Welcome to another potluck conversation with Grant Holicky, Rob Pickels, Trevor Connor, and Dr. Griffin McMath. In these discussions, we pick topics that we find interesting and break them apart using a mix of science, humor, and our own experience.
With a new athlete, what is your “intake” like and what are you trying to learn?
The first conversation between a coach and their new athlete is an important one – not because the coach is going to figure out exactly how to train that athlete. Figuring out how to do that takes months, if not years. Instead, that first conversation allows the coach and athlete to learn more about one another, about each others’ styles, and, ultimately, if they’re a good fit or not. Coach Pickels asks the other coaches in the room how they handle that important conversation.
How much value is there in adding high and low cadence work to your base training?
We’ve had this conversation a few times on the show. Coach Connor is a big believer in cadence work, while Coach Pickels is more skeptical. However, Coach Connor has been putting even more emphasis on it this year with his athletes and himself, and feels he’s seen benefits. So, he wanted to revisit it with the group and see how they feel about cadence work and how they implement it with their athletes.
How can endurance athletes optimize the benefits of group training while not losing what’s important in their own training?
While some of us love a solo ride by the ocean or into the mountains, for most of us, finding a group to ride with is motivating and adds a welcome social element to training. However, the group may ride harder than you want to that day. So, Dr. McMath asks how to incorporate the group element into your training while still making sure you accomplish your goals.
Episode Transcript
Trevor Connor 00:00
Music. Well, welcome everybody. This is fast talk. Your source for the science of endurance sports training. No one’s right. I thought I got it right. Did he get it
Rob Pickels 00:14
right? Of course, he didn’t. Oh, I think that he does it on purpose at this point, just to piss me off. What did he get wrong? It’s endurance sports, performance. Endurance Sports. Do you guys know that we have done after this? 25 of these?
Trevor Connor 00:30
Yeah, and we still have a listenership. It’s shocking. What was the promise you and I made at the start of these? We would guarantee that no athlete would ever hire either of us. Yeah. Have we accomplished our goal? I don’t know. Episodes. Do you still have athletes? I do have a couple. I don’t have a question today. I’m off the hook. You’re
Rob Pickels 00:49
off the hook. Oh, you were traveling. You were at work. How’d it go? You just got back? It was
Grant Holicky 00:54
good. Got back yesterday afternoon. I think it was a good performance by the US team, awesome. We’re happy with it. Glad here. Yeah, step four. Many more steps to go, but a step forward. That’s all we can hope for at this point, right? I mean, but that’s how you get places, yeah, and when you’re we’re fourth in the relay. So three seconds out of a medal, I was heartbreaking, eight seconds out of the win. Wow. And that’s pretty
Rob Pickels 01:15
tight for the relay. It was the relay can, like, get blown apart sometimes. Yeah,
Grant Holicky 01:19
four teams within eight seconds. Yeah, that’s awesome. And two Junior women in the top 10 good elite rides. Yeah, it was a nice weekend. I didn’t see the relay.
Rob Pickels 01:27
It’s the one thing I didn’t watch. It wasn’t on TV, unfortunately. There you go. But hey, I will say everything else in the US was on YouTube, which was very nice, on the YouTube channel and on flow sports bowl. Wow, I know. Was the relay frozen, or was it wet? It was wet. It was wet.
Grant Holicky 01:41
It was quite wet. Yeah, yeah. Nothing froze. It froze Friday night and Saturday morning, but not hard, like you could still step on and it would squeeze down. The Sunday morning was rock solid, and even by the time the elite men raised at three, you were slime on top of rock
Rob Pickels 01:56
right? The junior men’s race doesn’t get a lot of play, because it’s like Junior men. And if you look on YouTube, it has the least amount of views. It was the craziest race you could imagine. It was almost Mario Kart. It was Mario Kart on bikes. So
Speaker 1 02:13
I gotta ask the important question, how Canada do? Oh, Canada. Canada did bring home a medal, Rafael Carrie, a and the junior women, we smoked them in the relay. Wasn’t even close. Yeah, there were minutes back. Well, when we become the 51st date, when you become
Grant Holicky 02:29
the 51st date, we’re going to absorb some of those metals. I think that’s the way to do. It’s true.
Rob Pickels 02:33
Isabella holkern was on the front row in the women’s U 23 race, right?
Trevor Connor 02:36
Yes, I think she ended up fifth. Okay. Bell had a good race. It was pretty gnarly conditions for the year. 23 women too. Yeah, they’re made for interesting riding across the board. Okay, Rob, you have a question for us. I’m kicking it off. Well, I love this. Actually, I’ve been watching Griffin here. We got her a mug because her cup had a leak in it. Instead of taking the lid off of pouring it into the mug. She’s doing it through the little mouth opening, and it’s taken her minutes, and it’s also completely
Rob Pickels 03:09
obscuring the mug. This
Griffin McMath 03:11
is Rich, because you would think that me having done this before and absolutely causing an absolute destruction, absolute destruction, and
Rob Pickels 03:18
all that coffee is not fitting in that mug.
Trevor Connor 03:20
So Rob Trevor, interesting question, yeah, thanks for that transition.
