Empirical Cycling Podcast

Master coach and WKO5 product leader Tim Cusick joins the podcast to get his brain thoroughly picked. Training topics include the biggest differences between average cyclists and the top pros, the usual periodization schemes vs Olympic cycles, the evolutionary process of a training plan, expertise vs mastery, and of course, resting. Data topics include whether we'll ever get the AI coach in our lifetimes and what it might do when it's here, what WKO5 is and isn't, the secrets of the PD model and mFTP, the PMC, TSS, training impact score, and the value of lab testing. Tim also answers listener questions about how he prescribes training targets, low cadence training, youth development, and advice to get the most out of a coaching relationship.

To celebrate 400,000 podcast listens, we answer your questions submitted in the Empirical Cycling Instagram stories. We discuss high and low volume training and progressive overload, 3 things every cyclist should do, low CHO training, FRC for mountain bikers, supplements for athletes, our best non-empirical cycling advice, and much more. The full questions list is available on the website.

This podcast delves into the origins of endurance performance and cellular control of substrate oxidation. It discusses adaptive aerobic signals based on fat and carb usage, the role of mitochondria in aerobic endurance adaptations, and training implications. Listener questions are also addressed, covering topics such as metabolism, energy generation, genetics in athletic success, and maximizing performance through mitochondrial biogenesis.

Are you a CTL junkie? Terrified of letting it drop? Listen in. This episode takes a critical but realistic look at TSS and the metrics it's built on like CTL, ATL, and TSB. We discuss normalized power, what kind of fitness CTL can actually reflect, and answer listener questions.

Andy Coggan joins the podcast again to discuss everything we didn't get to in the previous episode. We get back stories behind the adaptations by training zones chart and the category and w/kg chart. We also go in depth with nitrate supplementation, vo2max training. if burning fat makes you burn more fat, if signaling studies translate to performance, and the nature of adaptation itself. There are plenty of pithy proverbs along the way.

In this episode, Andy Coggan discusses FTP and its context among various threshold definitions, the infamous "hour of power", and the legacy of Training And Racing With A Power Meter. We also discuss Andy's lack of social media presence, the chapters he's written on the history of exercise physiology, and delve into some topics in exercise metabolism including VLamax, substrate use at FTP, methods and interpretations of the lactate shuttle, and more.

The interviewer becomes the interviewed as the host of That Triathlon Show joins Kolie. Mikael talks about what he takes from all the interviews he does and how they change his approach, multisport training and periodization, podcasting, pacing, and what Mikael's favorite meme is. He also answers your listener questions.

More FTP may be better, but not always. This episode explores ideas around how FTP can be overemphasized in training in both the short and long term, leading to suboptimal fitness and race outcomes.

Think your FTP is the power you can hold for 60 minutes? Think again! We dig into a classic Billat paper on time to exhaustion (TTE) and training threshold by adding time in zone. Then we discuss into the metabolic implications of these results, how they align with real world experience, and how this affects training and assessment of its effectiveness. Finally, we answer your questions as asked in Kolie's Instagram stories @empiricalcycling.

Should you always train like you race? In this episode we investigate three myths related to this idea, and find some grains of truth along the way. The myths are 1. Sprinters and non-sprinters really need to train aerobic systems differently. 2. Crit racers mostly need to focus on anaerobic efforts. 3. You won’t need to train FTP if you don't race time trials. We touch on some track sprinting as well, and of course answer listener questions from Kolie's instagram, so follow him there if you'd like to ask a question on the podcast.