Unless you’re a pro athlete or retired with your days completely open, fitting in training is a constant (or at least consistent) challenge.  We’ve got families, work, kids’ schedules, friends and a social life, not to mention the desire for some downtime of our own.  Endurance athletes read all the magazines and all the blog posts about how to best train for their key races.  I read this information as well and what I am always – ALWAYS – left thinking is two things:  (1) where’s the context?  These articles and blogs are largely presented in a vacuum without any perspective.  For example, “12 weeks to a sub-12-hour Ironman – what about all the weeks which precede those final 12 weeks?  The list of examples like this is endless; and (2) where is the rest and recovery?
 
It is no surprise that a large influence on an athlete’s performance is available time to train.  However, in trying to jam as much training in as we can, sometimes with blunt force trauma, we are doing ourselves a disservice because simply focusing on the training volume risks creating a recovery deficit.  It is better to train less, be a little undertrained and fresh, than to train more and be consistently fatigued.

Endurance athletes largely know that progress occurs during rest and recovery periods.  However, raise your hand if you feel like you effectively put this into practice (hint: one recovery day a week probably is not enough).  This is even more critical for those who are Masters athletes.  It is really easy to not only train too much but also train too hard.

One aspect of recovery is, obviously pure days off as well as short, easy workouts.  However, there is an even more critical aspect of the recovery process that I will guarantee the vast majority of endurance athletes fail to master – nutrition.

Resting is Key
As I just stated, improvement occurs during periods of proper recovery.  Your fitness increases as your body adapts to the rigors of key workouts; that adaptation happens during recovery not when the hard work is being performed.

We are conditioned to “Just Do It!” and without pain there will be no gain.  Endurance athletes are a motivated bunch!  Unfortunately, it is this high level of motivation which easily leads to over-training, or at least improper recovery practices.  Study after study proves that the biggest jump in fitness progress comes in moving from 3 days/week of training to 4 days.  There is another, yet slight, uptick in moving from 4 days to 5 days.  Moving from 5 days to 6 days results in an almost inconsequential fitness increase and there is no discernable increase at a full 7 days per week.  For single sport athletes such as runners or cyclists, training 4-5 days a week really shouldn’t pose a challenge.  It is the triathlete – the juggler of three sports – that faces the biggest challenge in working toward a balanced approach to training among the swim, bike and run.  It is the multi-sport athlete who faces the biggest risk of training too much and recovering too little.  And when fatigue overrides fitness, form never comes around and performance suffers.

The first step, is to allow yourself to put your ego up on the shelf.  If you are constantly wrestling with yourself – the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other – about should you or shouldn’t you take a day off or train easy, then here’s a bit of advice.  Get over yourself.  Until you do, you will never fully blossom in your performances.  Learn to LOVE your days off and recovery workouts!

Different Recovery Strategies
There is active recovery and passive recovery.  The latter is easy – it is when our bodies are at rest.  It is no secret that we are a sleep-deprived society, yet getting more sleep is the biggest boost to recovery – and, thus, to your performance – that you can start doing.  Even 30 minutes per day can really add up.  And, on those nights when you know you can sleep in the following day, go to bed when you would as if you were getting up at 0-dark-30, but sleep in an extra 1-2 hours since you’re not going to the gym.  Avoid the temptation to stay up even later.  These two simple things will have a HUGE positive impact on your workouts and, thus, your performances come race day.

The reason sleep is so effective is that when we sleep, the body goes into “repair mode.”  The more you sleep, the more repairing occurs.  On the flip side, if you are sleep-deprived or if your days are filled with mental and emotional stress, then you are perpetuating fight-or-flight.  Sleep will be fitful at best even when you’re dead tired, and your adrenals will be overstimulated.  It’s like frying your computer’s circuit board.

Find a way to get more sleep and make your sleep more restful.  I’m not talking about 9-10 hours a night.  Get at least 7, and 8 would be stellar.  You will feel so much better any night you make this happen!  Also, remove electronics from your bedside table.  Read to fall asleep rather than troll Facebook or watch TV.  Transition from the rigors of the day to bed by spending 10-15 minutes passively stretching (this is a personal favorite).  It’s all good.