Rob Pickels 03:24
We’re back. We’re back on topic. Yeah, perfect. Excellent. Great job. Trevor, proud of you. When we bring in new coaching clients, the very first conversation, in my opinion, is very important, right? I’ll refer to that as our intake, although that sounds very clinical, doesn’t have to be clinical. What I’m interested in talking about today is, what is your intake like? What do you want to know from the athlete? What do you want to express to the athlete? What foot How do you you’re beginning a relationship? How do you begin that relationship in the best way possible. You want
Trevor Connor 04:02
to go first? Sure. For me, it’s twofold. One, I want to have a conversation with that athlete and ask them to describe what their goals are, what they’re trying to do in their own words. It’s easy to get those things in writing, in an email, but when you talk to the athlete, you definitely get a different feel. You get a lot more of the backstory, you get a lot more of the personality, and the more comfortable they get, the more they’re gonna divulge. And I think that that’s kind of what gets missed. As you develop that rapport, they may be telling you they wanna train. They can train 12 hours a week, but as you listen to that conversation, you’re like, No, you can’t. There’s no way you can train 12 hours a week, and I’ve used this many times before on this show. But what are your priorities, and where does training fit into those priorities? You know, does it go family training, work? That’s fine. Then you can blow off some work. But if training comes after family and work and faith and mental health and any of those other things, then, well. Now you’re probably not going to fit that in. So that interview almost right? That sounds very clinical too, because I don’t set it up as one, but that I that becomes really, really important to me, definitely. So I’m going to take a bit of a different position on this. I do agree that first interview, hitting them with the right questions is really important. It’s really important to get off on the right foot. But my experience with athletes is some of them come truly wanting to have a conversation. See if you’re the right coach for them, see if it’s a good relationship or not. Some see it kind of like a job interview where they’re just trying to get you to say, Yes, I will work with you. Interesting. And I’ve had a lot that will tell me what I want to hear, what they think I want to hear, as opposed to what I actually want to hear, which is about them. Yeah, you know, I always have a part in the conversation where I say, Here’s my coaching style, here’s what I think I’m good at, here’s what I think I’m not good at, and I’m going to take no offense if you tell me that’s not right for me, right? And I’ve had every athlete go, oh, no, no, that’s exactly what I’m looking for. And then two months later, you find out, no, that’s exactly what you weren’t looking for, right? I think that’s really relevant your point of this is what I do, and this is how I do it. And I have had some people in that conversation go, oh, really, that’s way different than what I’ve been looking for in the past or what I’ve done in the past. And I’m very adamant that I’m not a top down coach, like we’re in this together. It’s going to be a partnership. I’m not going to tell you what to do. And I have had a couple athletes in that instance go, oh, I need somebody to tell me what to do. Yeah, I’m not your guy. I got other people that are your guy. That’s exactly the thing. I’m the same thing. I will not map out every day of the week. I will talk with the athlete, but I want them to map out the week. And that was, well, that’s what I want. And then two months later, yeah, actually, I just wanted you
Rob Pickels 06:49
to map out it. Something that you guys are both touching on, and hasn’t been explicitly said, is this is an open ended conversation where both of you are assessing whether you’re the right coach for the person, for the athlete, and whether the athlete is right for the coach. And I think approaching the conversation in that manner is really, really important, right? Because we’re not trying to put a square peg into a round hole. And grant I’m with you right where it’s like, hey, oh, you know what? I’m not sure you and I are perfect for each other, but I think I know the person that is, Will you talk with them before we continue our conversation? And if they’re the right, then go for it.
Grant Holicky 07:27
Yeah, I think that’s really important. This is why communities of practice for coaches are so important. This is why it’s important to have peers in the business that you can turn to. And if somebody comes to me and they say, I want to be an amazing track athlete. You know, I might push them to somebody like Pat Warner or Neil Henderson because of their experience with those things. You’re
Rob Pickels 07:49
talking about, people that are outside of your coaching group, right? You’re not even talking you’re talking about competitors to forever. And, yeah, yeah,
Grant Holicky 07:56
yeah. And I think the other side of that coin is I’ve also had athletes that have come to me because we have a prior relationship, and now they want to be coached for ultra running. Listen, I’ve coached some runners, and I’ve coached a lot of running as part of triathlon and things like that, but I’ve only coached like two or three ultra runners, yeah, but we have a relationship. I want to be coached by you, in which case the next thing out of my mouth is, we’re learning together then, and if you’re okay with that, I’m okay with that.
Griffin McMath 08:24
So what’s the difference? Because I feel like the question that, as I understood it was the intake, as in, we have already signed up to work with one another, the commitments already been made. But what I’m hearing right now are things that I would also consider as part of the screening. Yeah, so is there almost like a double layer of, I don’t say defense, but like a secondary screening that kind of happens in the intake, just to make sure.
Trevor Connor 08:47
What I will say is, I think you are screening for the first few months that you’re working with an athlete. You don’t know how you’re gonna work together from even that first interview, no matter how well you do it,
Rob Pickels 08:59
like hey, the next month or two or three is a learning process, a little back and forth, you know, for both of us. So I’ve got
Trevor Connor 09:07
no issues if I’ve worked with an athlete for a couple months and at the end of it, they go, You know what? It’s just not jiving, right for me,
Rob Pickels 09:13
yeah, you know. And Griffin, I think that I’m maybe rolling those things in together, right, where I always have a conversation with somebody before we ever agree to commit to coaching together. And I always make sure I say we are leaving this conversation open ended. Let’s come back again in a couple days. Let’s sleep on it, because I never want somebody to feel coerced. They’re in the room. Yeah, let’s commit to it now, like, I don’t know, go home, sleep on it two days at least. And so it’s an hour long conversation of just two people kind of talk and shop. I’m not the coach at that point. I’m just somebody kind of sitting at the bar with them, talking about sports and athletics and things like that.
Griffin McMath 09:50
I think this is really important too, especially as coaches start to use tech to automate their processes. Because I know when I signed on to work with you. Who there is the contract that gets sent over and there’s like, someone else whose email I’m expecting, there’s a big contract that I’m looking at, it’s like, who, what am I signing up for? There’s this commitment here, so knowing at what point of your screening, what kind of financial commitment or time commitment an athlete is signing on, so that both of you have opportunities, as Trevor said, over those first few months to have an opportunity to back out to you, referred to someone another coach on the process. So I think as coaches are listening this conversation, understanding at what level of commitment each of you has and what measures each has to kind of step away from the relationship. So when those contracts or the things come out. Everyone’s protected for both commitment and freedom? Sure.
Grant Holicky 10:43
Yeah, I agree with you. I think it kind of all comes at once. Typically, the process will go, I’ll have somebody reach out to me directly or reach out to forever endurance, whether that gets passed on to somebody else in the coaching group or I take it on. There’s a conversation at which we end it, and then I’ll say, Okay, go sleep on it. I never let Oh yeah, well, I’m probably gonna say yes, yeah. That’s fine. That’s fine. Say yes in two days. Yeah, just call me back in two days. One of the things that I’m really big on is sport history, though, one of the things that I’m really interested in is non cycling sport history. What did you do growing up, or if you’re young, what did you do before you got on the bike? It, to me, is incredibly relevant, because those sports all have an environment. They have a culture, and it pushes athletes on the bike in different ways. A great quote years ago from somebody at USA Cycling talking about former swimmers. Yeah, former swimmers are great. We love getting them on the bike. We just have to teach them to teach them to go easy. There’s a culture in certain sports that you don’t go easy. And then, if you come from team sports, there’s an explosive background, but a lot of times there’s not a slow down. Take it easy. We’re gonna go for three hours, right? How do we go for three hours? How do we bring this down to a pace that we can sustain for a long period of time? So what you’ve done as a child, what you’ve done in the past, from just how I’m going to write these workouts, what am I going to lay into from a strengths or a weaknesses point of view? What are we going to lay into from a stability point of view, a strength point of view? Because if they’ve only ever run and ridden bikes, that scares me. For cyclocross, we got to get a little lateral stability in this person. So there’s a lot of those things that go through that process too.
