Training Science Podcast

From a technology nerd, sailor and entrepreneur, to coaching the world’s fastest triathletes and chasing sub 7 hours for the Ironman distance - that’s just the start of our next guest’s bio! In this episode, we hear from leading Norwegian coach, Olav Aleksander Bu. Olav goes into great detail into his unique personal upbringing and background in technology, farming, sport and entrepreneurship and...

Amongst others, there is often a misunderstanding what the “LOAD” is versus what the load-”RESPONSE” is. And how about considering that BOTH, polarized AND threshold based training can work, but in different contexts.   In this, our 20th episode of The Training Science Podcast, we present our second summary overview from Martin and Paul, including an exquisite collection of our guests who describe...

Across different countries & sports, our guests appear to agree on “meta”-level aspects of working within high-performance sports. So here we are, putting it ALL together for you in our 19th episode of the Training Science Podcast. In it, Martin and Paul summarize their thoughts on the journey so far, and tease out commonalities (and differences) revealed across the episodes. One clear similar...

Having respect for the work of others and the existing processes and procedures is a core value that all performance coaches and exercise and sports scientists must apply more in their practice.  Antonio Gomez goes into depth on how he is adapting to big changes in moving from the European football/soccer world to the hype in South America! He also goes into the concept of coadjuvant training and...

In most sports we are still surprisingly 😲 far away from treating ATHLETES as HUMANS. Unfortunately, simple things like BEING FRIENDLY 😌 to your athlete, and showing real care is still not standard. Ivi Casagrande wants to change that, and she also wants YOU to TRULY CARE ☺️ about the people you are working with. Coming from an international background with lots of experience in high-level footb...

Moving AT 💣 MAXIMAL SPEED💣 is a game-changing attribute for almost every sport - and is at the heart of ALL RUNNING 🏃 based sports! In this episode of the podcast, Joseph Coyne goes into detail on how to help make your athletes fast using an ANALYTIC & INDIVIDUALIZED approach.  This often relates to finding the MINIMAL amount of work required to OPTIMALLY 🙃 train your athlete. His two main...

ALWAYS consider the basics when training for ANY SPORT ‼️, but especially for team sports where you need to prepare for SO MUCH 🤔. Gil Orriols shares his extensive football fitness experience, including his work with FC Barcelona.  His first focus in football conditioning is ON TECHNIQUE and the basic movement skills - ⚠️ SKILL ACQUISITION should come before anything else ⚠️ (Gil might even go 4...

‼️Direct RESPONSIBILITY for athletes MAKES YOU GROW‼️ Whether you are an assistant coach, a sports scientist, physiotherapist or similar: 💥 The MORE you can directly work WITH athletes, the better you become💥 Dr Jamie Stanley highlights this particularly for his experience with the Australian track cycling programme.  Jamie also touches on the point that you need to be able to somewhat understan...

Fitness training can be DRIVEN through the strategic & TACTICAL directions of the coaches and the rest of the staff 😁!  Alberto Mendez-Villanueva goes in depth about how he thinks about fitness training in football, how he prefers the knowledge and “coaches eye” over over extensive technology and monitoring strategies Plus he also gives direct insight into how he PREPARES his players weekly i...

Being a prior ELITE level athlete is NOT a necessity for working WITH elite level athletes😁!  It can feel tough for anyone that doesn’t come directly from an elite sports background to begin working in the field. But this may be especially true for those focused mostly on the SCIENCE 🧪 part. Well, Robert Stanley managed to turn his passion for cycling 🚴 into a leading role for the USA Track Cyc...

THINKING outside of the box and EXPERIMENTING EARLY - at first glance that might not really sound like applied sports science, but Steve Tajshian feels its something practitioners should start considering 😁!  Steve Tajshian wants you to do more of your OWN research in your practice with your athletes, instead of just going down the road of “groupthink” and following the bus 🚌. Applying exercise...

Figuring out everything that makes people faster - this is what Prof. Andrew Jones says fascinates him.  Although he has been in the field of exercise and sports science 🧪 for a long time, he highlights that most of the work he has done has been always focused around application of the science in the field as well 🛠️.  Although he calls himself another one of the failed athletes in sport science,...

There is great potential for growth in understanding technical aspects of how we move ⚡ - this is where we currently have relatively little knowledge and application in exercise and sports science.  Despite amazing progression in SPORTS TECHNOLOGY in the last decade, not everything is always this simple in daily training application 🙃! In our 9th episode, Martin talks to an expert in the area, D...

A lot of work and dedication goes into being an athlete, but Dan, the HIIT Science author and lecturer of both Rowing and Triathlon chapters, shares with us his journey from athlete, to sport science student and all the way to EXPERT sport scientist… and now - world leading COACH 😇! In our 8th episode, Paul and Dan discuss some powerful topics⚡, especially around application of HRV, the best way...

Lots to learn from Julio in this episode. For starters, he explains how you don’t have to follow traditional strength and power training methods when you are working with “variable” sports like e.g. football. There is so much to discover outside of the “restricted” exercise boxes when you start adding in different planes of motion, various degrees of freedom, and a whole lot more 😇 ! In this epis...

The magic ✨ in training and sport happens when you actually do what you were supposed to do - THE WORK! In this episode, Darcy Norman talks about his journey from individual sports to team sports, and how it is crucial to NOT just worry about the training, but also have an IMPACT 🌠 on your athletes as humans.  Many topics are covered, ranging from how mobility and warm-up work is like brushing y...

The BEST coaches will make sure they are somewhat of a 👍FRIEND👍 to their athletes 👀! Prof. Øyvind Sandbakk makes it very clear that you will have the greatest IMPACT 🌠 on your athletes if you know more about them and truly CARE.  This includes everything that makes them HUMAN. Take a true holistic and wellbeing-centred approach as an ELITE coach and / or exercise and sports scientist 💪.  The...

After our first 3 episodes on some HIIT science basics, physiological targets 🎯 and lots more, we have finally our first guest:  2x Olympic Gold Medalist, Triathlete extraordinair Alistair Brownlee 🏆.  As a 15-year old, Alistair Brownlee got a physiology book from his father 📖. Influence from that book and his coaches helped Alistair go on to become one of the greatest triathletes in recent yea...

Some HIIT sessions are nothing else than just pure pain 😒🔥 , aren’t they? Well, they should NOT BE like that.  Although there is good reason (AND science!) to do an “atomic bomb” 💣, that is, a super high-intensity interval training session every now and then, it should definitely not be the main purpose of HIIT 🛑.  Our 3 physiological targets 🎯 (see Episode 2), as in the aerobic, anaerobic an...

Designing HIIT workouts isn’t just about the session you put down on paper. You need to first know the important basics of WHY you are doing them, and this relates critically to the CONTEXT! The impact of TIME ⏱️, INTENSITY 🔥 or HOW OFTEN 🖩, you do them is often ignored or forgotten, and these factors need to be implemented in line with CONTEXT (see Episode 1). But can’t you just TRAIN HARD all t...

In fitness 💪, sports, training and sport science, you must both think and do to achieve your goals 🥅. But what is the ONE key factor that should influence your decisions when planning and executing your workouts and training 😵? In our very first episode of the Training Science Podcast 🎤🎬 we showcase one of the major factors for successful performance coaching 👨🏽‍🏫!  After a combined experi...