Active recovery
There are many active recovery strategies, the most popular being things like stretching, foam rolling, and massage.  Some things are easier and less costly to incorporate than others, and the jury is out on the actual effectiveness of some things.  For example, there is a bit of ambivalence on whether foam rolling is anything but a practice of self-flagellation.  In my opinion, daily stretching (for me, at night time) is great.  I do feel different the next morning when I skip it for some reason.  Massage is expensive, but helps for sure.  My advice here is to get your massage on the day of a hard training session (after the training is completed, of course!).  Massage creates malaise in the muscles, so give yourself that night and the next day’s full day of recovery plus another night of sleep to allow your body to flush out that malaise before your next key workout.

Next, learn to love your recovery days.  Recovery days are defined as L1 in effort, with very relaxed movements and an absence of “pressing” the effort.  If you find yourself pressing the effort, back it down.  Keep your HR below 120-125bpm.  More and more studies show that even doing nothing between hard intervals is just as effective as jogging or spinning lightly (think of sitting on the wall between hard swim intervals, like a set of 10-20 x 100).  I’m convinced endurance athletes train too hard on their recovery days.  I will challenge you here to dial it back a couple of notches and just focus on enjoying your ability to move easily.  Set your HR monitor to beep at 125bpm, tune out the technology and just enjoy the flow of moving.  This subtle but deliberate shift really opens up your ability to enjoy an easy workout.  Try it!

Proper fueling during workouts and post-workout nutrition is also an active recovery strategy.  I’m not suggesting you “eat clean” 100% of the time.  I think using the 80/20 rule is both realistic and good enough.  If you shoot to eat well 80% of the time, then the other 20% to eat “guilt free” is fine.  For example, I enjoy a single beer or a couple fingers of Scotch every evening.  I also enjoy a little bit of dessert every night, like several squares of dark chocolate or a cookie.  Moderation wins the day.  And, when I do decide to forego these indulgences as my season culminates in my key races, I’m in the mindset of maximizing performance “at all costs” and so do not feel like I’m giving anything up.  So far, this approach has worked well for me.  No need to be Spartan, but don’t be gluttonous, either.

That said, a good goal is to strive to eat as little processed food as possible.  The simpler the ingredients list, the less processed that food is.  And avoid too much sugar or too much sodium in any given food.  Tune-in to whether you enjoy savory or sweet.  I definitely trend toward sweet when given the choice.

Post-workout, think of your recovery in 3 phases and in this order:

• Water:  rehydrate with plain water immediately after a hard or long workout.  You cannot keep up with your sweat rate, so you’re already dehydrated to a degree.  Your body is opened up and craving water, so give it what it wants.  It will be assimilated quickly and be a great first step to recovery
• Sugary drink:  Whether it is a bottle of your favorite sports drink or a Coke or some other soft drink, follow the big glass of cold water with a small bottle (or can) of the sugary drink.  Chances are your muscle glycogen stores are low or completely tapped out.  Ingesting some quick energy will help top off your carbohydrate stores more quickly.  If a sugary drink is not your thing, then a banana or other fruit is a very solid option
• Real Meal:  After the first two steps, take a shower and get cleaned up.  Then, focus on the actual post-workout meal.  Include a good source of protein; eggs are fantastic.  Avoid too much protein, though.  Protein takes a lot of water to process.  If your mouth is dry sometime after this meal, you arguably took in too much protein.  Plus, it will sit like a brick in your stomach.

If you rehydrate and refuel properly after a hard day of working out, then on your recovery days, you can actually dial back your nutrition.  If your energy stores are topped off, then eating a lot on your recovery day is like continuing to pour gas into your car’s tank when it’s already full.  The excess just spills all over the place; in the case of the body, that means increased fat stores.

In Closing
Recovery is not an exact science.  On your recovery days, sometimes you’ll feel invincible and like you could skip it and train hard again.  Don’t!  Avoid the temptation.  Other days, you complete your recovery workouts and the next day you feel even more lethargic and fatigued.  That’s OK!  The body is processing immediate, short-term and long-term fatigue at the same time because the training effect of our workout regimen is cumulative and not linear.  If you understand this and accept it, then you will start to recognize the signs which point to “this is not my day today” and you will have the confidence to take a step back, adjust your expectations down for the day and afford yourself the rest your body is telling you it needs.  Live to fight another day! 
Follow this advice and you will get more out of your key training days and, ultimately, your racing.
​
Happy Training,
Coach Nate

​The ex-Olympic Champion's skepticism on Team Sky's successes coming through drug-free means is equal parts well-presented, thoughtful and courageous.  It is also exactly what the sport of cycling -- and sport in general -- needs if we are ever going to be able to believe athletes' performances again.