Griffin McMath 12:29
I think from my experience of working with Rob, what if I would just like, well, there’s all the mistakes that Rob lived. I remember from my intake process as an athlete with Rob, and then things that I would do as well would be one understanding, why are we doing this, what are we doing and why are we doing this so that there is always something to come back on for the why. So if there’s success or there’s a perceived failure, kind of measuring that against the why as one of the key benchmarks. So I had a big race that I was intending to do. So we knew what the mission was. We had a benchmark. I knew what success was for me, so that we could rely on that as a metric. And it wasn’t to beat a certain time. It was to finish it. It was to enjoy it as I was doing it. It was to build a fitness so we knew why. We knew what my metric of success was, and then he also understood any kind of key injuries that I’ve had in the past and any weak areas of my body, so that in addition to understanding that I needed to endure so long that we had to mold my workouts around specific weak areas of my body, so I also had a strength building plan that coincided with that. And then on top of that, I think, and Grant’s been a great proponent of this for so many of our conversations. But there’s that story and that kind of parable we’re all raised in religious or not, of the jar and the big stones, the pebbles and the sand. And to fit everything in, you fit in the big, big stones first, then the pebbles and then the sand. And something that I’ve heard again, Grant talk about so much is, what are the stones in your life that have to go first? What are the pebbles? What are the sand? And identifying where your sport is, what comes first before that, so that if something comes up and you’re working with your coach, there is no confusion, tension or something else. Because it’s like, oh, this came up. We know where that stands. Everything else gets adjusted, and whether that’s Family, Career, kids, sports games, you know, your religion that was discussed as well, I think really helps move through the relationship with the coach. Yeah,
Rob Pickels 14:35
and Griffin, it was a little bit unique with you, right? Because, because I’m unique, I know we won’t be. You’re unique in yourself, but you know, I also know you personally, and you know, I know a lot of challenges for you were going to be fitting things in we didn’t talk about that quite as much because it’s already known, because I know you, and I really folded that into a lot of what we tried to do. How do we modify the things that you already know and love to make them more effective for. What you’re trying to train for, because you were trying to train for some things that were outside of your box. So to say, right of things that you were used to in a pretty big event. But yeah, I think that, you know, grant you went back and, you know, previously you were like, I’m not a top down coach. I think that is really important that coaches understand who they are, right exactly and when they’re most effective and that they’re not afraid to share that with this potential coaching client that they have. And, you know, Trevor, you said, you know, athletes are just trying to give the right answer because they want that person to coach them. Sometimes, I think coaches are just trying to give the right answer because they need this client exactly. You know, I think that I’m personally and I also point this out to athletes, I’m personally in a great position, because coaching is not my main revenue stream. It’s what I do on the side, just like podcasting and all that, I have an actual day job that pays the bills, and so I’m able to be really honest with people, because I don’t need that money every month. And I specifically tell them I’m like, you buy me bike parts. You know, that’s what this is about for me. Yeah, you know, and that I love working with people and just talking with all different types of athletes, and it’s very stimulating for me. But again, it’s trying to let the athlete know my personality and understand who they’re getting out of this situation. And, you know, the thing that I think I need to be clear with athletes is I am not a good drill sergeant, type of, you know, like, Oh, you’re sick, too bad. You gotta get on that bike. You gotta, you know, if they need that, like, motivator that, just like, keeps their nose to the grindstone, I can be very understanding and very, I don’t wanna say accommodating, because there are downstream changes that need to happen. Like, hey, you weren’t feeling well, okay, we got to do this and this and this, but I’m never going to be the person that’s like, too bad get it done. Yeah. And
Trevor Connor 16:51
you know, knowing who you are is really important. But one of the things that I would be really adamant about with this is to the athletes out there that are listening, if you’re talking about hiring a coach, interview the coach definitely one of those things that I used to say as a swim coach, and I’ll still believe in this as a cycling coach, is I work for the athlete. The athlete does not work for me 100% and I do think that that is a distinction that I try to lay out pretty early, and hopefully that does have an influence on what Trevor’s talking about, and having an athlete really want to please the coach. I am a full time coach. It is what I do. Coaching is a hustle, and there’s no way around it. You can have a month that has no reflection on your coaching ability, and you lose four athletes. I mean, think about that’s over four figures a month. That is a lot of money over the course of a year, and it can really influence your life. And I think it’s important for athletes to understand that too. They make sure they’re getting in a relationship or staying in the relationship that’s the right one for them, not just the right one, because, oh, that coach is really he turned on a dime. You’re gonna know whether that coach can turn on a dime or not. I think what’s important here, what we’ve really been emphasizing when you’re doing those initial interviews, when you’re trying to figure out if you’re right for one another, this is really about relationship, yes, whether you vibe with the athlete or not. So I think the last thing I want to add as a coach when you’re doing that interview, what you’re not looking for is the athlete who’s training right or exactly the way you want. As a matter of fact, I’ll flip that around. There’s nothing scarier as a coach than to get a very high level athlete who’s been doing really well and taking them on, because there is a high risk that you’re going to change up something that was part of their magic formula and actually damage their their performance. Then help it. There’s nothing greater than taking on an athlete. You go, Hey, I vibe with this person. And boy, they do everything wrong, because you can have such an impact on them. And it’s easy, yes, I just want to cut in and talk about Trevor using the word vibe. I’m
Griffin McMath 19:06
living for this over here. Are you vibing with it? I also like, do we vibe?
Trevor Connor 19:10
There’s something that we associate with me. It’s all about the vibes. Man. Just gotta
Rob Pickels 19:16
be chill, bro. As we’re closing this one out, we got to move on to the next one. Tie together some things that you said, I always send out a questionnaire. It’s like 20 and 25 questions of a variety of things. And I oftentimes say you don’t have to email this back to me. These are just potential talking points for when we do meet, but that, in and of itself, also gives me information. Did the person email it back. Sure, when we talk about it, do we go through the list, one, two, you know, down, or do we just sort of have this conver, you know? Yeah, all of that is information and kind of grant, as you were saying before, sometimes the information is what you’re reading between the lines, not the exact answer. Or to the question that the person is giving absolutely so it’s not about the question, it’s about the whole big picture. It’s about the
Trevor Connor 20:06
vibes. It’s about the vibe, all about the vibes. I’m gonna get that the rest of today. Okay? Today, I think it’s Trevor. I am next. I gotta remember what my question was. No,
Rob Pickels 20:17
you see, this is why
Speaker 2 20:18
it’s so much better. But we just meant them walking in the door, everybody remembers what it is,
Trevor Connor 20:22
all right, so I’m gonna read it. Live it. I’m gonna read it. An analysis of a pros training found that a big differentiator was the amount of cadence work they did. We’re in the off season where there’s a lot of solo time. How much value is there to adding high low cadence work on rides, and how should you implement it? So can I point out it basically sounded like an abstract of scientific paper, exactly.
