0:00 How do pros actually train? Intensity, frequency, duration. What actually matters? Getting your winter training right can make or break your summer. Do it well and you'll build the engine that carries you through the season. [music] Get it wrong and you'll be absolutely flying in January, but you'll be burnt out before the real season even begins. Today I'm joined by Daryl Fitzgerald from Science [music] to Sport to strip training back to the three levers that matter: intensity, frequency, [music] duration. And reveal what the best riders do behind the scenes. How they build base, where intensity really gets applied, and why zone one is the secret weapon. Welcome, Daryl. We're back in Science to Sport, it's the man, Daryl Fitzgerald. He's going to talk us through
0:46 winter training of the best in the world, how they're winter training, and the lessons that us mere mortals can take from them. That's the kind of grandiose plan. Zooming out before we even talk about the structure of winter, I remember having a conversation with Professor Stephen Seiler and his beautiful way of just simplifying things. And he gave me this idea of whenever we talk about training, we're actually only really talking about three levers that we can pull. Intensity, how hard we train, frequency, how often we train, and duration, how long we train. And no matter what coach it is, from the worst coach in the world to the best coach in the world, they're the only three levers we can really pull around
1:32 training. I think that that was a really interesting cuz coaching can start to get I'm sure we will get into stuff that starts sounding complicated, but no matter how complicated it gets, it all comes back actually to that quite simple principle. >> 100%. Yeah. When you think about winter overall structure for the zoom out like a board and float above the calendar and look at the whole structure, how do you think about the structure of the winter? Is it traditional periodization, reverse periodization, random random allocate intensity, or is it case dependent? >> Uh yeah, it's very case dependent. You got to take the athletes who is is it a under 19 or under 23 guy trying to make it who's still going to school? Is it an age group that's still working a 9-5?
2:19 Or have you got a club rider or a county rider that has the ability to train all day, every day? So that yeah, that you got you got to work it off individualized each person how you going to prescribe it. Do you have a preference if somebody comes in and they're like on limited training time? The The lad who the Girona has had the exit from the company or the you know, the kid who's gone full-time. Do you have a preference on structure you'll bring them through? Um if they come in through and they got all the time in the world to ride, the weather's amazing in Spain, not too many rainy days. If you got good good winter gear, you can pretty much do 4-5 hours a day if you would like but you definitely don't don't do 5 hours every single day. You get [snorts] your
3:04 own OS Scott. >> [laughter] >> Exactly. Everyone wants to peak by January because of of tracker or something. >> Start the ball in February. It's off. Everyone wants to be flying, but then they forget that they got another 8 months of racing to do. >> So if all things no constraints, you'd go with traditional periodization with a big slow 100%. Like we're obviously we we do our general preparation first where we focus on on low cadence torque work um with a with a mixture >> guys have really led the pack on. Which we were over here 2 years ago and we're playing around you're knocking bits out of me inside in the studio next door. No, it wasn't 2 years ago, it was last year. Yeah, it was last year. >> And even then it was like anecdotally we
3:52 kind of knew that low cadence work worked. All the pros were doing low cadence work. >> But there wasn't a lot of peer reviewed data on low cadence work. And I've seen throughout the years more and more studies just starting to drop on >> Yeah. efficacy of low cadence work, basically just validating what Yeah, you're just creating neuromuscular pathways that that the systems haven't been trained and especially I find if people haven't done it or done a little bit of it, they have a really good response from it. So that kind of sets you up pretty well once you move into your base and endurance uh blocks. Um and then you then it's purely periodizing the training structure going into what their race calendar looks like for the following year. You don't want to have the guy flying in February when he's
4:39 only racing in in May because you're not going to hold a peak up until May, so you kind of want to give him his off-season in October, November and then slowly build him into get his strength up. Um then slowly build into an endurance his endurance miles. I've always been I've seen a couple of meta studies on if you look at the three different types of ways of interspersing intensity into a winter or a micro training plan. So one is we're talking about there is like a old school standard periodization where we go base, build, tempo, threshold way up. The other obviously reverse where we're starting with sprint and we're working our way down. Or the the third being randomly allocated intensity where it doesn't really follow either of those two structures. And the meta analysis
5:24 I've seen of all of them is there's actually very little outcome difference between all three of them. It's more like you said, what suits the athletes. Correct. Also, if they've done testing that we obviously do some testing on our athletes as well. We try to identify where the weaker points are and then emphasize on that a little bit. If we improve that, then everything improves for them from whether it's low cadence or whether it's their metabolic flexibility or even up into their threshold. So we can identify where their weaker areas and then spend a little bit more time specifying how to get that better. That's interesting. So what's what's the testing protocol for identifying obviously like you have power profile tests and stuff which you're going to give us key markers which we can pair like you
6:12 know, I can go well, I'm at cat four 10-second power, but I'm a cat two one-minute power and I can start to target races around that. Yeah, 100%. So obviously we do our standard lactates and fat max protocol which you experienced a little over a year ago with with our PPO. I'm sure Wes is going to edit [laughter] that in right here with me suffering and you shouting at me. Um but then also from that depending on the what the rider is, whether he's a sprinter, a climber, we'll do some field testing and see what his three-minute power, one-minute power is. And then we we correlate it to see which path he wants to go in. So but we can use the lab testing with the outdoor testing to really specify what what we
6:59 how we want to progress for. How do you determine if it's uh improve the strengths, improve the weaknesses protocol or ignore the weaknesses and double down on the strengths protocol? Yeah, I wouldn't ignore the weaknesses completely because then you start falling behind on that, so if you if we like we work off the off the 80/20 split on 20% hard, 80% easy polarization. Um if you're doing two sessions a week, you do one on the on the weaker area and you keep a little bit more of what he's good at as well, so he doesn't lose too much of that. And then maybe the second week we do both sessions of the weaker aerobic or his energy system, then on
7:45 the third week we go back to what he was he's good at. So he just it doesn't lose touch. >> What I loved when John was coaching me was it was the first time I've ever had zone one right. Yeah. Like so easy I was able to go training with my missus and she was riding away from me. It's the most overlooked zone I think on anyone's training training plan. It gives you so much aerobic benefit with almost zero residual fatigue. It's like it feels like you had a rest day. Correct. >> So my experience with it and you know, you can speak to the actual theory and science behind it was I was really able to commit to the hard session the following day when I had a zone one ride the previous day as
8:30 opposed to a zone two ride where I felt like a bit of the snap was gone out of my sprint the next day. So obviously utilizing fat as a fuel source, so you're not really tucking into touching the carbohydrates too much. And then also you're building mitochondria which is a your powerhouse cell to creating [clears throat] getting you fit and strong, so and then I'm sure John gave you a good 2-3 days recovery after doing that hard session so you could go hard again. What's the thinking on fueling for zone one rides? Cuz you as you say like the fat carbohydrate debate was actually best explained to me by Is it Sam Impier or David Don from Hexis that I had on the podcast? They were saying think
9:15 about them more as a dimmer switch rather than a switch that you flick on and off. You're not using 0% carbs >> No, 100%. >> or 100% carbs. It's always a mix of the two and sliding up and down. How do you think about fueling on [snorts] those zone one rides? Mm so we we do have a a intramuscular triglyceride rod that we that we implement, but we do have someone still ingest proteins. Intramuscular triglyceride rod. Slow [laughter] down there, I'll unpack that one for you. So it's just the the fat between the muscle that your body would use as a as a fuel source. Okay. Um but obviously with studies and research showing that you you can still use protein as a as a fuel source or not as
10:03 a fuel to eat something just to keep your stomach a bit full and you're not doing a at fully fasted. So, when you get home from that ride, you eat in the fridge plus everything inside of So, you So, you're doing some of those zone one rides in a carb fasted state. Yeah, carb fasted so glycogen depleted but you still got some proteins. Um but for zone one zone two ride, you can still use carbs 30 40 g of carbs. All depends on the athlete how well they can handle little carbs or no carbs. When you say glycogen depleted on the zone one rides, is there because I I guess our muscles and our liver are holding 90 minutes of glycogen. Are we actively
10:49 depleting that going into the ride? So, some people wake up and do it in the morning so they've been fasted for 8 9 hours, get up, have a coffee and then go and ride 2 3 hours. Um but then if some athletes can't deal with that, then we say eat a protein meal. But then make sure you eat a high glycemic glycemic carbohydrate meal to recover. Interesting. To get you I haven't heard much of they those pre-breakfast fasted rides were pretty big. Yeah, they were a little bit too big at one stage. I think everyone was doing like 6 6 hours fasted and then eating the bakery when they when they went fasted after the ride. Yeah, and do you know what? I think there was a period there around
11:37 You have to forgive me about this one. Around Sky when they were you know posting pictures all the lads oh out for 7 hours and post pictures of scrambled egg and you know salmon or something and an avocado. But like what you didn't see in that photo was like the 240 g of oats that they had for breakfast Yeah um I like I think with any media today, things get lost in translation and I think that's where a lot of amateurs go wrong as well. They're like pros are doing 30 40 hours. That's what I need to do as well. Yeah I you know what? It's When I've done bigger mileage, I realize it's not even the the bigger mileage
12:23 that the the pros obviously ride bigger mileage but it's it's the infrastructure that allows them to ride that bigger mileage. Everything from meal prep to living a low stress lifestyle to going to bed on time to having a family that's supportive of it like we were talking about this idea of you know wake up to do list is one thing on the do list ride the bike. >> Yeah. And that's what the pros have where most of us have multiple sources of cortisol like multiple sources of stress coming in. Yeah. That's actually an interesting one because I haven't heard much on the idea of like how would you change someone's training plan or maybe the answer is you wouldn't because we just don't have good data on this. Someone that's like super what's what's a stressful job? I don't know Wall Street trader or something or 100%. So, as a
13:09 company and and that's where I'm like always grateful that how I got into the company is we've come up with a questionnaire and and anyone can do the questionnaire and you get a composite score. How well did you sleep? How's your social life? How's work life? Um did you train like they we got I think it's five or six questions. And when we do a weekly feedback and they come back and their stress score is through the roof, we say to them not don't do the interval session today. Have an easy day, take the day off, have an easy day then see how you're feeling in 2 3 days and we do your interval. Because if they've had worked 12 13 hours, then only had 4 hours sleep and if they have to do a VO2 max session or or peak session of
