Fast Talk

We often mention scientific research articles within our podcast episodes. That said, Coach Trevor Connor laments how little time he is able to spend reviewing the data, in the context of the greater discussion.Therein lies the basis for a new type of Fast Talk episode, which we have affectionately dubbed "Nerd Lab."In this episode, we take our time to review four recent studies from the scientific literature. We address the hypotheses, methods, and conclusions of each study to give you a greater sense of the latest findings in endurance sports.We're joined by longtime Fast Talk Labs contributor and Brock University professor Dr. Stephen Cheung, who literally reads articles as part of his day job. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’m not going to pretend to know much about time trials. I’ve done one. I also did an Hour Record on the track. That was fun, ahem. On the other hand, our main guests today are arguably the greatest athlete-coach duo in the history of time trials. Kristin Armstrong won three Olympic gold medals and two world championship titles in her gilded career, and Jim Miller was her coach the entire time.  The pair have a fascinating story about the way they dissected the discipline and dominated their competition. It wasn’t necessarily the most traditional method, as you’ll hear, but it was undoubtedly effective. Throughout our conversation, there are a host of fascinating and fruitful messages about how they looked at and broke down the race of truth. On a more practical note, we also hear from one of the greats on the men’s side, Svein Tuft, as well as Sebastian Weber, who coached four-time world champion Tony Martin during his illustrious career. Finally, we get some sage advice from tech guru Nick Legan about how to bring speed to time trials even if you have a small budget. All that and much more as we explore both the art and science of time trials, today on Fast Talk. Let's make you fast!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We receive a lot of questions about very specific topics—fasted training, supplements and recovery products, breathing techniques, and so forth. (By the way, we love them, so please keep them coming.)In this episode, however, we step back and discuss what we feel is most important, and frankly what is going to give you the biggest return for your investment of time, sweat, and energy.If those specific things are the 5 percent, today is all about making an argument for focusing on the 95 percent.We are in an age of marginal gains, where many athletes have firmly latched onto the idea that seemingly insignificant changes have the potential to incrementally add up to substantial gains.The trend started within the ranks of the pro peloton. The thing is, pro riders are so developed physiologically to win that they have to find these little things to make the difference.In fact, they've likely spent 10 years developing the 95 percent and have it dialed. More importantly, the secret truth is that pros don’t focus on the 5 percent as much as you'd think, and we give several examples of this, from Kristin Armstrong (who you'll hear from in episode 154), Brent Bookwalter, and others.So what should you focus on? What comprises that 95 percent? It's simple: Training Recovery Functioning gear We'll go into much more detail in the episode about what we mean, specifically, about these topics, and the fundamental principles underlying all of it.Finally, we close with a cautionary tale: The 5 percent can take up 90 percent of your time and distract you from what's truly valuable. Because they're trendy, there is nearly an unlimited number of things that fall into that "5 percent bucket" to explore. They are all debated and based on partial science—forcing you to spend energy asking what works and what doesn't.All of this adds up to a whole lot of mental energy and fatigue. Thus, instead of helping you improve, too much focus on the 5 percent can actual hinder you in many ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They say age is just a number. That’s exactly it: Age is nothing more than digits, and certainly shouldn’t be seen as a barrier or a dirty word. We can age successfully, but it requires changes to how we train and perhaps to the types of races we target.  Of course, there are some physiological changes—you might call them declines—that come with age. Yet, there are also things that improve as athletes get older. Sometimes they are truly physiological and psychological adaptations, and at other times they are a matter of perspective, mentality, or choice. We begin the episode with a deep dive by Trevor into some recent research on the effects of age and performance. Then we jump into a great conversation with the timeless Rebecca Rusch, a seven-time world champion, mountain bike Hall of Famer, and ever-evolving, age-defying cyclist and adventurer. As we speak, the 52-year-old Rusch is taking on her third Iditarod Trail Invitational in Alaska. In that conversation, we touch upon everything from training changes to nutrition tips, from off-the-bike work to the work it takes inside the mind to stay motivated, energized, and ready to push. We also hear from Dr. Andy Pruitt, the world-renowned sports medicine consultant, and Colby Pearce, coach, athlete, bike fitter, and host of the Cycling in Alignment podcast. All that and much more, today on Fast Talk. Let's make you fast!