We all make mistakes. No one trains and races perfectly, which can be frustrating when so often those mistakes are made out of honest effort and a desire to perform at our best. But we have a choice in how we treat our mistakes. One way is to get frustrated and beat up on ourselves. The other is to realize that admitting when we make mistakes is an opportunity to improve and be a better athlete.
With that second perspective in mind, today we’re going to talk about some of the most common mistakes that we see in athletes—even pros. And we’re going to hear from a variety of athletes, coaches, and experts who have been around the block a few times. They know all the mistakes, but more importantly they know what to do about them. A few of the things we will talk about:
- The one thing that almost all of our guests said was the biggest mistake – hint, don’t try too hard to figure it out.
- Being coachable, or more generally being willing to listen, know yourself, and identify your mistakes
- Warm-ups and cool-downs—they can have a big impact if done right, and also if done wrong
- Nutrition—though you may be surprised by what our guests say is the biggest mistake
- Too much intensity—do you really think Coach Connor and I were going to have an episode about mistakes and not bring that one up.
- Bike fit and biomechanical mistakes—one of our guests today is Dr. Andy Pruitt who has made a very successful career of helping athletes find success by fixing these often-overlooked mistakes.
- Racing mistakes and why one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to never risk making mistakes.
- And finally, we’ll talk about a more philosophical mistake—not knowing when to move on.
Our primary guests today are Dr. Andy Pruitt and Frankie Andreu. By now, you should know who Dr. Pruitt is, one of the foremost experts on cycling ergonomics and medical issues in athletes. Frankie Andreu was a longtime professional, a mentor to many, a team manager and director, a race commentator, and a legend in the sport. Along with our two primary guests, we checked in with several other respected experts including Joe Friel, author of the “The Cyclist’s Training Bible” which was recently updated. Joe has coached over a thousand athletes in his career and has seen it all. So we had to ask him what he thinks are the biggest mistakes athletes make.
We also speak with Jared Berg, who’s the head physiologist at the University of Colorado Sports Medicine and Performance Center. One of the issues with making mistakes is we can often convince ourselves that it doesn’t actually affect us. But you can’t fool the physiology and Jared sees that inescapable truth every day.
Next, we pulled in an old interview with Grant Holicky, formerly of Apex Coaching with Neal Henderson and now with Forever Endurance, who talks about a mistake that we love to harp on—training in moderato. Finally, Trevor touches base with Houshang Amiri, a former Canadian National and Olympic team coach who’s worked with many of the best cyclists in Canada. Like Joe Friel, Houshang has seen it all and had some interesting insights on the importance of being prepared. Now, remember that practice makes perfect. I swear we never mess up in this episode. So let’s make you fast!
Primary Guests Andy Pruitt: One of the foremost experts on cycling ergonomics and medical issues in athletes Frankie Andreu: Longtime professional, a mentor to many, a team manager and director, and race commentator
Secondary Guests Joe Friel: Author of “The Cyclist’s Training Bible” Jared Berg: Head physiologist at the University of Colorado Sports Medicine and Performance Center Grant Holicky: Coach at Forever Endurance Houshang Amiri: Former Canadian National and Olympic team coach
Episode Transcript
00:00
Welcome to Fast Talk developer news podcast and everything you need to know to run like a pro.
00:19
Awesome. We’re sitting here on Trevor’s almost porch on a beautiful day in Colorado.
Chris Case 00:30
Hello, and welcome to Fast Talk. I’m your host Chris case managing editor of velonews joined by Coach Trevor Connor, man who is quite frankly, perfect. We all May. Maybe not okay. Today’s episode is all about mistakes. No one trains perfectly no one races perfectly, which can be frustrating when so often those mistakes are made out of honest effort and a desire to perform at our best. But we have a choice in how we treat our mistakes. One way is to get frustrated and beat up on ourselves. The other is to realize that admitting when we make a mistake is an opportunity to improve and become a better athlete. With that second perspective in mind, today, we’re going to talk about some of the most common mistakes that we see in athletes, even pros. And we’re going to hear from a variety of athletes, coaches and experts who’ve been around the block a few times. They know all the mistakes, but more importantly, they know what to do about them. We’d like to say that there’s a clear structure and outline to this one. But the truth is, we started talking about the mistakes with our guests. And we ended up going all over the map from warm ups to bike fitting to why max testa is a fun guy to work with was fun conversation. There are a lot of good stories. And hopefully in here, you’ll find a few aha moments about what you can do to be a better cyclist. A few of the things we talked about. First, the one thing that almost all of our guests said was the biggest mistake hint, Don’t try too hard to figure it out. Number two being coachable. Or more generally being willing to listen, Know yourself and identify your mistakes. Number three warm ups and cooldowns they can have a big impact if done right. And also if done wrong. Number four nutrition. Though you may be surprised by what our guests say is the biggest mistake number five, too much intensity. Do you really think coach Connor and I were going to have an episode about mistakes and not bring that one up? Number six, bike fit and biomechanical mistakes. One of our guests today is Dr. Andy Pruitt, who has made a very successful career of helping athletes find success by fixing these often overlooked mistakes. Number seven, racing mistakes and why one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to never risk making mistakes. And finally, we’ll talk about a more philosophical mistake not knowing when to move on. Our primary guest today are Dr. Andy Pruitt and Frankie Andrew, by now you should know very well. Dr. Pruitt is one of the foremost experts on cycling, ergonomics and medical issues in athletes. Frankie and Dre, of course, was a longtime professional rider, a mentor to many a team manager, a race commentator, and honestly somewhat of a legend in the sport. Along with our two primary guests, we checked in with several other respected experts, including Joe Friel, author of this cyclist training Bible, which was recently updated. Joe has coached over 1000 athletes in his career and has seen it all so we had asked him what he thinks are the biggest mistakes athletes make. We also speak with Jerry Berg, the head physiologist at the University of Colorado sports medicine and Performance Center right here in Boulder. One of the issues with making mistakes is we often convince ourselves that it doesn’t actually affect us, but you can’t fool the physiology and Jared sees the inescapable truth of that every day. Next, we pulled in an old interview with grant Holliday, formerly of Apex coaching with Neil Henderson and now with forever endurance, who talks about a mistake that we love to harp on trading in Morocco. Finally, Trevor touches base with houzhang emiri, former Canadian national and Olympic team coach who’s worked with many of the best cyclists in Canada, like Joe Friel, he’s seen it all and had some interesting insights on the importance of being prepared. Now, remember that practice makes perfect. I swear we never mess up in this entire episode. So let’s make you fast.
Chris Case 04:38
Today’s episode is brought to you by whoop. Well, you all know out there that Trevor is the real nerd on this show. He looks at the numbers. I know not so much a numbers guy, but I do like insights. That’s kind of a cool thing about whoop for me is that it takes all of these numbers and if you’re really interested in the raw data, you can see that but if you really want just the insights to The take home message, if you will, gives you that too.
Trevor Connor 05:04
Yeah, that’s what’s really nice, you know, I can look at my athletes whoop score or data and really dig in to see what’s going on with them. But for the athlete who doesn’t want all that data like Chris, you can just look at what it’s recommended. You can look at your recovery score in the morning and say, it’s time to go hard or it’s time to take a rest and you don’t have to do that deep analysis.
Chris Case 05:27
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Chris Case 06:48
Alright, well today’s episode I’m really excited about we’ve got two legends to gurus of the sport of cycling. Two good storytellers, Dr. Andy Pruitt and Frankie Andrew, both so experienced in the sport. Thank you guys for joining us today.
07:05
But
07:06
yeah, my pleasure. Glad to be here.
Trevor Connor 07:08
Great to have you on the show.
Chris Case 07:10
So today’s episode, of course, is the top mistakes that even pros make and I know you guys have seen it from various perspectives as writers, as managers, as consultants as from from a fit perspective, from an athlete perspective from all angles. So that’s what our conversation we’d like it to be about today so that everybody out there can learn from these mistakes that even pros me.
Trevor Connor 07:38
So why don’t we start off with the big category we’ve kind of broken this down into training, equipment racing. But I think training is the one that we often hear from listeners hear from people as coaches see things that we say let’s let’s talk about this. Let’s let’s try to fix this. So Dr. Pruitt, you had a few things as soon as we asked you if you could be on the show, you sent us a good list of things. You would love to see people adjust so why don’t you start us off? what’s what’s your biggest training mistake?
08:08
Now? I’d love Frankie’s comment on this but i i see it all the time and at almost every level. And that is that success breeds overtraining. You win a race, you suddenly think you got to keep that level forever through the whole season. And overtraining sets in disease sets in and it’s usually based on some big success that drives you to to overtrain and I’ve seen it at every level I’ve seen favorite guy Lance do it I’ve seen Elsa tetrick current Queen of gravel do it I’ve seen my own son Scott, do it. I’ve done it right. I mean it. The last question on this list is, you know, what’s what, what’s the one mistake I’d like to go back and fix. And I was so overtrained for the my Paralympic appearance in 1988. I was so overcooked, I couldn’t get out of my own way a month before that, however, I could do anything I wanted to do. And it’s that recognizing that moment when you’ve got the cat by the tail, and being able to back off and maintain it, right. So it’s a totally training error, but it’s also hugely psychological, right? success breeds overtraining. Frankie, what do you think?
09:17
No, I agree. You know, when you when you brought this subject forward, the first thing came into my mind, his biggest mistake is overtraining. Rest is the most important part of any training plan. And it’s very hard to get any cyclist or any professional to kind of ingest to to believe. And so, when you’re doing so many races, if you’re doing a lot of stages, like the tour, you tend to get into a state of overtraining. But just when you’re out training, getting ready for events, you’re always thinking about what the other guy is doing. You’re always thinking about trying to do more and it catches up with you and you end up digging yourself into a hole and instead of building, you’re tearing yourself down and I’ve seen it happen many times when I was director with the writers that they they get caught up into the training. And as you had mentioned, Dr. Pruitt, you know that success, they just want to, you know, things are going great. So if I do more, it’s going to go even better, and then it ends up backfiring on everybody.
10:11
But you know, at the tour, everybody’s in the same state of overtraining. So there’s a fairly level playing field after the first week. Is that not right?
10:19
No, it is right. And you know, one of the key things with leading into a big long race is like making sure you’re extremely rested, going into that event. And so I would definitely take, you know, a week of rest leading in, even to the fact of maybe losing some fitness to make sure that I’m as rested as possible so that when I start, I can, you know, perform well. And, you know, in my own experience, I found like a sign for me when I was overtrained is that I couldn’t dig deep, I couldn’t suffer. I couldn’t like cold that threshold of just like, you know, hanging on, hang on, hang on, I could suffer for a little bit, and then my legs would completely blow up. And it would happen, you know, relatively quickly. And so it took me years to be able to figure it out. And that’s, that’s another thing is just you know about learning your body, looking for those signs that are indications like hey, something’s not right here. And when I couldn’t like dig in and really suffer, even from a criterium to a road race to on a mountain, I knew I knew things were in trouble, and I needed to rest and that and again, you know, to tell someone to say you need to take a week off, you need to take a week and a half off and rest. It just they don’t listen, it doesn’t make sense. They just they want to play a game of catch up. And so it becomes very difficult. And I see that a lot of times also with my riders when they crash and they get injured. And they’re so they’re, you know, they’re off their bike for a week or whatever, trying to recover. And then all of a sudden, they’re like, Alright, I’m feeling good again. And they just jump in and they go full bore and they just dig themselves into a hole instead of gradually kind of building up that training. So
11:46
prank. Most of the listeners of this are not cat ones or bros or two writers. And right now that the new granfondo thing, the gravel thing, even how route
12:02
which is more of a stage race platform, right for that for the amateur, how do you suggest that they peak for one day race like nationals or a one day big, grand fondo in your neighborhood versus signing up for a multi day? suffer fast? I mean, so the way the amateur needs to peak arrest for those is different. What do you suggest? Well,
12:24
I mean, I don’t see much difference in getting ready for a one day or getting ready for a three day, I mean, a three day it’s a little bit more. So I mean, you know, you might need a couple more days of rest, leading into a three-day event. Another common mistake, I mean, not changing subjects. But on the same note is something that it took me a while to realize is that a big mistake I find for a lot of writers is taking a complete rest day, the day before the event, they think they’re going to come into the event and feeling a lot better. And what I found with my writers is that you end up not feeling good. It’s like your body forgot, like your body goes into shutdown mode, it goes into rest mode. And so the next day on your race day or your event day, you don’t feel that good. And I find, you know, it’s better to take you know, three days of rest. Let’s just say it was a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, do a couple hours. And if you’re racing on Sunday, Saturday, do a couple intervals something short to kind of get your body like to open itself up to kind of re awake like, Hey, we’re still going so that when you get to event day, you actually still feel good. And I see this applies. I think like you mentioned, it doesn’t matter if you’re a pro a cat one, a cat three, or just beginning, all of this applies to everybody. And I think if you’re leading into an event or some don’t take a complete day off the day before an event that would be one advice that I would have for anyone.
Trevor Connor 13:36
I actually saw a great study on this where they looked at Olympic medalists in multiple endurance sports, how they prepped for their big event. And what they found was a week before. So starting about 14 days out from the event that week, you would see most of these athletes take a rest day, often multiple rest days, but that sit 567 days before their actual event. They would not take a single day off. Some of those days would be very easy, but they would never just take a full day
14:05
off. It’s not just cardiovascular either. The musculoskeletal system doesn’t necessarily like that complete time off the musculotendinous units and all those things. They become a customer they become flexible. They become accustomed to taking nutrients in and then titrating them out. So it’s not just cardiovascular it’s also musculoskeletal the need for keeping the motor open.
14:28
I was gonna say I didn’t I didn’t know the reason why. I just know that if I took the day off before I was horrible the next day and so if you make that you make that mistake, you make that mistake once you make that mistake twice. It’s like alright, if I figured it out, I’m listening to my body. It’s like look, I need to ride leading up to the event that doesn’t be super long. It doesn’t have to be super intense, but I need to keep moving.
Trevor Connor 14:50
Joe Friel author the cyclist training Bible has probably worked with over 1000 athletes in his career. So we thought he’d have a great insight into mistakes writers make. We couldn’t help notice is number one mistake seems an awful lot like Dr. Pruitt’s and Frankie and rails. What are some of the big training mistakes that you see athletes make that even the pros make?
Joe Friel 15:10
Yeah, I’ve seen this happen with pros, the most common mistake I see is the athlete coming concerned that they’ve got to make a lot of gains in a short period of time fitness wise, for race for an upcoming race. And so they decided the best way to do that is to cut out recovery days and recovery weeks or breaks from training. And so they started churning with very, very high intensity, very long duration workouts or of the race calls for without getting cells a break frequently enough. And they wind up, overtrained. I know of one pro triathlete for example, that happened to him back in the late 90s is one of the best pro triathletes in the US. And he basically decided to do that. And by the end of, or something like about 10 weeks or so eight to 10 weeks, he was completely overtrained. And it really was the end of his career that that kind of finished him off it was and I see it done by people at all levels. They think somehow they’re unique and they can get by without restaurants. And so they just keep pushing the envelope and eventually the body falls apart.
Trevor Connor 16:12
Good answer. Great. Let’s get back to the show and talk about another area of common mistakes the warm up and cool down
16:18
well if you’re getting ready for a time trial that’s a common mistake is doing too much warming up too much you know especially if it’s hot out write down a turbo trainer for 45 minutes you just overcooking your system and then you get out into the title and the heat of the day and you don’t perform very well because you know it’s just did too much the core temperature just went up too much and you weren’t able to all too much intervals. Me mainly I see at least on the professional side is the time trials where the warm up really becomes a factor too much intensity or trying to do when it’s hot out of just too much time on the turbo trainer and meet for myself I was always a big fan of actually going out on the road when I could I always preferred warming up on the road going out riding turning the legs being able to adjust to do you know some sprints or some intervals and then coming back with enough time to be able to kind of relax and cool down cool down the body a little bit before I went out on a tightrope ’cause in a road races right we never warmed up we never had to deal with that. That really wasn’t a factor
Trevor Connor 17:16
of all the articles I’ve ever written I wrote a piece on warm ups that was the one where I read the research and said wow that is just completely against with what I thought I was one of those people I made the mistake of doing the hour and a half warm up for a time trial where I basically did a time trial and pretty universally This is pretty universal the research said you know 1520 minutes at the most couple Sprint’s that’s it
Chris Case 17:42
yeah that’s all you need very counter to what a lot of people do I’d say the majority of people do so yeah that was eye opening.
17:49
What about cool down Frankie you know, on TV see the the reporter trying to interview the stage winner and he’s on his trainer is still panting away. I think a bit of this is fad right now these long trainer cooldowns after a six hour road race I’m not sure the physiology Yeah,
18:09
it’s a little bit different but going back real quick to warm up I want to add also personally and when I was a manager I’d make my riders do this it’s normally you know time travel sometimes they’re in the afternoon and if it’s in a day and no for me the best warm up though is I would go out and ride in the morning for an hour and a half then come back get something to eat and then like then come back for the time trial do like 20 minutes on the trainer and then and then go and whenever I rode in the morning whenever I’d have my guys they would ride in the morning and then they would always prefer perform better in that time trial compared to when they did it right did not right in the morning. They decided to take the whole morning off sitting around watching TV and then just do the time trial and so that’s something else for anybody you know competing in a time trial to to consider the cooldown thing drove me nuts because as a reporter when I was working for the TV thing you got to go up to talk to somebody you just got done riding for six hours like oh wait I got to get on the train I’m like my god you just wrote for six hours I can see the idea flushing the legs and kind of you know getting some of that lactic acid out and kind of being able to relax a little bit on the trainer but that was the whole idea of getting a massage you know at the end of the night which which helped accomplish a lot of that and they still do get massages at the end of the night. So I think it’s just it’s just one more step for a lot of the riders to take away any doubt maybe just to kind of just kind of I have no doubt it would make the legs feel you know better during the hour transfer after after an event. How much it makes a difference from day by day you know I’m not really sure but it drove when I was media trying to interview these guys and having to set up the turbo trainer. I remember to Lansky finishing some some D finish a time trial, a time trial or something like that. And when he got done he was immediately I don’t know why it was a point to point and the swine year was there this one year had a trainer but there was no one there to set up the trainer for him and all he was possessed all he was thinking about was like I got To get on the trainer, I got to get on the trainer. So I opened up the trainer, I took his bike, I put it on the trainer form, I let him get on there, and then I could interview.
Trevor Connor 20:07
So I am not convinced by this. And I read multiple studies that compared having people do a race, immediately get off the bike, versus do a race and and get a 1530 minutes, you know, just easy cool down. And in every study, the people who just immediately got off the bike, the markers of recovery were better than next day. Which I’m still trying to wrap my head around. But basically the study said, cool down actually hurt you doesn’t know. Yeah, interesting.
20:36
Yeah, it’s that that sounds almost counterintuitive, because I would think if you’re not a pro, if you’re not a pro, and you’re not getting a massage, because I think the massage makes a big, big difference. I would think if you get done with a hard, hard crit, and you have multiple day criteriums or multiple day road races, I think, you know, spinning around for five or 10 minutes to kind of help flush the legs, because you’re not going to get a massage later on. I would think that that that would help. And so yeah, very surprised to hear that. Look, I
Trevor Connor 20:59
read the research. That’s what the research says I still tell my athletes to do go down. I just can’t wrap my head around.
21:06
Well, what about compression? Right? So there is no evidence that compression hose compression boots. There’s no scientific evidence that supported us. However,
21:17
that’s not true.
21:18
Okay, then you’ve done I need to see it.
Trevor Connor 21:20
Yeah, I will send it so I two pieces on recovery. And I hated these pieces. Because everything I said to do for recovery, the evidence was in there. The only thing that consistently came up and this is very recent research, okay, as having recovery benefit, less compression?
21:34
Well, I’m glad to hear because in medicine be
Chris Case 21:37
tight, and it can’t just be like Wright’s socks. You know,
21:41
in medicine, we’ve been using compression boots, post surgery, right? A long time. Yes. And there was no science to support it. But But we knew the chance of DVT was significantly reduced with these boots. So I’ve always supported even the hose the tights. And now the recovery boosts I think crucial. Like Like Frankie says that the amateurs not going to go get a massage. But right, you know, you pay 1000 bucks for a pair of these boots. And that’s 10 massages, and you’ve broken even, right, yeah,
Trevor Connor 22:16
so I love this because that was the conclusion of the article I literally just sent to Chris, that we were talking about the immune system say a lot of these recovery techniques, the issues with them, or that they try to reduce inflammation, but we need inflammation to do the muscle repair. So you don’t want to block inflammation. That’s why you shouldn’t be taking painkillers after a hard drive. But there is evidence that compression so when I’m talking about compression, that also includes massage, compression actually aids the immune system strangely, and I still haven’t seen any explanation of this. But without the impression you see a great arise and things like aisle six, and yeah, I don’t use it ever, you see much more damaging highly inflammatory cytokines. Without the compression. When you have the compression on the massage, you see more of the the sort of cytokines that are going to promote the repair process. Right.
23:08
Awesome. I love it. There you go. There you go. Science ultimately wins out.
Trevor Connor 23:13
I got my nerd bomb because
Chris Case 23:17
a lot of these points that you’re making might go towards your second mistake on the list, which is someone that maybe doesn’t listen to a coach or someone who is a little stubborn about some of the things that a wise person like yourself might tell them and they’re a little bit on the uncomfortable side.
23:34
Well, the story that so the the uncoachable young star or masters athlete, the story I had in mind was 1989 County Carpenter myself and Mike crazy. Took a group of juniors to Moscow. Frankie, were you on the trip? No. Anyway, it was Lance and George and that whole crew needed to met one of the worlds that year at in Moscow, but I remember the day of the the men’s road race. We all been out on the course we’d all been riding with the other countries. And I told our told Lance, I said, Lance, you can win this race. You just need to be very, very patient. Don’t do anything before two laps to go. Yeah, yeah, Doc. Yeah, yeah, Doc, okay. Okay. Okay. Of course with two laps into the race. He takes off, ride solo off the front for the entire race. They’re just, he thinks he’s gonna win. He’s dangling out there in a horse with a lap to go. They gobble them up, spit him out. And he went out the back. So that all that talent in the world can’t save you from yourself sometimes when you’re uncoachable but we’ve all I mean, he’s, he’s, he’s my funny one. He could have been Junior World Champion at that moment, but he wouldn’t listen. But we’ve all seen it in every other and every other category as well.
Trevor Connor 24:47
So I just did an interview with Brent bookwalter. And it was quite amazing because he literally talked about this. We were actually talking about the the immune system in training, but he said athletes and especially before Successful athletes, they fear taking a day off training more than they fear feeling sick or feeling burnt out. And his suggestion which goes right in so that, you know, there’s him addressing your first mistake. But his suggestion which goes right to your second mistake is he said, You need an advisor who can tell you to stop being an idiot. And take a rest day or two. And you need to be able to listen to that advisor, because it’s our nature as cyclists to say, hey, woke up this morning, my legs are hurting, I’m feeling a little sick, let’s go out and do intervals. And you need that person. You need to be coachable. You need that person who can say, don’t do that. Please don’t
25:36
wait. Which brings us to do I need a coach? Because we did
25:39
a whole episode on this actually,
25:42
the greatest thing about a coach is it gives the athlete a reason to take a day off. They I I can’t write today my coach told me not to. Or I told I was told to go easy today. So you know, it gives it gives you a purpose, it gives you an excuse, if you will, to do what you may not necessarily do. But you’re doing it because you’re paid this kosis. And so I think having a coach is crucial. Frankie, did you have a coach
Chris Case 26:05
throughout your career, or were you self coached? Or was it
26:08
kind of a mix, but mostly South Coast, but I think having a coach is that it’s really good, because you can bounce ideas off of the coach and you get a second opinion. And as you know, like Brent bookwalter was saying that, you know, when you’re an elite athlete, it’s just go, go go, and you’re afraid and very much I can remember, as a racer, taking a day off was extremely hard to do you felt guilty, you felt like you were falling behind you, you know, and you just didn’t want to get into that situation. And sometimes it proved detrimental. Because when you went out and rode, it got worse. And so you know, and I can remember as a director, talking to my rider, sometimes, you know, like, if you don’t, if you feel feel really bad when you go out on a bike ride. Sometimes it’s better just to just go home. And just stop because the physical stress you put on your body for having to stay out there when you’re not feeling good, is as important as that mental part of having to like push through whatever it might be. And then the next day, you’re still not feeling good The next day, you’re still not feeling good, because mentally you’re tired physically, you’re tired. Where is if you just take one day off, you recover so much mentally and physically, that you’re good to go for the whole rest of the week. And so sometimes it’s just it’s about having that I guess that longer term vision of just taking that time off when it’s needed.
27:23
It can go the other way too. You worked with you know, Max test, obviously.
27:27
Well, Max was a max helped me with coaching for sure. Yeah.
27:31
So did he ever test you and put you through his physiological tests and tell you what your training zones were, et cetera?
27:37
Yeah. All the time. Yes.
27:40
I’ll tell you a funny story. So I was trying to recruit max to come to Boulder to practice here. So obviously, he ended up going to UC Davis instead of Boulder. But we were so he and I were working he would come to Boulder for a month and, and one day a week he’d test athletes at our office and I can’t remember who it was one of the onset riders was actually visiting steamboat for self imposed training camps when it comes to Boulder. Max has tested me does a skinfold test for his body fat, and he keeps looking over at me winking at me. And he would pinch the guy, you know, and and then he’s putting into the test manual, in the test is that you know, you really suck today. And here’s your numbers, you know, you’re you’re fat, and you’re slow and the castle can go. I’ve been training like crazy max wants to deal in masses winking at me the whole time. So max writes up, the report says the guy off go train, here’s the matters, the guy was quite fit. Okay, so you might think back to some of your conversations with with the coaches using test results to motivate you to go so a coach can give you an excuse to take a day off. And a coach can also then use some psychology depress you to to up your game, as well. So Max, I got a pretty good laugh out of that deathmatch. What are you doing? But anyway,
Trevor Connor 28:52
so wait a minute, I used to come in and get tested by you and Rob pickles. And you said the same thing to me. Except I don’t think that was motivating. I think you actually
Chris Case 29:02
chunky today, Trevor?
29:04
plead the fifth. Actually, the
Trevor Connor 29:08
best thing you ever said to me is he just looked at my MRI and you went, you look like you’re in your 40s
29:14
I remember a story with Max testa that he was always positive, always positive, always positive. And he would you know, help you with the coaching and the motivation. But mainly, you know, you go see him when you’re injured. And so let’s just say I had an injury in my ankle, and it was hurting me and then you know, a couple days later, I went back and it’s like, yeah, my ankle seems alright, but now my calf is hurting me and he’s so he would be like, Oh, that’s good. That’s good. It’s moving towards your heart
Joe Friel 29:38
and your injuries moving away.
29:41
And I like Okay, Okay, sounds good. And then just keep kind of go out into doing the training. But no matter where the injury was, when you when you go back and check with him like a couple days later, it was always something was always going better. Unless it was serious. He knew then there’s like, Look, you can’t do this. But if it was like a strain or something, he would just be like, Oh, yeah, it’s moving away. It’s moving towards the heart. That means it’s getting better.
30:00
He didn’t make the laboratory a fun place to where he’s one of my favorite people, by the way. So we we’ve had a lot of lot of athletes in common over the years and we’ve learned from each other. But I would have to say we’ve laughed a lot together too. So he’s pretty good guy.
30:13
The ultimately I think the most important thing though, for Ryder is it takes time is you need to learn your body, you have to learn what works for you, what doesn’t work for you, you know if intervals are a good thing, or if the endurance rise actually pays off. Just learning what’s what is fatigue compared to what’s an injury, and how much fatigue is like leading towards overtraining or not and a lot of it and it takes years to kind of to figure that out of learning about your body. And I’ll give you an example of one with Jay Keo who was on our team was five our energy, fantastic sprinter, super good rider. We got into these races, and he would be racing along. And then once you started really going hard near the end, he just he would start slowly getting dropped. He just couldn’t go His face was beet red. He just was you could see he was trying. But he wasn’t going well. And I’m like this, I would after the race talks with like, Jake, something’s up, you know, something’s not right. And he wasn’t really sure what it was. And so it kind of repeated itself for like three or four days or three or four races to the point where I was like, Look, Jake, even if you weren’t training, you would be better than what you’re doing right now. So this is something else, this has to be something else. And I didn’t know what it was. And I so I pulled them out. I was like, Look, you can’t race anymore until you go and figure out what was going on. And he ended up what ended up happening and figuring out was that when he started going really, really hard. He had the tech a cardia in his heart. And so his heart was racing going up to like 215 beats per minute. And so it wasn’t able to like I don’t know, not get the oxygen to his body, his face would turn red. And then he would just go slower and slower and get dropped. But it wasn’t until finally I was like in other words, Jake wasn’t listening to his body. He just wasn’t writing. Well, he didn’t really know. No, the reason was, but I was like Finally, like, you could not train for two weeks and you’d be doing better than what you’re doing now. So it’s something more serious and you got to go figure it out. And it ended up being that he had this the heart palpitations that were throwing them all off and he ended up having to stop. Did he have to retire? Well, he stopped for a while. He did he retired for a while and then we went to get a checked out. I think he went had a procedure started racing again, I think was skyline. And then I think he I think he had a reoccurrence and then had to stop again. And
32:21
ablation. And then it recurred. Yeah. So that’s you know, that’s, that’s a podcast we need to Linares in here. We have actually already have we’ve got half four letters in Chris case. Yep, combo here. And
Trevor Connor 32:35
so I mean, continuing with that one of my big mistakes that I see athletes make is not knowing themselves. And I learned this is I love this story. I was out for a ride when I was living in Victoria with Melanie McQuaid, who’s a multi time XTERRA World Champion. And we were doing Hill repeats. And after she did a couple, we’re sitting there at the bottom of the hill. And she just looks at me and goes, Trevor, I effin suck. And it was you know, she wasn’t trying to say I’m having a bad day, she didn’t make any excuses. She was testing herself and just said, I’m not where I need to be. And she went home that day. And she redid her race calendar so that her season started a little later, she redesigned her training, got herself back on course, and she won worlds again that year. And I truly believe if she hadn’t faced herself that day and tried to convince herself she was on course, she wouldn’t have had a successful season. It’s really critical that you always whether you like it or not, you need to face yourself, you need to know where you’re at. And I think that’s part of being an uncoachable athlete is when athletes don’t want to hear what the coach is saying to you. So honest with yourself, right coach might not be telling you what you like, but they are telling you what you need to hear.
33:47
And from an educated perspective, most of the time, right? You know, there’s a piece of this we haven’t talked about yet. And that’s nutrition, and avoiding fad diets and getting too thin. And those are all part of being that uncoachable athlete or not knowing yourself, right? I mean, you remember Rudy, that only ate carrots. He had orange skin. It was it was the craziest thing. We went
Trevor Connor 34:11
to every restaurant he would not order anything. And it was because he had a Siri that if you can’t see the kitchen, you can’t see what they’re cooking so it’s not safe food. The only time the entire trip he ordered any food was we were out in the middle of the desert. And there was this really sketchy looking burrito truck. They will with it looked at what that’s scary. He went over there and ordered three burritos because he can see the kitchen. But he did not eat. Yeah, he will. 98 pounds. Yeah.
34:43
And of course he failed, right? I mean, yeah, he failed big time, early in the season and never to be seen again. So
Chris Case 34:49
that sounds like it’s well beyond uncoachable that sounds like a mental health issue at that point.
34:55
Actually, I don’t want to throw him under the bus. Yeah, I mentioned his last name here, but yeah, seamed it up. needing a lot of psychological?
Trevor Connor 35:01
Sure, so he had a severe concussion, hmm, which is a whole nother podcast.
35:07
You can also take it to the next level with cyclists that eat Uber healthy, which, which is good. And so what happens is if you’re, if you’re traveling to events, you have to eat out. And so if you’re at home, and you’re just eating brown rice and oatmeal all the time, and then all of a sudden, you have to travel to an event, a three-day event, and you’re gonna have to eat out. So if you’re eating out, you’re eating at restaurants, which then has salt that has grease, it has butter, it has all this kind of stuff. And if you’re not used to that, it messes you up completely. And so it’s a matter of balancing kind of how it balancing how you eat at home, knowing that you’re going to have to travel if you travel all the time for events and races. I mean, you want to eat healthy, but you have to have some oils and butter and stuff in your meals. So that when you do travel, it’s not going to be complete shock to your system. And then you’re going to be you know, sitting on the toilet instead of sitting. And I’ve seen that happen. And I’ve seen this happening I’ve seen I’ve also seen riders will they’ll take they’ll take the brown, you know, they’ll cook a bunch of brown rice, and I’ll put it in baggies and I’ll bring it with them to go to go to certain events. But yeah, you have to be careful, I think when you’re younger, a younger cyclist, you know, just eat healthy, eat normal, don’t worry about weight, let your let your training and take you know, if you’re gonna if you’re going to lose weight, let the training naturally take the weight off, don’t starve yourself to be able to take that weight off later on. Once you get older, you know, we see, you know, the pros, obviously watching their diet and cutting calories in order to be able to become lighter to get over, you know, a 25-mile mountain. But how many of us have to go over 25-mile mountain.
36:42
So here’s my nutrition story on myself. So not everybody knows that I was a fairly successful bike racers a kid do time world disabled champion, blah, blah, blah. And we were in rural France for the world’s when you’re early in early in the Paralympic movement. And we were paying a pretty sketchy bed and breakfast and it was over a bar. And so I went downstairs to tell the kitchen what the team needed for the pre-race meal. You know, the pasta, a little meat on the side little salad blah, blah, blah. And we get down there and there’s this little bitty plate of pasta in this big slab of meat and I didn’t recognize the meat and they kept telling me it was flesh was flesh. Well, the bottom line was horse is the best it is the best meat for you before you raise it. It’s the best It’s the best. So of course the teammates by look around the room and they’re all gagging they wouldn’t eat horse of it life depended on us at help. I gotta eat so hate the horse and, and of course went on to win the race. And the guy came back to see it was the horse. So yeah, you do need to be flexible in your diet. And another one is a very popular cycling journalist, Selene Yeager wrote an article not too long ago about how to eat when you travel. And she so she was actually listing some things that she discovered that were relatively low in calorie or appropriate said let’s call it relatively healthy. Well, one of the things on her list was the Egg McMuffin from McDonald’s. Right? It’s 400 calories. It’s got meat, it’s got little fat, it’s got egg, it’s got bread, it’s got you know, all the food groups and one little 400 calorie package. And there’s usually a McDonald’s everywhere. It was like this light been off. So when I’m traveling I look around to find my egg muffin for breakfast because it’s familiar, right? It’s warm and gooey and familiar. And I seem to really ride well on egg McMuffins.
Chris Case 38:38
Well, there you go. Thanks. You and Chris Horner, powered by McDonald’s
38:43
was the only thing that McDonald’s
Trevor Connor 38:45
is advertising on this
38:45
episode. Yeah.
Trevor Connor 38:48
And you know, you bring up a really good point though. Another big mistake is eating something completely unfamiliar. The day before there I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had conversations for something where somebody tells me you know, ask me what should my day before meal be? What should my breakfast be and ask them what they do? And they describe something very strange. They got from piecing together a bunch of articles and they go, do you ever eat that? Well, no, but this is race day. I go How often do you go to the Saturday morning group right? Well, every week what do you eat the night before? Like this? So I knew that the night before the race, but that is a you know, weekly thing like how do you do it the group, right I do rate then why would you change that formula? Mm. Go with what you know. Whoop is the performance tool that has changed the way people optimize their training recovery. Whoop provides a wrist worn heart rate monitor that features detailed app-based analytics and insights on recovery strain and sleep. Loop tracks sleep quality and heart rate variability 100 times per second, 24 hours per day to help you know when your body is recovered or when it needs rest. You could also use Rap track workouts it gets strained scores so that you know how strenuous The training was on your body. Whoop helps you optimize your sleep based on how fatiguing your day was and track sleep performance with insights into sleep quality, stages of sleep and consistency. To make things better, we’ve just released a new bootstrap 3.0, which includes a suite of new hardware and app features. The bootstrap 3.0 now has five-day battery life and improve strap and live heartrate monitor. A handful of new in app features including the new strain coach improve the way you track and plan your training and recovery loop is provided an offer Fast Talk listeners to get 15% off their purchase with the code Fast Talk. That’s F-A-S-T-T-A-L-K. So two T’s no space, just go to whoop.com. That’s W-H-O-O-P.com. And use the code Fast Talk at checkout to save 15% off and optimize the way you train.
Trevor Connor 41:01
But I did have one mistake I wanted to bring up which is that getting too focused on the details. Mm hmm. Particularly because we get a lot of questions of very, very my new details about training zones are particulars of interval work. And one thing I have noticed talki are interviewing a lot of very successful pros is they don’t get caught up in that minutia. As a matter of fact, usually they talk about their training, they’re talking about it in the context of a week. They’re talking about in the context of a training block, and no particular whether the intervals went great or didn’t go very well. They don’t get too worked up in that they get more worked up on Am I going in the right direction? Did the week come together very well. So I think a big mistake is getting too focused on the trees and forgetting the forest. What do you guys think?
41:47
I think that’s pretty simple. I mean, I think you’re right, do we have to it’s not a day, it’s not a week, it’s a whole lot longer program. And you you’ve got to see every tree in the forest. Yeah,
41:56
I mean, I agree is that overall instead overall picture, you know, and the thing is, to a lot of writers, it’s like cycling in your training program. It’s like, it’s like building a foundation, you build that base, you know, you do those early season miles and you do some threshold intervals leading up towards the events, not every event is going to go good, you’re going to have off days, you’re going to have off weeks, but you have to remember what you have to kind of remember is that everything you’re doing is building on itself, which is going to pay off later on. So it’s important to not get discouraged, because you might have a bad week, we all have not everybody but I mean, everybody has a life going on a family life, a social life stress. All of this plays a factor in how you feel and how you kind of adjust leading up to a race. And so sometimes it goes great. Sometimes it doesn’t. But if you’ve put in the work, and you put in the training, through, you know, the months leading up to that it might not be paying off right now. But later on, it will pay off. And that’s something that I try to relay when I was a manager to the riders is that if you put in the work, it’s going to pay off a little bit later on. It’s sometimes it just takes a little bit longer until your body actually gets to that, you know that perfect peakedness of fitness.
43:02
Which brings me to kind of a new fad, right. So when I was young and training and even training myself and coaching other people, we said that he wanted to avoid no man’s land, right? No Man’s Land was you weren’t going fast enough to get better. And you weren’t going slow enough to recover. You want to avoid no man’s land. Now, a new name has been given a new name called the sweet spot training. And I know local coaches are really, really into sweet spot. I don’t have an opinion about it. I mean, it’s a lovely place to go ride. I’ve never tried just riding in no man’s land to make myself faster, but it’s pretty popular right now. Well, yeah, we’ve
Chris Case 43:40
done yeah, I mean, it is we’ve done, we’ve done several episodes addressing the opposite of that would, which would be the polarized approach. We’ve talked, we’ve talked quite a bit about sweet spot, what it means where it’s appropriate, where it’s not, but a point for sure that it is popular, it is a comfortable place to be because it’s not too hard. It’s not too easy. It’s that Goldilocks zone,
Trevor Connor 44:06
if you will, I’d say the one thing you have to be careful. I think it becomes a mistake when you’re doing it because of how good it feels. The fact of the matter is sweet spot is hard. It’s hard enough that you feel like man, I got a good workout. But it never really hurts, right. And that breeds a certain popularity that you want to go out and just ride at that intensity because you come back every day saying that was fantastic. And if you don’t race and you just want to feel good on the bike, I’d say sweet spot every day. Sure. But I think if you are trying to perform at your best if you’re looking at racing, I think there’s a place for it but not every day. Frankie What was it like for your training? Was it something you avoided or did you do a lot of sweetspot work?
