Lance Armstrong Performance Program: Seven Weeks to the Perfect Ride

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All books in the category Cycling Skills

by: Lance Armstrong, Chris Carmichael, Peter Joffre Nye

Topics include: flat varied terrain, steady group ride, minutes flat terrain, world championship road race, time trial bicycle, easy spinning, pedal cadence, stationary trainer, brake hoods, recovery ride, aero bars, lactate threshold, junior national team, faster cadence, pedal stroke, heart rate intensity, recreational rider, jersey pocket, pedal speed, aerodynamic position, clipless pedals, allow full recovery, cycling team, tire levers, many cyclists

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It's hard to argue with success; it's even tougher to emulate it. But if you want to train like a Tour de France winner, you couldn't do much better than learning the tricks of the trade from two-time champion (1999 and 2000) Lance Armstrong.

In The Lance Armstrong Performance Program: Seven Weeks to the Perfect Ride, Armstrong teams up with his coach, Chris Carmichael (whom the U.S. Olympic Committee named 1999's Coach of the Year), to offer the ultimate insider's guide to becoming a better rider, based on the regimen Carmichael has been fine-tuning for Armstrong since the early 1990s. Noting that athletes of all levels focus best when aiming for specific goals at the end of short windows, the authors describe the performance program as consisting of "three specialized weekly training programs that build on your current fitness level" followed by a week of "recovery riding between each program." They provide an easy-to-administer fitness-level self-test in the form of a three-mile time trial (beginner, intermediate, or advanced), and they then define the key operative terms that make up the bulk of the actual training, including Tempo, HighSpin, PowerIntervals, Sprints, and Training Zone. A brief section of workbook-style pages provides readers with a user-friendly outline for the entire seven weeks.

Here is week 3 for an intermediate rider:

Monday: day off.
Tuesday: 1 hour in zone 2 with 20 minutes Tempo on flat terrain.
Wednesday: 30 minutes in zone 1; recovery ride.
Thursday: 1 hour in zone 2 with 15 minutes Tempo on flat terrain.
Friday: 45 minutes in zone 2 with 10 minutes HighSpin on flat terrain.
Saturday: 1 hour in zone 2 with 15 minutes Tempo on flat terrain.
Sunday: 1.5 hours in zone 2 with 30 minutes on hilly terrain.

Though clearly the focus, the performance program itself makes up less than a third of the book. Other subjects covered include cycling equipment, essential maintenance and repair, riding in bad weather, road hazards, mental toughness, and the pros' eating habits both on and off the bike, to name just a few. What the book is not is the story of Lance Armstrong's remarkable recovery from testicular cancer (see his autobiography, It's Not About the Bike, for that). Rather, Armstrong and Carmichael have produced a detail-packed training manual, sprinkled with photographs and tales of the racing life, for those who spend a large percentage of their time on two wheels--or dream of it. --Patrick Jennings

From Booklist
America's romance with Lance will undoubtedly soar with his second Tour de France victory and the success of his autobiography, It's Not about the Bike [BKL My 15 00]. Compared to other training guides, this covers the same basics with a straight-to-the-point style, bullet lists, and good organization. Just as people wanted to be like Mike, cyclists want to be like Lance. "What Would Lance Do?" sidebars provide anecdotal tips, but does it really matter if Lance likes to wear sport sunglasses to protect his eyes? It may be motivating to know his heart rates for time trials versus climbing, but does that really help someone training for a Century? Carmichael, Armstrong's coach for the past decade, offers helpful and useful tips in "Listen to the Coach" sidebars, and two chapters, "The Heart of Training" and "The 7-Week Success Plan," offer the best training advice for beginners to advanced cyclists. Readers who can't get enough of Lance will be drawn to the title, but the real draw is Carmichael's Training System, sure to inspire cyclists to peak performance--when tailored to individual abilities and goals.
Brenda Barrera

Book Description
A TRAINING PROGRAM SO SIMPLE, IT'S LIKE RIDING A BICYCLE...WITH THE BEST IN THE WORLD!

In 1999 the world watched spellbound as Lance Armstrong achieved one of the most dramatic comebacks in sports history, winning the grueling Tour de France just three years after being diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer. Lance's return road to glory took courage, determination, and a top-notch training program. Now Lance's winning strategies-- developed with coach Chris Carmichael-- can be yours, too! Whether you're a cycling novice or a competitive racer, The Lance Armstrong Training Program will teach you how to:

find the right bike for your body
know when to brake (only as a last resort!)
corner, climb, and descend like a pro
develop your explosive power to sprint
incorporate cross-training into your schedule
build necessary mental toughness...
and much more!

