Has anyone read Graham Obree’s new book – training manual?

I have read it cover to cover and found it enlightening!

Main points below…

– Obree favours real food over sports drinks, powders and gels
– He suggests a simple training regime of turbo sessions, Glycogen starved ride and recovery rides in between. The Glycogen ride is on little food and is 1.5h to 2.5h long max effort.
– recovery rides are very gentle in between
– Does not like HRMs, you should know when the ride is intense enough!
– favours steel or alu bikes over carbon
– likes SPDS over standard road shoes/cleats

Got it too. Like you I really enjoyed it. I have yet to put his turbo sessions into practice though. I thought he talked a lot of sense. He didn’t say he knew all of the answers but was sharing what worked for him. I would recommend it.

Although I haven’t tried the turbo sessions I would recommend training on marzipan. It works for me.

I haven;’t read it, but I am keen too – so if either of your copies are going to be sitting on a shelf gathering dust I will happily give you some dollar for it?

Thought it was interesting, but I think it would be hard to stick to his training, it’s VERY focused and hard to put in to practice if you wanted to ‘just ride your bike’ as well.

Makes a refreshing change from all the tech bo**ocks you hear everyone else talk

I think I’ll make the effort to read it too, Obree being about as close to a cycling hero as I’ll get, but I have to say I’m sceptical to some extent about how useful it’ll actually be as I think Obree would have been fast almost irrespective of what type of training he did and what works for him won’t necessarily work for others. (Yes, I know Obree doesn’t claim that it’s right for everyone)

LabMonkey,

I can’t remember how much the book cost, but not much. You can get it from GO’s website. It should mean a few quid going to him. I would want to hang on to it anyway to dip into it periodically.

cu dubh – thanks, I have had a look and it costs £30… that is quite a lot to pay… I am a sports scientist and I just want to read it out of curiosity, I am unsure if I will learn anything from an eccentric perspective on training and racing… but you never know.

edit: You are probably right though, it would be good to see a slice of the cash going back to GO.

The book is £30! So it is a lot of money but well worth the read. Alternatively wait to it hits your local library but this may take 6 months or so. I am not giving mine up as I refer to it all the time (even though I have read it).

The thing I liked is his simplistic training of three basic rides…

Turbo session full on 20 – 30mins
Glycogen starvation ride 1h30 – 2h30 full on after warm up
recovery ride with low intensity and low HR (as much as possible in between other two).

He does make good points about ‘real life’ and compromises required. For instance why waste cycling time if you are not in one of these ‘modes’ and do training or riding for a purpose rather than just get out and ride. Debunks therefore complex training regimes with intervals such 5 mins at zone 2 and then 10 mins at zone 3 and three with 10 mins recovery at zone 2 etc…etc..