We’ve turned the corner!  The year end holidays are over, you’ve made your New Year’s resolution(s) and by now you should have even decided where your key races fall on the calendar.  Heck, you may have even built out your entire race program by now.  So, now is the time to enter Phase Two of your Winter training.
 
What do I mean by this?  When we first end a long season of training and racing, we typically take some sort of break to recharge the batteries (if you don’t, you should.  You can read one two-part series I wrote on the off-season here and here).  Then, we get back into our training.  If you’ve been following me for any length of time, then you know I espouse a more “reverse periodization” approach.  In other words, less volume and more intensity in the Winter, with more volume and less (but more race-specific) intensity in the Spring and Summer.  When the batteries are recharged, motivation is high and we come out of the barn with guns blazing.  We tear into our training with a “do whatever it takes” attitude, even when the cold and snow forces us to do the majority of our cycling and even our running indoors.
 
But, at some point, it all starts to get a bit stale.  It gets tougher mentally to get up for straddling the bike on the trainer yet again.  It gets tough to step on to the treadmill yet again.  Triathletes are, on the whole, notorious for disliking swim workouts already so when the mental drag starts to occur, getting in a cold car to get to another swim workout can downright suck, right?  What I’ve found is that the tipping point between that newly energized “can do” attitude and the reality of the grind occurs just after the holidays. Call it Jan 1 – Jan 15.  Somewhere in there.
 
This is because when we are forced to do the majority of our training indoors (or choose to), training turns into a more arduous task.  And, after the turn of the year, we realize that the warmer months are still a few months away and that consistent weather for consistent outdoor training is even further out.  So, how can you rekindle the spark, the zest for training that you had only a few weeks prior?
 
Firstly, insert more recovery days or days completely off.  You can train very effectively on 5 days/week. You may need to stack workouts a little more in order to afford that second day completely off, but the mental break it affords you is so worth it.  Not to mention the extra sleep you will be getting, which puts an extra spring in your step all by itself.  Second, switch some things up.  For example, if you’re used to doing a long ride on Saturday and a long run/short swim on Sunday, instead try a long brick on Saturday with just the short swim on Sunday.  Knowing that your Sunday is not going to be totally taken up by training so you feel like you might actually have some semblance of a weekend is refreshing.  Heck, you can even move that swim to another day and then have Sunday completely off.  Bonus!
 
It's also time to start scaling back the strength training.  You can even switch to sport-specific strengthening – hills on the run, slow cadence spinning on the bike, pulling with paddles in the pool – in order to eliminate the need for gym time altogether.  In tandem with this, start inserting some key workouts that start to turn your focus toward your first race.  If you have a Spring 70.3 race, now is the time to start inserting some SST work and some longer L3 sessions.  This turns a switch in your head from getting mentally prepared for short, more intense intervals sessions to a mindset that is more related to “race mode”.  This is a subtle yet effective shift in the frame of mind.
 
If you’re a single sport athlete, the process is really no different.  Now is the time to start inserting a group ride once per week, to expose yourself to some dynamic riding – meaning, fartlek riding that is randomly based on the whims of the peloton.  You can do this via an outdoor group ride, or from any number of virtual group rides on Zwift and other VR cycling programs.  Or, create your own indoor workout that replicates the dynamic nature of a group ride. 
 
To be clear, this is not just about “following a plan”.  Even the best plans become grinders.  This is about subtle shifts you make in how you approach your training which will serve to help keep you mentally and physically fresher.  The last thing you want is to hit the front end of the racing season in great physical shape but already mentally crisp.  That makes for a long season that will ultimately turn out less successful.  Making these subtle shifts to your training will reap dividends when the racing season does come around in the next couple months, and do so without sacrificing your ability to be ready to race well.
 
Happy Training,
Coach Nate

​There's mounting evidence that mechanical doping -- having a motor inside the bike or the hub of the rear wheel -- has become a chronic problem within the overall sport of cycling.  Road races, time trials, hill climbs, 'cross races, even on the track.  Though just scratching the surface, we dig into it a bit here.

I’ve been getting quite a few questions about riding indoors vs outdoors, and how to adjust power zones in order to more accurately track the effectiveness of the given workout.  Should you adjust your indoor power up, or down, or not at all?  This is a great question!  Hopefully I will be able to shed some light on this for you so that you have more confidence in the workouts you are completing indoors and carry that confidence back outside to both training and racing.
 