Simple and focused, Lance's proven program will transform you into the rider you want to be-- in just seven weeks!

From the Back Cover
A TRAINING PROGRAM SO SIMPLE, IT'S LIKE RIDING A BICYCLE...WITH THE BEST IN THE WORLD!

In 1999 the world watched spellbound as Lance Armstrong achieved one of the most dramatic comebacks in sports history, winning the grueling Tour de France just three years after being diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer. Lance's return road to glory took courage, determination, and a top-notch training program. Now Lance's winning strategies-- developed with coach Chris Carmichael-- can be yours, too! Whether you're a cycling novice or a competitive racer, The Lance Armstrong Training Program will teach you how to:

find the right bike for your body
know when to brake (only as a last resort!)
corner, climb, and descend like a pro
develop your explosive power to sprint
incorporate cross-training into your schedule
build necessary mental toughness...
and much more!

Simple and focused, Lance's proven program will transform you into the rider you want to be-- in just seven weeks!

About the Author
Lance Armstrong was ranked the #1 cyclist in the world in 1996. After his thrilling comeback victory at the1999 Tour de France, he was named the 1999 Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year and The Most Fascinating Person of 1999 by Barbara Walters.

Chris Carmichael has been Lance Armstrong's personal coach since the early 1990s. A former world-class cyclist, he was named the 1999 Coach of the Year by the United States Olympic Committee.

Peter Joffrey Nye is a cyclist and professional writer.

About the Author
Lance Armstrong was ranked the #1 cyclist in the world in 1996. After his thrilling comeback victory at the1999 Tour de France, he was named the 1999 Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year and The Most Fascinating Person of 1999 by Barbara Walters.

Chris Carmichael has been Lance Armstrong's personal coach since the early 1990s. A former world-class cyclist, he was named the 1999 Coach of the Year by the United States Olympic Committee.

Peter Joffrey Nye is a cyclist and professional writer.



I discovered cycling as a youngster growing up around Dallas. Too young and too small to drive a car, I could still go anywhere I wanted for miles and explore new places on a bicycle. I delighted in the thrill of sharp acceleration downhill, felt the wind in my face, rejoiced at the force on my arms and body from leaning around corners at speed, and thrived on the euphoric sensation that a good workout and honest sweat delivers. I loved riding in the countryside, past fields of bluebells, and smelling the flowers, or ozone in the air before the rain fell. Perhaps the greatest appeal came from exerting control over how fast and where I could go.

As a Texan, I tried playing football, but it wasn't for me. For several years, I swam competitively, and ran track and cross-country. From there, it was a short step to competing in triathlons. But what I really loved was cycling, and I quickly connected with bicycle road racing. I liked the sense of friendship and community that comes from riding with others.

Every bicycle racer, from Category 5 entry level up, dreams of winning the Tour de France. Recreational cyclists have dreams, too, such as completing a challenge ride like a century or the Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.

Meeting my coach, Chris Carmichael, in 1990, when I had more ambition than skills, started me on the road to success. He helped me realize my dream f actually winning the Tour de France.

Chris, who is wise as a tree full of owls, impressed upon me the value of patience. I had to learn the principles of training, sharpen essential skills (from pedaling more efficiently to shifting and braking), and master techniques such as cornering and sprinting. These all take time to become second nature. How much time? Well, that depends on as many factors as there are individuals. Overall, there is no quick fix. Popular TV infomercials promise great results with 15-minute workouts just three times a week. In reality, it takes commitment and motivation. Throughout the 1990s, except for the year I took off to recover from cancer, I worked full-time at cycling. Yet I had entered the Tour four times between 1993 and 1996, and finished only once. You could say that it took me a decade to win the 3-week 1999 Tour.

Early in my career, many "cycling experts" had typecast me as a 1-day racer. They said I would never win a major multiday race like the Tour de France. My victory supports the belief that anything is possible if you are willing to stick to your dream and keep trying. Realizing a dream, such as mine of winning the Tour, takes patience. Given time and persistent application, we can all improve. That is what Chris told me back in 1990- and he still tells me that. He says the program is not so much winning as riding better now than before.

Of course, learning how to train and improving my skill shave made my cycling safer and more enjoyable. Everything in this book is based on my experience, and is meant to help not only elite riders but casual cyclists as well. I still love to go for a spin under the open sky, smell the flowers, hear the birds, and feel the wind on my face. So come on, get your bike and join me for a ride.

