We probably should apologize for the fact that this review has taken rather longer to put together than we anticipated. Not because we didn't like the book, nor because we couldn't think what to say about it, but rather that prizing it out of the tester's hands and getting it back with her report proved a lot harder than we had anticipated! To say that it has been fully field tested would be an accurate statement...

The initial view was that it looked a bit thin, it's less than 200 pages, and that the diagrams looked a bit odd; instead of pictures of athletes the publishers have gone with artwork but both views proved ill-founded. To start with, there's more than enough material in here to keep any full-time gym-goer fully occupied, let alone a time-strapped triathlete looking to benefit from key exercises to develop core strength and stability. And those artist's versions do actually work very well because they have no faces or backgrounds to distract you from seeing what you should be looking at - the body positions.

In fact, you don't even need to go to a gym to get the benefits from working with this book; a couple of square metres of floor and wall space and a stability ball would be all you need to get started. There are over 75 exercises in the book and as well as the general core and stability ones you'll find specific exercises for each discipline and a set of plans to cover all the distances you might be thinking of tackling. The programmes are easy to follow, the book is very light on jargon and all the basic principles are clearly explained without smothering you in sports science - it's a refreshingly simple approach that leaves you free to concentrate on the exercise rather than the book.

We all know that we should do the extra gym sessions to build strength, even the simple ones to work on core stability, and this book definitely delivers on promises. No matter where you are in your training programme, you'll definitely reap the benefits from following its guidance. Tri247 verdict is "essential reading for anyone mystified by what to do in the gym".

Strength Training for Triathletes by Patrick Hagerman is published by Velo Press. ISBN 978-1-934030-15-8