13:56 8 by 1 minute all out they're not going to complete that session. How do you think about wearable data here? Like is it useful but incomplete and you're trying to pair it up with training data and subjective feedback or would you ever change someone's training because you're seeing a 7 day like I'm Are you on Ultrahuman? No, no, no, I'm not. Um That's just a wedding ring. Yeah, that's [snorts] my my wedding [laughter] ring. Everyone's like oh, you got an aura ring. Yeah, I've got the Ultrahuman Yeah. It's interesting because they have a home monitor. It's getting more invasive. But they have a home monitor as well. So, the home monitor shows like I'm not sure how much you follow these. They're working in UAE uh with the team there. So, the home monitor monitors air quality in the house. So, they're looking to figure out the
14:42 training obviously gives the space to get better and then that adaptation happens through the recovery. So, they're trying to monitor that recovery piece. So, they're looking at decibel levels around sleep, darkness of the room, Yeah. air quality and then your usual 100%. I still haven't heard a good answer on what are we doing with this data and how is it changing training? >> Yeah, so it's it's a it's a bit of a tricky one, I think. Yes, there's HRV and there's there's so many different apps and wearables. Um we actually there was actually a talk at Science and Cycling last year well, this year at the Tour de France and some of the things didn't make sense because they're wearing the wearables and when they should have been going well, HRV dropped instead of going up. So, it's So, we asked the question, why? And I don't think anyone can really
15:27 pinpoint it. And for us, I think the most honest the best feedback you'll get is if you ask somebody, how you actually feeling? I'm tired. Clock. No, wearable device will Do you think that's that quality of that answer is predicated on the rider's experience? Like is there a naivety that comes with inexperience or youth where you're always saying I'm fine? Yeah, yes and no but if once you build a relationship with your client, you pick up the phone and the minute he says hello, you go like you need a rest day cuz you've understood you speak to him so often when the minute he answers the phone, you know straight away there's something not right and you say you sound tired. How are you feeling? And he's like yeah, I'm
16:13 I'm pretty shattered. Yeah, there's a new app I want to bring out instead of all the wearable data because no one coach doesn't really know what to do with all this wearable data or make sense of it. That [clears throat] your Spotify playlist talks over the coaches end and you can go mate, why are you listening to so many sad songs? >> [laughter] >> You're listening to a lot of Johnny Cash [laughter] late in the evening. You okay? The problem is if you got kids like I do at home, all you hear is maybe Blippi or something [laughter] on TV. So, you'll be like mate, why are you watching so many cartoons? >> My YouTube algorithm doesn't know what's going on cuz my nephew comes over [laughter] and he's watching, you know, whatever kids cartoon he's watching Baby Shark. And then >> [laughter] >> you know, then I'm watching motorbike crashes or something like that. It doesn't know what to make of it. This
17:00 kid is into motorbike crashes and parachute accidents. Yeah. So, the reverse periodization I've always found quite interesting for working athletes and it's when I've looked across lads that I've coached or for myself when I'm busy it just it makes a lot of sense because if you're living in this part of the world, evenings are short. Yeah. You're in work for all the daylight hours. You're either getting your session done before or after work and it's normally on the trainer for 60 minutes to 2 hours of your motivation. >> Yeah. Reverse periodization still following that 80/20 distribution of easy to hard principle seems to work quite nicely cuz you can throw in, you know, sprint session Tuesday, sprint session Thursday, you know, a cadence type session to pass
17:45 the time on a Wednesday but keeping it quite aerobic. Have you played around with that type? >> I have a little bit. Um and also now with the the evolving on on more focus on strength and conditioning, it also can break it up a little bit. Get them in the gym once or twice a week. Um [clears throat] so, it's not always so tedious and being on the trainer. So, yes, the reverse periodization especially if they're working a 9-5 give them that hour and also maybe spread out maybe they can only do a Monday and Tuesday or Monday and Friday interval session. Then you can fill it with either a gym session or like an easy ride on Wednesday and then you let him just go ride his bike on a Saturday. Let him
18:31 enjoy it. Where would you think about the placement of the gym session in that week? Uh so, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it does matter but you also don't want to give him a gym session after he's had 4 by 6 minute talk efforts the next day. It depends how you how well he recovers. So, if he recovers well, sure give it to him the next day. If he doesn't, let him do a recovery day on the bike and then give him the strength session on the on the third day. So, if if you were running the athlete through that reverse periodization, do you look at that as you still use a 4 week block for amateur athletes? Or is there a Yes, it like it's it's it's so individualized. That's That's exactly what I coaching it's it's when I first started coaching, you think oh, you've got your block periodization. That's what you do
19:17 but now that I've spent so much time with so many experts in the industry, it's not just a plug and play. Um if the guy really struggles to recover from sessions, sometimes I only give him one session a week and not not two. Let him ride hard on Tuesday and then go and ride hard with his mates on a Saturday. Since getting back into training, the biggest thing that's hit me isn't fitness, it's fueling. I used to finish rides totally wrecked. I'd come through the door, collapse on the couch, scroll through Instagram and call it recovery. But now that I'm actually fueling properly, and that's anywhere from 80 to 120 g of carbs an hour depending on the session, it's a completely different story. I'm coming home from training feeling fresh, and my power data throughout the ride supports
