This episode plays out one of Kolie's coaching thought experiments: what's the simplest training plan possible that would probably be effective for the largest number of people? We each present our plan and then critique them, once again realizing how difficult it is to create a plan without our usual tool of athlete feedback. This starts a discussion about the best potential audience for each plan, the different needs of beginner, intermediate, and advanced athletes.

We discuss everything sweetspot. How do we define it, what kind of training is it, what's the nature of progression, how much is too much, upsides and downsides including time efficiency, fueling, over/unders, and more. We also answer tons of listener questions, like if it can raise FTP, if it's overrated or underrated, sweetspot for sprinters, how long you can hold it relative to your FTP, and much, much more.

A study knocking out HIF1alpha in mice reveals a counterintuitive relationship between markers of phenotype like fat oxidation, mitochondria markers, capillary density, and fiber type, and not having improved baseline performance. This uncovers an interesting relationship between the HIF pathway and oxidative metabolism, and how seemingly opposing adaptations are complementary.

This episode, seven Empirical Cycling coaches discuss their professional and personal experience with off season breaks. Balancing downtime and rest with fun and unstructured riding, plus some rules of thumb to make the most out of these potentially daunting times of the season. Then we answer a huge list of listener questions on whether sprinters can be good TTers, favorite workouts, coaching principles and athlete relationships, volume vs intensity, periodizing sprint training, lifting RPE,...

Kyle returns to the podcast with balloon stories, but skip to 28:00 for the main topic of strength being a skill, and the training implications that this has. We discuss defining strength, goal settings, minimum effective dose for strength improvements, strength maintenance, tradeoffs with aerobic goals, individualizing strength programming, cycling specific programming and exercise choice, and many, many listener questions.

This episode we discuss Cole's evolution as a cyclist and our relationship between coach and athlete. From making lifelong friends in collegiate cycling, gaining over 100w of FTP, winning a national championship, realizing and encouraging agency as a coached athlete, balancing life priorities and the value of low stress environments, relationships with bodyweight and food, lifting weights, and much more.

We consider hypoxia inducible factor's muscular response to high intensity exercise before going more in depth in its effects with the next episodes. We break down high intensity training, defining hypoxia vs anaerobic, then dive into a study that investigates its main effects in high intensity execise, as well as individual variation in training response. Plus a couple practical tips for considering this pathway in training, as well as a peek at the adaptive tradeoffs we'll see in future...

We discuss the dos and don'ts of trying new training methods. Whether or not you should try something new, setting a baseline, going all in on one thing, variables to adjust, finding a minimum dose, incorporating rest and fun, diets, vo2max and TTE blocks, and more, including your listener questions.

This episode we discuss the ten most common mistakes we see beginners make in their training plans, and their solutions. Goals and outcomes, learning the process, metrics and performance, specialization and individualization, training fads, balancing structure with fun, and more.

Retired professional road and cyclocross racer and newest Empirical Cycling coach Erica Zaveta joins to share wisdom from twenty years of competition and a decade of coaching. We discuss individualizing training for the high intensity disciplines of criteriums, cyclocross, and mountain biking, along with how and when to take mid season breaks, incorporating skills work, and adding practice crits and cyclocross practices to your program. Plus listener questions as always!

Kolie and Rory discuss their lists of the best things to do or avoid to maintain fitness in race season, and balance with appropriate rest. Also touched on are race prioritization, training and progression expectations, methods to estimate and manage fatigue, openers, volume vs intensity, and much more including your listener questions.

Coach and returning guest Marinus Petersen rejoins to discuss the pros and cons of different ways to quantify endurance and total training volume and adaptation. We consider TSS, total hours, and work measured in kilojoules, as well as coaching and programming aspects of endurance rides and balancing with interval sessions or races. We also answer your listener questions.

