139: A New Coaching Model: Creating Better Athletes Through Our Virtual Performance Center

We believe modern coaching doesn’t optimally fulfill the needs of the modern athlete. That’s why we’re introducing our community, education, and coaching membership, Fast Talk Laboratories.  

So often athletes are given templated training plans. But what if he or she gets sick? Or work gets stressful? That athlete will likely do more harm than good simply pushing through and sticking to the plan. In response to that methodology, we’ve created a virtual performance center, a place for the insightful athlete to be guided to their best self.  

We have collected the many tools available to modern athletes in one place, offering curated and validated knowledge—through articles, videos, workshops, webinars, forums, and the list goes on—from some of the finest minds in sport science: Dr. Stephen Seiler, Dr. Stephen Cheung, Julie Young, Colby Pearce, Grant Holicky, Jess Elliott, to name a few. We’ll be adding new contributors all the time, and you can be sure they’ll also bring clarity and sophistication to their contributions. 

Let’s detail our Listener, Library, Live, and Laboratory member levels. 

Listener: We are now producing transcripts of every new Fast Talk podcast episode—plus our catalog of over 135 existing episodes and 27 Cycling in Alignment episodes. What does that mean for Listeners? Searchable podcast episodes, references, and resources. And, of course, you can read along or scan ahead, if you happen to be a faster reader than listener.  

Listeners will also begin to receive our weekly newsletter, which will keep them up to date on new episodes, special guests, and opportunities to send in questions for new Q&A episodes. We also have plans to periodically release a few of our most popular training science videos and articles—but only for members.  

Our next membership level unlocks a whole library of content, which is why we’re calling it our Library Membership. For our Library Members, we have created training science articles, a whole library of video content, and a moderated forum. This is content like the fundamentals of sports nutrition from Head Coach Ryan Kohler and a workshop on why cold temperatures affect performance from Dr. Stephen Cheung. The Forum is a place to discuss recent episodes, ask questions, and get answers from Trevor, Ryan, and our very smart members.  

Live membership is really the heart and soul of what we’re offering. This level includes all the features we’ve already introduced, plus a whole suite of Live Events including social group rides, structured live workouts, live Q&A sessions, and live webinars. Trevor’s and Ryan’s experience in training centers and the group-style approach will shine. This level also includes group coaching and a monthly question answered. 

Our Laboratory Membership will open in January. This is our premier coaching level, and of course it includes all the benefits of the lower levels. We believe it’s a vast improvement over existing coaching programs. Our athletes and listeners are not typical. They are intelligent, motivated, and they don’t need email nannying, which is what we often see in endurance coaching. They also don’t really need templated training plans, which we believe are counterproductive for higher-level athletes.  

Instead, our Laboratory Membership is a new concept that we call Endurance Mentorship. What does that mean? Well, it’s based on the idea that you already know the basics—but wouldn’t it be great to have an elite coach to answer your questions? Plus, with periodic testing and guidance, you’ll experience the best of what Fast Talk Laboratories has to offer as a virtual performance center.

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