20:04 this. I can actually function when I get off the bike. It's honestly blown me away how big a difference that proper fueling makes. When I started fueling right, I realized just how good I could actually feel on the bike. A daily staple in my training now, it's 4 Endurance because I know exactly what I'm putting into my body. Every product is designed for performance. It's tested in real racing, and it's used by the very best from Olympians to Tour de France riders. It's the same science just without the luxury brand markup. Seriously, jump over to their site and check out the prices. You'll be absolutely blown away. It's real fuel, unbeatable price, great taste, no gut issues. Like, that's a winning combo for me. 4 Endurance, built
20:50 on science, proven in sweat. Check them out at 4endurance.com and start fueling smarter. I'm going to put the link in the description down below. This is one of the biggest traps that amateurs fall into. Yeah. We're time crunched, so we need to ride more. Like, cuz back to the very start of the conversation, we talked about you've got those three levers to pull. So, I'm fixed on duration, I'm fixed on frequency because of family and work commitments. >> Yeah. I've only one lever to pull, so I just yank on intensity. Yeah, I think nine times out of 10, people always ride too hard. They'll do intervals today, then they go do a coffee ride with their mates, and then it becomes a race. >> [clears throat] >> Then they go to gym, and then Thursday
21:35 they've got intervals again, and then Saturday it's a club race, or they're going to do Girona Worlds or trials or something. So, it's always like, when are you recovering, and when are you trying to adapt or change what you've tested where you're weak at? How do we You're not going to get better at that, so you're not going to improve your fat oxidation, you're not going to improve your lactate curve. Like, that's when as a coach you need to be a little bit strict and stop them from going to Wednesday Worlds or And and that's where communication, and I think that's what makes John and you and our company so good is our communication with our with athletes. How do you figure out the more dose you can give an athlete, dose response,
22:21 they're going to theoretically improve if they're able to absorb that dose. Absorption rates are going to differ wildly based on, you know, so many different things from genetics to environment. How do you figure out, or maybe there's not an answer to this, as an industry have we figured out the maximum dose we can give an athlete? Uh it is a tough one. I've actually got a client from America. He's the minute [clears throat] he gets a little bit of volume, he gets sick, but he's got some issue with his with the sinuses, so he needs to go for an operation. It's like, now we're just trying to juggle. It's like, where is the limit where you can still continue to train and not get sick until he has the operation and not cross that limit. It's like it's
23:09 it's a very fine line, and that's where you need to go back in history and see when you got sick, how many hours you did, what intensity was was implemented. >> So, yeah, it's not it's not just plug and play, it's just trying to put the pieces together. Yeah, cuz I remember back home when I was racing, you know, week in, week out, we used to have an Easter stage race, then a May bank holiday stage race, and then our big race, the Tour of Ireland, was the 20th of May. Yeah. And whenever I if Easter was close to, you know, Easter falls a different time every year. Easter was close to the May bank holiday weekend, I was always sick for the main race, Tour of Ireland. Yeah. If I skipped the May one,
23:54 I was always flying. Yeah. And but it takes you four or five times of messing up No, no, 100%. >> this out. There's still not a better way. So, like I think then you need to go one step further and go back and see what training you did previous to that and why you got sick. What was your volume, what was intensity. Um Especially with people with kids now, how do you manage that? Kids always bring home germs. Like, that's how I've got massive respect for all you guys that do have kids. Um it's how they stay healthy training without getting sick from the kids bringing germs from from school. We were chatting a little bit about just new software platforms that come along, and we were mentioning Vector. And why this is interesting for me, some of the stuff they're doing,
24:39 I think it just gives us a little bit of an extra deeper layer in understanding that. Like, if you think TSS was a brilliant tool for a long time, but if I go out and I ride 4 hours steady zone two, and you go out and you ride 2 and 1/2 hours with a bunch of tempo or fat max intervals, and we both come back with, let's say, 160 TSS points. It me saying to you at 160 TSS points, it doesn't tell a very granular story of what happened. When we go back looking at times we're getting sick, just seeing that TSS load actually doesn't tell much. What I really like what Vector have done is they've separated intensity and volume Yeah. >> as two different metrics. So, now, the same way you would explain to somebody like if someone asked me what's Hell's
25:25 Angels climb like, there's no point in just giving the distance of it cuz the distance without the gradient gives no context. >> Distance and gradient together now give me a context of the climb. Volume and intensity together give me a context of how hard that session was. I think it's cool to see really smart people No, no, no. >> working in cycling now and figuring out these problems. Yeah, there's so many more engineers and and more and more information coming in. Um And also AI. So, it's it's a competition. AI coaches, some people will leave a coach and go to AI, but Have you seen that? Yeah, I've seen it. Some guys are coming in for bike fits, so Joe, they've left their coach, they're doing AI coaching. Um I think they've asked ChatGPT to help them. But, that's where like I'm a very firm
26:11 believer in that still having that human interaction when you pick up the phone and you say, "How are you doing?" That that reply alone tells you a lot. Coaching isn't a training plan. No. It it's what happens after. Anyone can write a training plan. >> But, I can't remember I, you know, you have so many podcasts, these blend together. I think it was one of the Hex guys again on nutrition, and we were talking about the problem with the ChatGPT culture. Partial amount of information is a really dangerous thing. The example, I think it was Sam maybe, I don't want to misquote him. The example he was giving was around like easy. An athlete comes in to ChatGPT and says, "I I cramped in the race. I think I was low on salts." Yeah.
