Perspectives #31: Race Specific Intensity and Tapering, with Alex Carmona

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 the occasional high volume week when the opportunity arises, and more.

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 also answer your listener questions that were asked on Kolie's Instagram, like if your knees can go past your toes, if strength training can increase your FTP, where you can see diminishing returns on the bike, going for PRs, and lots more.

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 answer your listener questions on training for the track.

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 year, and as always, your listener questions.