Professor Patrick Smith joins to discuss performance psychology, its role in cycling performance and everyday life, and some of the underlying themes and tools he uses in practice. We also discuss race nerves, negative spirals, some of the stigma around psychology in sports and overcoming it, defining the metrics of success, and more.

For this episode, Kolie and CTS coach Adam Pulford made lists of their most impactful coaching mistakes, how they recognized them, and their fixes. Lists include high intensity, training zones, communication, and more, plus things still ongoing. Also discussed is what makes a good coach, as well as your listener questions on the best coaching mistakes, fatigue management, trusting your coaching clients, and more.

In this episode we recap the big lessons from the last Watts Doc episode and revisit pacing endurance rides in terms of RPE, power, and heart rate, and finding that first threshold. Then we spend a long while considering how to program endurance rides into low, medium, and high volume weeks which we roughly block into 20h and the considerations we have for each scenario. Then we answer your listener questions on HR zones, the talk test, fueling endurance rides, cadence, whether you should do...

We dig deep into a meta analysis' findings on the difference in muscular adaptations between training intensity and volume, especially what we can differentiate between continuous moderate intensity, HIIT, and sprint interval training. We also discuss the paper's findings on one aspect of "mitochondrial function", bullet point some practical takeaways, and answer your listener questions.

Whether you have a coach or are self-coached, leaving workout feedback helps to ensure you're getting the most out of your training plan and coaching. In this episode we discuss what kind of feedback to leave on what topics (like RPE, nutrition, sickness, sleep, etc), appropriate level of detail, and how we as coaches find it useful plus what we do with the information. We also answer your listener questions.

This is an in depth discussion on the upsides and downsides of always training to raise FTP vs holding it longer. After defining terms, we discuss the training required, adaptation timelines, fatigue, long term development, plus coaching and event specific considerations. We also consider a few counterpoints for each kind of training, individual response and needs, whether or not this is an actual debate, and answer your listener questions.

This episode goes deep into the integral role that PGC-1ɑ plays in turning exercise signals into aerobic adaptation and improved endurance performance. We then dig into the very surprising results of studies that selectively knock out the PGC-1ɑ gene. Finally, we discuss potential uses of this knowledge for training applications and interpreting the literature, the actual best ways to know if your training (or training "hack") is working, and answering your listener questions.

If you're a cyclist who's intermediate or advanced in strength training, listen in. In our last strength training mistakes episode, we considered more general topics like nutrition, recovery, and periodization. Today we get into issues (and their solutions) concerning how you know you're working the right muscles, using lifting equipment like belts and shoes, range of motion and partial depth, HIT classes and kettlebell swings, power development in the gym, and long term strength goals. We...

By popular demand, we bring you the track episode! We first consider race durations and when you would need aerobic training (it's shorter than you may think), gearing and cadence, technique practice, strategy, the role of sprinting and strength training for mass start racing. We finally tackle some things about training for track sprint and what we've seen work well and not so well, plus a lot of tangential discussion around our favorite moments and people on the track. And finally, we...

To kick off 2024, Kolie and Rory discuss how and why training zones fall short, and how they can actually impair progress if taken to logical extremes. We build the conversation back up by thinking about their inception as descriptive rather than prescriptive, how WKO5's iLevels do, the reality of muscular adaptation, and how we actually think about training effectiveness, progression and adaptation.

After you've built up your aerobic engine, what does it mean to get ready to race? Empirical Cycling coach Alex Carmona brings his wealth of coaching and racing experience when discussing transitioning from your build to harder efforts, honing non-fitness skills, the balance of racing and workout intensity in season, and race specific preparation examples. We also discuss tapering into one day races, stage races, high and low volume tapering, guidelines about how often it should be done per...

After some background information on what redox state means for exercise and your mitochondria, we look at some experiments linking various intensities of exercise to adaptations. Then we look at where these signals overlap with dieting and rest, and tie these into advice and realistic expectations for training, recovery, and nutrition. We also answer your listener questions on RED-S, measuring recovery, exercise intensity, and more.