When should you Retire? What does the science say?
When do you plan to retire? Have you even thought about it? If you are under 40, chances are it hasn’t even crossed your mind. However retirement could easily comprise …
In Search of the Optimal Diet for Longevity
If you follow “healthy diets” in the news as closely as me then you will likely be very confused by now…..almost every diet and every nutrient has been hailed as …
How much energy do you need to recover? understanding EPOC
Recovery is notoriously difficult to measure and estimate. Some people need hours, others days. Fortunately we have a proxy measure called EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption). EPOC is the elevation …
Should we be Cooling down during Warm-ups?
Misunderstanding about Warm-Ups. We have spent decades thinking warming up is literally about warming up the body and muscles. Specifically increasing muscle temperature, initiating metabolic and circulatory adjustments, as well …
Don’t do more than 3hrs per week in the gym!
There is some evidence from 6x small studies involving a tiny total of 93 cyclists that strength training (in the gym) slightly helps cycling performance (see footer below). However, on …
8 Worst Race Day Nutrition Errors
It is incredibly easy to mess up your race day nutrition. The typical advice you read online (eg 120g/hr-144g/hr carbs) is very unrealistic for most people and often influenced by …
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 gentle activity vs hard 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 …