44:49
Now I would say I did a lot of sweet spot work but it depends. It depends on the level of rider you are depends on the objectives that you have. Like he just said, you know, if you want to do well at races, you’re going to have to Be a little bit more specific with the training the intensity intervals where you’re going to have to suffer. I mean, Henny Kuyper, who was a director with Motorola, he was multiple, you know, two, I think two time world, a world champion and a fantastic classics rider used to always tell us you need to train harder than you race. So that when you get into the races, the races almost feel easy compared to how your training was. And so I think a little bit depends on your your objectives, you know, sweet spot training, like you said, it feels good. And sometimes, and sometimes there’s a place for it just to ride your bike not have to chase the numbers, just kind of go ride your bike, but at other times, you need to be a little bit more focused on the numbers are lower levels more focused on that intensity, if you want to be able to, you know, be if you want to keep moving up the ladder, let’s say
45:42
I was gonna leave this till the end, but the word objectives really is right on the money. I think you got to decide why you ride your bike. Yep. You know, I’ve got a really good friend who’s he won the veterans preference I can remember was called the turret of our back, I think he was 37 or 38 years old. He’s now 7072. He rides every day. I mean, this guy is like the Energizer Bunny. He rides every day. But when the going gets tough on a group ride, he has trouble hanging. And he rides. So he said, Mark, why do you ride so much? I love to ride my bike. So I personally like to go fast on occasion. Yeah, so to go fast on occasion, you got to you got to pin a number on every now and then. Right? So I think every individual is looking in the mirror, decide Why do I ride my bike. And that you should be able to pick your training style, based on why you ride your bike.
Trevor Connor 46:37
And so the flip that around, we got the mistakes that coaches make. This is a mistake I made with an athlete several years ago who hired me as a coach, but he wasn’t a racer. He just enjoyed riding his bike, and I gave him this great training plan to turn him into a fantastic racer.
46:52
Yeah.
Trevor Connor 46:54
He gave me a very valid criticism. He’s like, Trevor, yeah, I’m stronger than I’ve been. But I’m not enjoying this. And I just ride my bike for enjoyment. You’re giving me the wrong plan. And he was he was dead. Right?
47:06
Right. And that guy is probably gonna live longer than all of us. Because he’s not using reason. He’s not using up all those extra heartbeats. Right? I
Trevor Connor 47:14
mean, Jared Berg, the head physiologist at CU sports spends a lot of time testing athletes. So he sees the truth about how riders are training and the effects it has on their bodies. He had a lot to say about nutrition and the physiological effects of sweetspot. When you’re looking at physiological testing, when you’re looking at using the numbers, and the various results that you get people, are there mistakes that you see everybody, including pros make in terms of how they use it, how they interpret it,
Jared Berg 47:42
we’ve definitely seen some pros make nutritional mistakes. And this was a whole different, you know, this was this is you know, stepping into your territory and such. But people people come in, basically with some complaints. And then what we see in the lab through various tools, including physiological testing, is that they are tanked. As far as they’re not, they don’t have the energy stores in order to push a test, they may look amazing, like in those baseline, sort of sub threshold endurance zones. But once we ask them to do something that they might actually need in a race, you know, like at the end of a stage and such, they have no high end, that’s really just an energy availability issue. And what we see as a blunted test, we see lower heart rates, we see empty glycogen stores through muscle sound analysis.
Trevor Connor 48:28
So what’s your recommendation, the fix is,
Jared Berg 48:31
you know, it’s it’s extensive recovery, it’s time off, it’s improving, improving diet, having diet meet their training, and racing needs. So usually usually ends up you know, being like, more and more carbohydrate situation, any other big mistakes or common mistakes that you see people make. This is, it’s usually those pros are in for the short haul, they’re trying to get maximum gains too quickly. Right? They’re not really patiently training their physiology, right, they’re not doing that, that base work, you know, in that foundation to build them that professional profile, right, and they have a real steep lactate curve, because they’re always sort of training in this, you know, gray zone that we all say that we all kind of hear about, it’s just a little bit too hard to be to be really enhancing your type one muscle fibers yet little maybe too easy to really be building up the capacity of their type to haze. Right?
Trevor Connor 49:30
What do you see in their lactate profile? When they do that?
Jared Berg 49:33
We’ll see when they’re when it’s real easy. We’ll see kind of flat or like low lactate curves, and it’s really easy. But when it gets to the point where they’re still saying it’s pretty, it’s pretty easy for them. We’ll see that that’s where they’re, that’s where they’re doing most of their training. If we ask them, Hey, you know, I say that, you know, maybe it’s a two and a half watts per kilo they’re doing or maybe three watts per kilo. They do most of our training there, but they might have lactate levels of 2.2 millimoles, right, then we go up to like three and a half watts per kilo and lactate doesn’t budge, sometimes it stays the same. So they almost have like this false flat, right, they have a low flat, and then it goes up a little bit, and then it flattens off again. And that lactate profile curve, right. And so it basically means that, hey, there’s probably spending a lot of time training there. But they’re training in a highly stressed at a highly or at a more stressed level. And so they’re getting sort of all the fatigue associated with type two a muscle fibers, but trying to give but trying to train at that. But thinking that that’s that’s their, their, their base sort of endurance training zone, grave answer, I like that. The other one that I also I often see their threshold workouts are just too hard. Right? They’re trying, they’re trying to train their ability to have steady state lactates. But they’re training where the lactate not steady, right. And so it’d be like basically training above threshold, but trying to improve their sort of tempo climbing effort, right, that’s your base, when you’re above threshold, you’re trying to choose your maximum sort of performance capacity, right, and all those sort of enzymes associated with our type to be muscle fibers. But those type two a muscle fibers, they sort of take a longer sustaining effort that encourages them to to build up their mitochondria and their lactate clearing capacity. And so that’s sort of that sub threshold, some people call it sweet spot area. And so some people think they’re training that sweet spot, but it’s just too high. And that’s one of the one of the key spots is to really understand sweet spot should be where you should be that maximum steady state lactate. And some of us are too far above that.
Trevor Connor 51:42
My experience is that when people are actually training a threshold, they think it’s too easy. They think it has to hurt a lot more than it does avoid it.
Jared Berg 51:49
Yeah. And it’s and it’s the cool thing about when you’re training, right, you know, that ideal threshold spot where you’re sort of pushing and trying to move that threshold, it’s a spot that you should be able to hold for over an hour, and it should feel it should feel pretty good. But a lot of us are like really good on those 2030 minute FTP test. But we don’t have that endurance to support that effort for longer than that 20 or 30 minutes.
Trevor Connor 52:14
Another common mistake that shows up in physiological testing is too much intensity.
Chris Case 52:19
One of the things that you said Frankie about intensity caught my attention, because we talk about that a lot on this podcast, too much intensity I, I would venture to say that pros don’t do too much intensity or aren’t prone to that. But amateurs are prone to doing too much intensity. So in terms of a mistake that people make, this is skewed more towards the amateurs and less towards the pros. You know, this
Trevor Connor 52:44
is certainly one that we have addressed every time we’ve talked to Dr. Seiler, we’ve addressed the polarized model, I actually just sent a Chris an article yesterday talking about how the immune system produces the the adaptations in our muscles in our body. And one of the things that was one of the studies I read for that article was looking at the release of reactive oxygen species. So So buildup of oxidative damage. And it showed that when you there was this one study looked at too much high intensity work having athletes just do tons and tons of interval work. And it showed that they produce an overwhelming amount of Ross, that actually shut down the immune system. So the immune system couldn’t do any repair. And they went further to show that in overtrained athletes, you saw very elevated levels of reactive oxygen species. So that’s the effects of too much high intensity work, you actually shut down the repair process, your body can adapt. So you need some you need some Ross to promote adaptations, but too much, you’re going to shut down.
53:45
Sure. And I would say you know, for the pros, the intensity comes in the races, maybe early season leading up you might have something some, you know, specific interval sessions. But you know, if you’re doing the classics or even, you know, a five-day stage race every single day is flat out you.
Joe Friel 54:01
So,
54:01
you know, when I was racing, I didn’t have to do interval training because I had all that intensity during the week when I was racing. And then after that it would matter be like recovery or building or focusing on something else. I mean, if I had a three weeks off, then that’s a little bit different situation. And so that’s where it comes back with amateurs. Yeah, if you do too much intensity and you do too much redline. Yeah, it’ll affect your muscles will affect your immune system. And it just it won’t be it won’t be good for you. So there there is a balance. And that’s where the coach, you know, that’s where we talked about with the coach comes into play, of being able to bounce ideas off and being able to kind of get an idea of what works for you and what doesn’t work for you. And at the same time, which you know, I think we’re going to go into which is talking about like with the fitting and different stuff like that, you know, my opinion with a coach, making a training schedule, getting a fit, it’s not like locked in it, you know, it’s not, it’s not the Bible that you have to be able to stick with, you know, you’re allowed to make some adjustments so that it fits for your style, your writing ability. You know, there’s there’s always some flexibility in in trying to adjust things to where it’s more comfortable for you or it works for you as an individual.
55:07
Absolutely.
Trevor Connor 55:09
This interview goes back a few years, but it’s one of my favorite quotes, we asked grant Hala key of forever endurance, what’s the biggest mistake athletes make? And here’s his response.
Grant Hollicky 55:20
So the big one, the one that jumps out at me always is making the easy too hard. And making the hard not hard enough. Training is about working the edges of the system. Base training is, is that percentage of wattage or heart rate, or have you happen to be describing it, or perceived effort based training is the foundation of what we’re doing as an athlete, you can do that based training harder. And frankly, one of the really interesting points is is is shown in many in several studies. based training, which is a little bit easier, and tempo training, which is that no man’s land below a threshold, actually are going to give you a similar physiological response, they both have a similar effect on threshold power, they both have a similar effect on vo, two max power, all of those things, just one of them makes you more tired than the other one makes you. So the more time we spend a tempo, the more time we spend in that no man’s land that’s going to SAP the legs, that’s going to SAP the body now, when we turn around on Wednesday, and it’s time to really just rail those threshold efforts or rail those via to x efforts, we tend to not have as much left in the legs. So the hard training gets diminished down a little bit. The easy training gets lifted up a little bit. And we live in that world as as, as Neil my, my partner Apex coaching describes us, we live in Masato, we live in that medium place and and we’re not going to get that return out of that medium place. Make your hard efforts super hard, and make your bass training and your easy days at base or super easy.
Trevor Connor 56:56
Let’s get back to the show and talk about some non training related mistakes.