Rob Pickels 20:47
And there was a scientific paper, and in true potluck form, I had Trevor send the paper to me, and you didn’t read it. Didn’t read
Grant Holicky 20:56
it. Proud of you. Rob, so Trevor, just tell us what the paper said.
Trevor Connor 21:01
It was a 2011 paper where they took Strava data for pros and amateurs from the entire year and looked at how they trained and what was different between them. And what they found was that the pros, they called it strength work on the bike, but pros did a lot of low case work on the bike, that was one of the big differentiators I’m right now. So part of what raised this question, when the athletes I’m working with, his time is limited, we’re trying to find new and novel ways to just get a little more stimulus out of him. So on his long rides before, it was all about intensity. Now I’m having him do things like do 30 minutes at 55 RPMs, 30 minutes at 100 rpm back and forth. Well, he’s mostly on the trainer. He’s up in Canada, and he is finishing these rides going, Wow. This beats me up in a way that I haven’t felt. I’ve never
Rob Pickels 22:02
felt something so horrible in my life.
Trevor Connor 22:06
So here’s my question, is there a value to that? Is it a new stressor that he’ll get some value out of? Or is there no point to this? And you know, my opinion on it, what
Rob Pickels 22:17
I’ll say, because I’m the anti cadence person is I do use cadence work with athletes, and I use it as extra stimulus when things are boring or when I do think that it’s needed for what they’re training for, right? I have a mountain biker that lives in a flat area. They’re going to race in some places with some climbs that they’re not able to kind of get that grinding in so I at least want their body to have that sort of stimulus. And I guess what I’ve kind of realized maybe over time, is I don’t worry about cadence very much in my own training, because if you look around where we train, I get plenty of very natural cadence variation that I don’t include it much now because Trevor you have been like caudins, caudins cadence. It’s the best I’ve been. I have been doing vibin with it, right vibin with me, with my trevorisms. I have been doing some cadence work on the trainer, lower, high. What’s that? Are we just referring to low, right now? No, well, I’ve been doing both. I’ve been kind of flipping, like 30 seconds for a minute low, 30 seconds for a minute high, you know? And I don’t know it breaks up the monotony or whatever, being on the trainer yet to see if it’s made any difference in actual performance or not. But there are a lot of things that, even if we can’t measure, like, Oh, you got a six watt increase in performance. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not beneficial for you. And I’m 100% willing to say that cadence, at the very least, falls into that hard to measure, but potentially beneficial for you.
Grant Holicky 23:43
Well, I think if he’s getting off the bike and feels like it’s working him, and you’re trying to find new and novel ways to work him, yeah, it’s successful. Like it’s that simple. I think I do a lot of things that are built into training plans in order to have the athlete feel a certain way, whether that’s designed to get a stimulus in their training or not. I have athletes that are time limited exactly what you’re saying. They will do a lot more tempo, because pretty similar physiological response to base, but they certainly feel like they’re going harder, a lot more confidence, going to feel a lot stronger in what they’re doing, and probably are getting a little something out of it physiologically, too, because they’re limited on time. But that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it because I don’t want to be bored. I don’t want them to get off the bike after a week and go, Man, I didn’t do much this
Griffin McMath 24:33
week. So is that the sole purpose of implementing cadence work into the training? No, I
Trevor Connor 24:39
not. For me. I’m starting with I think it’s effective for no other reason than that, but there is some decent research out there that shows low cadence is helpful for sports specific strength on the bike. I do think it is. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence from the old school cycling that you know you would go out on a Fixie. Early season or a single speed early season. I mean, that’s really old school cycling, right? That’s 60s and 70s and 80s. Again. I think there’s benefit. And I really like high cadence work too, in that technically on the pedal stroke, you can get something out of low cadence work, and you can get something out of high cadence work that can be masked when you soft lock cadence, there is also, as you said, there is research showing there’s benefits in neuromuscular recruitment. So when you do the high cadence work, some of the benefits you see are less CO activation. So the simple way to think about that, think about your arm. You have a bicep and a tricep. They do opposite motions. Imagine if you’re trying to lift the weight and while your bicep is trying to curl, the tricep is also activated, you’re going to lose some of your strength because the muscles are fighting against one another. That’s called co activation. That’s kind of ridiculous, but when you think in your leg, you have over 30 different muscles involved in the pedal stroke, you can have a lot of CO activation, and doing really high cadence work can help your neurological system learn to recruit those muscles better, to get less CO activation. And then what I’ve seen with the low cadence work is you tend to have a longer power phase in the stroke. You’re going to pull through the bottom a little more. You’re going to push over the top a little more, and that can help you get just a little more out of your pedal stroke. Well, did you guys see the video SAP climbing doing low cadence work climbing in at training camp? Nobody saw that? No, I don’t see that. Oh, it’s, I think it’s on Wild’s page. It’s really interesting because it their focus. And this is jumbo so, like, there’s probably some scientific reasoning behind it. His focus when low cadence work was all in the upstroke, he was pulling super hard on every pedal stroke. And that was basically all he was doing at 55 rpm. You know what else I like the low cadence work for is people who aren’t going to necessarily do strength work, they’re not going to have a chance to lift, or they’re that’s just not something they can create the time for. Want to create the time for, and maybe not as much for building specific muscularity, but to get them to engage certain parts of their leg and the pedal stroke to feel it,
Rob Pickels 27:08
yeah, yeah. Certainly, I don’t think that we’re going to get much muscular hypertrophy out of that, but at the very least, we will be getting some increased neural recruitment of fibers by increasing the force there. You know, grant you touched on some of the hip flexor stuff right with Seth kind of pulling up that is something that I’ve been incorporating a little bit more with, especially me having some lower back issues that I actually think some specific work there on improving my hip flexor strength has been beneficial in stabilizing My lower back, even though I do not believe in power cranks, and I don’t think anyone you do it with them every once in a while. I think it’s okay when you’re on the trainer or whatever, to unclip a foot and do some like single leg drives.
Trevor Connor 27:54
They’re miraculous thing, and everybody should spend 20 hours a week on them. I
Rob Pickels 27:58
think, I think that we all need square taper bottom brackets
Trevor Connor 28:02
back on square taper bottom. It is not square tape. It’s the octagonal thing. The octagonal, what the heck is the octagonal? Or whatever? Whatever it was in 2000 it’s this
Grant Holicky 28:13
has been another episode of technical time. Your source for
Rob Pickels 28:17
mechanic work on the bike. It’s there, the MMA of cranks over there with the octagonal thing, my God. Leonard Zinn is just shaking his head right?
