PODCAST · sports
Empirical Cycling Podcast
by Empirical Cycling
Do you want to know how training makes you faster? Listen in. Kolie is a leading expert in endurance, sprint, and strength training for cyclists. Kyle is a NASA scientist and national champion sprinter on the track.Empirical Cycling is a coaching company specializing in individualized training plans for all cycling disciplines. If you like the podcast, please consider a donation at http://www.empiricalcycling.com/donate.html
Episodes
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Ten Minute Tips #83: Making Unstructured Training Effective
This episode details our approach in coaching high quality training that isn't based on traditional intervals and power targets. We go over advantages and disadvantages of both approaches, and discuss how cyclists who don't enjoy intervals can still make progress. We advocate for a middle ground…
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Ten Minute Tips #82: What Your Power Profile Can And Can't Tell You
After discussing testing and getting descriptive with power profiling, we weigh the merits of several things power profiles are typically used for like training needs, fractional utilization and underestimated FTPs, race selection and scenarios, potential for training response. We also answer…
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Watts Doc #66: We Need To Talk About Lactate (Again)
We take a very deep dive into the world of lactate. Starting out with "metabolic logic" to illustrate how and why lactate gets formed during exercise, we then get into the idea of "glycolytic strength" as well as the lactate shuttle hypothesis. Then we tackle lactate testing, with a critical eye…
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Ten Minute Tips #81: Planning Around Interruptions and Inconveniences
This episode goes into our approach to periodization and training around holidays with and without bike access, injury and illness, extreme heat and cold, including how to adjust mid training block. Plus your listener questions on exam stress, weight loss, and more.
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Ten Minute Tips #80: Learning From Your Season
We discuss our process for learning from a season and applying it to the next one. Goals, roadblocks, recovery, availability, progressive overload, health, and more. We also answer your listener questions about what we're looking for in all that data, spotting limiters, race specificity, planning...
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Ten Minute Tips #79: When Fitness Gets Hard To Track
Today we discuss navigating training and racing when it gets difficult to assess and find confidence in your fitness, including how this is common during and following hard training blocks, mid race season, amidst off bike stressors and poor recovery environments, and more. Included are ways we…
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Ten Minute Tips #78: The Upsides And Downsides Of Training Plans
We examine the the ins and outs of training plans and the ways they can help or hurt our short and long term goals. We discuss plans in general and our approach, and tackle items like adaptability and rigidity, goal setting and expectations, time in zone distributions and more. We also answer…
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Watts Doc #65: Measuring Training Responsiveness
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...
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Ten Minute Tips #77: How Not To Break Up With Your Bike This Season
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.
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Watts Doc #64: A Replication Crisis Is A Crisis Of Confidence
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...
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Watts Doc #63: Confronting Uncertainty In Training And Data
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...
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Ten Minute Tips #76: Building Race Fitness
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.
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Ten Minute Tips #75: The Art Of Autoregulation (Training To Vibes)
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...
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Perspectives #41: Macros, Determining Energy Needs, Nutrient Timing, with Tim Podlogar
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...
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Ten Minute Tips #74: FTP Training Mistakes (And Solutions)
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.
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Watts Doc #62: Setting Up Your n=1 Training Experiment
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…
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Ten Minute Tips #73: Things We Wish We Knew About Training, Racing, and Coaching
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.
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Ten Minute Tips #72: The Roles Of Stimulus And Recovery In Plateaus
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…
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Watts Doc #61: Quantifying Diminishing Returns
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,...
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Ten Minute Tips #71: Avoiding Panic Training (Starts Now)
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...
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Ten Minute Tips #70: Fitness Beyond FTP
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…
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Ten Minute Tips #69: The Case For Riding Easier
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...
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Watts Doc #60: Durability's Limitations
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...
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Ten Minute Tips #68: Using Data In Coaching
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,...
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Watts Doc #59: A Muscle Glycogen Paradox
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…
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Ten Minute Tips #67: Making The Most Of Winter Training
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,...
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Ten Minute Tips #66: The Best (And Worst) Training Habits
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...
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Ten Minute Tips #65: Why Training Or Racing Experience Shouldn't Determine Training Volume
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,...
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Watts Doc #58: Creatine's Actual Effects On Cycling Performance
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…
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Ten Minute Tips #64: Diagnosing And Training Weaknesses In The Off-Season
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…
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Watts Doc #57: Finding FTP By Feel Is Easier Than You Think
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...
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Watts Doc #56: Strength Training Strategies To Avoid Weight Gain
This is a deep dive into four papers on hypertrophy and strength training, and use them to find guidelines around how cyclists can improve strength without gaining weight. We evaluate the stimulus and overall impact of eccentric vs concentric contractions, sets and reps, minimum dose for strength...
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Ten Minute Tips #63: The Best And Worst Ways To Test FTP
We take a deep look at ten commonly used ways to test or estimate FTP, and dissect how and why each method does (or is supposed to) work, how often we might expect accurate result and who it'd be accurate for, and the Empirical Cycling standards for test accuracy. We also dig into some data on…
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Ten Minute Tips #62: Why FTP Isn't For Setting Training Zones (And Alternative Approaches)
Our coaches sit down to discuss the downsides of using FTP as an anchor for many types of intervals, how your individual physiology can make those targets suboptimal for the best stimulus, and the many alternative approaches that we use instead. We dig into VO2max, anaerobic and sprint efforts,...
