July 23, 2025 • 21 mins
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Starting Saturday, July 26, CTS will publish daily Tour de France Femmes podcasts with Coaches Adam Pulford and Renee Eastman. They'll recap the stage, but the unique aspect of these podcasts will be coaching insights about how athletes prepare for the demands showcased in that day's stage.
EPISODE OVERVIEW
Respect is a touchy subject, but this is not a touchy-feely, woo-woo episode of the podcast. In true "Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast" fashion, Coach Adam Pulford gives actionable, pragmatic advice on how athletes can change their physical, emotional, and competitive habits to act with greater respect and, in turn, unlock greater performance. When you respect your body, you give it what it needs and pay attention to good and bad days. When you respect your emotions, you gain insights that help you adjust training to align important workouts and performance tests with productive emotional states. And when you respect the competition, you can always feel good about the outcome, win or lose.
RESOURCES
- Placebo Effect:
- Self Talk:
- Golden Rule:
ASK A QUESTION FOR A FUTURE PODCAST
HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, coach AP here.
Before we get into today'sepisode, I wanted to give you a
heads up on a little projectthat CTS coach Renee Eastman and
I will be doing in the comingweek.
It'll be a daily podcastcovering all things Tour de
France Femmes, avec, zwift wherewe'll go over stage, highlights
, tactics from the teams andinsights as to how and why these
(00:22):
women train for a huge racelike this.
We'll also have a section eachday discussing women's specific
training, recovery andphysiology when it comes to
performance at endurance sportand give recommendations to how
non-professional women and mencould apply this to their own
training.
Finally, if we're lucky, we'llcheck in with CTS athlete
(00:44):
Allison Jackson and her team,oatley Education First
Cannondale, to see what's whatas the race goes on.
So be sure to check your feedsdaily, starting Saturday July
26th, for the pod to drop postrace for your daily fix of TDFF,
and we'll do it in the classictime crunched way short, sweet
(01:07):
and to the point.
Now on to our show.
Today's episode will focus onhow to adjust your training
after a bad day, how to managenegative self-talk when it
happens and how to show yourbody, as well as your
competition, the respect itdeserves.
And don't worry, this won't bea woo-woo podcast about abstract
(01:28):
stuff, just some solid adviceafter seeing common mistakes and
patterns from athletes yearafter year.
So let's dive in.
First topic I want to startwith is respect your body.
Most time-crunched athletes Icoach and know demand a lot from
their body.
Their brains are stressed fromwork, their bodies are stressed
(01:51):
on the bike and other things,and they could have slower
recovery as they age, as theytend to their families, the
to-do lists and other duties inlife.
And yes, by the way, brains getfatigued too.
They are part of the body andthere's real fatigue that can
occur with day-to-day life anddemanding tasks.
About brains you can learn moreabout this from a recent
(02:14):
episode from coach Jason Koop.
I'll put it in the show notes.
But there's some interestingstuff when it comes to neural
fatigue or brain fatigue andperformance in athletics.
Now, most amateur athletes whoare crunched on time they are
short on time and they lackrecovery.
Therefore they have morevariability when it comes to
(02:36):
their freshness for training.
So all-time crunched athleteslistening here should scan their
body and read their body dailybefore, during and after a
workout.
This continual scanning withawareness is not to hold you
back but to bring you forwardNow.
One quick way to do this is, ifyou have a hard ride scheduled
(02:58):
for the day and you're feelinglike bad or like how am I
actually feeling today, I don'treally know Use the warmup rule
first and then learn how toadjust.
So that warmup rule and I'vetalked about this on several
podcasts before but if you'renot feeling good, I would still
get on your bike.
Take action before you let anysort of emotion override your
(03:18):
decision not to train.
Okay.
So get on the bike, simply giveyourself time to warm up and
maybe go a little bit longer.
On that warmup, incorporate afew sprints, or what I call
openers, which are ramp up tohard efforts.
They're not maximum, butthey're hard.
And then, once you spin easyafter that, then you can decide
whether you go hard today oryour do your your main intervals
(03:39):
, uh set or anything like that.
If you feel good and normal,proceed.
Proceed with hard intensity.
If not good or still not sure,just ride endurance and move
that hard workout to the nextday or another day later on in
the week.
I'll give you some more protips and hacks on how to adjust
here later on the podcast.
(04:02):
But the next point I want tobring up is be hard on yourself,
but only when needed.
So I'm not saying don't have ahigh bar, but what I am saying
is don't be hard on yourselfwhen you don't need to be.