Depending on the type of trainer you ride – dumb vs smart, wheel off vs wheel on, as well as which brand of any trainer type – you will find that either your wattage is higher or lower indoors vs outdoors (there isn’t even a “rule” one way or the other).  And in the case of smart trainers, you will probably even find a discrepancy between how it calculates wattage output vs your power meter.  With myriad variables, it can not only be confusing, but downright frustrating. 
 
The punchline here is that your FTP (Functional Threshold Power) and associated power training zones are almost assuredly different when riding indoors.  For example, my Stages power meter records about 20-25w lower than my Wahoo KICKR in Erg mode.  And, when I’m riding in a virtual world such as Zwift, the discrepancy oscillates between 10-30w difference.  And, there is even a difference between Zwift, Kinomap and FulGaz, at least in my experience.  Couple this with the fact that the resistance of riding indoors also seems greater indoors.  It’s as if the inherent forward momentum created when riding outside is nearly (or completely) non-existent indoors. 
 
Here's a few pointers for you to help with all this.
 
Rear Wheel On Trainers
This is the most common type of trainer.  It is also the most challenging to dial in compared to outdoor riding.  Riding on the road, you apply force to the pedals generally from about noon to 5 o’clock.  The bottom and back of the pedal stroke, the legs don’t create any meaningful force because of how the body is oriented to the cranks.  So, there’s a little built in rest for the legs with every pedal stroke.  Not so, indoors.   

On a rear wheel on trainer, the only momentum of the rear wheel is that which is created while you are pedaling.  When you stop pedaling, the rear wheel comes to a stop almost immediately.  Because this type of resistance is applied to the entire pedal stroke, your legs are tasked all the more with every pedal stroke.  Thus, your cardiovascular system is tasked more greatly when riding indoors than outside.  Your HR climbs more quickly and your legs crater more quickly – during intervals and during complete workouts.  This greatly impacts your ability not only to produce watts but also ride for a long time.  90-120min indoors can be both a soul- and leg-crushing experience. 

The ”good news” is that the more you ride indoors, the more your body will adapt and a large discrepancy in wattage will reduce over time, even if it never completely levels out.

Wheel off Direct Drive
Wheel off trainers like the Wahoo KICKR overcome the dynamic resistance issues of the wheel on trainers.  By taking the rear wheel off, and increasing both the size and weight of the flywheel, wheel on (or direct drive) trainers better simulate the type of momentum you gain when riding outside.  And, wheel on trainers also create a smoother, more realistic “road feel”.

Now, how the direct drive trainer interprets force and measures watts is still not perfect.  Like my Stages vs KICKR example above, where my Stages actually reports lower output, some athletes I train talk about the discrepancy going in the other direction, where the KICKR records lower wattage than their own power meters.  It would appear that how and where the power meter measures your wattage – crank arm, crank, pedals, rear wheel – will impact the indoor vs outdoor relativity as well.

Spin Bikes
Various spin bikes will calculate power.  Stages has come out with a spin bike that uses the same technology on the crank arm of the spin bike just like on a road bike.  Arguably, this could produce a very similar power output when comparing a Stages spin bike to riding a Stages-equipped road bike outside.  However, spin bikes increase resistance by applying a brake to the flywheel.  This creates the similar challenge as with wheel on trainers in that resistance is applied during the entire pedal stroke rather than just when you’re able to apply force between noon and 5 o’clock.  Yes, the spin bike’s larger fly wheel does create more momentum than the small flywheel on the back of your trainer, but this only mitigates the issue of constant force to a degree, not fully.

Calibration
You hear about how important it is to calibrate your indoor trainer at the beginning of every single ride.  In my experience, this is a bit of an exaggeration.  Flywheels heat up and, thus, calibrating 20 minutes into a ride can alter the calculation of watts and could result in more accurate output.  However, I have found that whether or not I calibrate my KICKR after completing a full warm-up, the discrepancy is still really big and really isn’t that different in any case.  So, whether or not I calibrate my KICKR, the output will never come into line with my Stages power meter, and calibrating it creates a negligible difference compared to non-calibration.  So, I don’t bother with calibration one ride to the next.

Now, if I decide to test and re-test my FTP indoors, I would calibrate the unit after warming up and do so before every test in order to ensure as consistent of results as possible one test to the next.

