Road Cycling Academy Podcast

Interviews with top performing cyclists and industry experts in the fields of coaching, advanced training techniques, and human physiology. The purpose of this podcast is to learn and understand what makes high performing individuals tick, digging deep into their ingredients to success both on and off the bike.

Thank you 12/12/2025

Group Rides: Boost, Burden, or Both for Your Cycling Potential? 11/28/2025

Group Rides: Boost, Burden, or Both for Your Cycling Potential? Summary The conversation delves into the significance of structured training in sports, particularly focusing on how managing intensity can lead to better performance outcomes. It highlights the importance of recovery and adaptations over time, while also addressing the complexities introduced by variability in training methods that comes with group riding. Takeaways Structured training is essential for performance success. Managing intensity is crucial for recovery and adaptations. Variability in training can complicate performance outcomes. A well-structured plan can lead to year-on-year improvements. Intensity management should be considered in all training cycles. Coaching plays a vital role in structuring training effectively. Recovery is as important as the training itself. Performance peaks can be achieved through careful planning. Uncontrolled rides introduce variability that can hinder progress. Understanding the science behind training can enhance coaching effectiveness. Monthly coaching RCA: Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:00.322) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined by RCA coach Ben Treville, who's a science data geek or data nerd. I always forget which one it is. I think I say that every time, Who's actually in the middle of Australia at the moment, traveling with his partner in the Northern Territory. So thanks for joining us today, Ben. Alright, this podcast is brought to you by Starlink. Yeah, the internet connection is actually pretty good based off of the last podcast we did. So hopefully no issues in this one today. I wanted to talk about group rides and bunch rides because a lot of people that come to us, they're doing them and they want to incorporate them and we want them to keep doing them. We call it the not negotiable rides because we want people to continue doing the rides that they enjoy doing. you know, people also need to recognise that if you're overdoing them, which a lot of people are doing as well, you know, there's maybe some considerations you need to, you need to keep in mind. So in this chat today, I wanted to, you know, ask you with your, you know, partial science hat on, because I know there isn't a lot of science in this space specifically, this kind of indirect stuff that you've looked at, but also your anecdotal experiences as a coach, you know, working with amateurs and, and recreationalists that are doing know, group rides as part of their training, you know, how does it look? Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? What do we need to consider? So the first thing I'm going to ask you, because you know, a lot of people come to the RCA, they're making inquiries, I'm having conversations with them, and they're like, they're worried, do I have to let go of, you know, my group ride or my social ride or my, you know, we call it in noosa, the Tuesday world champs, you know, go smash fest with your mates. Do I have to get rid of that if I want to improve Ben? Ben Treble (01:53.484) My favorite statement. depends. It's a point. I feel like I wear two hats. My lab coat as a sports scientist, and then I have my coaching cap and my sports scientist lab coat says, you know, from a technical point of view, structured training wins out. It's really about managing control and intensity and the more, even from a science or a coaching point of view that we can. I can't. Ben Treble (02:22.402) control, manage, intensity throughout a week, a block, a macro cycle, like a year on year within the plan, the better we can manage the recovery and the better that we can peak for a certain performance and find year on year adaptations. Once we add in variability, and I'm going to... call on your bunch rides as highly variable uncontrolled rides, that's when things get a bit more complicated, right? And that's when you find that it's going to be difficult to plan a little bit, right? So that's the, we can dig a little bit more into the science side, because there is some science that's, would say, directly, or sorry, indirectly related to this topic. And that would be the science around what we call training intensity. distribution, which is fancy words for, you know, how much time do we spend in each zone when we train? So I think a lot of our athletes and listeners are used to thinking about, you know, in training peaks, we can see that how many hours in a week have we spent in each zone, week on week, and you can see the general structure. The two most common would be targeting for either a pyramidal structure, where the higher the zone you go, the less time you spend. And then you have probably what's got a bit more science behind it in terms of better outcomes, which would be polarized training or the 80-20 approach where you try to spend 20 % of your time at high intensity zones. And you spend 80 % of your time at the lower zones, so zone one and two. And you spend very little time in the middle in that zone three tempo space. Can I, before you continue, can I just play a little bit of devil's advocate here because you you talk about the unpredictable nature and not being able to control what's happening in a group ride or a bunch ride and I get that but isn't that what happens in the events that a lot of people are targeting like their Fondo events or maybe they even want to go to a crit race so isn't a group ride like the perfect conditioning tool for those? Cam Nicholls (04:40.64) No, it's unpredictable. Like you don't know what you're going to get. It's like for like. This is where I put my, my coach had on. said it in our last podcast, but, I am an advocate for bunch rides in, two scenarios. One is when you have a rider that's at risk of burnout from structured training, because I think we need, we need two things long-term. The most important thing that I think we could all agree on in, in cycle training is consistency over the long-term. Right? So how do we maintain consistency on the long term? The risk to achieving that is going to be burnout that stops you from training, taking a hiatus from training, which could be from work, family, travel, whatever it is. And then you have illness and injury. How do we reduce the risk of those things interrupting training? Ben Treble (05:43.636) And I believe that you need to keep training fun and interesting. And one of the most motivating things, but nothing is more motivating really than chasing your mates. many of your PBs can a set by on your Tuesday worlds versus on the indoor trainer? it's definitely, definitely Tuesday Worlds. But I do know, I mean, that other thing that's resonating going back to something you just said is burnout. I know if I do Tuesday Worlds and maybe if I did Saturday, the Saturday group ride as well, if I did that week after week after week, I'd be probably burnout within eight weeks, maybe even six. Yeah. Because there's too much for me. I know my body well now because I'm chasing wheels and you you're pushing yourself. You said, you know, you're getting PB's and stuff. You know, if you're your one minute power and your five minute power and, you know, 20 minute power, PBs or close to every other week, there comes a point where the body's like, I know, I've had enough of that. And all of a sudden you're not even anywhere near those PBs and you're all of a sudden you're on a plateau and that's demoralizing too. So while the bunch ride is fun, when you're plateauing and your mates are going faster than you now and you can't pull turns. maybe that affects the motivation. I there's certainly been a story of my past, not so much anymore because I'm a lot smarter, I listen to people like you now, but in the past, that's where I've been. Yeah, in science, we call it social facilitation. Right? know, when you put yourself in an environment where you're surrounded by people say pushing harder than you, the sciences has researched this topic a bit and it applied to both this research on both, like, sort of real world sport and eSports. So they've had the same outcomes indoors and outdoors on this and people were able to achieve more PBs within that social Ben Treble (07:45.496) group environment than outside of it. So there's still, think there's a lot of value to be had from Bunchrides, but it comes back to the individual and I think the timing of their program. So with my writers, yeah, with my writers, what we try to do is let's say you have a goal, a target event that's in four months time. Maybe within the base training, that's the time where we're going to make space for bunch rides. It might even be, or in the off season is a good time to make space for one or two depends on the individual bunch rides. But then as we get closer to the goal, we're probably going to reduce that to one bunch ride a week. And then when we'd say two months out, I'm probably going to say, look, let's keep this focused. Let's just do solo sessions for eight weeks. And at the end of the eight weeks after the target. We have a couple of weeks where we do two social rides a week to bring back some of that. The social aspect's really important, but also it's fun and motivating, I think, bunch rides for people. Okay. So what would you say then to somebody that, you know, has not negotiable to two group rides a week, but they want to improve. And I'm going to throw a curly one at you here as well. What if, what if their goal is actually to, to beat them like that? Cause we do have people that come to the RCA and like the number one goal is I want to beat my mates in the local group ride. Like that is, that is the goal, but they're also the irony of that is they're doing group rides all the time. Cam Nicholls (09:23.746) You know what I mean? So they're probably hit a plateau because they're just doing the same thing every single time and fatiguing themselves as well. I know, like I think sometimes people forget that the heart's also a muscle. And if you're like two or three times a week going to max with your heart rate, know, stretching your heart every single week, two or three times a week, even I feel like that in itself, like there comes a point in time where it's like, well, the heart doesn't tend to ache like your muscles do and your joints do. It tends to shut down the whole body when it's fatigued. So that's a pretty serious thing. Yeah, I would agree. think what needs to happen is people have to remember that the work you do in the training isn't where you get the gains. It happens afterwards in the recovery. And if you don't get enough recovery, doesn't matter. Often you see this with the people who don't follow structured training as you're talking about, they might come to the RCA all the time and say, well, you know, I'm plateauing, but I'm doing more hours and more intensive than I ever have before. Simple answer is you're not getting enough recovery and allowing the body to adapt to that training stress response. And because that's not happening, it doesn't matter how much more you push, if anything, all that's gonna do is take you from overreaching to over training and put you in a burnout mode. right, which is what we want to avoid. So sometimes you have to go slower to get faster. I would suggest to those people, pick one bunch ride a week, skip the other one. The other thing, if we think about the polarized training model, right, 80, 20, if you're too long rides of the week, a bunch rides that are high intensity. Ben Treble (11:13.582) There's a pretty good chance that you're not doing an 80 20. You're probably doing 80 20, but the 80 is hard and the 20s AC, which is, which is not what the science supports in terms of good outcomes in the longterm. So there's a balance to be had. And at some point you need to put the ego to the side. Now, if you really can't get rid of the two rides, the next step, the next best option would be. In one of those rides, I would say one of them go hell for leather, like have a free ride, bunch ride that lets you, you know, get your fix. But the second one go on it, but you have to learn to say, okay, I have to learn how to drop the wheel or go off the front and drop back at certain points, right? So that will let you control the intensity. I remember doing bunch rides and I've had friends who were training come to bunch rides and they might go off the front and do an effort. And then they'll come back and they might just sit on the back, right, to recover. And they'll actually use the bunch dynamics. They might talk to the bunch ahead of time. And I would say it's a courtesy to tell the bunch, guys, I'm actually doing a training ride. So they don't think you're just attacking the punch. So they know if you go off the front to do an effort, they're not going to chase you and kick things off. Or if they decide to kick things off, you might need to say, I've got to have the self-control to let it go and potentially get dropped on this bunch ride. Hmm. Knowing that that will help me drop them next month when I do my free ride bunch ride. Hmm. And what sort of stuff are you, you know, and this is a pretty broad question because everyone's different and everyone comes in at different levels. But let's just say as a general blanket and maybe I paint a bit of a picture here because a lot of people that come in, you know, I'll ask them and even if you look at and you go as a coach, I know you guys go a level above this because when somebody joins us, I'll incorporate, you know, Cam Nicholls (13:19.37) import three months of historical data. And if I've been doing a lot of group rides, you can see what zones that they've really been hitting and focusing on. And quite often, because there is a lot of intensity in there, there's kind of like this gray area in the middle around sort of threshold, sweet spot. And in particular, I always ask people, do you ever do exclusive zone two? They've heard about zone two and they think they do it. But like I'm talking about, no, no, you just actually go out ride for two or three hours and you just do zone two and you don't touch threshold. You really wanna focus on just nice, consistent, constant pressure at a zone two level. wow, I've never actually done that before. So there's often like looking at the data, lot of low hanging fruit items that you can focus on. So if somebody's coming to you and they're doing a lot of group rides and say their goal is to improve in the group rides, but you've now convinced them, right, we're just gonna do one a week. What are you gonna put in sort of surrounding that, you know, in terms of training for the rest of the week? I mean, how would I plan around a single bunch ride in a week? Exactly. over a time as well, over a progressed 12 week period, how would you kind of start? let's assume that at the end of the 12 weeks, they want to now, they've been getting dropped off the back and they can't pull turns, but after 12 weeks, they want to be getting to the front and pulling turns again and feeling really strong again in their group rides and impressing their mates and doing all the things that we love to do in the group rides. Ben Treble (14:59.438) I'd spend, I'd probably spend the first block weaning them off bunch rides, to be honest. So I would let them, at least the first week, I would let them have status quo, put in a couple other structured rides and see how well they can actually hit the target intensities of a recovery ride. I often find with new riders, when I give them a recovery ride, they turn it into something else. And the TSS looks way higher than it needs to be. And they don't realize that a recovery ride is very low intensity. It's like if you were running and I said, go for a walk, that's like the equivalent of, you know, think of what is a walking pace on the bike. You might think to yourself, why would I bother? That's the right pace for your recovery ride. The point that you think, well, how am I bothering with this? That's the good intensity for recovery ride. so that's where I would start. So first block, wean them off. In the middle, I would try and even get them off bunch rides completely for at least one block. I think most people are willing to do one block with no bunch rides, just do some focused efforts. In the final block, bring them back into the bunch rides once a week, manage it. And then towards the very end of a 12 week program, give them free rein on a bunch ride and see what they can do. Okay, and what sort of training would you be prescribing if they're not doing bunch rides? Well, what are they doing then? Are they just doing recovery rides? No, no, it's going to be a mixture. ideally on the weekend, you're doing, let's say one or two long rides, but let's say you get someone who has six to eight hours a week, and we're going to target for say four rides a week. We're going to do one long one on a weekend around two and a half, three and a half hours. This will be predominantly zone two with some high talk efforts. So that's a low cadence intervals in the sort of zone three range. Ben Treble (17:00.846) Then mid-week, you probably have two full days off at least, and then split up to structured intensity days, which will most likely be a mixture of either threshold, which could be over unders, for example, or might be if we want to work on via 2 max, it could be 30 15s, for example. And then we're going to have a zone two ride and potentially a zone one recovery ride. Yep, it's interesting. And just what you've said there, I mean, there's so many people out there that don't spend that much time on structured interval training. And, you know, they wonder why they struggle with recovering from, you know, doing a turn in the local bunch ride. You know, they can't go again, or, you know, they're struggling to, you know, get up a climb in their local bunch ride. And it's like, well, when you actually step away from that environment, and you target you know, specific adaptations. So, you you're over-unders, that's gonna help you with your climbing. You've probably never done this before, because you're so focused on group rides and sporadic riding, all of a sudden you're targeting something that's gonna give you a specific outcome. The same as the, you know, VO2 max, you know, interval sessions, like 30, 15s, or whatever it is. That's gonna really help you with the ability to go really hard, come back into the bunch and recover. Go really hard, come back into the bunch and recover. And it's funny when people actually take, like what you've just described. we're gonna take a step back, we're gonna just move away from that environment for a little bit, and we're gonna do some specific things that are gonna have specific outcomes, then when you get back into the group ride, you've done all these things you've never done before that are targeted for specific adaptations. it's amazing, you know, that the feedback you hear from recreationals and amateurs that actually embrace what you've just described there, Ben, and go back into that environment like, oh, okay, I get it now. If I want to be good at this, I can't just do this all the time. Having said that, I do know there are the unique individuals out there that can just do bunch rides all the time and be good at them. We've got one locally here we call the robot. We call him the robot because he's like a robot. He's genetically a little bit different. So it can be, but more often than not, and I'm certainly one of these people, if I don't go do my... Cam Nicholls (19:17.966) some targeted stuff surrounding the group rides, do my long rides in zone two, do some structured threshold, hill repeats, whatever it might be. I won't perform as well in the group ride. that's a brief overview of how you would sort of, I guess, target or improve group rides. You don't have direct research there, but you've got some indirect stuff. What does that stuff say? Is there any enlightening things that have come out of that research?... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/39195190

Boost V02 Max with Decreasing Interval Training (*Research Paper) 11/28/2025

Boost V02 Max with Decreasing Interval Training (*Research Paper) In this RCA Podcast episode, Cam Nicholls is joined by RCA coach and science expert Ben Treble, who dials in from the middle of outback Australia to unpack a brutal but fascinating VO2 max session: high-intensity decreasing interval training. This workout comes from a 2020 research paper and flips the classic VO2 script — starting with longer efforts and progressively shortening the work intervals while also reducing the “recovery” time. The goal? 👉 Spend more time above 90% VO2 max for better aerobic adaptations, without endlessly grinding through 4–5 minute repeats. Research paper here: Cam shares his first-hand experience trying the session (including why the 2-minute rep hurt the most), and Ben breaks down: How the workout is structured and what intensities to target Why some athletes respond really well — and others… not so much Where this fits into a VO2 max “toolkit” alongside 30/15s and classic intervals How to think about specificity, timing in the season, and variety in your training Whether using ERG mode on the trainer is “cheating” (hint: it isn’t) If you’d like this workout built properly into your own training, check out the RCA 12-Week Custom Plan, where you work 1:1 with an RCA coach to tailor sessions to your goals, schedule, and current fitness. Takeaways A really important part of all training is variation. People do respond differently to different workouts. You can easily keep it interesting. I call it like a VO2 max toolkit. You've got the classic four or five minute intervals. You could use these decreasing working time intervals. Variation is key for effective training. Different workouts yield different responses. VO2 max workouts can be diverse and engaging. Incorporating variety enhances performance. RCA 12 Week Plan: Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:00.302) So welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined by one of the RCA coaches, Ben Treble, a science expert who's been with us many times before and is currently out on the road somewhere in the middle of Australia on some huge trip. Where are you Ben right now? It looks like you're in the middle of the country somewhere. Yeah, thanks Cam. I'm currently in the Northern Territory on one of the bigger cattle stations called Newcastle Waters. I'm just here overnight at the moment and then we'll keep heading north this afternoon towards Catherine. Yeah, nice. That room you're in looks like there might have been a few backpack backers murdered in that in the past. Looks nice and dodgy. Yeah, I won't go into it, but we're going to go through a town called Laramma that has an ongoing murder investigation. Oh, there you go. Yeah, it's a bit dodgy out that way, but it looks like you're having a good time watching your social media. So yeah, keep it up. Enjoy it. Today I wanted to talk about a science-based workout that's been going through the RCA coaching, you know, discussions recently. It was put up in our WhatsApp chat and we've created our own workout within Training Peaks that we've started to prescribe members to give a go. And I gave it a go myself this week. Cam Nicholls (01:22.234) And I've sent you the paper. I actually haven't read the paper yet. So I'm hoping you can give us a bit of background on this science-backed workout that's, guess, relatively new and there's a bit more work that needs to be done in the space. But I'll give you my thoughts on the workout. But before I do that, can you tell us, you know, what is this workout and what exactly are we looking at in terms of, you know, outcomes from a fitness adaptation perspective. There was a paper by S. Lazar and Co. It was actually published in 2020. So I wouldn't say it's that new, but possibly the adoption of it is new. So they call it high intensity decreasing interval training, which is fancy word for doing high intensity intervals. And as you progress through the intervals in the workout, they're decreasing the work duration of each interval. So the quick example. Say the first interval, you do it around three minutes. Then you have two minutes rest. Then you do a two minute interval, where that's the work duration. And then you have, say, around 80 seconds or 1 and 1.5 minutes rest. Then you do a one minute work interval, 40 seconds rest, 40 seconds down to 30 rest. And then it's 30 second work intervals until fatigue. What range are we working at? we working at VO2 max? Are we working threshold? What are we doing? Ben Treble (02:54.38) It's via to max. So the primary goal of this paper, and I guess this workout, it was to compare different interval workout types. So they had short, like classic fear to workouts. And then they had longer intervals, a reminder for the audience that anything above your threshold essentially just requires duration, but you can reach your fear to max at any intensity above threshold. it just takes longer. So if you're say, if you're 105 % above threshold, you can still reach via two max, but it might take you 25 minutes to get there. Right. And so the crux of the paper and a lot of these via two max workouts around what's the best workout to improve via two max, that's really where they come from is how do we make these interval workouts more effective? And it's based on That's a big assumption, but it's pretty validated that the more time you spend above 90 % VO2 max, the better the increase in VO2 max. So the better the adaptation outcome. And so they're trying to design and get creative around these interval workouts. What is the best interval workout structure that lets you spend more time above that 90 % VO2 max for less effort. Okay. And looking at the paper and the participants and the results, was there anything worthy to note? Yeah, yeah, it's keep in mind, it's a single paper is a pretty small sample size. So they had 12 cyclists, middle age, so around their 40s, they're moderately to well trained. So they had around a via two maxes of around 55 give or take. So that's just the population group of this study. So it's important to keep that in mind. And what they found was Ben Treble (05:01.358) that you spent significantly more time in this high intensity decreasing interval type of workout compared to small or long intervals for VO2 max. What's important though, I think in this paper is that there's a high amount of standard deviation. So for example, one of the measurements was they spent around 312 seconds. above that 90 % VO2 max, but your standard deviation was 207 seconds. So you had some responders in this sample group who might only have spent essentially what is an insignificant from a scientific standpoint, amount of time different to the other workout types. So some people had no more benefit that was measurable by doing this versus short intervals. But some people had very large responses to it compared to the short and long intervals. And this is a trend in most of these, you you and I have talked about 3015 as a really good VO2 workout before from Ben Ronestadt. And even with within that, and he's done multiple papers on it, so then the research is a bit more conclusive, I would say that it's a very good recommendation. This paper is good. And I think it's a really nice indicator to say potentially, this has a lot of good potential. But it's not a guarantee that it would work for you. Okay, so going to the workout structure and how to do it because the thing I liked about it is I'd actually never done it before. I've done a lot of VO2 max training sessions, know, 30-15s, which we talked about, I started to incorporate that a fair bit after we sort of made some content on it. And, you know, I found that to be quite effective. I hadn't done a lot of Cam Nicholls (07:00.622) 30, 15s in the past, so it was new. You get a bit of a dopamine kick out of it when you've been riding for a long period of time and it's a new workout to try. And you see a result as well, so that was good. In the past, I've done a lot of more sustained VO2 style sessions, like sustained three to four minute efforts, maybe if I'm out on the road, five minutes. But never this decreasing style session where you you start off and this is what I want to validate with you because I think maybe what I've done was, you know, Ryan, our head coach dropped it in my training peaks and he said, look, this is where you start. Because obviously there's a starting point for these workouts and you can progress from there. But it sounds like what this paper is indicating is a little bit different to what I did, which was, I guess, dipping my toe in the water with this workout where I did a warmup. I then did some activation efforts. I then got into the first set. and the first set was three minutes on, and this was, know, at, you know, VO two high VO two, two minutes, I wouldn't say recovery. It was probably, top end zone too. so for me, that was about my, was, try and operate just over 400 Watts for the three minutes. And then I came back down to two 50 ish. for two minutes. And then I did two minutes back around 400 or just over 400. And then I came back to 80 seconds at 250-ish. And then I did a minute at around, you know, just over 400. And then I think it was 40 seconds maybe, or 45 seconds, I can't recall exactly, back at 250. And then I did the 30 seconds. And then I went back down to 250 and then I did a recovery at like 150 Watts or something like that for seven minutes. And then I did a second set of that. But it sounds like in this paper, you continue on with the 30 seconds is what you said until you reach a fatigue state. Whereas I didn't do that. And I'm assuming, you know, the reason behind that is Ryan's like, well, you've never done this before. Cam Nicholls (09:26.114) And I also indicated that I've been training for a triathlon and I hadn't done much VO2 work recently. So was a little bit, know, unconditioned for VO2. So he was aware of that. So what he's prescribed to me as a starting point sounds like it's not exactly what's put in the paper. Is that correct? Yeah, you're on the money. It's probably important when we talk about the intensity in the paper, essentially they talk about the on and the off phase of the work and the rest components of those intervals. And they primarily did this using their VIA2max measurements, but they made some correlations to critical power, which they measured in the paper as well. And so the relationship that they made was that the on phase was around 117 % of critical power and the off was around 83 % of critical power. So you're pretty spot on with what Ryan had you at. So, you know, that hundred and around the 115, 120 % of threshold was the hard. So like a via two max effort, it's pretty common. And then the off phase, a high zone too, I would say it's even maybe like get reaching into zone three at 83 % of critical power for the off. So it's not an easy off. No, it's quite, it's quite key because when I first saw this and you sent it to me, my immediate thought was the recovery periods are way too long. Your heart rate will drop too much and the VO2 response will drop in those large rest periods too much. But then when I saw that the off phase was actually quite hard still at 83 % of threshold, That's what helps keep the heart rate high and it's keeping that VO2 response high through the rest period. And then obviously, as you progress through those, you know, decreasing intervals, the work period and the rest period is decreasing at the same time. And when the work and rest is both decreasing, it's just maintaining that high VO2 max percentage towards the end of the workout. Exactly as you said, yeah, the goal is, and what they did in the study is that once you got to the 30 second Ben Treble (11:41.824) interval mark, you had to repeat those until failure. So that's probably the key difference between what you did and what the paper did. But I think for our listeners, you know, you're still going to get a really good workout. If you just get to the first 30 second interval without continuing to failure, right? At the end of the day with all hit workouts, time is, know, and availability is one of the challenges for all athletes. So if you only have an hour to train and that's what you can fit in, I think it's a really good idea to give it a crack. So in the paper then, once they went to failure on the 30 seconds, did they then have a recovery period and do another set? Or is just one sequence? Ben Treble (12:33.568) No, no. So they would do, for example, they would do this when they once they got to the decreased 30 seconds, there was 20 seconds rest. And then they would do another 30 seconds. And if they can't hold the power, that's when they would kill the session. But what I'm saying is that, so once they got to that sort of failure point in those 30 second intervals, would they have a recovery period? Like I did, I had a seven minute recovery period and then I did another set. in the paper it sounds like that wasn't the case. Single set, it's interesting. So what Ryan has had prescribed me is, I guess iteration of the paper. single sets. Cam Nicholls (13:18.862) without the 30 second to failure and doing another set. And what he said he's done for a form of progression is at another set, like a third set. And he finds that that's actually really difficult. And for me, even though I haven't done a of VO2 max work, I'm relatively conditioned to interval training and I've done it for 15 years and VO2 max. And I just found those two sets really actually quite a lot of hard work to do two of those sets, know, stopping at the 30 seconds and the the hardest repetition was actually the two minute repetition, not the three minute at the start or not the 30 second at the end, because I feel like that two minute recovery that you get after the three minutes at VO2 or just a bit over. You know, at what did you say, 83 % of critical power. Yeah, which for me, 250 watts is borderline zone three in our seven zone, you power model. I did feel like I didn't get enough recovery. So when you start the, you know, the two minutes back at over 400 watts and you're not fully recovered, that two minutes goes for a very long time. Yeah, it's a it's a pretty brutal session. I mean, I'm not surprised that the first one felt okay, especially if you've done a good warm up because your via to max is still going to be ramping up. And as it's ramping up, you're going to lean on and your respiratory rate hasn't fully increased yet. Right. So it's, you can even see it in the paper as you look at the the oxygen consumption line through this decreasing intervals that in the first one, it's increasing and it it peaks at the end of that three minutes, right? And then you get the recovery. And when you start that two minute effort, you're already at like peak respiratory rate and your oxygen consumption is already very high. to me, that kind of makes a bit of sense that it feels pretty hard. All the first interval felt easier than the next one. Cam Nicholls (15:28.91) in next one. Yeah, it was actually the second repetition in the second interval. So that two minute in the second set, that was by far the most challenging because I feel like, you know, one minutes, you you can get through one minute mentally pretty easily. 30 seconds you can get through, even though it's still hurting. But yeah, two minutes can be a long time on an indoor trainer at VO2 max when you're not fully recovered. So yeah, it was. It was an interesting workout. I think it's, you know, going back to, you know, what you're saying about the paper is it didn't, you know, even though it's a small sample size and it's, you know, one paper, you know, it's, it's, you know, probably suggesting that it's not going to work for everyone, but it is going to work for, for certain people. And, you know, if you're doing VO2 max training and you're a bit sick and tired of doing your standard go-to if you've done 30-15s for a long period of time or if you've done sustained efforts. From a variability perspective, there's probably a lot of value in it just in that. What would you say to that, Yeah, I think there's a lot of value in it. You know, I had a couple key takeaways around when I read this one was that, you know, a really important part of all training is variation. And I think it's important even when we read papers, it's to remember, okay, people do respond differently to different workouts. But when we need variation, you know, you can do the 30-15s. And if you're doing a VO2 max block, You can easily keep it interesting. You can have this, I call it like a VO2 max toolkit of different VO2 max workouts where you've got, for example, the 30-15s, you've got the classic four or five minute intervals. You could use these decreasing working time intervals. And you can use one that we've done before or talked about a little bit where you have like a classic, say, four or five minute interval where the first two minutes is. Ben Treble (17:28.27) you know, around 130 % of threshold and then you go into the 120 % threshold. So you start hard and then finish not quite so hard. So I think it's nice in this sense. Like I saw it, I read about it. I think it has a lot of good potential. And based on the paper, like I will be adding it to my Fiat 2 Max toolkit. And I think everybody should consider giving it a crack. The other bit that I think is important to remember is specificity in training. So, you know, and the timing of it. So depending on the time in the season, if it's just like a capacity block and you want to build via two maxes capacity, you could throw it into the mix along with some other workouts. But as you get more specific, if you're someone who does a road race that has lots of mixed intensities, I would say there's probably some benefits of doing this decreasing interval version because you're teaching the body to work at via two max at different interval durations, right? Like two minutes, 30 seconds, two minutes, like different versions. Whereas if you're to do, something where you know you're going to do five minute efforts a lot or 10 minute efforts, then you probably want to grow yourself into those via 2Max efforts more than these. Yep. No, good point. One, one final thing that I'll add from my experiences with the workout and I'm keen to get your perspectives as a coach. Uh, so the first set, I just struggled a little bit, uh, from a mental perspective. Like I was just couldn't get the power consistent. was kind of, I was a little bit above 400, but then I'll drop down to like 380 and 370 and then I'll get back to 420. And I was all over the place and I just, I was losing a bit of concentration. think my motivation levels are a bit low as well after training for a triathlon, doing something that I didn't actually want to do. But, you know, what I did after that first set is I just locked it in erg mode. going, you know what? Like I'm not having a good time on the trainer, you know, managing this with my own, you know, my own mental capabilities right now. And I just... Cam Nicholls (19:45.646) gave control of the trainer and said, you know, I'm just going to do the rest of the new, but I did the second set where it was just like bang on 400 Watts and then bang on 250 Watts and bang on 400 Watts bang on 250 Watts and I didn't have to worry about it. So is that kind of mid workout strategy based off of my headspace at the time? Like what do you say to that? I think he did well to adapt to, you know, you had the self awareness to know, okay, this isn't going to work today, right? To do the workout off erg mode. And I think it's a exactly why we have erg mode in my view. I'm not anti erg mode. I think if you can do workouts without it, that's really good. The scientific side of me says I always like to do erg mode because then I know the workouts exactly the same. And when I compare week one to... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/39195120

Life as a Directeur Sportif (Matt Wilson on Orica GreenEDGE *2014-2020) 11/13/2025