Not every day will be your bestday and that's okay.
We're humans.
You don't have to crush everysingle workout and when you
(04:25):
don't crush it, don't crushyourself with negative self-talk
.
So let's talk about self-talk.
I tell my athletes this veryoften is you can talk yourself
into and out of most anything.
The placebo effect is real andit's strong, and what that means
is if you believe in a pill ora potion or a protocol that it's
(04:47):
the right thing and will helpyou move forward, you have about
a 50% chance of that beingright, and sometimes higher
depending on kind of what thesituation is.
So pumping yourself up forsomething gives you a higher
likelihood to succeed at it andcan also go the opposite way.
You can pump yourself down andhave a bad day.
(05:08):
We can be our own worst enemyor advocate on any given day or
any given workout, and I'vecited more good reading about
this If you wish to learn moreabout it or if this is shocking
to you and you want to learnmore.
Go into our show notes and linkto some of the self-talk
articles that I have postedthere.
(05:30):
Negative self-talk versuspositive.
Now, I'm not a psychologist,I'm not a sports psychologist,
and if anyone here listening isone of those professions, please
excuse my diluted scientificapproach.
However, I'm.
What I'm saying here isstraight and to the point and
definitely in my lane when itcomes to coaching.
Negative self-talk is anythingthat puts you down, pulls you
(05:51):
down or takes energy away fromyou.
Examples of this include you'resuch an effing idiot.
You mess this up every time, orwhat were you thinking?
You're such a loser, right?
Does that sound common?
Anybody else say that tothemselves?
So this isn't positive, okay.
This only reinforces the errorsthat you're potentially making
(06:12):
and it's not going to help younext time.
Positive self-talk builds you up, it motivates you and it gives
you energy.
So and this isn't even overlypositive, but just like stuff
like you got this or now focusafter you bought something up,
just like now focus, or I meansomething silly, okay, you can
(06:34):
just suck it up, buttercup.
You know when the going getstough.
Sometimes that gives myathletes uh, you know a smile,
because it's kind of a funnysaying.
Right, I wouldn't even say it'snegative, maybe it's positive,
but I think the smile sometimescause it's just, you know, that
kind of classic saying suck itup right, get after it.
That can be more positive andgive you that energy and help
(06:55):
you to focus for the task athand.
We want to use positiveself-talk to get you focused so
that you can achieve that taskat hand and perform better in
your workouts and upcoming races.
Now one quick little tip here is, if you observe negative
self-talk creeping in, I'llencourage you to have a mantra
or emotion, something that youdo that you can deploy to make
(07:18):
it go away.
Something like taking a deepbreath or just doing a slight
smile when you feel thatnegative self-talk creeping in.
I've had athletes say like nottoday, or use a quick mantra
like that, something like stayfocused.
I actually talk about a lotabout mantras with Kate Courtney
(07:39):
in a past episode.
I don't have the episode numberoff the top of my hand, but
I'll link to it in show notes Ifyou want kind of a bigger deep
dive and maybe an eliteathlete's take on how to use
mantras.
It's a good one.
If you missed it, definitelycheck it out Now, when you have
a bad day and all the self-talkin the world didn't work, show
(08:01):
yourself some respect and giveyour mind and body a bit of time
to bounce back and try it again.
Here's an example that I hadfrom last week.
One of my own athletes, terrywe'll just call him Terry he had
a field testing week Okay, sobasically three hard days kind
of spread throughout thefive-day work week where we were
(08:23):
doing maximum efforts.
Okay, 20-minute test was one ofthem and that didn't go well.
I saw some not so positivecomments in training peaks, so I
gave him a call and we talked.
We identified the few mistakesthat he that he made, identified
how to fix them, and then Isaid you know what, we'll try
this again next week.
He had a five minute effortcoming up in a few days and then
(08:44):
we went into the weekend and Iwanted normal training for the
weekend because we need somevolume in there.
So we decided that next weekwould be good for the round
number two for his 20 minutetest.
And guess what?
Terry not only had a better day, but he had a great day.
He absolutely nailed that 20minute test, hitting a peak 20
minute power, all time as amaster's 55 plus athlete and, by
(09:09):
the way, he's at his lowestbody weight in years Now.
He also crushed his five minutetest, by the way, and his
sprints.
So this is a good example thatsometimes we just need a slight
nudge or a slight adjustment toget a great result.
It's usually not some grandioseplan or move or effort that's
(09:30):
needed to correct for thatbehavior or have a great day.
