Today's episode is a special one; we've got Trevor Connor, Host of Fast Talk, and Rocco Orlando, Army Veteran, and athlete, here to discuss their respective journeys into the dark world called: overtraining. Each of these men has a poignant story to tell. The idea behind sharing these stories is that you, the listener, will get a feel for what happens if you decide to overtrain your body. As you'll discover there are extraneous factors that play into each of these athlete's downward spirals....

Steve Hogg, veteran bike fitter known for his expertise and attention to detail throughout the cycling world. Steve stopped counting bike fit customers after he reached 10,000 over a decade ago but is always fine-tuning and improving his methods for helping riders have the healthiest physiological relationship with their bikes to reduce injury and increase performance. This holistic approach and attention to detail has informed Steve’s evolution and helped him tackle some of the most...

Physical therapist, Ron Kochevar, joins Colby to deconstruct belief systems around your individual capabilities. This relates to pain and being able to bring yourself into the right mental space to help your body with the healing process. Ron emphasizes the importance of stopping in the moment in order to work on retraining your brain to have a new or different response to certain stimuli, like pain. Ron delves into some of the most common asymmetries and challenges he sees in the athletes he...

Dr. Scott Storrie is a wellness practitioner who is a Board Certified Naturopathic Endocrinologist, a licensed Acupuncturist, and a licensed Chiropractor. Some of the therapies that he and Colby review in this podcast include Lymph Drainage Therapy, Japanese Acupuncture, Visceral Manipulation, Laserology, They review the spectrum of a well-balanced, healthy diet, and why certain foods should only be eaten at certain times of year.

Lentine Alexis is a former pro triathlete and a classically trained Chef who has made quality food and well-being the focus of her life and work. In this episode she and Colby trace her journey back to the beginning of her athletic career in high school and her almost simultaneous intrigue into the world of quality food ingredients, paired with the understanding of her body’s relationship to...

This is the Meditation portion of Podcast Episode 21: Meditation on the Bike; uploaded here separately from the full episode for you to utilize with more ease. #1) First of all, we'd prefer ideally free to pick flat or mostly flat terrain, terrain that is not obfuscated with a lot of things like stoplights and potholes and people not a busy bike path. Not a lot of turns, not a lot of rolling hills. #2.) And the second point that directly stems from that is, no matter where you are in this...

"I think that it can be useful for us to think about moving meditation like a gateway drug, a way to step into a meditative practice. Maybe it will grow and develop into different ways. If you do it for a while, then you might be inspired to explore other paths of meditation. In my experience, working with different clients and different personality types, some athletes will start meditation and immediately dive very deeply into it; they just embrace it. It's something their soul has been...

Here to unpack the duality of data and intuition in endurance athletics is cycling coach and former World Tour cyclist, Julie Young. She and Colby unpack some of the struggles they each faced in their earlier racing careers around doping in the sport. The main focus of this conversation is to understand the helpful and healthy place for data and analysis in your training. Learning to craft your own intuition is something that, when paired with the right amount of data, can lead you to...

In today's episode, Colby Pearce, a Steve Hogg Certified bike fitter, sits down with Chris Case, host of Fast Talk, to dissect the minutiae of how to pedal a bike. Saddle position, ankling, dead legged drills, plantar and dorsal flexion of the foot, all of this and much more is unpacked in today's episode. Resources:...

Greetings and salutations, listeners. I am so excited for today’s show, the guest is none other than Paul Chek. I have been a student of Paul’s for a few years now, and I am so grateful and honored he has taken time to speak to my audience.  Paul Chek has been an exercise coach for over three and a half decades, but he is much more than someone who can tell you how to do a Swiss Ball crunch. Paul has hundreds of hours of YouTube videos that detail everything from proper relationship to...

In his continued efforts to help you find balance between life and sport, in this episode Colby focuses on the six foundational principles of a well-balanced life, as prescribed by Paul Chek of the Chek Institute. As a proponent of Chek’s methods and philosophy, Colby will walk through the practical applications of each of these for cyclists. The six principles are:  Eating Drinking  Sleeping Movement Breathing  Thinking 

Jess Elliott is an experienced strength and conditioning coach working at EXOS, and as an affiliate faculty member at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Jess is here to help you understand why it is so important to make time for off-the-bike strength and conditioning work. The low-impact aspect of cycling is advantageous to your body in many ways, but it does have some downsides as well. Ensuring that your body can move in a multi-planar fashion with ease and strength can prevent you...

The fundamentals of cycling are simple; even small children do it. Yet it’s vital that we occasionally revisit the core principles of our favorite sport. In this episode of Cycling in Alignment, Colby outlines many of the key components of cycling, including the physical characteristics that make for great cyclists. He also ponders the question: if your body doesn’t match with this description, can you still be a great rider? Colby also touches upon torque, the pedal stroke, fascial system,...