Chris Case 57:00
And I think that’s a good segue to turn it over to Dr. Pruitt, and talk about some of those equipment mistakes, some of those position position mistakes. And I know previously on this podcast, you’ve told a story about salon Chanel and wanting his bite to look a certain way. I don’t know if that’s a good place to start.
57:19
Well, that’s I mean, in my in my notes, I said, you know, the biggest fifth mistake is that even bros even bros not just young riders, not just masters, they want their bike to look a certain way. And the key is the bike
57:33
plan. Yeah.
57:36
Absolutely. So flam that stem no matter what
57:39
it’s true. And so they want their bike to look like either their heroes bike, or they want it to look a certain way, the way it leans up against the wall at the coffee shop. And the truth of the matter is, the bike needs to look like them, right. So I’ll throw my wife under the bus, she 20 years ago, she had a she had a lumbar spine fusion and lost a lot of flexibility and a lot of fitness. So, in those days, you know, I was working with Ben serrata and his his writing his fit manuals and those kind of things. And so Ben built her bike, and there was a 57 centimeter seat tube, and a 50 centimeter toptube and about a 20 centimeter head tube extension. So with little wheels, you have some overlaps yet, but on the little wheels, when her bike was leaning up against the wall, the coffee shop and looked like she’d lost her job at the circus and they let her keep her bike right. But when she was honest, it was a thing of beauty. And she rode that bike for five years got really, really fit, and is now she can ride on off the hook store by bike. So that but at that moment, that bike needs to look like her. So while shopping, oh, that Chris mentioned, you know, he showed up at a fall camp in Leuven, Belgium 10 days after he had a diskectomy a spine surgery and comes in preset all excited and we start adjusting the bike the way he presented himself that day. And he’s honest, feels this feels pretty good. My back does turn he gets off and he looks at his bike and goes, I can’t ride that.
59:11
Yeah, I’m a professional.
59:13
I can’t write that. And I said, No. Today, you’re not a professional today, you’re back patient. And so gave him his rehab goals. So when you reach this goal, you can take out one headache spacer, when you reach this goal, you can take out another one and make a long story short, 90 days later, he won the three days upon in the end the penultimate time trial in his full blown time job position. So the bike bike fit is like like Frank said, it’s a mobile thing. It’s ever moving target. A bike that is something it’s one picture. It’s like an X ray. It’s a picture of you that day, the way you presented to that bike fitter in a way he examined you that day, and it doesn’t need to move. It doesn’t need to change a little bit. I had back pain recently. And I’m looking I go who’s going to help me and I lowered my saddle five millimeters and voila, my back pain went away. So Yeah by bike fit even for everybody is a moving target. It needs to look like you. And it is something that should be done on a relatively regular basis we we go back to so I’m responsible for for Quickstep and Borah bowls Dolman wildlife generation, Bubba, we go every year. And we also train some of the guys on their staff to be able to recognize some basic bike fit issues. So that positions can be tweaked even during the season. So yeah, bike fit is is a crucial piece. It shouldn’t be a trophy to someone else in position it
Trevor Connor 1:00:38
should be your position is something I tell any athlete when they get too obsessed about appearance is everything looks good on podium, nothing looks good off the back. Yes, this is about performance.
Chris Case 1:00:51
Yeah, and I bet we could talk endlessly about some of the old school mentality things that lead to a lot of these fit issues. And frankly, I don’t know if there are any stories you could share about your time of the peloton, with people doing weird things with not just position but stuff with their saddles, or things with their bars or things like that, that were just total mistakes.
1:01:14
Well, I mean, long stem and slam the saddle all the way back, you know, that was kind of like the thing that a lot of writers used to do. And just Same thing with the cleats, just pushing them like all the way, you know, back. So yeah, fitting is it’s critical, you know, it makes it such a huge, huge difference for anybody that’s, that’s riding is just that, once the fitting is done, it’s not completely locked in. Because when you’re riding on a turbo trainer, you know, it feels one way but then when you get out on the road, and you start going hard, you start creeping up on the saddle and things change or, you know, it feels comfortable, when you start climbing, it’s not the same, these are all things that I’ve experienced, you know, start climbing and it’s like I’m not, I don’t really have the power, I need to, you know, raise my saddle a little bit or I need to move my saddle a bit forward. So just have to change, be aware of changing things. And then also, like my position when I was 25, compared to my position now on the bike has changed, I have the head stack, you know, coming up, I have to sit a little bit I need a shorter stem, I need to sit up a little bit more, I can’t have it, you know, have that that flat back like, like I used to and still feel good on the bike with a lot of power. But it’s not, it’s not the same position that I had when I was 25.
1:02:19
One of the funniest stories back in the Greg LeMond days, Greg in one of the worlds when the tour and the year before they’d all gone to Europe for training camps. And Ron Paul runs into runs into Greg and said, Wow, you had such a great year. You know, I really struggled in the last season. And Greg said, Well, I’m looking at your mic position. Right. So Greg, of course, had femurs, you know, so long. His knees are right above his ankles. I mean, the guy was made to be a bike racer, and he tells Ronda, you need to slam your seat all the way back and you’re gonna love it, you know, take a while for you to get used to it. But so anyways, wastelands you see the way back to trains first race of the year, I mean, both hamstrings rip, and he spent the next six weeks you know, living basically in my office back in America, rehabilitating his hamstring injuries. Does Ron have the shortest femur? I don’t know about the shortest, but they were not. They weren’t. So taking it, you got to be careful where you get your advice, right. I mean, so when I was a young racer young caregiver, the stars that visited Boulder. Yeah, there was there were many experts out there on fat right now. Wow, there’s so many people out there. I caution listeners to be careful from whom you get your coaching advice and from whom you get your advice. There are a lot of garage fitters out there right now who want to be good. And if don’t have the experience to do it, so just be careful.
1:03:48
I had an experience with obviously garage fitter, but it was when I was on Kofi Cofidis in 1997. And it was surreal. gameart and through de Marte had, he fit me on the bike. And it was like, I felt like I was pedaling on my tiptoes. And I was like, way back. And so he’s same thing, he’s like, just stick with it, you know, just stick with it, you’ll get used to it. And so, you know, a couple days, trying to ride like that, but I couldn’t do it. I had, I had again, I just had to throw out what he had proposed and just kind of go back to what I was comfortable with. And so you know, you have you have you’re gonna have different experiences with different different people. But the thing is to from back then the technology now really changes the way the bike fit is done.
1:04:30
You’ve got that. So three dimension motion capture, you know, I was the first guy to experiment with and refine its use back in 1985. Member 9696 Olympics, frankly, we we used you guys as a lot of beta testing, and did 3d motion capture all you guys as we were leading up to the, the Olympics and now, you know, if you’re not using 3d motion capture or some other type of technology, you’re you’re off the bike. I’ll shoot me off the back of the bike there. But my caution is This. So take a young doctor who has no wealth of clinical experience, knee pain patient comes in, and he’s a little unsure. He said, Well, let’s get an MRI. And so you get the MRI, MRI is looking to see everything, even things that aren’t pathologic. So suddenly, you got medial knee pain as a cyclist and the MRI says you got to turn medium meniscus, you’re gonna have a surgery that you don’t need, right? So you got to be careful with technology over interpreting what you see. So I think that you need not only technology, she also need that well trained, well experienced fitter who use a technology to augment that that customer experience not relying on the technology to provide the customer experience.
Trevor Connor 1:05:45
Also to flip this all around, unless there’s something absolutely horrible with your position. Nobody can ride alongside you look at you riding the bike and tell you what’s wrong with your position. And be a little interesting to somebody tries to do that. Certainly don’t ask anybody to
1:06:00
do that. Every now and then no driver, I’m out on the road.
1:06:05
things that are wrong, I bet Oh
1:06:06
my god. Alright, I’ll tap on the shoulder say excuse me. You don’t you don’t know me.
1:06:12
But, but I can help you.
1:06:15
If you want,
1:06:17
yeah, you need a fix for this. Anyway.
1:06:19
So like you said, with the bike fitting and the technology, you know, I mean, sometimes some people you know, I have a buddy that I ride with, he has like a kind of a natural kind of twitching his knee, you know, like top of the stroke, it comes out and it comes back in. And with other people, there’s other different kind of scenarios where they, they just have a certain writing style where you have to be careful, like, you know, you’re not necessarily you’re trying to try and fit them to make them more comfortable and make it a good position. But you’re not necessarily going to fix that little twist to the knee is going to happen no matter what it’s like, you’re not going to be able to correct it, just because you see it. And so that’s where the knowledgeable fitter really comes in, some of that’s experienced with cycling, to be able to realize that see that adjust to things to be able to, to make it work. And I’ll have to say that I’m guilty, sometimes when I go on a ride on a group ride, if I see somebody with their saddle too low, and they’re just like pedaling, you know, little little teeny circles, I was like, Hey, you should think about raising your saddle up a teeny bit. And that’s about all the advice I get, I usually don’t get much more into the fitting part. But if the saddles too low or too high, or they’re like pedaling on their tiptoes is like, you should think about lowering the saddle a little bit, because then the main thing is I just, you know, you just want people to be comfortable on the bike. So they enjoy the bike, so they continue to ride.
1:07:27
All pain
1:07:29
cannot be resolved with bike fitting, there are pathologies, right? So you, the athlete doesn’t want to go to the doctor. So this must be the bikes fault, right? So two good examples. One was Floyd Landis was having, you know, he broke his hip returned to racing and blah, blah, blah, things are going pretty well. And then things began to go south, and he began to have a lot of groin pain. So he came to see me for a bike fit, and we x rayed his hip. And that’s when we discovered that his hip become necrotic, or you know it, the head of his old fractured hip had died. And that that scenario is very, very public at this point in time. So I’m not breaking any medical confidences, but you know, remember, is a bronies manager with a message, okay, this, this is not about that. But here’s what I can do. Right, here’s what we’re going to do to get you through the season. But this is not, this is not a fit issue. This is a pathologic issue. So not all things can be fixed with a with a five millimeter key. I had a recent client that called me from New York, he said severe back pain and about one hour into a climb, or one hour into a triathlon bike leg. And he’d had fits all over the East Coast. And it hadn’t been resolved. And I said, Well, have you been to the doctor? No. I said, so if you’re going to come to Colorado to see me, here’s what you need to bring with you. You need to go get X, Y, and Z x rays, and bring those with you. And that’s just the piece you haven’t had yet. Right? What is X ray has led us to see why he was unable to choose a saddle and showed us in his little lifting routine, along with his X ray really indicted why he was having back pain. So the bike fit included, off bike exercises change changing his lifting program, and a saddle choice that allowed his spine to be to buy to be more neutral. So you got to have the right expectations from bike fitter, and you have to give them all the information. So sometimes that does require some technologies other than what can be found at a bike shop.