Other Variables to Consider
1. A Fixed Position
Being fixed into one position without the ability to move the bicycle or move your body as much as you might outside causes you to use more isolated muscles and create fatigue all the more quickly. When riding outdoors, we are constantly shifting our body on the bicycle which allows us to recruit some of our upper body to help the core and legs to produce power. This also gives some muscles a rest, helping them to recover and produce more power.  Losing the ability to effectively wobble the bike back and forth reduces the ability to produce peak power.  When athletes I coach are sprinting indoors, I tell them to ignore wattages as they just aren’t representative of what can be done outdoors.  If the effort is there, call it good.

When riding at L3 (tempo) to L5 (VO2max), more strain is applied to the working muscles, especially some that are rarely leveraged outdoors, such as those of the inner thigh (adductors).  It is not uncommon for the adductors, quads or hamstrings – or all of them – to crater and even cramp up toward the end of a challenging workout.

2. Temperature
Temperature plays a significant role in the ability to produce wattage when riding indoors, so staying cool is critical.  Heat is a byproduct of effort, and without the cooling wind we experience when riding outside, overheating becomes a real challenge.  The hotter you get, the more you sweat.  The more you sweat, the thicker your blood gets and the harder your heart has to work to pump that thickening blood to the working muscles.  If you’ve heard the term “cardiac drift”, this is what is occurring.  A rising core temperature coupled with exacerbated dehydrating from excessive sweating will do two things:  1) cause your HR to continue to rise; and 2) cause your wattage to drop.
 
Get a powerful fan blowing on you to provide some cooling.  You can also set your trainer up in the garage where the temperature tends to be lower than in the house, or set it up by a window that you can open to allow cooler air to flow over you to complement the blowing fan.
 
3. Get Mental
The mind is very powerful, so don’t underestimate its ability to impact your workout – positively or negatively.  Riding in a cellar staring at a concrete wall is not nearly as stimulating as riding outside with nice scenery.  Nor will it ever be.  Watching movies or race videos helps keep you stimulated and pass the time.  Virtual training programs like the ones I mentioned earlier are also quite a bit of fun.  And what I like about them is that they dynamically alter the resistance of the ride based on the terrain you’re covering, forcing you to constantly shift and alter your cadence and riding style to match the virtual topography.  This increases the “outdoor feel” of the ride in a way that you simply cannot replicate on a “dumb” trainer.

Adjust Your FTP?
So, should you adjust your FTP when riding indoors?  I don’t think there is a clear cut answer, quite frankly.  I think if you say “yes”, then you open yourself up to the slippery slope of interpretation, which gets messy quickly.  My suggestion is to understand the correlation between riding outdoors and riding indoors, and then keep both numbers in mind as you complete both your outdoor and indoor workouts.  Remember, our goal is to shoot for certain training zones – in other words, there are no absolutes.  So, if I have a 20-25w discrepancy between my Stages power meter and my KICKR, then I can allow a delta of 15-30w and know with confidence that my indoor workout is very close to what I would accomplish doing a similar workout outside. 

And don’t forget, HR is the ultimate governor.  You need to know what your HR zone is for a particular type of workout and that will help you more accurately define your indoor power zones compared to your outdoor zones.

When you look at all these variables, you realize that even if all of them have small impacts on wattage (up or down) that adding just a few of them together magnify the discrepancy you’re experiencing.  You can either be aware of the discrepancy and account for it in your head by ensuring your HR is where you need it to be, or you can deliberately create and recalculate indoor power training zones.  There’s no right or wrong answer.  It all depends on how much hand-wringing this all causes you.  I will admit, when I was younger, I would have wrung my hands raw over this sort of thing.  Today, not so much.  I know what a particular type of workout is meant to feel like and if I complete an indoor ride feeling the way I should, then job well done.

In conclusion, there is a much greater chance that outdoor vs indoor watts will be different than similar.  If you train exclusively outdoors (for example, if you live in a perpetually warm part of the world) or always indoors (for example, if you live in the heart of a busy city and, therefore, riding outside is neither safe nor practical), this isn’t a challenge for you.  However, most athletes are forced indoors during the winter months, some exclusively so.  We put a lot of time and energy into our training so the last thing we want is to emerge from our winter pain caves only to realize we are not as fit or prepared as we thought because we were tracking to the wrong numbers for several months.
​
If you are able to create a mix of outdoor and indoor riding through the winter months, then cut yourself some slack.  Be aware of the differences in power outputs and account for them in your various rides.  If it is uber important for your indoor zones to be spot on accurate, then you need to complete a separate indoor-specific FTP test.  It is really up to your and your tolerance for “fudge factor”.
​
Happy Training,
Coach Nate