!

[Joe Moya · Rating 4 out of 5]

VERY Good self coaching “starter" book

The crucial principles of an 80/20 trading regimen is well spelled out in detail. Unfortunately, the shortfall is how the book seems dated with regard to how technology has made much of the recording of effort levels to be more easily determined than the book implies. Another miscalculation of the book is the omission of strength training as a integral part of training during race season and not just during the off season. This "training schedule" miscalculation is why the book gets 4 stars instead of 5. And, worse yet...likely to increase the chance of injury for triathletes. In spite of that, the book is an excellent source for DIY coaching. ...just don’t make it the only source. Best to find sources that also emphasize recovery and strength in the training process/schedule.

[Amé Morency · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the level of detail of this book. There are detailed training plans for difference types of events (sprint, Olympic, ironman, etc.) and adapted for whatever shape you are in that make purchasing this book worth it. Regardless of how relevant you find the rest of the stuff in it.

I think some of the workouts are quite simple, being a high-level swimmer, I understand that I might now be the target of that book, specifically for swimming, also disregarding the fact that it's often what people dislike the most about triathlon. It's too simplistic of a view of swimming. Just because you only swim freestyle in a race, you shouldn't only swim freestyle in practices. This should be reflected in the workouts. The risk of injuries is also much lower, there is no good reason, not to do it.

3.5 stars. - Will use it for inspiration.

[Daniel Hernandez Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my 2nd year as an 8020 Endurance athlete. Last year I mostly just followed the training plan assigned to me. This year I finally made time to go through the entire book. It's very clear and straightforward, but I will say that it's geared towards a scientific mind.

The results I've seen have been amazing. However, for 8020 to work, you really need to buy into the process and humble yourself. I see so many athletes that do their workouts way faster than their aerobic zone 2 and then don't see much improvement. If you want to get faster, stop chasing clout and slow down your slow training to be faster when it matters- namely for hard workouts and specially on race day.

If you want to make this easier on yourself, just subscribe to 8020 endurance and then you won't have to build the workouts yourself. I'm not paid by them or anything, just a big fan of Matt's training program.

[Karyn Christensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Main takeaways:

- Cycling is without a doubt the most important discipline.

- Never skip a brick workout.

- Don’t get stuck in the “moderate intensity rut” by not having slow and fast days.

- “Intensity blindness” is when you don’t realize you’re going over 20% hard.

- Do a “week of slow” — start slow and incrimentally decrease speed. See table 2.1 for suggested schedules for week of slow.

- Empirical research shows that best cadence is almost exactly 90 RPM.

- Boundary between low and moderate intensity falls at the VT or “ventilatory threshold” where a spike in the breathing rate occurs.

- Chapter 5 PDF has good swim drills.

- ****Spotify has PDF linked to refer back to swim drills, weight workouts, stretches, etc!

[Ryan Adair · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a decent read, but nothing ground breaking that I wouldn't have been able to come across listening to a few interviews with the author. This feels like it is aimed at convincing someone of the 80/20 methodology, and doesn't have as much of the scientific backing/explanation of what different training techniques are used for that I was hoping for. The second half of the book is all training plans. It's very very annoying having to flick back and forth between the training plans and the workouts contained in the training plans, but other than that some of the sessions have been interesting enough so far. Might do a bit more forward planning and do one of their plans for an olympic next year.

[Peter Augustinak · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had already the running version of this book behind my belt, but as I'm triathlon athlete myself at the first place, I was happy to got eround this book too.

The truth is, that there is not much new primary knowledge to get from this one - the 80/20 rule means pretty the same thng for run as for any other sports. However detailed training plans can be helpfull, and some of the advices clicked a little, as my personal training for Ironmans is well structured, but created only by my amateurish and very liited knowledge.

The more you study the better, so reading this one was not a lost time for sure.

[Adam84 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matt Fitzgerald zde sice poněkud dogmaticky, ale zato velice jednoduše a přístupně seznamuje nejen kované triatlonisty s výhody tréninkové metody 80/20.

Největší přednost této knihy vidím v autorově schopnosti poměrně široké téma srozumitelně zhustit do sympatického formátu. Čtenář zde navíc může získat i velmi konkrétní tréninkový plán s ohledem na svůj cíl či výkonnost.

Drobnou nevýhodou knihy je přístup, jež staví metodu 80/20 do možná nechtěné role té nejlepší a jediné správné metody pro každého. Což lze brát i tak, že alternativy existují, ale pro jejich výčet autorovi v této knize už prostě nezbylo místo.

Nezbyde tedy než vyzkoušet a komentář popřípadě upravit.

[Shane Paxton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Helpful Book

I’ve read 4 other triathlon training books including the Training Bible and I found this book the most helpful because this book maps out programs with lots of variety of workouts for all 3 disciplines. It seems a lot of books don’t want to go in depth to make out training plans with the workouts detailed into the plan. I like that he covers all 4 distances in his plans and he has 3 different levels of training for each distance. I’ll be using this book a lot as a resource for the training for 2 half triathlons this year and hopefully a full next year.

[Biblioworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Книга не вторична, в ней даны подробные рекомендации конкретно для триатлона.

Но даже триатлонистам я бы рекомендовал прочитать также первичную книгу этого автора https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... поскольку в этой книге автор не стал всего повторять и за этого его можно только уважать - зачастую авторы бестселлера начинаю выпускать море вторичных книг, просто повторяющих одно и то же.

Интересен раздел про силовые тренировки - автор предлагает упражнения ориентирующиеся именно на функциональную подготовку а не на наращивание мяса.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Focuses on the concept that the elite endurance athletes do 80% of their training in zone 2, and 20% in zones 4 & 5. Whereas novice athletes will tend to do the bulk of their training in zone 3, also known as the effort that is "comfortably uncomfortable," which provides minimal improvement to aerobic capacity. In essence, keeping the easy days (really) easy, and the hard days hard. The training plans provide structure and purpose to reaching race goals. Running in zone 2 definitely makes you check your ego at the door.

A lot of the book contained workouts and training plans.

[Helina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most athletes "easy" workouts are too hard and "hard" workouts too easy. This is your personal trainer in a book format, guiding you step-by-step from beginner fitness to sprints to Half and Full Ironman distances. Absolutely recommend for anyone looking forward to unlocking new levels of endurance, power & speed play. Goes without saying that it needs to be integrated with balanced + adeguate nutrition levels and hence applying what you read - reading about triathlon doesn't make you a triathlete; but it might mentally prepare you for what is coming if you choose this path.

[Michael Driscoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book best pared with something like the Triathlete's Training Bible. 80/20 Triathlon helps the athlete by giving them detailed training plans to follow based on the 80/20 rule, of going slow 80% of the time, and fast 20% of the time. Which seems mostly based on experience at looking at the best athletes than hard science. Still, if it works, it works. My main criticism of the book is that it could be more detailed, but it's fantastic as a reference for training plans, having a good workout library, and great tips for beginners.

[Joe Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

ITs tough to rate because if you're familiar with Fitzgerald's initial 80/20 book then this is great because then you know the importance of the training method. He touches on it here, but he doesn't go into as much detail. This book has a lot of math involved with figuring out training zones in the 3 disciplines, especially the swim and bike.

However, there are a bevy of training plans in full for all the different lengths of triathlons, as well as for experience level (beginner, intermediate and experienced).