Many of our listeners, in fact, most of the staff here at Fast Talk Labs, could be considered “time-crunched athletes”—people with only 6-8 hours to train each week. We’re athletes who, because of commitments like parenting and work, must try and find ways to fit training in around life, rather than the other way around. And if you’ve heard that term before—the time-crunched athlete—it’s because of our guest today, who literally wrote the book on it. But before you jump to the conclusion that th...
Jan 20, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 199
We ask every guest of Fast Talk—coach, athlete, or scientist—to describe their favorite workout—the what, why, how, and when. In this episode, we share the favorite workouts of legendary physiologist Dr. Ed Coyle, coach Jeff Winkler, pro off-road racer and coach Hannah Finchamp (who has since married and become Hannah Otto), coach Julie Young, physiologist Iñigo San Millán, TrainingPeaks cofounder Dirk Friel, and cycling journalist Ben Delaney. As each guest describes the specific details of the...
Jan 13, 2022•33 min•Ep. 198
On several previous episodes of Fast Talk, we have discussed the structural and biochemical changes that take place through the process of adaptation—through training. Today we’re going to address one of the most important and interesting structural changes, something called exercise-induced cardiac remodeling. As you train, your heart changes: This remodeling includes things like increases in chamber volume and muscle wall hypertrophy. Of course, these changes don’t happen after one set of inte...
Jan 06, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 197
We're joined by long-time contributor Julie Young who helps us field unique listener questions on how to build an annual training plan, coping with race stress, and overcoming body image issues. Building annual training plans The first question comes from our forum, from Devin Knickerbocker. He writes: “I just read the Houshang Amiri article “How to Develop a Yearly Training Plan” and I notice that he uses a spreadsheet. I have also been using a spreadsheet, but what resources and formats do you...
Dec 30, 2021•44 min•Ep. 196
Join us as we go through our favorite moments of 2021 including talks with Dr. Asker Jeukendrup, Kristin Armstrong, Jim Miller, Jeff Winkler, Neal Henderson, Dr. Simon Marshall and Lesley Paterson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 23, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 195
Q&A on Nordic Skiing, Recovery, and Mixing Training Modalities, with Adam St. Pierre Adam St. Pierre, the head coach of the Nordic ski team at Montana St. University, and a former physiologist and jack-of-all-trades at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, joins Fast Talk to discuss nordic skiing and how it fits into endurance training, oxygen debt versus deficit, muscle recovery, and mixing running and cycling training modalities effectively. Nordic ski training This first question comes ...
Dec 16, 2021•38 min•Ep. 194
Today we’re talking speed, but not necessarily the kind that comes from hard work, although we touch on things like coaches and training plans as the first and most important step to “buying” speed. This episode is about what makes you faster by focusing on aerodynamics and reducing drag or that CdA coefficient that is so important. This is an episode about the things that directly bring speed. We’re joined by our friend and colleague Ben Delaney who has spent decades riding and reviewing countl...
Dec 09, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 193
While we’ve talked about supplements on Fast Talk before, we’ve never sat down with one of the world’s preeminent nutrition researchers to dive into the history and overall value of supplements. But that’s just what we do today. Dr. Louise Burke is a sports dietitian with 40 years of experience in the education and counseling of elite athletes. She worked at the Australian Institute of Sport for 30 years, first as Head of Sports Nutrition and then as Chief of Nutrition Strategy. She was the team...
Dec 02, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 192
This first question we’ve saved for this special occasion. Brenda Castile from Essex, Connecticut, writes: “Thanksgiving! I love it. I love the food, I love the drinks, I love the desserts. I love being around family. All of which means I’m exposed to calories and germs, a cyclist’s worst nightmare. And, as usual, it comes just a couple of weeks before I want to be at my best for the finale of ‘cross season. So, how can I have my cake and eat it too? How does someone who takes the sport seriousl...
Nov 24, 2021•46 min•Ep. 191
There are many ways to measure intensity. This is an episode about the one that is often forgotten: RPE. Perceived exertion is a standardized way to classify a subjective feeling. We've touched upon RPE in many episodes, often referring to the fact that top pros all know "the feel." Today, we argue that the metric of feeling—perceived exertion, RPE, sensations, whatever you call it—is in many ways the most important metric. Yes, we're arguing that it is even more important than power and heart r...