If you have good momentum andgood habits and training week
after week, month after month.
It's just a slight adjustmentthat you need.
Here's another pro tip If yourprogram, your coach or your AI
bot coach calls for a field testand you have a bad day or a bad
(09:52):
test, it doesn't mean that youfailed or that your training has
failed you or that you are afailure.
It means you had a bad day.
Maybe you had a bad route orbad preparations or something
that tripped you up for a shorttime bad preparations or
something that tripped you upfor a short time All you need to
do is gather yourself up,refocus and try it again for a
(10:13):
20 minute test.
Okay, think about this Maybe a90 minute total workout, 20
minute effort If you had a badone on Wednesday, you could go
again the next day.
Okay, that's not outside of therealm of things.
I've done this myself and I'vedone this with my own athletes.
That fatigue maybe you only gotlike 10 minutes through or
(10:34):
something like that the fatiguethat you had shouldn't be enough
to compromise you the next day.
But mentally there's a block.
Okay, and so if you're good atgetting over these mental blocks
, just get a good sleep, goagain the next day.
Your physiology should be ableto handle it.
But for most people I'drecommend a few days to ensure
any fatigue that is in thesystem gets out of the system.
(10:57):
Maybe have a few more goodsleeps and mentally you can wrap
your brain around doing an allout effort again.
Okay.
So you want to minimize lifestress, get good sleep, get rid
of the fatigue and then go afterround two.
So for most people I'drecommend a few days, but just
know you can go again the nextday too, and you should be able
(11:18):
to do that.
So we're really talking aboutadjusting on the fly and, as I
just said about five minutes ago, using the warmup rule is
probably like my best advice.
I can give you right Sometimesyou just need to get the body
going to fully assess it beforeyou make any big uh you know
decisions about to do or not todo the day.
(11:41):
Now here's another piece ofadvice that I give my athletes,
too is think about your trainingas weekly targets, not always
as daily targets.
What I do is I tell my athletesthat here's the plan on
training peaks and here's whatwe want to achieve within the
week.
However you get it done, that'sup to you.
(12:02):
Just bring yourself into thehard days fresh, and if you need
to move things around or takean extra rest day, do it.
Usually, whatever fatigue,stress or mental block was there
, it'll usually go away withproper rest in a day or two.
Now, cultivating awareness inyourself.
(12:23):
I've also peppered this intomany podcasts, but I think it is
something that I'm working withmy athletes daily, because if
you can cultivate that awareness, you can read your body, and
that applies to so many things,but it really applies to being a
good athlete and getting goodresults and good adaptation and
good achievement to our goals.
(12:45):
One of the ways I do this is Iencourage my athletes to reflect
on their workouts To ouraudience right now, to anybody
listening, reflect on yourworkouts daily.
How to do this is step one.
Look at your workout after theride and see how it went In
training peaks there's a reallycool overlay with prescribed
(13:07):
power at intensity or prescribedheart rate and then looking at
how you actually did it.
Okay, this pertains to thequality of the workout session.
Did you do what was prescribed?
How well?
How much time and zone were youable to achieve what was
planned?
Additionally, write in trainingpeaks with comments, things like
how you felt, what wasperceived effort, what were you
(13:28):
thinking?
How did you fuel throughout?
And you'll usually learn moreabout your process and that
process by doing this kind oflike reflected step and you'll
probably learn more than doingthe workout itself, because now
you've slowed down heart heartrates, lower hormones are
different, right, so you canactually learn and reflect a
(13:49):
little bit better.
Additionally, communicate withyour coach, if you have one, uh,
verbally, if you're like averbal sort of person.
Or maybe you talk with yourspouse, if they listen to you,
or talk with your dog, whatever,whatever it works, but have
some sort of reflection processthat you that you can do on a
regular basis and that will go along way in cultivating this
(14:10):
awareness and that processreally only takes like a minute,
maybe two minutes max, and it'sa great bang for the buck when
it comes to kind of learning andin in in, like I said,
cultivating that awareness.
When you reflect, you createawareness, and having increased
awareness will help youdetermine if and how to adjust
(14:31):
for future workouts more quicklyand ultimately give yourself
that respect on days where youneed it most.
Respecting your body andrespecting yourself means giving
a little grace when you need it.
High performance equals highdemands, yes, but we all make
mistakes and we all have baddays, and letting up on the high
demands on those days can makea world of difference when it
(14:54):
comes to your future self'ssuccess.
Now, speaking of respect, thisnext section pertains to
respecting your competition.
