Fast Talk

Your training is done. It’s only a few days to your big event. This is when many athletes unravel months of training with a few bad choices. Top coach Neal Henderson discusses with us how to avoid the pitfalls and get the most out of those final days. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Medical Doctor and elite Zwift team manager Jennifer Real talks with us about indoor training and racing, and how to get effective recovery including monitoring sleep and taking Vitamin D.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re joined by Dr Bent R. Rønnestad to dive into questions about concurrent strength and endurance training including whether they interfere with one another, and if endurance athletes should strength train.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Exercise physiologists and resident nerds Rob Pickels and Coach Trevor Connor continue their discussion of new scientific research in sport science. Though the discussions we have of these studies may not always directly apply to your weekly training plan, understanding the questions that have been asked by physiology researchers can give you context about what is known and knowable by science as...

We explore how important it is to have race experience, a scientific background and a coaching background to fully guide athletes with coach, physiologist, and past pro Julie Young.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re joined by Houshang Amiri, a UCI Elite Coach and Trevor Connor’s coach at the Canadian National Center, to address questions about both building endurance and top end work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The author of The Athlete’s Gut talks with us about digestive issues like bloating, cramps, pain and inflammation - all of which can derail the best event preparation plans.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We got so much great information from Dr Stephen Seiler when we interviewed him for episode 200, we wanted to make sure we shared it all with our listeners. In this episode, Dr. Seiler tells about breathing, beer and heart rate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr Inigo San Millan, the coach of Tadej Pogačar, discusses the physiology of recovery, biomarkers of training and why we don’t want to be in a constant catabolic state.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Case is leaving Fast Talk! For his final episode, we gather some of his close cycling friends to discuss Chris and his epic rides, his parting wisdom, and what has made him a special part of Fast Talk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We asked for your questions on our 200th anniversary episode and we got so many of them that we decided to dedicate another episode to answer them. Here are your questions answered!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When looking at the history of endurance sports coaching, there's no better guide than coach Joe Friel. Quite simply, Joe Friel is the most trusted endurance sports coach in the world. He has trained endurance athletes since 1980 in triathlon, duathlon, road cycling, and mountain biking. Joe has trained national champions, world championship contenders, and Olympic athletes. And he has coached sco...

Multiple-time Polka Dot Jersey Holder, Toms Skujins, discusses lactate testing, CGMs, ketone strips, and taking his own blood on the side of the road. If you’re a listener of this show, you understand that nothing can replace hard work if you want to be at your strongest. But that doesn’t stop many of us from keeping an eye on the newest gadgets and tools with the hopes that one or two of them wil...

200! For our milestone 200the episode, we address one big question: What does the future hold? And we attempt to answer that question by looking at several aspects of what’s to come: from the future of sports medicine to the future of bike racing to the future of exercise physiology research. We first address the future of sports medicine. After 40 years of watching and, more importantly, influenc...

Many of our listeners, in fact, most of the staff here at Fast Talk Labs, could be considered “time-crunched athletes”—people with only 6-8 hours to train each week. We’re athletes who, because of commitments like parenting and work, must try and find ways to fit training in around life, rather than the other way around. And if you’ve heard that term before—the time-crunched athlete—it’s because o...

We ask every guest of Fast Talk—coach, athlete, or scientist—to describe their favorite workout—the what, why, how, and when.  In this episode, we share the favorite workouts of legendary physiologist Dr. Ed Coyle, coach Jeff Winkler, pro off-road racer and coach Hannah Finchamp (who has since married and become Hannah Otto), coach Julie Young, physiologist Iñigo San Millán, TrainingPeaks cofounde...

On several previous episodes of Fast Talk, we have discussed the structural and biochemical changes that take place through the process of adaptation—through training. Today we’re going to address one of the most important and interesting structural changes, something called exercise-induced cardiac remodeling. As you train, your heart changes: This remodeling includes things like increases in cha...

We're joined by long-time contributor Julie Young who helps us field unique listener questions on how to build an annual training plan, coping with race stress, and overcoming body image issues. Building annual training plans The first question comes from our forum, from Devin Knickerbocker. He writes: “I just read the Houshang Amiri article “How to Develop a Yearly Training Plan” and I notice tha...

Join us as we go through our favorite moments of 2021 including talks with Dr. Asker Jeukendrup, Kristin Armstrong, Jim Miller, Jeff Winkler, Neal Henderson, Dr. Simon Marshall and Lesley Paterson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Q&A on Nordic Skiing, Recovery, and Mixing Training Modalities, with Adam St. Pierre Adam St. Pierre, the head coach of the Nordic ski team at Montana St. University, and a former physiologist and jack-of-all-trades at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, joins Fast Talk to discuss nordic skiing and how it fits into endurance training, oxygen debt versus deficit, muscle recovery, and mixing run...

Today we’re talking speed, but not necessarily the kind that comes from hard work, although we touch on things like coaches and training plans as the first and most important step to “buying” speed. This episode is about what makes you faster by focusing on aerodynamics and reducing drag or that CdA coefficient that is so important. This is an episode about the things that directly bring speed.   ...

While we’ve talked about supplements on Fast Talk before, we’ve never sat down with one of the world’s preeminent nutrition researchers to dive into the history and overall value of supplements. But that’s just what we do today. Dr. Louise Burke is a sports dietitian with 40 years of experience in the education and counseling of elite athletes. She worked at the Australian Institute of Sport for 3...

This first question we’ve saved for this special occasion. Brenda Castile from Essex, Connecticut, writes: “Thanksgiving! I love it. I love the food, I love the drinks, I love the desserts. I love being around family. All of which means I’m exposed to calories and germs, a cyclist’s worst nightmare. And, as usual, it comes just a couple of weeks before I want to be at my best for the finale of ‘cr...

There are many ways to measure intensity. This is an episode about the one that is often forgotten: RPE. Perceived exertion is a standardized way to classify a subjective feeling. We've touched upon RPE in many episodes, often referring to the fact that top pros all know "the feel." Today, we argue that the metric of feeling—perceived exertion, RPE, sensations, whatever you call it—is in many ways...

In the beginning, a bike fit would include a guy at a bike shop with a plumb line and a theory. Now, bike fit is a full-fledged science with video cameras, 3D models, and a greater understanding of human anatomy and physiology as it pertains to cycling. In part 2 of our bike fit discussion, we’ll explore the practical implications of bike fit, from the debate over aerodynamics versus power to our...