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coach Lindsay Golich is a sports physiologist who has worked with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center for the past five years. She works closely with USA Cycling and USA Triathlon in areas of environmental physiology, including altitude, heat and humidity, as well as data analytics for performance modeling.  With Lindsay’s help, today we tackle several questions related to her areas of expertise, including heat acclimatization, sweat rates, altitude effects, regulating temperature, FTP testing, and fasted training.  All that and much more, today on Fast Talk. Let's make you fast!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It wasn't long ago that most athletes, in the grand scheme of training, neglected the importance of nutrition, prioritizing time spent on the bike.  Now, nutritional periodization and other methods of manipulation are rapidly rising in popularity. Many people strongly believe that significant performance gains are being left on the table if they neglect nutritional manipulation.  Today, we sit down with one of the top sports nutrition experts to discuss the potential performance gains from modifying the amount of carbohydrate made available at a given time relative to training load. What are the benefits of low and high carbohydrate consumption and manipulation? What are the potential dangers? We’ll explain four distinct approaches:  First, we’ll talk about the fasted workout—easily done by skipping breakfast.  Second, we’ll discuss two-a-day workouts to reduce muscle glycogen. Third, we’ll consider low-carbohydrate diets. And, finally, we’ll dissect so-called “train-high, sleep-low" approaches in which an athlete will intentionally skip the recovery meal after a hard workout in order to ride the next morning under low carbohydrate conditions. The leading expert I mentioned earlier, who returns to Fast Talk, is Dr. Asker Jeukendrup, known for his work with many elite athletes, in particular the cyclists of the Jumbo-Visma WorldTour team, and the Dutch Olympic Federation. We’ll also hear from a host of other great coaches and researchers, including Dr. Brian Carson, Joe Friel, Jim Rutberg, and Sondre Skarli. Put that bag of popcorn down! Let's make you fast!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we first take on the complex subject of coaching junior athletes, including everything from building aerobic base in a healthy manner to dealing with overbearing parents. We tackle a very interesting question on the base/intensity relationship from Danielle in Monument, Colorado:“Does aerobic output after intensity still have the same effect? Or does it have an even bigger effect due to substrate depletion and muscle fiber recruitment change? How does this change how I plan my training rides?”We also discuss how long aerobic rides need to be, based on a question from Ashley in Sherbrooke, Quebec:“How long do aerobic rides need to be to get benefits? And does this change throughout the season, or as I improve as a cyclist from season to season?”Then we turn our attention to this question from Jeff P. on heart arrhythmias:"Do you know if Whoop can ignore or tolerate or take into account premature ventricular contractions? PVCs are pretty common in the population and I started getting them about two years ago. I do get more PVCs when I have more stress but it doesn't seem to have a great correlation with exercise—more so with life stress and caffeine intake."Finally, we address the potential for cumulative effects of supplements, a question from Dan S.:"My question is regarding the nutritional effects of the flavonoids in dark chocolates and the nitrates (?) in beetroot. Are the effects of these type of “supplements” cumulative? In other words, if you do them together do you get a greater buffering effect than taking more of either of them in isolation?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Unfortunately, concussions and traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, are far too common in cycling. Whether training on open roads, racing at high speeds, or facing off with rush-hour traffic on your bike commute, cyclists often place themselves in vulnerable situations. Head injuries are becoming increasingly diagnosed among the two-wheeled crowd.  