26:56 And now you chat to this lad 10 iterations back and forth with ChatGPT. He knows everything about magnesium levels, sodium levels, temperature, salt rates. Get bought a core temperature monitor. If you actually sat with him, you'd just be going, "No, you got no problem there, mate. You were just pinned for the race. You were operating at a capacity. You weren't clearing the lactate. That's why you're cramping." But, because he had a partial idea that maybe I'm cramping because of salts, it brings him further and further down this wrong rabbit hole, and now you can't get out of it. Yeah, there's way too much information accessible to people, I think. Without context. >> Without context, and they take it in the wrong way. Um and then for me, simple is easy. Like, if you've got metrics to to fall back on
27:42 and measurable metrics, you can start see patterns. You're I'm fascinated with the thread that links all the best riders and coaches. And again, I think you just touched on something I just hear time and time again when I chat with, you know, world-class operators like you. Where the chat with Blink Matthews a couple of weeks ago, and the question we had coming in was something along the lines of what's the secret sauce. Yeah. And you know, you know there's no secret sauce. He knows there's no secret sauce. His answer was, "Yeah, there is a secret sauce. I've gone to bed at the exact same time, woke up at the exact same time, had the same meal for breakfast, had the same meal for lunch for like 7 years. Never missed a day."
28:28 And like, that's not sexy. >> [laughter] >> That's not a sexy answer. No, not at all. But, how powerful is that? Like, when you're talking about metrics for optimizing HRV, like, go to bed at the same time, wake up the same time for a decade and see how that affects your training. >> [laughter] >> Exactly. So, >> But, it's the actual answer. No, no, 100%. And the we we're not machines, we're humans as well. Like, for me, AI and stuff can't read emotions, and that's where for me like the human element and that communication factor is super impo- important. And then that's when you get the most out of the coach and the athlete. What What mechanisms do you put in place to build that communication pathway? You do
29:14 you leave it really informal, or do you got something that's [clears throat] a weekly check-in, a daily check-in? >> the beginning, it's always still a little bit more formal on email. Then, as you start to get to know each other and become more friendly, it's WhatsApp, then it's calls. Sometimes only once a week, but then sometimes you need two, three times a week. It all all depends on on the coach that you the the athlete that you you're coaching. But, it does start formal like where we've got a weekly or submaximal fatigue test that we do and weekly and give feedback, and we take their their answers and change their training the following week to what they've what they've given us and what their composite score and stuff is. Their wellness score. So, we When you say composite score, what's going into making that composite score? So, sleep,
29:59 nutrition, work life, social life. And am I rating these on a scale of 1 to 10 or how do you Out of the five questions that you you get a score out of 100. So, obviously if your wellness score's right up there, close to 100, things are looking good. You've had good sleep, your mood's good, social life, everything's going well. But when it starts getting a bit messy and that composite score, the wellness score drops, then you need to try and figure out is there too much load or intensity? Is it coming from home life? And and the same would apply for for professionals. How stressed is he leading up to a race and or how stressed is he that he's not losing the weight that he should? Like everything's Do you see data on this
30:47 on stress impacting performance? Yeah, 100%. [music] What what's the impact? Obviously cortisol levels increase. So, we can't measure that, can we? No, that's That I don't know. So, maybe someone can reach out to you. You're measuring resting heart rate or HRV or mood or whatever. But normally we see change in elevation of of heart rate either higher or normally lower if they're super stressed. Um and it can't go the other way. Depends on the person. Could be 5, 10 beats higher. And then when they go and do an interval session, you they say straight, I felt like I couldn't push 20 watts harder. I had to back off. Or they try and go complete it. They do two intervals and they can't and they
31:33 just go go straight home. And that's probably the smart athlete. He's kind of the Yeah, the canning. It's the No, the smart athlete probably just flogging themselves. The the smart one would actually be dropping 10, 20 watts, completing the session, but still getting the same stimulus. But being okay with not pushing the 20 watts and then discuss it afterwards. Would you have a rule of thumb for when you reduce the intensity versus when do you kind of Yeah, like that becomes being a little bit honest with yourself as an athlete. Is that and telling your coaches I was completely cooked. I went 20, 30 watts lower. That's all I could produce. If that's what he does, it's fine. But he can't continue that
32:19 same habit for the next three, four weeks. I had a session so I had a toughish day on I'm back training at the moment. I had a toughish day on Saturday with a group ride and then in the evening session with some TT efforts on us, like six or seven minute TT efforts. And then I went out for a club Christmas party that night. I didn't drink a lot, but that was like four or five beers had. >> [laughter] >> Not much sleep was the thing and you know, on your feet all night, dancing general, Burger King on the way home type thing. Didn't get up the next morning for meeting the lads for a group ride. I was like, I'll do it on the indoor. A three hour ride today. I was like, oh, three hours is a bit on the long side on the indoor, but weather's anyway, so
33:05 I two 30 minute fat max efforts at 300 to 340 to do 300 to 330 maybe. And I ended up just doing like two easy. Sucking off the session two and a half hours in and I was kind of left with that going, did I do the right thing reducing the intensity and cutting it short? Should I push through on flogging? Like I felt terrible. My resting heart rate went from 34 to 43. Like I was in a bad way. But it's hard to know for a motivated athlete if you're better just not training that day. That's what's also super important to when you when you do wake up, if you've got a close relationship with your coach, just tell him, I don't think it's going to work today. Not feeling great.