Trevor Connor 1:09:28
I’ve had several listeners of the show who have contacted me with pain issues that they were having and said What should I do with my bike fit? And I have actually my answer has always been you need a medical fit. You need a doctor to properly evaluate you because this as you said, this might be a little more than just raising or lowering your saddle or it might be other things going on.
1:09:46
Right. Right. So their performance fifths, there are comfort fits and there are medical deaths, and you need to choose from the menu appropriately.
Trevor Connor 1:09:56
I spoke with houzhang ameria past Canadian national team and delivery to coach the mistakes he seen top athletes make hit a lot of good points, but they all come down to one thing being prepared on race day.
Houshang Amiri 1:10:09
Really, for me top of the list is having an app setting it up having a proper mindset. Right is usually you see athletes, they started training, start a race it completely off mindsets, and, and sometimes look at them. And they see you never work on this, you never thought how you’re going to serve your rights and, or how you’re going to sell your race. And, and because of that, no matter what is on training strategy, or training or racing strategy, they won’t be able to follow and become more eact and more than effective, or doing what they’re supposed to do. You know, generally speaking, probably is being positive, right is able to keep their mindset within positive romiter who started race or training. And to do that, they have to train for it, they have to plan it all the time. And they have to walk off the bike on it. And and if we we go for group rides, and I asked simple question of the day, I was right here, how was the request? Not many positive coming out of it? often are not that, you know, you see only one or two say, okay, everything’s done accordingly on the plan and getting ready for it. So it’s basically positive state mindset is really important.
Trevor Connor 1:11:53
So what else do you have on your list?
Houshang Amiri 1:11:56
next season, um, many athletes they follow really, they’re what they’re good at it, they forget about their weaknesses. And and that’s human nature. We don’t want to talk about the weaknesses, we’re just going to go after our strength. And cycling as a sport, no matter who they are. They are good climbers that good time travel is they have a good flats, water, cyclists, good descender all of those has to be trained. I, you know, he, every cyclist, for example, he can end up in 1.2 sprints. Even if they’re not sprinter. There may be only climbers, time flies, but they’re going to end up in one point sprint, and I don’t see any of them there in any sprinting, any training for sprinting. Or we are not a sprinter. But you may climb to someone and you’re gonna beat him on the finish line, if you don’t know how to do it. And then we go training descending. How many of how many cyclists really pay attention? What’s the proper descending order list train understanding. Environment helps. I mean, if they are in a yacht that there is no significant descent, they won’t learn it. But so it really here is you’re not training, all the all the skills, required skills for second. And there’s a big list of it, as I said from climbing, descending, sprinting, time trialing and everyone has to know at least the basics of it, how to do it that makes sense. Absolutely.
Trevor Connor 1:13:42
These are all very good.
Houshang Amiri 1:13:45
And and the other things when it comes to benchmarking also understanding understanding estimate what it takes to be able to finish top 10 on first stage of this example of course, what are the requirements? Right? What are the what are the clients basically ability to, to put the least of the demand of the race that can be individual demands, okay, what type? How much what is my what per kilogram for this? What type of pie are going to use for this race? And then from there, who’s racing, what am racing? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses, basically, at creating, figuring out their phrase meant to be able to that’s example to finish top 10 or be able to finish on the podium. Right, who who’s want bracing, those are paying course on ends. At least they do that on that level just because of experience. They’re involved. They know everyone but not systematically, not many can systematically put it on, you know, the other things are going to need, and especially ahead of time. Okay, if you, somebody want to pull him out the Nationals, you know, you better figure out six months, at least head off on what type of braces What are you going to need for that race. I remember a few years ago, I was at the World Championship in in Madrid and race to think wanted loop and Aaron, Aaron Wallach made a selection with a group front group, I think there were about 11 or 12 of them, because it has a client in the park after that was 556 kilometer ascent, little descent, and then mostly flats. And she got dropped on and flat from the group, she just could not hold the pace. Right. And from that point, for a year we work on he is very strange. And she creates a little more muscle mass. And the following year, she had, I have no problem to hold 50 grams on there. La, again, is just knowing what’s the demand of the race is very important. And not many people really thinking about it. In my own experience, my always I taught I’m being pushed to the time Charlie’s always thought I am. I’m a good flat road cyclist when I was training and my very first race in Europe. I was just looking for a client because I find myself riding for riding with climbers, and I’m very comfortable. And I had such a hard time with the flat because my flat was going about 4042 K, a flat was going over 50 kilometer per hour. And that’s a huge difference how you write the flats. I never had told me about years to really figure out what I needed to do to be able to just hold the wheel on the flats. And not many races in Europe. kind of end on the climb everyone thinking about the climb. But usually best climbers get hopped on the flat. They’ve never fixed the climb. I’m good for Jeff. So again, this comes back to be able to train all the aspects of cycling, not just focusing on one thing. The last thing I have on my list is a neat experiment on race day. I seen it all over and over athletes, they come to the race and somebody tells him something and they try right on it. He never tried it before. Oh, I have this. If you do this, you’re gonna do that. So maybe subscribe. That’s not the point. But no matter what you want to do you have to try before beforehand. Yes, nothing new. Nothing new on race day, no matter who’s tell us that. I think chances are, it’s not gonna work.
Trevor Connor 1:18:20
Let’s get back to the show and see what Dr. Pruitt and Frankie have to say about mistakes I see in racing. So other racing mistakes. What do you guys see,
1:18:28
I’ll get one for riders that are racing into criterium as they wait for the last lap to try to move up when it’s already going. When it’s already going ballistic fast. And so my advice three laps I mean depends on how long the circuit is. But give or take three laps to go four laps to go you should already be in position should already have moved up should be in that top 10. And then you know two laps to go as the speed starts to go higher. You’re already there. If somebody comes by you move out, you get on the wheel, you stay up there but you’re there so you’re not with two laps to go using up your sprint to be able to move into position. And then when it’s time to sprint you don’t have anything left. It’s just a matter of being in position earlier not waiting to hear the bell just think Oh God, I gotta move up now.
1:19:10
Yeah, that’s, that’s crucial. I think the Masters mistake is writing defensively writing not to lose instead of writing to win, right?
1:19:19
No balls, no
1:19:20
blue chips. So takes take some chances if you want to, you want some results, you got to go for it. Right? If you if you’re gonna hang out and sit in and you know, race for 10th place that maybe that’s good, but I don’t know, I was going to throw it out there and beat soundly then then not chance. That’s my personality.
Trevor Connor 1:19:35
I always tell my athletes, here’s all the smart things to do in racing. And the fact of the matter is if you always do the smart thing, you’ll never win a race. That at some points you have to take risks. You have to take moves that aren’t necessarily the smartest move, but
1:19:50
sometimes you have to risk losing to be able to win. I mean, you definitely have to you definitely have to do that. And that’s not at every race, but you have I agree with you, you know, you have to risk losing in order to win, because if you just sit in, there’s always going to be somebody faster than you the gaps gonna get closed off, you’re not going to get around the turn, right? You know, so might be taking a flyer might be getting into a break, you might, you know, whatever it might be, but sometimes you got to think about that scenario and act on it.
Trevor Connor 1:20:19
Even a sprinter who just sits in, they might wait till the end, but that last thousand meters, they are making a whole bunch of risky choices to make sure they’re in that position, like you said, for the sprint.
1:20:31
Especially, especially as you go through those higher category numbers.
1:20:35
Right, yeah. Right.
1:20:37
He can make the mistake if you don’t enter the race, right? I mean, I think that’s, I think a lot of people, there’s a lot of really high quality guys sitting on the couch, that can really have some success. And that goes back to why you ride. Right? So I don’t know, I think it’s my personality. But I think you pin on a number every now and then to remind yourself while you’re still alive. And if you don’t put on the number, you don’t get to make that ratio mistake. So your first mistake is not not joining the party.
1:21:06
And I also say weighing, sorry, weighing that risk versus reward, you know, and a criteria road race packs line along, it’s like, do I want to go up to you know, do I want to go up the gutter right here to try to get around this guy is like, is this worth it? Because, you know, we still have 30 miles to go, it’s like, Alright, you can wait, you need to, you need to think about these things about you know, how far there is to go, how dangerous this is around, you know, around a tight turn, or I’m gonna fly around the outside. So there’s a lot to think about when you’re in a race, unlike, you know, I’m going to shoot this gap or not, depending on how much you’re kind of going to gain for but and also, like, you know, if things go sideways, how much risk there isn’t like crashing. And so, you know that risk versus reward is something that I think you need to kind of the riders need to think about during the race, you know, yeah, you can’t just ride around and just kind of move up whenever you want. There’s a lot to think about tactic strategy, risk versus reward, there’s a lot going on in races,
Chris Case 1:22:00
comes back to one of the things that I often make a mistake at which is not having enough patience. Honestly, I primarily I re cyclocross. But road racing to me becomes boring if I’m just sitting in so I make the mistake of not being patient enough. And going in and being overly aggressive. Those two things I think, go sometimes go hand in hand, you can get a lot more. Six, you can have a lot more success, if you have 5%. more patience sometimes. So
Trevor Connor 1:22:30
I think going hand in hand, and that with that is what I call the big dumb horse mistake, which is you don’t want to sit in the field and do nothing. So I constantly see riders, they’ll just get on the front of the field and drive the field for an hour. Mm hmm. Just to feel like they did something and you’re just being the big done worse, taking everybody else to the finish line.
1:22:48
Sure. But depending on the situation, that may be their job.
Trevor Connor 1:22:51
Yeah, I mean, if you’re Domestique, in your that’s your job.
1:22:54
Yeah. And there’s guys that are really good at it.
