The Full Circle Podcast

Coach Laura's Top 9 Nonfiction Books of 2024

• Full Circle Endurance • Episode 70

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Coach Laura gives an overview of the nine best nonfiction books she read in 2024!


Read this Article: 

https://www.fullcircleendurance.com/blog/coach-lauras-top-9-nonfiction-books-of-2024


Books Referenced During the Episode:

Lily’s Promise: Holding On to Hope Through Auschwitz and Beyond by Lily Ebert and Dov Forman 

The Athlete's Gut: The Inside Science of Digestion, Nutrition, and Stomach Distress by Patrick Wilson, PhD, RD

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor 

Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May

Strength and Conditioning for Cyclists: Off the Bike Conditioning for Performance and Life by Phil Burt & Martin Evans 

Training and Racing with a Power Meter: Third Edition by Hunter Allen + Andrew Coggan, PhD + Stephen McGregor, PhD 

Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister & John Tierney 


Top Book Lists from Past Years:




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Reach out to Coach Laura Henry: Hello@FullCircleEndurance.com

(0:04 - 6:09)
Hello and welcome to the Full Circle Podcast, your source for insights into the science and art of endurance sports training and racing. I'm your host, Coach Laura Henry. I enjoy reading all sorts of different genres, including nonfiction. 

This year, I didn't read as much nonfiction as I have in years past, but I still read a decent amount. Unfortunately, some of it wasn't that good, so it didn't make it on this list. If you would like to see which fiction books I enjoyed in 2024, you can listen to episode 69, which is my top 10 fiction books of 2024. 

If you're interested in seeing my top 10 book lists from past years, you can check them out via the links in the show notes, and links to all the books that I reference in this episode will be available in the show notes. Number one, Lily's Promise, Holding On To Hope Through Auschwitz and Beyond. Lily's Promise, Holding On To Hope Through Auschwitz and Beyond by Lily Ebert and Dov Foreman was the best nonfiction book that I read in 2024. 

As a side note, this was the first book that I read on my Kindle ColorSoft, and it was amazing to have the photos included in the memoir viewable in color on an e-reader. This is amazing technology if you understand how e-readers work. In 1944, Lily was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau along with her mother and four of her five siblings. 

When the family arrived, they were split up. Her mother, her brother, and one of her sisters were sorted into one group, while Lily and her two other sisters were sorted into another group. Her mother, brother, and sister were immediately sent to the gas chambers and were killed. 

Lily and her two sisters were selected for work in the camp. Four months later, they were transferred to another concentration camp. In 1945, they were on one of the many death marches conducted by the Nazis when they were liberated by Allied forces. 

An American soldier who was part of those liberation forces wrote, a start to a new life, good luck and happiness on a German banknote, which he gave to Lily. She never even knew his name, but this was the first measure of kindness and hope that anyone had shown her since she's been sent into the ghetto and then to the death camps. To Lily, this banknote was invaluable, and she held on to it for 75 years. 

In 2020, Lily's great-grandson, Dov Foreman, found the banknote. He posted a photo of it on Twitter, which then went viral. Within eight hours, they had learned the identity of the American soldier who had given it to Lily, Private Heyman Schulman. 

This viral event is what inspired Lily and her great-grandson to co-author this memoir, which she wrote at the age of 98. Like all memoirs written by Holocaust survivors, the book is horrifying, but it's also full of so much hope and love, which makes it beautiful. I loved absolutely everything about it, and I especially loved the special relationship that Lily and Dov shared. 

Lily died at the age of 100 this year in 2024, but her message of hope lives on, as she intended it to. This is a heartbreaking, moving, and beautiful book to read. Number two, The Athlete's Gut, the Inside Science of Digestion, Nutrition, and Stomach Distress by Patrick Wilson was the best book I've read in my career thus far about the science of digestion, stomach issues, and nutrition as they specifically pertain to athletes. 

Dr. Wilson gives an excellent overview of the physiology of the gut, and he does so in a way that is easy for non-medical professionals, aka people like me, to understand. He then focused on two main things that impact an athlete's gut, nutrition and psychology. When athletes are interested in hiring me for coaching services, one of the things that they are most curious about and or that they're seeking in a coach is education about nutrition and workout fueling. 