Trevor Connor 28:29
Power cranks, I do five hour rides on my power I know you’re amazing. We’ve established that you’re insane. Did we have we okay? Just assumed. No,
Grant Holicky 28:42
I know. I assume, in my political opinion, had this conversation, you are out there neurodivergent in cycling. We’re all neurodivergent. We all have our neuro divergences, but Why limit it to cycling? Because that’s the only thing that I’m necessarily qualified to diagnose. So cadence,
Rob Pickels 29:08
huh? Yeah, good thing. We’re agreeing. Yeah, yeah. I
Grant Holicky 29:11
think in general, I like I said I’m a fan. Definitely something I’ll use. I will take point,
Rob Pickels 29:16
though, I do not believe that cadence work is the differentiator between elite and non elite performance.
Grant Holicky 29:24
I do think the fact that you see more elites do it is probably more corollary than it is causation. I do think it has a lot more to do with your point. Rob And Trevor alluded to this too. I’m gonna put it in there just to make some of those hours go a little smoother when you’re already training 20 some hours a week, or 19 hours a week. You’re covering most of the bases. You’re 96% of the way there. Maybe you’re looking at cadence to get a couple percentage points or two. I think for the general average cyclist, there’s a lot better ways to use their time than to put a lot. To focus on that. That being said, it is something that I will continue to incorporate with my athletes for variety, and I will always make the argument that high cadence work increases the technical ability in the pedal stroke and is going to increase high end capacity on the bike. So the final part of my question, how do you implement it with your athletes. What are some ideas I have? Friday is neuromuscular day in my training plan, whether that’s short sprints that aren’t necessarily going to show up in terms of physiological demand, as much you know you do a 345, second sprint, you’re not getting a huge load out of that. It’s very big in terms of technique, if you’re learning how to sprint. Well, I saw something from Luke Lim parity. I don’t do specific sprint work. I raise my friends, so I do think that sprinting helps sprinting. I’ll incorporate high cadence work again for just comfort and pedal stroke smoothness, and then I’ll include low cadence work on some of those days too low cadence sprints, track sprints, sanding sprints. And then I will, especially early season, include variation in cadence work during long LT pieces, so a 12 minute LT for it, low for it, high for it, low, things like that. I do enjoy that. And then the last way I’ll include it is in certain workouts, I will use low cadence work to keep the Watts high and bring the heart rate down as just a piece in a bigger block. So they’re still doing a world a big workload, but they’re seated. They’re still getting a demand, they’re still uncomfortable, but the heart rate sinks. So now, when I force them to stand a little bit later, they’re able to do it. Yeah, that’s actually a really important point for anybody doing low cadence work. If you ride at your threshold wattage, at a regular cadence, and then a really low cadence, you’re gonna have like, a 10 beat per minute difference.
Rob Pickels 31:54
And same thing with the high cadence as well, right? And the reason for that is it costs energy to just move your body. If you had taken the chain off of your bike and you’re just spinning the cranks at a high cadence, your heart rate is going to go up because that’s a lot of work that your body is doing. It’s
Grant Holicky 32:08
just like standing versus seated, too. You’re gonna get a little bit of a response that way as well. And Yeah, and like, as a side note, with high cadence work, I’ll use just high cadence work for tired athletes or people who are racing a lot to do their openers before another race. I’m not asking for a big load out of their legs, but I’m trying to get the heart rate spiked so that they’re ready for the next day. Put in some cadence work. Spike the heart rate, yeah, for me,
Rob Pickels 32:31
I mean on the locating side, and maybe not the direct purpose of the workout, but oftentimes I’m specifying, you know, do these climbs on, say, steeper hills, which is going to be causing a lower cadence. When I am doing specific cadence work. You know, sometimes, like I mentioned before, it’s, it’s a flipping between a low cadence and a high cadence, to give that person, you know, maybe they’re sitting on the trainer. We’re riding at base, and I want some time at 55 rpm, and I want some time at base at 105 rpm. And let’s be honest, riding 105 RPM at 65% of threshold is not necessarily easy. That is not comfortable. When I am prescribing higher cadence work, especially on the trainer, I’ll oftentimes kind of bump up their percent of FTP to give them something to push against. You’re at 120 RPM, you want to be putting out a little bit of watts there so you have something to coordinate against. But I’ll do these sort of ramps that I kind of like them as I don’t want to say almost what you were talking about just a minute ago. It’s not an intensity workout, but it is something that gets the heart pumping. It feels like you’re doing something, but you’re not really developing fatigue. That’s not big load. You’re pushing kind of against a high wattage for a short amount of time at a high cadence, and it’s getting the heart rate up, and it’s sort of opening your legs up a little bit. So sometimes when people are returning back after sickness, or they’re coming back after being a little bit fatigued, we’ll do this stuff as like testing, just a way to dip the toe in the water without really loading that athlete up. Yeah, I go sort of both ways, on high and low cadence. I think so. Griffin,
Trevor Connor 34:03
you’ve got a question for us. I
Griffin McMath 34:04
do so today, are you gonna read it? I am gonna read it. She
Rob Pickels 34:08
opened her computer. Just don’t listen to them. Griffin,
Griffin McMath 34:10
I know. No, there’s reason. Look, cuz I’m gonna let me give you the organic be who
Trevor Connor 34:15
you are. Griffin, vibe with me. I’m
Grant Holicky 34:18
vibing with this. I don’t this is, like the opposite of vibes.
Rob Pickels 34:21
It is, I would agree with them. Okay, well, let me you don’t even know
Trevor Connor 34:23
Griffin, just look over here,
Griffin McMath 34:26
Trevor, there’s flowers between us. Yes. Okay, so today is the last day to join the Petunia mafia and like do the kit thing. And I’m also looking at Fort follies, which is the club a little bit more north. And in doing so, because it’s been a while since I’ve been off the bike, and as I’m kind of getting over my fear of like hiking in the great outdoors, and I’m addressing all this, one of the ways I think I’m going to do this is by joining a group and thinking about this. And so in preparation, I was looking at, I still have my race registry. For the Scotland races, kind of sits there. I can I postpone it to the next year? So in diving back in, I was thinking about this concept of joining in the group, but what impact does that have in your own individual training? So I looked it up, and a 2020 study on marathon runners found that interpersonal synchronization, including pacing strategies and physiological coupling, such as heart rate and respiration can influence overall performance. So while such synchronization can be beneficial, it may also lead to a disregard for individual fatigue levels affecting performance outcomes. So my question to you, and I will close my computer and try to just quick,
Grant Holicky 35:40
when did potlucks become about research? When
Rob Pickels 35:43
those two started together? No,
Griffin McMath 35:46
I just okay, we’re vibing. Go with it. Look at this. And I was like, I really want to know what the impact of this can be. So in I’ll change my question to be just kind of more organic, but basically knowing that, how would you guide someone as the three of you are very, very different coaches to be able to get the most out of group synchronization while not abandoning your own individual signals of fatigue or individual performance goals like, how do you marry those two?
Trevor Connor 36:18
So since we’re vibing, okay, I’ll start this one out there. We go. Vibe away. Vibe away. T dog, I think there’s a lot I’m gonna lead dog.
Grant Holicky 36:29
I’m going to leave. I think
Trevor Connor 36:30
there is a lot of great value. I like you call it group synchronization. I’m assuming we’re talking about just group writing, yeah, going out with a group, yes. So I think there’s a ton of value to riding with a group. I think it is motivating. It makes it more fun. It gives you a social aspect. My recommendation is just be very clear on what you want to accomplish and not accomplish and have your lines. You can break the rules a little bit. It doesn’t have to look exactly like if you were going out and riding by yourself, but if you’re there, say, for just some base miles, and all of a sudden the group starts racing, there’s a point where you have to say, You know what? I’m just gonna let them go. That’s not what I’m looking for today. And I’m gonna do my own thing, and I’ll apologize to them later. So I will say, you do that. That was something i Are you good at? That learned at the center? Yes. Okay, so when I, you know, with the teams I’ve been on and everything else, if they start racing, I just let them go. And I learned that lesson. So when I was at the center up in Canada, first of all, I was there was November, some of the Yahoos in the group decided to start racing this climb. I thought, Oh, I’ve got to prove myself and join them. And literally, Aaron Willock grabs me by the jersey pocket and just says, Trevor, don’t be an idiot. No, I
Rob Pickels 37:42
can see this arc of like young Trevor, as you’re alluding to, is real bad at this. Yeah, and mature Trevor has had to be intellectual, and probably has to make the decision every time, but knows what the right thing to do is.
Speaker 3 37:58
No, actually, it’s really easy for me, because, as you know, I’m very grouchy, and I like to be angry. So when people it’s a great way to be angry. I can just sit back there and go, those be the old man and go, they, they don’t know what they’re doing. And so the what you’ve learned is how to lean into aspects of your personality that are going to help you do this. Well, yes, my lawn. Oh, my God, it’s about right? I would agree that I think there’s a lot of value in the group setting. It is going to get you out the door in a way that probably nothing else will if that’s even remotely an issue of getting out the door to be in a setting and be in a place where, if you have a standing Saturday group ride, you know, you’re gonna go because you don’t want to let down the other people in that group. And I do like the team dynamic because of that. Yeah,
Rob Pickels 38:48
Grant, I think you and I also come from sports that have a lot of group training together. You was swimming me with track, you know, we would run workouts on the track in packs of 10 people or whatever. And you know Griffin, when you were talking about this group synchronization of sort of effort and heart rate and everything else, when I was thinking as a cyclist, I didn’t quite get it, because as a cyclist, I feel like, hey, we might be riding with other people, but we are still very distinctly individuals. Yeah, but when I was training for track, and it was in amoeba, going around doing 400 meter repeats. Then it did almost feel like we were one more coordinated group. And so I’m switching my thought process a little bit back to more of of that aspect of it. And I do think that there is a little bit of this put it outside of yourself situation like, Okay, now is the time to go. I’m not thinking about it. I’m just I’m out here and I’m running and my legs are moving. And the removal of that from your intellectual space, I think, can oftentimes make that individual Workout More Effective in the fact that you’re able to maybe do more than you would have done alone, because you’re no longer like, Oh, shoot. Pinky toe is really sore right now, like I’m getting tired. I don’t know if I should do another one or slow down. And so it certainly does push you, I’ll say, to a higher level. Now, as a coach working with athletes training in this manner, we do need to take this into consideration, because that for a coach, in my opinion, that group represents chaos and an uncontrolled nature of training. Sometimes that athlete goes harder than they should, sometimes that athlete went easier than they should. What do I as a coach need to do downstream of that? Hey, you went 75% as hard as I expected you to. Should I make this person do a harder workout later in the week, maybe yes, maybe no, right? That’s an individual thing for the athlete. Or, man, you went so deep and you were supposed to do this tomorrow. Should we still do it tomorrow, or do we need to pull back? Right? And so there are, there’s the one microcosm of the moment, but then there is also the bigger picture of how does this fit into the universe of training, right? What
Grant Holicky 41:03
are the ramifications? And I think that’s a really important thing to keep in mind, right? Is if you’re in a coaching relationship where the coach can be flexible. I will admit that early on, I hated group reds, and I would try to push athletes very, very aggressively away from their group reds, even when we did group sessions from the center or with apex. It was, we are going to ride out together. We are going to stop and when we start the workout, we are sending you off at 22nd increments, because you always had an athlete. Well, my it’s perfect. If I just sit in their wheel. I’m like, No, it’s not. It’s either too hard or too easy. There’s almost no way it’s a perfect 10% or 15% difference, but I’ve grown over time to kind of understand that I can’t control those aspects, and that the happiness, joy of the group scenario is just as important, if not more important, for certain athletes. So how do we kind of put that in, even to the point where I have a professional gravel athlete that will come on our Wednesday group rides, and their responses, you know, these are way too hard for me. I’m like, Yeah, I know. I know, coming into this, we’re going to get a cumulative 45 minutes to an hour of tempo out of you, and I’ve just built it into the training plan, because I know how much you enjoy coming out and doing this.
Rob Pickels 42:19
And I definitely have athletes who are like that, right? I might prefer that they were to do this very specific workout that day, but they want to be there with the group. It’s their friends, it’s their social time. Otherwise, they’re hanging out with their kids. This is their only time to see other adults. Yeah. So we say, hey, we’ll make it work sometimes before major events or whatever, we might say, hey, let’s skip the group ride this week, so that we can do this really specific work. But I also think that grant, and I you know, we’re really putting on our coaches hats, and we’re really trying to look at it from this optimization of workload and whatnot for the athlete, 80% of athletes, being with a group, being with a team, is overall positive and beneficial. And the considerations that we’re talking about, they should not prevent somebody from being with a team and a group, because the positives overwhelmingly outweigh these additional considerations that we have as coaches, and that’s fine. I think that we’re perfectly willing to work within that box, and so I would say the majority of people do better when they have a social group and team around them, whether that’s in the individual workout or in the grand scheme of a season, you’re more likely to go to an event if you know people going to the event with you, right? It’s very hard to get in the car and drive six hours to do something by yourself, to have teammates and everything is beneficial. Yeah,
Grant Holicky 43:41
I think I’m to the point where, if I look back at some of my best power numbers in racing, it’s as a worker in the road season for somebody else. It’s not for me to win. It’s that feeling of doing it with others and for others that really gets me going.