Lance Armstrong

My Experience with this Book
I gave this book only three stars because 1. It rehashes all the stuff I didn't want to read over again (bike fit, clothing, and riding technique) and 2. To me it wasn't really clear on alot of points. However I did follow the programs outlined in the book and saw significant results. I started off with a 5 mile time trial on my mag trainer at setting 2 in early january after a 3 month period of inactivity due to a broken ankle. I rode it in 18.5 miles/hour average. I then did the 7 week intermediate cycle and half of the advanced program, another 4 weeks. I then rerode the 5 mile time trial on my mag trainer at the end of april and rode at 24.5 m/h average speed. I don't know how these results would transfer to the road but I felt like I could twist the cranks off the bike.

This book will NOT be liked.
This just might be the best book ever written on cycling. The problem is, Armstrong and Carmichael have exposed one of cycling's darkest, dirtiest little secrets: we all overtrain.

In simple, clear terms, thankfully absent the mind-numbing details of other cycling books, Armstrong and Carmichael destroy the myth that training harder means going faster. Anyone who thinks that huffing and puffing until your thighs throb and burn is the way to grow stronger, is going to be outraged by this book. "How can you become stronger when it does not feel like you are working out? How can anyone reach ultimate fitness unless they pedal until it hurts?", they will wonder.

In a book that covers every aspect of cycling important to a rider, Armstrong and Carmichael lay out is a program for riding slower and riding less, but gaining strength and fitness you cannot reach the old fashion way of continually pushing beyond your aerobic limit. What Lance has proven beyond all doubt by his fitness level is that the key to expanding your aerobic limit is to stay within it. Forget the burn: if you burn you are lactating and if you do so every time you ride then you are loosing fitness, not gaining it.

It is a wonder that they decided to publish this book before Armstrong retires. We could have watched him perform for years and never guessed his secret. But his now open secret is safe, because it contradicts decades of training practice, so it is doubtful his opponents will use and capitalize on it. You may not be a world-class rider, but this is certainly a world-class book that will benefit any rider who applies its lessons.

Reviews:

A "must have" for every cyclist
Lance's name and picture on the book's cover has the major selling appeal. However, it's also the book's drawback. Why? The book says that "inside you find the exercises, ridind schedules, endurance builders, and mental tricks that brought Lance back to the pinnacle of cycling". Sorry, but you will not find this in the book. The book is obviously written by Chris Charmichal, not Lance. You will find in the book every aspect of cycling a beginner should know. An expert that lacks training discipline will also find the book very usefull. But as mentioned before, you will not find Lance's training regiment to win Tour the France. If the book have had the following title, "The Chris Carmichael Performance Program for Cyclists", it should have earned 5 stars. As a "Lance Armstrong Performance Program", it earns just 4.

good content /doesn't go far enough/needs to be more usable
I'm not sure who the target audience is for this book: the fitness rider, or someone out to win races. For either group, this book isn't detailed enough, but what is there is excellent. I think that more experienced athletes won't buy it after a quick browse in the bookstore because there is too much really basic information between the nuggets.

The advice about cornering (weighting the outside pedal and shifting your weight, etc.) is something I haven't seen in print before, and I found it to be an awesome technique, having learned about it only at a criterium racing clinic a long time ago (the instructor adapted it from motorcycle racing). Also, the emergency turn advice is a great technique I learned at the same clinic, and it saved me from a few crashes in races. These explanantions, however, could have been aided by a bit more detail, and maybe some useful diagrams and photos. The dramatic and counter-intuitive emergency turn technique is poorly explained, and needs an explanation in terms of the angular momentum of the wheel (you have to take your front wheel off, spin it, and hold it in your hands to understand the technique).

The nutrition section encouraged me to be more rigorous in counting calories, which I've never done. That section didn't really tell me anything I didn't know already, but it was a good kick in the seat of the cycling shorts to shape up. On the negative side, the book makes a common mistake in recommending the amount of protein and carbohydrate by percentage. It may be ok for Lance to take in 10-15% protein, but given the total number of calories he needs to take in, he's probably still getting well over 120 grams a day (I need about 130 a day to be healthy at my comparitively modest activity level). But if your caloric requirements are much lower, then be careful - your protein levels must be kept up or you'll get ill. Joe Friel and Loren Cordain both have important things to say about this in their books, who recommend more like 0.8 or 0.9 grams per lbs of lean body mass for athletes (corresponding to about 25%-30% in most diets), as well as the "Protein Power" book by Eades and Eades. The bottom line is: beware of protein/carb/fat ratios.

