The Outdoor Athlete

by Courtenay Schurman, Doug Schurman

More than 160 million American adults participated in outdoor activities or adventure sports in 2005, according to the Outdoor Industry Foundation. While biking, trail running, and hiking remain the most popular, other activities like snowshoeing and mountaineering surge in popularity each year. Outdoor sport enthusiasts show incredible dedication to their endeavors, and The Outdoor Athlete is the ideal training manual to help them hike longer, paddle farther, ski faster, and climb higher.

The Outdoor Athlete is the most comprehensive training guide available, with 65 exercises, dozens of locales, and 17 programs covering the following

Genres: Nonfiction, Fitness, Outdoors

296 pages, Paperback

First published October 17, 2008

Reviews

[Lost Planet Airman · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, this short review is spawned by the fact that I have finally _read_ this tome, but not tried out the program(s), so it is purely an intellectual reaction and not an evaluation. The author seems to have a good breadth and depth of knowledge as a trainer, but occasionally steps into a puddle of ignorance -- staying one-track on a method or technique, or 'factualizing' an opinion, or just using a term wrong.
Still, if I were to try an effort or a book like this, I'd fall short. So let's say this is a high B+ or low A- work, working for a range of athletes from casual to dedicated, in hiking, trail running, mountaineering, off-road biking, paddling, cross-country skiing and other endurance-related outdoor sports.
Good sections on the basics and on tuning exercise and training to specific sports and goals.

[Ryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book lost all credibility in the first chapter, when the authors shamefully wrote, "in simplest tems, cardio refers to the heart, and vasculsr refers to the lungs." If you're going to purport to know about fitness, providing a patently false definition of one of the core terms in fitness, "cardiovascular". Vascular refers to blood vessels, not lungs.

[Karel Baloun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent training manual — authoritative and practical. Can’t wait to use the sample forms and wonder why I didn’t let myself benefit from this earlier.