Griffin McMath 44:00
So one thing I’ve admittedly that I thought you all were gonna touch on was something that you pretty much just shut down a couple of minutes ago, which was tangible adaptations to make during a group ride. And what I’m hearing from both of you is like, no, the purpose of group ride is for motivation to get out there and to actually enjoy the things that you’re doing, for a sense of community, but I was thinking, oh, you know, based on all of this, if I’m feeling fatigued, I can just sit at someone’s wheel and you’re like, Nah, well, you can
Grant Holicky 44:28
and you can’t, but there’s still, you’re not going to go on very many group rides where it starts to go uphill and it slows down. You’re not going to go on very many group rides where, when the terrain changes, the pace stays the same. Just doesn’t happen. And I would venture to say, and please nobody take this the wrong way. The more novice a group is in terms of performance. When you start down here and it’s more of a novice group you have, I think it’s more beneficial, because there’s less specificity needed for that athlete if they get out on the. Bike, there’s just going to be time on the bike, but also that group is probably going to be punchier. It’s probably when it hits a hill, it’s going to be more aggressive, and so those rides are less likely to be steady. Eddie rides. So even if you’re trying to go there and recover, you’re probably not going to get a great recovery ride out of it, because people are going to if you’re at the back too. The whole thing accordions, there’s a whole bunch of things that go on with that. As you go from a more novice athlete to a say, professional cyclist, the needs of that athlete get way more specific, and so the group training becomes more and more difficult to implement, because they’re not getting that specificity necessarily that they need. But at the same time, when you get a group of pro cyclists together, that group of pro cyclists together will very often get passed by people on the road because they’re just going out, noodling, you know, they’re going out, and they all know what they need to do, and they’re going to do it together. And nobody’s going to get a contest. They have races for that. Nobody’s going to try to drop the anybody. They just ride. And I will say, and this is a super important thing for everybody out there to realize. My dad has this saying that never attribute to maliciousness. What can be explained by ignorance or stupidity. It’s actually a famous saying. It’s beautiful, but 90% of the group ride accelerations that I see in beginner athletes are not because somebody’s testing the person next to them. It’s because they are concerned whether they can keep up, and they half wheel. Like, if I go out and ride side by side with Griffin, I guarantee you that it’s going to be one of the harder days of my week, because Griffin is so nervous about slowing me down that she’s going to make sure that she’s going kind of like, why are you half feeling me? Yeah, slow down. Back. It off. And that’s what you see in that group. And it becomes this kind of Excel, oh, God, they’re going, Oh, I gotta try to keep up. And it’s not an ability to ride up to the wheel. You ride a little bit ahead of the wheel, and the next person rides ahead of the wheel, and this pace just climbs.
Griffin McMath 46:51
That is such an accurate description of what ends up happening. Like the one group ride that I went on right before my injury, I hauled ass, and I remember at the end they were like, wow, Griffin, like, you’re way more of an athlete than I realized. I was like, bed percent. I was like, Man, I those incline and that’s exactly what happened to it was at inclines. I was like, I’m not gonna be like, dropped. I’m gonna bust ass. And for them, it was like a regular ride and but it wasn’t,
Trevor Connor 47:18
no, you hurt them because you’re worried about Yes, I guarantee
Grant Holicky 47:22
it again, my dad’s not a cyclist. And my brother and I moved to Colorado. He moved here 30 some years ago, and I moved out here 2627 years ago, and we got him into riding a little bit. We went on a ride in Colorado. And I vividly remember, if anybody’s familiar with Boulder, when you go out of town on 36 north of town, you drop down in a little Gully, and then you do this little rise up to what’s called Longhorn road on the way to Neva road. My dad dropped my brother and I this at the time. I was a, I always put in quotes, professional triathlete, and I was dying. You know, this was a good, solid 25 years ago. So my dad was upper 50s and very fit always was, but not on a bike absolutely crushed us. And we got home, and I was like, Dad, what the heck we like? Why he goes? Well, I was afraid I was gonna fall over and fall and not be able to get out of pedals, so I just wanted to go really, really hard, yeah, but there is that all the time of like, I gotta make sure that this is what’s going on, so you watch that rise in the pace, so you see more discrepancy and pace and more beginner riders because they’re worried about whether they’re going to keep up.
Rob Pickels 48:28
And I think that we need to make a distinction between group rides and group training. Yes, right? Very fair, swimming, track athletes, maybe some like fitness things or whatever else they’re engaging in group training, yes, there is a very specific workout, a very specific prescription, and when everyone is running those 200 meter repeats together, they can push each other to the next higher level. Yes, in group rides, where there is no purpose, it is just a flock of people that are out there, it oftentimes devolves into the one person that has sort of these things going on, and so they push and it’s like a cascade sort of effect of the group trying to just sort of keep up and be responsive to whatever’s happening around them, in my opinion, unless you’re just training for a big, long, hard sort of day, and That is the purpose of that day for you. That is not necessarily effective training for anybody within that group. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing and you and you should not do it. There’s reasons to do it. But if we’re talking about effective training, and this is where, sort of grant, working with Apex athletes, or even you kind of in your cross you know, Wednesday cross workouts, there is a purpose. Okay, guys, we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna do three laps, we’re gonna take a one lap break, and then we’re gonna do these Hill sprints over here. That is group training versus group riding. Yeah,
Grant Holicky 49:51
that’s a really interesting way to kind of delineate it. I think that, yeah, what you get in group riding is you. Have to remember, too, is as you migrate up an experience and an ability, you’re on a group ride, you’re riding at the level of the best rider in that group. So if you’re going out and doing a base ride with for your friends, or if I go out and do a base ride with a bunch of my athletes on a weekend, and let’s say Eric Brunner is in that group. Eric Brunner base is this, and he’s gonna have to ride base. So he rides base. If I’m riding next to him and he’s doing bass, I’m doing tempo, and that’s a kind of understanding of what’s going on there. So now for me, I will use that base ride for him as a workout day. For me, I know that what I’m going deep, I know that what I’m doing, I know why I’m doing it. So when you go into a group setting, if the coach is really good and understands what they’re doing, they’re going to use that as something else. Like I said, I have a gravel athlete who comes with us on the group rides on Wednesday, it is a tempo ride for that athlete. I know it’s a tempo ride for that athlete, and that’s perfect for what they’re doing and preparing for an eight hour gravel race, fantastic, or a mountain bike stage race, which they do sometimes, too perfect, right? But I’ll even have athletes that they do group ride every week because, for the exact same reasons that you’re being drawn to this all right, this week, I want you to tell everybody when you start, you’re gonna attack off the front a couple times, and that’s creating more specificity in that general workout. And
Rob Pickels 51:25
that is a great point, is to send athletes in with a purpose into a chaotic situation. You know, people will say, I’m a B group rider, because that’s the group they can hang with to the end, right? So, well, this week, you’re a C group writer, yeah, and it’s gonna be easy, perfect. We need a base easier day. But I want that socialness for you, or sometimes it’s a, you know what? Go up to the A’s and just literally hang on as long as you can. Let’s get some high intensity drop out of the group ride base on the way back. How do you manipulate the unstructured group ride to be more beneficial for that person? Yeah,
Grant Holicky 51:58
and you can even take it and say, I want you to go sit on the front of the group for 20 minutes at a pop but you have to convey, like, one of the things that I think is really important, it’s important for you, when you’re doing something like that within a group setting, inform the people around you of what you’re doing, so that you’re not attacking off the group and everybody’s responding and just thinks you’re a jerk, because you’re doing this even when you’re going and hanging on the A I think in a lot of times, it’s important to say, You know what, I’m gonna come and I’m gonna hang on for as long as I can. When you guys drop me, don’t worry about me. Great. Or I’m, yeah, I’m 100% sandbagging today, but I’m gonna sandbag in the back of the group. We’re gonna chat. We haven’t talked in ages. That’s my goal. I will not go to the front and push the space, and that’s important to make sure that everybody else feels comfortable with that too.