Life as a Directeur Sportif (Matt Wilson on Orica GreenEDGE *2014-2020) Summary The conversation delves into the intricate logistics involved in organising a cycling race, particularly a Grand Tour, highlighting the challenges of managing teams and maintaining motivation in a high-performance environment. Through the lense of a Sports Director / Directeur Sportif. In this case, Matt Wilson, who was the Directeur Sportif for Orica Green Edge from 2013/14 - 2020. Takeaways Cycling races involve complex logistics with multiple vehicles and staff. Managing a cycling team requires keeping everyone motivated and happy. Creating a cohesive vision among diverse teams is crucial for success. The environment in cycling is high-pressure and requires effective management. Logistics in cycling are more complicated than in many other sports. Team dynamics play a significant role in achieving performance goals. Each race involves staying in different hotels every night. The number of people involved in a cycling race is substantial. Maintaining a positive atmosphere is essential for team performance. The challenges of cycling logistics are often underestimated. Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:00.056) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined by Matt Wilson and Matt's a neighbour of mine and he's also co-founded the Pro Velo Super League which we just talked about in the previous podcast. If you want to hear about that, go back and listen to the last podcast. But Matt, which we didn't talk about in the last podcast, also has quite an illustrious, is that the word, cycling career and spent a lot of time as a pro and also as a DS, a director sportif. And as I'm... just starting to get a flavor for what's involved. Not that I'm doing the DS role myself, that's Ryan Thomas, the head coach at the RCA, but I'm hearing about all the things he's doing. I'm like, wow, there's a lot of work here. And Matt, you spent eight years as one. thought, why don't we just spend half an hour here or 20 minutes or half an hour. I'm just gonna take chatting about what does a DS actually do? Because you kind of watch unchained documentary, which a lot of people would have watched, and you see this guy in the car yelling at the riders. it's like, is... Is that all they do? Just tell them to ride faster. Which is clearly not the case, but I think a lot of people obviously don't have an idea and I'm curious myself to learn. But before we go into that, I do need to ask you a pretty hard hitting question here. And that is, you rode pro for a number of years. You won the Sun Tour, Australian road champion, you rode tour to France, know, top 10 at the TDU. Why do you never come to the famous Noosa Tuesday World Champs? Never seen you there. What's going on? I have done it just before your time. really? Sprint for the blue letterbox? Okay. Exactly. Yeah. Now it's the red letter box. Someone painted it a different color and you can't, it can't be changed on Strava. It's still the blue letter box. Matt Wilson (01:40.194) Yeah, right. No, no, I did it back in the day. But yeah, no, not in recent history. You just don't ride anymore, is you? I do but I'm just so busy and I sort of you know if I do ride it's 45 minutes down to Parisian and I turn around and I come back and that's it that's that that's my riding couple days a week. Not even. Two hours a week would be a really good week. So you're doing two, three hours a week? Oh. Not even? Cam Nicholls (02:08.032) Right. Do you miss it? Yeah, I do. I don't miss the professional hours and training as a job, but I miss being fit. I miss going out with the guys. I guess that single-minded focus of just all I have to worry about today is just a six hour ride and getting home smashed and just sitting in the couch and recovering and that kind of simple life. is still attractive now and you're working sort of 10, 12 hours a day and got three kids and juggling, you know, regular life stuff that people have to have to deal with. But, know, as an athlete, you don't. Yeah, okay. So you don't have any appetite to get fit enough to come do the World Champs on a Tuesday. It'd be great to see you there. Anyway, sorry. This podcast isn't about the World Champs, but it's become quite a well-known ride because I've made a lot of content on it and there's another content creator who's done a bit of content on it and yeah, gets quite a few people there now. They broke the record the other day actually. Really? Well, there was... How many guys to get? Cam Nicholls (03:14.254) There was one guy that rocked up on a TT bike with his sperm helmet and his disc wheel and he was the one that basically did it. But it's funny, like the day that happened, the whole bunch was with him. About 30 minutes prior, a whole bunch of professional triathletes went out and did the same course with six TT bikes and they went and smashed it as well. So it got smashed twice. It had been a record for like seven years and it got beaten twice in one day. yeah. Alright. Cam Nicholls (03:43.182) Your role as a DS, you were with Orica and you're a DS there from 2014 was it? To 2020-ish? Yes. Yeah. If my numbers are right. Yeah. I signed a contract when Green Edge Cycling started, Orica Green Edge, was one year sports director, sorry, one year rider, two years sports director. So I did the first year of the team, which I think was 2013, And stepped into the car. Actually at the end of 2013, I switched. So my last race was Hamburg Classic. And then the next race was the Vuelta and I was a director at the Vuelta. Yeah, okay. So as a pro rider, how long were you a pro rider for exactly? 10 or 11 years. 10 or 11 years. So you obviously exposed to the direct to sportive role during that time, you know, quite intimately. What was it about being a rider and seeing that role that made it appealing for you when you retired from being a professional cyclist? Matt Wilson (04:46.54) It was never appealing for the vast majority of my career. The vast majority of my career. Yeah. Look, last, probably the last three or four years of my career, I started to take on a more leadership role on the road and started to become that road captain. And as that started to form, I started to feel like that might be somewhere that I'm going to move into. I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to do when I retired around that time. Ruh! Something changed though along the way, obviously. Matt Wilson (05:15.446) So as that started to become more obvious that that was where I was going to go. And I actually, the year I signed with Orica Green Edge, I had offers from other teams as sports director as well. So that was clearly where people saw me going. And that was where I saw myself going and just sort of grew into it. at that time, believed that sitting in the car, like you said, yelling on the radio and doing the team meetings in the bus was all you saw. You you thought that was the whole job, but essentially that's the tip of the iceberg sticking out the water, you know, and when you go underneath the water, the mountain of ice is really below and that's what all the work is. What you see at the top there, that's the fun part. Right. Getting in the car. So even like the layman sitting over here watching Unchained and seeing the DS in the bus talking about the race before the race happens and then yelling in the team car, that's almost what you only saw as well as or thought as a rider as well. Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, especially as an athlete, you've got tunnel vision. You see what you see in the world that you have and you think that's the world. And then when you get, when you retire, the blink has come off and you see what the real world really is. It makes a lot of sense. So maybe you could tell me, I don't know, you know, we could probably talk for hours, but is there like five, 10, know, even 15, whatever it is, like critical things you do as a DS? If you had to break down, like what are the top things you have to do in a list of five to 10? Perhaps things that people, you know, outside of yelling on the team radio and talking in the bus before the riders race, like what are you actually doing? Matt Wilson (06:59.982) Look, a good DS is a logistics guru. Right, okay. So you need to be able to work with multiple teams, 20, 30 staff, eight riders and bring that whole group together in an efficient way. When you say teams, mean like teams within your team. Teams within the team. You've got your sporting department. You've got your high performance department. You've got your mechanics. You've got your soigneurs. You've got your management group and trying to bring all that together. And, and, know, on a cycling race, especially a grand tour, you're talking about the three week map of, you know, insanity. You've got, you've got two buses, you've got two trucks. You've got, you know, maybe a dozen cars, a couple of vans, a food truck. And you're staying in a different hotel every night. Like I said, with a staff of 38 riders, it's complicated, very, very complicated logistics, more than most events. that's one part of the puzzle, which is really difficult. Keeping those teams happy, keeping those teams motivated, keeping those teams on point, those teams within the teams that I just mentioned, and bringing them all together to one vision, one cohesive vision, which is trying to get whatever result it is you're trying to get and achieve and bring that through in a happy environment, high performance environment is incredibly difficult because you're talking about a lot of different personalities, a lot of different personalities. So, and as a sports director, you're the leader of that group, of that team going to those races. So that's very difficult. Then you've got the tactical, the race tactical side. Matt Wilson (08:46.7) So understanding what's going on in the race, where are the opportunities? What are the other teams going to do today? How can we capitalize on those? What's going to help our position? What's going to help our result? Working with those riders and understanding that you've got eight individuals who've probably got individual capacity to win or desires to win motivations, what motivates those riders and trying to bring them together in a team to for one. in most cases for one or two riders to get a result. So balancing all of their ambitions and balancing it in a way that it creates a high performance environment is incredibly difficult. So they're kind of the main things that you're juggling at all times. So, and just if we can double down on that one because I find that one really interesting. Do you like going into a grand tour, you obviously have a strategy, but then I'm assuming things change very dramatically and can change very quickly. How do you, what are your tactics to deal with? you know those situations do you have before you go into a grant or do you have a plan B and a plan C and a plan D if someone has a crash or somebody does something wrong like how does how does that look Yeah, look, mean, every director's different. You know, I've come through and seen directors that I've worked with as a writer and directors that I've worked with as a director. And everyone's got different style. And you can have very authoritarian directors, which is I've got one plan. Everyone does what I want. If they don't do what I want, you're out. It's a very hard lined, immobile... Matt Wilson (10:36.974) and direct. So, you know, what me, myself, I was probably the complete opposite. So I was very open to, to feedback from riders, very open to ideas from riders. At the end of the day, the ride is the one that's on the road that sees everything. you know, when I was a captain at a bike race, I know the level of what was going on in the bunch because I was there and I remember what it was like and I knew what to do. at all times because you had all the information. You knew which way the wind was coming from. You know who'd been on the front. You know who was going well, who wasn't going well. You knew if you were going to get that break back or not. You knew everything because you had all the information in the race. As a sports director, you're 20, 30 cars back, maybe with some sketchy vision if you're lucky. And you've got riders that you can barely hear on the radio. And you've got a radio tour coming back to you with time gaps. like a little detective back there trying to figure it all out. And it's gotten better since I've retired because I speak to a lot of sports directors now with the technology they use to gather that information. essentially, you're trying to make decisions as best you can. if the plan changes, or from my side anyway, if the plan changes, I speak to the riders in the race, what are they doing? What are they going on? What do you think? And then you sit down and you work through, you know, is that right? Are trying to tell you something for their own benefit? Cause you get a lot of personalities like that. So you got to wade through the information a little bit. but I try and make the best information I could and, and, and make a plan, but you need to be able to pivot. need to be able to change. nowadays the racing seems a lot less structured than it used to be. It seems like they can attack at any point. pit they happy just to throw a carton of eggs against the wall and just see what happens. Where back in my day it was much more, know, if you had tact you had a plan why you were attacking. I don't know. Cam Nicholls (12:44.078) Oh, so now it's way more unpredictable. Way more unpredictable. Really interesting. And you can't put your finger on as to why? I don't know why, but it's a, this no plan is now plan kind of plan seems to be, it seems to be the norm, which is, which should be terribly hard as a sports director nowadays to navigate. Yeah, interesting. I interviewed a Swiss rider, his name's eluding me at the moment. He raced for 17 year pro, Mickey Shaw. Mickey Shaw, there we go. In 2022, I think I interviewed him, the year before he retired. he was, because he'd been racing for 17 years. And he was saying to me that in his time, what he'd noticed with racing is, you you'd have races where it was kind of like, you know, like Tour Down Under was just more of a warm-up race for the year. And these were more warm-up races and these were more serious races. And over the years, particularly in the last few years, he said at the time that he felt like every race had become full gas and full on, like there was no more easier races. So I don't know if that plays into what you're saying, but that was an interesting anecdote from him, I thought. No, mean, like the money's gone up incredibly. The coverage with it, the sports science has gone up. think the experience of the bunch as a whole has gone down. So if you think about it, back in my day, you'd be amateur for three or four years minimum. And in that time, you'd do 80 to 100 days of racing a year as an amateur. Matt Wilson (14:28.108) And then you would turn professional and you turn professional and you'd have two years on minimum wage and you wouldn't get a chance to win anything. You did, you did a job every day and then you slowly started to develop and you got leadership opportunities and your career sort of went on from there. So by the time you were professional, especially by the time you're professional in racing at the front of the bunch, you had done four or 500 days of racing at a high level. So you were experienced. And what age would you typically be? Like after 25? Yeah. You're probably turning pro at 22, 23 was early. Yeah. Okay. So a lot of guys, I was 24 when I turned professional. So you could, you could sign a lot later. So the average experience in the bunch was a lot higher where now there's kids turning professional at 18 years of age, 17 years of age. They've done 20 races as an amateur, as a junior. training has gone to another level. So they are physically strong. can put out as much power, know, more power than we ever could. At that age. The high performance side has gone up hugely. So you've got these huge engines with no experience thrown into a situation where they're racing, racing for sheep stations at every race. so there are no, so bunches become a lot sketchier. That's interesting. I'd never thought of that. Matt Wilson (15:57.698) Yeah, and the racing style has just become a lot more out of control. Yeah, there you go. So going back to the DS, so obviously there's a lot to manage. There's a lot of moving parts, a lot of logistics, as you said. If we break down a year, like what would a typical year look like? Because I look at professional riders and they seem to target specific races and then they may not race at certain races, they might go into training and they may come home or whatever. But I look at the... the team infrastructure that sits behind the riders, including the DS, are you just away all year? Do you ever come home? Are you just on from the time the TDU hits till whenever the last race of the year is late October or whatever? Is it just constant mayhem? What does the year look like for a DS? Yeah, look, I mean, it depends what your specific DS role is. you know, traditionally there'd be a head DS, which would be in charge of signing riders and, you know, building the team for the next season, planning out the races, planning out which riders will do which races, individual performance plans for each rider. And so that sort of role. Which was your role? Matt Wilson (17:15.018) No, I've never had DS. Okay. No. So if I talk about what my role would have been, and it's hard to sort of say when the season starts, but let's just say it starts in December of the year before. Normally you'd run a training camp sometime in that early season with the whole new team, get them in. And at that stage it's probably less about the training and more about team building and getting together. Obviously it's the training as well. But sitting down with each rider and mapping out the year. Saying, you know, what went wrong last year? What are we going to focus on for next year? What's your personal goals? What's the team goals? This is what your program is going to look like, roughly. You normally map out at least until the Giro. So you knew for sure what that early season looks like and then sort of have an idea with the middle season what it's probably going to look like and then the back end just wait. injuries, illnesses, everything changes sort of in that back end of the year. having a sit down with each one of those riders and just mapping out that whole thing, giving them the time to unload on what they really want. And you'd sit down and be all the directors, you'd have the head coach, you'd have different people from the high performance team all there sort of chiming in. So they'll get a really good idea of where that rider's at. Do those conversations always go well? I can imagine there might be bit of pushback. Yeah, but obviously you're dealing with a of personality. So do you often get pushback? Like people leave those meetings and they're frustrated because they want more out of their year versus what's been articulated from say you and the wider team? Yeah. So how do you deal with It really depends on the writer. Matt Wilson (18:56.13) Yeah, sometimes. Yeah. It really, it depends. Some writers can be, can walk in there, you know, full of, full of themselves. They're going to do this. They want to do that. they, they've surrounded themselves with people that have been telling them that. And they, and they believe they're at a different level to what, you know, we believe they're at. And that's difficult. Of course. Yeah. That's a really difficult conversation. Been telling him that. Matt Wilson (19:21.922) And there's some writers that come in and I can remember Simon Gerens as an example of this. And, you know, we had done 20 writers over the past three or four days and a... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/39029185

The ProVelo Super League & Reviving Australia's Competitive Cycling Scene 11/13/2025

The ProVelo Super League & Reviving Australia's Competitive Cycling Scene Summary In this episode, Matt Wilson, co-founder of the Pro Velo Cycling League, discusses the inception and purpose of the league, the challenges faced by Australian cycling, and the cultural shifts affecting competitive cycling. He shares insights from the league's first season, innovations planned for the future, and strategies for funding and sponsorship. The conversation also touches on the importance of engaging viewers through content creation and the league's commitment to fostering international participation in cycling events. Provelo webite: Takeaways The Pro Velo Cycling League aims to revitalize Australian cycling. A healthy elite domestic cycling scene is vital for youth development. Rising costs and lack of volunteers are major challenges for cycling events. Cultural shifts have led to decreased participation in competitive cycling. Innovative technology is being integrated into cycling broadcasts. Funding and sponsorship are crucial for the league's sustainability. Engaging content creation is key to attracting viewers and sponsors. The league is open to international teams and riders. Prize money is currently low but aims to improve with funding. The league's long-term vision includes a crowdfunding campaign for support. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Pro Velo Cycling League 03:44 The Purpose and Vision Behind Pro Velo 10:27 Challenges Facing Domestic Cycling in Australia 17:49 Lessons Learned from the First Season 24:02 Prize Money and Future Plans 30:31 Sponsorship and Team Dynamics Cam Nicholls (00:00.13) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined by Matt Wilson who is the co-founder of the Pro Velo Cycling League. Also as a neighbour of mine, so I wanted to bring him in today to talk about the Pro Velo team. Our reason being the RCA is actually putting together a team for next year and we'll go through why and who the riders are and who our sponsors are towards the back end of this discussion. But Matt, I wanted to pose this question to you because a lot of people that listen to our podcast, they're... American, they're UK European, Canadian, they might be wondering what the hell is the Pro Velo League, what is this all about? in its simplest form, can you explain to us what it is? So the genesis of it, I guess, came about two years ago, two and a half, three years ago actually, probably when it started. I used to run an NRS race and the NRS series was the National Road Series in Australia, was the top domestic road cycling series. And that had been going for about 20 years. And I'd seen it when I was a rider, as a young rider, and then obviously transitioned into a different role as I went along. And eventually started the Australian Cycling Academy. And this part of that, we started a race, an NRS race up on the Sunshine Coast, which was called Cycle Sunshine Coast. in that 20 year period, we saw it go from strength to strength down to what was basically running at six o'clock in the morning with a chalk line on the road, getting the riders out there and just creating some sort of race for people to race. was no commercial value. Sponsors coming into the sport were getting nothing. Events were struggling to break even. teams were struggling. So there was no commercial model there anymore and the whole thing was about to fall over. There's only a few races left on the calendar that had any sort of security. So I had in my mind from a team point of view, from a rider point of view, from a race organizer point of view, what was needed to turn it around. And essentially we needed a bucket of money to come into the sport and we needed to create a commercial model that made sense. Matt Wilson (02:08.248) that meant it was more cost effective for teams to come to races. It made sense for young riders to be able to come and race in the season. And it made sense for events because they could get eyeballs on it again. People would come and watch the race. Sponsors could get involved. There would be TV broadcast for to get some return on their investment for the sponsors. So everything needed to get switched. And we tried to create a model that encapsulated all of that. So compact season. three months, a narrative that the public could understand, bringing the racing back to the people. So running it at times of day where people will go and watch in areas that they can come and see it to create a good live broadcast that was cost effective, but gave return on investment for riders and teams and event sponsors. And create an exciting racing platform that is dynamic, that is more accessible to all. which is more open to results, not dominated by one team, basically. So it made the racing more competitive. And that's what the Pro Velo Super League is. So we started, we had to create three new events in our first season. was last year? Which was last year. this year. I'm forgetting what year we're in now. So we created three new events as part of the league and then we took the three oldest and most established national series races which is Tour of Tasmania, the Melbourne to Warrnambool and the Grafton to Inverrell and we encapsulated those into those three new events that we started and launched the league. Cam Nicholls (03:46.35) Yeah, well, okay. And so what's the purpose of it? Like, why do it at all? So, like I said, the sport was dying in Australia. was going to say the sport, talking about like the amateur top level road scene, which is like your segue to your next step into Asia or your next step overseas. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So the world tour level stuff is going great. Is it? That exists overseas. Yep. Got the tour down under in Australia, Cuddell Evans Great Ocean Road Race. That's great. But other than that, it exists overseas. It doesn't exist in Australia. And everything else from club level through to the top domestic level is struggling and dying. And the pathway is especially important. So if club level cycling exists, and a good young rider comes through, starts to win some club level races and then wants to go to the next level. If there's no pathway, there's no stepping stone with a top elite domestic cycling series, where does that rider go? They're going to have to go straight to Europe. And that's a big, big jump for any rider to take from club level. Cam Nicholls (04:58.008) seen it. To Europe. You're no better than me but I've just seen it just knowing a few guys. From top level domestic competition to Europe is a massive step. A massive step that most riders can't get over. But from club level to there, it's almost an impossible task. So we need to have a healthy, elite domestic cycling scene. It's vital to Australian road cycling and without it, yeah, the sport will go backwards in this country. There's just no doubt about it. And it's become so expensive to run races in Australia that we need to have a healthy commercial model around it to support that cycling scene. Why has it become so expensive? Police costs have, since I started running races, which was six years ago now, have probably gone up four times. Four years. It's probably our most expensive item line now is just police costs. So you're seeing more and more closed circuit races. So fixed criteria and courses that are purpose made criteria and courses, motorsport park courses, because these don't require police or traffic management. So between the police, the traffic management and the insurance, that's half your event costs gone already. Cam Nicholls (05:47.372) times in six years. Matt Wilson (06:08.898) And you haven't even stuck a barrier up or, you know, put any infrastructure in or anything. it's just become incredibly expensive and, and difficult to run events out on roads. People don't want events out on roads. The public don't like it. There's crashes and people who crash sue, sue their event organizers or sue the police for having a crash. And, you know, all these things increase the insurance, increase the costs, increase the liability and event organizers become less excited about running cycling races. Okay. Well, that's frustrating and disappointing to hear, but understandable. You mentioned as well about, you know, cycling struggling at a club level. I've certainly seen that. I remember like going back to even 2018 when I was leaving Melbourne and moving to the Sunshine Coast and there was the Tuesday nights at Sandown in Melbourne hosted by Caulfield Carnegie. I remember for years A grade, B grade, C grade, you know, they had 60 to 80 riders. It was jam packed every Tuesday. And then once, I don't know what it was, but it was around 2018. Those numbers just started to dwindle down to 30 to 40, 20 to 30. And it's like, what's going on? And I remember it's like, seeing it with my own eyes. And it just seems to have dwindled ever since. And obviously COVID hit, which probably didn't help. But what do you think it is? Obviously you've got your hand on the pulse here at that kind of club level and even at a race level, know, like domestic racing external to like national road series going back that long. So like tour of bright numbers were diminishing as well. do you have any, I know you're probably speculating, but any thoughts as to what it is? Yeah, I've got theories. Shoot. Look, I think we're seeing now a generation of riders that came through the, everyone gets a ribbon generation, you know? So competition was looked at a bit differently when these kids were growing up than when I was growing up. And I feel like they battle a lot with turning up to a race and not winning and what that psychological effect on them. Matt Wilson (08:21.838) I don't know, but there's definitely not an appetite to put themselves out there and just race and just race for racers sake. I mean, the Nusa Criterium was on two weeks ago. It's still probably the richest race in Australia. was $5,000 first prize for a 30 minute criteria. And they struggled to get over 30 entries. Now in my day, if someone had put up a thousand dollars for a criteria, you would have 200 people turn up. even though, you know, more than half that field had no chance of winning it. The fact that it was good prize money, that there was something to race there for, people would get out there and they would race and they'd race hard and they'd get together in groups and try and form little teams and do whatever they can to get a chop of the prize money. there was a different culture back then to racing and that culture I don't feel like is there anymore and people are scared and protective. So there's a cultural change there in terms of club level racing. Clubs are finding it impossible now. Okay, the costs are going up for them just like everybody else, but they can't find volunteers anymore. So the demand on people's time is greater now than it ever has been. And people's willingness to do something as a volunteer is disappearing, that community aspect of helping someone else. And that's making it harder and harder to run races. So you're getting less and less races, you're getting less clubs, less membership, and everything sort of starts to go down. I think it's a cultural problem more than anything else. And I hope it turns around. I have spoken to people in other sports who said that this next generation coming through, these 16 to 18 year olds now are kind of a little bit different to the ones that have been, you know, the 25 and 26 year olds that have come through recently that they're a little bit edgier. They're a little bit willing to put themselves out there. So interesting. Maybe social media has a bit to do with it as well. Now you can get your ass kicked and Everyone sees it now. Back in my day, was a byline on the bottom of the newspaper, the results. Everyone was bit more hidden, so maybe that's got something to do with it as well. Cam Nicholls (10:28.716) Yeah, interesting. Yeah, there was a bit of banter around the Caulfield-Cunnigy cycling club around that era, you know, 17, 18, that, you know, I remember actually riding in the local group rides in Melbourne, you know, the North Road ride and Hell Ride, you know, you'd be like, that guy, you know, he came third in B grade at St Kilda on the weekend and people would talk about it. It was kind of like prestigious to, he made it to B grade or that guy's just made it to A grade. won the hell ride last week. Yeah. then it was like, so that was talked about, but then it was like this emergence of social media and, you know, people could go buy the 20 grand bike or maybe it wasn't 20 grand back then. was more like 12 and, you know, put on the map kit and look really cool and get some, you know, sleeve tats. And that was kind of them being, oh, that's a good, cool looking cyclist. You know, that guy's got respect versus, you know, maybe like five years prior, was actually, you you had to go down to the crits and you had to go earn your stripes and make it through the grades to get a bit of, you know, credit in the bunch. So that was speculated back then, who knows what at all. Maybe it's a blend of everything, yeah. So going back to the Pro Velo, like when you look at this year, what did you learn from this year? This is your first go at it. Like what were the big lessons from this year and what does next year and the following years look like? And I know you obviously got some considerations as well surrounding funding for the league as well in the future. Yeah, look, it was, we got the green light. So we sat down with Jerry Ryan with our concept. And this was in a two and under in 2000 and two years ago now. And we sat down, it was a 15 minute conversation and it was a handshake and said, yeah, I'm on board. And, you know, we had a three to five year plan to make this sustainable, financially sustainable. But that was in January and we had to launch the league in Matt Wilson (12:22.126) the following January. So we had 12 months and we had nothing. We didn't have a website. We had a logo. And we had a concept. That was it. So we had to create three new events, a digital platform, a following, you know, convinced the community that we were real and we were happening and get teams and riders on board. it was a, it was a incredibly difficult year. That's good, that'll get you far. Cam Nicholls (12:45.314) how many people are involved in that organization or that you just described. essentially myself and my co-founder Aaron Flanagan with the main parts and Aaron has a team around him, a digital marketing group, two people, graphic designer and that's basically it. So it was an incredible amount of work and this year it's been all about trying to refine that. How do we make that better? How do we make those events better? How do we make it more efficient? We spent a lot of money. learning, trying to deliver all these events one after the other after the other. What worked in the broadcasting? What didn't work? How can we improve that side? So our broadcaster, SBS, getting together with them, thinking, throwing around a few new ideas. We really tried to bring as much technology to the league as possible last year. So innovative, what's going to bring viewers in? We had a concept called the ValoPhone, which was a direct line from the commentator to a rider in the race where the commentator can ask the rider questions who's actually in the race. And that was fantastic. mean, insights that's a world first, you know, for a commentator to be able to do that inside a race. So that was, that was a great innovation. Did that idea come from out of curiosity? Matt Wilson (14:06.418) just throwing it around. had, I had myself and Dan Jones, working a bit creatively on the, on the broadcast and what could we bring to it? now as good as that was, we're using pretty raw tech, basically using an iPhone and a, and a, and a cable to speak to the rider and connecting through, through WhatsApp. so we're trying to refine that for next year. How can we make that better? we're trying to link those through GoPros now. So you can not only have. speaking to the rider from the commentator, but you can see what that rider is seeing as you're talking to him. So being able to connect directly to that GoPro and see it live. So insights like that, think, and we're doing this on a shoestring, mind you. So if we can get more funding in, if we can work on that tech and get it better, I'd love to see a technology where, you know, one rider from every team has a live GoPro in the race, and you can watch through a website and... connect to different writers, watch what different writers see, follow different teams. You know, there's a lot of things that the technology is out there to do. We've just got to bring it into the Peloton and get it working. Okay. Interesting. And in terms of lessons, maybe if we look, was there a big mistake that you made or a couple of mistakes where you're like, hmm, probably shouldn't have done that, could do that a lot better next time. Not really. Like I said, it's fine tuning across the board. It's making the races more cost efficient, bringing a better technology and better broadcast to the viewers. Social media, I think we can step up a lot and we've got a plan to have a full social media team at every event and really pump out the value there for not only teams, but viewers. Sponsorship was one area where we really didn't land the plane last year. again, we're Matt Wilson (15:56.878) brand new. We didn't exist. So it took a real leap of faith for any sponsors to come on board. So we need to do better at that next year and we're starting to get some traction with a few good sponsors. So yeah, all those little things need to step up and we need more teams. And it looks like next year we will have probably 20 to 30 % more teams on board. Oh, wow. So how many more teams will that be? What's 20 to 30 %? Probably two new men's, probably three new men's teams and two new women's I'd say. great. Yeah. so what is the plan? I mean, is there like a five year plan? I kind of hate that question, but I've been, it was one of the questions from one of the RCA's writers for next year. What's the five year plan, but is there a three year plan or a two year plan? Obviously it's going to depend on funding. Yeah. So, yeah, we had a five year plan originally, which, which showed, financial turnaround. So three to five years, somewhere around that we start to break even and then, and then start to make a little money on it. but you know, that's contingent on, on getting funding in, the beginning, because these things take time. It takes time to build a following, takes time to build a product that sponsors want to come on board. And that's critical to everything that we do from the event side. Matt Wilson (17:15.054) through to the league. So yeah, we definitely need more supporters. We're going to launch a crowdfunding campaign during the season next year, which allows anybody for any amount to come on board and support it and be an investor in the league. We have launched a membership program called the PSL Patrons, which is a high-end membership program, which has a tax deductible donation to the league as well. All these things will help support what we do and help get to that three year, five year plan where it can turn around and start to be self sustainable. Where can people find links to these things? Are they on the Provelo website? Yeah, the Patrons Program is on the Probello website and the crowdfunding campaign will launch next year during the season. So just keep an eye out for that one. Lame question. So when you talk about breaking even and eventually making some money, which would be nice because obviously people are putting in a lot of effort. Is the money mainly coming? It's obviously not because the teams pay us, I guess, a small fee at the end of the day to participate, but that's probably not covering much and that's not really where you're going to be... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/39017710

Pacing a Fondo Like a Pro: Strategy, Fuel, and On-the-Day Decisions 10/23/2025

Pacing a Fondo Like a Pro: Strategy, Fuel, and On-the-Day Decisions In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with Head Coach Ryan Thomas to break down how to pace a Gran Fondo—from the night-before plan to the final sprint. Fresh off a grass-podium at the World Fondo Championships, Ryan shares the exact playbook he used on a course that opened with a 10 km climb, featured brutal crosswinds, and finished fast along the coast. You’ll learn how to organise your race day (start-time math, breakfast timing, warm-up activations, clothing), how to read the course and wind to conserve energy, and how to choose the right effort on long climbs so you don’t detonate before the finish. What we cover: Race-day setup: When to eat, what a practical warm-up looks like (incl. 30s high-cadence activations), and why start-line position matters. Climb pacing 101: Use lap-average power vs. your recent bests; ride ~90–100% of threshold on long openers; when to hold wheels vs. let them go. Wind & terrain tactics: Headwind climbs = sit in; tailwind climbs = expect selections; how to handle spiky “over/under” climbs and when to save bullets. Group dynamics: Solo chase or wait? Simple rules to avoid burning matches you’ll need later. Heart rate in context: When HR helps (and when it messes with your head). Downhill & crosswind safety: Line choice, spacing, and staying within your limits on sketchy descents. Fuel & hydration: Real-world targets Ryan used (~100–120 g carb/hr), bottle strategy for 3+ hours, caffeine timing, and what to carry (and what he didn’t). Gear notes: Gearing, tyre choice/pressures, and wheel depth for windy days. If you’ve got a Fondo on the calendar and want to turn fitness into a result, this episode gives you the pacing blueprint to ride smarter, conserve energy, and finish stronger. — Work with RCA: Want a coach to map your course, pacing, and nutrition for your next Fondo? Visit roadcyclingacademy.com → Hire a Coach (monthly or weekly options). Prefer structure without full coaching? Check out our 12-Week Custom Plan. Cam Nicholls (00:00.088) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach, Ryan Thomas. And we've got a bit of a series running here. The World Fondo Championships were recently in Australia. Ryan participated. He had a great result, grass podium fourth on eight hours training per week. If you didn't hear that podcast, check out the previous podcast where we talked about Ryan's training. But in this podcast, I wanted to specifically talk about your pacing and generally how you would pace or organize, prepare for a Fondo event. And for this one, Ryan, we had a few questions come through on, we've got a community forum, if you're a member of the RCA, and some of our members posed some questions. They saw your amazing result and they're like, oh, hang on a sec, I've got some questions for Ryan. So we're gonna go through those today, The first one. that I want to pose from one of our members. And it's kind of a big and broad question. So I'll let you answer it the way you want to answer it is like, how did you organize the race or the Fondo? Yeah, yeah, thanks, Kim. Organization for the race is kind of thinking about start time, warm up, nutrition, clothing, all that sort of stuff in my mind. So the start time for me was around 7.15. So I worked backwards from that time in terms of organizing myself from the race and think about the day before, car bloating, eating, eating a lot of carbs, a lot of pasta and rice. But on the event day, Usually you want to eat your main breakfast around two and a half hours, three hours before. So I was up at 4.50, had some breakfast. then I knew this event in particular was a very hard start. So preparing for the race and organizing myself for that was wanting to be warm and doing a good warmup before. So it was 17K in from our accommodation. So we rode in. Ryan Thomas (02:09.614) Um, we wrote in, was a nice warm day. So didn't really have to worry too much about that. Um, unreal sunrise, just as a side note, it was probably one of the nicest sunrise I've ever seen. Um, on the ride in, which was nice start to the day, but can I nice. can I just pull you back on one question? So you got up at 4.50 to eat. So you could eat roughly, you know, two hours before the event. And this can vary for people depending on the event. Like obviously, you know, if your event starts at six, you know, you know, do you want to get up at 3.30 or four? Probably not. But then what does your event look like if your events may be going to start with, you know, like For example, I did the Grafton to Inverrell earlier this year and that was an early start, but I knew because it was such a long event and the first part of the ride was relatively flat, there wasn't gonna be a lot of hard riding. So I could eat closer to the start time. So that one's a bit of a tricky one. And according to the science, you wanna eat three to four hours beforehand, which is just not practical in many ways. You gotta do what's practical, but you gave it roughly two hours. How many? And once again, you know, this is a really important one for a Fondo event to make sure you get enough fuel the day before you mentioned carb loading, but also the morning of. The science says one to four grams of carbs per kilogram of body weight for your main sort of breakfast before an event. And your 70 kilos, Ryan, roughly, do you know how many carbs you had for your brekkie? not exactly. I'm not a big, big number carb counter for meals. I do go racing, but I had, knew roughly roughly what I needed. I just kind of my normal, my normal breakfast is like two pieces of white toast with a bit of peanut butter and honey or something simple like that. So I just added another piece. So I didn't want to throw my stomach out of whack too much. And there's a three hour events on you. didn't need to Ryan Thomas (04:14.542) smash a lot of carbs. Yeah. Just from experience, but I had three pieces of toast with the butter and a lot of honey. I reckon I had around a hundred. That's probably around a hundred grams of carbs for that. And then I had 40 grams of carbs in my bottle on the writing. So got right pre pre event. had around 140. So two, two grams per kilogram. Okay. Yeah. And so you're riding in beautiful sunset, 7K warm up. Are you doing any activations as part of that warm up? an activation is where if you're warming up, it's sort of like a zone one, zone two sort of spin. know, an activation is going sort of beyond that more up into your threshold territory and beyond to sort of prime you, prime the muscles in a polite way before it becomes very unpolite in the event. Yeah, yeah, I did actually. I did two, two activations. I didn't time them. didn't lap them. I just kind of went off by feel, but usually the activations that work for me are like 30 seconds seated, build to a high cadence, hard effort. So probably like over 500 Watts for 500 Watts for me for 30 seconds. So I just stay seated, find a good spot on the, on the ride in and just pedal in the same gear as almost as hard as I can for 30 seconds. end up doing like 130, 140 RPM by the end of it. So that really works for me as an activation effort that doesn't fatigue at all because it's just, it's 30 seconds twice. So I just did that on the way in pretty close to the, pretty close to the start. And it was an awkward one because a few guys I was writing in with didn't do anything because this is like organization for the race is that we had a hundred and closer to hundred starters in our event. you want to get there early to line up. you're not sliding up 200s. Um, we got there around half an hour before start time and we were 150th on the line. So we're well, well, well back. Um, so I was kind of glad that I did the activations because you do your warmup for 30, 40 minutes and then you sit there for half an hour before you have to go again. Um, those activations, I think I felt fine at the start. Um, I don't know what everyone else felt like or what everyone else did, but Ryan Thomas (06:32.566) In my mind and everyone else who I told for the event was get a good 20 to 30 minutes. If you're to line up half an hour before you need a good warmup and a couple of activations to make sure when you get into that climb, your heart rate doesn't go to a, go to a peak within the first kilometer. Cause that'll you'll feel pretty average doing that. So that was kind of the strategy that half an hour before was you can get, build those nerves up a lot and they could, could tell the people around me were like getting real nervous and Everyone was getting anxious and like old bikes and going to the toilet and everyone was getting real anxious, but I was, I was quite relaxed and just, just trying to enjoy the moment and taking videos and texting and just like trying to calm myself before that half an hour, before the stock on went off. Cause it was going to be quite a spicy start. Yeah, okay. So talk me through, you know, the strategy and what transpired for the first effort. Because like any Fondo, you've got to look at, how long is it going to be, you know, and then, you know, how many efforts are involved and what are the efforts look like? Are the efforts, you know, like a, is it a sharp climb that goes for three minutes? Well, that's going to be a VO2 max effort. Is it going to be a long climb? for 30 minutes or an hour, whether that's going to be a tempo effort or a sweet spot effort or maybe a threshold effort. So can you just tell us before the gun went off, maybe talk us through what was required for this particular event? Yeah, so it's quite interesting in terms of demand. So it's literally five to 800 meters, I can't remember exactly. From start to the base of a 10 kilometer climb. So flat for 800 meters and you straight up a 10 kilometer climb, which I had done the event before. So I kind of knew the demands really well. So in my head, I knew how long it was going to take and I knew what the rest of the course looked like. So Ryan Thomas (08:35.63) 10 kilometer climb. So if we think step back a little bit, when you're preparing for something or a fair event like this, you need to think about, I'd probably say three things is what's the actual course like what's the hills, descents, flats, turns, all that sort of stuff. Second thing is wind. What's the wind doing and how's that gonna play into your strategy, whether you're in a group or whether you're. in a group behind just trying to do the fastest time you possibly can, where are you going to make the efforts to count? And third is the temperature on the day. what sort of, what sort of clothing are you going to wear? The course kind of determines that a bit as well. So the, the temperature on the day was one of the warmest days we had down there was 15 degrees on the start 25 by the end of the day. So was quite a really nice day. So didn't have to worry about any warm gear at all. It was pretty straightforward wind. was really windy. So the prediction was 30K an hour winds and 70 kilometer an hour gusts of wind. So really, really windy. So everyone that I sent out an email to all my members, all the people doing it before. And in my email was like, had a screenshot of the course and this is the wind direction for every part of the course. So be prepared that the first 20 kilometers is going to be a headwind. like that it's not going to make much difference to being a little tack or you're to get a big difference. big slipstream in the draft, it's going to be much easier in the wheel than in the headwind. Then you turn left into a crosswind and then it's a big tail all the way down to the coast and the coast, it's going to be really windy up and down. So that was, that was one of the big factors in terms of strategy and how to, how to prepare for this event and how to pace it. so course 10 kilometer climb straight out of the gate. And then you had 40 K in between the base of the second base of the first climb and the base of the second climb. So you had 40 Ks of rolling terrain in pretty windy conditions to prepare for the second. Well, I'd say the main decisive part of the race is that second climb because it's comes closer to the end. So the first climb for our race, and I think it sounded like for a few other races, kind of neutralized because of the headwind. So, you know, if you haven't done much racing or been around much wind before, Ryan Thomas (10:54.634) in an event, if it's a headwind up a climb, it slows everybody down. So the pure climbers can't go as fast up that climb. If it's a tailwind up a climb, pure climbers or a lot of people can go fast with less effect of draft behind them. So it's much better for a climber to have a tailwind up a climb. It's much better for non climbers to have a headwind up a climb because they can get the draft. So first climb from from a strategy perspective, when I told everyone was stay in the wheel. use the draft, conserve as much energy as possible and try to stay around threshold under threshold if possible because you've still got a long way to go and then try and try and recover once you get over the top of that try and recover for that 40 to an hour 40 minutes to an hour in between until the second climb which is going to be quite difficult. Now you fought because you got there half an hour beforehand, but obviously there were people must've got there 45 to an hour beforehand and were waiting for a much longer period just to get that front in that frontal position. But you made up a lot of spaces in that first, what is it? 800 meters leading into the climb. And then by the time you worked your way up at the start of the climb, you were sitting on 20th wheel. Maybe an obvious question to some, for others, they may not know the answer. So I'm going to ask the question, why would you, if you're going to sit in the draft and sit in the wheel, why would you not just sit in 150th wheel, which is where you were at the start line, why did you spend a little bit of energy trying to get up to 20th wheel? I knew that our race was the discrepancy between the best and the rest were going to be, it was going to be quite large. So for example, my threshold was 350. There was probably some people there with a 250 watt threshold. So that first climb is going to be 10 minutes difference between the fastest and the slowest rider. So if I was starting at a hundredth wheel, then there was going to be a lot of people dropping wheels and I was going to have to spend a lot more energy to stay with the leaders than I needed to. Ryan Thomas (13:01.614) So I needed to be in my head. needed to be in the top 50 by the start of that climb because I thought about 50 people would make it over the top, which made up around 80 to 100 spots in that first 800 meters. Luckily, got to around 50th and then started working my way up with try to conserve as much as possible using the draft, using some experience from a bunch riding perspective to work my way up in the draft. So the top 20 wheels. Okay. But it's a, it's a hard one to, I would say it's, that's the strategy. If you're aiming to win or finishing the front group in a grand Fondo, it's a bit of a different strategy. If you're. Writing to your own personal power or your rock, you are, you're unsure of how, whether you could actually keep up with the front group. It's a little bit different strategy. It's you don't want to spend too much energy in that first 800 meters because you're going to after I start riding a VO2 car in the first two kilometers to stay with the front group. the first strategy for most people was let that try and line up as far close to the front as you can, because you want to benefit from the draft if possible. Go get to the bottom of the climb and try to ride anywhere from threshold to sub threshold. So that 90 90 to 100 % of your threshold is probably a good range depending on how comfortable you are and how fast, how deep you want to go up that first climb. What's a good rule of thumb then for somebody who's doing a Fondo event and whether it's, know, Amy's and the first climb comes in the first kilometer or whether it's another event and the climb comes at, you know, 50 kilometers and they're with a group and then all of sudden they're getting stretched on the climb and they're not sure, you know, like should I be trying to hold on to the wheel or should I be, you know, dropping off? Because I feel particularly with people that are Cam Nicholls (15:00.438) inexperienced with their own physiology and these events, it's very easy to overindex on a climb trying to hold onto wheels. And if you go too deep, then you're just destroyed for the rest of the ride. Or it's very hard to get back if you dig yourself a hole too deep. what's a general rule of thumb for those people to follow? Two things that I worked with a couple of members on who were trying to go really hard up the first climb was you look at your peak power for that sort of duration. for example, if you're aiming for 25 minutes up that climb, what's your best 20 minute power in the last six months? What physiologically can you do at your best? Let's say it's 300 watts. Your best ever 20 minutes, 300 watts. And up that first climb, a good thing to do for any experienced people on any climb. If you're doing a long climb or a short climb, pick that duration and figure out what your best is in the last six months or three months in training. If you lap the power and you have lap average power on your screen, you can see, well, my best is 300 and the first five minutes I've averaged 320. I cannot sustain this pace. I need to slow down because my best is 300 and I do the best if I'm going to do 20 watts higher than my best ever. then I'm going to be suffering by the end. So if it's a long duration event, that's the best strategy because you don't want to do your best ever power on a, on a 20 minute climb in a four hour race, because you're going to, that's going to hurt and you're going to pay for it in the last hour. So using your peak, your, your peak powers for that duration is a really good indicator and probably take 10, 20 Watts off that. And that's a good target. The other thing to do is if it's a long climb is thinking about your threshold and your threshold power. Let's use 300 Watts, for example. If your threshold is 300 Watts and let's assume you use critical power to find it. That power is essentially the maximum power you can sustain for 30 to 45 minutes. So if you lap lap your power on the start of the climb and you're doing over that threshold power, you don't pretty close to that threshold power and you know, it's going to be long. Think. Ryan Thomas (17:23.086) Well, I'm going to do this, a maximum effort or I'm going to sustain the best power I possibly can for 40 minutes. And then I'm going to have to do 110 K. That's not going to be possible. So that's the, that's my mindset when I'm going into an event like that is what's my, where's my absolute limit. I need to be under that at any moment in time. And what's my threshold where, where do those two sort of sit and what can I physiologically do while still being able to do the rest of the event? Well, Mm. Do you look at, I know heart rate's a bit of a tricky one because for an event, obviously, where there's a factor and nerves are a factor and everyone's different as well. But so this is a bit of an anecdote from my personal experiences in events. So I know once, you know, if I'm in a long climb and I start pushing towards 180 beats, my max is kind of 184 to 185. Once I'm 180 and I'm spending a bit of time over 180, If I spend more than a minute or two over 180 for a prolonged period, I know it takes me a long time to come back from that. And that's just from learning over the years, right? So that's not necessarily the case for everybody, but it's the case for me. And I think... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/38752900

