Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:06):
From the team at
CTS, this is the Time Crunch
Cyclist Podcast, our showdedicated to answering your
training questions and providingactionable advice to help you
improve your performance, evenif you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, Coach AdamPulford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches who makeup the team at CTS.
(00:27):
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,
other coaches, and experts inthe field to provide you with
the practical ways to get themost out of your training and
ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now, on to our show.
(00:48):
How do you know if you shouldchange your training for the
day?
Should you do more or fewerintervals than prescribed?
And can AI help you do this?
I'm Coach Adam Pulford, and thisis the Time Crunch Cyclist
Podcast, the show that helps youunderstand complicated topics
and endurance training in ashort amount of time.
Today we'll discuss how todetermine if you need to scale
(01:11):
up your prescribed workout onthe day or dial it down.
This is something I callself-determined training.
Or you could simply stay thecourse.
This topic in question comes tous today from Brian, a local
high-level masters athlete.
He's the guy that uh connectswith the coach on the group ride
(01:32):
and then asks all the questionsabout training and uh recovery
and all that kind of stuff.
And then he attacks and he ridesaway from people.
So just kidding, but kind of uhBrian's a really good friend.
He's coached by another CTScoach, and he has a curious mind
about training.
The questions I opened withtoday were exactly what he asked
(01:54):
me uh last week on the groupride, and it builds off some
topics that we've been learningabout on the podcast recently.
So let's dive in.
Can AI optimize your training bydetermining if you should do
more or fewer intervals thanprescribed today?
Yeah, there are some AI programsthat can adjust the day based on
(02:17):
inputs, but also no, because Ihaven't seen anything that
optimizes or even does a goodjob of it, uh, or at least
compared to a good coach or ahighly aware athlete.
So, in short, no, I haven't seenanything that works really well
in this way.
But in order to do this, I meanit's a curious question in
(02:40):
itself.
And so, in order to do this, AIor anything else needs to factor
in not only the current fatiguestatus of an athlete, which is
really hard to do, but also knowthe intent of the workout, what
the goals are in the next two tothree days, what the goal of the
training phase is and biggerpicture stuff like uh history of
(03:00):
training, uh where it's allheading in the next several
years, things like this.
Now, some of that can be figuredout.
But let's just start with how todetermine fatigue, and just by
adding up a couple things, atleast that I think of when I uh
try to determine if an athleteis fatigued or not.
So some of this can be figuredout, but let's also acknowledge
(03:24):
that fatigue can still be prettymystical.
Here are some simple factorsthat go into calculating fatigue
for a time-crunched athlete.
The past five to seven days oftraining stress score, or TSS,
the past five to seven days ofsleep quality and quantity, the
(03:44):
current CTL, ATL, and TSB,health status, like are you sick
or getting sick, perceivedstress levels from work, family,
and life, HRV, resting heartrate, mood, motivation, and
other subjective feelings.
There's also glycogen status,hydration status, and just the
(04:04):
countless other things that gointo actual fatigue, but those
are all things that I calculatein my brain or think about when
I'm trying to determine what toprescribe for an athlete on the
day or how to change training.
Now, we humans and coaches stillcan't fully predict fatigue and
performance.
If someone could, they wouldhave all the gold medals.
(04:28):
So if AI could, then AI wouldprobably have all the gold
medals too.
Now, that being said, this is acomplicated thing that science
and technology haven't been ableto solve for yet.
But good coaching and experienceor the science and art can help
us get there.
So let's talk about the scienceand the art, because I believe
(04:50):
that that goes into a goodtraining process.
And part of that good trainingprocess starts with a good plan.
Now, assuming that you alwaysstart with a good enough plan,
you're setting yourself up forsuccess.
What is a good plan?
I've I've talked about this onprevious episodes before, but uh
just to hit on some of thepoints in previous podcasts is a
(05:13):
good plan has a progressiveoverload approach.
It has individualized traininguh purposes, okay, starting with
where you're, uh determiningstrengths and weaknesses and
developing those in thatprogressive uh overload
approach.
It also builds from general tospecific performance demands.
And then it also uh determinestraining based on the proper
(05:34):
time courses of adaptation totraining stimulus and recovery,
which is a huge topic in itself.
And I'm planting the seed for afuture podcast here.
And there's also just like a tonof other things that go into a
good plan.
Now, I don't have time for allof that, but good communication
of the intent of training is ahuge part of that plan.
(05:57):
So this is where you can startto gather uh the fatigue status
indicators that I mentioned justa couple minutes ago of the
athlete so that either theself-coached athlete or the
coach are in the know of what'sgoing on from the fatigue
status.
Then you use trial and error andget good at reading your body on
the fly based on these uh, youknow, good and bad vibe
(06:21):
indicators.
So if you don't hear anythingelse, I mean, a lot of this on
the fly, uh how you get good aton-the-fly decision making is
using trial and error.
Okay.
So try it.
If it doesn't work, change it,do it again, right?
So, what's a good direction tostart in that uh trial and error
on how to read your body on thefly and make some of those
(06:44):
decisions?
Well, I talked about this in anepisode just uh a couple weeks
ago uh where I encouragedeveryone to scribble outside the
lines a little bit more.
And that what that referred towas move days around to match
the training status for the day.
Meaning if I'm feeling reallygood uh and I've got an easy
workout plan, I'm gonna selectthe hard workout and move the
(07:07):
training around.
But you still stick to gettingthe total training done within
the week, and that keeps us ontrack for the overall plan.
Now, today we'll get into how toadjust for the day's workout
based on the inputs you may bereceiving.
As I said, this is something Icall self-determined training.
It's a boring probably title,uh, but it's a simple idea, and
(07:30):
I and I think I stole the nameuh of it from Tim Cusick.
But it's a it's really referringto helping the athlete determine
if if they should adjusttraining for today or not, and
if so, how?
Like I said, it all starts withcommunication and awareness.
And as a coach, I try tocommunicate the best I can by
(07:52):
talking with them on the phone,using data, using their data and
sharing articles to teach themabout training.
I'm trying to get them to thinkmore like me, essentially, so
that they're equipped to makebetter decisions on the fly when
I'm not there with them.
And as a remote-based coach, Ibelieve that that is crucial.
(08:12):
I then communicate with weeklygoals each week on training
peaks to remind them of whatwe're trying to accomplish for
the week.
For example, increase FTP orincrease CTL, improve VO2 max or
something like this.
I then build the workouts, andthen in the description, I type
out how to adjust on the flywith some examples of feeling
(08:35):
good, normal, or not good.
I typically encourage theathlete to make these
adjustments during the buildphase of training or some period
where we're going or we're doingmax efforts, uh testing phases
or something like that, versus abase phase or a race phase.
In the build phase is reallywhere this matters most because
we're trying to increase thedensity of training.
(08:58):
We're really trying to pushhard, make them tired.
In the base phase, it's like ifyou have more time to ride in
zone two, then go for it.
We'll adjust volume or we'lljust rack and stack it there.
But it's a little bit moresimple.
Additionally, in that race phaseor the competition phase,
hopefully we have it figured outby then.
So the athlete doesn't have todetermine a whole lot on the
(09:20):
day, but we're also trying to befresh for an upcoming day soon.
And so I'm gonna use lessself-determined training so I
can predict uh performance andfreshness a little bit more.
Hope that makes sense.
Overall, I think it's reallyimportant to listen to your body
and make some micro adjustmentson the day based on the
(09:41):
prescribed plan, knowing whereyou're going in the next few
days as well as how it appliesto the current training phase.
So here's my quick tips to anyathlete, time crunch or time
rich, on how to scale it up orscale it down or keep it the
same.
First up, if you're feelinggreat, stick to the plan, but
(10:02):
add more.
Okay, now more comes with anasterisk here.