The reason for this is quite simple. Gut issues are extremely prevalent among humans, and therefore athletes, and every athlete is an individual. Therefore, finding answers and tangible solutions to gut issues that they experience can be challenging for athletes to do on their own, and many athletes accurately recognize that they might benefit from an outside person to help them with this. 

While some people claim that they are experts in both coaching and nutrition, I have found that it is nearly impossible, if not completely impossible, to be an expert in two fields of study like this, and that if people aren't claiming that they are, they probably aren't even an expert in one of the two. My professional specialty does lie in coaching, not nutrition, but that being said, I do try to help athletes with broad general recommendations, and I base these recommendations on both the limited nutrition education I do have and on the experience I've gained from working with hundreds of individual athletes over the years. The athlete's gut gave me a lot of education about strategies and interventions I can recommend for athletes, as well as really clear guidance on when it's time for an athlete to seek a nutrition or a medical expert for any gut issues that they may be experiencing. 

Number three, The Coddling of the American Mind, How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. The Coddling of the American Mind, How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukanoff and Jonathan Haidt was such an unexpected delight to read this year. Greg Lukanoff is an expert on the first amendment and Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist, which makes them a good duo to explore how the recent issues on college campuses have their origins in terrible ideas that have been gaining power by being woven into American childhood over the last 30 years. 

What doesn't kill you makes you weaker, always trust your feelings, and life is a battle between good people and evil people. Together, the authors call these ideas the three great untruths. Throughout the book, the authors explore the three great untruths and how they have been intersecting to create a perfect storm for the fear and instability that has been rampant on college campuses for the past decade. 

They do a really nice job of breaking down data and science to support their hypotheses, most notably their hypotheses that these parenting and societal trends from the last 30 years are now manifesting badly in big ways across society as a whole, now that the children impacted by them are becoming adults. All in all, The Coddling of the American Mind was one of the most interesting books I've read in a long time. Number four, 4,000 Weeks, Time Management for Mortals. 

4,000 Weeks, Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Berkman might be a tough read for many people because the author boldly states many truths that will likely be hard for people to digest. That being said, I found this book to be very thought provoking. It was interesting on so many levels, especially because of the dive into the human psychology side of why we perceive, handle, and attempt to control time the way that we do.

(6:09 - 6:54)
I found the author's perspective simultaneously on point and deliberating. There are sections that made me think deeply and others that echo threads of thoughts I've had myself over the years. Overall, I think that this was a good read precisely because it says something that a lot of people might not want to hear, which is, in my humble opinion anyway, one of the things that helps us grow the most. 

Number five, Breath, The New Science of a Lost Art. Unbeknownst to me, Breath, The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor ended up being a nice complementary read after having read Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind last year in 2023. In Breath, James Nestor blends modern day research and science with longstanding practices and tenets of yoga and Eastern medicine to explain why the breath is so important for humans.

(6:55 - 7:20)
Breathing is the only autonomic system that we, humans, can control in our bodies. Why did we evolve to be able to control it and how can we best harness that ability to help offset preventable conditions such as sleep apnea and dental malocclusion? Why are we the only species on the entire planet who has misaligned teeth and who has breathing dysfunction? James Nestor dives into all of this and more in the book. I found it to be extremely interesting and enlightening.

(7:20 - 10:49)
It is very well researched and includes a lot of self-experimentation alongside research papers and studies. A lot of what was shared in the book also aligns with my own anecdotal life experience. When I was a teenager, asthma literally almost killed me. 

Increased doses of bronchodilators, aka inhalers, oral medications, and other conventional and modern treatments did not work to reduce the severity of my symptoms and the frequency of my attacks. But I did get my asthma under control and I've had only one attack in my adult life, so how did that happen? It's because I got breathing therapy from a then forward-thinking, alternative-thinking medical doctor who was called Dr. Nick and by learning to harness the power of controlling my breath. My 12 plus year yoga practice as an adult has extended this practice of breathing techniques that I learned when I was a teenager. 

I saw so many ways to apply what I learned in this book, both in my personal life and in my work as an endurance sports coach, which was really exciting for me. Number six, enchantment, awakening wonder in an anxious age. After reading Wintering, the Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, which I actually reread this year, I knew I loved Catherine May's style of writing and way of seeing the world. 

I was excited to enchantment, awakening wonder in an anxious age for these reasons and I loved it. Much like Wintering, enchantment is a beautiful book. It did a really nice job of sharing different stories and weaving a narrative that enticed me to desire to see more enchantment in my own world. 

This is not a how-to book in terms of how to manage and to deal with anxiety. Rather, it offers a way of looking at the world that can help us see some of the everyday magic that always exists around us. It's well known and well documented that experiencing awe can be a powerful tool to help manage anxiety and depression. 

This book encourages the reader to do just that and it shows us that we don't need to go on a grand vacation to the middle of the forest or to an island paradise to be able to be enchanted. Number seven, strength and conditioning for cyclists, off-the-bike conditioning for performance and life. I chose to read Strength and Conditioning for Cyclists, Off-the-Bike Conditioning for Performance and Life by Phil Burt and Martin Evans because I have followed Phil Burt's work for many years. 

He's a physiotherapist in Great Britain, we call them physical therapists here in the United States, and he worked with the Great Britain cycling team for 12 years through three Olympic cycles. He's also a bike fitter, and I've read his work on bike fitting to include his book, Bike Fit Second Edition, Optimize Your Bike Position for High Performance and Injury Avoidance. I thought that both that book and this one were well laid out and they had really nice explanations for why he was making the recommendations that he does. 

It's hard for me to accurately judge this since I'm a coach and I've been receiving education on this topic for more than a decade now, but I think that even someone who has less experience in education than I do would be able to understand this book and to be able to implement the principles that are shared in it. Strength training is really important for endurance athletes. I've talked about this a lot. 

It's true and it's also true that it's extremely easy to get injured when doing strength training. It probably carries the highest risk alongside running in my work. Unfortunately, many athletes think that strength training seems easy or should be simple enough that they can do it on their own. 

In many cases, I've seen that this is how injuries and lack of progress occur. Both of these things happen because it is extremely common for athletes to want to get to quote-unquote real strength training, which is lifting things up and putting them down and feeling the exertion that comes from it, and to bypass the mobilization and stabilization framework that needs to be put in place first. Athletes need to ensure that their ranges of motion and movement patterns are solid before they can progress to loaded movements.

(10:49 - 13:25)
This means that things like stretching, self-myofascial release, foam rolling is an example of that, and body weight movements need to come first. There has been a lot of research that has come out recently in the last five to eight years that correctly states that heavy lifting is the stimulus needed for athletes to see strength gains and especially female athletes. This is true. 

It's also true that it is completely unsafe and irresponsible to do heavy lifting without the proper foundation or chassis in place to support it. This book does not go into detail about advanced levels of strength training or weightlifting. It's deliberately designed to explore the foundational principles of strength training and how everyday age group athletes can implement them successfully to see gains in their training. 

Again, because it's quote-unquote basic, some readers might not find it to be valuable. However, almost every injury I see in endurance sports is because an athlete didn't respect the foundational basic elements of whatever they were doing to include strength training. Unless you are a full-time athlete or weightlifting is your full-time sport, you likely will not be able to safely progress beyond what is offered in this book. 

Most age group athletes do not strength train enough to get to the point to or to that level of strength training that would too adversely impact their primary endurance sports training. Overall, I found this book to be really useful in my work as a coach, and it was a nice dive into strength training as it specifically pertains to endurance athletes. Number eight, Training and Racing with a Power Meter 3rd Edition. 

Training and Racing with a Power Meter 3rd Edition by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggin and Steven McGregor was originally published in 2006. A second edition was published in 2015, and the third edition, which is what I read, was published in 2019. The updates have been to outline evolutions in power meter technology and power meter software technology. 

I thought that this book was laid out well and that it did a nice job of introducing the concept of training and racing with a power meter in cycling. Having used a power meter myself for over 10 years in my own training and having also coached athletes using power meters for the same amount of time, I came into reading this book with a decent amount of knowledge about these concepts. That being said, there were definitely important things that I gleaned from the book that I'll be able to put to use to enhance how I coach cycling for athletes who do choose to train with power. 

The authors use case studies to illustrate, sometimes literally, since there are so many graphs and illustrations in this book, their points, and to give evidence for what they were saying. And the book includes an appendix that includes power-based workouts, which would be really useful for self-coached athletes or even coaches who haven't built up their own workout libraries yet. It is important to note that there is a very heavy focus on WKOF software and its features, which was developed by the authors and is part of TrainingPeaks.

(13:25 - 14:18)
TrainingPeaks is an online training platform. I use FinalSurge instead. The book references WKO4, which means that the book itself is already outdated since WKO5 is the current version of software. 

Many of the terms that they discuss in the book are proprietary and can only be utilized in WKO software. While this book is comprehensive and long, it's important to note that it is absolutely impossible to write out all of the nuances that go along with training and racing with a power meter. This book would provide a nice starting point for any athlete or coach who is new to using power, but it takes time and experience of training with power to fully leverage the tool effectively. 

Number nine, Willpower, Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Willpower, Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy E. Baumeister and John Tierney was recommended to me by a client of mine, and it was a great recommendation. Baumeister is a psychologist and Tierney is a science writer for the New York Times.

(14:18 - 16:09)
Willpower contains a lot of science, but the authors present it in a way that is easy to understand and it's digestible. Willpower and self-control are important concepts for all humans, and in my work as a coach, they are important themes that pop up all the time with my clients. The athletes who I work with set goals and goals require a certain amount of willpower and self-control to hit. 

Some of the key things that I gleaned from reading this book are that willpower has finite reserves, much like fatigue does. You will get fatigued from using willpower and self-control and therefore have less of it once you have used up some of your reserves. Willpower depletion actually results in slower brain circuitry. 

Changes in the overall intensity of your feelings are a sign of willpower depletion. You will feel all feelings, whether they are positive or negative, more profoundly when your willpower is depleted. I've talked in the past about how glucose is so important for athletes and that the current culture of resistance to consuming carbohydrates is not a good thing for humans, and it's especially not good for athletes. 

The brain only accounts for 2% of a human's body weight, but it consumes 20% of glucose-derived energy, which makes it the main consumer of glucose in the entire human body, more than your muscles or any other system. Glucose, sugar, aka carbohydrate, is converted into neurotransmitters for the brain to use. Glucose and hypoglycemia, low blood sugar, impact self-control. 

Simply put, if you don't consume enough fuel, and especially if you do not consume an appropriate amount of carbohydrate, among other things, you will experience a decrease in self-control and in willpower. This will always impact performance in training and racing, but it's particularly dangerous in a race, especially a long course race such as a marathon or an Ironman, because you will lose your willpower, self-control, and drive to continue well if you are under-fueled. I talk about self-awareness all the time.

(16:09 - 18:07)
Increasing your self-awareness increases your willpower. Self-awareness as it pertains to this discussion can be defined as comparing ourselves to the standards set by ourselves and by our neighbors and peers. Self-awareness is knowing where things are relative to where they should be, and changing personal behaviors to meet these standards set by ourselves and by others requires willpower. 

Willpower without self-awareness can be pretty much useless. Perhaps paradoxically, people with high degrees of self-control use willpower less frequently than people who have less self-control. This is because people with high degrees of self-control play offense instead of defense. 

They are more organized and they arrange their lives so that they have less temptation. As a result, they need to engage willpower less frequently. Procrastination depletes willpower. 

The research conducted by the authors shows that people who say that procrastination is a defining personal characteristic of theirs have less willpower. Overall, this book gave me some really great insights to consider that will help guide some of the future conversations I have with clients as well as good perspectives to have when recognizing that someone is lacking in self-control or willpower in a given situation. That was another episode of the Full Circle Podcast. 

Subscribe to the Full Circle Podcast wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. If you like what you listen to, please be sure to leave us a rating and review as this goes a long way in helping us reach others. The thoughts and opinions expressed on the Full Circle Podcast are those of the individual. 

As always, we'd love to hear from you and we value your feedback. Please send us an email at podcast at fullcircleendurance.com or visit us at fullcircleendurance.com backslash podcast to find training plans, see what other coaching services we offer or to join our community, please visit fullcircleendurance.com. I'm Coach Laura Henry. Thanks for listening.

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