33:51 But if you do still do the session, use [clears throat] an RPE scale. Yeah. Put your put your computer close your cover your screen and go off how you actually feel. Because heart rate doesn't even work. I found on that my heart rate was super suppressed. Like I've topped his on two heart rates. You know, and probably you know, should have been 15 beats, 10, 15 beats higher. Yeah. 100%. So, that's RPE's always the for me the most accurate. Doesn't matter what metric, power, heart rate, the way you're feeling, it's pretty accurate. It's a good one to to bring in because >> [clears throat] >> you could almost as a coach with no context to that session look at it and go, he's flying. He's producing the power off a much lower heart rate. You don't have that context of oh, his RPE is really high. So, he's annoyed. It's supposed to be a
34:38 seven, but it was a 12. >> [laughter] >> You looked at time where the respiratory I have seen that. We saw them and spoke to them a little bit at Science and Cycling. I haven't dived into too much to see the the research and everything. Obviously being here trying to run this family. John's traveling so much. So, I think next year when I get a bit of free time, we will start playing. Obviously read. John's coaching Remco big time now. He's still got me [laughter] on the average. He's he's somewhere with with the cool kids. I wonder if his what sort of impact that's had on the whole team, Remco coming in. Obviously is there
35:23 two stars in the sport bigger than him? Maybe you could say Jonas and Taddy. Yes, I actually to be honest, I don't know. Like everyone's like, oh, you work with John every day. I was like, yeah, I see him every day. Doesn't mean that we speak cuz he's on the phone all the time. So, he's a super busy guy and he's in and out. So, we don't actually get to sit down. I think well, I saw John last week and I'm only going to see him in in the new year. So, Every rider chases that feeling. The one where the bike just disappears. Where the pedals turn easy and the road hums beneath you. And for a few fleeting seconds, everything just clicks. No effort, no noise, just flow. That moment isn't luck. It's engineering. The kind that only comes from obsession. For over 20 years, Parlee has refined the art of carbon. Every layer placed by hand.
36:11 Every angle tuned by feel and data until response, balance, and speed exist in perfect harmony. You don't notice a Parlee because it's flashy. You notice it because it feels right. Because every input, every climb, every corner happens exactly how you imagined it would. Customer production. Every frame goes through the same uncompromising process. Traceable, tested, and finished by people who still believe craftsmanship matters. Parlee doesn't chase trends. They chase that moment every rider lives for. When the bike and the body move as one. Parlee Cycles. Engineered for that feeling that keeps us coming back. Like I think from the outside we all think when these big stars come in, you know, back to the football analogy like it, you know, if a Roy Keane came into a
36:56 dressing room, that it just suddenly the standards go up across the board. I'd be curious I'm going to try and get with John and we'll do a podcast on it and see has that actually happened? Do you Does a rider like that just command different standards across the board? Well, you see, I've I've never got to that level. So, I I don't really know. So, but coming from a motocross perspective and I think it's the same in a lot of individual team sports is when a high profile athlete does join, everyone wants to up their game. So, whether it's from riders through to staff, everyone [snorts] wants to be better and and try and get better to get obviously the end result and and not mess up. It's such a different environment that most amateurs find themselves in because even though you're in a club or a team, there's not much it
37:42 could be quite a lonely sport for most. I've found this myself at times. Coming from a team sport setting where you've all the lads around you, you've a dressing room. There's a lot of lonely errors on the bike. It's a selfish sport. Lonely isn't alone. Maybe written alone. Lonely sounds a little bit sad. Like I'm not going out and listen, you know, to my Spotify playlist. But yeah, it's a lot of alone time and it's it's not a lot of fun a lot of time. You're kind of thinking, well, this will be fun down the line when I get with the lads, I get with the girls this summer and we race together. But for someone that's kind of at winter time struggling to to see like the point of it. Struggling to see how am I going to get through this winter sitting in the shed doing these efforts on my own. Why am I doing
38:28 this session today? Yeah, I think like that's where before you join a coach or gets or when you do get a coach, you have short term goals, medium medium goals, and then your long term goal. >> [snorts] >> Short term goal could be make sure that you hit every training session or at least 85, 90% of them. That's a nice one, like a process goal. A process goal. Like we let's get the first really cold month out the way. We get all green in training peaks. Tick those little boxes. Then when we start getting outdoors, join Wednesday Worlds or something like that. So, have your small goals in place. And then when you if it's anyone's like that, if you get a goal, you feel good about yourself.