1:22:57
I would also and also, it depends on your objectives for a race, I think, if you’ve been or if you know, if you’re racing a good amount, I don’t think it’s healthy, to put the pressure on yourself. To try to think about how to win every single race you go to, I think you should take some races and use them kind of as an experience or as a training. In other words, like a break goes up the road, you’re going to try to bridge across the gap to see how big of a gap you can get across or you’re going to attack and try to get away to try to get into the breakaway or in the beginning of the race, you’re going to try to go with each of the moves to get into a break. Because as you just mentioned, you know that patience game of just sitting in and waiting to try to do something just at the end can get a little bit boring. And so a way to be able to mix it up. And also take some pressure off yourself so that you don’t have that kind of paralyzing kind of I have to try to I have to win today I have to win today. It’s like pick your goals, pick your race that you want to win and you know, sit right smart for those. But in other races, just go have fun. Just go race your bike, go and tear it up like just you know, even if you’re racing just to make some other guy lose, by all means go and have fun with it and go at it and attack and bridge gaps and do with Do you know, do whatever you want to do. But mix it up, you know, don’t take every race like it’s the world championships and you know, you’re sitting in trying to be patient because you’re not going to you know, you’re not going to improve. And a good way to improve is to kind of mix it up in races.
Trevor Connor 1:24:16
I had a race, I just wanted to get a workout. So I went to this kid who I’ve been helping out a little bit and said, I’m writing for you today. And I spent two hours on the front of the field killing myself for him to get my workout. I didn’t care if I got a result or not. We got to close to the final lap. He had his mom in the feed zone she handed him a Safeway bag with four full water bottles in it, which he grabbed with his arm all the way out and he literally just fell over to the side since
1:24:43
he was
Trevor Connor 1:24:45
it was out so much for all the work I did for him. But so let me let me rephrase what I was saying about the big dumb horse. I helped out a team I was there coach in Toronto, and I’ve seen the guys get on the front and blow themselves up and I would ask them later why did you Do that and then just kind of go, I just couldn’t think of anything else to do. So what I always told them is, it’s fine to be on the front. But when you’re on the front, first thing you do is ask yourself, why am I here. And if you can’t come up with a good reason, get off from
1:25:14
masters racing can be pretty defensive. So everybody was waiting for somebody else to go to the front. So, you know, there’s usually the similar candidates going to find himself a front week after week. So patients their pays off, because actually not a mistake is something I would suggest people do. And that’s traveled to race, go race against other people, right, that was in my amateur and master’s career. And that was a big deal. I think once a month, you had to go outside of your region, you know, whether it’s a national race, go race someplace else, so that you weren’t racing against the same characters. And our results are always good when we went someplace else because nobody knew us. So they were unsure about us. And yeah,
1:25:55
that’s been a great tip.
1:25:57
So I see it with injured athletes whose, whose careers may be coming to an end. I see it with aging athletes, and it’s the inability or failure to mourn who we used to be. And I see them becoming sometimes anorexic, I see them becoming even suicidal. I see them floundering in a way to make a living. It’s huge. And there are a couple of sports psychologists now who really focus on helping people transition. And I’ll never get so my race career and my professional career always were parallel to each other. So when I raced the Paralympics in 1988, and decided I was basic done, I had a career, right, I had a booming career to go back to when I still suffered deeply because I lost my identity as a bike racer. I’ll never forget Davis very nice and having a beer after he had just retired and we were bemoaning the fact that our Olympic How are different our lives, we’ve been how at our Olympic experience has been different writing, and he was having a lot of trouble letting go of who he was. And so if it happens at that level, I’d really be interested to hear and Frankie’s obviously moved on stayed in the industry. I really encourage people that are struggling with mourning who they were to get help.
1:27:26
Yeah, I would agree, it’s important to be able to talk with somebody who can help you figure things out or get the resources, I was lucky that I raised, you know, for a long time did all the biggest races in the world. And so when I when I was going to stop or when I went when I was going to retire, there was nothing that I don’t mean this in a kind of any way. But I there was nothing that I hadn’t accomplished. In other words, I had, I had done almost all the races I had I was fulfilled, so I could retire. Knowing that I had, I had pretty much accomplished what I wanted to where there’s other writers that maybe didn’t reach that level. And they’re still thinking they have a chance or they have the what if I do this, what if I do that that’s much, much more difficult to be able to stop maybe an injury before you want it to stop, or before you’ve accomplished what you wanted to accomplish. That’s a whole nother ballgame. And it also was easier for me to retire by being able to stay in the industry. Being a director, working in the media doing the announcing, sometimes I’ve had conversations with some of the writers that I directed and they’re getting, you know, up there in years, and they’re thinking about what to do. And you know, as I have to have a conversation with them is pretty much just telling them, you can still race you just have to switch that mentality of being a pro. And just race for fun. You know, start doing something else start looking you know, a job or whatever your hobby or your interest is, or in spending a little bit more time doing that. But you can continue to ride it’s just a matter of switching off that pro mentality of just ride your bike for fun when you get into a race, race for fun. And of course, they can’t immediately do that they get into the race and they still have that very competitive nature. And that’s the thing that you’ve talked about. with David Spinney certain writers have that competitive nature and they’re not able to turn it off no matter what and so becomes it becomes very individual and each case you know, there’s not one kind of blanket strategy that can work for everybody.
Chris Case 1:29:16
What I would add to that is, this kind of goes back to knowing yourself and knowing your reasons and intentions for racing. If you’re and I’m not talking about whether you’re pro or whether you’re amateur I’m talking about whether you’re doing it for positive reasons or negative reasons. There are motivators that are healthy and there are motivators that aren’t so healthy. If you’re doing it for fun, that’s great. If you’re doing it for your health, that’s great if you’re doing it because you’re, you know, experimenting with your limits as an athlete. That’s a good reason for doing it. If you’re doing it because you only generate value as a human being or feel some self worth because you did good. I did well enough. bike race. And I think you’re doing it for the wrong reasons, because that’s not going to ever sustain a healthy, healthy lifestyle. And someday those winds are going to stop coming. And you’re not going to have with generate that self worth. So maybe I’m getting it a little off track or making it more complicated than it needs to be. But I think that that plays a role in a lot of people’s transition from one stage of life to the next, whether it’s pro to retirement or whether it’s 30-year-old cat one, racer two, okay, now you’re a 40-year-old and man, it’s really hard to race as a cat one still. But I really want to do that. And I don’t want to say I’m a Masters racer, you know, like, you just have to really be honest with yourself and assess those reasons. Assess your why. Yep.
1:30:50
So that goes back to, you know, you were going to kind of tie this up with the one mistake you can fix. And, and that’s decide why you ride. Is it for fun? Is fitness. Is it the win? Why you ride? I think that is that that’s really the key. And I think all three of us, all four of us have a will have a slightly different why sure.
1:31:17
But you need to have a way down Why?
Chris Case 1:31:19
If you could fix one mistake that you made in your career, what would it be?
1:31:28
I go back to taking those rest days before events, not knowing how I would feel thinking that I needed to kind of take a full day off the bike and then go do a race and then not feeling good and not figuring it out sooner than later. Because it took a while till I figured out like hey, this is why I’m not feeling good. So yeah, that’s one of the biggest mistakes,
Trevor Connor 1:31:53
I’m going to go back to the don’t get too deep into the weeds Don’t get so caught up in the numbers and particulars that you don’t see the big picture. I’m very big on purposeful training. every workout fits within the context of a bigger hole. And you always need to see that hole. And if you have forgotten that and are obsessing whatever five minute, why did you put out and whatever interval workout? You don’t know if you’re on track or not? Even if it was good numbers.
1:32:22
Chris, what’s yours?
Chris Case 1:32:23
I think it sort of echoes what Dr. Pruitt said and knowing your why I feel like it’s a stereotype I’m sure about the boulder community, but it’s a very intense racing community. You can take things very seriously. You can live a pro life, even if you’re an amateur. And I think you can get carried away with that. And I would say that we all have made that mistake at one time or another. So really being honest with yourself taking a step back now and again saying, What am I doing here? Why am I doing this? I do have a child I do have a job. I do have a life outside of this sport. I don’t need to be taking this these risks or I don’t need to be training this much or I don’t need to be counting these calories or whatever the case may be. And really trying to make it that pure joy, bringing it back to the pure joy of riding a bike.
1:33:20
I love to ride my bike.
1:33:21
I do too.
Trevor Connor 1:33:24
Okay, and so I’m we forgot one mistake that is quickly mentioned because Dr. Grove will fully back me on this one. And it is my biggest pet peeve. Don’t underdress
Chris Case 1:33:35
don’t underdress people actually pros do a better job of that than a lot of amateurs.
Trevor Connor 1:33:41
Most pros are pretty good at this.
1:33:43
Yeah, hundred percent. A bundle
1:33:44
up where those leg warmers I have a friend that used to always tell me any fool can be cold.
1:33:51
Yeah. Have you ever gone home from ride because you had too many clothes?
Chris Case 1:33:54
I haven’t know I wear five jackets pretty much all year round. I’m a classic,
1:34:01
warm guy over dresser call me an over dresser if you want but I like it. In my book I tell people to cover their knees until it’s 65 degrees and people
Trevor Connor 1:34:11
their jaws dropped whenever I don’t know
1:34:14
if that was gonna be 65 that day sometime No. Cover your knees if not 65 when you’re writing and that that that’s that tissue is totally unprotected to the goldwind and you want to get springy. You want to get telethon itis You know why? Why do you want to work on your tan in February?
1:34:34
Yes.
1:34:35
Don’t understand.
Trevor Connor 1:34:36
And along those lines if it’s cool enough for you to wear arm warmers wear knee warmers? Exactly. Those are the muscles you’re trying to protect.
Chris Case 1:34:45
Very good. That was another episode of fast dock. As always we love your feedback. Email us at Fast Talk@velonews.com Subscribe to Fast Talk on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, SoundCloud and Google Play. Be sure to leave us a rating and a comment. Become a fan of Apple On facebook@facebook.com slash fell news and on twitter@twitter.com slash velonews fast doc is a joint production between velonews and Connor coaching. The thoughts and opinions expressed on Fast Talk are those of the individual for Trevor Connor, Dr. Andrew Pruitt, Frankie Andrew Joe Friel, Jerry Berg, grand hockey and houzhang amuri. I’m Chris case. Thanks for listening