How to Achieve World-Class Results on Just 8 Hours of Training Per Week 10/23/2025

How to Achieve World-Class Results on Just 8 Hours of Training Per Week In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with RCA Head Coach Ryan Thomas to unpack how Ryan managed to secure a top-5 finish at the Men’s Fondo World Cycling Championships—while averaging only 8 hours of training per week. Ryan opens up about balancing full-time coaching, family life with a young child, and the constant setbacks of illness earlier in the year. Despite the challenges, he pieced together a 12-week block of smart, targeted training that pushed his threshold power back up, sharpened his VO₂ max, and prepared him for the critical climbs on race day. From the structure of his weekly sessions—VO₂ on-offs, threshold climbs, and tempo bursts—to the importance of communication with family, racing bunch rides for “real world” intensity, and carving out just one long ride each weekend, Ryan proves that you don’t need pro-level hours to perform at a high level. Whether you’re a busy parent, full-time professional, or just looking to maximise your limited training time, this conversation is packed with practical takeaways to help you get fitter, faster, and more consistent on the bike. Coaching with the RCA; Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:00.034) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined by RCA head coach, Ryan Thomas. And I've asked Ryan for this podcast because I'm impressed, Ryan. You've done over the last 12 weeks averaged eight hours of training time per week, which is not a lot. You've gone down to Lawn, Victoria, Australia and participated in the World Fondo Championships and completed a road race, was 130 kilometers, it? Yep, 130 kilometers in length on eight hours training per week and you're finished fourth or what you call a grass podium, which is bittersweet as you said previously, but it's an amazing result. And I think, you know, given the dynamic of, yeah, obviously you've got natural talent, but eight hours is still not a lot of time. And I believe... Yes. Cam Nicholls (00:55.822) knowing how you coach, you've obviously coached me before, you're the head coach at the RCA, you do it for a living. Your training is very effective, you're very smart with your training on your limited training time. So I wanted to go into detail on what you've been doing training wise over the last 12 weeks. And I know you've pulled up your training peaks there so we can be quite specific. Before we sort of start at that 12, you know, going back 12 week mark. Can you give the listeners a bit of an idea on your age, the age group you are participating in, and just your personal dynamic at home, like what you're, you know, because it's not, you're not single. Yeah, you've got a fair bit going on, like a lot of people do. So, yeah, give us a little bit of a background on that. And then once you've done that, what you were doing, like before the 12 weeks started, because it's not like you've come off I just want to make sure people realize it's not like you were doing big K's at the start of the year and you've had this huge base engine going in. It's more like you've been fighting gastro bugs and all sorts of stuff. yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself and your age group. I've been down a lot. Ryan Thomas (02:07.746) Yeah, so I'm 30 years old. I have a wife and a young son who's almost 18 months now. So that's 12 to 18 months. Anyone who has kids is quite challenging. They're growing and learning a lot and need a lot of attention. So, and hasn't always been in daycare. So I'm looking after him some days. So dynamic at home is quite busy along with. Yeah, work being a full time coach at the RCA is takes takes a lot of hours as well. So trying to fit training around that I would just think about me as any other person with, so I'd say a semi flexible job. But working working full time with a young kid and wife and all the social stuff going on is, yeah, it's a hard balance. But yeah, I think a lot of people have have a very similar experience, especially a lot of members, members in the RCA. So It was a challenge and. Absolutely. Can I just before you move on, also confirm that your wife works as well. And the little one has been in and out of gastro. Wish you could call it gastro, couldn't you? Daycare. Yeah. little bit. And I know I kind of get out the popcorn. I'm a bit of a narcissist when it comes to this. Not narcissist. What's the word? Massacacist or something like that. When I see other people suffering when they're having a young kid because Yes. Cam Nicholls (03:34.452) I reckon I had gastro 40 times between the ages of 30 and 40 while my kids were going through daycare to kids. And I was just always sick and it was always disrupting my cycling. And I know that you've had to face a fair bit of that this year as well. Yeah, well, was so much so at the start of the year, we pulled him out of well, mid a couple months into the year, we pulled him out of the daycare he was in, because it was so bad. And we removed him. So he was he was out of daycare for a few months there, which was even more challenging on training. And that's where that was before the 12 weeks, thankfully, before this, because it kind of locked in at that moment. But before that, it was even more juggling, because yeah, I was having to look after him share the share the dad and mom load between us and when we weren't working, one of us was looking after him. but just before that 12 weeks sort of kicked in, then he was back in a daycare and the new daycare, fingers crossed has been unreal. I haven't actually been sick since, so that might rub you the wrong way, but. Now you've said it, you'll get sick next week. Just touch some wood. So what were you doing, like just at a high level, don't spend too much time here, but like what were you doing before the 12 week block started? Uh, yeah. So while the start of the year from like two or down under was a like, would go back to then, because it's kind of when I started thinking about this really, it was like, it's going to be 10 months of 10 months of training. And I was like, I'll use two or down under the set a bit of a base. And then all the sickness happened. All of it got it all. Um, so March was pretty much no writing. Like I've looked at my training pigs performance management chart now. And it was, yeah, I was down to 30 CTL. Um, Ryan Thomas (05:22.99) by April, is very, very little, basically not writing at all. And then the next few months was very similar. I was just in and out, in and out, in and out, sick, not sick, just trying to maintain, keep a little bit of fitness. And then around sort of June, that was kind of the period where it all eased up for us at home. So I could start a locked in consistently. And I was in my head, I was like four months, I need to. This is it. And my wife was really supportive and she knew that I was going to go and do this event and I'd. Pined a lot like investing quite a bit of money to get down there. It's not cheap. So it was like four months. I'm going to try and train when I can and get up early and do those sorts of things. for a month or two, my mindset was I need to ride four to four days a week minimum. So that was kind of like my base. If you want to call it base, I wanted to do four rides a week minimum, which wasn't happening. the few months before that four rides a week and yeah, focus around that low end energy system, do some tempo, do try and build a bit of threshold because I knew I needed to get my threshold high. So I looked at, knew the cause cause I'd done it the year before. So kind of knew where I needed to be and what I need, what sort of power I needed to be doing. And in my head, my first, my first mindset was get my threshold up. So I need my threshold to be back at pretty close to where it has been previously. in order to put the layers on top of that in the final six to eight weeks. I like just to go back on something that you said. You spoke to your wife or your partner and you said, you're going to do this event. It was important to you. I don't know if you said that, it sounded like you. Yeah, you're kind of assumed and that you were going to be focused on it. And I think that's really important because I think a lot of people, I've been guilty of this in the past, particularly going back Ryan Thomas (07:10.926) We did. Cam Nicholls (07:22.958) into my, you when I first started racing my early thirties, you just, you know, you don't set those expectations and it's all a bit of a burden and it's a bit of the unknown. and, you know, I think as well, specifically, if you're only targeting one or two events a year, which I think is a really good way to do it when you're busy with a family, you've got, you know, two, one to two, three to four month blocks in the year. And then the rest of the time you kind of just. do whatever and you're not so focused on it. But if you're doing it like that and you sit down with your partner and you express the importance of it, then they're on board as well. And there's no guilt when you're doing it. Everyone's aligned and obviously you step up to the plate in other areas. And I used to do the same as well. But I think just it's all comes back to communication, communicating. I even now do it with my family. I'm like, I'm training for Grafton in Varela side of the year everyone, just so you know, I'm gonna. but be a little bit more fatigued and tired, maybe grumpy at times. Although I feel probably for that event. So I wasn't grumpy. surprisingly that, you know, the afternoon grumps on, after you've done a five hour ride on a Saturday. but like, I, I don't just tell my partner, I tell my kids who are now old enough to absorb it. I'll tell my parents. and that's pretty much those who are close to me, just so they all know that the next three months are important training wise. And yeah, that, you know, there's the, once you've, once you've sort of like expressed it, Everything just there's less tension when you're going and doing your training I find. Yeah, especially personally for me, like I, my wife works every second Saturday. So I usually race on a Saturday, but every second, I know that every second Saturday I can still feel guilty leaving the house for four or five hours. But like that's my, that's my four or five hours to get my long ride, my quality done. And I don't have to feel anxious or rushing back home to help with the help with the young one. so it's like carve out a specific amount of time, maybe one day on a weekend, five hours and Ryan Thomas (09:23.266) That's your time. That's you don't have to feel anxious or feel worried that you're the team down. It's yeah, if you if you set those boundaries, definitely helps. Yeah. And obviously we're going to get into more of this as we go through this chat, but I think that's one people don't recognize as well really to get fit for a Fondo event like this. You don't need to be doing multiple long rides per week. As long as you've got kind of like one day where you can go do three, four, and you might even push up to five hours, but you three, four hours once a week. That's great. That's all you, all you need. And you can work around that. That that's your kind of, you know, durability ride or your endurance ride. You don't need to do that two or three times a week, which I think there's a bit of misconception about. Yeah, agreed, agreed. So 12 weeks, you're 12 weeks out. You've been riding consistently four days a week for about a month. You've been focused on building the aerobic energy system, doing some tempo stuff. I assume doing maybe a bit of sweet spot stuff. When you start getting specific, what are you now doing? Are you ramping up to five days a week? Are you doing more time? Cam Nicholls (10:36.43) What type of interval sessions are you doing? What type of recovery sessions are you doing? Yeah, so my my golf or Frequency was still four days a week. So I was realistic on that if I got five in then awesome But I was pretty pretty realistic that four days a week is probably going to be my limit And in within those four days, knew that every second week I'd be able to get one long one with a racing on Saturday and then on the on the opposing week then I'd probably get another one a long one in on the Sunday and maybe another one during the week if I start work late. But four days a week was kind of my minimum. When around the 12 week period started, I was pretty happy with what I'd done. So I've done a a few threshold efforts and a few little tests just to figure out where I was at. And I was probably like 20, maybe 30 watts under the threshold that I wanted, but I knew that would come up in the 12 weeks. I was pretty happy that I could ride pretty close to to where I needed to at the start of that 12 weeks. And I've done a couple of hard VO2 efforts that were well under where I needed them to be, but I needed to push myself to see what, I use the 12 week mark as like, what do I need to improve on? Where do I need to go? And knowing my body, I know that if I can do 400 Watts for a certain amount of time, for example, then I'm good for that. I'm good for my VO2. Or if I can only do 370, then I'm like, well. VO2 needs to lift because I know in a race that 400 watts is kind of like you spend a fair bit of time around that 400 watt mark in that age group and in an event like that. So I knew that my VO2 needed to be really high. So I kind of focused a lot on that. Cam Nicholls (12:24.043) What's your weight just for those power to weight geeks out there? I'm 70 kilos, anyway, 68, 70, 70, 70 at the moment, sell 70 on race day. And I usually a good threshold for me is around 350 watts, 355 watts. watts per kilo was, let's look it up now, divided by say, five watts per kilo. And your bigger efforts that you need to sustain for two or three minutes here and there, which is 400 watts, is what's that watts per kilo? 400 divided by 5.7, 5.8. Bob exactly. Ryan Thomas (13:05.198) Yeah. So yeah, I ended up being, I ended up getting quite strong in the end. But that's kind of where I knew what I needed to do. Yep. But when I started the 12 weeks, was, I did a, I did a test and I was around 335 critical power. So I was, I knew I was about 20 Watts off what I needed to. And last year for Amy's for a bit of context on the first climb, I did 370 Watts, 365 Watts for 20 minutes. So In my head, I was like, that was really difficult. And the dynamic was different because it was just a normal fun day. wasn't a world championships. It wasn't other teams there and stuff. But in my head, I knew that that's probably this event was going to be harder. So in my head, I was like, I need I want to be able to do 380, 380 watts, 20 minutes was my goal. I was like, that's that's the number I need to hit everything else. I'll figure it out. Like 380 for 20 was that's all I was thinking about. was being able to do that. Cause I knew that that and the second climb were the critical points of the event. And if I couldn't do that, I wasn't going to be able to make a difference on those clients, which is where I wanted to make a difference. So that was my, that was kind of my mindset. Um, and I knew that I was comfortable, comfortable with getting, getting up there if I could get some good VO to into my, with four days of training a week was my, my theory for the 12 weeks going in. was I need to get one really hard VO2 session in. my, because I have so much experience with doing these type of VO2 efforts, I hadn't done a lot of 3015s myself in the past. I was always a 4020 hero. I love 4020s. 4020s were my bread and butter whenever I was racing 10 years ago. Just loved them. And I knew that they worked really good for me. But I've only got a shorter climb where I live now. So 3015s was a bit more efficient. So I just did once a week for probably six, six to eight weeks. just did a set of 30, 15 or really hard via two set. Um, and I essentially, was just emptying the tank. Like I know where my body's at. So I was just going as hard as I could. Like I knew what sort of power roughly I could do for that sort of duration, but I was kind of using it as a benchmark, just going full stick for 30 seconds, recover and just back it up. Ryan Thomas (15:20.684) from a racing background, I know that I can do that. It's different for a new person doing those sort of intervals, but I know that I can kind of stay seated and go as hard as I can and then repeat it for six to eight minutes. Okay. So that was one of my key session, key VO2 building session each week. And you started that like from 12 weeks out or more like from, you know, eight to 10 weeks ago. I did a couple of trial, like I did a couple of testing VO two efforts just before the 12 weeks, like on the indoor trainer, cause it was around around winter time, 12 weeks out from the event. So I was still on the indoor trainer. So I did a couple when I was really time crunched, like a 40, 40 minute, 45 minute session with a couple of three minute hard start VO twos, something like that, just to test the waters to see where that power was sitting. but from 12 weeks, that was pretty much where I started doing my proper on-off hard efforts. Yeah. So 30, 15 session, can you just break it down? Like, obviously it will vary as you progress to get stronger towards the event, but like how many reps are you doing and how many sets and what's 30 is all out. What's 15 is it, is it, you're spinning in zone one or you're trying to stay at a more of a zone two pace. Ryan Thomas (16:39.182) What was that? So it's for me, I did a couple on the trainer and I just didn't feel like I was getting enough out of them because I couldn't put out the power I wanted to. So for me, I have a, I have roughly a six minute climb within five minutes, my house. So what most of the time I would, or if I had a bit more time, I would go to a longer eight minute climb. but I have a six minute one that's pretty fast. So I do a 10 minute warmup with a couple of activations, a couple of 30 second. above the power I wanted to for the 30 15s, roll into the climb and just hit the lap button and go hard for 30 seconds. I was aiming for like anywhere from four, 400 to 450 depending on what sort of day I was doing. And then my 15 seconds was usually around high zone too. I know that I can keep the power on with experience with these, but anywhere from 240 to 280 in the, in the 15 seconds off to keep the power. I was doing, yeah, around six minutes most of the time. And then I would roll back down the climb and it ended up being like a four minute recovery. So it's not like the perfect session. And I think it's a, like, it's a takeaway from, from that is that like a, if you look at the research, it's like going to 12, 30, 15 and you have three minutes recovery and it's like perfect on a dot. And a lot of people, a lot of people would do that sort of session and like, missed an effort or my recovery was a bit longer. I failed today. It's like, No, it's if you think about what you're actually trying to get out of it is it doesn't really matter the duration. One missing one effort or not doing one effort perfectly or having a bit extra recovery doesn't matter too much. It's pushing yourself to your limit in the effort and going as hard as you can. That's kind of where you're to get the benefit. Yeah, I think as well a lot of people get the 3015s or the 4020s wrong because they come back to like a really easy spin or they almost don't pedal at all. But I think the research is saying that you should be at about 50 % of what your effort is. So if your effort was at say 400 watts, you should come back down to roughly 200 watts. Ryan Thomas (18:41.39) Yes, yeah, 50 % of your VA to match 50 to 60 % of your VA to max is kind of what the research says. Yeah, that's what they use for their benchmark. Yeah. And I think the idea is that by doing that, you're more likely to stay physiologically in that VO2 max state... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/38752825

Wrap Up Chat from Fondo World Champs 2025 (Lorne, VIC Australia) 10/23/2025

Wrap Up Chat from Fondo World Champs 2025 (Lorne, VIC Australia) Summary In this general-discussion episode, we unpack the 2025 World Champs Fondo edition of Amy’s Gran Fondo in Lorne, Victoria—what the day felt like from the start corrals to the coastal finish. We cover the course flow (early climb, rolling mid-section, fast finale), the wild wind and sketchy descents, bunch dynamics, and how the event logistics stacked up this year. Inside the episode: Event vibe & logistics: Registration, start grid, road closures, aid stations, neutral support, and crowd energy. Course & conditions: Key climbs, crosswinds/tailwinds along the coast, and how weather shaped the groups. Racing vs. riding: What decided the front, why some riders waited vs. chased, and takeaways for non-racers aiming for a PB. Safety & skills: Managing crosswinds and high-speed descents without burning matches. Fuel & kit notes: Practical nutrition/hydration for 3–4 hours, gearing, tyres/pressures, and wheel depth choices that made sense on the day. Lessons for next year: Pacing checkpoints, where to position before the first climb, and simple tweaks to turn fitness into a result. Whether you were there, tracking friends, or planning your first Fondo, you’ll get a grounded debrief plus actionable tips to make your next Amy’s (or any Gran Fondo) smoother, faster, and more fun. Hire a coach with the RCA: Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:00.098) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined by the head coach of the RCA, Ryan Thomas. And Ryan has just been at, or just been in Lorne, Victoria, Australia, which hosted the World Fondo Championships in conjunction with the Amy Gillett's ride. And for this podcast, seeing we're only a few days since that event has occurred, I just wanted to have a bit of a debrief with Ryan about the event. Because I know we coached a lot of people, Ryan, for the event. lot of people had some great results as well. But you were there, you experienced it. I know a lot of people were following it on social media. So I thought, let's just do a bit of a podcast about the event. We're going to talk about your results specifically in the next podcast, because you actually only train for eight hours per week average for 12 weeks and finished fourth on the grass podium there. got on the podium, which is pretty amazing, given your training time. So we will talk about that in the next podcast. And then the podcast after that. I wanted to talk about your pacing strategy as well for Fondo events. So I think you nailed that, particularly given your training time. But for this one, we're just going to have a bit of a waffle about Amy's in the experience. So let's start from the start. You flew in from Queensland and you get to the Melbourne airport. What happens next? wait, waiting for a few of my mates. so it's the vibe of the vibe of the world champs was really cool because I actually went down last year and I went down just with one other, one other mate. and we did the event and it was, it was a good vibe and we were just hanging out and having fun, but went down with like five or six mates this time. So it was just a, yeah, just a good, called it the bros bro's trip. We just went down for a bro's trip and rode her bikes on the Great Ocean Road and yeah, cruised around and then had bit of a race in there. Cam Nicholls (01:51.052) Nice. you got down, so the event was on Sunday, you got down on Friday. We got down on Wednesday, actually. the kind of schedule was spread out. So there was a time trial on the Thursday. There was a team relay on the Friday, which we can talk about. Saturday was a free day and then the race was on a Sunday. So we got down there because a couple of our, a couple of our mates are doing the time trial on the Thursday. So we wanted to get down Wednesday, run the course and then go and support them on the Thursday. Yeah, okay. So you got down on Wednesday and you rode the whole course, did you? No, just the time trial course. I was familiar with the course, but a few of the other guys wanted to be there to ride the climb a couple of times and just, just enjoy five days, five days away with the bros. Yeah. So Thursday was the time trial. Did you see RCA member Alan Nelson in the 65 to 69 category take out the world title again? Ryan Thomas (02:55.47) I saw that it happened. wasn't there in the moment. Unfortunately, I wish I was. wish I was in lawn to see it happen. It's a pretty regular occurrence for him. He's got six world titles, I think now. So he's very familiar with the process, but it was very cool to see that I had a, I had a chat with him after and broke down his power and saw what he did. And he looked like he did a really good performance because he was there for a week or two before just learning the course and really getting dialed in. So who went all in Are we allowed to talk about his power? I think so, well yeah he... Yeah I think so, he... think you'd be okay with it. Cam Nicholls (03:35.694) I'll ask him before this podcast goes live and if he says no, we'll beep this out and if your people aren't hearing beeps, you know he said okay. He just sent me a couple of screenshots of it and I looked at, I think I looked at his Strava pacing as well. But essentially the difference between his 10 and 20 minute power was quite significant for a 30 minute time trial. So that tells me that he went out quite hard and he said that he went out really hard. So his 10 minute power was 350 and his 20 minute power was 320 or 310. That doesn't sound like Alan. Ryan Thomas (04:13.486) So there was like a 30, 40 watt difference across with only 10 minutes difference. So that's, um, there was a couple of freewheeling decents in there cause there was a couple of technical corners, but there shouldn't have been that much of a difference between a 10 and 20 minute power for a 30 minute course. would, you would imagine. And not if I was going to, if I was going to pace it and set, set a power target for any athletes, would want those to be very similar. Um, but he was, he was by far the strongest on the day and won by. 30 seconds. So I think his strategy worked out well in the end. Yeah, yeah, you can't really fault it when you walk away with the gold medal, can you? So No, no, he's still critical of himself though. He's a racer so he's like, I went out too hard but yeah, that's all good. So what was his 30, if it was a 30 minute time trial or what, do know what his 30 minute power was roughly? What was the? Ryan Thomas (05:04.43) No, because he just showed me his peak powers. I didn't see his average average for the event I think he hides his power on Strava, which is controversial in itself He's a typical cyclist, isn't he? Yeah, so he actually won, not only did he win his category, the 65 to 69, but he's also faster than the two age groups below him. I just, I love his story because it just gives you so much, it's inspirational. Like I'm mid forties and we get inquiries at the RCA often now. And this is not one word of an exaggeration. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (05:42.318) I'm just wondering if I'm, you know, like, okay to be coached because I'm over 40 now. like the, the theme of the, the, the inquiry is like, they're over the hill. And I'm like, I often linked to Alan and I said, have a look at this guy. He's like doing his best, best power numbers. He's training in Europe during, you know, uh, you know, our winter Europe summer, you know, he's, he's, he's super fit, super healthy. And you know, he's 65 turning 66. It's incredible. Yeah. And that's kind of what the grand Fondo world is about, right? Like it's, it's everyone who in their own right can go and perform against people, their own age and just show, show that it doesn't really matter what, what sort of age you are. can go and perform and perform well. Yeah, so time trial was on Thursday. What happened on Friday? Friday was a team relay. So in your country and I'd prepared, you have to enter a team relay yourself. So it wasn't organized by the nations. was, or you had to find a team and enter a team yourself. So I saw it immediately and was like, this would be cool to do. Like it'd be cool to have an Australian team win or on the podium or whatever happens. But I found four really, really strong writers who I knew and there was They have some rules around the team relay, which was kind of interesting. Tactically was you needed a male and female of any age. You needed a male or female over 40 and a male or female over 50. So you needed to comprise a team of, yeah, a couple of older people and a couple of young, strong, strong male and female essentially. So I was obviously going to race myself because I was super keen to be involved. found a, I found a, um, Ryan Thomas (07:28.878) young female who was keen to race at a, at a over 40 who I knew from Brisbane who was going down and then Alan was my first choice over 50. Cause he's the new RCA and I knew it was a bit of a record. So he knew it was going to be down there. So yeah, it was really cool. we had very strange format. Yeah. What a strange format. Think about athletics four by 400 meter relay. So mass star relay. So So what is the right? Ryan Thomas (07:56.846) Everyone the first you have four four writers and you choose what order they want to go in. So I was the team manager. So I selected what order I think would be best based on what other people would do and finishing and starting. So 22 teams lined up altogether. The first writer was selected. You do three laps of a Criterium course in Geelong, which had a really fast downhill and then a bit of an uphill. So it was had a bit of everything. So it was like six kilometers, just under six K each rider. So the first rider went off, did three laps. After three laps, they crossed the line. And then the second rider went, they did three laps. Third rider came across the line, third rider went, and then I was the final rider. And then you finish in the first, first team across the line was a winner. Right, how'd you go? Yeah, we went really well actually. so strategy wise, sent, I sent my 40 plus first, cause I knew he could handle himself in a group. So 22 riders had to go, had to be able to ride within a group and still go hard. So he finished, he was second or second or third across the line, which was really good. our young female was Salzy, from Brisbane and she did really well. First, she's very new to cycling and she performed well. She came across the line fourth, I think. In the end with a couple of males in that age group in that wave as well So it was really good and then Brendan came across the line in I think he was he was fifth and sixth and then I was There was a group of three off the front when they when they tagged me So I came through and it was like ten seconds to the group of three off the front And in my mind, I was like, I just gotta go as hard as possible to catch him I want to catch them and the podiums gone. So yeah Ryan Thomas (09:44.44) probably a bit of a rookie era from my part because there was another guy who's a pro veloracer who was off the same time as me and he started just behind me. And I basically went as hard as I could for 30 seconds to try to catch the front. Didn't quite catch He was probably trying to catch you, so you were both caught. We should have worked together. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I had a look behind and he would have waited and wouldn't have done 700 watts of the first 30 seconds. Probably would have had a bit bit extra energy left in the tank. But we ended up catching we got together after three quarters of a lap caught the front three a lap and a half in so we had a lap and a half to go. Bit of tactical sales five of us five of us off the front. But I have to go and also I was like, well, I'm racing for the win here. I was cook by that point because we've gone so hard to catch but got to the lap and a half to go and the Polish team had won the year before this guy was an absolute weapon. He attacked us and I had nothing to go and he just rode away from us from a lap and a half and he ended up winning and then there's three Aussie teams left for second and third and fourth. So we came into the last corner was like an uphill sprint. We came into the corner third or fourth on the road. I was like, I'm just That's the podium is just there. can't, can't let it go. So I ended up crossing the line in third. we're in the team really, which is cool. Yeah. So we've got a medal. Nice. Nice to get a medal from, that. Cam Nicholls (11:08.553) that. That's great. Cam Nicholls (11:14.434) Yeah. And then what happened on the Saturday? Saturday was a rest day or activation day, collecting number days. So nice chill. Just went, yeah, went for a nice ride around lawn. a couple of members on the climb doing activations and got together and made sure collect numbers and had a coffee and sat down and relax for the rest of the day. You're getting ready for Sunday. So before the event, long would you ride? Like, so how long did you ride for on Saturday as you kind of pre-warm up? Even though you'd obviously had a bit of a crack on, you'd almost done more than an activation on Friday, it sounds. How long did you ride for on before the event? Yeah. So it was a bit different from what I actually set members to do because they didn't do an all out effort for seven minutes on Friday. Um, but I, was like 17 kilometers into the main climb into lawn for us. Cause we were staying a bit out. So we just cruised in, went up the climb, came back. It was like a two hour nice, easy ride. did one effort, one effort in there just to keep the legs firing. Yep. Um, but a little bit different normally for what I would set, but I was pretty. I'm just, was there to have a bit of fun and wanted to ride in the lawn and just nice two hour cruise was good. Cam Nicholls (12:30.018) Yeah, nice. did the, you know, you're there with the boys and you're there for a few days before Sunday, like, you know, there's a lot of nice pubs in Lawn. Did you pop in and have a couple of cheeky beers somewhere or you were good? what did we on, on Wednesday, we had a beer when we got there. went to, went to dinner and had a beer and had a, only one beer. yes. But I was, it was just cause we were there for short amount of time. I wasn't opposed to having two or three. but now after that, we were pretty, pretty serious because Thursday was busy with the time trial. And then we had the, I had a beer on Friday after the, after the team relay on the way back, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's well deserved, though, Sam. Okay. Long's a beautiful city. Cam Nicholls (13:16.312) So talk me through Sunday and just the atmosphere and people. And because I know, you know, we do, we've got a newsletter we send out every Friday called the Friday training trend. If you're listening and you're not on that email, just go to our website and you can subscribe on the homepage to that newsletter. But you were so, I could tell from the way you wrote that newsletter that you were so excited about being there. And obviously, you know, you've, done a lot of cycling over the years. You've ridden at an elite level in Australia. You've ridden at a continental level overseas. You've done a lot of events. I could just tell the excitement. It's hard when somebody's been riding for that amount of time. It's hard to get the dopamine going because you've kind of been there, done it all before and probably multiple times. But I could tell just by reading your newsletter, your dopamine was firing, Ryan. talk me through why that was. Yeah, it was a bit of just like hanging out with the boys and everyone was super keen. We were just having a good time. But the atmosphere whenever you're whenever you're riding around, there was like hundreds of cyclists just riding around like it's just cool to see a lots of cyclists getting around and like you get to hang around the TT and then the team really honestly, like my mates like came in and watched and they came out of the team really like absolutely pumping like probably more than me and I was in the podium like And a couple of my, who I was on the, on the podium with like, were absolutely cheering, like the vibes really high and just the atmosphere around that really that kickstarted it from, from Friday. And that's kind of when I wrote, I was writing the training trend, preparing for that. Like it was, it was not the atmosphere was awesome. but then when he got there on Sunday, like when you're looking at the start list and there's 200 people for each, each age group and you got the Amy's and Gillett. actual normal Fondo. They've got 2000 people. So you like you prepared for 4000 people just to be there. And you rock up on the day and there's just bikes everywhere. It's just cool. Like I, you go to an event I was did Amy's last year and it was a bit, it was kind of similar. Like Amy's is always a really cool event. but this was like on a double the scale. So it was just cool seeing all the different nations there and you hear all the foreign languages and you know that everyone's serious like Ryan Thomas (15:40.558) everyone's locked in. No one's going there just to, to, just to get around like in the world, the world champs. So everyone's there really serious. And yeah, I liked that. I liked that sort of racing atmosphere. And I wasn't really nervous at all, to be honest. I was just kind of just enjoying it and got there and knew that I'd done bigger races before. So I was just like, Oh, just go and enjoy it, have, have some fun and to soak, soak up the atmosphere. So just confirming, think you might have just said it wrong incorrectly. You said there were 200 in your age group, mean 2000? 200 in my age group 200 in in each age group. So was 2000 in total for Yes, yeah, so I think the biggest age group I did it I ran it through Ran it through the biggest age group was the 50 to 54 and I think they had 213 right Okay, I get it. I get it. Ryan Thomas (16:43.188) And it's pretty, quite a few. There was a photo that you shared at the start and it looked like there was a lot of people and you were a fair way back. Just talk us through that one. Yeah. So how, how it works is a, it's just a pen. So you can line up whenever you want. Like it's, there's no, there's no, or there's priority for people who have podiumed in your qualifying event. So if you finished top three and you're qualifying event, there was a separate pen that you got access to, and you didn't have to line up half an hour before to get a good spot. That sounds like a good pen to be in. It's worth it's worth, especially for this course, because the climb starts after one kilometer. So you don't have much time, but yeah, we got, got there with like 25 minutes before start time, I think. And there was 150 people lined up in front of me. So I was at the very back of the pen. And I was, I was like, at that point, I was like, well, it's going to be this first comment is going to be quite difficult. I was like, Ryan Thomas (17:45.014) As soon as I got there, that's my first thought. And then my second thought was, can't do anything about it now. I'll just do the best you can to get as far up again on before the climb and just go with it. How did they let the age groups go? Was there a significant portion of time or did you end up writing with everyone? five minutes between each age group. And then they bulked together a couple of the women's age groups were together and then over 60s were a couple two age groups were together each. So it was quite a different tactical talking to a lot of our members and one of our female members who was, yeah, it's a good shot for a good result when she ended up getting a really good result. There was a bit of tactics in play because the age groups behind were catching so like they're Okay. Ryan Thomas (18:32.93) Dragon riders cross and then male age groups are catching the female age... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/38750750

Why Road Bike Sizing Charts Don't Work (Bike Fitter Explains) 10/17/2025

Why Road Bike Sizing Charts Don't Work (Bike Fitter Explains) Summary In this conversation, expert bike fitter Neil Stambry discusses the inadequacies of road bike sizing charts and emphasizes the importance of individual differences in bike fitting. He explains how factors like flexibility, body proportions, and personal comfort can significantly affect the choice of bike size and model. The discussion highlights the necessity of professional bike fitting to ensure optimal comfort and performance for cyclists. Bike Fit Fundamentals: 15% Off code (first 10 people): RCAYouTube15BFF Takeaways Road bike sizing charts often fail to account for individual differences. Flexibility and body proportions play a crucial role in bike fitting. Two cyclists of the same height may require different bike sizes. A good quality bike fit is essential for comfort and performance. Bike models can vary significantly in geometry, affecting fit. Self-assessment of body proportions may not be sufficient for accurate fitting. Professional bike fitters can help identify the right geometry for cyclists. Understanding one's own physiology is key to finding the right bike. BikeFit Fundamentals offers a structured approach to bike fitting. Comfort on a bike is vital for long-distance rides. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Road Bike Sizing Charts 03:06 The Limitations of Sizing Charts 05:46 Understanding Individual Differences in Bike Fitting 08:52 The Importance of Professional Bike Fitting Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:00.046) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined by expert bike fitter, Neil Stambry, and we're gonna be talking about why road bike sizing charts don't work. Just be aware this chat is also intended for YouTube. So please excuse any visual references. Let's get into it. All right, so Neil, recently I wanted you to write an article for the RCA website on a blog about road bike sizing charts. And you're like, hang on a sec. They don't work, so I'm writing an article. like, oh, we should make a video about this then. We should yeah deceptively simple question with a really annoying long-winded answer, so let's dive into it What is a road bike sizing chart so look some of the manufacturers you look on their website And you'll see a chart. It's got a list of like like you. Cam Nicholls (00:50.904) Bites of sizes, small, medium, large. Here how large this is how tall you are. This is the frame you need then you're okay She's all right better go and get that medium or whatever that is Why don't they work some of them have are really quite detailed some of them have like Obviously can work because they're there and you know. They can sort of work. They can sort of work. I'll explain. They're very hit and miss. There's plenty of, there's enough people out there that fall, even though they fall into one of the correct ranges for the correct height, they should go for a different size bike. We'll try and nut out a little bit about why that is. Some of them are a bit more detailed. They have multiple data points. A lot of them just have your height and this is the one you should have, which is obviously insane. But if you've got really long legs or short legs or something, it can totally change the frame geometry that you'd look for. Well, it's like an anecdote as well before you go. I rode a 56 for maybe five years. Did you? Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm right on the border of a 56 and a 54 and I do have short legs. Yes. And then I went to a 54 and my life changed. Neill Stanbury (01:47.822) Yeah, you're unusually low seat height for a 56 centimeter frame. It'd be you're right in the realms of a 54. Yeah, so yeah, you're great example. Yeah, just just here. So Yeah, why don't they work? Let's use let's use two hypothetical twin brothers, right? They both got exactly the same height They both got exactly the same leg length, same arm length, right? So they're falling within some of these, let's say they fall in the range for a 54 centimeter race geometry frame. One of them has got hips which don't flex up beyond 120 degrees because he inherited a different set of genetics from his mum versus his dad, which means that his hip joints are particularly immobile. In addition, he's been sitting at a desk eating Twinkies for 20 years and he's 15 kilos overweight. He's got a bit extra around the middle and he's all hunched over because he's an and the other guy is a supple yoga teacher who flexes around a lot and he's 15 kilos lighter and he's got amazing hip mobility. So these two guys have the same skeletons, right? But vastly different flexibility levels and vastly different, in particular, hip mobility levels. And hip mobility, as your knee is coming up to the top of the stroke, is one of the primary determinants of how much drop you will tolerate to the front end. So if your hips can come right up, you've got amazing mobility in your hip joints, it's likely that you're gonna ride in a more deeply flexed position preferentially compared to a more upright position relative to your identical twin brother who sits at a desk and eats Twinkies. So what this will mean is that the guy who's really flexible who's got amazing hip mobility his drop to the bar might be 50 to 80 millimeters more sort of severe than the guy who sits more upright because he's got the extra weight and his hips are not so flash. So you might choose a bike with a 30 or 40 millimeter lower stack in the front end which immediately moves you from something like Specialized Roubaix which is one of the one of the least aggressive geometry endurance frames on the market. It's a really short tall bike. We often sort of recommend these to older guys who sit quite upright, people who don't have a lot of capacity for reach and drop in the front end and they're a fantastic bike for that. You might go for the you might you know the the guy who's the accountant he might go for one of those but the guy who's the yoga teacher who's really hyper flexible he might need 50 80 millimeters more drop you know a normal sort of Neill Stanbury (04:06.416) drop number from the highest point of the seat to the center of the bar, you might be looking at a 54 centimeter bike. A normal number, about 100 millimeters, which is about what my drop is, right? But the really inflexible guy might need 50, and the really flexible guy might need 130. Huge differences in the stack. So obviously the flexible guy, he's never gonna be able to get the bar low enough if he buys a Roubaix to be comfortable. And conversely, the guy's very, very stiff. He's not gonna be able to get the bar high enough if he buys a tarmac, or specialised. So this is a great hypothetical example, just one of the many things of what can make these charts not work very well. They're just looking at... You're referencing two separate bikes, just playing devil's advocate here, you're referencing two separate bikes here, not referencing the same bike. Yeah, so you could you could go for like the what I mean is that the the recommendations for the sizing could be so far off that not only are you looking at changing the size of the frame but the actual the entire model of the frame Yep, yep, so you know Yeah, okay, so it's almost deceiving. So somebody's like, oh well I'm actually a medium here but you actually know you should be a medium in a different bike altogether. Neill Stanbury (05:17.046) Yeah, so you might have something that's like long and low, know, let's use your tarmac as an example And then you've got your rubay, which is short and tall So you might be the flexible guy might be on a 52 centimeter tarmac with a hundred and thirty millimeter stem because he can get out and down to that low front end and then not only is the the short, know, the inflexible guy with a bit of a gut not only is he on a rubay, completely different bike model that's really upright and comfortable in the front end and very tall but he's probably on a 54 With a shorter stem so not only are they different sizes with different componentry, but also completely different frame models Yeah, so yeah, I've seen situations where people have rocked up and they've they've looked at her I had a great example to use a great example. I had a young fella came down from northern Queensland last year I think it was And he bought a Madone, know 20 20 odd thousand dollar bike really expensive bike and he he walked in the door He had the shortest legs I've ever seen on anyone who was a bit he was about my height, but his seat height was When we were done his seat height was 50 maybe 60 millimeters lower than mine because his legs were so short We couldn't get the seat low enough because the Medone has a certain amount of seat post travel before the goes into the frame and it blocks out We were 20 millimeters too high even with the seat as high as it could as low as it could possibly go There was no chance of him riding it and it was a 54 because he fell right into that range of the 54 with his height and I said mate you're much better suited with a 52 because we just can't get the seat low enough first of all, but even a or a 49 would have been fine for that guy even though he's my height. you know limb length and all that sort of stuff and flexibility levels and arm length and torso length there's just so many things that come into it which mean that sizing charts can be very hit and miss. What's the solution? Yeah, what's solution? That's what I was gonna ask. Neill Stanbury (07:04.622) Solution is a good quality bike fit. Yeah, you've got to set your position up on your current bike such that you're comfortable and then extrapolate from the geometry of that. Forget about what you should be on because you're a certain height. Look at what you actually need in terms of the geometry and your bike fitter can help you out with that. Can you self assess before deciding whether a bike sizing chart is gonna work? So for example, if you know all your limb, you know, your torso and your lower is standard and your flexibility is good, are you more likely to be served by these charts? Possibly, possibly. But there's so many things you can't know about yourself. True. Yeah, like relative mobility levels in your hips compared to other people and all this sort of stuff. Yeah, it's very hit and miss. Yeah, see I didn't know I had a hip impingement and I've been riding for 12 years before I came to see you. Yeah, I mean not to harp on too much, but that is why my profession exists. It's one of the reasons my profession exists is to not only solve biomechanical problems and aches and pains and make you more comfortable, but also to get you precise correct geometry for your next bike. Cam Nicholls (08:08.34) Yeah, and I am way more comfortable on that bike over there, which is the BMC Road Machine versus the one directly behind you because I'm more upright. Yeah, yeah, I think I think when we looked at the geometry for the team machine are it was I think you had 10 millimeters or so more dropped than you than you had the time I'd fitted you before which was on an SLR one I think and then that one I think we found out that the bar center was about 15 or 20 millimeters higher and that's you know You were right on your edge with the SLR one that was a little bit too low and that's very nice. Yeah for long rides Exactly. Yeah. All right. Well, if somebody is watching this and they're like, well, I wouldn't mind some support with actually understanding my physiology and what bike might work for me. You put something together called BikeFit Fundamentals. Yeah, it'll be a good first step to get yourself in the ballpark with your fit so that you can then extrapolate from your current geometry of your current frame to a potential new purchase and make sure you get all the componentry right. Seven part course, mate, the link's in the description. We highly recommend it. It's been a really good thing. Thanks for time. No worries at all. /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/38614295