If you've been watching the Tourde France over the past few
weeks, you probably saw Tade'scrash on stage 11.
If you didn't, here's a quickversion and recap.
(15:14):
There was a group up the roadand I believe the yellow jersey
was in it.
Ben Healy was in the yellowjersey.
Tade was in a small chase groupjust behind.
Another rider ahead of Tademoved up and to the right he had
like a slight attack.
Tade was on the race radiomaybe and he had a slight
mistake, a touch of wheels.
His front wheel hit the backwheel of another rider and Tade
(15:36):
went down what looked to be apretty hard crash.
But he got up quick.
Neutral sport helped him, puthis chain back on and he was
back up and riding.
Now the yellow jersey and thewhole peloton slowed when Tade
went down so that Tade couldbridge back up and get back in
the race.
Now it seemed like half theinternet and half the world
(15:59):
watching were against this andthe other half was either for it
or neutral or around it.
And it was just a veryinteresting as I was reading
comments, I was havingconversations with athletes and
and and just observing kind ofwhat the commentators were
talking about and it and it justobserved it and it was.
(16:22):
It was fascinating.
I think it was a great momentin sport and it was a great
moment to talk about some ofthis stuff.
But first let's talk about othersports.
I come from a wrestlingbackground where we definitely
exploit weaknesses in that sport, meaning if your competition
gets hurt, you strike hard, orif you watch tape or if you have
(16:43):
competed against an athlete andyou learn that they're, say,
for example, terrible on theirfeet.
You go takedowns with them allday.
You never get on the bottom,you never get on top.
You do whatever it takes to win.
Now, another approach would beto have a move so good no one
can beat you.
There's only a few wrestlers inthe day that really had that.
A few of those were.
And there's only a fewwrestlers in the day that really
(17:03):
had that and a few of thosewere back in my day anyway was
Kale Sanderson, bruceBaumgartner, john Smith, dan
Gable Okay.
Now, tade is definitely like oneof these athletes where he's
got a move or moves where no onecan just compete against it.
Okay, so just an ultracompetitor.
Now, some of the comments andfeedback was like the Peloton
(17:28):
shouldn't have slowed.
If they have an opportunity tostrike, strike, try to beat Tade
.
Okay.
Now, stomping on throats,winning at all costs, kill them
all and let God sort them out,is a thing in some other sports
and some other worldviews, butnot in others.
And I'm not going to say whetherthe yellow Jersey and the
(17:50):
Peloton did what they did waseither good or bad.
I'm simply just going to asksome questions.
What can we learn from it Canyou observe the layeredness of
civility and respect ofcompetition, layeredness of
civility and respect ofcompetition?
Can you see how thecalculations were made with the
view of if we win, we want towin in this certain way, and can
(18:10):
you also see that this wasn'tthe first time that this
happened with these maincompetitors in modern times?
If you can see that, I thinkthat is good Then you can make
your choice of whether this wasgood, bad or other.
Now say what you want about howthey do it in other sports or in
the women's Peloton or wherever, but in my opinion, from the
(18:34):
nuanced layers of tradition,respect and the unwritten rules
of the men's Peloton, we canlearn a hell of a lot of how to
treat one another and ourselves.
The tour is huge.
It's amazing.
It's one of the world's mostcompetitive events of the year.
Okay, but it's not war, it'snot life or death.
(18:57):
The golden rule is a commonthread through many religions,
cultures and generations Do untoothers as you would have them
do unto you.
The men's pro tour pelotonsimply practice this on stage 11
, because it's part of theirculture and, as I said, we can
learn a lot from that.
Whether you agree with it ornot, it's a sign of showing
(19:20):
respect when someone had a badday or a little blip in their
radar, which happens to all ofus from time to time and a
little respect can go a long way.
So we packed a lot into thisepisode and it's time to wrap
things up.
So let's do it with a fewsummary points.
Number one respect your body.
(19:41):
We demand so much of a daily,but with proper rest and
adjustments along the way, liketrying that hard workout in a
few days from now you'll usuallyfind better success.
Use that warmup rule to gaugehow you're feeling on the day
and have a reflective process tounderstand how the workout went
, what you did right, what youdid wrong, and that will improve
(20:03):
your awareness over time tomake better adjustments.
Secondly and finally, rememberthe golden rule, and maybe don't
kick a person when they're down.
That's not how I think mostpeople would want to win or try
to succeed.
But if you do, let's hope thenext time you fuck it up, your
competition ain't wearing theirsteel-toed boots.
(20:23):
That's it.
That's our show for today.
Let all that marinate and Ithink you'll find ways to apply
it to your training, racing andlife.
Thank you, thanks for joiningus on the Time Crunch Cyclist
Podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
If you want even moreactionable training advice, head
(20:44):
over to trainrightcom backslashnewsletter and subscribe to our
free weekly publication.
Each week you'll get in-depthtraining content that goes
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast.
That'll help you take yourtraining to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart, train right.
Hey everyone, coach AP here.
Before we get into today'sepisode, I wanted to give you a
heads up on a little projectthat CTS coach Renee Eastman and
I will be doing in the comingweek.
It'll be a daily podcastcovering all things Tour de
France Femmes, avec, zwift wherewe'll go over stage, highlights
, tactics from the teams andinsights as to how and why these
(00:22):
women train for a huge racelike this.
We'll also have a section eachday discussing women's specific
training, recovery andphysiology when it comes to
performance at endurance sportand give recommendations to how
non-professional women and mencould apply this to their own
training.
Finally, if we're lucky, we'llcheck in with CTS athlete
(00:44):
Allison Jackson and her team,oatley Education First
Cannondale, to see what's whatas the race goes on.
So be sure to check your feedsdaily, starting Saturday July
26th, for the pod to drop postrace for your daily fix of TDFF,
and we'll do it in the classictime crunched way short, sweet
(01:07):
and to the point.
Now on to our show.
Today's episode will focus onhow to adjust your training
after a bad day, how to managenegative self-talk when it
happens and how to show yourbody, as well as your
competition, the respect itdeserves.
And don't worry, this won't bea woo-woo podcast about abstract
(01:28):
stuff, just some solid adviceafter seeing common mistakes and
patterns from athletes yearafter year.
So let's dive in.
First topic I want to startwith is respect your body.
Most time-crunched athletes Icoach and know demand a lot from
their body.
Their brains are stressed fromwork, their bodies are stressed
(01:51):
on the bike and other things,and they could have slower
recovery as they age, as theytend to their families, the
to-do lists and other duties inlife.
And yes, by the way, brains getfatigued too.
They are part of the body andthere's real fatigue that can
occur with day-to-day life anddemanding tasks.
About brains you can learn moreabout this from a recent
(02:14):
episode from coach Jason Koop.
I'll put it in the show notes.
But there's some interestingstuff when it comes to neural
fatigue or brain fatigue andperformance in athletics.
Now, most amateur athletes whoare crunched on time they are
short on time and they lackrecovery.
Therefore they have morevariability when it comes to
(02:36):
their freshness for training.
So all-time crunched athleteslistening here should scan their
body and read their body dailybefore, during and after a
workout.
This continual scanning withawareness is not to hold you
back but to bring you forwardNow.
One quick way to do this is, ifyou have a hard ride scheduled
(02:58):
for the day and you're feelinglike bad or like how am I
actually feeling today, I don'treally know Use the warmup rule
first and then learn how toadjust.
So that warmup rule and I'vetalked about this on several
podcasts before but if you'renot feeling good, I would still
get on your bike.
Take action before you let anysort of emotion override your
(03:18):
decision not to train.
Okay.
So get on the bike, simply giveyourself time to warm up and
maybe go a little bit longer.
On that warmup, incorporate afew sprints, or what I call
openers, which are ramp up tohard efforts.
They're not maximum, butthey're hard.
And then, once you spin easyafter that, then you can decide
whether you go hard today oryour do your your main intervals
(03:39):
, uh set or anything like that.
If you feel good and normal,proceed.
Proceed with hard intensity.
If not good or still not sure,just ride endurance and move
that hard workout to the nextday or another day later on in
the week.
I'll give you some more protips and hacks on how to adjust
here later on the podcast.
(04:02):
But the next point I want tobring up is be hard on yourself,
but only when needed.
So I'm not saying don't have ahigh bar, but what I am saying
is don't be hard on yourselfwhen you don't need to be.
Not every day will be your bestday and that's okay.
We're humans.
You don't have to crush everysingle workout and when you
(04:25):
don't crush it, don't crushyourself with negative self-talk
.
So let's talk about self-talk.
I tell my athletes this veryoften is you can talk yourself
into and out of most anything.
The placebo effect is real andit's strong, and what that means
is if you believe in a pill ora potion or a protocol that it's
(04:47):
the right thing and will helpyou move forward, you have about
a 50% chance of that beingright, and sometimes higher
depending on kind of what thesituation is.