39:14 It uplifts you and you stay motivated to get the next one. So, it's trying to create almost an early win. Yeah. In it. Correct. And you think the not the easiest, but the the most common sense early win you think is to create a process goal around compliance on sessions? 100%. Cuz if you're not finishing a session three sessions in a five day block, how are you going to get to a race? Yeah, I always think it's better like I never like to see people dropping out of races. >> No. I think it builds a habit. It builds a off-ramp that when you're in a lineout in Belgium
40:01 in a crosswind and it's pissing rain, that you have an off-ramp to go, "Oh, I can just pull up and I'll be 100% >> couch in 20 minutes." It's not a good mentality. No. It's a I think maybe this is quite an old-school opinion on it, but I think it's a better mentality to go "Hang on here, because if you get dropped, you're riding the distance on your own. You're doing 220k [clears throat] on your own like a lemon going around getting lapped on the finishing circuit." And it's that shame almost gets you an extra 10 watts. >> 100%. But like when I was growing up racing motocross, my dad always said like I said to my dad, "I'm done racing. I don't want to do this anymore." Cuz my dad put a lot of pressure on me as as a kid. And he's like, "Do you know what? Finish a season. You don't just quit now. I'll stop shouting. If you want to
40:47 race, we go race. If you don't, that's fine with me." Pulled up his deck chair, drank beers at the racing. And I finished the season and ended up winning the season. So, my dad always told me if you start something, don't finish it. So, it's the same same principle when it comes to training. Yeah. If you start something, see it through. You don't like it, then step away or or change your direction. Or then you sit with your coach and you you look for a solution. >> jump ship and step away. It's not just "I'm [clears throat] having a bad day." Yeah. It's almost like how do you stop? A A buddy of mine who said something recently around instead of all or nothing do all or something. I can't do 4 hours. I didn't just do zero and I ice cream
41:33 all day. I got two of them. Like that's what John and I would say to a client like if we give you 6 days of training, if you do 85% of it you're going to go somewhere. But if you're only doing 25%, you're not going anywhere. So, like at least have a small goal in place. You're like, "Okay, this is my work schedule. I can only do 85% of the work. That's fine. Next week, you do 100% of it." >> And that's an honest communication feedback loop where they're saying to you "Look that training load with the availability I gave you was maybe a bit ambitious." >> Yeah. And then you're reiterating the following week and building out something. 100%. How do you stop a bad day becoming a bad week becoming a bad block becoming a bad season? Like one bad thing cascading.
42:21 Yeah, [clears throat] that's a that's a tough one. And it's also case by case. Um Sometimes then you just delete all the training that you've had that week and you tell him, "Go ride your bike, mate. Go ride it why you started riding a bike." Honestly, just go and pedal. Go and ride with mates. Take a couple days. And then we re-look. Start easy the following week and then build back into it. Yeah, cuz you do see that self-destruct mode in some people. I don't know if it's a a gene they have or what, but it's like when it slightly comes off the rails, it fully goes off the rails. >> And it it is difficult to to course correct that with sort of saying, "Oh, we agreed this process goal that you're going to do 85%." It feels like it needs
43:06 a >> [snorts] >> You know, you hear the motivational gurus say, "Oh, ask why three times." And like I'm not sure if that has ever got me there. >> [clears throat] >> Um So, it's it's so tough. Everyone's fighting their their own battles throughout the week. So, yeah, I if if I find the guy struggling week on week on week, then I just say, "Let's take a step back. Don't do anything this week. Go and ride with your mates. Go drink coffee. Be a human. You We're not machines. You can't do this day in day out. Work, train, and also can't just train all the time. Sometimes you still have to be a human being. No matter how high up you are or where you starting. I
43:54 I got to fall into this trap as well where you're looking at your available free time and you're just mapping out every single hour on your Google calendar. I'll I'll do this podcast here. I'll do this here. I can travel here. I can get this session in here. I have a 2-hour window. I can definitely ride for 90 minutes there. And it's like you haven't logged into Netflix in a month. It's like, you know, when you're chilling out? Like when you go for a walk? When do you Like when I give when people ask for a off-season I put in their train off-season. I don't load anything. And they're like, "What must I do?" Whatever you want. It's like I don't want you to wake up and go, "I have to look at TrainingPeaks." >> Yeah. It's a nice mental break. You need to refresh mentally just as
44:41 much physically. I think more mentally than anything else, especially the way the racing's going today. It's hard all the time. There's so much racing now. And this is trickling down in the amateurs though as well because [clears throat] speeds are going up in amateur races across the board. It's a function of I think fueling. You know, we're chronically under-fueled for decades. Now everyone's figuring out that if I fuel in 90 to 120 g an hour it's good. Maybe I spoke to Tim uh Podlecar on Twitter. Some really interesting ideas around actually there's the law of diminishing marginal returns there on fueling. And actually there is you can I think he explained to me like a toll bridge. Like if you have 12 boots on toll bridge merging into two lanes, just
45:26 backs up the whole system. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that can actually happen if you're, you know, your body can only take 90 and you're taking 120. Yeah. You would have been better maybe taking 70. Yeah. Uh because it's more bioavailable then. But amateurs who seem to be on the [snorts] gas with diet. Um this is trickling down from the pros now where like there's no off-season. There's no The Irish pubs empty. Like you could go into the Irish pub 5 years ago, there'd be monuments of spinners in there. 100%. >> be no one's in there on the beer. So. So, but that's trickling down and all the amateurs now are full [clears throat] gas on arrow, full gas on diet, full gas on I I wonder is that kind of advice you're giving there on take it off the pedals, get off the TrainingPeaks vector calendars for once?
46:12 >> Like I literally do not put anything depend on that 2 to 3 weeks. I don't put anything at all. And then they're like, "What must I do?" I'm like, "Go hike a mountain. Go pedal like just don't worry about don't look at TrainingPeaks. Phone me when you want to ride again." How do you look at the approach into an event? This is one of the most common questions we get. If you're a week out from target event what does this taper look like? Is there a standard taper length or would you taper based on a different freshness they Uh it also depends on the length of the race. Like say amateurs doing Cape Epic. Like if you're doing eight hard days like that, you say 10 to 2-week
46:57 taper leading up to it. You don't want to be too like you don't want to be too fatigued going into Epic cuz by day four you're going to run into a world of trouble. But if you're going into a one-day A race, you also don't want to be too fresh. Yeah. Um being too fresh, you'll feel lethargic, a little bit slow. Feels like you've lost your fitness. >> Yeah, that you like that high-end engine is is not there. So, like closer to like a one-day race that's your A race yeah, I'd give it like a 4-5 day taper. Interesting. Yeah, it's it all depends on duration of the race and how many races you got afterwards. And just to close the loop on the idea of periodization, maybe we can finish it here. Yeah.
47:43 Periodization is this idea of moving from the general to the specific. And when I think about periodization, I think about when I think about getting to the specific I'm more dialed with my training. The training demands mimic the demands of the event closer and closer. But I'm more dialed in my prep. Like mentally I'm thinking about the race more. I'm thinking about my equipment. Um my nutrition has got gradually tighter. >> Yeah. I don't like the being tight with everything all year round. Like I'm as >> [snorts] >> I can't have one beer tonight cuz I have a race in June. How do you see this balance between that idea of periodized not just training, but periodizing your life move towards an event versus the just full trucker
48:29 high octane world we're in? Yeah, that's a tricky one. I think if the guy's been super strict and sometimes he's like, "Listen, I just need to go and have a couple of beers." Like I say, "Get Listen, mate. Just for an easier block. Don't do it now. Just wait 3-4 days. Go on a Saturday, have a couple of pints with your mates. Sleep Sunday. And then slowly get back into to where you're going." >> [clears throat] >> That's an age group or something like that. Yeah. Look, when it comes to professional, whoa, that's a little bit more tricky. They're just not getting off now, are they? Yeah, like I think if you let give them a little bit of of your hand, they're going to take the arm and take take too much advantage. Uh you don't you don't know. Like cuz I think some
49:15 athletes don't always tell you the whole truth what they're doing even with training. Like tell them do 3 hours, they do three and sit at your computer off and do another hour. >> Yeah. So, yeah, it's like the GPS file. They >> [laughter] >> said 3 hours. You're like, "How'd you get home?" No, I got a bunch of I got a bolt to fetch me. Excuse the short interruption because I think you're going to want to hear about this. If you've ever had a quiet thought in the back of your head, something that kind of just whisper to you, I'm not done yet, then listen closely. For a lot of us, life has taken priority in recent years. Career, family, responsibility, they've all come first. And maybe now, if you're like me, you're at the point where you want to put some focus back onto your health, onto your performance, onto yourself.
50:01 And that's exactly why I'm opening a limited number of one-on-one coaching spots in a new project I'm launching called not done yet. And this is for athletes who feel like there's another chapter still to be written in their cycling journey. They're not ready to just quit, roll over, and quit cycling already. So, whatever level you're at right now, whatever that next chapter looks like for you, if this sounds like you, click on the link which I'm going to leave in the description or the show notes down below. You're going to land on a short application form. It'll generally only take you like 60 seconds to 90 seconds to fill this out. That application is going to help me understand where you're at and see if you're a good fit to work together on this not done yet program. Once you submit it, you'll personally hear from me within 24 hours. Now, just be aware
50:48 that this is a small cohort of coaching spots. I'm limiting it to 100 athletes. But, I'm super excited. So, no matter where you're at in your cycling journey, click on the link and we're going to chat real soon. No, that's real. Daryl, super interesting peek into what the best in the world are doing behind scenes. Thanks for showing us around this cool office and being so generous with your time. >> Yeah, sorry catching me so off guard. I definitely definitely wasn't prepared for it, but yeah, it was good good to be on your show. Enjoyed enjoyed it.