Big Gains, Small Hours: Cycling Personal Bests on 5 Hrs/Week 09/12/2025

Big Gains, Small Hours: Cycling Personal Bests on 5 Hrs/Week Summary In this episode of the RCA Podcast, expert bike fitter and sports physiotherapist Neill Stanbury discusses his recent performance improvements despite a reduced training load. He shares insights on the impact of dietary changes, weight training, and the importance of understanding insulin resistance in optimizing cycling performance. The conversation highlights how strategic adjustments in training and nutrition can lead to significant gains, even with limited time for workouts. Takeaways Achieving best performance on reduced training hours is possible. Dietary changes, including reduced sugar intake, can enhance performance. Weight training is crucial for improving cycling power. Intermittent fasting can help manage energy levels and cravings. Insulin resistance may affect performance and energy management. A balanced approach to training can yield better results than sheer volume. Listening to your body is key to optimizing performance. Incorporating strength training can lead to muscle gain and improved cycling. Energy management is critical for endurance athletes. Finding time-efficient training methods can enhance performance without burnout. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Performance and Training Dynamics 03:06 Dietary Changes and Their Impact on Performance 05:56 The Role of Weight Training in Cycling 09:04 Insights on Insulin Resistance and Energy Management 12:06 Optimizing Training with Limited Time 13:48 Conclusion and Reflections on Training Strategies RCA Coaching: Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:00.11) Welcome back to the RCA Podcast where today I am joined by expert bike fitter and sports physiotherapist, Neill Stanbury. Just be aware that this conversation is also designed for YouTube, so please excuse any visual references. Let's get into it. All right, Neil, I wanted to talk to you about your recent performance on the bike because like many people, like many RCA members, I would say you're in bit of an off season phase because we can't train 10 to 12 hours. You know, all year, it just doesn't happen. So there are periods of the year where you go down to about four five hours per week, which is what you are in right now. Yet you went out and did a bunch ride recently and you achieved an all time best five minute power and an all time best or almost best 10 minute power. And for those familiar with chronic training load, your CTL, also known as, is about 40 at the moment, which equates to about five hours per week of riding versus normally when you're training For something, you're doing about 8 to 10 hours per week. So how is it that you could go out and achieve all-time best numbers, 5 and 10 minutes is pretty significant, on 5 hours per week of training? It's been really interesting for me. I don't talk a lot on our channel about the performance aspect of cycling because I'm more interested in the biomechanics and that sort of stuff. But this has been really, really interesting for me. we were talking about it extensively before we recorded this. I thought there might be some interesting lessons in here for people at home who want to try this as well. So I'll tell you what I did and how this came about. But you're right, I did a bunch ride a couple of weeks ago with a bunch of guys who are way fitter and faster than me. And even sitting in the wheels and rolling the occasional turn, I managed to do an all-time best five minute power, about 340 watts, which for me is... Huge numbers, mate. 66 kilos at the most. Cam Nicholls (01:49.098) Watch your weight, people will want to know your weight. Powder weight wise, pretty solid. Not terrible for an old bloke like me, especially an old bloke who's only riding four hours a week or so, and with no particular cycling talent either. But I managed to do that and I've never done, that's biggest number I've ever done for five minutes, which was really interesting because I've done almost no training. Is this the A group or the B group? Was it? there you go. Even rolled a couple of turns with Kavan Wiggo. Just a couple. So these guys are obviously much more powerful riders than me and especially on flat terrain. These guys have got 10 kilos, 15 kilos on me. you know I might be able to be up the front on hilly terrain but on flat terrain I really struggle against these kind of guys. So it's a huge challenge for me. So how did this come about? Now I started noticing earlier in this year that I was sort of waking up Cam Nicholls (02:38.818) Fatigued more often than not I was jumping on the bike and I had sort of low energy levels that typical sort of mid-afternoon you're feeling sleepy that sort of thing and I thought you know there's a lot of things this could be but one of them is it could be the beginnings of some insulin resistance stuff going on so I've been reading a lot and listening to a lot of podcasts about About sugar and all that sort of stuff and I decided to make some changes to my diet and to my training mode to see what would happen to my body I've always struggled to put on weight, right? I've been, ultrally, my entire life. I started lifting weights dedicated twice a week without fail. Twice a week doing lots of legs and a bit of upper body. And I slowly managed to put on, over that last sort six month period, about three or four kilos of pure muscle mass, which was helpful. So I'm about three kilos, maybe three and a half kilos heavier than I usually am, down at that 63 kilo mark. gym sessions are twice a week and you're doing legs in both of those sessions and a little bit of upper body. What sort of sets and reps are you doing? out of curiosity. Typically I'll do Bulgarian split lunges and single leg RDLs and I will do some Cossack squats or deep squats as well with like a goblet squat, that kind of thing. This is all just with hand weights and kettlebells. There's no gym equipment involved. I do it all myself at home. Three sets of about eight of the heavy ones and then if it's something like a Cossack squat with a 16 or 18 kilo kettlebell held in a goblet position, I will then do sort of probably three sets of 20. okay. Quite high reps. That is high reps. Cam Nicholls (04:11.52) Yep, it goes against the science. Mm-hmm. Although as Aaron the Strength and conditioning coach the RCA says sometimes you're just better off moving some stuff around. Yeah, which is what you know 20 reps as you're moving stuff around. really like Yeah, so I'll do I'll do heavy like my single leg my single leg split lunges I'll be using a 22 kilo hand weight so on each leg and for that's a third of my body weight well Which is quite a lot and three sets of eight or three sets of ten of those sometimes four sets of eight And so I do a heavy heavy fit the starter then larger volume with lighter load for the other ones Nothing too complex there in addition to the weight sessions. I started doing one day a week of intermittent fasting Now this is something I've never done before. It was really, really difficult in the beginning, but I was noticing that I was really craving carbohydrates a lot. And I thought it was just due to my training load, right? I was eating very clean rice, that sort of stuff for my carbohydrates, oats, that sort of stuff. I was eating very clean carbs, not a lot of pure sugar apart from the drinks that we drink on the bike, which are essentially pure sugar. And I thought, you know, let's try and move away from the sugar for a while. And I started doing intermittent fasting one day. Every Monday, I'll just not eat breakfast. I'll get all the way through till about 12 30 before I have lunch and I try and make that lunch a pure protein meal and the dinner if possible pure protein and veggies So almost a zero carbohydrate day just one of the seven days in a week when When do you have your last meal on a Sunday? Six, so it's about an 18 hour fast. Cam Nicholls (05:36.654) Typically about 6pm. About an 18 hour fast. It was tremendously difficult in the beginning. Once my system got used to it, now it's easy as pie. I reckon I could go through to dinner without any great trouble. And that's probably gonna be the next sort of iteration of this is to try a 24 hour fast. So probably once a month or so. Just see what Yeah, absolutely. There's no way you can ride and then fast afterwards. It's just gonna be a recipe for disaster. It's on a day when you're not doing any training. Cam Nicholls (06:04.098) So I did those two things and the third thing I did was I drastically reduced my sugar intake which was essentially that was basically drinking liquified sugar on the bike. I am just a sugar and cordial guy. I just use white sugar but if you're using a carbohydrate drink that kind of thing I really cut those back. So on my Zone 2 rides even if it was sort of a two and a half hour Zone 2 ride zero liquid carbs I would basically I would eat a little bit of light breakfast at a banana before I went and then maybe another banana halfway through. get home and have a proper meal afterwards. And I basically cut out the liquified sugar during my rides. The theory being that the liquified sugar is very, it's very inflammatory to your endothelial system and your liver and all that sort of stuff. And what I was trying to do was figure out if I'd been starting to develop a bit of insulin sensitization, which is a common problem. I think it's much more common than we give it credit for, but a little bit of insulin. Sort of reluctance essentially where your nervous system is is relying too much upon the carbohydrates as an energy source And I was trying to shift my metabolism back towards more of a fat burning metabolism in between the heavy hits of for example when I would do a fast bunch ride or a Vo2 session I would carb up for those sessions and then in between I would drastically reduce the carbohydrates down now This is hard to do if you're doing big loads if you're doing 10 hours a week very, very hard, but when you're only doing four to five hours a week, it's actually pretty easy. And after about a month of this, I noticed that my endurance was way better. My general energy level on the bike, way better. I was waking up, I was sleeping less, waking up more like earlier in the day, but with much greater energy. And I was having a lot less days on the bike where I got on and just felt kind of dull and fatigued. Most of the rides I would get on and feel really, really good. So I started noticing after about a month of this that my zone two power output for the same heart rate, about 125 to 130 beats a minute, was jumping by about 20 to 30 watts. So I typically tap along in zone two at about 200 watts. I was suddenly doing about 220 to 230 with the same heart rate. So a really big jump. And this sort of reiterated to me that I was either overtly fatigued, maybe my nervous system doesn't cope with eight to 10 hours a week very well, Cam Nicholls (08:21.734) Or it was just basically insulin resistance, know, insulin and carbohydrate, like critically dependent metabolism. And so the theory being that if you can switch your metabolism over to utilize both energy sources, you might be a bit healthier and do a little bit better. And this culminated with me doing, I did a couple of VO2 training sessions and then I went and did this bunch ride, got home and I thought, gee, I felt fantastic in that ride. Got home and looked at the numbers and went, that was my best ever five minute. power by about five or ten watts and it was the best ten minute power I've done for probably around two or three years. Wow. And this wasn't even up a climb this was in a bunch ride rolling turns you know where you're on and off the pedal. It's not a big bunch ride, so it's not like a three hour bunch ride is it? Because you would have suffered. But this is on the pedals, it's about an hour isn't it? Yes. Cam Nicholls (09:12.586) about an hour on the pills really, really, really hard. Yeah, so I thought that was really interesting. So my take home from this is that perhaps training more is not always the solution. If you're trying to increase your power output, sometimes it's a healthy idea to look at your metabolism deficiencies. And if you are a person who is exhibiting some of those traits, things like craving coffee in the morning, not being able to function with high energy levels without stimulants throughout the day, That mid-afternoon crash in energy waking up tired and you know bleary-eyed and and and not sort of feeling energetic until mid-morning that type of thing often a sign of insulin resistance So yeah, this this is really really interesting for me It's been a real eye-opener and I feel way better with a little bit of extra muscle mass less training load on the bike and more weights and perhaps that's the other take-home message here is that the the weight training super critical Super critical for some people. I didn't realize how much I was missing out on until I really got diligent with it. I used to do some leg weights probably twice a month, you know, just to keep it going. But this has been for six months, continuous, two days a week, and it's made a huge difference. So a lot of kind of all these things coming together, you can kind of think of this as kind of a metabolism rebuild that I tried to do. Very, very interesting for me, and I don't think I'll ever go back to the way I was before, which was just lots of riding. lots of sugar and constantly going up and down, yo-yoing in my performance, I felt much more steady with my performances with this sort of dietary and training change. Interesting. Yeah, so there you go. Interesting kind of anecdote for you that people at home, hopefully there's a bit of interest in this and yeah, if you guys have got any similar experiences, I'll be very interested to read the comments on this one, because I reckon there might be a few people out there with the same problem as me. Yeah, well I've got a similar story and that is that I haven't been doing any of the diet things and I haven't been fasting. I need to get back into that because I used to do it but I've actually implemented a workout that's been going around the RCA community recently because one of our members was stuck on a boat cruise with his family for 10 days. Cam Nicholls (11:25.902) stuck. Yeah, he was training for a seven-day charity ride So he's doing big volume and all of a sudden he only had access to a gym bike So one of the coaches shared a research paper and the research paper Demonstrated actually Maintaining FTP and improving sprint power over a three-week period where you're just doing endurance training But incorporating a one session which includes 30 seconds Yeah, so I've dropped off on 30 seconds all out. I'm not in a three week transition phase, I've been in a 16 week transition phase since my last event. I've been doing about five hours per week. once a week I've been doing this sprint session. So it's 30 seconds all out with a four minute recovery. You do five to six. Yeah, yeah. And you can break them up into two sets. So you could do three sets of, sorry, two sets of three reps with a, you know, like a 10 minute recovery in between. many of those do you do in a second? Five to six. Cam Nicholls (12:19.598) And I recently went out and did a bunch ride. Had done a bunch ride for three months and I normalized for 90 minutes. So there's some durability in there as well. Cause I was able to pull turns at the end of the ride, which surprised me. 310 Watts, I normalized power and my FTP now would probably be 330, 340 pushing it. I would have thought so. I was very surprised at that myself. And I feel. the one change for me was just purely implementing that one workout. I guess the take home story is, if you're only doing four or five hours a week, there are probably ways you can optimize what you're doing, whether it's a workout, whether it's nutrition, fasting, going to the gym. So you can still go do the group ride with your mates, pull some turns and not get dropped off the bar. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I don't think Massive volume is is potentially the answer for a lot of people, you know If you if you're time-starved and you're still looking to optimize your performance like this is some of the best performances I've ever done and with very little training a CTL of 40 and in a really really low-load almost no structured training just a couple of VO2 sessions with some 30 15s that you've mentioned before and some bunch rides and I'm still still feeling as good as I've ever felt and the one bonus here is Lots more free time to do other things. Exactly. Because you're not always out on the bike. Exactly. And you probably a bit of freshness in there as well might have contributed. Cam Nicholls (13:41.838) Yep, absolutely. Yeah, so an interesting case study, mate. You and I have both similar experience by the sounds of things. There you go. Cool, thanks for sharing. Hope you enjoyed that conversation with Neil Stanbury. We'll catch you in the next podcast. /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/38190870

The Most Important Joint for Road Cyclists (Bike Fitter Explains...) 09/12/2025

The Most Important Joint for Road Cyclists (Bike Fitter Explains...) Summary In this episode of the RCA Podcast, expert bike fitter and sports physiotherapist Neill Stanbury discusses the critical role of the sacroiliac joint in cycling performance. He explains how dysfunction in this joint can lead to significant issues, including pain and reduced endurance, particularly due to asymmetrical movement patterns. The conversation also covers corrective measures and exercises to address these issues, emphasizing the importance of maintaining symmetry for optimal cycling performance. Takeaways The sacroiliac joint is crucial for cycling performance. Dysfunction in the sacroiliac joint can cause significant issues. Asymmetrical movement patterns can lead to pelvic torsion. Pain is a major detriment to cycling performance. Symmetrical cyclists tend to have better endurance. Corrective exercises can help address asymmetry. Sacroiliac joint torsions are common among cyclists. Understanding your own asymmetry is vital for performance. The joint has a significant number of proprioceptive nerve endings. Addressing these issues can improve overall cycling function. Chapters 00:00 Understanding the Sacroiliac Joint 07:02 Addressing Asymmetry in Cycling Online Bike Fitting Course: Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:00.11) Welcome back to the RCA Podcast where today I am joined by expert bike fitter and sports physiotherapist, Neill Stanbury. Just be aware that this conversation is also designed for YouTube. So please excuse any visual references. Let's get into it. Neil, what have you got in front of you there? This is a spine, hopefully it's not a real one, right? I never thought about that before. Hopefully this is a plastic replication of a real one, otherwise I'm probably gonna get in trouble for this. no, purchased directly from eBay, this is almost certainly plastic and not real, but this is a spine and a pelvis. And I wanted to show you guys, I get asked this question a lot, like to do with, when we're sort of explaining asymmetrical movement patterns to people on the bike, and when people come in with really big, what we call pelvic, This is a question that I get asked a lot. It's kind of interesting. So let me run you guys through a bit of anatomy I'm gonna try and describe to you why I think this joint here called the sacroiliac joint is probably the single most important joint for cycling in in terms of Its correct function if it's dysfunctional if this joint doesn't work well, you're in big trouble on the bike Now what is the sacroiliac joint? It is the joint between the sacrum and the ilium's there's two sides of the pelvis here the left and the right side This joint is two in the body, one on the left, one on the right. It's a sliding or a gliding diarthrosis joint, which is a fancy way of saying it's not a joint like your shoulder or your knee or your finger. Basically, this is two faces of bone which sit in on each other like this. There's a massive collection of really strong ligaments across the front and the back. And this joint moves about five degrees or so, not much. It rolls forwards and backwards and on the inside faces of the joint, it's got kind of a knurled surface that kind of... Interlocks the two the two sides got little valleys and depressions in it which interlock now the joint doesn't move much But why is it the most critical joint for cycling? Performance the reason being that this joint when it's dysfunctional it causes more havoc than any other joints in the body I've found for riding a bike Which is really interesting because it doesn't actually move that much the joint seems to be incredibly important Neill Stanbury (02:09.634) for proprioceptive function of the leg and for general kinematics of the rest of the leg. If it is dysfunctional, what happens is as you drive down on the pedal, for example here, if your left leg is driving down on the pedal, the sacroiliac joint, as the hip extends, is supposed to roll forward a little bit. And then as the hip comes up over the top of the stroke, it's supposed to roll back a little bit. So it's supposed to basically just move a little bit like this, forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards. Because of the planes that the two SIJs operate in, like this, They go like this, rhythmically, as you're walking, running, cycling, all of that kind of stuff. Now if you operate asymmetrically on a bike for a long period of time, let's say you've got a rider who's dropping their right hip forward because their right leg is shorter than their left, for example. Typically what will happen is the right ilium will get a lot more forward rotation with very little rearwards rotation, and the left one will get the converse going on, is that it will have to rotate backwards a lot more than forwards with every pedal stroke. Now we do this about 4,000 times an hour and some of us are doing 15 or 20 hours a week. You multiply it out, it's a lot of repetition, right? Over time, the pattern is that you can develop what we call a pelvic torsion, where the two, that's what I call it anyway, the two sides of the pelvis mutate relative to each other. So their neutral position, they're supposed to just be symmetrical, their neutral position starts to gravitate towards an asymmetrically dysfunctional, know, torsional position. So when you're sitting in a seat for example watching TV, it'll be like They're just sitting like that, right? The reason that they get like this is complicated, but basically the the muscle, the drag of the muscle system of all the large muscles which attach onto the pelvis, the quadriceps and the hamstrings and the glutes, the drag of them becomes sufficiently asymmetrical that the two iliac, the sacroiliac joints become torsion at rest to each other. Now when they get torsion at rest, this is starts to, this is usually where you start getting pain. Neill Stanbury (04:02.466) bike and this is why this joint is so so seriously compromised when it's really compromised it's so serious for your function on a bike because when they get torsion it's usually because you've got really large-scale asymmetry happening on the bike and it's affecting your muscular system which is then dragging the two sides of the pelvis out of plane with each other and as they go out of plane with each other what's embedded in the side of the pelvis your hip joint so as the two sacroiliac joints move like this it changes the neutral position of the two hip joints. And the two hip joints, the ball and socket joints, they start to go out of plane with each other. And you'll see the person basically flaring one knee away from the bike and the other one's coming right in towards the top tube, which is a classic pattern of complicated asymmetry that we'll see all the time, typically because the person's been dropping their right hip forward a lot of the time. And this torsional effect is catastrophic for a lot of things. It causes most notably pain. And as I've said many times before, pain is the single biggest detriment you'll ever have to your performance on the bike. If something is hurting, your nervous system is going to curtail your power output really significantly. Not only that, when the pelvis is torsioned, the complicated compensatory patterning which goes on really takes a lot of energy, a lot of neurological energy, which really hammers down your endurance. It really causes trouble. You basically end up utilizing a lot of calories compensating that you could have used for pressing down on pedals. This is one of the reasons why highly symmetrical people tend to have better endurance than highly asymmetrical people. And the asymmetrical people will usually find that one hamstring blows out before the other one on a long hard ride or one quad or something like that. So this torsional effect is really really serious for your function on the bike. Typically the side effects if they go forward on the right back on the left is left-sided gluteal pain, left-sided ITB pain, left-sided lower back pain, but the pain is what curtails your performance mostly on the bike. So the Sacroiliac joint, because it's such a critical joint, when it goes bad, I've never seen any other joint in the body cause as much trouble for a cyclist as this one does, which is really fascinating because it is such a, it's a joint which barely moves at all. Depending upon which textbook you read, you might see like five to eight degrees of rotation in the SIJs. So really, really unusual joint. Neill Stanbury (06:28.992) It seems to have a lot of proprioceptive nerve endings in it. I've heard, I've heard bandied about numbers that contain within the sacroiliac joints, you might have 30 or 40 % of all the proprioceptive nerve endings in your body contained within these joints. So they're really, really critical for posture, balance, general function, all that sort of stuff. And when one of them gets torsion backwards or jammed up, you're in big trouble. Okay, so how often do you see that in your clinic with people coming through and then what can you do about it? Ah, what can you do about it is a complicated question. Take up hockey. Take up hockey. What you want to do first is you want to correct for the asymmetry on the bike and then you want to give them corrective exercises off the bike which they vary between people but we give them isolated strength training to do for the weak muscle groups to try and correct the torsional drag that's happening on the pelvis because of that. But how often do I see it? We see it probably, I probably see three decently torsioned SIJs every week. When they, and that would be out of potentially like 10 to 12 people that I fit in a week, something like that. So it's fairly common. Now there's different grades of how badly they get twisted. A lot of people just have a mild adaptive torsion and they haven't yet gotten to that end stage where when one of the iliums gets turned back a lot, it can actually get like jammed. They can actually get stuck. And that's when you get really big trouble is when they get stuck and they don't move. That's when a lot of the pain really starts. But in terms of small adaptive torsions, yeah, probably about a third of people. It's really, really common. But when it gets really bad, and these are the ones which we're sort of referencing more here in this video, when it gets really bad and one side gets jammed and it won't move properly, that's when you're in big trouble. So sacroiliac joint torsions are really catastrophic for your function on a bike and in general in everyday life. But cycling, there is no other joint that affects your function as much as the sacroiliac joint in my experience. Cam Nicholls (08:26.7) Interesting. If somebody's interested in figuring out how they can deal with this from the comfort of their own home, you've put together a program called Bike Fit Fundamentals which has a tutorial on asymmetry. I think it's think it's part six or seven. Yeah, we're right. Yep. That's the one mate It goes through a lot of the corrective or a lot of the what would you call it? Diagnostic methods of figuring out your asymmetry and it's pretty detailed and this is a good first step to try to prevent or Reverse this fun this this situation if it's starting to happen to you at home Because yeah this long-term effect of compensating asymmetrically on the bike is really problematic for this joint with a downloadable guide. Neill Stanbury (09:06.316) and the flow down effects through the rest of your kinetic chain, really, really catastrophic. yeah, that is a really good first step is going through that asymmetry module to try and correct your own asymmetry and see how you go from there. Hope you enjoyed that conversation with Neil Stanbury. We'll catch you in the next podcast. /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/38190600

Why Inseam Measurement is Irrelevant (For Bike Fit & Saddle Height) 09/12/2025

Why Inseam Measurement is Irrelevant (For Bike Fit & Saddle Height) Summary In this episode of the RCA Podcast, expert bike fitter and sports physiotherapist Neill Stanbury discusses the common misconceptions surrounding inseam measurement in bike fitting. He explains why traditional methods of measuring inseam are not reliable indicators of seat height and highlights the various anatomical factors that contribute to effective leg length. The conversation emphasizes the importance of understanding individual anatomy and the limitations of relying solely on inseam measurements for optimal bike fitting. Takeaways Inseam measurement does not correlate well with seat height. Anatomical variations significantly affect leg length measurements. The shape and size of the saddle can alter effective seat height. Measuring inseam is often a waste of time in bike fitting. Bike fitting should consider individual anatomy rather than generic measurements. The LeMond method for seat height is flawed. Effective leg length changes with pelvic rotation and saddle shape. High inseam measurements can be misleading based on body composition. Bike Fit Fundamentals course offers a comprehensive fitting guide. Understanding your body is key to proper bike fitting. Bike Fit Fundamentals: Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:00.174) Welcome back to the RCA Podcast where today I am joined by expert bike fitter and sports physiotherapist, Neill Stanbury. Just be aware that this conversation is also designed for YouTube, so please excuse any visual references. Let's get into it. Okay, Neil, everyone wants to know my inseam height when we do a... Okay. It's not... Fit video mine too. Yep relevant new I get this question a lot in the comments actually I do occasionally read the comments I usually check out of the comments because there's just 10 million of them now that we're a big big enterprise, mate There's just there's a lot of noise down there So I don't often delve into the comments because it's just too much to go through and I'm too busy But when I do read through them particularly with the bike fit videos and stuff like that a lot of questions about what my inseam is what's your same. Number one question. I think it's like 89 centimeters. Yeah, so mine's quite long for my like I've got a really short torso and long legs, right? You've never measured your inseam? No, not yet. Yeah, I never measure inseams. Back in the day I used to measure inseams and record it as part of my my fits and I've completely stopped doing that probably 10, 12 years ago, a long time ago I stopped doing it and the reason for that is I found no great correlation between the seat height that we were ending up at at the end of the fit and the inseam measurement. So I wasn't really using the number for anything. measured my Neill Stanbury (01:18.83) Interesting. So I just ditched measuring inseams. Now if you're not sure what measuring an inseam entails, we basically get the person to stand up against a wall, flat feet on the ground, know, heels on the ground, knees locked out straight usually, no shoes on, no thick socks, and then we put like a book or a spirit level or something up in here. this rather, you know, centralized section of your anatomy here. We jam it up in there and then we get you to step away from the wall and measure how high it is. Right. So this is what they call inseam measurement. Which is sort of supposed to be a proxy for leg length measurement, right? And I'm going to tell you today why that's a bad move. For those of you out there who've purchased our BikeFit fundamentals course, you'll notice that one of the things that isn't in there is inseam measurement because again, there's just no great correlation between the seat height and the inseam measurement and if you could say that there's a loose correlation I guess but there's so much variance. You might get the same person with an inseam of 80 centimeters and another guy with an inseam of 80 centimeters and their seat heights might vary by 50 millimeters, like huge variance that it just basically becomes so useless, the number, there's just no point even measuring it, Now, one of the methods of measuring seat height or of setting your seat height, I think they might have called this the LeMond method back in the day, is to measure your inseam and then multiply it by number, and that's just supposed to be your seat height, right? Now, let's delve into the many ways in which this is a terrible idea to set your seat height, people at home. First problem, let's say- How many problems are there? I don't know, I'm gonna talk till I run out. There's quite a few. Let's say you've got two identical people with identical bodies and one of them has a slightly longer coccyx, this little bone in here which comes down off the bottom of your sacrum there. And one of the coccyx is it kind of comes down lower and the other one curls inwards more like that. You can just sort of see it kicking in or being very straight. The coccyx is almost, a lot of the time, the first thing when you jam something up you're gonna measure it. The first thing that comes into contact with your book spine or your spirit level or whatever. So the length of your coccidial protuberance here determines your leg length. Obviously not. Makes no difference, right? So this portion of your anatomy, if it varies, it's gonna alter your inseam measurement. Second problem. The height of these ischial protuberances downwards here, inferior iliac spines here, what people commonly think of as your sit bones, right? The height of these relative to the center of the acetate Neill Stanbury (03:44.174) that height there, the difference between the two, varies hugely between people. So as a measurement of leg length, which is, you know, you can think of your leg length as being the center of the rotation of the acetabulum down to maybe the ground if you're standing still, the difference between that and that can be anywhere from 30 millimeters up to 90 millimeters, depends on the person, right? So the height of the acetabulum inside the pelvis relative to the sit bones is highly variable between people. So even if you do manage to measure, somehow to your sit bones and you get a reasonable kind of dimension there for your inseam measurement, this number blows it out up, down, whatever. Doesn't make a difference. Another problem, if the person rotates their pelvis forward fairly well versus sitting fairly upright, the height of these relative to the rotational center of the hip changes the effective leg length more or less because this arc, this radius, if you think of it as a radius of movement here, This arc changes the effective leg length a lot. So if the person was, say, extremely bent forward on the bike, this is kind of going to be level with that relative to the vertical plane that the crank is operating down there. Whereas if they're sitting bolt upright, you're going to get a completely different dimension effectively for the length of your leg. So inseam measurement for this reason is another terrible idea because as you roll forward, you just kind of... change everything, all of the three-dimensional relationships between them alter so much that it's not even worth thinking about. Another one just to make it, we're going down lots of rabbit holes. As your femur comes out here and goes down, the angle at which it comes out and then kicks down, what we call the femoral neck here, highly variable between people, really, really different. The angle that it comes forward or backward is highly variable between people. Both of these two things alter the effective seat height. when you're sitting on the bike, they alter the effective length of your leg, irrespective of where your actual in-scene measurement is, right? So in-scene measurements, if you've got a really lean person, you might get that spine and that book right up much higher. If you've got a person with slightly larger soft tissue around their backsides, for example, you might get a situation where that spirit level or that book spine that you're putting up in there is sitting down lower. So you're not getting a very good measurement there anyway. Neill Stanbury (06:08.078) So the common idea is you take this number and you multiply it by .883, I think was the old LeMond mechanism, and that's supposed to be your seat height. Terrible idea for all of those reasons. Another one is the saddle that you're sitting on, the shape and the size of the seat. Some of them, if it's particularly narrow seat, you're gonna sit deeper over the saddle. If it's a wider seat with a broader back, you're gonna sit up higher. So just by virtue of... the nature of the shape of the saddle itself, you're get huge potential variations in the effective seat height that you're measuring anyway. So I've seen multiple situations like, I see this probably five times a week, where we change saddles for a given rider on a given seat height. We go from something like an SMP back to a flat style SLR boost or something like that. And you've gotta drop the seat 10 millimetres into the frame or lift it or move it forward or backward. So the effective seat height changes a lot. based upon how your anatomy interacts with the saddle. And when you're trying to basically set the seat height based off a number, there is just for all of those reasons and more that I could, you know, we could go down endless rabbit holes with this, inseam measurement is a terrible idea as a method of measuring your seat height. So one of the reasons that my inseam might measure so high is because I'm so lean. There's not much bum on me mate. You know, I don't know. You have noticed, yes. A lot of people are noticing that in the comments. getting a lot of ribald comments down there. So because I'm so lean down there, I think that inflates my inseam measurement. Yeah, okay. So, for a person who's 173, 174 centimetres last time I checked, an inseam dimension of 89 centimetres is crazy high, like really, really high. Does that mean I've got particularly long legs? Eh, probably. but it could also mean that for all those reasons that we mentioned before, my inseam measures very high. So that is a more detailed explanation of why I don't even bother measuring inseam when I'm measuring people. And if you go and have a bike fit and they measure your inseam and they set your seat height based upon your inseam measurement. Ask for your money back. Red flags, Warning lights are flashing. And again, we've had a lot of questions in the Bike Fit Fundamentals course, people who've been going through that course. Neill Stanbury (08:25.262) They haven't asked me to measure my inseam and this is why there is just no point to it It is just such a highly variable method of measuring that it's just not worth doing. It's not even worth spending three minutes doing. Okay. Yeah you sold me. So if you're watching this and you're like, I want to set my saddle height properly now, you mentioned bike fit fundamentals. What's that? Yeah bike and fundamentals. That's our seven part course that we did last year our program that we did Detailed detailed 15 to 20 sometimes 25 minute modules seven of them and downloadable guides downloadable guides This will step you through the process one after the other Sequentially how to fit yourself to a road bike to a pretty high level We're very proud of it took a lot of work and it's out there for purchase if you guys want to go through the process yourself you enjoyed that conversation with Neil Stanbury, we'll catch you in the next podcast. /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/38190530