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Perspectives #40: Energy Expenditure And Compensation, with Eric Trexler
Dr. Eric Trexler joins the podcast for a nuanced discussion on energy expenditure and endurance sports. He explains measurement methods, the constrained energy expenditure model and its interpretations, the difficulty of calculating your total energy expenditure and needs and practical solutions,...
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Ten Minute Tips #61: Coach Q&A on Limiters, Low Volume Rest Weeks, Resuming Training, Under-Optimized Training, & More
Our coaches answer your questions on identifying limiters, how to take a rest week on a low volume plan, resuming training after a break, training for fitness vs racing, total time in zone vs structured intervals, the things that cyclists under-optimize, making the most of unusually large…
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Watts Doc #55: The "Right" VO2max Training, and 30/15s Epilogue
This is a critical look at our previous podcast episodes on VO2max training, and with hindsight provide new and additional context on those training recommendations, plus other effective ways to do VO2max training, with their coaching and contextual aspects. We investigate some instances of…
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Ten Minute Tips #60: The FTP Training Decision Tree
This is a practical guide to FTP training, through three lenses: where you are in your season, where you are in your training journey, and opportunity cost. In each instance we think about reasonable expectations for improvement, if you should add more power or interval time, when to switch to...
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Watts Doc #54: Glycogen's Effects On AMPK
This is a dive into research showing increased AMPK activation with low glycogen stores. We break down a paper discerning how AMPK does this, subsequent changes to AMPK's activity levels, and then come to some logical training conclusions. Along the way are some takeaways on interpreting and...
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Ten Minute Tips #59: Considerations For Cramps
Our coaches Will and Giancarlo join the podcast to talk through their experience with cramps, and what's been done to attenuate them. We briefly discuss predictors of exercise associated muscle cramps as well as current theories about why they do occur, while most of the episode is spent on...
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Ten Minute Tips #58: Why Rest Can Be So Scary
Taking enough rest can be intimidating if it's unfamiliar territory. Our resident philosophers of rest Rory and Maeghan join to take a deep dive into the most common reasons we see people being scared of sufficient recovery. We include plenty of practical takeaways for what to expect when…
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Ten Minute Tips #57: Our Coaches Answer Your Training Questions
Six of our Empirical Cycling coaches put their heads together to answer your questions on whether mid season breaks will set your fitness back to the dark ages, managing burnout and disappointment, if younger athletes can still overtrain, balancing intensity and volume, work and family stress,...
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Ten Minute Tips #56: Resetting Goals And Motivation
Today we use Rory's recent post event slump to discuss strategies for refocusing and finding motivation again. This is mostly through the lens of goal setting and how to incorporate season planning, fun and unstructured riding, new disciplines, time with friends and family, being flexible, as…
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Perspectives #39: An Unexpected Balance, with James McKay
Our very own coach James Mckay sits down to talk about the road to achieving his cycling career goal, a victory at the Lincoln Grand Prix. As this was his last race being coached by Kolie, they take a retrospective look at all the challenges and hard work that went into the last four years of...
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Ten Minute Tips #55: When To Take A Rest Week, Trusting Subjective Metrics
After walking through the general structure and purpose of rest weeks, we break down the decision trees we use to plan rest weeks ahead of time, or what we look for to add them reactively. We also discuss using subjective metrics in rest week planning, plus if and when we wouldn't trust those...
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Watts Doc #53: The Origins Of Newbie Gains
We go deep into a couple papers that measure the relative contributions to early VO2max improvements, and the evidence about whether they're more are muscular or cardiac in nature, and what physiological differences there are with more well trained people. Moderate and high intensity training are...
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Ten Minute Tips #54: The Truth About Junk Miles
While the definition of a junk mile is still debated, we do our best to come up with a definition, analyze it in relation to training adaptations, and what should be done. We touch on volume, intensity, group rides, mental health, fatigue and security blankets, training camps, recovery,...
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Ten Minute Tips #53: Leveling Up Parenting And Training
Our coaches Fabiano and Giancarlo join to discuss the balance between parenting and training, both from a coaching perspective and as parents themselves. We talk about finding vs making time, getting sick, guilt, managing expectations, partner and family support, challenges changing as kids get...
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Ten Minute Tips #52: Intermediate Training Mistakes (And Solutions)
We discuss lists of the most common training mistakes that we see made by cyclists who have done about 2-5 years of structured training. Training focus, rehashing old plans, trying new things, monitoring fitness changes, incorporating fun rides, developing training skills, personalizing your…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Do you want to know how training makes you faster? Listen in. Kolie is a leading expert in endurance, sprint, and strength training for cyclists. Kyle is a NASA scientist and national champion sprinter on the track.Empirical Cycling is a coaching company specializing in individualized training plans for all cycling disciplines. If you like the podcast, please consider a donation at http://www.empiricalcycling.com/donate.html
HOSTED BY
Empirical Cycling
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Empirical Cycling Podcast have?
Empirical Cycling Podcast currently has 206 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Empirical Cycling Podcast about?
Do you want to know how training makes you faster? Listen in. Kolie is a leading expert in endurance, sprint, and strength training for cyclists. Kyle is a NASA scientist and national champion sprinter on the track.Empirical Cycling is a coaching company specializing in individualized training...
How often does Empirical Cycling Podcast release new episodes?
Empirical Cycling Podcast publishes regularly with 206 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Empirical Cycling Podcast?
You can listen to Empirical Cycling Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Empirical Cycling Podcast?
Empirical Cycling Podcast is created and hosted by Empirical Cycling.
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