What is Cardiac Drift? A guide for athletes
Cardiac drift refers to increasing heart rate despite constant intensity over prolonged exercise. What causes it? In a nutshell HR rises in order to maintain cardiac output despite a decline …
Dying to be fit: can too much exercise kill you?
I am sure you have seen some worrying headlines that too much exercise is bad for you. Authors of the Copenhagen City Heart Study (Schnohr 2015) were first to propose …
Is Time Restricted Eating a Magic Bullet?
What is Time Restricted Eating? Time-restricted eating is a form of “Intermittent fasting” which could be called daily intermittent fasting. It is pretty simple, just stop eating for at least …
New Study Asks: What is the optimal amount of activity vs exercise?
This is an old story, but one with confusing data. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ current physical activity guidelines recommend as little as 150 minutes of moderate …
How I made a Dynamic Structured Running Planner
I have a number of athletes who combine running with cycling or swimming eg duathlon and triathlon. Yes you are right, the crazy ones! I have previously offered them training …
Cycling in the Heat: The Science
We all struggle in hot temperatures. Cycling and running in the heat is much harder than running in cooler temperatures. In this blog I will consider why; and in part …
Huge list of Health | Fitness | Exercise | Diet Tips
Today we are launching a huge list of searchable health / fitness / diet tips on pretty much every conceivable topic. This means whenever you have a health or fitness …
16 Apps that promise $$ for Exercise
First let me say these apps don’t pay out a huge amount. No, it’s more like a trickle or nothing at all. However, if you are exercising anyway and if …
New take on the classic “Power Zone Calculator”
Everyone has seen the pretty images of power zones; you may have even created one as they are based on simple percentages. A “zone” simply means a band of power …
How did we get Warm-Ups so Wrong?
Science says everything you believe about warm ups is probably incorrect 🙈 Why do cyclists love warm-ups so much? Well let’s start with some non-specific claims about physiology….Warm ups are …
Are you terrorized by your own FTP?
In January I caught covid19 for the 2nd time and needed a week’s break from training. This was relatively short compared with the 4 weeks off first time around. But …
Will Permanent Caloric Restriction Extend Your Life or Ruin Your Life?
During WWI and WWII rationing was compulsory in many countries and consisted of a balanced and calorie restricted diet of around 2300 calories (the average teen in the US eats …
Can Science find the Optimal Interval Session?
Previously I wrote about why HIT or HIIT training beats threshold and tempo work on a like-for-like basis. You can read that blog here. I also explained why HIT has …
What is the Optimal Team Timetrial Strategy?
What is the Optimal Team Timetrial Strategy? If you are riding in a team online or IRL how do you pick a team? How do you decide who rides first? …
Aging & Fitness Part 2: On the Biology of the Aging Body!
In the last blog I looked at the magnitude of the effect of aging on athletic performance, today I examine *why* fitness declines with age. In the next blog, I …
Facemasks for Athletes (Revisited)
What is the story of wearing face masks during exercise and in particular the physiological effects upon breathing? During Covid millions of people have been wearing masks and arguing about …
Aging & Fitness Part 1: Why Age is No Barrier to Success
Consider this list, what do you see? Eamon Coughlan ran the mile in 3:58:15 at 41 years Dara Torres won three Silver medals at Olympics at the age of 41 Yekaterina …
Cholesterol and Lipids for Athletes
Lipid disorders (dyslipidemia) refer to abnormal levels of cholesterol and/or fats in the blood. Lipids are an energy source that constantly circulate from gut to liver and muscle. Fat and …
Which Blood Tests are Recommended for Athletes?
BACKGROUND Your blood is vital to your health, it is the lifeline to every organ in the body and it is a goldmine in terms of health monitoring. Any significant …
What is the secret underlying the benefits of HIIT?
Today we look at the physiology underlying HIIT training with the aim of finding out the secret of why HIIT appears superior to many other training distributions. Background HIT stands …
Coach: Is Anaerobic Power more trainable than Aerobic Power?
old_but_not_dead_yet asked me about an interesting observation that the power-curve is more highly variable at short durations (eg 10s) than at longer durations (eg 10min) when it looks more concentrated. …
Redefining Exhaustion and TTE
How hard do you find the famous 60m FTP test? Have you ever tried it? Popular opinion is it is horribly difficult. So much so most people are scared to …
Are you Hungry for Fasted Training?
I have been wondering for a long time, does fasted training work for endurance sports? I need a really strong reason to stop eating carbs before, during and after exercise, …
Coach: how do I improve my FTP? (A Simplified Approach)
This is probably at the top of the FAQs. I was asked again today by Jake a beginner: “How do I improve my FTP via training?” Rather than go deep …
Coach, how should I transition training from indoor to outdoor riding?
Swen wrote to me on ICU and said “I am a big fan of you and your experience and research in cycling. I have been riding structured training with polarised …
10 Best Free Apps to Log your Gym Workout
There are a lot of reasons to add gym work to your cycling. And if you do, it’s nice….actually essential…..to have a simple gym app which can help you log …
Myths about FatMax & Weight Loss & Performance
Carbohydrates in their base form glucose or glycogen (in the muscles) can be turned into ATP very quickly but you only get 2 molecules of ATP per glucose molecule. Therefore …
Coach, I am sick today with flu, should I train?
It is cold and flu season (and I didn’t even mention coronavirus 😉 ) But it’s tricky to know whether to exercise and train, particularly tricky as even doctors don’t …
10 things to do with your *new* powermeter
So you just got a power meter? Great now do this….. 1. Set It Up Correctly First things first, unbox it and send the photos to you all your …
Winter is Coming (cyclist’s survival guide!)
Winter is coming, actually I think it is here. I should know I live in the UK where is gets light at 8am and gets dark at 3.30pm during late …