So pumping yourself up forsomething gives you a higher
likelihood to succeed at it andcan also go the opposite way.
You can pump yourself down andhave a bad day.
(05:08):
We can be our own worst enemyor advocate on any given day or
any given workout, and I'vecited more good reading about
this If you wish to learn moreabout it or if this is shocking
to you and you want to learnmore.
Go into our show notes and linkto some of the self-talk
articles that I have postedthere.
(05:30):
Negative self-talk versuspositive.
Now, I'm not a psychologist,I'm not a sports psychologist,
and if anyone here listening isone of those professions, please
excuse my diluted scientificapproach.
However, I'm.
What I'm saying here isstraight and to the point and
definitely in my lane when itcomes to coaching.
Negative self-talk is anythingthat puts you down, pulls you
(05:51):
down or takes energy away fromyou.
Examples of this include you'resuch an effing idiot.
You mess this up every time, orwhat were you thinking?
You're such a loser, right?
Does that sound common?
Anybody else say that tothemselves?
So this isn't positive, okay.
This only reinforces the errorsthat you're potentially making
(06:12):
and it's not going to help younext time.
Positive self-talk builds you up, it motivates you and it gives
you energy.
So and this isn't even overlypositive, but just like stuff
like you got this or now focusafter you bought something up,
just like now focus, or I meansomething silly, okay, you can
(06:34):
just suck it up, buttercup.
You know when the going getstough.
Sometimes that gives myathletes uh, you know a smile,
because it's kind of a funnysaying.
Right, I wouldn't even say it'snegative, maybe it's positive,
but I think the smile sometimescause it's just, you know, that
kind of classic saying suck itup right, get after it.
That can be more positive andgive you that energy and help
(06:55):
you to focus for the task athand.
We want to use positiveself-talk to get you focused so
that you can achieve that taskat hand and perform better in
your workouts and upcoming races.
Now one quick little tip here is, if you observe negative
self-talk creeping in, I'llencourage you to have a mantra
or emotion, something that youdo that you can deploy to make
(07:18):
it go away.
Something like taking a deepbreath or just doing a slight
smile when you feel thatnegative self-talk creeping in.
I've had athletes say like nottoday, or use a quick mantra
like that, something like stayfocused.
I actually talk about a lotabout mantras with Kate Courtney
(07:39):
in a past episode.
I don't have the episode numberoff the top of my hand, but
I'll link to it in show notes Ifyou want kind of a bigger deep
dive and maybe an eliteathlete's take on how to use
mantras.
It's a good one.
If you missed it, definitelycheck it out Now, when you have
a bad day and all the self-talkin the world didn't work, show
(08:01):
yourself some respect and giveyour mind and body a bit of time
to bounce back and try it again.
Here's an example that I hadfrom last week.
One of my own athletes, terrywe'll just call him Terry he had
a field testing week Okay, sobasically three hard days kind
of spread throughout thefive-day work week where we were
(08:23):
doing maximum efforts.
Okay, 20-minute test was one ofthem and that didn't go well.
I saw some not so positivecomments in training peaks, so I
gave him a call and we talked.
We identified the few mistakesthat he that he made, identified
how to fix them, and then Isaid you know what, we'll try
this again next week.
He had a five minute effortcoming up in a few days and then
(08:44):
we went into the weekend and Iwanted normal training for the
weekend because we need somevolume in there.
So we decided that next weekwould be good for the round
number two for his 20 minutetest.
And guess what?
Terry not only had a better day, but he had a great day.
He absolutely nailed that 20minute test, hitting a peak 20
minute power, all time as amaster's 55 plus athlete and, by
(09:09):
the way, he's at his lowestbody weight in years Now.
He also crushed his five minutetest, by the way, and his
sprints.
So this is a good example thatsometimes we just need a slight
nudge or a slight adjustment toget a great result.
It's usually not some grandioseplan or move or effort that's
(09:30):
needed to correct for thatbehavior or have a great day.
If you have good momentum andgood habits and training week
after week, month after month.
It's just a slight adjustmentthat you need.
Here's another pro tip If yourprogram, your coach or your AI
bot coach calls for a field testand you have a bad day or a bad
(09:52):
test, it doesn't mean that youfailed or that your training has
failed you or that you are afailure.
It means you had a bad day.
Maybe you had a bad route orbad preparations or something
that tripped you up for a shorttime bad preparations or
something that tripped you upfor a short time All you need to
do is gather yourself up,refocus and try it again for a
(10:13):
20 minute test.
