Empirical Cycling Podcast

This episode deconstructs a recent study showing unexpectedly low reliability of individual training responses in people undertaking the exact same training program twice. We go down several avenues of reasoning for why this might be the case, apply these lessons to trained cyclists, and answer your listener questions.

We talk about the summer slump that many cyclists experience, where it can originate from, how to think about maintenance to balance event demands with training and more fun, unstructured riding, and how goals and expectations can come into play. We also answer your listener questions.

We delve into the recent large scale replication project in sport and exercise studies, their methods and findings. Then we try to understand why it found the results that it did in light of known statistical phenomena, similar findings from other research fields, and why an apparent replication crisis depends on how you already view and interpret published literature. Plus your listener questions...

We reveal our process for dealing with the uncertainty inherent in training and racing by keeping the FO in the scientific method of FAFO. After addressing whether or not probabilities are even real and the role of subjective experience, we look at some examples of uncertainty and predictions in testing, training, and racing, how reliable and accurate that data and performance models may be, and t...

We discuss planning race preparation and how it differs from a general aerobic build, periodization considerations, B vs A priority races, adjusting approach based on feedback, differences with low and high training age, and reorienting goals along the way. We also answer your listener questions.

We talk about coaching athletes to autoregulate (vibes training), meaning making choices between structured and unstructured training, hard work and fun, intensity and rest. This considers the angles of athlete experience level, life stress, people who don't like rigid training structure, workout selection, and more. Plus answering your listener questions.

Exercise physiologist and performance nutritionist Tim Podlogar joins the podcast to talk about determining endurance athletes' energy needs, macro targets like protein, fats, and carbs both relative to bodyweight and total energy needs, nutrient timing strategies, glycogen loading, bodyweight regulation, and much more. We also ask listener questions on fad nutrients, hydration, and determining su...

Our three most experienced coaches discuss common mistakes when training and building FTP. We look at testing, interval execution and progression, adaptation timelines, periodization, fatigue management, lactate testing, and much more. We also answer your listener questions on FTP training.

We tackle the ideas of unique responders, the role of performance variability in differentiating training response between individuals, pitfalls in interpreting typical individual response data, and the experimental setup required to actually tease these things apart. Then we walk through a couple easy principles to apply the takeaways in your own training.

We talk about things we wish we knew earlier about training, racing, and coaching. Nutrition, skipping workouts, setting process goals, finding your strengths, athlete feedback, and more. We also find out what our listeners wish they had known sooner.

Following up from the last episode, our coaches dig into the balance between training stimulus and recovery capacity, with practical ways to diagnose which is a potential performance limiter. We also touch on low volume athletes, very well trained ones, overlapping stimuli, periodization, short and long term tradeoffs, and more.

We walk through an analysis done on almost 15,000 people with data up to nearly 7 years in length and after finding similar trends in Kolie's client and personal data, we apply what we can learn about diminishing returns to our training expectations, season planning, stimulus and recovery needs, our ultimate potential, and what it means for interpreting scientific literature.

Our coaches discuss what panic training is and how it manifests, common reasons for it to occur, ways to plan now to avoid falling into the trap, and ways to pivot before and even during panic training mode. We touch on all sorts of related topics like nutrition and panic dieting, setting milestones and assessing realistic goals, the impact of social media, and a couple ways to rethink training or...

Our coaches dig into non-FTP related aspects of training and physiology that that lead to better race results, and workouts that can be done for each. We specifically consider road racing, criteriums, mountain bike and cyclocross, plus gravel and ultra racing, and a couple things to train that can easily apply to everything.

This episode we make our case for why endurance and recovery rides can and probably should be paced easier than expected, even for time crunched athletes. We look into the issues that can occur from riding too hard, then delve into physiology, power and heart rate zones, RPE calibration, fatigue and energy management, and more. Plus we answer your listener questions.

We take a deep dive into the published literature on durability. First a critical look at the paper coining the term, the next establishing a widely used measurement, and another on the definition and differentiation of several aspects of endurance performance. Then discussing aspects of measurement and trainability, plus the relative statistical strength in the literature vs typical interpretatio...

This is a critical look at how our coaches use data, like its use in creating a logical framework, the challenging parts of analytics and data in decision making, and how much "the science" can really inform our decision making. Plus we discuss the seeming need for heuristics over nuanced takes, the role of the scientific process in coaching, our favorite metrics, and answer your listener question...

We dig into a recent study showing a disconnect between equal muscle glycogen recovery and unequal high intensity interval performance due to delayed recovery fueling, despite equal total calories. We start with some background on glycogen's structure and the importance of fueling before discussing the outcomes and conclusions of this double blind, placebo-controlled crossover study before specula...

To celebrate over a million podcast listens we let you ask us anything, and we answered. You asked training questions about how we would refocus the US's cycling governing body, improving climbing, book suggestions, how long it takes to return to peak form, indoors vs outdoor duration equivalents, partial ROM lifts, if you need to be in a caloric surplus when training, tempo workouts, and more. We...

This episode addresses common questions about winter/off-season training, and goes into how we plan and individualize effective winter training. We answer questions like whether it be all "zone two", when and how to include strength training, if you should do intervals and how hard they can be, sweetspot vs polarized, incorporating fun rides or Zwift and other virtual racing, and more. We share ou...

Coaches Kolie, Erica, and Gediminas talk about the most impactful training habits that cyclists can incorporate into their routines, and the ways that these habits can be overdone that end up working against us. We dig into consistency, nutrition quality, health consciousness, coaching relationships, focus, sleep, and more.

Our coaches address the common question of why your friend may be faster when doing less training than you, as well as why your experience level or race category probably doesn't indicate how much you should train. We look at the different returns on investment with training volume vs intensity, selection and survivor bias in cycling, a survey of power and training volume with racing cyclists in t...

This episode is one of our deepest dives ever, into the literature on creatine's effects and tradeoffs with cycling performance, and how the results fare against Kolie's standard for being meaningful, noticeable, or measurable. Because individual studies report such varied results, we instead look at a meta analysis on creatine supplementation in aerobic performance, another on repeated sprints, p...

This episode we start with the old cycling adage "train your weaknesses, race your strengths" as the jumping off point to discuss strategies for diagnosing and training weaknesses in the off season. We decide for whom this would make sense as a strategy, the opportunity cost of training a weakness, low opportunity cost things to train, how race selection factors in, and much more.

This episode we look into the published literature on the surprisingly tight agreement between FTP and RPE and a couple different lab-derived measures of threshold like MLSS and critical power, along with the concept of anchoring. But first we get philosophical about how measurements often become definitions that can lose sight of our valid observations and experience. We wrap up by discussing FTP...