Originally Posted by asgelle
I, too, have met all three, and I think this is grossly unfair to Joe Friel (assuming he is not the intelligent one you refer to) . Friel is a coach not an academic or physiologist as is Coggan, and never claimed to be anything else. One of the jobs of a coach is to take complex information and put in terms an athlete can understand and practice. In that, Friel has been extremely succesful. Look at the posts on training here and elsewhere and you see the vast majority of the discussion is based on concepts first presented to the masses by Friel. It's true sometimes he isn't perfectly precise in his interpretations and he has made a few errors, but overall he has done more to popularize periodized training among cyclists than anyone else.
I can also attest to his success in coaching athletes. I know of more than one rider he has coached to gold medals in international competitions (and yes, he was the coach working with them day to day).
Ahhh, this is an important post and thanks for it.
I have to say now that I've misunderstood Friel as well. I picked up his book, read around a bit and instead of buying it, decided I should just speed through it and take a few notes right there in the bookstore. There wasn't much there and when you see complexities painted over in a few broad strokes, it's a good indication that it's time to move on to richer reading.
His "bible" was like a recording of a concert. A great coach can rarely come through in the pages of a book. You just can't condense that magical interpersonal power. Performance is in doing, not thinking. And it takes a special talent to develop and hone an athlete's laser-like focus on doing. Smarts are over rated, especially in athletics.