Okay, think about this Maybe a90 minute total workout, 20
minute effort If you had a badone on Wednesday, you could go
again the next day.
Okay, that's not outside of therealm of things.
I've done this myself and I'vedone this with my own athletes.
That fatigue maybe you only gotlike 10 minutes through or
(10:34):
something like that the fatiguethat you had shouldn't be enough
to compromise you the next day.
But mentally there's a block.
Okay, and so if you're good atgetting over these mental blocks
, just get a good sleep, goagain the next day.
Your physiology should be ableto handle it.
But for most people I'drecommend a few days to ensure
any fatigue that is in thesystem gets out of the system.
(10:57):
Maybe have a few more goodsleeps and mentally you can wrap
your brain around doing an allout effort again.
Okay.
So you want to minimize lifestress, get good sleep, get rid
of the fatigue and then go afterround two.
So for most people I'drecommend a few days, but just
know you can go again the nextday too, and you should be able
(11:18):
to do that.
So we're really talking aboutadjusting on the fly and, as I
just said about five minutes ago, using the warmup rule is
probably like my best advice.
I can give you right Sometimesyou just need to get the body
going to fully assess it beforeyou make any big uh you know
decisions about to do or not todo the day.
(11:41):
Now here's another piece ofadvice that I give my athletes,
too is think about your trainingas weekly targets, not always
as daily targets.
What I do is I tell my athletesthat here's the plan on
training peaks and here's whatwe want to achieve within the
week.
However you get it done, that'sup to you.
(12:02):
Just bring yourself into thehard days fresh, and if you need
to move things around or takean extra rest day, do it.
Usually, whatever fatigue,stress or mental block was there
, it'll usually go away withproper rest in a day or two.
Now, cultivating awareness inyourself.
(12:23):
I've also peppered this intomany podcasts, but I think it is
something that I'm working withmy athletes daily, because if
you can cultivate that awareness, you can read your body, and
that applies to so many things,but it really applies to being a
good athlete and getting goodresults and good adaptation and
good achievement to our goals.
(12:45):
One of the ways I do this is Iencourage my athletes to reflect
on their workouts To ouraudience right now, to anybody
listening, reflect on yourworkouts daily.
How to do this is step one.
Look at your workout after theride and see how it went In
training peaks there's a reallycool overlay with prescribed
(13:07):
power at intensity or prescribedheart rate and then looking at
how you actually did it.
Okay, this pertains to thequality of the workout session.
Did you do what was prescribed?
How well?
How much time and zone were youable to achieve what was
planned?
Additionally, write in trainingpeaks with comments, things like
how you felt, what wasperceived effort, what were you
(13:28):
thinking?
How did you fuel throughout?
And you'll usually learn moreabout your process and that
process by doing this kind oflike reflected step and you'll
probably learn more than doingthe workout itself, because now
you've slowed down heart heartrates, lower hormones are
different, right, so you canactually learn and reflect a
(13:49):
little bit better.
Additionally, communicate withyour coach, if you have one, uh,
verbally, if you're like averbal sort of person.
Or maybe you talk with yourspouse, if they listen to you,
or talk with your dog, whatever,whatever it works, but have
some sort of reflection processthat you that you can do on a
regular basis and that will go along way in cultivating this
(14:10):
awareness and that processreally only takes like a minute,
maybe two minutes max, and it'sa great bang for the buck when
it comes to kind of learning andin in in, like I said,
cultivating that awareness.
When you reflect, you createawareness, and having increased
awareness will help youdetermine if and how to adjust
(14:31):
for future workouts more quicklyand ultimately give yourself
that respect on days where youneed it most.
Respecting your body andrespecting yourself means giving
a little grace when you need it.
High performance equals highdemands, yes, but we all make
mistakes and we all have baddays, and letting up on the high
demands on those days can makea world of difference when it
(14:54):
comes to your future self'ssuccess.
Now, speaking of respect, thisnext section pertains to
respecting your competition.
If you've been watching the Tourde France over the past few
weeks, you probably saw Tade'scrash on stage 11.
If you didn't, here's a quickversion and recap.
(15:14):
There was a group up the roadand I believe the yellow jersey
was in it.
Ben Healy was in the yellowjersey.
Tade was in a small chase groupjust behind.
Another rider ahead of Tademoved up and to the right he had
like a slight attack.
Tade was on the race radiomaybe and he had a slight
mistake, a touch of wheels.
His front wheel hit the backwheel of another rider and Tade
(15:36):
went down what looked to be apretty hard crash.
But he got up quick.
Neutral sport helped him, puthis chain back on and he was
back up and riding.
Now the yellow jersey and thewhole peloton slowed when Tade
went down so that Tade couldbridge back up and get back in
the race.
Now it seemed like half theinternet and half the world
(15:59):
watching were against this andthe other half was either for it
or neutral or around it.
And it was just a veryinteresting as I was reading
comments, I was havingconversations with athletes and
and and just observing kind ofwhat the commentators were
talking about and it and it justobserved it and it was.
(16:22):
It was fascinating.
I think it was a great momentin sport and it was a great
moment to talk about some ofthis stuff.
But first let's talk about othersports.
I come from a wrestlingbackground where we definitely
exploit weaknesses in that sport, meaning if your competition
gets hurt, you strike hard, orif you watch tape or if you have
(16:43):
competed against an athlete andyou learn that they're, say,
for example, terrible on theirfeet.
You go takedowns with them allday.
You never get on the bottom,you never get on top.
You do whatever it takes to win.
Now, another approach would beto have a move so good no one
can beat you.
There's only a few wrestlers inthe day that really had that.
A few of those were.
And there's only a fewwrestlers in the day that really
(17:03):
had that and a few of thosewere back in my day anyway was
Kale Sanderson, bruceBaumgartner, john Smith, dan
Gable Okay.
Now, tade is definitely like oneof these athletes where he's
got a move or moves where no onecan just compete against it.
Okay, so just an ultracompetitor.
Now, some of the comments andfeedback was like the Peloton
(17:28):
shouldn't have slowed.
If they have an opportunity tostrike, strike, try to beat Tade
.
Okay.
Now, stomping on throats,winning at all costs, kill them
all and let God sort them out,is a thing in some other sports
and some other worldviews, butnot in others.
And I'm not going to say whetherthe yellow Jersey and the
(17:50):
Peloton did what they did waseither good or bad.
I'm simply just going to asksome questions.
What can we learn from it Canyou observe the layeredness of
civility and respect ofcompetition, layeredness of
civility and respect ofcompetition?
Can you see how thecalculations were made with the
view of if we win, we want towin in this certain way, and can
(18:10):
you also see that this wasn'tthe first time that this
happened with these maincompetitors in modern times?
If you can see that, I thinkthat is good Then you can make
your choice of whether this wasgood, bad or other.
Now say what you want about howthey do it in other sports or in
the women's Peloton or wherever, but in my opinion, from the
(18:34):
nuanced layers of tradition,respect and the unwritten rules
of the men's Peloton, we canlearn a hell of a lot of how to
treat one another and ourselves.
The tour is huge.
It's amazing.
It's one of the world's mostcompetitive events of the year.
Okay, but it's not war, it'snot life or death.
(18:57):
The golden rule is a commonthread through many religions,
cultures and generations Do untoothers as you would have them
do unto you.
The men's pro tour pelotonsimply practice this on stage 11
, because it's part of theirculture and, as I said, we can
learn a lot from that.
Whether you agree with it ornot, it's a sign of showing
(19:20):
respect when someone had a badday or a little blip in their
radar, which happens to all ofus from time to time and a
little respect can go a long way.
So we packed a lot into thisepisode and it's time to wrap
things up.
So let's do it with a fewsummary points.
Number one respect your body.
(19:41):
We demand so much of a daily,but with proper rest and
adjustments along the way, liketrying that hard workout in a
few days from now you'll usuallyfind better success.
Use that warmup rule to gaugehow you're feeling on the day
and have a reflective process tounderstand how the workout went
, what you did right, what youdid wrong, and that will improve
(20:03):
your awareness over time tomake better adjustments.
Secondly and finally, rememberthe golden rule, and maybe don't
kick a person when they're down.
That's not how I think mostpeople would want to win or try
to succeed.
But if you do, let's hope thenext time you fuck it up, your
competition ain't wearing theirsteel-toed boots.
(20:23):
That's it.
That's our show for today.
Let all that marinate and Ithink you'll find ways to apply
it to your training, racing andlife.
Thank you, thanks for joiningus on the Time Crunch Cyclist
Podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
If you want even moreactionable training advice, head
(20:44):
over to trainrightcom backslashnewsletter and subscribe to our
free weekly publication.
Each week you'll get in-depthtraining content that goes
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast.
That'll help you take yourtraining to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart, train right.
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