I think James McCullagh's 1984 book "The Complete Bicycle Fitness Book" was a better book for newby riders, though it would be out of date in some areas now and is also out of print, unfortunately. It very nearly lived up to its title and was jammed with information. It's got some cool sections that Armstrong's book should have, like calorie output (and horsepower) vs. bicycle speed, and much more detailed suggestions on a variety of areas. Carmichael measures this stuff (see the Armstrong website for data about Armstrong's scary figures) so why isn't it in his Armstrong book? The Carmichael/Armstrong book therefore comes off as somewhat watered down: what's there is good, but they are only answering some of the common questions. I raced on and off road about ten years ago, and took up running after that (o.k. but far from elite results - a sub 17 minute 5k and a sub 3 hr marathon), so a lot of the training principles are old hat, and I know a lot that isn't in this book, too.

But what about the people who can't fill in the spaces? For example, in the climbing techniques section they mention that Armstrong "breathes out through his mouth and nose" and not in, and that he "concentrates on breathing deeply and regularly". This isn't sufficient information to really help someone: What they also need to know is you have to breathe from your diaphragm instead of your upper chest like most people, and that you only exchange 80% of your lung capacity in the first second when exhaling,so you need to increase your Peak Flow; there are abdominal exercises for helping with breathing, plus martial arts techniques, and respiratory devices (eg. The Breather) for strengthening your diaphragm to nearly double the peak flow in some cases, etc. This is what I mean by it not going far enough to be useful for the uninitiated, and it gets frustrating after awhile. In another section they refer to ab workouts and reference the excellent "Stronger Abs and Back" book, but all they show are lousy abdominal crunches, which are painful and difficult for some people, and a very incomplete recommendation as they only isolate one area (and they don't even mention specific ab exercises for helping with breathing). Why talk about it at all if they aren't going to do it right? That doesn't seem to be Armstrong's approach to his racing, so we expect the highest standard from his book.

The Armstrong training book is better than the old Lemond book, however, for new riders. I sort of get the impression that both the Lemond and Armstrong books coast a bit on the names, and that's unfortunate. Being a big Lemond fan, I was really disappointed with his book (should have been either stories or advice), as it seemed like something that was rushed out, and I get a similar impression with this one. I'm a bit more surprised at Carmichael than Armstrong, as Carmichael is in the business of training people. Is he trying to keep some of his really good advice proprietary so he can stimulate people to sign up for his coaching programs? Not a nice thought, but surely he knows more than this. I hope that future editions of the Armstrong/Carmichael book take a unblinking look at what's already published, and how usable some of their advice is, and try to do better. But hey, I gave it four stars because what's there is a good start.

Not for Beginners
First, let me start by saying I am a Lance Fan! I admire his accomplishments and believe he is one of the good people on our planet. Now about this book. It is a good book full of pratical ideas and plans to improve one's cycling, however, I think that a beginner might have difficulty in following all of the terms,descriptions and detailed plans provided. I have been cycling for over 20 years and I believe that my experience allowed me to grasp the concepts presented. In addition to the valuable information provided there are the obligatory chapters covering fitness, diet and mental preparedness. I believe a reader with years of fitness experience will find this information to be basic. It is information you would have most likely read in other fitness training type books. If your intent on buying this book is for training I would recommend it (with the caveat previously mentioned). If your intent is to be motivated and you are a Lance fan - buy "It's Not About the Bike" and "Every Second Counts".

Good, but could be better
First, the good stuff. I beleive that the theory behind the training is valid and effective. You get a very bare bones introduction to the training method with recommended schedules and training levels, but that's it. No explanation of WHY you should train this way as opposed to another. The first 50 pages or so are useless fluff explaining proper tire pressure and turning techniques etc. that anyone buying this book already knows. Overall a good book, butI would hope that any future editions make better use of the pages.

A very good book (Ignore nay-sayers)
The self-appointed elitists who gave this book a bad review only have themselves to blame if they bought this book only to find out that it wasn't for them. It only took me a few minutes scanning through the book to realize that it was geared more for beginner and recreational cyclists. (although there is good advice even for racers here) Even if you only had this website to go by, (instead of a personal visit to the bookstore) the Edtorial reviews here gave plenty of information to allow one to determine the content of the book. Many athletes I've dealt-with over the years were guilty of over-training, and neglecting the basics that help prevent injury. This book will be a help to anyone who wants to work and improve at cycling without "killing" themselves every time they head out to train.....or literally killing or injuring themselves because they didn't learn a few riding techniques to stay vertical during turns, pack-riding or emergency maneuvers. It's an excellent place to start.