Travis Brown is an Olympian and a mountain bike Hall of Fame inductee. His road to the Olympic Games was twisty and narrow, and often fraught with obstacles—not unlike a section of Rocky Mountain singletrack. In today’s episode, listen to his conversation with Colby to hear about how he began his return from a severe leg injury on the bike, even before that leg was weight-bearing.  Brown still works with his long-time sponsor, Trek, developing new bikes and equipment. He also develops young...

As an athlete, specifically a cyclist, you know that your diet greatly affects your performance on the bike. Your ability to go hard and long depends to some extent on what you've been fueling yourself with. Colby isn't and doesn't claim to be a dietitian or nutritionist; that said, this podcast is a collection of his thoughts on wholesome, clean eating. References: https://secure.metabolictypingonline.com/ https://www.westonaprice.org https://secure.metabolictypingonline.com  Eugene Trufkin:...

Jessi Stensland, the creator of FeetFreex, a website designed to help people connect with their healthy, strong feet, and re-establish a connection with nature. Thanks for coming along with us to experience Jessi’s powerful journey and listen to the lessons she’s discovered along the way. She has deeply developed her relationship with her body in the years since competing as a professional triathlete, swimming at the Olympic trials, and winning a bronze medal at XTERRA World Championships....

Your feet are a critical component to the cycling experience. Proper alignment between feet and body is one of the keys to both power and comfort on a bike. Because of the repetitive motion of pedaling, any issues you might have are compounded by the thousands of kilometers you endure, and you can quickly exacerbate poor foot pronation or supination. If not addressed, sub-par foot alignment can increase your risk of injury.  Today’s guest, an expert in this field, is Aaron Anderson, the...

Today on Cycling in Alignment we take a step back, off the bike, to focus on the alignment of your mental state.  Every activity can be classified as “yin” or “yang” according to ancient Chinese philosophy. You’ve likely seen the interlaced black and white circle representative of this philosophy; the symbol illustrates how seemingly opposite forces can be complementary and interconnected. But have you ever had an in-depth lesson on yin and yang? More importantly, have you learned how to...

Mountain biker Lydia Tanner has won two collegiate national championships and raced internationally with Team USA. She is a long time coach at Boulder Junior Cycling and content strategist at TrainingPeaks. You may have read some of her gear reviews in Bike Magazine. Colby once coached Lydia, and in this interview, she recalls her apathy toward training and riding during that period of her racing career. Lydia reveals why she was struggling so much at the time: Sadly, she was dealing with the...

Which cycling shoes should I buy? This may seem like a straightforward question. But the better thing to ask is: Which shoes are right for my feet? If you’ve been a professional cyclist with extensive experience as a bike fitter, like show host Colby Pearce, the answer to that more complex question becomes an hour-long podcast, filled with the nuances of human anatomy. There are several questions about your physiology and biomechanics that need to be answered before you can select the ideal...

Long-time friends, training partners & competitors, Jonathan Vaughters and Colby Pearce have a deep racing history and relationship. Colby & JV first discuss their early training techniques, taught to them by their first cycling coach, Adrie Van Diemen, a Dutch exercise physiologist now with UAE Team Emirates. Vaughters, who has coached many pro cyclists over the years, then gives examples of experiments gone right—and wrong—and how certain training regimens should be applied to...

This short bonus episode is meant to clarify that formulas are a useful starting point in cycling and training. Formulas can help you race a faster time trial, to gauge how many bottles per hour you need to consume during a long ride in the mountains, and how long a break should be taken in between. A formula is a proxy for experience. As always, the goal of this show is to help guide you towards the alignment of scientific athletic pursuit with the right relationship of mind and body.

Nikki Costello, lifestyle coach with the CHEK Institute, operator of MyWholeBody, and an experienced ELDOA teacher—in English, it stands for Longitudinal Osteo-Articular Decoaptation Stretching—a practice that she and Colby discuss at length. http://mywholebody.net/about-us/nikki-costello/ Anatomy Trains https://www.anatomytrains.com/ Weston A. Price https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/why-we-need-carbs/ Black Onyx https://www.savoryspiceshop.com/black-onyx-cocoa-powder

Charlie Merrill, physical therapist and Tabi shoe enthusiast, takes a deep dive on pain in this week’s episode of Cycling in Alignment. https://www.mperformance.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MPerformanceBoulder Kit Laughlin: https://stretchtherapy.net/ Peter O’Sullivan: http://www.pain-ed.com/team/ Stu McGill: https://www.backfitpro.com/about-us/ Steve Bauer “chopper” Paris-Roubaix bike circa 93: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/product-news/top-five-worst-cycling-inventions

Dr. Allen Lim, founder of Skratch Labs, is today’s esteemed philosopher. REFERENCES LUX camp June 15 - July 15 Dr. Allen Lim https://www.doctorallenlim.com Skratch Labs https://www.skratchlabs.com/ Dr. Stacy Sims https://www.drstacysims.com/ Chek https://chekinstitute.com/product/holistic-health-and-performance-for-women-e-learning/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cyclinginalignment/ Twitter https://twitter.com/CyclinginAlign_ Facebook...