Nov 18, 2021•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 190
In the beginning, a bike fit would include a guy at a bike shop with a plumb line and a theory. Now, bike fit is a full-fledged science with video cameras, 3D models, and a greater understanding of human anatomy and physiology as it pertains to cycling. In part 2 of our bike fit discussion, we’ll explore the practical implications of bike fit, from the debate over aerodynamics versus power to our guest’s feelings about technology versus experience and intuition, and many other subjects, generall...
Nov 11, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 189
Exercise physiologist Rob Pickels returns to Fast Talk to out-nerd Coach Trevor Connor as they discuss new scientific research in sport science. Though the findings of these studies may not always directly apply to your weekly training plan, understanding the questions that have been asked by physiology researchers can give you context about what is known and knowable by science as it relates to human performance. In case you missed our last Nerd Lab episode, check out Fast Talk episode 172: Spr...
Nov 04, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 188
Bike fit was once purely a quote-unquote “philosophy.” In the old days, you may have experienced getting a so-called fit by a guy at a bike shop with a plumb line and a theory. Now, bike fit is a full-fledged science—there are video cameras everywhere, 3D modeling, and so on. That being said, it’s a science that is still influenced by philosophy—what each fitter brings to the exam and analysis that impacts his or her perspective. Today, we’ve gathered three of the great minds in bike fit to disc...
Oct 28, 2021•56 min•Ep. 187
Our guest coach for this episode is Rab Wardell, owner of Wardell Cycle Coaching, who competed at the mountain bike marathon world championships for Team GB in 2021 and, in 2020, set the fastest known time (FKT) for the West Highland Way in the Highlands of Scotland. (Check out the film here, which was selected for the prestigious Banff Film Festival in 2021.) Rab helps us answer questions on whether adding some intensity to your long, slow distance rides are detrimental to training adaptations,...
Oct 21, 2021•36 min•Ep. 186
While the Fast Talk podcast was originally geared toward cycling, many of the concepts we discuss can be applied across all endurance sports. After all, human physiology remains the same whether we’re talking cycling, running, rowing, or cross-country skiing. Today we’re joined by someone who has a broad understanding of endurance sports, not only because he’s studied human physiology in the lab for decades, but he’s also worked with athletes across a broad range of athletic pursuits and partici...
Oct 14, 2021•1 hr 54 min•Ep. 185
Joe Gambles has been racing triathlon professionally for nearly 25 years and has been coaching for the last seven years. We've gathered many of our triathlon-specific questions for the right athlete and coach—and Joe fits that bill. Training distribution This question comes from Frank Bastion in Bellingham, Washington. He writes: “I’m new to triathlon, but have a decent background in other endurance sports including running, which I did for five-plus years competitively. I haven’t yet hired a co...
Oct 07, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 184
Young athletes have a host of concerns outside of sport that make their development a unique, challenging undertaking. While they can often be sponges for new information, skills, and techniques, they are also dealing with complex stressors and pressures—in many ways they are more vulnerable than their adult counterparts. Today we discuss ways to develop young athletes with Alec Pasqualina, USA Cycling’s Director of the Olympic Development Academy, or ODA. While he willingly admits he doesn’t ha...
Sep 30, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 183
With the help of Rebecca Gross, owner of 3six0 Performance, we field questions on polarized training, how to effectively close out a season, whether you can ruin workouts with indulgences or poor sleep, and how to get the most out of spin class. Before Rebecca began coaching, she was an accomplished cyclocross and mountain bike racer. She was the 2012 Cyclocross Masters World Championships in Louisville, Kentucky and has twice won the collegiate mountain bike short track national championship. S...
Sep 23, 2021•48 min
Today we’re talking cyclocross, a discipline that is as demanding as it is rewarding and educational. Because there are so many variables in ’cross, athletes are constantly being challenged and consistently faced with new opportunities to learn and progress. Whether that’s the engine or the skills. Whether that’s strength, power, finesse, or off-the-bike prowess. In cyclocross, you’re always on the edge, and that’s the focus of today’s episode. The short-duration, high-intensity nature of cycloc...
Sep 16, 2021•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 181
In 2021, four of us on the Fast Talk Labs staff—our producer Jana, Head Coach Ryan, Trevor, and me—chose an N1 Challenge. You’ve hopefully heard us speak about it previously on the show. It was meant to be an experiment of one—each of us—offering lessons for all, particularly you, the listeners. Today, we explore that last bit, those “lessons for all” that each of us gained from our respective events. The most common term used to describe our events was “transformative...” That’s a big word. Yet...
Sep 09, 2021•59 min
If you’ve listened to Fast Talk for any length of time, you’ve likely heard the name Glenn Swan. That’s because Glenn was Coach Connor’s first and, arguably, most influential mentor in the sport of cycling. Trevor has gone so far as to say that without Glenn’s influence, he probably would not have become the cyclist he became. Thus, Trevor often refers to lessons he learned from Glenn on the show. We’re excited to have Glenn on this episode to discuss many facets of mentoring, including his defi...
Sep 02, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 179
CTL. Chronic Training Load has rapidly gained in popularity among endurance athletes, but how well understood is this complex metric? Today we discuss the benefits of CTL, as well as the issues that can arise if too much stock is placed in this one number. CTL can tell you the general level you’re at, and more importantly, it can indicate trends in your training and help direct your training plan. But is this little acronym quickly replacing FTP as the metric of reference? Indeed, many people se...
Aug 26, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 178
In June, Trevor went to Moab for what he thought would be a nice vacation filled with mountain biking with friends. It turned into a stressful, harrowing experience when one friend was evacuated to the hospital by helicopter, and Trevor was left wondering if he’d live. No, it wasn’t from a crash. It was all about the heat that day. Trevor’s friend had suffered heat stroke. Or was it heat stress? Ultimately, the trip made Trevor wonder what he could have done differently. Thus, we found experts t...
Aug 19, 2021•1 hr 19 min
With the help of Alec Donahue, the senior coach at Cycle-Smart who has worked with some of the best American cyclocross racers, including Jeremy Powers, Stephen Hyde, and Ellen Noble, we dive into questions on training zones and whether we're being duped by them; beer and bike culture and its effect on recovery and performance; effective methods for transitioning to cyclocross season; 'cross skills; and weekly planning for time-crunched athletes. Duped by zones? This question comes from Brian Ad...
Aug 12, 2021•47 min•Ep. 176
When you watch the Olympics, do you think about the dedication, sacrifice, and risk that it takes to focus on such a big event, one that takes four years to prepare for? The pressure is immense. Is it worth it? When we invited Olympians Svein Tuft and Errine Zarsadias (you may remember her as Erinne Willock from her racing days) to join us on Fast Talk, we intended to discuss whether it was wise to focus on a single big race—for example, that Olympic Games or world championship race, or, for the...
Aug 05, 2021•1 hr 32 min
With the help of Kendra Wenzel, co-founder and head coach at Wenzel Coaching, we field questions on how to manage training when you have a busy travel schedule, when to get intensity during the week before a race, incorporating big gear work into your LSD rides, and knowing when to push through or when to pull the plug on a workout. Travel and trainingThis first question comes from Steve Herman in Dayton, Ohio. He writes: “I recently took a new job that requires a significant travel schedule. Ty...
Jul 29, 2021•36 min•Ep. 174
For a long time, weight loss and weight management strategies have focused on counting calories. The question we ask in today’s episode is: Does that work? That is, if you count accurately, will it predict your weight loss or gain? To answer these questions, we pit two theories against each other. On one side, there is the argument that you can’t break the laws of thermodynamics, and therefore a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, and you just need to know what goes in your body and how it gets u...
Jul 22, 2021•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 173
Rob Pickels is the Advanced Development Project Manager at PEARL iZUMi, but more importantly, he can out-nerd Trevor as you'll hear in today's deep-dive into some new scientific research in sports physiology. Even though the findings of one of these studies may not appear to directly apply to your weekly training plan, understanding the questions that have been asked by scientists can hopefully give you context into what is known and knowable by science as it relates to human performance. Trevor...
Jul 15, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 172
sources, it’s time to ask the question: Should we modify how, where, and when we train based on our potential exposure to pollutants? Furthermore, are certain pollutants worse than others? Finally, can we, and if so, should we try to “adapt” to certain pollutants? We’re joined by a leading expert in the field of environmental pollution and its effects on exercise performance and health, Dr. Michael Koehle, from the University of British Columbia. With his help, we’ll address the different risks ...
Jul 08, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 171
We start today’s Q&A with a discussion on returning from injury. Why? Well, Renee Eastman, our guest coach on this episode, just suffered a nasty crash. She's also come back from many injuries and bone breaks: “I've broken just about every bone in my body, including back (L1-3 fusion), elbow (with reconstructive surgery), clavicle (2x), hand, foot, kneecap, and now ribs.” So, we start with some big questions: What are the best practices when returning from injury? How do you prepare your bod...
Jul 01, 2021•57 min•Ep. 170