Griffin McMath 52:43
You guys just answered like eight of my follow up questions back to back there. I feel like my neck was gonna snap going, like, that’s so helpful. So I think in kind of concluding this, what I’m also hearing is that if you’re new to joining a group ride as well, almost like within Rob’s first question of an intake, and that first few months to your understanding between you and coach. There might also be that similar kind of group ride dating experience of that first few months of understanding, how am I okay? This is how this ride and these people meld together. Now that I know that after a couple of months, now I know how to reframe this group ride in my training plan, there’s
Rob Pickels 53:21
that, and there’s also, if you’re new to riding and you’re new to group riding, it’s okay for people to know that, yeah, people around you should know that. They’re gonna figure it out. So you might as well talk about it, you know. But it’s one of those things. Cycling is a very socially uncomfortable sport, right? There’s a lot of conventions you don’t know. There’s a lot of jargon. You don’t know there’s clothing that you’re not comfortable wearing, and you feel like a fish out of water when you roll up and 50 people there know each other, and they’re sitting around on their bikes drinking coffee, and you’re like, Well, I don’t it’s okay to say, Hey, this is my first time in this group, and I haven’t done a lot of group writing, because every one of those people also felt that way 10 years ago, right?
Grant Holicky 54:04
Yeah, and you’re gonna find out really quick if that’s the right group for you, because if they’re supportive of that situation, it’s the right group for you. If you have a group that isn’t not the right group for you, don’t go back in the settings that you’re talking about with those two teams that you’re talking about looking at both of them are fantastic teams, and what you’re going to get is exposure to other disciplines of the bike, exposure to different types of racing, exposure for distant types of riding. You’re going to get stories and comfort from those same people that are on those teams that are going to make you feel more comfortable and more in tune with your journey. And that’s really, really important. And I think that’s even doubly more important for women who are getting into the sport, because there are so many barriers created for women trying to get into our sport.
Griffin McMath 54:49
Oh, I feel so supported this morning, guys, not only did you help me with the coffee fiasco, but you’re encouraging me with this group effort.
Rob Pickels 54:57
I bought you the coffee you. Did buy the coffee.
Grant Holicky 55:00
That’s all right. I wasn’t gonna help at all with the fire. These men just Fauci when I sent the fire
Griffin McMath 55:08
textile messages this morning, as soon as it left my phone, I was like, I should have sent a trigger warning. And I need to clarify. And I need to clarify.
Grant Holicky 55:16
That’s fine. I don’t get triggered by the fire stuff because I was too entertained by the thought of you trying to put it out. What
Griffin McMath 55:23
happened is, I just opened it. I was like, Oh, I was upstairs, and I started smelling my toast, and I was like, Oh, shit, I forgot I left it and broiling, and this
Trevor Connor 55:30
is what I was referring to earlier. That’s why you don’t put it in the broiler, because you forget. I’ve had
Griffin McMath 55:36
a really good track record recently, and I was on the phone basis or birthday, so I went downstairs, I opened up the oven, because I was just like, oh, I need to turn it off. And then I went to open it up, to be like, I wonder how bad it’s smoking, because it’s burnt. And it was the first time where I’ve opened up and it was just full flames. I just looked at it, and I was like, boop closed it. And I thought, Oh, well, lack of oxygen. We’ll just let this puppy.
Grant Holicky 55:59
Well, that’s actually really good, because the reason it lit on fire is because you opened it and you let the oxygen in, I
Griffin McMath 56:04
know. So I just closed it and then, did you turn the broiler off? No, that was the first thing I did. Before I even checked it, I was like, Well, stop the problem. Like, let’s stop the source. Wow, that’s a good reaction. Good job. Thank you. Thank you. And then I reminded myself that I still don’t have a fire extinguisher in my house, and that that you need. I think I’m gonna get one of those blankets. But, yeah, prepare
Grant Holicky 56:24
a hero blanket that you got targeted on on Instagram. Yeah, do it perfect. I
Griffin McMath 56:30
that’s exactly what happened. That’s why I got one for Christmas. I know what happened. I know. Well, thanks guys so much. This is you want to hear
Grant Holicky 56:39
good irony, though, I’m sorry to cut this sincere moment off. When I were doing the inventory of the house after our fire, I had to write down a prepared hero blanket as one of the things that we lost in the fire, and a fire extinguisher as something that was lost in set fire.
Griffin McMath 56:56
Oh my gosh, we should ask them to sponsor this episode.
Grant Holicky 56:59
This episode brought to you by could be well,
Griffin McMath 57:03
thanks guys for an awesome 25th
Grant Holicky 57:06
potluck. Wow. Potluck is old enough to drink. It’s old enough to move back in. It’s open. You know what else? It’s old enough to do move back in with his parents,
Rob Pickels 57:15
and it’s old enough to know better.
Trevor Connor 57:19
Well, potluck 25 might be old enough to know better, not to move back home, but apparently dad is still needed, because I left this episode a couple minutes early and no one remembered to record the outro, so you’re stuck with just me. Here’s the outro and my hopefully disappointed dad voice. That was another episode of fast talk. Thoughts and opinions expressed in fast talk are those of the individual. Subscribe to fast talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcast, but you make sure you leave us a rating and review. As always, we like your feedback. Tweet us at at fast talk labs, join the conversation at forums, dot fast talk labs.com, or try learning from our experts at fast talklabs.com for the whole crew who forgot to do this. Outro. I’m Trevor Connor. Thanks for listening. You.