What’s more, there’s a good deal of misunderstanding about what exactly the terms concussion and TBI mean. Are they the same or very different? How should you manage each condition? What are the potential long-term repercussions of concussions, if any? We’ll tackle all of these questions, and many more, in this episode.  We turn to Dr. Steven Broglio, the director of the University of Michigan Concussion Center and the director of the NeuroTrauma Research Laboratory, for guidance on this complex subject. Dr. Broglio has spent much of his adult life studying the causes of concussion, the effects of concussion on the brain, the short- and long-term concerns, the best course of management, and the use of helmets, of course. His experience and knowledge on the matter make for a compelling discussion.  Add to that the conversations I had with Timmy Duggan and Hannah Finchamp, two athletes who have each suffered head injuries. Timmy’s story is well-known: While racing at the Tour of Georgia, he was involved in a horrific crash which led to a severe traumatic brain injury. He shares his experience, from the injury to the acute aftermath and rehabilitation, to the long-term and psychological impact the injury had on his life. You’ll hear from him throughout the episode.  And Hannah walks us through how being hit by a car led to her concussion, and how that impacted training and life.  All that and much more on today’s episode of Fast Talk.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We can learn a lot by looking back. And one of the best parts of being an athlete is planning ahead, setting goals, and choosing your next adventure.[For more on this, check out episode 140: How to Set Training and Performance Goals.]In this episode, the Fast Talk team, plus frequent guests, share the lessons they learned from a challenging 2020, and then declare their big, scary goals, races, and rides for 2021.First, looking back. We ask ourselves this question: Despite 2020 being an "off" year in terms of most racing and riding plans, were you still able to set goals and hit personal achievements in 2020 that you can look back on with satisfaction? What did you learn from these experiments?Then, looking back. Chris Case aims for the TransAtlantic Way bikepacking race. Trevor Connor aims for the Joe Martin stage race. Our Head Coach Ryan Kohler heads for the hills of the Breck Epic. Producer Jana Martin is gunning for Crooked Gravel.We also hear declarations of adventure from Dr. Stephen Seiler, Hannah Rae Finchamp, Julie Young, Dr. Stephen Cheung, Jen Sharp, Grant Holicky, and Colby Pearce.What did you learn in 2020? How did you make the most of a challenging year? And what are your adventure or race plans/goals in 2021? Join the conversation in the forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’ve listened to Fast Talk for a while, you’ve likely heard us mention “cardiac drift” or “decoupling” in several episodes. It's a favorite topic of Coach Connor's. The terms refer to cardiovascular drift, which is a "drifting" in heart rate and stroke volume over time. On the bike, we measure it by looking at a rise in heart rate relative to power. Many causes have been theorized including dehydration, muscle damage, cutaneous blood flow, and mitochondrial efficiency.   We’re very excited to have as our featured guest today Dr. Ed Coyle, the University of Texas exercise physiology researcher who published the definitive articles on cardiovascular drift in the 1990s. In that research, Coyle, who is also the director of the Human Performance Laboratory at the university, and his colleagues demonstrated that even when hydration is maintained, CV drift can be experienced. This increase in heart rate reduces the time the heart has to fill with blood, and this is the main reason for a drop in stroke volume, or the amount of blood pushed out by the heart with each beat.   The drop in stroke volume is a hallmark of CV drift, and historically it has been attributed to blood pooling in the skin and less blood returning to the heart. Coyle and his team found no evidence that blood flow to skin is increased or that venous return is compromised.   In a practical sense, when a person becomes dehydrated during prolonged exercise, they also get hotter and experience a greater increase in heart rate and a lower cardiac output and circulation of blood: CV drift. The exercise becomes very hard when it should not be hard at all. Competitive cyclists interpret this to mean they are getting a “better workout” because it’s more stressful. It certainly is more stressful, but that type of cardiovascular drift is a negative stress. It does more harm than good.   We’ll dive into all of this and much more today on Fast Talk, as we hear from Dr. Coyle and a host of other incredible guests who share their thoughts on cardiovascular drift. Now, let's make you fast!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices