| Beyond Nutrition: A Book Review of Brendan Brazier's Thrive Fitness |
A comprehensive new book on fitness.
Brendan Brazier's fitness follow-up to The Thrive Diet.
Published in 2009 by Penguin Canada, $24.00 I have never met Brendan Brazier, a professional triathlete and author of Thrive Fitness, but I have seen him at races where we both competed, and I know about his work on sport nutrition, which he wrote about in an earlier book, The Thrive Diet. My impression of Brazier was of a highly intellectual, quiet academic, and wondered whether Thrive Fitness would be too much like a textbook to enjoy. I was pleased to find within the first few pages that an average reader with any level of nutritional and fitness background would easily understand and incorporate Thrive Fitness into their lifestyle. Having not yet read The Thrive Diet, I was immediately curious about his plant-based diet and his overall approach to maintaining a healthy body and mind. With little current desire or knowledge to adhere fully to a plant-based diet, I learned some very interesting information on the worldwide benefit of a plant-based diet and the direct improvements it can bring to everyone from general fitness enthusiasts to hard-core Ironman athletes. As an athlete, I enjoyed reading and relating to Brazier’s struggle balancing the desire to stay competitive with a busy life schedule. As a coach, I learned from Brazier’s experiences that it is possible to train smarter, train less, and yet still accomplish big goals. Many of the athletes I work with are busy in their home and work life. The program I develop for them has always been built around the idea of more “quality training,” which requires less time commitment, a philosophy that occurs often throughout Brazier’s book. Fitness enthusiasts of all levels can get to a point where their “health” hobby becomes unhealthy because of the negative stress of trying to fit it all in. Thrive Fitness provides a great holistic view on health. In addition to diet and physical activity, it provided interesting points on the psychological component of good health. It increased my appreciation of how it’s all connected. The book’s physical fitness training guidelines provide someone looking to make lifestyle changes a great amount of instruction and demonstrated exercises. The information will be useful as well to an endurance athlete who hasn’t ventured into strength training to supplement their endurance competitions. The book provides a super plan that targets all the key areas for improving physical health. For those that may have some experience with strength training, the training plans may be too basic. The author might have provided more depth to the strength training routines and possibly the overall circuit intensities. I was pleased, however, with Brazier’s discussion on functional training, training for everyday usefulness and sport, versus the non-functional bodybuilding approach. I actually think his jungle gym training apparatus and routine for his road trips makes for a great progression from the adaptation training circuit designed for the novice user. Those who need more than the adaptation phase of training outlined in the book would appreciate the instability component to every exercise the jungle gym apparatus provides. Still, there could have been a more comprehensive selection of functional fitness exercises that would solicit a 360-degree focus in the core training program. Exercises performed while lying on the back tend to be too one-dimensional. I believe Brazier would agree, as some of the exercises like the Push-Up and Row are absolutely fantastic demonstrations of 360-degree focused core training. The combination of functional training and limited time also recommends the use of a Physio Ball. Due to the increased demand to stabilize the body, exercises like the Chest Press and Dumbbell Row would recruit many more muscle groups if performed on the ball (versus a bench). The bench provides a support that we don’t normally have in our everyday activities. Nevertheless, this book provided a convincing amount of information for just how much more there is to good health and better fitness or for faster racing. About the AuthorKevin Masters is a multiple Canadian World Age Group Team Qualifier, sub-two-hour Olympic-distance triathlete, and a fourth-place overall finisher at Great White North. |
