This was a petty classic Mike book. Good practical information, very open with his system and the thought process behind it, and well thought out explanations of changes made since the last book. If you are familiar with Coach Boyle, you will like the updates a lot. If you are not familiar with Coach Boyle, it is probably due to some stigmatism you have created against him that you should change. With all fairness, I have a bias towards Mike and his programming. A large part of this review is going to be about facing that reality of bias and confirming thoughts. 

To be honest, I guess I was a little bit disappointed how predictable the book was based on how much is available just by following him. The information was valuable, just nothing new or revolutionary was offered. This creates a crux of sorts when it comes to getting notoriety and interest with your content – you reveal all of your insights and thoughts therefore making them more commonly known. That makes any published work less to be imagined with. 

Mike has always been an open book. It has inspired and influenced so much over the years. But I cannot help but feel torn by this. I want to provide high value information to customers. I want a lot of people to benefit from that information. Do you have to reveal everything you do all the time to do that? If they already know what I am going to say, is there any point in even listening to me? 

You cannot argue with the impact, but you have to wonder if the mystique is lost by being so open with everything? There has to be some ability to present your content without putting everything out beforehand. People would seem to benefit from having something to look forward to with education. Education would have much more power and influence if people were not so familiar with the content. 

Obviously I would want to be able to sell more things. On a higher level, a more meaningful aspect would be to avoid falling into bias. I cannot help that when you are extremely familiar with the information and you still invest into it, are you not confirming an existing bias? I was reading the book, saying to myself how much I agree with and appreciate Mike’s approach and felt an immediate twinge of guilt. I had to stop and ask if I was perpetuating an existing bias. 

One of things that is so impactful from social media is you get a version you can identify with. If it leads to purchasing something from that person, you base that off an already existing belief. A belief that the person you are investing time, interest, or money into is someone you readily accept as good. This is not a bad thing exactly, but if it were the same with something you disagreed with, would it be perceived as innocent? 

Mike is great. His resources are great. That is an opinion. Opinions form biases. That is the problem. I just reinforced a bias by reading a book when I already knew what it would say. This is not the healthiest of exercises to avoid reinforcing bias. I guess, in some way, writing about avoiding bias is good. But I have been at several conferences where they violently disagreed with Mike, and I could not help to feel that was unhealthy. I hate the notion that one opinion is better than another. It lacks context. Context shapes your opinions. Opinions on training are constructive to a very limited point. 

It was a good book. I especially enjoyed the evolution in speed training from his earlier work. Updates on everything were laid out well. The premise of the book is solid for anyone that works in a team setting and wants to make a better system of training.  But then again, you probably already know that.