I generally think of kind of twobins of what I'm trying to work
on with an athlete is intensivetraining or extensive training.
So if I'm trying to intensifytraining for an athlete, that
usually means more intensity.
Okay, so I'm talking abouthigher power or more intervals
(10:25):
at that same high power.
So what you can do here is addanother interval or two or three
or increase by five to ten wattson each interval to intensify
the training.
An example of this would be apower interval workout, and
power intervals should feel likea nine or ten out of ten, and
they're shorter.
So if you have 10 by one minuteprescribed, add another two or
(10:49):
three intervals and really makethe push if you're feeling good
on the day.
Try to overload your body.
You're having a great day, youhave great legs, don't waste
them.
Another example, if we're tryingto improve extensive training,
this refers to more duration.
Okay, so if you're feelingreally good, uh, what you want
(11:10):
to do is keep the power thesame, but add more time and
zone.
Okay, adding total time is whatwe're trying to accomplish.
So an example is of this wouldbe if it's a tempo workout and
you have two by 20 minutesprescribed, you can scale it up
by two by 25 or 2x30, or you goone by 40 minutes or 45 minutes
(11:30):
with no recovery period.
That's a great way toextensively develop your
training.
Now, if you're feeling normal,stick to the plan.
Don't change it.
Just do the workout.
Keep it simple, don't overthinkit.
Recall, if you start with a goodplan and you have a good
(11:51):
process, you will get goodresults.
Nothing, nothing further said onthat.
Finally, if you're not feelinggreat, change the plan.
A highly mature athlete will notgo hard or send it on a day
where they know they don't haveit.
If you have hard intervals, forexample, planned for the for the
(12:12):
day, and you're feeling sick ormentally you're not there, you
need to adjust.
Use the warm-up rule to furtherassess yourself, meaning do the
prescribed warmup, do a coupleopeners, and then if you're
still feeling bad, then rideeasy or just ride home.
The overall takeaway is this agood process in training, in my
opinion, involves changing thetraining sometimes.
(12:35):
Knowing when and how to do it iscrucial.
And I hope you all learned a bitmore on how to do that today.
Because if you're waiting for AIto do it for you, it's not there
yet.
And I think that that isactually a long way out.
So for Brian and the rest of youthinking is AI going to solve a
lot of uh our problems likethis.
(12:56):
Well, I I hope it starts solvingsome human problems soon.
We have a lot of them, but inthe way of changing training, uh
it's definitely not there yet.
So, in summary, this may not begroundbreaking for some of you
because you listen to thispodcast and I've gone over uh
some of the concepts I have uhthat I have before in previous
podcasts.
(13:17):
But for some others who may nothave had coaches or instruction
allowing them to change thecourse during a workout, it may
come as a big shock.
But I do know that all of usneed to be reminded of this
because all of us are type Aendurance nerds that are short
on time and usually default tobecause my coach said so.
(13:39):
And if you keep on going hardwith bad sleep, high stress, and
high fatigue because the plan orthe coach says so with no
adjustments, then you will notreach your goals.
You'll just get tired and burntout.
Now, if you have a coach or youhave a good program, keep doing
that.
It's better than not.
And I've gone over all thatbefore.
(14:01):
But the next step to all ofthis, the next level to increase
your performance is to haveenough awareness and confidence
to give yourself a bit more onyour good days, to stick to the
plan on normal days, and to dialit down or just go home on the
bad days.
So that's it.
That's our show for today.
(14:22):
If you liked it, I'm stoked.
Share it with a friend or awriting partner, and that helps
to grow the show.
If you have a question yourself,uh just ask me on a group ride,
like Brian does, or head over totrainwrite.com backslash podcast
and click on ask a trainingquestion.
That will get sent directly tome, and I'll do my best to
answer it on a future episode.
(14:42):
Thanks again for listening, andwe'll see you back here next
week for more Time Crunch tips.
Thanks for joining us on theTime Crunch Cyclist Podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
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(15:04):
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Until next time, train hard,train smart, train right.