A Zone Two Training Hack (Anyone Can Do) 09/11/2025

A Zone Two Training Hack (Anyone Can Do) Summary In this episode of the RCA podcast, host and coach Ben Treble discusses innovative techniques to enhance cycling fitness through zone two training, focusing on the importance of proper breathing. The conversation explores how diaphragmatic breathing can improve performance, lower heart rates, and enhance overall cycling efficiency. Listeners are guided on how to implement these breathing techniques during their training sessions, with practical advice on intervals and progression. The episode concludes with real-world applications and benefits observed by athletes who have integrated these methods into their routines. Takeaways Zone two training can become monotonous, so mixing it up is essential. Breathing techniques can significantly impact cycling performance. Diaphragmatic breathing is crucial for improving VO2 max. Proper breathing can lower heart rates and improve recovery. Breathing exercises can reduce perceived exertion (RPE) during workouts. Integrating breathing techniques into training can enhance overall fitness. Focus on breathing through the belly for better oxygen intake. Progress breathing exercises from zone two to higher intensity efforts. Athletes have reported lower heart rates and improved performance with breathing techniques. Adding breathing exercises has no downside and can only improve cycling efficiency. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Zone Two Training 02:59 Understanding Breathing Techniques 06:02 Implementing Breathing in Zone Two Rides 08:51 Progressing Breathing Techniques in Training 12:06 Real-World Applications and Benefits of Breathing Exercises RCA: Cam Nicholls (00:00.12) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined in studio by RCA coach Ben Treble. And today we're going to talk about a zone two training hack you can use to boost your overall cycling fitness. Apparently that's what I was just hearing about offline, which I'm interested to learn a little bit more about. And I think it's a good one as well for a lot of people out there that get a little bit bored is the right word with zone two training, but You know it can be a little bit monotonous so something that we can use to mix things up So Ben, what do you got for me? We're doing some zone 2 maybe we should Preface this one by talking about what do we mean by zone 2 because there are many more other versions of zone 2 There's a scientific model There's a heart rate model. There's a power model like are we talking about? Something specifically here, or we're not getting too carried away. We're just doing like aerobic work Yeah, don't need to get too carried away. I where this idea came from, I mean, it's not my idea. It's not a new idea, but I had an athlete that, you know, you do zone to ride, let's say it's one hour, two hours on Swift and it gets a bit boring. Like how do you make it more interesting? whilst being productive. And the idea that I ended up with was, you know, I learned this actually over at the UCI level three course around. you know, often a low hanging fruit that's missed is learning how to breathe properly on the bike. Hmm. You know, like particularly let's talk about VO2 max, you know, hot topic at the moment, you know, everybody's pretty good at doing some sort of VO2 max intervals, but we don't, and we often only think of, we're fairly narrow minded in thinking about to improve VO2 max, we do intervals on the bike. don't think about how else could we improve. VO2 max from, because it's not just how you push the pedals, right? It's, there's a lot more involved in when we think about what VO2 max is, your, you know, your maximal volume of oxygen consumption that involves your whole cardio respiratory system. key, very key component of that is breathing. So the idea was let's try and break up the zone to ride by adding in some intervals at the same intensity, but there's just simply, you know, the, the, Ben Treble (02:25.794) wording on the interval is a reminder to just purely focus on your breathing for say it's a five minute interval and then we progress to longer intervals. Okay, so when we say breathing, are we talking about like, are we working, you know, breathing through the chest? Are we focusing on the stomach or the diaphragm? Or like, are we narrowing in on something before we talk about what the intervals look like? Because I know like, you do forget about this one, it's like, yeah, the diaphragm. You know, don't often think about the diaphragm when you're doing your training, you think about your legs. and your lower back and maybe some numb hand that you get on your handlebar. So like if we're doing zone two training and we're focused on the breathing, what are we focused on specifically? The scientific term is diaphragmatic breathing. It's also called belly breathing. I think in its most basic form, that's the first step to improving your breathing would be to think about expanding your belly and breathing through the belly. The goal that you want to get to though would be a picture. If you picture your chest and your belly, that whole torso area, as if it was a big can of Coke and someone shook it up and it's expanding in the heat. That's what you want when you breathe. You want your chest, your belly, your ribs, your back. So behind you, you want it to expand outwards, forwards, upwards at the same time as evenly as possible, which is quite hard to do. if we come back to why is this important? Because a lot of new writers, they work Monday to Friday jobs, sitting at a desk. They just breathe through their chest and they often have shallow breathing. And this is a learned muscle recruitment pattern. Ben Treble (04:10.136) that you have. And when you end up doing high intensity intervals, your body's going to revert to its natural muscle recruitment patterns, including when you breathe. And so you're to just breathe pretty hard through your chest and your ribs will limit your breathing capacity a little bit. So let's talk about how do we shift that and improve how much oxygen we're going to breathe in. So you can improve your tidal volume. And then if you improve the strength of those diaphragmatic muscles through some exercise intervals like this, you're going to improve the pressure when you breathe out, which will improve your partial pressure and it'll improve the diffusion of the oxygenated blood into the capillaries, which is going to improve your call it your VO2 max or your ability to do high intensity intervals. Okay, good. I'm wondering, there's probably a lot of people out there listening at the moment, myself included, just sitting opposite you that's already started to just breathe a little bit differently. I'm like, yeah, okay. I was chest breathing and now I can feel as I'm breathing and focus more on that sort stomach region, which then sort of continues into the chest. Things are a lot different. Yeah, you feel karma. do feel calm. Your heart rate's going to drop. Your body immediately gets a parasympathetic response. So it's going to reduce the heart rate, improve your heart rate variability. And you get that, that parasympathetic response across the body, which reduces your stress. That translates if you teach yourself, it's difficult to, to practice that in a high intensity of four minute VO two interval. It's very difficult to practice that. course. That's why one, I target the zone two or even your recovery rides and I break it up with intervals that are just let's focus on the breathing. See how much you can reduce your heart rate through focused breathing in that five minutes. And when you, it's much easier to do that at low intensity. So you're going to practice that and hopefully the aim is to build the new muscle recruitment pattern. So then when you start doing high intensity work, you should naturally start breathing better when you're doing that high intensity work and it should improve. Cam Nicholls (06:02.67) Okay. Ben Treble (06:20.012) your, it should lower the RPE. That's where the science is at. So if you're breathing a lot better, it's going to reduce the RPE and improve your ability to sustain those high intensity intervals. So yeah, pretty good one. the other science on this that, you know, I did a little bit of extra research on this cause that's where I was at. and the science behind this was it should also improve your posture and it should help reduce things from tinglingness in the arms. and to your power output, or if you have back injuries, it's just going to help use every muscle in the body. And it's going to reduce the load on the legs. And the last big benefit that was quite interesting was when you're breathing more efficiently, which is what we just described, you got to think that your, your, your cardio respiratory system is a subset of muscles. Like the intercostal muscles is a big group and they require energy to work. If you can use those muscles more efficiently, they're going to do the same amount of breathing for less energy. It's going to save that energy for your legs. Okay, that's good. All right, you've sold me. So what is it if I'm doing a zone two ride? You know, I'm going for an hour on the train or maybe it's two hours as we have here where I live down the coast. That's a common zone two ride or maybe somebody doing three hours on two ride. Like what are they doing? Like how does an interval look like? Give an example and add another layer on that up. You know, I've been into breathing in the past, not so much on the bike but off the bike. you there's the Wim Hof method and all these things and they talk about you've got to breathe in through your nose because the nose filters the air, warms it and it becomes more efficient when it goes into the bloodstream. So you know are we mouth breathing, are nose breathing? What does it look like? Ben Treble (08:06.038) Yeah. I do like breathing in through the nose and out the mouth. for me, main benefit, no, that's very difficult. So yeah, preface high intensity stuff. You're to be mouth breathing. Good luck trying that with nose breathing. Maybe if you're a pocket show, VR2 max Ben Treble (08:24.642) But when you breathe through the nose, it limits the amount of oxygen or the volume that you can breathe in, like how fast you can feel those lungs. And so naturally what it does is it forces you to breathe in over a longer period. when you have shallow breathing, it's often short. You might be breathing in and out in one, two second increments. So the practical side of this is I would put in a one hour zone two ride, probably three, five minute intervals, three to four. And it's at the same intensity. So you just try and maintain the same power. But the focus of it is you would start in the most basic form, try and breathe through the belly, which is going to help you breathe out everywhere and start with trying to breathe in for three, hold it and then breathe out for three. Yeah. Well, you don't have to hold it for three, probably for two, but you just want to hold it for at least a period. Yeah. Don't just breathe in and straight back out. in, hold it for a bit. Cause it's going to help strengthen the muscles and then for three seconds. Cam Nicholls (09:23.352) through the mouth, through the nose when you're the... You breathe in through the nose. To me, it doesn't matter that much, but if you breathe in through the nose, it's going to force you to do it longer. And you want to progress. So if you can do it for five seconds in and out, that's great. I think that's the target is to get to a five second in and out. Some people like to do this with the pedal strokes. So you might say, as you're breathing in, try and get through five revolutions. That's another way to count through it. And then as you're breathing out, try and get through five revolutions. Okay, cool. And you're doing this for... I would just try this for five minutes because it's actually, it's a very, it should be a very focused effort. And I think it's actually a little bit mentally draining when you start doing this. And so that's why I just do five minutes. Oh, and I think you can also lose focus very quickly at a zone 2 level, know what I mean? Because you're sort of plodding along and quite often I get caught in my own thoughts and you you drift off so five minutes sounds like a good period. Ben Treble (10:14.318) Yeah. And then I would just build it up. And this is a, you know, we just had a good chat about winter training. Great time in winter training to train this. might even do a full block, say like a four week period where you start in the first week, trying to get through two of your zone two rides. You've got three, five minute intervals of breathing. And by the end of the four weeks, you want to get to a point where, you know, you're doing 20 minute intervals and then you testing that out, uh, when you do some high intensity stuff, potentially. Okay, and do you, you know, with the RCA members at UCoach who are doing this, do they progress that breathing into other zones as well? So like I'm thinking, obviously you wouldn't go straight to, you know, top end zone, but like you get them to do tempo efforts or any sweet spot efforts or is this something that you think is a good idea? Because obviously at a zone two level, it's easier to probably be doing this may become more challenging as you go up the zones. Yeah, I would definitely progress it into tempo efforts. Okay, and a tempo effort if you're out there listening, zone three, so power wise we're talking what's at about 75 to 85 percent of FTP around there. Ben Treble (11:25.752) Yep, around there. It's going to be the job. Okay, and have you had any feedback from some of your athletes that have been doing this? What have they said about the workout specifically and any things that they've noticed on the bike? highly where it came from was a conversation with an athlete I had around their zone two workouts and they were concerned about cardiac drift or they felt like their high rate was just increasing too much towards the end of a zone two ride. I think there were other factors at play like heat strain throughout an indoor workout was a one factor. And I was trying to think of how do we help this athlete because we're not going to change the work that they're doing. the zone two work they're doing is going to help improve the cardiac drift and the progressive increase in volume will help reduce cardiac drift. But that takes time. And so I thought, let's try get that heart rate down a bit more with some breathing exercises. So a lot of secondary benefits, but at the end of the day, we did it even for two weeks. And when we did our weekly catch up in the second week, we looked at the heart rate response and we looked at the RPE and the comments. And the comments simply were I could feel the difference. I could feel that I managed to get my heart rate five to 10 beats lower than it was at the start of the five minute breathing interval. And then by the third week, we managed to get the heart rate to be around 10 beats lower in average for the whole workout. Wow. And in the space of one week, you're not going to see a massive, you know, shift in say just pure cardiac drift stuff, but Ben Treble (13:08.136) I would say a big portion of that was just through breathing. Interesting. So, yeah, pretty significant drop in RPE. And I think this helps everything from recovery to a whole lot of subset of things. Yeah, and it's such an easy one to do, but such an easy one to forget about as well. I'm going to go try this myself. know, particularly I think on the indoor trainer as well, I struggle with those own two rides. They're very boring. So this is going to be a good one for me to test out. Yeah, I think it's a great one. often talk about low hanging fruit and often when you target something in your cycling training, it means that you're not doing something else, but adding breathing exercises into a zone to work out. To me, there is no downside. There's only a possible upside. So what have you got to lose by trying it? Cam Nicholls (14:00.288) Very good point. Such a good point. We're gonna leave on that point. Thanks again for joining us, Ben. And look, if you're looking to implement these things and work with the coach, get support with these types of things, make sure you check out the RCA's website, www.roadcyclingacademy.com and there you can hire a coach. Even, can you hire Ben at the moment or are you at capacity? I'll always make room for some people. All right, thank you, Tom, and we'll catch you in the next podcast. /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/38175005

Make Best Use of the Winter Period (for BIG FTP Gains Next Summer) 09/05/2025

Make Best Use of the Winter Period (for BIG FTP Gains Next Summer) Summary In this episode, RCA coach Ben Treble discusses the transition from off-season to on-season training for cyclists, focusing on strategies to maintain motivation during winter, the importance of setting winter goals, and the role of strength and conditioning in enhancing cycling performance. The conversation emphasizes the need for a balanced approach that includes aerobic base training, gym work, and experimentation with nutrition and taper strategies to prepare for the upcoming cycling season. Takeaways Take time off the bike for mental reset. Focus on aerobic base training during winter. Set specific winter goals for cycling. Incorporate strength and conditioning into training. Experiment with nutrition and taper strategies. Maintain motivation through outdoor rides. Strength training is crucial for cyclists. Something is always better than nothing in training. Prioritize gym work during the off-season. Reset goals to address injuries and bike fit issues. Chapters 00:00 Transitioning from Off-Season to On-Season Training 03:06 Maintaining Motivation Through Winter Training 05:58 Setting Winter Goals for Cyclists 09:05 The Importance of Aerobic Base Training 11:51 Incorporating Strength and Conditioning in Winter 14:51 Experimenting with Nutrition and Taper Strategies 17:50 The Role of Gym Work in Cycling Performance 20:50 Maintaining Strength During the Cycling Season 23:54 Key Takeaways for Off-Season Training RCA Cycle Coaching: Cam Nicholls (00:00.046) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined in studio by or with Ben Treble, RCA coach Ben Treble. Welcome to the studio, Ben. So today I wanted to talk about something that if you're an Australian, Kiwi or anyone sort of Southern hemisphere, is that how it works weather wise? Hopefully. And you're coming off a winter period because what is it? Just entered spring here. Thanks, Ken. Cam Nicholls (00:29.238) So if you're in Victoria, we know that they're gonna have winter for another five months. But for the rest of Australia, you're sort of coming into some nicer weather and you're just coming off an off season phase or what most people would treat as an off season phase being a winter. Or if you're like many of our Canadian, American, UK or European members, you you're just about to wrap up the summer. period, the nice weather and you're heading into an off season phase or at least a winter phase. So I wanted to talk about, you know, your approach as somebody who coaches a number of people for this period of time, assuming that we're talking about, you know, our American, Canadian, UK, European members who are going into a winter period. And maybe for those listening in Australia, Southern hemisphere, like, now that I've, you know, coming out of an off season phase. Did I do it right? Well, what can I do right for 2026? So, I'm gonna paint the picture for you here. I've been training super hard for the last five, six months during summer. I've done a couple of Fondo events. I've done a few races. I've peaked. I'm feeling good, but winter's about to hit. What would you recommend I do? That's a good question. mean, ultimately the two big ones come into mind really quickly is going to be taking some time off and putting a big focus on like aerobic base training and using that extra time with some reduced volume and intensity with the bike to focus on some strength and conditioning in the gym. Okay. They're the two headlines. Okay. Okay, so let's dig into those, playing Deadpool's advocate, what if I'm like, like we just spoke about in the previous podcast, Joshua, who's just throughing from the bit, you know, he's recently got into, not recently got on a road cycle, but recently found structured training and the benefits and had huge improvements and won his first crit race. And I know from the feeling, you know, 12 years ago when I first went and did my first race and I got that. Cam Nicholls (02:41.718) sensation and the group rides, the dopamine's going off and I didn't care that it was winter, I just wanted to go hard during winter because I was feeling good and I loved the training and I wanted to do well next year. So what if you like, not saying Joshua is going to do this, but what if you like Joshua in that scenario and you're so excited about what's next and you're loving the training and you just keep going. What if you do that? What's going to happen? Yeah, very likely you're going to peak in the middle of winter when there's no racing or races that you're not targeting and you're going to get to summer in a fairly fatigued state looking for a mental break. So, you know, I think it's tricky for riders like Josh, because if you've just sort of really found that itch this late in summer and you're about to hit winter, especially in North America, where it is going to be cold and snowy. Okay. Ben Treble (03:38.818) that's going to be hard to manage that motivation because one, you don't want to lose the motivation, but you want to maintain it and manage it through winter and hold onto it. So when you get towards spring and you get towards the summer crits, you're going to peak. That's when you need to have that real energy. Okay, so for that person that wants to keep going, keep that in mind. What do you want 2026 to look like? There's a, there's a, there's a plan B for some athletes on this. I'm thinking of not Josh, but another athlete that I have. and the, I'll set the scene a little bit. I've worked with them for a while. They're a weekly athlete of mine. They do a lot of travel once a month between America and Europe. busy schedule, busy job, loves riding and We had the chat recently about winter goals. I've had this started this conversation with all my North American European athletes. I want you to think about your winter goals. Just think about it. And then in our next catch up, let's start to set the goals. Okay, so the goals can be beyond building base fitness and going to the gym. Ben Treble (04:49.858) gym. Definitely. Okay. Yeah. And for this athlete, the first comment was last winter. So before I was working with this athlete and they did a swift program through winter, it burned them out and they got to the end of winter and was ready to throw the bike in the bin. I think I'm going to relabel this, not just swift, but like high intensity indoor training. Yes. Yeah. Okay. We're really going hard after Zwift. Zwift. This was the last podcast we did. Cam Nicholls (05:16.43) Which is what Zwift programs are. But Zwift is, as we've said, just to preface, great platform, we love it, great for bunch rides, great for motivation, great for indoor racing, and it does have some good plans on them. But they can burn you out. Easy target. Yeah. So this athlete, you know, that was our conversation around winter goals and the way that we're going to manage that, cause we don't want to repeat it and equally doesn't want to just do indoor riding based training is one of the goals is let's try and ride outdoors three times a week. Not appropriate for everyone, but they're going to do some gravel riding and there's a gravel scene through winter. So we're flipping the focus a little bit. We're still going to do some indoor training, but the focus will be more around, Okay, nice. Ben Treble (06:02.082) getting him outdoors to maintain that motivation on the bike. And equally it's going to be around, he's got a little niggle in the knee and there's going to be a focus on strength and conditioning and rehabbing and addressing that injury. Like really taking the time to focus on stretching, go see the physio if he needs to see the physio. But like really let's address those small niggles so they don't become bigger problems when we want to hit full training again coming into summer. Okay, cool. And I think that's, you've raised a good point that, you know, cross training is a great opportunity as well. If you want to have like another goal, just to, if you've been cycling for a long time, like I have, you know, I've been doing it for 15 years now. Last year I did a triathlon, just coming out of, you know, winter. I know, yeah. Ben's dropped his jaw here. And no, no, not many people are impressed. And I'm doing it again this year because I'm like, it's just a bit of variation and, For me, it just changes the dynamic of what I'm doing. I hate swimming, but I still go to the pool. It makes me really respect cycling even more. Not a huge fan of running, but I do like the process of training for it. And there's different things that I'm doing and it's time away from the bike. It's a mental refresher. So when I do come back to cycling specifically, I'm more motivated. So that's another example of just taking your mind off things and some cross-training ideas. if we go back to, let's just say you are focused on having an epic 2026. on the bike, you're about to go into winter, you talk about focusing on endurance and focusing on the gym, which is really going to put you in a good position to have a solid 2026. So what would that look like? Yeah, to me it looks like you start with what I would call a call it a transition phase. So you get to the end of your race season, you go into a transition phase where you progressively reduce the volume and intensity. Might only be over two weeks, might be over four weeks. Depends how long you want to take the winter. And then I would probably try to plan to have at some point early in the winter, a significant complete break off the bike. Ben Treble (08:09.622) And depending on the rider, that might be one week. might be two weeks for a complete mental reset. And just, you know, if that means going on a holiday with the family, whatever it is, it's like a really, that's the time to have a proper break on the bike. Post that you move into a general preparation phase. So I would use the winter as like a long general preparation phase. And this would start with some aerobic based training. So that does involve. significantly reduced intensity, you might still, you'd go into some maintenance, right? That's often the main goal that writers would come to you with through winter is like, how do I maintain what I have? I don't want to lose. I don't want to lose what I've gained in the summer. And that requires a bit of resetting expectations that you've peaked in summer and you have to recognize you can't stay at that peak all the time. And the way that we get you back to that peak or at a bigger peak next year, is you're going to have to come down first and you have to go through this period where you give your body a significant portion of time to rest, recover, reset. And then we go into this base block. So everybody likes to talk about this pyramid and the lowest, biggest base in the pyramid is this long, low endurance work. But that could also mean doing your strength and conditioning work. And you still want to do some maintenance, which could be some sprint interval training. Okay. So, therefore, if we just focus on the cycling specifically, let's just say, I know a lot of people in the off-season phase, now they're on the trainer, they're not outdoors, the volume reduces. So let's just say we're going from 10, 12 hours a week to maybe five or six. And we're doing four rides, maybe five rides. As a general blanket example, let's just call it five rides. Five one-hour rides. Are four of those rides Zone 2 and one of them's an intense workout that you do each week for some maintenance? Or are three base rides and two intense maintenance workouts? Ben Treble (10:23.382) Yeah, it depends. would periodize it again, just like you would normally. but in general, I would probably want to spend more time in a general weekly structure where if there's five sessions, one is recovery ride zone one. So even do a recovery ride. Okay. Even though you're not that fatigued and you know the training load isn't that high. I would still have a recovery rock. Ben Treble (10:45.014) Yeah, I'd still do a recovery ride. it's five days a week, you're still doing back to back days on the bike. Yeah, so the trainer is more difficult than on the road as well, generally. I would agree with that, you're probably going to have a bit of heat stress going on that you're not accounting for. Not in Canada. Or some of our Nordic country members as well. Future podcast topic, heat training. yeah, one recovery, two zone two rides. And then I would do, yeah, one or two, if you want to call them interval sessions and depending on where you're at in winter, that might start out. would do maintenance, which would be a sprint interval session, which is quite neuromuscularly taxing, but it shouldn't be too like energetically taxing externally. And then you might start to add in. Ben Treble (11:33.258) some efforts with your fifth session. And that might be starting smaller with some small tempo efforts and building up depending on really depends on what your goals and weaknesses and strengths are. If you've got a quick racer, you might focus on maintaining anaerobic capacity and do a bit more threshold work. If you've got someone who wants to focus on time trial or climbing and longer endurance events, you're probably going to do a bit more tempo work for your intervals. We're just coming out of an off-season phase, well I am, and what's worked really well for me depends on the week. I've averaged over the past 16 weeks 5.1 hours per week, so not huge, mostly on the trainer and I'm probably doing two or three zone two rides, then I'll do one sweet spot ride. For me it's about 300 watts, so I'll do 10 minute intervals with a five minute recovery and I'll do, depending on how much time I've got available, I might do three or four. five if I'm lucky, that's extending it to an hour and a half on the train though, so it's probably more like three or four. And the other session I've been doing, and we've made a video on the RCA YouTube channel about this recently, and I think this was a paper that you might have shared or Carter shared, the sprint interval training, which I've actually never done before, which is the warmup with some activation efforts and then 30 seconds all out. And when I say all out, it's like, and people ask on the video, what percentage of FTP are you doing? It's just like, yeah. just go all out, like, you know, as a rate of perceived exertion, if you're all out is a 10 out of 10, which is a 10 second sprint, for a 30 second sprint, you're probably doing a seven or a nine, I'm sorry, eight or a nine RPE. And what I found with those sprint intervals as well is that, you know, my first 10 seconds would peak and then I would drop off towards the last 20 seconds. And that's fine, you're depleting your anaerobic stores, but I've been doing that. So 30 seconds sprint, I think it's a four four and a half minute recovery, either way. I think that doesn't really matter in between and then I'll do that again and I'll do five or six of those depending on how much time. And that's all the intensity I've been doing. And I went and did the local bunch recently and I was really surprised at my ability to not only keep up and roll turns and not get dropped, but in the last, it's a 90 minute hit out and the last sort of 20 minutes, they push it pretty hard towards the end. And I was able to roll turns and had some durability as well, which was really surprising. So I think that blend that you talked about is actually kind of like what I'm doing now. Cam Nicholls (13:54.68) to great success. Yeah, no, that sounds about right. you know, think to me that that's the answer for nine out of 10 cases for people. don't think there's much else to it. I think there's a lot more that you can do in winter and use winter for like, that's the training, you know, like you get the training done, but winter is also this really good opportunity to experiment and test different things. That's the time if you are focused on say an event that looks at watts per kilo and you want to look at trying to get to race weight, you can try and drop a little bit of weight through winter. It's not a lot, but you can just really do small incremental stuff. It's a really good time to look at your nutrition. If you want to experiment or do gut training, if you want to try different gels or foods, find out what works with your stomach. If you want to test a taper strategy, that's also a good time to really just test different things out before you hit the season. So with a taper strategy, if you're not doing much training though that wouldn't be possible would it? Because a taper is about peaking and maybe you could do that at the end of the season, at the very end. Ben Treble (15:12.622) Yeah, I still think you could do it in winter. Like you could, uh, to keep it interesting. have some athletes where we might throughout the winter break it up and do say, you know, after two months of base training, if you want to call it that, might do, uh, we would call it a training camp where you actually, you add quite a bit of load and intensity for one week. and then you might try a taper strategy the week after. So you just build up a bunch of fatigue. You're also really breaking that winter up. And you just, okay, now we're to do, try and do some longer rides, whether it's on Zwift or outdoors. You find a point in the winter that suits the athlete to their schedule, lock it in. You get through that week and then the week after, cause they're depleted. It's kind of a good time to test how a taper might work. How they respond to it. Cause there's different taper strategies out there. And I do think people respond differently to them. And often you find yourself in the middle of, you start with a new athlete and you maybe coming. Ben Treble (16:11.446) the first time you're doing a taper is to a race that they care about. So you have to be quite conservative. And of course, know, bike position is another big one I know. And during winter periods and years gone by, I've tested and spent thousands of dollars on many, many different bike seats. Turned out back in the day, just, my saddle was probably 10, 20 mil too high, which was the issue, which is very common. People have their saddle too high and they don't sit on the saddle properly. And now I've ended up with, as you can see over there on that wall, the ugly SMP. But testing, you know, different positions as well is a great thing to do during that. winter period. So while you're testing these different things and you're doing your bass training with a little bit of intensity sprinkled in, Jim was the other big one that you mentioned at start of the conversation. So what does that look like? And let's not specifically go into reps and sets and that, because that's probably a conversation for another day. But like... How are you looking at gym? Is this a phase where you're building strength in the gym? And how many sessions a week are required? How are you placing it amongst your cycling training? What does that look like? Yeah, great question. Look, I'll caveat this and say, I'm not an accredited strength and conditioning coach. I'm a sports scientist and a cycling coach. Cam is so Cam can tell me if I mess this up or not. but you do do a lot of S and C work as a sports scientist in reference to winter, you know, I mean, the basic stuff, if we just looked at S and C in terms of cycling, Cam Nicholls (17:52.928) S &C strength and conditioning just for those out there that wondering what that might be. Thanks, Ken. My bad. No, no, it's alright. Sometimes we get these questions and we use acronyms all the time. Yeah, that's good. I'll keep that in mind. You know, you would say, okay, you want to do twice a week to build power and strength, whatever it is. And then if you're in a race season, you back it off to maybe once a week for maintenance. And typically you're going to prioritize the bike work over the gym work. So if you're... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/38097715

The Problem with Zwift Cycling Plans 09/04/2025

The Problem with Zwift Cycling Plans Summary In this episode, the conversation revolves around the effectiveness of Zwift and other off-the-shelf cycling programs, exploring their benefits and limitations. The discussion highlights the common issue of athlete plateaus and features a case study of a member named Joshua, who transitioned from a Zwift program to personalized coaching. The importance of critical power testing and structured training is emphasized, along with insights into preparing for competitive racing. The episode concludes with key takeaways for listeners looking to improve their cycling performance. Takeaways Zwift programs are engaging but may lead to plateaus. High intensity workouts can cause quick fatigue. Athletes often don't know their true training needs. Improving FTP alone doesn't guarantee racing success. Critical power testing provides more insights than FTP. Structured coaching can help overcome training plateaus. Recovery weeks are essential for performance improvement. Individualized training plans are more effective. Learning bike handling skills is crucial for racing. Coaching support can enhance overall cycling experience. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Zwift and Off-the-Shelf Plans 03:04 The Pros and Cons of Zwift Programs 05:43 Understanding Athlete Plateaus 08:45 Case Study: Joshua's Journey with Coaching 11:51 The Importance of Critical Power Testing 14:40 Transitioning from Zwift to Structured Coaching 17:42 Preparing for Competitive Racing 20:38 Key Takeaways and Future Goals 23:38 Conclusion and Coaching Support Josh's crit result: Cycling coaching with the RCA; Speaker 2 (00:00.376) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined in the studio, I should say, which is my house, by RCA coach Ben Treble. What are you doing in town, Ben? Just up here for a short holiday and escape the drizzly Sydney weather for some warm beachy Queensland northern riding. Noosa weather is nice, isn't it? Come for holiday if you've never been. Today, we're going through three topics while Ben is in town. So we're gonna have three in a row podcasts where we're face to face. Perhaps you can let us know in the review section what you think of this face to face versus the typical we do them online. But today we're gonna talk about Zwift and Zwift programs and Zwift workouts and been very nice. Speaker 2 (00:48.204) I don't want to throw Zwift under the bus specifically, but a lot of people when they think about off-the-shelf plans, they think about Zwift because that's probably the most common one, but this comes in the form of Wahoo system, there's Trainer Road, and we've even got off-the-shelf plans on our own website. Probably a little bit different, I'd say, to these online subscription-based plans, but I wanted to talk about them in the sense of... you know, are they good or are they bad or like how should we be looking at these things? Because I know we're going to talk about a member today and we get a lot of inquiries where people are coming off Zwift programs or off the shelf programs on another platform and they've done them well initially but then they've hit a bit of a plateau and they're not sure why and you know, they lean into some more customized coaching and as you'll hear today, an athlete or an RCA member that Ben has been Training has had some huge improvements. So I'm going to ask you the question specifically Ben Zwift workout swift plans. What do you think about them? Nice in the short term and that's about it. Yeah. My, my knowledge of most of them that I've seen and from a few athletes, cause it's pretty common scenario where we see a new athlete to cycling and they start with the say a swift program or something similar. And you look at the history and it's a often just a lot of sort of hit random interval workouts. And when I look at those intervals, I'm often asking myself this question. Okay Ben Treble (02:23.852) Like what was the purpose of this, like interval session? It's, some random intervals with lots of variation. When you say lots of variation, you're talking about like jumping between different zones or... Yeah, jumping across different zones or within a zone, just changing the power output quite often and a bit random. I'll just... My view on it pretty simple is Zwift program is often designed to keep you in Zwift. And so they create these programs that are really interesting and really engaging. And that's how they keep you going, that's how they keep you motivated, and that's how you... People love Zwift programs. They get through them because, yeah, there's so much variation, it just keeps you hyper-engaged and... there's a lot of high intensity and when you're new to cycling, any work that you do will often see some improvement. It's been quite difficult as well, I find. Like, I'm a bit of a stickler in the off-season, so I can't be bothered thinking about something. I'll go on Zwift, and, you know, I appreciate Zwift. I think it's a great platform, particularly the bunch riding and the racing. But even their workouts, I often do them. But I struggle to find workouts that are, you know, like a six or seven out of ten. They're all like an eight or nine or even a ten out of ten. They're always, you know, I pick one, I'm like, Speaker 2 (03:40.962) I'm halfway through it, I'm like, this is actually, it's a really hard workout. So you do finish going, endorphins are pumping. You know, I feel like I've really done something. Yeah, your dopamine is just massively spiked, right? It's the same old school adage. If you go to the gym and people used to just go crazy hard at the gym because, you know, if you don't feel sore straight after all the next day, it wasn't a good session, which we just know isn't necessarily the right approach these days. We know a lot better. So same with Zwift. You know, you get these athletes, they're new, you get a lot of high intensity. They're going to see a lot of improvement really quick, but equally they're going to plateau pretty quick. And it's because the athlete adapts really quick, really early. but the Zwift program is not adapting with them. Okay, do also think that, you know, maybe taking the spotlight off Zwift and off the platforms that also a lot of recreational and amateur road cyclists that are choosing these plans or choosing these workouts also don't really know where they're at and what they should be doing and therefore the risk of choosing the wrong plan or like I want to build my FTP so FTP builder, you know what mean? you should actually probably be doing this before you do an FTP builder. Do think that factors into the situation here? Ben Treble (04:54.156) Yeah, big time. mean, you can't exactly go to one of these online platforms and say, my goal is to improve my bunch riding skills. That's, that's, it's not going to teach you that. And when you're a beginner, you don't know what you don't know. And often it's great to focus on something as singular as FTP, but if you want to be a great rider, you actually have to work on a whole subset of skills from technical skills on the bike. And strategic skills, if you want to race to your power on the bike, like your power on the bike is just one component. It's a little bit useless unless all you want to do is swift racing or time trialing up a climb. But if you want to race, you can have all the power you want in the world. But if you don't know how to ride in a bunch and draft or know how to follow a tax or fuel it properly, it's going to fall apart pretty quick. Yeah, and that's certainly been my experience as the inquiry guy at the RCA who, you know, speak to a lot of people coming on board before they get handed over to coaches. You know, it's a great, you know, pathway or segue from, you know, I'm just riding randomly to actually getting a feel or dipping my toe in structured training and seeing an improvement. But there's often, you know, from what I hear and from what you're... articulating is there is a plateau that happens quite quickly. And yeah, think a lot of it has to do with the high intensity. It's, you know, it's fast acting, but fatiguing. putting that aside and, you know, looking at this recent member specifically that's has come from this space. Can you tell me a little bit about who the individual is and, you know, what they were doing and what you've done? with them and the improvements that they've subsequently seen. Ben Treble (06:48.428) Yeah. Yeah. I don't think this writer is going to have any issue with me talking about him. he's, he's been on our channel, already on our socials for us. And he's also doing his own YouTube thing. So yeah, his name is Joshua. he's over in the U S he was a relatively new writer and he's very simply, he's done some swift programs. one of his goals was around weight loss and the other was to get fitter. Okay. and equally through that process, He's started to lose weight. He's done some Zwift programs, become a lot fitter. And he's also started to just really enjoy riding. And then he's wanted to both learn more about cycling in general. And he felt like he was starting to plateau with the Zwift work. And that's when he's come through to us at the RCA. Do you know where he plateaued? of like, you know, obviously FTPs and that metric that we all kind of know. Did he hit a plateau there or was it more just a general feeling of fatigue or just mentally just done? Yeah, I don't think he, from memory, Joshua didn't, he's not like he's done one FTP tests and done another and realized there was a plateau. It was a general feeling when he came, when we had our first coaching call together, you he just told me that he had a feeling that he was plateauing. Like I didn't feel like he was progressing anymore. Not at the same rate that he was when he started. Okay, so what was the first thing that you did? I, you know, obviously Joshua's unique, has his own goals, but I'm sure as a general blanket, this kind of scenario would be very, you know, familiar or similar, I should say, for other people in similar situations, you know, where they are doing these off the shelf for, or generic plans and they're feeling like they're plateauing, which was the case for Joshua. Speaker 2 (08:41.836) What did you do with him as the first step? Did you tell him not to ride for a month? Did you change the training completely? Like what did it look like? I would say the training, if you looked at his last month before he joined coaching with, with myself on say his fifth program to the first month of training that we did together, it probably looks very different. And part of that comes down to the periodization. So our first conversation, which is the same with any new athlete is around goal setting. one of the things I find seems to be bit of a pattern is yeah, you want to improve your FTP. and I often ask people why. Sounds good. Yeah, sounds good. I want to, and I say, if, if you want to go to the, be able to go to the cafe and just boast about having a bigger FTP, I don't have a problem with that goal. Let's go for it. But often I find when I dig into this, there's a lot more behind it. Okay. You know, it might be, actually, I want to improve my crit racing. Just improving your FTP doesn't necessarily mean you're going to improve your crit racing. Ben Treble (09:52.82) Equally, you might have someone who says, I want to work towards my grand, my first grand Fondo, like a long, a long event ride, say a hundred K a hundred miles, something like this. And you need to improve my endurance for that. Just focusing purely on FTP also isn't the answer, right? Maybe we need to try and progressively improve volume and look at your nutrition. So that's probably the first step. with Joshua. We worked out pretty quickly that he wanted to continue to try lose a little bit of weight or at least keep it down. And we also, he wanted to improve his volume and he wanted to improve his FCP. And the reason he wanted to improve the FTP is because he wanted to be able to push higher power for longer on short rides. So improve his anaerobic capacity and utilization. So what did the training look like? And we can probably make an assumption based off the start of this conversation with the Zwift stuff he was doing versus say the first month that you actually did. we look specifically about zones, what was he doing differently as a target? Yeah, I would say pretty quickly the two main differences would have been he wasn't really taking full rest weeks. So when we think of periodization, if we do a fairly standard, four week block, we have a three week build into one week of recovery or reduced volume intensity. If you looked at his program, that wasn't really happening. It was just continual progression across say a 12 week Zyft program where the intensity remained very high throughout the whole thing. And yes, he might've had one or two like days off, the, whenever he rode, was intervals. Right. Very rarely. mean, I wouldn't have found in his last month, like a single session where it was just say a zone one recovery ride for like 45 minutes. So that was probably the first thing that we did is we actually put Josh into more of a base block and we did some critical power testing. Okay. Speaker 2 (11:55.714) So for those people that don't know what critical power testing is, what is that? Yeah. So critical power is probably, let's call it an alternative to FTP. And to me, very simply, you could treat it. It's a, again, it's a threshold. Uh, it's a concept threshold and, we get two pieces of information from the testing in difference to FTP. FTP, you get this one piece of information. Let's say you have a threshold of 250 Watts. That's all the information you get. And then you base your zones off it. Critical power. lets you look at, it's a, it's a very similar notion, but it's a little bit more accurate because it's trying to account for the different balance in your anaerobic anaerobic capacities. So we get this threshold number, critical power, and then we get a second piece of information called your watt prime, which is an estimation of how many kilojoules of energy you should have in reserve when you go above your threshold. Okay. So it says if your critical power is 250 Watts and you have 18, you know, kilojoules, above in your reserve, can estimate how much can you go in the red before you're to have to back it off. So it's a little bit like having a piece of information around your anaerobic reserve. And with this, you can start to work out when you test, do you get differences? Like what impact is the training that you're doing having on these two numbers? And then again, you're going to create your zones based off critical power. Yeah, okay. So, and I think that one of the key benefits from a member's or an athlete's perspective is when they do retest, as you said, they've got the two numbers they can look at. It's not just solely focused on the one. In the case of FTP, it's a 20 minute test or it's a ramp test or something like that with critical power. We're looking at two different scenarios. So you can see improvement either across both facets or maybe one specifically. Ben Treble (13:51.982) Yeah, and the other thing that you're to get from critical power is the most common version of the testing involves doing three maximal efforts. One's usually around sort of the three minute, one's around the six minute and another 10, 12 or longer effort. And with these three numbers, you can create a, it's called a power duration curve. Something maybe a lot of riders probably seen in their Strava or could even have seen in their training peaks before. And this also helps you understand Like how is your power progressing in the power duration curve? Yeah, and so really it's three numbers, not two. Yeah, and it depends. mean, if you're testing, because I'm conscious, and I know we're going down a bit of a rabbit hole here on critical power, but you sometimes people, just so we don't overwhelm with testing initially, if they've already got a number where they've gone all out at a specific level, you know, we might say, we've kind of already done this test. Let's not overwhelm. Let's just do a couple. Was that the case with Joshua or did all three of those power tests? Yeah, we did all three. Yeah, we did a full, full week. I like to separate the efforts on separate days. Uh, you can mix them up on combinations, but particularly with retesting, find often within, you know, sort of if you're retesting every eight to 12 weeks, the nice thing is you often see at least one of those you'll get a PB of towards the end of an eight to 12 week block somewhere. Someone's going to do a power best in that three, six or sort of 12 minute range or sometimes two out of three and then you only need to do one max effort and you can recalculate their threshold without you know doing a full gamut of testing. Speaker 2 (15:31.95) So going back to Joshua's story, doing the Zwift program, there was no easier weeks, a lot of intensity plateaued. Now he's done a month of coaching with you and he's really backed it off. He's working more aerobically. He's doing a proper periodization. He's doing some testing. Where's he at after the first month? Because I'm conscious some people, when they step away from these Zwift programs or these, you know, system programs or whatever it might be. They find it a little bit challenging because they're used to the intensity and they're like, like, what are we doing here? Like, I don't feel like I'm doing much. Was there any pushback or like, how did they feel there? With Josh there wasn't any pushback, he probably had the question around, you know, I feel like... I think the comment that resonated with me was he said, oh, you know, I feel better, I feel like I have more energy. okay. For his workouts or just generally during the day? That was a general comment, but it meant that when he did the hard sessions, when we started to put in, you know, one or twice, once or twice a week, we did some interval sessions after that first month. You know, you've got full energy to go, to go all in on them and you're to recover a lot better from them. and you don't get this, I guess it's this ongoing fatigue, you know, and it's, think when you're in a state of feeling low energy, it's hard to stay motivated. That's one other component. You're not going to adapt and recover. Ben Treble (16:56.686) I think with Josh, I'm going to flip the coin a little bit on you. I want to talk about what he benefited from if I think in the first month or two from coaching and it wasn't just the programming. So there was a big shift in the programming. And I think for Josh, the biggest sort of benefits he started to get from having a coach that he wouldn't have got from the swift racing was primarily the, it was the ability to ask all sorts of questions that a new rider might have. And there were questions from setting up, you know, indoor training and connecting different platforms to nutrition questions. He really wanted to work on learning how to eat on the bike to the conversation around one of our goals that we set was I want to do my first race. And what stuck with me greatly was he said to me two weeks out, you know, that's what we focus on. started doing some training for his first crit race. And we talked about cornering technique. Okay. Ben Treble (17:54.22) We talked about bunch skills and a week out his bike broke completely kaput. I think his seat post snapped or something. So he comes to me, sends me a message and says, my bike is totally broken. They're going to see if they can get me a replacement. but I probably wouldn't get it till the Friday, like the day or two before. And it's going to be a different model of bike. So it's, I'm not sure. I'm at time for a bike fit. I'm probably never going to have ridden it before, maybe once, you know, should I still do the... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/38096380

The Elephant in the Room (for Masters Cyclists) 08/29/2025

The Elephant in the Room (for Masters Cyclists) Summary In this episode, the Cam Nicholls and Ryan Thomas discuss the critical role of strength training for cyclists, particularly for masters athletes. They emphasize the importance of incorporating gym workouts into cycling routines to improve performance, bone density, and overall health. The conversation highlights research showing significant benefits of strength training, including increased cycling thresholds and injury prevention. The hosts also address common misconceptions about gym memberships and provide practical advice for integrating strength training into daily life. Takeaways Strength training is essential for improving cycling performance. Many cyclists neglect gym workouts, impacting their health. Research shows a 14% increase in cycling threshold with strength training. Cyclists are at risk of lower bone density compared to sedentary individuals. Incorporating strength training can prevent injuries and improve durability. You don't need a gym membership to benefit from strength training. Simple bodyweight exercises can enhance bone health and strength. Regular strength training can improve overall mobility and health as you age. Even minimal strength training can lead to significant performance improvements. It's important to start with a routine that fits your lifestyle. Cycling and bone health: Research suggests a 12% improvement in lactate threshold, a cycling training zone that is very commonly used while hill climbing. Research suggests a 5% improvement in cycling economy, which once again, is commonly the cause for people getting popped while climbing. In other words, they run out of legs. Research points to the ability to increase that 5 minute V02 Max power after prolonged periods of sub maximal cycling. In other words, you can still push big watts on fatigued legs. RCA weight training package: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/weight-training-package/ Cam Nicholls (00:00.482) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach, Ryan Thomas. And Ryan, I've wanted a little bit of a rant here because we've gone on about this one a lot on the RCA YouTube channel quite a lot, our newsletter, even our podcast. We're starting to feed this in quite a fair bit. And it's to do with masters, writers, and going to the gym or... It's just strength and conditioning. And I'll tell you why I wanted to rant about it little bit today is because I bumped into a channel supporter up here where I live in Noosa a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, he'd come off his bike, he'd fractured his elbow, had a little operation, got some time off the bike. And after I made sure he was okay and showed some empathy, I gently asked him if he was going to the gym, if he was doing any... strength work and he said he hadn't been to the, this guy as well I should mention is probably in his mid to late 50s, and he said he hadn't been to gym in maybe 15, 20 years. while I can't confirm exactly that he would have avoided the fracture from going to the gym, there is some very compelling evidence and some science backed research which would suggest he probably might have avoided the fracture and the break and extended time off the bike if he was going to the gym. And I just wanted to talk about that today. What are you finding with your members? know a lot of your members are kind of over the age of 45. Are they incorporating the gym into their training and how are they finding it? Because it's not just about bone density, which we'll talk about in a second, which is where I'm going with this. There is quite a significant gain you can get as well in terms of your. you know, your cycling performance and your FTP. Ryan Thomas (01:59.31) Yeah, absolutely. The story you mentioned is also common. It's we talk to people and it's probably for new members who come to the RCA, it's probably 50-50, I would say. 50 % are doing gym regularly because they really enjoy the gym. 50 % were maybe have done it in the past and they've neglected it because they started riding and that's been their focus. So the 50 % that aren't doing it. should be if they have the capacity. the capacity is a big thing from my perspective as a coach. I'm always looking at how much time available do you have? If there's time available, then absolutely you need to be doing the gym because the improvements and we talk as one percenters are a big thing, the gym isn't a one percenter. It's a it's a big portion of what you're doing. It's probably one of the biggest low hanging fruits that you can do if you're not doing it already to get an improvement in your cycling performance. And I've even seen that recently with two or three members who I can think of on the top of my head who are in their late 40s, late 50s, who have started implementing more of a regular gym program with proper resistance training, proper weights. I've seen a big increase in threshold recently in the last 12 weeks. it's not a small improvement. It's a big improvement and everyone can feel it. It's massive. Yeah, well we'll link to some research in the description. There's one paper in particular I'm thinking of that showed a group of cyclists that went to the gym and those that didn't under the same protocols and they were doing an FTP or a threshold test, a 20 minute test and at the end of the period the group that did or were going to the gym incorporating strength training sort of compared to the the group that didn't saw a 14 % increase in their threshold, which is pretty significant. That's compelling. The other one that comes up a lot from a performance perspective is one that's probably a bit more difficult to measure, but it's durability. So the ability to deliver high bouts of power at three or four hours deep by going to the gym. you've got more muscular, you've got more reserves. Cam Nicholls (04:23.486) at a muscular skeletal level, obviously, it makes a lot of sense. But the one that's really alarming for masters athletes, and this actually go, and once again, I'll link to some research in the description, is that there's been some research done on elite riders who are riding pretty significant. And I know we're not elite riders, but this particular study was done on elite riders doing 15 to 20 hours per week that weren't doing gym, and a lot of them were developing osteopenia. which is basically the pathway to osteoporosis versus a group that were going to the gym who didn't suffer from anything at all. And really what the research indicated was that cyclists compared to sedentary individuals are actually worse off from a bone density perspective, which is really surprising because you would think people that are fit, healthy and active, so people that ride a bike would actually have good bone health compared to somebody that's sitting on the couch watching Netflix. But it turns out that cycling is just not a great activity for bone density from the very beginning of elite level riders, so late teens, early 20s, and obviously that becomes more severe as you get older, because we know everything deteriorates as you get older, unfortunately, and bone density is a big one. You know, I think it's you know that research which I'll link to in the description and then anecdotal story recently It's just I feel like it's a bit of an elephant in the room for for cyclists. It's unfortunately it's just one of those areas which you know, it goes against what we're doing and ironically The probability of us hitting the deck harder than somebody who's jogging or somebody who's swimming. They're not going to hit the deck you know, the risk factor is a lot more significant because you know, we're riding typically on bitumen and you know, falls can happen. So I think it's just a, it's a consideration that, you know, I wanted to put out there for all our listeners, people, particularly in the masters category. And I think, you know, you can get caught up in the world of, you know, okay, what do I need to do? Do I need a gym membership? I had that email recently from a subscriber. Cam Nicholls (06:47.598) You know, I can't afford a gym membership and I don't have time to go to the gym and as Aaron Turner, our strength and conditioning partner has mentioned many times in previous content, just move stuff around. Are you better off just moving stuff around than going to the gym and focusing on I've got to do three sets of, you know, eight repetitions with four minutes rest in between each and I've got to do deadlifts and I've got to do squats and I said to somebody recently, go to your sports store, buy one kettlebell, and with that kettlebell, you'll be able to do squats, you'll be able to do lunges, you'll be able to do a deadlift with a kettlebell deadlift, I should say. You know, better do pull-ups so you can get some upper body in there, couple that with some push-ups and some ab work. You can actually create your own workout pretty easy. And that in itself, you'll go a long way in, you maybe that's less performance orientated. I'm sure you'll get some performance benefit out of that, but it's going to go a long way in supporting, you know, your bone health as you age, as a master's cyclist. Anything to add to that? And even not as a master's psych, I'm even thinking about it, I'm 30. I'm thinking about bone density and overall health. think the impact on overall health. there's other benefits aside from the bone density as well. I recently had an athlete who did a blood test and they had low testosterone levels. the best way to increase your testosterone is to do strength and conditioning because it promotes... it promotes the anabolic muscle building and that you need testosterone to do that. So there's a lot of other benefits that's from a male perspective, it's obviously similar for a female as well, testosterone is still beneficial for a female. So both sides of that equation are really beneficial. the overall impact on strength and conditioning and just moving stuff around and even just moving your body around from a weight. Ryan Thomas (09:03.852) bearing perspective, we're actually, general health, the beneficial and bone density, we need to move more weight than you're carrying on your body. So if you had two kilos or five kilos or you do jumps instead of, don't even need weights. doing a jump squat, landing on that, you're putting more force through your bones than you are doing standing still. That's all you're trying to do. You're trying to put more pressure. more force, more impact through your bones than you are in a stationary position. So you don't even need your kettlebell. Go and do some jump squats, do some pushups, do some pushup like claps, do so many little things and simple movements that you can do even without weights that are gonna support bone density and testosterone and general mobility and movement. The common one that I get on get for riders all the time is I've got a sore back and sore back. that's one of the cause that's the cause like the that's the effect of maybe a weak core or weak glute. So it's all of these things that you may feel on the bike. I'm getting sore arms or I'm getting a sore neck or getting sore back on my knee. I would guarantee almost guarantee that all of it can be fixed with strength and conditioning. and mobility and that's proven and almost everyone who you talk to about it and you start implementing it regularly, it's like, well, within a week or two, I'm not feeling that pain anymore. It's like, all of my muscles are working properly. All of those neuromuscular connections, I'm actually turning my core on or I'm turning my glute on before I ride and all of those muscles are working out equally as opposed to ones that you only work. quite often, so if you're sitting at a desk all the time, you're always in the same position, you need to move in different ways to incorporate different muscle groups and I guarantee you that you'll just feel better on the bike, even without the performance improvement, you'll feel more stable, more comfortable, less pain generally on the bike if you're incorporating some sort of movement, strengthening, conditioning work two times a week. Cam Nicholls (11:20.27) Yeah, and there has been a lot of research done on just increasing core musculature and that improvement on climbing. A lot of people would improve their climbing. Just start doing some more sit ups. That'll help with your bone density, particularly around your lumbar spine and around the central. It'll also help with your climbing. And that's free. You can do that anywhere. So I guess the... You know, the question that some people might have then all this, how do I incorporate it? How often do I need to do it? You know, according to the science, you want to be going to the gym, you know, twice a week to build strength. And then you can maintain that strength that you've developed in the gym for up to 13 weeks by doing a maintenance session once a week. That's according to the science. I know personally, I can maintain the same level of strength that I've developed over the years by just doing one maintenance session. a week. That just works for me. And I think if you're looking to incorporate something, just start with something once a week. Work out a little routine that works for you, whether it's doing what Ryan says, just incorporating some free body weights, push-ups, squat jumps, things like that. Impact stuff. Set up a little routine, do it for half an hour, and just incorporate that once a week for four to eight weeks. And then just to note how you feel on the bike after that. outside of the fact that you're going to be doing yourself a lot of value in terms of bone density longer term, heaven forbid if you have a fall. And start there and maybe you can progress for there. But that is all it takes. Yeah, you don't need a gym membership. mean, a lot of people are like, I don't want to go to a gym or you don't like the atmosphere at a gym or it's too expensive. It's too hard to get to. You don't need a gym. It's very, it's a lot simpler than you think. And I think a lot of people will overcomplicate strength and conditioning. It's a lot simpler than you think. Cam Nicholls (13:24.194) Yep, exactly. So yeah, that's my rant over and done with. just, you know, I'm just trying to make sure that everyone's aware if you ride a bike and you're not going to the gym, you've got to be aware of bone density, particularly as you get older. And I know a lot of our members and a lot of our listeners are, you know, in that master's category. So it's something that needs to be front of mind, something you need to be considering and something that you should be doing. And it will help with the muscle density as well. Like just having a better musculature as you age, everyone's going to benefit from that. Aside from the bone density, you're going to be able to sit up and out of a chair, sit down in a chair for maybe a couple extra years as you get into your 80s maybe. That's another extra added benefit that not a lot of us want to think about right now, but it is there. Yeah, well, I mean just a quick anecdote I actually have been pushing my my father who's 76 to go to the gym for years and it took him to have some weird thing that was going on with his arms he was getting pins and needles and he couldn't figure out what it what it was this is probably three years ago and this is despite the fact I've been at him for years to go to the gym he doesn't ride a bike by the way he's just like it doesn't do anything I'm like that bone density bone density because it's you know, you know, it's It deteriorates as you age no matter what and if you're a cyclist, you're going to be worse off unfortunately than sedentary individuals. The sedentary individuals are still not good. Anyway, he finally took the doctor's advice after I'd been banging on for years about it. Goes to the gym, gets rid of the tingling sensation in his arm. yeah, it's gone away now. A few months later, he's like, you know what? He's got a Mustang which is low to the ground. He goes, it's so much easier to get out of my car these days. Even the small things like that, you know, it can help with. Ryan Thomas (15:11.552) Absolutely. Cool. All right, well look, if you're listening to this and maybe you wanna go a little bit further or a little bit deeper on the strength and conditioning side and you do have a gym membership or you're willing to invest into a gym membership, we do have a program on our website. So you go to www.roadcyclingacademy.com. There's something there called the weight training package. It's got a beginner, intermediate and advanced downloadable programs all with video. tutorials and each exercise has a video demonstration as well and you get lifetime access to this. It's put together by Aaron Turner, the strength and conditioning coach. So that's a resource there if you wanna have a look and we'll catch you in the next podcast. /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/38017190

Are the Tour de France Pros Doping? We give our thoughts... 08/14/2025

Are the Tour de France Pros Doping? We give our thoughts... Summary In this episode, Ryan Thomas discusses the remarkable advancements in professional cycling performance, particularly in the context of the Tour de France. He explores the evolution of nutrition, training science, and equipment, highlighting how these factors contribute to the impressive numbers seen in today's cyclists. The conversation also touches on the importance of small improvements, or 'one percenters', and concludes with a discussion on the integrity of the sport. Takeaways The Tour de France has seen unprecedented average speeds. Nutrition strategies have evolved significantly over the years. Training science has improved, allowing for better performance without excessive fatigue. The concept of 'one percenters' has become crucial for pro cyclists. Equipment advancements have dramatically changed cycling performance. Pro cyclists are now able to consume more carbohydrates during races. The focus on recovery has become as important as training. Heat and altitude training are now integral to pro cycling preparation. The use of technology in training has increased consistency and performance. There is a growing belief in the integrity of the sport among some athletes. Chapters 00:00 The Evolution of Pro Cycling Performance 03:12 Nutrition: The Game Changer 05:57 Training Science: A New Era 08:45 The Impact of One Percenters 12:03 Equipment Advancements in Cycling 14:51 The Clean Sport Debate Get coached by the Road Cycling Academy: Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:00.046) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach Ryan Thomas and today Ryan I wanted to talk about Tour de France pros. We just finished Tour de France 2025 and as per normal there's a lot of speculation about the pros numbers, the watts per kilos, like how are the pros doing these numbers compared to the pros of 10, 20 years ago and we know a lot of them were on the juice. How is this possible? So, I wanted to get your perspective, because I think you work in this space, you live and breathe it. You know pros, I mean, you almost made a pro yourself, so you know guys over there in the mix. You're also in the training world, living and breathing it. You're in the nutrition world, you're in the 1 % of world, heat, altitude, all these type of things. So I feel like your perspective versus the guy that... watches Tour de France highlights every morning and then goes off to work and has an opinion is probably a little bit more valid. And I feel like because you know all these things, your perspective is probably gonna be more on the, understand why they've improved so much versus yeah, they're on some new drug that nobody knows about. So I think you've got four things that you wanted to run through to give us a bit of insight or context as to why the pros are doing. the ridiculous numbers that they are. So over to you. Yeah, it's actually pretty wild. think the Tour de France was the fastest average speed for the tour ever. I think it was like around 43k an hour or something. yeah, really, really quick. Ryan Thomas (01:45.098) and you see it in, there's all the pros are talking about it. If you listen to podcasts with the pros, I'll see YouTube content with them. They're, they're all saying that the racing is just getting harder and harder. and there's, good reason for it. It's, there's a lot of increase in technology. So, and science, the four things just quickly, and then I'll dive into each one of them individually. The four things we're looking at are nutrition. So we all know that nutrition is a big, big topic at the moment. So that obviously has a massive impact. second one would be training science, an application. So nutrition plays an impact on that, but over the last 10 years, 15 years, 20 years since Lance, was winning the tour, for example, training has come a long, long way. we know how to train properly and accurately and consistently now without causing too much extra fatigue. third one would be the, the one percenters, the training one percenters, the little things that all the World Tour teams are doing now that they did in the past, but they're doing much better now because of science and applied application in science and training. And the fourth one, which isn't really, I'm not going to dive into too much, but we know that it's there, is the equipment change. So in the 1995, 2000s, equipment was terrible compared to now. Like two kilos heavier and bearings are slower and everything was slower. There's, yeah, they're the four things that I think are having the biggest impact and I think most people would agree on those. Okay, you know I'm a fan of rim brake bikes, Ryan. I'm not going to be taking offense to this, I? Ryan Thomas (03:28.25) Yeah, well, I'm not big on the bikes. I'll leave that. I'll the bike criticism up to you. That's your area. I'll talk about what I know best. So first one, nutrition. We know that nutrition has come all the way. Just an example, like even when I was racing in Europe and doing races, I remember taking in like Our nutrition strategy doing like 180, 200 kilometer race was to take one to two gels an hour. And a gel was like 20 to 25 grams of carbs. Like that was literally the nutrition strategy. Get some hydrolyte or a salt tablet in every hour and take in a bottle an hour. So that's so different to what it is now. Like it's maybe a third, a quarter of what we're taking in now, even for a training session, let alone a race. So. Would be, to interrupt. Just to dig into that one for two seconds, would it be fair to say as well that it was more of an afterthought versus like a top of the tree strategy? 100%. Yeah, it was a nutrition. I think there were a few people who were ahead of the game and were forgetting in getting in a lot then a lot being like 60 grams an hour. But I think there was, yeah, the main thought was you just need to ride a lot. You need to get fit. Your body needs to get strong. And the nutrition is, yeah, it's there. And you eat a lot before and you eat a lot after, but during wasn't thought of as this big. Ryan Thomas (05:05.39) big performance intake, I think. I was never, we were never educated on it as young cyclists back in like 2013 to 2020, like that sort of era, even 2018, like that sort of era wasn't, yeah, it wasn't a big focus. The focus was around nutrition off the bike rather than on the bike, I would say. And I know like it's not, story isn't uncommon. Like every person I talked to was racing around that era and even before it was like, You hear stories about people knew that they were on good form when they could go and do four or five hours on a long black. Like you could just, that was just their, that was their benchmark to know that they were going well, that their body was just so tolerant under load and under feeling and not being, being able to cope with limited amount of fuel that you just, your body just adapted. So we know that you put your body under stress and it adapts to a specific stressor. that the stressor that we were putting ourselves on was under feeling and learning to have bodies were just learning to conserve, conserve, conserve. And we're all struggling towards the end of races and everyone was in the same boat really, but that's massive, massive reason why races are going faster and more intensity throughout the whole stages and the whole tours, for example. They can just, when you're taking in 150 grams an hour, it's just not, your body just doesn't shut down. Yeah, and I look I am just some old bloke that races in the amateur scene in in Queensland, right? So I'm a nobody but if I just think about my own little experience recently where I went all in on the carbs and I was I was you know, I was trying to teach the gut how to tolerate, know around 100 to 125 grams of carbs per hour on the big sessions in preparation for a big event and I feel like The reason why I performed out of my skin at the event and I was able to deliver high levels of power You know at five hours deep into the event and I was shocking myself I'm like this person isn't me was not because I was doing it in the event It was because I had done it in training for like many months leading into the event and it's the compounding effect right so like what the pros would be doing at a much superior level than I'm doing is Cam Nicholls (07:26.478) If you can actually do it in training, then you're able to push your physiology to levels that you previously weren't able to push yourself to. And then because you're fueling better in terms of recovery, you're recovering better as well. And we know in recovery, that's where, so if you're pushing yourself better, then you're recovering better. So you're absorbing those fitness adaptations. And then the next training session, because you push yourself further, you can push yourself further again. And it's just like this compounding effect that over time, you're just always able to go. above and beyond what you previously would have been able to by under fueling and also you're adapting better because you're recovering better. And the pros have been doing this now for this, how long is this nutrition way of eating been in like as a focus for now three or four years. The compounding effect over three or four years is like, I just look at that standalone and it actually makes sense to me that they're doing the numbers that they are. Yeah, 100%. There's two examples that I can think of in the Tour de France. Just from, if you follow a lot of cycling content on Instagram and YouTube, there's two people that posted interesting stuff, Power and Nutrition. Harry Sweeney from EF, they post a lot of interesting stuff. And he was talking about, there was one day when Ben Healy was in the yellow jersey and the amount of carbs that he was taking, because he was riding super freaking hard on the front. He said for one hour, he doesn't even remember how many carbs he took because he was just like having like four gels in like 20 minutes. He said like 160 grams of carbs an hour in when he was going really hard. So it's just like, they're just getting in as much as possible. And I don't, they do not know where the limit is at the moment. if someone like Harry can take in 150 plus an hour, we don't know where the limit is. And it used to, the limit used to be like three years ago, was like 90 grams of carbs an hour was all your body could take. And then it went to 120. And now people are taking 150 plus. So the limit is constantly getting more. What you were talking about, the other athlete is really interesting is Tim Wellens. In the second week of the tour on those power numbers, he did his best 10 and 20 minute power ever in the second week of the tour. Ryan Thomas (09:48.546) For someone who's been a pro for, he's probably been a pro for 15 years. Like to do that two weeks into a tour was probably unheard of. And in the middle of a stage race, think that goes, like this is going into our first point. And our second point is that the training and the nutrition, they're recovering so good that every day is the same. They're not getting to the third week of the tour and people are like struggling because people are just getting better and better and better. They're adapting. every single day they're adapting within the tour. And some people, not this isn't an ivory one, because I haven't been there and I don't know what it's like, but I imagine that some people would be getting stronger throughout the tour. Like in the second and third week they're like, my legs are starting to turn up here because I've been putting some serious load in them. Hmm yeah, and even the even though I know you're gonna talk about other one one percenters shortly But even the little one percenters that they do like immediately after they finish. It's like here's a bottle of you know things but I know like so for example I was with Visma at stage three behind the scenes, you know, one of the things that they have in the bottle is they've got carbs but they pour a bottle of ketone IQ as well in there, so they're getting some ketones in as well. They're also having this red drink, which is a cherry juice, which is all about inflammation. And they're doing lots of these little 1 %ers in addition to the carbs. So there's a lot going on there that never used to go on. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And I think going into the second point, the training science and improvement. And I think that also, that all comes down to consistency in what you're able to do week in, week out in a training block. We see people racing less now and focusing on training as opposed to using racing as their main preparation for big races. So the World Tour pros, I was... Ryan Thomas (11:43.278) Listening to watching a thing about Lance the other day and he was talking he used to get 40 to 50 race days in before the tour like that was Need to get those race legs to be able to be good for the tour But now you see people like Jonas and Tade like they do their big races at the start of season They may only do two two races in this couple of months before the two I know this is the same with a lot of other riders, but there's two best examples Is that they're using? racing as a fine tune for that one, 2 % extra in the month leading into the race, as opposed to doing racing for two, three months before to get really strong and fit and used to the racing. They can do all that in training now because we're all the science and the measuring tools that we have are so, so far above what it used to be 20 years ago that they can do the training and get a similar stimulus out of the training as they would in a racing and get to 98%, 97 % of what their max capacity is. then that two, 2-3 % comes from those couple of races that they do as opposed to three months of racing for 30 race days before the tour. Hmm interesting so and just from your perspective when you started training to try and make through the pro ranks But you know 2010 to 2015. What was the general? What was the general training strategy because I just add a layer on to that before you respond I remember interviewing a pro called Mickey Shah from AG2R a few years ago. He's a I interviewed him at BMC HQ and He was a Swiss rider coming through the ranks similar maybe a little bit before you, he's like mid to late 30s. But he was saying that when he first got into it, it was just all about volume. That was really the key, volume, volume, volume. And he wouldn't put his bibs on if he wasn't going for longer than three hours. They would sprint to the next town. Cam Nicholls (13:43.342) bonking and then they would, you know, fill up with a croissant and a Coke and then they're off for another few hours. And that was, that really shocked me to know that that was the like guys getting into the pro level racing, you know, the kids, that was what they were trying to do, just do lots of volume. And it was no real specificity surrounding, you know, high intensity interval training. Yeah, that was probably my experience until I started in a continental team and got some good coaches. Before that, it was just, yeah, go out and try and ride as long as possible. And when you're feeling good, go really hard, go long and experience the bonk. Like if it was really a week when you're training hard, where you didn't have two rides where you were bonking hard towards the end of a ride. Like that was just a normal, that was a normal experience for someone. training three to five hours a day, for example. And I would argue that not many people, people training now, you're probably not bonking many, you wouldn't bonk at all. Cause if you're taking a 90 to a hundred grams of carbs an hour every session, like you get back from a three, four hour ride, even a five hour ride and you're like, cool, that was hard, but I'm ready to go and ready to go again the next day. And I think that's where, yeah, that's the specific training improvement is that we know how long We know more about how long it takes to recover from a high intensity or a really hard session. you see less, you used to see a lot, was just like intensity, intensity, intensity. Like you're smashing the load. So you're trying to put as much stress on the body as you can, and then you're going into a vent and you taper. And it worked because your body adapts to what you're giving to it. But there's a better way to do it. It's not. It's not do intensity every day. It's intensity then you rest for two, like a do zone two, and then you rest, and then you go intense again. And the quality out of that intensity, with the change over the last 10 to 15, 20 years, the quality of intensity now is much, much higher because we know the importance of being able to put an extra 20 to 50 watts out in a high intensity session is so gonna give you so much more reward than being fatigued. Ryan Thomas (15:59.756) and being able to do that session. Because the old school mindset was, well, if I can do this fatigued and I can put out 90 % of what I should be able to do when I'm fresh, if I can do it fatigued, then God, it's going to be easy when I'm fresh. It's the same old school mentality as you used to have the set of training wheels that were really heavy and slow and you used to put shitty tires on them so they made you feel slow. And then you put your race wheels on and your race tires and it's like, God, this is like a F1 car. Like it's insane. So that was the old school mentality is you make everything as hard as possible in training so it's easier in racing, but it's nowhere near the case now. We know that if you go faster and you go better in training, the better you are in racing. Hmm. Okay, what's the third one? The one percenters we spoke, you spoke about it a little bit before, but all of the little things that they're doing now, it just, yeah, I think it adds up to much more than one percent. You're probably looking at more of five percent overall from an improvement perspective. I'll just list them off and I'm not going to go into all of them because they're probably all their own podcast topic each. But you look at altitude training camps and I think that The adaptation in the last period from altitude training camps is they know that doing a specific number of them or spending a specific amount of time up there and the measuring tools that they're using at altitude for recovery, HIV and resting heart rate, for example, we know how to train better altitude now and the impact that it has and doing multiple stages, multiple training camps at altitude has a bigger impact. So if you do... Ryan Thomas (17:41.42) three, four a year, I'd say most of the pros are doing now and even 80 % of the pros are probably living at altitude to train, live high, train low, that sort of theory that we know that if you, the multiple exposures to it, later exposure towards a race will have a better impact, similar with heat training. that sort of, that adaptation and the improvements in applying altitude training for an improvement in performance has come a long way. The other one linked to that is kind of heat training and heat training is something that's probably only been around for five years, maybe a little bit longer than that. Eight years maybe. I remember doing it a while ago when I was still training really hard. That was probably eight years ago now. But the heat training now is such a big factor for improving our physiology and our blood volume. oxygen carrying capacity and we know the impact of that because it's been studied so much in the last five years that everyone's getting on that train and the pros can use it as a tool, especially for hot races like Tour of Spain is going to be coming up in three weeks. So I imagine any pro that's doing Tour of Spain has just started their heat protocol now and is going at it hard because they get 40 degree days there and that impact has a huge... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/37827230

Mastering Amy's Gran Fondo (the UCI World Gran Fondo Champs 2025) 08/08/2025

Mastering Amy's Gran Fondo (the UCI World Gran Fondo Champs 2025) Summary: In this episode, Ryan Thomas, head coach at RCA, discusses the specific training and preparation needed for the UCI World Gran Fondo Championships. He breaks down the unique demands of the course, emphasising the importance of threshold power and fatigue resistance. The conversation covers key training sessions, race day strategies, and nutrition tips to ensure optimal performance. Listeners gain insights into how to effectively prepare for this challenging event, making it relevant for both participants and those training for similar races. Key Takeaways: The UCI World Gran Fondo Championships require specific training due to unique course demands. Understanding the course layout is crucial for effective training preparation. Key training sessions include threshold efforts and over-unders to build capacity. Fatigue resistance is essential for performing well in long events like Grand Fondos. Nutrition strategies should be practiced during training to avoid issues on race day. A proper warm-up is vital to prepare for the intense start of the race. Riders should focus on carbohydrate intake before and during the event. Incorporating hard efforts into long rides helps simulate race conditions. Coaching can provide tailored strategies for individual riders' needs. Consistency in training and nutrition leads to better performance outcomes. Chapters: 00:00 Preparing for the UCI World Grand Fondo Championships 05:14 Understanding the Course Demands 08:56 Key Training Sessions for Success 13:21 Race Day Strategies and Nutrition 20:03 Final Tips for Optimal Performance RCA Coaching: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/ Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:00.184) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined by the RCA's head coach Ryan Thomas and I know Ryan is coaching a lot of people at the moment. I he's got about 15 RCA members that are preparing for the UCI World Grand Fondo Championships which is held, are gonna be held in Lawn this year, alongside or in conjunction with Amy's Grand Fondo, so in October. And... I know there's a lot of people out there preparing for this event. And look, if you're not preparing for this event and you're preparing for a Fondo, either this year or next year, you'll probably get good value out of this discussion irrespective. But we are gonna focus on this event, because it's quite specific, the terrain and the typical training that you would do for a grand Fondo is gonna vary a little bit for this one. I don't know, it's gonna vary for any Fondo event because of the course, but this one's quite unique, which Ryan's gonna get into. Ryan, talk me through the 15 people that you're coaching for this event. How are you preparing them for this event? What are you doing exactly? Yeah, so it is a really interesting course and it's quite a demanding course, it's in, there's a few, you want to break the course down in the first case to see what you're actually looking at. And I've done this course myself and I'll be racing the world championships myself as well. So I understand the exact demands, which really helps for something like this and training people for the specific course. So first thing you would do if you sign up for any Grand Fondo, you want to look at the course and what's going to be the demands of the course. And this one is it's 130 K. The distance isn't huge, but the first eight kilometers, 10 kilometers is straight uphill. Like literally 200 meters after the start line, you're going straight uphill. And it's not a steep climb. It's around four to four and a half, five percent average for that eight and a half K. Ryan Thomas (RCA Head Coach) (02:05.088) So it's not a, it's not super demanding from that respect, but that's the first 20 to 30 minutes, depending on what level you are, is going to define your whole race. the physiologically, what you need to be able to do is you need to be able to do a 20 minute to 30 minute full gas effort out of the gun to be able to be in the best group possible. And then you need to train for the rest of it as well. So what that looks like is having a trying to get as high as threshold as possible in the period in eight weeks leading into it, 12 weeks leading into it, for example. So at the moment we're 11 weeks out, 11 to 12 weeks out as we record this. So now for 12 weeks out towards eight weeks out, we're looking at really building a solid capacity at threshold power and being really good at handling riding at that steady power for 20 minutes. So. If you haven't got a 20 minute climb or a 30 minute climb in your area, so you need to be able to ride hard for 20 to 30 minutes. And if you can't do that, then you need to start training for something like that. So that's the first part of the course. Second part of the course is like flat undulating, rolly, 30 to 40 kilometres worth. So it's not super demanding physiologically. You're going to be in a group. You're going to be riding zone two, zone three. some zone four on the front if you're pulling a turn. So physiologically, it's not that challenging. That first part is gonna define the group. And then if you're in the group, whatever group you're in, they're gonna be very similar physiology to you because you've all just done a really hard effort to get there. So you're gonna be matched with the people you're with. So rolling turns is gonna be nice and easy. Third part of the course is another climb. We've got another 20 minute roughly undulating climb. So it's very different to the first climb. It goes up in ramps. So you get ramps of 10 to 12%, and it flattens off, and then it pinches again at 10%, 8%. So it does that for about 20 to 25 minutes, which is quite hard. It's more of a VO2 anaerobic spike, and then you're sitting back down in tempo threshold. So it's like, think about over-unders for like 25 minutes is kind of what the physiology that you need to be able to do. Ryan Thomas (RCA Head Coach) (04:27.726) Once you get to the top of that climb, beautiful 10, 15 minutes, 60, 70 K an hour descent. Really not super technical, it's nice and windy, there's a couple of hard corners in there, but got 10, 15 minutes just to back off the power, recover, get down to the coast road. Then you've got 30 K, 35 K along the coast, which is rolling. A couple of short, punchy climbs, but nothing super hard. By that point, you're just going, giving it your all. So it's a really interesting course. It's an awesome course. It's an awesome course to race. But the main physiological things that you need to train for is around your threshold because that first 20 to 30 minute climb and then the second climb are the big defining points of the course. So can you give us a bit of a flavour, and I know you're working with 15 people that all have different logistics and different available training times and, you know, they're different fitness levels, different goals. how long is a piece of string, but I'm going to ask you a pretty specific question because that's what the listeners want, Ryan. What's some example sessions that you kind of, I'm assuming over-unders is a session that you're probably working with some of your clients on, but could you maybe tell the listeners what does that session look like and what are some other sessions that you're doing specifically to condition the riders for this event? Yeah, key sessions for this one, think, are your standard threshold, which we're starting at the moment for most athletes, you're starting around four by eights, working to five by eight threshold, and then you're lengthening the threshold effort. So we want to get 10, 12, 15 minute threshold efforts in. That foundational work is really important. In the previous weeks and in this first building phase, you want to do Ryan Thomas (RCA Head Coach) (06:22.626) some really good threshold work around sweet spots. So doing those 20, 30 minute efforts at sweet spot sub threshold, getting that ability to actually ride at a sub threshold level for 20 to 30 minutes. Because that sets the foundation for being able to do it at threshold and maybe in slightly above threshold and then do over the under is at over threshold. So the foundational sessions there are two by 20 or three by 20 at tempo sweet spot. That's the first foundational session that we want to work on. The second session that I would work on in there is threshold. So starting at four by eight threshold power. So what's it? What's 4x8? Can you give us a, just break down what a 4x8 session looks like? Yep, 20, 20 minute warmup with a couple of activations in there, working activations, you want to be doing them at sort of what power you're doing in your interval. So two by one minutes or a ramp up to threshold, for example, a four minute ramp, recover. And then we do four by eight minute efforts at 97 to a hundred percent of threshold power with four minutes recovery in the middle there. And that recovery can be descending back down a hill if you've got a nice eight minute hill in your area, or it can just be in. Design One Power. Ryan Thomas (RCA Head Coach) (07:42.261) zone to it. That's a four by eight is like, that's the first session. If you're to start doing any threshold work, four by eight is usually the one I would go to because it's the easiest to achieve. And then from there, we start either adding a repetition on. So doing five by eights with the same recovery. And then we either start reducing recovery or adding time onto the effort. So there's two different ways you can go there depending on. what hill you got available, whether you're indoors or outdoors. So that all comes down to your specific context. But we really want to lengthen that time to exhaustion at threshold. We don't necessarily want to, if you're thinking about that session, and a lot of people asked this to me within the RCA, the people that we're coaching, and one day you might feel really good doing a threshold session. Do I increase my power or do I do more? And at threshold, if we start increasing our power, we're getting up into that VO2 territory. So we're getting a little, slightly different adaptation. For a threshold effort, we kind of want to increase our time to exhaustion. adding an extra two, three minutes onto each effort or doing an extra effort if you're feeling really good that day is, that's going to give you more of a physiological larger threshold capacity or a larger engine rather than lifting the ceiling. We don't necessarily want to lift the ceiling too much in threshold. We want to... bigger capacity. Cam Nicholls (09:07.662) Okay, cool. So they're kind of like a couple of key sessions that you would develop over the course of an eight to 12 week period. And I'm assuming at some point you're sort of taking the sustained sweet spot efforts towards the end and you're turning them into sustained threshold efforts. But where do you factor in the need to be able to deliver a big blow at the... upfront and then be able to ride pretty solid for two to three hours after that big blow because that's the event, right? So are you incorporating that type of conditioning into the training as well? 100%. A lot of that comes from normal training anyway. So most people, if you're doing an interval session, you're generally very fresh, right? So doing a VO2 session or 30-15 session, which we would incorporate six to eight weeks out to really add on top of your threshold capacity. That type of work you're doing after 10 to 15 warmup and you're going as hard as you can in that type of session. that going out of the gun, I don't think that needs to be trained too much. I think it's going out of the gun really hard and then doing another three or four hours at the end of it is the thing that needs to be trained because that's the hard bit. Most people will be able to do a pretty hard effort out of the gun and we'll do that regularly in their training because that's what intervals demand. The specificity for that event or preparing for something like that will come on your longer rides on the weekend. So you want to do a specific ride and it's We're not necessarily looking at a specific physiological adaptation when we're doing these things, maybe a bit of fatigue resistance, but on a weekend you want to do two to three rides where you're doing a similar style of effort of what you're going to be required to for that event. And that can come from doing an event prior. So a lot of people in Australia, there's the Masters Nationals Championships held a couple of weeks before. So it's only 70 kilometres, but it's still a really good top end workout to do. Ryan Thomas (RCA Head Coach) (11:15.866) And for example, if anyone's doing that, I would actually recommend doing that workout, doing the race and then doing an hour or two after it if your goal is world championships. So that type of work is really important. But specifically for amies, if you're not doing any racing, you would do a three, four, five hour, depending on what your goal time is for that 130K event. You want to do hard effort at the start. Doesn't matter too much what that effort is. I would say it could be some VO2, it could be some threshold. just do something quite challenging for 20 to 30 minutes of accumulated work in that first hour. Do two, three hours of endurance and then start doing some efforts towards the end. So do some over-unders or do some 30-30s, 30-15s. So similar, but doesn't need to be exactly what that terrain's gonna demand because we can't predict exactly what it's gonna look like. we're trying to just make, your body used to working hard. after already doing two hours, two and a half hours, three hours of hard work. So a lot of people will do for fatigue resistance, and I think this is where fatigue resistance gets a bit lost in most people. They'll go and do a two, three hour ride at zone two, and then they'll do something hard. If you do that, you're not reducing any of your top end capacity. It's very aerobically demanding and it's hard on your muscles, but... You're not taking any of that glycogen storage away. You're not doing what it's gonna be like in a race. You're gonna be spiking over thresholds so many times in that two to three hours before you get to that second climb in the world championships course. You need to replicate that. So you need to do some hard work over threshold, depending on what it is and it'll vary for each person and what their terrain looks like. But do some hard work in that first hour, settle in for an hour or two, then do some more hard work. replicate the same sort of interval. That's gonna be the best way to prepare you to go hard for that first bit, which you're doing in other parts of your training. But important part is that second climb where most people, people last year who did the course, they're people who were getting dropped from groups. I can probably say that they didn't do that hard start and then hard end. So there's that second climb is the other crunch point that's gonna be defining for you. Cam Nicholls (13:37.186) So I recommended to a rider up here that we don't coach but he just rides in the bunch ride and he asked me what I would recommend. What do you think about this strategy, So our local bunch ride takes off pretty easy and it's flat, goes relatively hard on the flats and then it hits this area called Black Mountain and it's quite lumpy, so like that second part of Amy's. So I said to him, I said get on the trainer on Saturday morning. do it like a Zwift race, which is like typically tempo threshold for like, you know, 20, 30 minutes, get off, get on your bike, potter to, you know, the local bunch ride start, which sort of takes off pretty easy and then do the bunch. And I felt like that was a good sort of way of conditioning himself because he's gonna do this, essentially sweet spot tempo threshold effort out of the gate, then he's gonna cruise for a bit. then he's going to get the bunch ride cruise for a bit longer then it's going to go fast along the flats and then he's going to hit this like hilly lumpy section and he's going to have to go hard again and then it finishes off pretty flat pretty fast so what do you reckon about that? Almost perfect. nice, there you go. Ryan Thomas (RCA Head Coach) (14:52.718) Yeah, yeah, I'd be really good. It's a bit hard, like doing an indoor ride and then going outdoors, people would probably arc up against that, I would say. So you'd probably get a bit of resistance recommending that. The other scenario is most people do a local bunch ride on a weekend, whether it's two, three, four hours, whatever it is. The best recommendation in a bunch ride is usually hard, whether you do some chop off in it or whatever it is, but do your bunch ride. Do some zone two, maybe half an hour for your bunch ride, I it's around three hours. So do your three hour bunch ride. Go, I'd probably miss the coffee because it's not specific for your event. So reduce your stopping time. Go on to another 30 minutes, 40 minutes in zone two. Just let your body recover a little bit from the hard effort, usually at the end of a bunch ride. And then for you, I'd go to Gindya Drive and do some six to eight minute hill repeats or over-unders up Gindya Drive, do three or four of those. doing a bunch ride, adding in some zone two after and then going, doing some threshold over under style work is gonna be very specific for what you're gonna need to do at Amys. Yep, cool. And so that's very much touching on the training component. With your members, what sort of carbohydrate strategy are you trying to get them to during, knowing that you should be aiming for somewhere between one to four grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight three to four hours before the event. You're probably not gonna do it three to four hours before Amy's, because Amy starts early, so. You wanna start conditioning yourself in training to maybe an hour, an hour and a half before you go out, get at least sort of one to two grams of carbs per kilogram of body weight. So it depends on your body weight. Like if you weigh 100 kilos, like getting four grams per kilo is 400 grams of carbs, good luck. But obviously you wanna have a big substantial meal before, you wanna be carb loading the day beforehand. So let's not go too much into that because that's gonna be very variable. Cam Nicholls (17:00.462) for the person, but just make sure you're focusing on that if you're listening. You'll wanna have a big meal before and condition yourself in training to be able to tolerate that before you go and ride hard for three or four hours, because if you just do it on event day and you haven't done it before, you'll have a crook guts. But what about the actual, like once you start the ride, because it's gonna be hard to fuel in the first half an hour to an hour, because you're gonna be fighting for wheels, you're gonna be going up the climb. So what are you recommending? A gel on the start line, 90 grams in the bottles, how big are the bottles? What are you suggesting there? Yeah. So the preparation and morning of, think something that's often forgotten or neglected is the, if you have a meal two to three hours before and you don't have anything for two hours before the race, you're going to be like, you're not stopping up as you're going. You're still burning energy in that morning. You don't do your warmup. So having for the hour before the start, I would say you probably should have a a whole bottle of whatever you want to have. I'd just probably have a, what I'll be doing is I'll have my, I'll have my morning, I'll have my breakfast three hours before, and then I'll sit down and relax a bit, just prepare, staying close. So think about an hour before I'm going to start thinking about warming up, getting kitted up. But that one hour before I'll have a bottle of maybe 60 to 80 grams of carbohydrates and I'll aim to finish that before I... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/37725320

Want to Ride Faster? Don’t Ignore Substrate Utilization 08/07/2025

Want to Ride Faster? Don’t Ignore Substrate Utilization Summary In this episode of the RCA podcast, host Cam Nicholls discusses the new substrate utilization feature in TrainingPeaks with head coach Ryan Thomas. They explore the importance of carbohydrate intake for cyclists, particularly during endurance rides, and how the new feature can help cyclists understand their fueling needs better. The conversation delves into the science behind substrate utilization, the significance of fat adaptation, and practical strategies for cyclists to optimize their performance through proper nutrition. Ryan emphasizes the need for accountability in fueling and the role of coaching in helping cyclists navigate these new insights. Takeaways Substrate utilization refers to the balance of carbohydrates and fats burned during exercise. The new TrainingPeaks feature helps cyclists estimate their carbohydrate needs during rides. Most amateur cyclists do not consume enough carbohydrates for optimal performance. Carbohydrates are essential for recovery and performance in endurance sports. The amount of carbohydrates needed can be higher than commonly recommended guidelines. Context is crucial when determining carbohydrate intake for different ride intensities. Fat adaptation varies among cyclists based on training status and fitness level. Proper fueling strategies can prevent energy deficits and enhance training consistency. Coaching can help cyclists understand and implement effective fueling strategies. Awareness of carbohydrate needs can lead to better performance outcomes. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Substrate Utilization 03:01 Understanding the New TrainingPeaks Feature 06:05 Carbohydrate Needs for Cyclists 08:51 The Importance of Fueling During Rides 12:03 Fat Adaptation and Performance 15:02 Practical Applications of Carbohydrate Intake 17:50 Coaching and Support for Cyclists Cam Nicholls (00:00.696) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined by the RCA's head coach, Ryan Thomas. And today we're gonna be talking about something that's a little bit technical, something that's new in the TrainingPeak software, but when you break it down, actually, it's, well, it is technical. It actually applies to all recreational and amateur road cyclists. And there was something interesting. that Ryan put together for our Friday Training Trend newsletter about substrate utilization and essentially the amount of carbohydrates we're utilizing during our rides and there was one in particular that caught my attention about how many carbs we actually use as a general blanket during a one hour zone two ride. actually really surprised me and I know Ryan's gonna go into that detail today and I'm sure it'll surprise many of you. But before we go into that level of detail, Ryan, can you tell me what is substrate utilization and this new feature in TrainingPeaks, which for those of you who are unaware, TrainingPeaks is a big training software platform, it's a calendar system we use for our members at the RCA to basically facilitate all their training. So tell us a little bit about this new feature and substrate utilization, Ryan. Yeah, it's a really, really cool new feature that TrainingPeaks have brought in based on a whole bunch of research done by a well-renowned researcher and coach, Inigo Semmelan. He looked at, I think it was around 250 athletes, did a whole bunch of testing with them, lactate testing and metabolic cart testing, seeing how much fat and carbohydrate they burn in a specific ride and at a specific level. So, what the substrate utilization actually looks at is how much carb versus fat calories that you're burning in your ride. So it's based on a prediction. So it's not a hundred percent accurate. If you went into your own metabolic cart test, it would be more accurate. But it's based off a whole bunch of testing that gives you a pretty good estimate for how many carbohydrates you're burning throughout your ride. Ryan Thomas (02:15.572) and how many carbohydrates predicted that you're gonna burn throughout that ride as well, which is the practical part for what we'll talk about in a minute. But very, very cool new feature that every single rider can use, and I think a lot of people will get a lot of value out of it, because majority of people that we see at the RCA aren't fueling their rides enough. And we can go through some specific examples, because it's actually more than you think you need. Yeah, okay. So when you just drill in on this new feature and from a value perspective to people using Training Peaks, is it purely about them seeing how many they're burning and what they need to replace or is there more to it? I think it's the accountability from a carb intake perspective. We know that carbs are your ultimate fuel and performance. If you're not having carbs before, during and after, you're missing out on a whole bunch of performance increases during that right end recovery and performance the following days. So that aspect, just making people aware that they actually need to take in a... a lot of carbohydrate because most amateur or recreational cyclists do come into cycling and sugar is usually seen as like this bad thing that you shouldn't have sugar and it's in general life and if you're not an active person at 100 % you shouldn't be consuming a whole lot of simple sugar but as an endurance athlete or a high performance high intensity athlete you definitely need the carbohydrates and the sugar to be able to perform at a high level. And I think this new feature gives people that accountability and specificity for what they should be doing. Cam Nicholls (04:03.214) Yeah, okay. So can you just give us a little breakdown then of what sort of catching some of our members off guard a little bit? Because obviously they've, know, lot of them have been speaking with, you know, coaches over the years from, you know, within our coaching group or within, you know, other coaching groups or some of them have watched a lot of YouTube content. Some of them have watched our very own Steph Cronin, you know, talk about, you know, how many carbs per hour they should at least be aiming for initially when they start. leaning into the whole carb strategy for training world, know, starting with 30 grams an hour and then working towards 60 and then maybe going towards 90. So that kind of seems to be what are in people's heads. And then of course, you know, getting to, you know, what the pro level is getting to 125, 150 ridiculous. you know, knowing all that as as you know, know, evidence that we sort of see in the research and what we hear from sports dieticians, is that what is, you know, the data showing us with this new feature in Training Peaks or is it catching some people off guard? I think it's a slightly more than what the generalized data is, but there's a lot of context to this. just if we look at it from a pure data perspective and look at how many carbohydrate calories you burn in a ride and then how much you intake to keep up with that demand, it's a lot higher than what we see in the 30 or 60 grams of carbs an hour, for example. But the context makes a big difference here. And I think this is what's A lot of people are going to be seeing this new feature and doing the calculations and like getting overwhelmed with it. And like you said, at the start of this, a one hour zone to ride, I'll go in that example right now because it's quite relevant. A one hour zone to ride for someone with the 250 watt threshold, roughly, which is a pretty normal for a recreational rider. You're looking at around 750 calories burnt. Ryan Thomas (06:08.418) carb calories burnt throughout that ride. So that's the cost on the body. There's a difference between kilojoules and calories. So this is where it becomes a bit technical. We're looking at calories, which is the cost on the body to produce the kilojoules, which is the mechanical work that the muscles actually do, which is measured in power. So the calories for that, 750 calories, what we need to do from that. So if you're looking at your own training peaks and you're see 750 carb calories burnt for this ride or predicted for this ride. How do you actually figure out what you need to take in? And I'm taking this from the people at Training Peaks because they're the ones who created it and recommendation is that you need to intake roughly 50 % of the carbohydrate usage for that ride to maintain the physical output. So you don't just... take 50 % of 750 calories because one carbohydrate, one gram of carbohydrate equals four calories. So we need to work backwards a little bit here. So what we need to do is that 750, you need to divide it by four to get the grams of carbohydrates that you're burning for that ride, which is around 180. And then you divide it by two, which you need to get 50 % of that number to maintain the physical output. You can just divide it by eight is a quick way around that. But for a one hour zone two ride, average power of 160 watts, roughly 170 watts. Your body, the cost on your body is around 95 grams of carbohydrates. So that means that your body is using 95 grams of carbohydrates that you've taken in, whether it's before or during that ride to produce a specific amount of mechanical work or power. Now that one hour, so the context behind that is you don't need to take in 95 grams of carbohydrates in that one hour ride. the reason for that and the recommendations for nutrition intake are based off duration and intensity. So you'll hear from Steph and you'll hear from other nutritionists and other Ryan Thomas (08:26.862) content online that over an hour and a half, you should be taking in more over three hours, you should be taking in a lot more. So, and the reason for that is we have a pretty high amount of calories and kilojoules in glycogen stores within our body to be able to produce that work without, with a limited cost for a one hour zone two ride. So you have 1500 to 2000 kilojoules of energy within your body to be able to. produce work. So essentially that's quite a big ride. If you're looking at your own training peaks and you're thinking about how many kilojoules does it actually, how long does it take to burn that amount of kilojoules worth of energy or work, it's actually quite a long time. And probably for someone putting out 300 watts or two hours, it's probably a two hour ride for 2000 kilojoules. But if you're putting out 150, it's probably three hours to... that would mean you are completely empty of stores if you didn't take any carbohydrates in. So the context here is really important. We don't expect you to be able to take in 94 grams of carbohydrates in a one hour session because you would have carbohydrates before and after that session to replace the 95 grams. And it's quite easy to replace 95 grams of carbohydrates from that ride as opposed to doing a three hour ride where your burns made it. 300, 350 grams of carbohydrates. So it's very difficult to get in your pre-ride meal. And during, you need to make sure you're getting a lot of that within there to be able to recover quickly and go again the next day. Hmm interesting so the you know the barometer ride that I like to do when I'm training for events is the two-hour ride down the coast base focus sort of zone two I don't need anything because I feel like you know It's just one of the like I'm eating so much on my other rides when I'm training for an event I like to have rides where I'm not eating and I feel like I can get through that ride Without you know an effect on performance because it's not really a performance focus ride at zone two Cam Nicholls (10:36.622) And you know provided I have a good meal afterwards, I feel everything's okay, so I can still keep doing that zone to ride faster. That's okay Ryan Thomas (10:48.946) Yes, it really depends on what you've got the day before and the day after and what you're trying to get out of that ride from a physiological benefit. So for example, just quickly I just pulled up a two hour zone two ride of yours and you're burning your mechanical work for a two hour zone two ride at 180 watts, 200 watts for example is 1300 kilojoules worth of mechanical work. that you're burning throughout that ride. the cost, the carbohydrate cost on your body for that ride is probably gonna be around the same, around 1300, 1200 maybe, because there'll be a bit of fat contribution in there as well. So divide that by four, you're getting 300 and then half of that 150. So 150 grams of carbs for that ride is what the cost is on your body. So what you should be trying to replace. It's actually 300 because that's the amount you use, but you would need to replace 50 during that ride essentially. So if you're doing that in a fasted state and not feeling during, you need to be making up for it elsewhere to maintain your energy balance. And theoretically, if you don't do before and during, then you're in an energy deficit for the rest of the day and it just becomes a cycle. if you're, yeah, there's a cost and a benefit and there is Some people are really big on their faster drives and higher fat contribution and high fat burning on those rides. But I think we need to remember, and this is why this is gonna raise a lot of flags. This new feature is we're actually, you're still burning a really high amount of carbohydrate even in a zone two ride. And I think people think that that's just like you're burning fat and then you switch to burning carbohydrates. There's no switch. It's not an on-off switch. You're burning a high percentage of both throughout every intensity, just, the percentage changes as you increase the power. So the carbohydrate, you're using a lot of carbs still in a zone two, right? Is the takeaway there. Cam Nicholls (12:56.042) I also believe that the percentage changes as you get fitter. that two hours on the road down the coast that I talk about, I did that recently and I'm not fit at the moment. And I actually started to bonk because I hadn't had any fuel. I just had water in the water bottles. And I was starting to bonk. I said to the person I was riding with about an hour and 40 deep, was like, I think I need to stop and get like a Snickers bar or something like that. Whereas, like four or five months ago when I was training for an event, I would have eaten that two hour ride for breakfast, pardon the pun, without having anything and being fine. So clearly the training, know, when you're particularly when doing a lot of zone two work, you do become better fat adapted. So that the switch, while it's not a switch, it does alter as you get fitter. 100 % yeah and that the fat utilization and where your fat max sits and the highest percentage of fat utilization across your power curve where that actually sits for each individual is very different based on training status physiology and that's why the in training peaks if you're looking at this feature another important point is you need to make sure that you have the right settings in your account to make sure to change the carb versus fat in contribution because the more experienced athlete you are say, Tour de France level athletes, their Fat Max is going to be much further along with their power curve, relatively to a recreational athlete who's just starting. So like you said, Tour de France athletes could go on ride two, three hours without any carbohydrates at a really low level and be absolutely fine. But someone who has a really low Fat Max relatively to their threshold. So this is all relative to the individual's threshold. The difference there is that today, for example, everyone's seen all that podcast where he's like 320, 340 Watts is his zone two or his fat max. That's very, very close to his threshold. And it's very high up his power curve because that's their ability because they train five, six hours zone two rides and they get really fat adapted and their ability to use fat as a fuel is really good. Whereas when you're only training an hour, hour and a half. Ryan Thomas (15:12.39) that fat utilization is very different and relatively to your threshold. that's, yeah, it's really important that you know what sort of level athlete and you adapt that in your settings. Hmm, but I think it's an eye-opener. The reason why it was an eye-opener for me, and I know a lot of RCA members responded to that newsletter with similar thoughts, is that, you know, like we could be talking about intensity rides here versus zone two rides, but everyone's intensity ride looks quite different. Everyone's bunch ride looks quite different. The way everyone does threshold training can be quite different, whereas everyone's zone two, yeah, the actual zone two number. might be quite different depending on the person's fitness level, but they're trying to target zone two and stay there for the entire ride. So it's a good workout to look at because everyone's, or most people are doing that sport workout specifically, but then recognize that, okay, when I am going into the world of intensity and I'm trying to perform and I'm trying to operate at my peak, knowing that you know, unlike a car, you know, we can't perform optimally on three quarters of a tank or half a tank of fuel. You know, there's been research done on this, you know. If you're in a car and you've got like literally my car right now, it's got 40 kilometres left of fuel to go. I really need to go fill it up. But if I hit the, you know, put the pedal to the metal, like out the front here in Sunshine Beach, which I'm not gonna do, it's gonna take off the same way it would as if it was full. But. know, physically, you know, our bodies don't operate like that. So we need to, particularly when we're trying to operate, you know, at intensity, get the most out of our high intensity interval training sessions, and then of course on event day, we need to try and stay towards the top of our capacity as much as we possibly can during those sessions so we can work in an optimal state. So knowing that, and then considering that we're potentially losing 100 grams of carbs per hour, Cam Nicholls (17:19.008) in a simple one hour zone two ride, it's like, well, our bodies are really using a lot of carbs when we're cycling, particularly at intensity. and knowing that we wanna try and keep it as optimal, the tank as high as possible during these sessions, for me it was like, okay, so now I reflect on the recent training that I was doing for an event and I was targeting 125 grams per hour. You know, it seems extreme and it felt extreme and you know, it took a while to get to with the gut training but in actual fact, like, I'm still not getting anywhere near what I'm burning. Yeah, I just started training for an event in 12 weeks time and I'm looking at it myself and it's actually made me the last two weeks since they updated it, it's made me consume more carbs. Like it's actually having an impact on myself and I knew how many carbs I needed to intake, but seeing the numbers there versus actually like just having a thing in the back of your mind saying, oh, I should have 90 or I should have hundred grams an hour today. when I look at the session post or look at it before and it's like, I actually need to take in a whole lot of carbohydrates today. Like I'll actually plan out and I'll prepare to have a hundred grams of carbs an hour because I know that that's what I need for a three hour ride. If it's an hour, hour and a half, then not too, the impact is less. The cost on your body is less, but anything over that hour and a half period, if you're not hitting close to what you're burning, then I think you're going to be falling down a lot in. in terms of your ability to progress and stay consistent with your high intensity training. I think that's the big difference here is that, yeah, okay, if you under feel one or two times during the week and you may not think it has a big impact or if you go and do that two hour ride... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/37714620

The BEST Science Backed Short Intensity Cycling Workout (to maintain cycling fitness) 07/16/2025

The BEST Science Backed Short Intensity Cycling Workout (to maintain cycling fitness) Is this cycling podcast about training and improving your performance, including FTP, V02 Max, endurance and sprint repeatability, we discuss This published in 2020 looking at what performance outcomes changed - over a 3 week transition period - for elite cyclists when they reduced their training load by ~60%.The control group only performed low intensity training. The other group (sprint group) performed low intensity training as well as one session per week of 3 × 30 second maximal sprints, interspersed by 4-min of active recovery (100 W), with 15 minutes at zone 2 between sets. The sprint group had a 8% larger improvement in their 30 second sprint and maintained their 20min all out FTP effort over that 3 week period. Whereas the control group lost 3% of performance on their 20min all out effort. These results are quite surprising given they were only doing one sprint session per week. This is solid evidence to suggest that doing all-out efforts should maintain your fitness when volume is reduced significantly for short periods (1-3 weeks). Full transcript: Cameron Nicholls (): Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined again by the RCAs data nerd Ben Treble, and today we're going to talk about a little bit of science that we've recently leveraged in some RCA content that I have personally taken on board myself, and I've been using it anecdotally over the past, I'd say six to eight weeks with great success. And I wanted to get Ben's perspective, so before Ben gives us his perspective, give you the context first, Ben. So we recently had an RCA member. He posed a question in our community forum and the question was, I've been training for this audax event and for those of you who aren't familiar with Audax rides, they're big juicy, hairy rides normally over five days, one week, two weeks. I think this one was over 10 days and it was like two or 300 kilometers a day and he'd been doing a lot of endurance training and all of a sudden he's got a 10 day cruise. () He's on a cruise and this is about two weeks before his actual event. So the timing wise, it didn't work out so well. So it's like how do I maintain my fitness while I'm on this cruise ship for 10 days and I only have access to a gym bike? So some coaches got involved in this paper, which we're going to talk about today, was presented and really it's about doing maximal efforts with decent recovery and you don't need to do long sessions because obviously being on a cruise ship and having access to a gym bike, I actually think this member, I'm pretty sure he took a photo of the gym bike when he was on the cruise. It wasn't an attractive looking bike, so you don't want to really spend a lot of time on these things, like 30 to 40 minutes max. And he was doing this session and I was thinking to myself, oh, we sent this out in a newsletter as well and we got a lot of responses back from our community, a wider community on this particular paper. () And I was thinking to myself, well actually this is it relevant to me now as well because I'm not doing a lot of training. Life's gotten in the way. I've gone from doing 10 to 12 hours a week to maybe six hours a week and I get on the trainer in the morning, I'm getting up a little bit later, it's winter, I've got to get the kids ready for school. I probably only got 30, 40 minutes. So I started to implement this session. So what is this session? Do a warmup for 10 minutes and then I'm doing, and there's variations of it, right? It doesn't specifically have to be this, whatever works for you, but you basically want to do an all out effort for 30 seconds. So I'm a lazy at the moment with my training and everything, so I'm just doing it in er mode, Ben, and I know this is a no-no, but I'm just going from warming up, do a few little ramps, and then at the 15 minute mark, I start my first 30 seconds at 520 watts and I literally just tap it up in ER mode from 200 watts to 520 and I write at 520 watts for 30 seconds. () And that's a struggle. I'm just getting there with form, maintaining my form, and then I come back for the next four and a half minutes to 200 watts and then recover and then I'll do it again back up to five 20 watts for 30 seconds, recover for four and a half minutes. And depending on how much time I have in the morning, this is over the last six to eight weeks, I've been doing that four times, maybe five times. I got up to six times the other , and what's been really interesting for me, because around that I've also been doing bit of zone two training, a little bit of sweet spot stuff, but not much. Haven't even been doing the bun ride. Went out and did the bun ride the other day, rolling turns, feeling good, feeling strong. That's not normal. When I've been doing six hours a week, we've been talking about this VO two Mac session recently, the 30 fifteens, I thought I'd try it. () I did three sets of nine reps at 420 , and I was doing it for a bit of content on our YouTube channel. I thought, I'm not going to get through this. Got through it all. Oh, that's surprising as well. And I just feeling surprisingly quite fit considering I'm only doing six hours of training per week, so I'm like, oh, hang on a sec. This session here, doing a maximal effort essentially for 30 seconds and then recovering and doing it again without spending a lot of time on volume. , it's in the ; it's, Obviously,and I've now had a great anecdotal experience with it , and I'm doing it once a week. I should probably preface I'm not doing it multiple times a week, just once a week for the last six to eight weeks. So what do you make of all that ramble? Ben Trebel (): I'm a big fan. I would classify this as sprint interval training. As you said, there's a lot of variance of it. We have repeated sprint interval training where you would do short sprints with very short recovery between, and you do sets of them with longer recovery. And then you have just what you've done, which I would call this long sprint interval training. And there's different versions of that. I'm a big fan of it. I like to couple it within actually your zone two rides. One because it keeps them interesting, and two, I think it gives you a lot of extra stimulus without impacting the aerobic component of the session too much. There are an amazing maintenance session. There's a lot of emerging research on it. I think it's pretty underrated. I don't see too many people on Strava doing sprint interval training because I think they assume it's only if you want to be a sprinter, but the sprinting itself, particularly if it's like 30 seconds, it's working a lot of the energy systems to get there. () You're using the aerobic system a lot even though it's short, you're using the anaerobic system, it's kicking in because the sprint is long enough and of course you're jumping through the phosphate system to start with to get there, and your neuromuscular system is getting a lot of stimulus from those sprints. So it's like a very good bang for buck session that engages a lot of systems in a very short period of time. We do it a number of times in the session. I think it's very good at activating a lot of the metabolic pathways, a lot of the enzyme reactions that we need to maintain our capacities. Cameron Nicholls (): Interesting. And it's not that, the thing I like about it as well from a practical standpoint is during, I would call this an off season for me, I'm just maintaining my fitness. I'm getting on the bike just for fitness, something to do. And normally when I'm doing this, I would do mainly zone two because it's easy and I might do a bit of your sweet spot threshold stuff and I kind of tend to stay away from the upper end stuff because I can't be bothered. It's like, oh, do I want to do a Tabata or a 30 fifteens or I'm just like, no, it's not interested. I don't want to do a swiff race. I might go do the local group ride and sit in a bit more, but I can't really get the mental capacity to go do these VO two style sessions. Whereas this, even though the 30 seconds is quite challenging, once you 15, 20 seconds in, once you're 15, 20 seconds in, you've only got 10 seconds to go and then you've got a four and a half minute recovery. () So I find mentally they're kind of easy to do, which I think makes it really practical. Practical in an off season phase where people are looking to, and it doesn't have to be an off season phase. It could be a period in your training where you've got with this member, they're on a cruise for 10 days and they want to maintain their fitness. I think it's probably needs to be prefaced though. And I think you alluded to this, that if you hadn't done much training, cycling training before or you don't have much of a base, then this type of training, you're probably not going to yield the greatest benefits. But if the base foundation is there, it's a really good way to activate those systems that you described and maintain some top end fitness without really having to do anything too extreme. Ben Trebel (): Yeah, there was a paper, I can't remember what year it was from. It was fairly recent that it looked at sprint interval training impact on VO2 max and they managed to get better outcomes improvements on VO2 max than a classic sort of four, five minute steady state intervals at mean maximal power. So I think that was a very interesting study that just some sprint training improved VO2 max better than say a classic four - five minute, is a single study. So I don't want to take it too far out of context, but just anecdotally, you start to see this and you go, ah, there's some very interesting benefits to sprint interval training. There was a cool study from, I've got to get the name right, he's a French researcher in... Cameron Nicholls (): That's all right. We can link it in the description. Ben Trebel (): Just so you don't stuff it up. I'll link a study on hypoxic training with just endurance, say like your zone two only sort of training versus sprint interval training. And they ended up with the same sort of VO2 max improvements or management. A lot of these metrics stayed the same. There was no scientific difference up or down, but the difference they found was in the fatigue resistance in their ability to repeat sprints. So the tests that they did comparing the two groups was you do a sprint and then you had to try and repeat it as many times as you could within the same power quality and how many repeats could you do? And the group that had done the sprint interval training could get through 30% more sprints than the other group. Interesting. And this was in a short Cameron Nicholls (): Timeframe that aligns to my experience at the bunch where in previous years when I've been in this off season phase and I've just been doing my own tour and a bit of sweet spot stuff, I could get involved in the terms, but I would fatigue out pretty quickly. It wasn't so much my cardio system, it was my muscular system would start fatiguing, so I would do less turns. Whereas on this particular bunch ride the other day, I stayed in the turns pretty much the whole time. Sorry, that was my dog there in the background if you heard that interesting animal sound. And I was like, even though I've only been doing four or five of these 32nd efforts on the trainer once a week, I was able to do, I don't know how many turns, I did like 30, somewhere between 15 to 30 at high power output, not at the five 20 watt mark, which is what I'm doing my 32nd efforts for this particular session, but they're like 4, 4 50 watt turns and able to do 15 to 30 of these when I've been doing very little training. It was very telling. Which kind of aligns to the research that you mentioned there. I think one thing that people probably need to keep in mind if they're going to implement this is the recovery is pretty important is that it's not that you just go out there and, you do repeated sprint efforts on top of each other. Why do you need a decent recovery? Ben Trebel (): Well, as I said, there's repeated sprint interval training, which is where you specifically have short recovery, which you're aiming for a different outcome to what we're kind of talking about, which would just be sprint interval training. And the recovery time varies greatly between rider, like how well trained you are. I think five minutes is definitely on the shorter side, like the sessions I typically would prescribe for sprint interval training. Mind you, this is a longer session with a higher power, slightly shorter sprint. So 22nd sprint, I would be looking at 10 to 20 minute rest intervals, but on a two or three hour ride. So you're doing a lot more sprints and the intensity is essentially the first one you do is maximal do a 20 minute max sprint and then try repeat it every time. Cameron Nicholls (): 20 minute max sprint. Ben Trebel (): Sorry, 20 seconds. Cameron Nicholls (): I was going to say 22nd max sprint. I'll be impressed. Yeah, I would Ben Trebel (): Be too. Cameron Nicholls (): Yeah. So I think that's the key there. Obviously there's variations in this type of training, but yeah, for me, what's practical right now is if you've got 40 minutes, if I was to do a 10 minute recovery, which probably has some merits, I'll probably be more effective. I might be able to do five 50 watts instead of five 20 or something like that for the 30 seconds. But you're still hitting that anaerobic state and tapping through those different systems, as you said in that 30 seconds. So you're activating what's required. Ben Trebel (): Yeah, you're getting that. It's a neuromuscular activation, and something you don't get from some of the old classic interval types is the intensity is not hard enough to recruit all the muscle fibers and motor units. And when we do these, when we say neuromuscular, it's your body's forced to push and activate the neural pathways to then go and activate the motor units, which then twitch the fibers. So if we just do very low zone one and two work, very likely you're only engaging your type one muscle fibers. Your type twos are just getting lazy, and if we don't use them, we kind of lose them. So doing your 40 minutes at sort of a low zone two with some big sprints thrown in, it kind just engages the full body system, which is why I think it's so good at maintenance work and it's pretty easy and sort of less demanding to handle. Cameron Nicholls (): Absolutely. And it's in the research, as you've mentioned, some papers and this specific paper that we were using internally at the RCA. We'll link that in the description as well for everyone to have a look. So yeah, if you're out there and you've got limited training time for a period within your block or whether you're in an off season phase, but you want to maintain some decent fitness, this is definitely something to consider. It's in the research and I put my hand up and I vouch for it now myself. So thanks for your time, Ben, and if anyone's out there listening and you want some support with your training, don't forget the RCA offers coaching services where you can also work with Coach Ben who I'm speaking to right now, or one of our other coaches. Just go to www.roadcyclingacademy.com and check out our one-to-one coaching page. We'll catch you in the next podcast. For more information from the Road Cycling Academy - (RCA), including blogs from our renowned road cycling coaches, head to our /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/37424190

How to Boost Your FTP (I ask Ben the simple question we all want answered) 07/16/2025

How to Boost Your FTP (I ask Ben the simple question we all want answered) In this podcast, the RCA's resident data nerd Ben Treble discusses ways you can boost your FTP (Functional Threshold Power), using specific workouts and progressing those workouts over time. Notably, specific threshold based intervals sessions you can progress over time. We focus on the 20min effort in this discussion, as that is the most commonly referred to FTP protocol. Full Transcript: Cameron Nichols (): Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined again by the RCAs data nerd Ben Treble. And Ben, I'm just going to ask you a really simplified question today. Probably one that doesn't really have much scientific research to back it up as a standalone question, but it's probably the biggest question we get from recreational and amateur road cyclists that come on board at the RCA. How do I boost my FTP? What do I need to do? What does the sign say? Ben Treble (): Why do you want boost your FTP? Cameron Nichols (): Because it sounds good. It's what the gym bro is talking about, how much they bench in cycling. We talk about how big our FTP is, so I want to go to my local group ride and tell everyone I've got a FTP of over 300 watts and of course in doing that, I should subsequently be stronger on the bike because if I have a bigger FTP, it increases everything else. I should be able to climb better because normally you're climbing around the FTP mark, it's going to help everything Ben. Alright, everything life is going to be better with a bigger FTP. Ben Treble (): Sounds great. Where do I get one? Cameron Nichols (): Well you tell me. You are the one, you are the man that knows all the science literature. So what have you got for Ben Treble (): Me? If you come to me? Cameron Nichols (): Is there a paper? Is there a paper? Ben Treble (): It's a question I get. I get this all the time. No, the answer is it's very difficult. I didn't do a deep dive. Let's be fair. There could be papers, but I did do some research on this in the journals and there's very little on purely comparing say different workouts like HIIT workout versus endurance protocols. What improved FTP the most? Partly because the scientific community will probably put their hand up quickly and say FTP, how did you test it and was it a reliable test in the first place? The answer is often no. So then they move on and they measure with other metrics and do other research. Interesting. Not the answer that the everyday cyclist wants to hear. Cameron Nichols (): This is a short podcast. Alright, thanks everyone for listening. Joking. Yeah. Okay, well then give me what you see anecdotally. So you've got a lot of recreational and amateurs that come to you and this is a goal of theirs and if you scratch the surface, normally the underlying goal is, well look, I've got this mate in the local group ride and he's kind of given me the shits and I want to beat him up the local climb. Or it's actually next year I'm targeting an event and I want to do well. But initially the focus is on FTP. So how would you go about as a general blanket Ben Treble (): I'll play if someone comes to me and says, I want to improve my FTP and I say that's it. You just want to try and improve the test result. My first question is what tests are you doing? Let's just assume there's two main ones being like a 20 minute FT P test and the RAMP test. Probably the two most common FTP tests because you can kind of, depending on what type of athlete they are, I'm not going to say you can game the test, but you can design the training to target a better result out of that test, which will give you a higher FTP number as a result. Cameron Nichols (): You can definitely game the test a hundred percent. Let's talk about it. Let's game the test. Ben Treble (): If you are a more anaerobic sort of dominant athlete, like you're better at sprinting high intensity stuff naturally a bit more muscular, the ramp test is already going to be like a favored test protocol. If you are more aerobic and you're better at sort of steady efforts, the 20 minute test will give you a better outcome. So that's Cameron Nichols (): Not on the indoor trainer. Not on the indoor trainer. Don't do the 20 minute test on the indoor trainer Ben Treble (): Only if you have a lot of cooling and yes, maybe less, but yeah, the first one is let's work out which test protocol is better for you and then we can start to look at what efforts are going to help you improve that result. Cameron Nichols (): Okay, so I'm going to give you more example cam. Yeah, I'm going to give you because I reckon a lot of recreational and amateurs have done the ramp test and the ramp test definitely has merits external to the genetic capabilities that somebody might have that favors more anaerobic muscular strength on the trainer to step up a ramp. But in terms of the practicality, because a lot of recreational and amateurs that want to know what their FTP is to go out and do a 20 minute sustained effort, which is probably the more the better way of getting your FTP, they don't know how to do that test. You would've seen this a hundred times where they've gone out of the blocks way too hard and they die towards the end the last five minutes, they're basically in a recovery spin because they're so smashed from the first 10 minutes where actual fact you should be almost the other way. () You should be starting below and finishing strong, but you would never know how to do that until you've done it a few times. But I think it comes back to the fact that a lot of people want to boost their FTP, but they never even ride at FTP. They're doing local bunch rides or group rides where it's very on off. They're in zone two or then they're in zone four or five, so they race up the hill, then they're coasting down the other side and zone. Or they might be just doing random swift iwt racing is probably the only one where you actually are operating around tempo, sweet spot, even a bit of threshold consistently in a sustained manner. But I think a lot of on-road riding with mates group rides and just people that go out and ride generally they sort tend to jump between zones one and two and then go straight up to zones five and six and that threshold area really gets missed. So that actually don't spend a lot of time there, even though inadvertently by them saying, Hey, I want to increase my FTP. It's like, are you actually spending any time there? So I think that would be a good one if we just drill in on that one. If I said, okay Ben, I want to improve my 20 minute, what do you got for me? Ben Treble (): Oh, the 20 minute not the ran. Cameron Nichols (): Yeah, Ben Treble (): Not Cameron Nichols (): The ramp. There you. Yeah, the 20 minute I was Ben Treble (): Prepared for the ramp. That's okay. Cameron Nichols (): That's for a clearly one. Ben Treble (): Let's go. Yeah, I'm okay with that. Yeah. Well the first thing I would do is let's assume it's a sort of amateur level rider. They're maybe riding three, four times a week. I would still leave one long social ride on the weekend and then just use the midweek rides as two focused interval rides. One I would do over unders. So this is normally around, yeah, it's normally the over is 105% a threshold and then the under is 95% and you can do it in different ways, but usually I might do say one minute over, one minute under and you might do a set of eight minutes or 10 minutes, you just progressively and you might do two sets first and you slowly build up. So you might end up doing three sets and I'm just going to do this for say two blocks. That's the first key session. () And the second key session would be learning to ride the time trial. So doing practicing, building them up, so probably doing two by 10 minutes at slightly above threshold and then getting them two by 15 minutes and eventually getting them to do 20 minute efforts and learning what that feels like riding slightly above threshold for 20 minutes straight at a steady state and preparing them for that test. So there would be the two sessions that just you progress them through those two, you've got the lactate shuttling session and then you've got the time trial above threshold session and then retest after whatever you say you want for eight Cameron Nichols (): Weeks. And so let's just drill into this a little bit more. So you said two blocks, what do you mean by a block? So you're talking about eight weeks? About eight, Ben Treble (): Yeah, let's go with eight weeks. I would do three weeks of progression. So I like to structure my, let's call them blocks. Typically three weeks on one week easy and the way I do the first three weeks, the first week I call a try week. So we try the workouts for the first time and get a feel was it the right, did we get the right number of intervals and sets, was it achievable or not? How hard was it based on that? The second week is the practice week, so it's ideally the same workouts, they should feel a bit easier. We get some acute response and the third week is a push week, so we increase either the number of intervals or the number of sets and then the third week is an easy week, so it's normally the same as the first week or with a little bit reduced volume and then we go again in the next block, but it'll be an increased progression. Cameron Nichols (): Okay. The overruns, let's talk about what the first session might look like in the first block and then what the final session would look like in the second block if we're progressing so people can get a good feel of where you would start and where you would finish with the over unders. Ben Treble (): Yeah, I would probably attempt to start with two sets with eight minute block. So you would do four, one minute over four, one minute unders, that's an eight minute block and then you would do roughly five minutes recovery at who knows, 50% threshold and then you go again for a second block. So that's probably the first place I would start. Cameron Nichols (): Okay, and where would you be working towards? Ben Treble (): Yeah, I'd probably try to get to a point where you could do 12 minutes, Cameron Nichols (): So Ben Treble (): Say six minutes over six minutes under through one set and three sets probably in an eight week period. Cameron Nichols (): Yep. Okay, so that's the unders. Now the sustained time trial efforts, this is the one that I'm interested to dig a little bit into here because something that you said got my attention, you're working towards 20 minutes over threshold if you can do 20 minutes over threshold, isn't that an FTP test? Isn't that achieving more than what you would want because you're kind of like Ben Treble (): Your F, but you should be able to test then even better when you go into a test. I mean if let's say your FT P is 300 watts Cameron Nichols (): When you get started, so I've just come in and I'm just starting this eight week block and my FTP is 300 watts and I want to get it to three 50. Ben Treble (): If you are not used to time trialing, whilst it should be achievable doing say three 20 for 20 minutes, it probably would be very challenging. () Some might struggle, some might be able to pull it off. So you've got to work out that starting point, which is why I would often start with 10 minute intervals to get a gauge on doing two 10 minute intervals with a pretty short say like two minutes or three minutes between them to get a gauge. That would be my starting point. Let's understand are they good at doing 20 minute efforts, pacing them, what's the heart rate response by just splitting one hard 20 minute effort above threshold this way and that gives you an idea. If they can't get through that, then your starting point becomes a bit lower, right? You might have to do two 10 minutes below threshold with more recovery and progress from here to a point where you get them to doing 20 minute effort above threshold, getting ready for the test right at I think the training at the end of the day, you want the race or the test to be easier than the training. Cameron Nichols (): Yes. Would there be an example or a scenario where you would even, because a lot of people haven't done any sustained, even though I've done a ramp test in my FTPs 300 watts, it's like well they may not even be able to hold 300 watts for five minutes or even that. So is there a world in which you might even start the threshold sustained efforts less than 10 or you would always start at 10 and if they're struggling, just reduce the power? Ben Treble (): Yeah, you could go less. I think it probably depends a little bit on if they're outdoors, what climbs do they have available to them. If it's not easy to access a long climb that's 20 minutes, maybe they've got an eight minute climb, then maybe I'm going to drop it to eight minutes. So it's just like it's a practical component to that session. You really are not used to sort of long steady state efforts. You might have to go smaller I would hope nothing like six minutes probably. It's going to be hard and maybe you're not going to be that great at it the first few times, but people pretty quickly, they get these acute adjustments to them, but it requires repetition. Cameron Nichols (): And so where's your end state? So let's just say your start state 6, 8, 10 minutes, depending practically what you've got available in your area towards the end of this block, which is an eight week block, you're getting to a point where you're doing two times 20 minute threshold efforts. Is that what you said? Ben Treble (): Yeah, in an eight week block, I think it's cheaper. Cameron Nichols (): So tell me what that session looks like. The two times 20 minutes. Because if your FTP is 300 watts at the start, obviously you're aiming for three 50. This is the example. What are you aiming for? Two times 20 is a pretty solid workout and obviously you've got to repeat it. So you do it once and then you've got to repeat it again. So are you really aiming for above threshold? Is that actually doable? Ben Treble (): For repeated twenties I would do them at threshold. Cameron Nichols (): At threshold. At Ben Treble (): Threshold I wouldn't be going above threshold for the repeat twenties, but if we're doing, say in the start we're doing two by 10 at a certain point I would want to look at going above not a lot, like 105%. Cameron Nichols (): Yeah. Okay. And how would you coach that to somebody that's never done these sustained efforts before? The example is I want you to go at 105% of your FTP for these two times 10 minute efforts with a five minute recovery in between. Are they at the start of the 10 minute effort? Are they doing 105% out of the block or are they building towards it? How would you normally coach? Ben Treble (): There's a good warmup and then you just try and keep it as steady as possible for the training? Cameron Nichols (): For the training, yeah, so if you saw some, I'm going to throw some examples. I know this is the one, the overruns isn't so bad. I mean people will still fail in an over unders, but it's a bit more easy to reflect on that one and go, alright, I struggled to get through those eight repetitions, I got to seven or I got to six, so I'm going to reduce the over and the under power by 5% for my next one so I can get through it. I don't want to injure myself, but the sustained efforts can be quite a funky one because people haven't, particularly for those who haven't done it before, it's like, well how do I start my effort? How do I finish my effort? What if I'm doing these 10 minute efforts as the example at five minutes in, I start at 1 0 5 and I start dropping off and I end up at 90% of my FTP? Ben Treble (): Yeah, I have a different take to you on this one you said at the start. Okay, good. You think it was better to go easier at the start and then ramp it up? I disagree with this approach. If it's purely you have to get to 20 minutes. To me there's a high likelihood if you go too easy say in the first half and you're like, okay, there's more in the tank, I'm going to push that you could get to the end and have reserve left in the tank that you didn't really go all out and this 20 minute test, I want you to get to the end of it and fall off the bike in a safe way. It's a maximal test. There should be nothing left in the tank in a 20 minute time trial like this. And you have to also train for that. That's part of doing the two times 20, right? It's building the tolerance and getting used to that pushing, which a lot of people haven't done necessarily before, but I would prefer somebody go out the gate slightly harder and even if the power drops a bit towards the end, you're getting everything out. () Interesting. That's my take. Cameron Nichols (): Obviously Ben Treble (): If you're going out too hard and then it's dropping a lot at the end because you went way too high above your threshold, your lactate builds up, you get the hydrogen S and then you completely park it four minutes early. To me it's a failed and we're going to retest. Cameron Nichols (): Okay. Ben Treble (): Yeah. Cameron Nichols (): Alright, well that's good. I mean there's a couple of different perspectives for you. I think I take that feedback on board and I think it can go either way in an actual 20 minute test because done a 20 minute test a lot of times and I've done the proper FDP test as well a number of times, which includes the all out five minute effort before the 20 minute effort. And that's not a nice test, that's why I don't think people do it, even though that's the way you should do a proper FTP test. And that is you do a VO two max fatiguing effort for five minutes upfront after a good warmup. Then you have, is it a five or a 10 minute recovery? I think it's somewhere between there and then you go do the 20 minute effort and I'm of the ilk that I'll work my way into it and then I'll really the last couple of minutes rinse myself out to a point where I almost feel sick and I get to the end of that test. () I'm like, oh, if I could have kept going for another 10, 15 seconds here, which I probably could have, does that mean that I've not really given it everything in that 20 minutes but then I've gone the other way in the past where I'm fatiguing so bad at the end of the 20 minutes I'm like I've just really just ruined the test because I've just so fatigued at the end. The power drop-offs been significant. So it's such a fine balance and I think it really depends on the person and this is why obviously we're ultimately talking about this, it's actually the pacing effect. There's a real art to it and everyone's different and that's why I'm so pleased that you mentioned that as one of your key workouts because if that's what you're trying to achieve with an FTP increase and I think look, I there's a lot more merit in training this way versus training for a ramp test because how many times do you go out in the real world and you get benefits out of training for a ramp test? Don't get me wrong, but it's not really specific unless you're doing a ramp test challenge with your mates, but what are you more likely to do? You're more likely to do a climb competing with your mate or you're more likely to half wheel your mate side by side. What do you need for that? You need good sustained threshold power. So this scenario to me makes a lot more sense to train for if somebody's looking to boost their FTP and yet the training for the sustained efforts definitely makes a lot of sense. So Ben Treble (): Something I quite, this is a training thing, I do that just as an add-on where I would apply your approach. Where I go slightly easier or reserved at the start and later would be one of the ways I motivate myself. This is a session I do for me is I was a climb, a local climb... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/37424180

Heart Rate VS. Power for Cycling Training (Science based coach explains...) 07/16/2025

Heart Rate VS. Power for Cycling Training (Science based coach explains...) Heart rate or power—what's the better tool for cycling training? In this episode, we break down the pros and cons of both, and why we believe power is the more practical, reliable metric for most cyclists. From pacing your efforts to tracking progress, we explain how power takes the guesswork out of training and why heart rate still has its place—just not as your primary guide. Full Transcript: Cam Nicholls (): Welcome back to the RCA podcast, where today I'm joined again by the RCAs data nerd Ben Treble. And today we're going to be talking about zone two. Should you be following power or should you be following heart rate or should you be following both? And if you're following both, how does that actually work when one's staying in a straight line, the other one's going all over the place. So Ben, what's your answer? Ben Treble (): I prefer to use power both. I like definitely both, but I would start with power. Cam Nicholls (): Okay, that's a bit controversial, especially somebody who loves science and digs into all the papers. Why do you prefer power? Is that a scientific, I feel like this is maybe the first time you're going more on the practical side than the scientific side. Is that fair to say? Ben Treble (): Yeah. Cam Nicholls (): Oh, there you go. So why is that? Tell us why Ben Treble (): Heart rate for everyone listening, maybe there's some basics. Heart rate is an internal measure of our stress, which is fantastic because we have to listen to that and it's a metric we should always be accounting for and learning to listen to. Power is an external metrics, so in that respect, power is very reliable. Power doesn't discriminate when you are tired. Power doesn't discriminate when it's windy or cold. You are fatigued. 300 watts will always be 300 watts provided Cam Nicholls (): You calibrated. Ben Treble (): Yeah, provided you've got a good power meter .... The heart rate though, whilst it's a very good internal measure and scientifically you'd probably say a better measure for zone two in some respects because there is drift to account for especially in longer rides. My challenge with heart rate for zone two rides is simply it's harder to follow because your heart rate takes time to respond to the work. And how do you respond to that? If you suddenly see your heart rate has slowly crept up 15 beats throughout the ride, how much do you decrease your intensity to try and drop it? Because you most likely will drop it too much. Your heart rate takes time for this up and down, right? The response of it equally comparing workout to workout gets difficult because how do you account for all these other external stresses that your heart accounts for? () Things like stress, caffeine, sleep, all these good things. So, I think heart rate is an amazing measure to keep an eye on for recovery rides. It's like the control check and you can do the same. You could use it as a control check for zone two rides, but I think it starts getting a bit complicated for many riders. So in that sense, I take a more practical approach with zone two, I would say you follow the power because it's easy and simple to understand to get it right, focus on trying to just hold a steady power outdoors. That's difficult enough as it is for most people. And once you get doing that, when you compare ride or ride, you can measure the heart rate drift and track the adaptation pretty well. But if you're just doing it on a heart rate, it starts to get very difficult to account for all the other things and see how you're responding. Cam Nicholls (): So what do you make of these guys that go out and ride? They do a three or four hour, zone two ride. They're trying to keep themselves in an aerobic state and as soon as they're following power initially, but they're looking at their heart rate, but as soon as their heart rate starts stepping into sort of that zone three, zone four threshold category, they'll reduce the power in order to keep their heart rate down. What do you think about that methodology? Ben Treble (): Yeah, I'm not opposed to it. I haven't had a need to over-implement it though myself mostly because it's particularly working with, say when you're working with recreational amateurs, as I said, you got to keep it pretty simple. Sometimes you're just bringing people into the concept of training by power to start with, let alone heart rate on top of that. It's getting a little bit complex pretty quick. That's pretty simple for me. I think it's a good idea. I like the idea of saying, okay, if you are zone two powers 160 watts after two hours and your heart rate should be one 30 and after two hours your heart rate's up to 1 45 at this point, you go, okay, that's a flag. Do we drop the power to try and keep it in the heart rate zone at the same time. It's probably a big question because how do you track your zone two heart rate in the first place? Like all good things, right? You can question zone two, heart rate. Was it based on max heart rate? Is it based on a threshold heart rate? How accurate is that? It's not correlated to the zone two. Heart rate is often not correlated to the zone two power anyway. I know coaches who use heart rate, I know coaches who use power, some use a combo. Cam Nicholls (): Yeah, I always, because I see these comments a lot on YouTube, right? Some, I've made a lot of zone two YouTube content in the past and there are a lot of people that tend to, it's almost like the rim versus disc debate. It's heart rate versus power and people seem to get quite fixated on keeping your heart rate within a certain range and not going, I guess ultimately what we're supposedly doing is not getting a big rise out of the lactate system, which keeps you in that aerobic state, which if you were technically really going to monitor, you would need to be taking what a lactate monitor out with you and pricking your skin and taking a blood sample. And when you're going, when you're essentially going down that rabbit hole, it's like who's writing these comments? Who's thinking this way? Is this person seriously trying to make a pro-level team or what are we trying to do? () Because normally we're talking about when we're following power and heart rate for a one hour ride, to me it's just a no brainer. You follow power for a condition rider, two hours, you follow power maybe even three hours. But it's like, okay, there comes a point in time when if you're trying to stay in this aerobic state in inverted commas and you are doing a long ride and you're starting to stress and you're getting your rise out of your lactate system, your heart rate's going up. Once you get to that three or four hour mark, are you better off reducing the power and keeping your heart rate within that specific zone? But how often are you doing that ride? And if you do keep following power, is the adaptation going to be almost as similar as if you followed heart rate and therefore this whole conversation at a recreational and amateur level becomes null and void. You know what I mean? Ben Treble (): I've not seen, not saying there isn't, but I haven't seen any specific studies that have tried to compare purely heart rate zone two versus zone two power workouts to see was there a significant difference in the adaptation outcomes. I would say that it's unlikely that you would see anything significant. There'd probably be some individual differences, but that's not necessarily going to be because they were in heart rate or power, but rather other individual genetic differences and whatnot. You brought up a good point though. I mean, yeah, I would use lactate. I have a lactate meter though. I'm a bit of a nerdy scientist. The strips are expensive. I noticed, I think Harry Sweeney on EF Pro, he did an interesting video where he was tracking, he had a big six hour zone two ride, which for most people he was doing more like his zone three really high aerobic work. () And periodically he was yet stopping doing a finger prick and checking his lactate to keep it in a certain range. So he was sort of basing his intensity off power and heart rate together, but then checking it with lactate. And I think pretty soon we'll see continuous lactate monitors come into play. And I think this will really change this question. I mean it won't be a question because it won't be saying, oh, we think the heart rate is a proxy for a shift. In our lactate response, we'll be able to say, is there a shift in the lactate response throughout the ride and change the intensity based on that? Cam Nicholls (): And I am assuming sometimes the heart rate's so variable, right? Sometimes it might be and sometimes it may not be as well. It's probably not going to be linear. Ben Treble (): You're using it to know when you get out of an aerobic state. But it's like, well, you have to be in a pretty high intensity to get out of, I mean we're always using our aerobic system to some degree at a certain intensity. Fat oxidation completely drops off to zero, but it's a very high intensity to get to that point. And if you're doing zone two heart rate or zone two by power, I don't suspect you're getting close to this intensity where you would be dropping off your aerobic fat oxidation, but your aerobic system is still getting hit, right? We say it comes back to why we do zone two training. Like well, if it's to develop your aerobic capacity, I mean VO2 intervals, which are pretty high intensity, we know as one of the best ways to improve VO2, max, which is our best measure of aerobic capacity. So again, it comes back to some of the other research that pretty quickly says we have to do hard work to get good adaptations, whether that's aerobic or anaerobic. Cam Nicholls (): And I've always been like, look, if you can go out and write at 65% of your FTP for three hours, constant pressure, not deviate too much, that's a great ride well done. Don't worry so much about what's going on with your heart rate. Just go do that a few times over the next month or two and that that's a good adaptation. It's a different way of training just doing that versus, oh, but my heart rate's gone up this much, so I'm going to now drop down to 55% of FTP at the two hour mark. And to add another layer to that, and this is just a pure anecdotal experience, I remember when I first got into training, the guy wanted me to have a power meter. I'm talking like 2012, like a long time ago, and I went with heart rate and I started to do these longer three, four hour zone two rides. () And I remember I got to the end of the ride and I could tell that I was really reducing the power through the pedal stroke to keep my heart rate in zone two. So what was I ultimately doing? I was conditioning myself to reduce the power as the ride went on. Whereas when the following year was the event that I was targeting, I actually performed really poorly. And I dunno whether this was correlated, but I did a different coach, different program, but I was training to power. I would focus on my zone two power, and I noticed my heart rate was really drifting a lot during these rides and I was asking him questions, should I follow power? Should I follow the heart? He goes, no, just keep following power. And what you'll notice over time is your heart rate will actually on these longer rides will start coming down and stop drifting less. () You're conditioning yourself to ride at that particular power. So I was like, okay, cool. So I kept doing, over the course of many weeks, months, my heart rate stopped drifting as much and it started producing. I'm like, oh, hang on a sec. I'm now actually riding at a constant zone two power for three hours and my heart rate is no longer drifting into zone three and four. It's actually staying at top end zone two by the end of the ride. And it made me kind of go back to the year prior where I was following heart rate and I'm like, well, hang on a sec. I've conditioned myself in that particular training block to reduce the power as the ride went on to keep my heart rate within zone two. Whereas this year I've just kind of ignored heart rate initially and conditioned myself to produce a certain amount of power over four hours. () And as a result of that, my heart rate's dropped and now I'm operating in zone two anyway. And then I went on and I actually podium in that same event that I was targeting the previous year where I finished 25th I podium. So my training was obviously a lot better and zone two just played a factor into that. But that was a big realization for me that by following power, I was able to condition my body at a zone two level a lot differently. And what appeared to be a lot more effectively with power versus heart rate. Ben Treble (): How many races do you go to where the intensity drops off to the end? It usually increases. Cam Nicholls (): Exactly. Yeah. Ben Treble (): But I mean, we're training a lot of different physiological systems. If you're going to train on zone two on heart rate, it's more focused on training the cardiovascular system. But that's at the same time it's not ignoring, but for simplistic sake, it's kind of ignoring what's happening at the muscular level. And ultimately, whilst the cardiovascular system is vital in the big picture, the energy output and the muscle contraction is what pushes the pedals. So at the end of the day, that's kind of what we care about the most. You need a good cardiovascular system that supports that and underpins that. But training by power is I think, a bit more correlated to focusing on training what's happening at the muscular level. What is the energy output? Well, how much energy does it take to push on what? Race specificity. Cam Nicholls (): We're both aligned. I'm glad the science man has the same viewpoint as I do. And that is, yeah, you want to track both, but if you had to pick one, you want to go to go with power. Thanks, Ben, appreciate it. Ben Treble (): Great. Cam Nicholls (): So if you're looking to do a little bit of zone two training yourself following some power programs, zone two and FTP and more, you can check out RCA has a whole bunch of off the shelf cycling plans. Just go to road cycling academy.com, check out our off the shelf plans and you can start on a training program that will catch you in the next podcast. For more information from the Road Cycling Academy - (RCA), including blogs from our renowned road cycling coaches, head to our /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/37424170

Is Zone 2 Overhyped? (for recreational & amateur cyclists) 07/04/2025

Is Zone 2 Overhyped? (for recreational & amateur cyclists) Zone two training for recreational cyclists. Are we doing too much? That is the topic for today's podcast. Science linked below. Why Zone 2 isn't the best focus for recreational cyclists Defining Zone 2: Full Transcript: Cam Nicholls (): Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined again by the RCAs data nerd Ben Treble. And Ben selected today's topic, which is about zone two training because he thinks it's a little bit too hyped in the recreational and amateur world, which I understand why, but I'm, we're going to have a little debate today because I think, I believe the other way. I don't think it's hyped enough, but Ben is the science guy and I'm not. So this could be an interesting discussion because he's got the evidence to back up what he's got to say. So Ben, do you want to just start us off by explaining why this topic has come to mind? Ben Treble (): Yeah, thanks Cam. It's been in the back of my mind for a while. I think there's a lot of marketing hype and the marketing companies and product companies jump on trends very quickly because that's their job. And I'll caveat this and say I'm not an anti zone two person, but I think we kind of forget where it comes from and we quickly lose the context of where did this kind of originate the idea of doing zone two and some of the research on where it comes from. So this is how do we critically analyze the research where it's come from and understand how that might apply to us as individuals because we're all different, right? A recreational cyclist is very different to an elite level writer who is doing much greater volumes of writing. What peaked the topic though was very recently there was a narrative review in the journals that came out from, I want to try to pronounce it correct, stor Etal. It's called Much Ado about zone two, and they did an article that really looked at assessing zone two's ability to improve mitochondrial capacity and cardio respiratory fitness. So we're making an assumption that the reason we're doing zone two training is to try and improve fat oxidation and improve mitochondrial capacity, these things. So if we run on that assumption is zone two training the best thing to do for recreational athletes and the general population and the narrative review looks at a lot of research and ultimately says no. Cam Nicholls (): Wow. Okay. And before you continue and explain why it was a no, can we just define zone two for the purpose of this podcast? Because I'm just conscious it can be confusing at times, particularly if you're looking at a scientific model where there's only three zones and zone two is more like your sweet spot sub-threshold. When we talk about zone two, which is predominantly what it's referred to, but just to make sure we are clear, what are we talking about? Ben Treble (): Yeah, I think we're referring to it more in the five zone model in most cases that people think about it. So it's an easy talkative pace If we're thinking more about RPE sort of scales, it's a very easy conversational intensity and the end goal typically, like from a scientific point of view, for me, the reason I would ask people to do zone two training is we're predominantly trying to improve the aerobic capacity and predominantly trying to improve our ability to maximize our fat oxidation. Cam Nicholls (): And I think in a lot of people are used to power. So in a five zone or six zone or even a seven zone model, it's typically around 55 to 75% of functional threshold power if you're using power. Is that right? Ben Treble (): Somewhere around there, potentially somewhere around there, around anywhere from 50 to 65, 70 at the high end I would say is getting closer to a tempo at that Cam Nicholls (): Point. Okay, so why was it a no for recreational and Ben Treble (): Amateurs? Yep. And for the record, this narrative review defined it as below lactate threshold one, which would be zone one in a three zone model for those listening and using a three zone model with lactate thresholds, the answer was a no, and it's because the comparator was against doing high intensity work and looking at, so the narrative review looks at a whole lot of research that's out there and says, what's improving these capacities predominantly like mitochondrial density, these sort of zone two physiological adaptations we're targeting what training best improved them. And it wasn't zone two training that improved those outcomes. It was high intensity interval training, and it was varied, like different studies of different types of zone two that could be VO2 efforts, hit sessions, all that high intensity interval work always resulted in better outcomes and adaptations that we typically associate with zone two training that when I talk to people about doing zone two training, that's what they're trying to achieve with it. Cam Nicholls (): So from what I understand, when you tip into that threshold territory when you're training, you start to shut off adaptations that you can achieve if you're just in a zone two state. So therefore, if you're predominantly focused on high intensity interval training, like you talked about VO2 max training or it could be sprint training or threshold training and you're not ever really going out and predominantly working at that aerobic level, does it mean that you're missing out on adaptations or you're still going to achieve those at a VO2 max diet or at a threshold interval state? Ben Treble (): Yeah, I think it's a good question because it outlines one of the challenges in, I would say there's short, medium, long-term development of all of these capacities. And in many cases the research is fairly focused on short and medium term development. Like we're looking at research studies that do hit intervals for six weeks and compare that to the group that did endurance training or eight weeks, 12 weeks. Very rarely do you find groups doing longitudinal studies that do this in a controlled fashion more than three months, right? Because the cost and the resource, trying to find participants to do that and stay in the study is very, very difficult. So keeping that context in mind, that's probably where the HI training is going to give you the fastest short term development of all of these capacities because even when you do hit training, you're going to have the warmup. The cool down there is still a lot of time spent in those low zones. Cam Nicholls (): And that's what I always thought. I feel like people when they look at say the 80 20 principle of the polarized model, which is where people are like, oh, well if I've got to do zone two training, I've got to do the 80 20, which is polarize and pyramidal has become more prevalent these days, which is more like a 70 30 or somewhere around there, but you're still spending a lot of time in zone one and the three zone model, which is a lot of time in zone two, which is what we're talking about today. But I think a lot of people get confused. They think, well, if two of my sessions are zone two focused and three high intensity interval training focus, then I'm doing too much high intensity interval training. But when you break down those high intensity interval training sessions individually, you go, well, I'm spending 20 minutes writing out to the hill where I'm going to do my intervals in zone two between each interval I'm in zone one, and then on my way home I'm in zone two. So even those high intensity workouts in themselves, proportion wise, you're probably spending a lot of time in zone two or zone one Ben Treble (): Significant, and it's underestimated. So it's a very good point. One I'm quite passionate about, and this comes back to something I said earlier around, I think there's a bit of a misinterpretation between the science and where we see all the marketing hype around zone two, which is, let's take the 80 20 example with polarize, which is great in science, you would often either use, it's called you measure a session, you would say there's a goal in session approach, which says if this session is VO2 intervals, it gets classified as a high intensity hard workout. The other approach that most science follows is overall relative time spent as a percentage in the zones. So if you take, for example, you get a group of people to do sprint interval training or short high intensity intervals, and they do three sessions a week of just these intervals with a warmup and cool down, when you really add all of the time up together, it will come out as polarized. But often exactly as you said, I've seen recreational or amateur cyclists say, oh, the 80 20, so if I'm doing five rides a week, two of them should be intervals and three should be zone two easy. That's not going to give you the best outcome. And it's not a polarized distribution as in what gets taken away from the research. So you're not going to get the same outcome. They're totally different things. Cam Nicholls (): So therefore people need to more specifically look at their total work time versus the workouts as what they're doing in the workout and they'll have more effective outcomes as a general blanket. Of course, it depends on what you're training for, but we know a lot of recreational and amateurs are looking to roll more turns in the bunch. They're looking to increase their FTP, they're looking to beat their mates up the local climb. So as a result of that zone two training as a foundational tool will help, but not as much as your high intensity interval training sessions. Ben Treble (): I think sometimes we forget some basic principles and we overcomplicate things. The way our body works is we have to stress it to cause adaptations and we get the adaptations from the recovery. So if we're just doing super low intensity work, you're not going to create a lot of stress on the body that's going to create a lot of adaptation. So the question is where did the zone two training come from? This is maybe it's a view of my own, not the one that everybody would necessarily share, but I would look at training a bit more from the perspective of how much time do you have to train and how much energy expenditure is available and how do we recover from that? How much time is there to recover from this? And this is a better determinant of how much work can the athlete take on? And that's where we start to build a program out. When you think of elite athletes, when we do high intensity work, we use a lot of glycogen, which is one of our limited resources, right? In a 90 minutes session, like super high intensity session, you can pretty much burn through your full glycation stores, 90 minutes to two hours, you'll burn through your full stores and it will take most people on average 48 hours to fully replenish them. () So if you think about everybody's limiting factor of 24 hours a day with seven days a week, you can only fit in two to three super hard sessions a week. So what do the pros do with all the other hours? Low intensity work and high volumes of it, there's nothing else to do. So of course they're getting massive adaptations, but they're already doing the maximal level of high intensity work that we can from an energetic point of view tolerate. So if you get someone who's only got six hours a week to train, if you said spread them out and you do three, two hour sessions of hard efforts versus someone who just does one hard effort session with two easy ones, I would expect you get much better performance outcomes from the guy doing the high intensity stuff all the time. Now that's not factoring in, especially with recreational athletes, can they recover and mentally handle that training load, right? So that's the individualization piece that's again, often missing from this marketing media scientific conversation. Cam Nicholls (): What I've often seen at the RCA in the past, we've had the recreational that comes to us or amateur, and they've been doing roughly 10 hours a week. They've been doing very little zone too. They've been doing a lot of tempo because tempo feels like they're doing something Zone three, maybe like 80, 85% of FTP, that's where they love to sit, particularly when they're riding side by side with the mate and they're half wheeling each other. They might be doing some bunches, so they're taking their heart rate to max two or three times a week and they might, they call it a social spin on a Friday, which ends up, they're still doing 400 watts up the hills and they're coaching down the other side. So you actually look at what they've been doing for the past 6, 12, 18 months more and it's just been all intensity. () So what I've seen worked well as a coach in the past. I don't coach anymore as you know, and maybe I had this wrong, but I saw, and this is where I'm going to debate you a little bit, but maybe you'll agree given the fact that I'm presenting this context of this persona that we go, alright, you're not in a rush to achieve your goal, which is to take your FTP from 250 watts to 300 watts. That's a very common goal. Everyone wants to hit that next 50 watt mark in their FTP. So let's spend the next six to eight weeks just getting rid of intensity and we're just going to focus mostly on aerobic work. We'll do maybe a bit of tempo, but we'll do a lot of zone two stuff. So you've got eight to 10 hours a week and we're just going to sit at zone two. () And what I've found this to do is number one, it freshens them up. So they probably need a bit of a bout of away from max heart rate away from intensity. Let's just give the muscular skeletal system and your mental capacity a bit of a rest. And in doing so, they seem to cultivate different adaptations. And the big one that I see when I've done this with members is you might get them to do a zone two ride. So 65, 70% of FTP on the trainer and they look at what their heart rate does and their heart rate will drift by 10, 15 beats in this one hour ride and their heart rate will be quite high. And then if they spend that six to eight weeks specifically focused on this zone two training, you get to the eight week mark and all of a sudden they do the same ride on the trainer, 65% of FTP, their average heart rate dropped about by about 10 beats and their drift is maybe three or four beats over the one hour versus the 15 beats. () It was at the start of the process. So you're like, wow, this person has really, there's something physiological that's happened in their body for their heart rate to drop significantly and drift a lot less. And my understanding from that was, well, they're no longer getting a rise out of the lactate system so they can focus on aerobic adaptations, they're increasing their lung capacity, they're stretching their left ventricle, they're boosting mitochondrial function. What is it? The red capillary network is enhanced? All these things have occurred. So is there truth to that or was I just feeding into the marketing zone two hype at the time four or five years ago? Ben Treble (): My first thought would simply be that most likely they never were getting enough recovery. Like most amateurs like you, I think are the same experience. They come to you, they have this sort of a lot of social rides, but they often, one, don't have enough recovery within the week from those moderate hard rides that are mixed bags, let's call it. And they don't have enough recovery week on week, so there's no periodization. It's not like they build up for three weeks and take an easy week or do a specific block and have a week off. And I think very simply by just doing what you said, taking someone from that first baseline into just having some easy rides throughout the week that's targeted would give them recovery from the hard rides and they would see adaptation from this and feel better for it. That's my initial reaction. So it's not wrong, but I think that's why they would see the benefit, which comes back to how much ability does athlete have to recover within their context and how much can they tolerate in terms of high intensity work. Cam Nicholls (): So in an ideal state, if somebody's coming blank canvas and they don't have these bad habits and they're not in a fatigued state, then using a combination of high intensity interval training two to three times a week with some zone two ride splashed in there, mainly used for recovery and also to keep your consistency going will foster the best outcomes from an aerobic adaptation perspective. Ben Treble (): And there's a key factor here. You still get some amateur riders who do larger volumes, () True and riders develop only recreational riders might come in and start by doing four, six hours a week, fall into the sport quickly, and within a few months they're doing 10 hours a week or more. And so at some point you have to adjust this, right? So this idea that you could only do high intensity work sort of prevails when you're doing two or three sessions a week and that's it. But once you start doing long rides on the weekend and this volume is getting greater, you have to start factoring that in. How much recovery do you need from those and how much recovery do you need from the high intensity work to make sure when you get to the next high intensity session, you're able to do it at full capacity? Cam Nicholls (): Interesting. And I also think once people learn how to do zone two training, because a lot of people think that they're doing it, but they're not. I've got a friend here on the Sunshine Coast and I've told him 130,000 times now how to do it and he'll go out and we'll go ride together and I know he can't do it, it's not possible and we'll get back and he goes, oh, that was a great zone two ride. And I'm thinking to myself, not in an arrogant way, I'm just thinking that's not a zone two ride, Matt, why? Because we've got some little rollers here. Every time we get to a roller, he gets out of the saddle and he's going over threshold a hundred percent and he rides away from me. And then when we go down the little rise, I'll catch up to him and go past him keeping the pressure on the pedals. () I'm staying in that zone two state, whereas he will be free peddling a little bit, probably in zone one. So he's in and out of, he's jumping either side of zone two sometimes in zone two. Whereas if you can actually learn how to do it properly, I feel like it's a different experience. So if you go out and you sit at 60 to 65, 70% of FTP and you don't have traffic lights and you can be there for a solid one to two hours, you actually get back from the ride and you're like, oh, I actually feel not fatigued. I'm not getting into the afternoon period and feeling like I've actually done something really physical and it feels kind of like a different physiological feeling after a zone two, unless you do five hours of course, then it's going to fatigue you. But if it's just one to two hours and it, it's a different physiological feeling. () And also once you perfect it as well, I found this with a lot of recreationals, I actually really enjoy my zone two rides. So I'll go out and I'll do two hours down the coast, there's some rollers, but I'll basically stay in zone two for 98% of the time and I just really enjoy that type of riding. So there's a practical side to it as well. Once people learn how to do it properly, it gets them out on the road more, they enjoy doing it more, and as a result of that, they're going to ride their bike more. And as you said then if they're factoring in an extra two or three hours a week, it becomes relevant. Ben Treble (): I think I would always still bring it back to what is the goal, what are you trying to achieve with the session? And don't say, oh, it's the zone two, but what do you mean by zone two? Because everybody has a different, even with science, there's different definitions of zone two. There was a... /episode/index/show/camnicholls/id/37281435

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