Pro cyclist and coach Taylor Warren joins for a wide ranging discussion, including how he still finds fitness improvements after a decade of training and racing, balancing rest and workouts mid season, the value of the basics, RPE, and if American racing has gotten easier or harder. We also answer your listener questions on Legion's tactics, the most important power durations for domestic US racing, racing the course vs racing the people, training regrets, how much pros train, and more.
​
Show Notes
Taylor Warren bio
Taylor's IG

This is a wide ranging conversation with professional cyclist and Empirical Cycling coach Maeghan Easler. We discuss her successful race season, American vs European racing, and how improving fitness changed her training needs, along with more training and coaching topics like volume, recovery, intensity, trusting the process, individualizing, and why she prefers 7 hour rides to 8. Instead of listener questions to finish the episode, we react to your controversial training takes submitted for a now forever-lost episode.

This episode takes a long look at the mechanisms behind aerobic adaptations from high intensity exercise, starting with an early study showing how AMPK activation leads directly to mitochondrial biogenesis, followed by a recent meta-analysis showing when high intensity exercise does and doesn't lead to adaptation. We provide guidelines in terms of exercise intensity, duration, and how well trained you are. Then we give some practical takeaways, plus debunk all the ways "hacking" this adaptive signal chain don't work. Marinus Petersen of KiloWatt Coaching steps in as a guest co-host for Kyle and provides an additional perspective from his coaching experience, and his formal exercise physiology education.​

Show Notes
Chronic activation of AMP kinase results in NRF-1 activation and mitochondrial biogenesis
Factors Influencing AMPK Activation During Cycling Exercise: A Pooled Analysis and Meta-Regression
Skeletal muscle AMPK is not activated during 2 h of moderate intensity exercise at ∼65% ?˙O2peak in endurance trained men
Carbohydrate improves exercise capacity but does not affect subcellular lipid droplet morphology, AMPK and p53 signalling in human skeletal muscle
Effect of exercise intensity and hypoxia on skeletal muscle AMPK signaling and substrate metabolism in humans

Marinus' email
KiloWatt Coaching IG

Empirical Cycling coaches Kolie and Rory sit down for an in-depth discussion of the 5 most common reasons that they see for a fitness plateaus. Touched on are reasonable expectations for fitness progression, fatigue management, options for overcoming plateaus, and situations where it's out of your control.

Former pro cyclist and successful lobbyist for the Tour de France Femmes, Kathryn Bertine joins the podcast to discuss her new memoir about these efforts, STAND, which details what it took, and what it cost. We discuss the writing and publishing process, activism and slacktivism, what people can do to effect change at every level, the financial structure of the TdF and sponsorships in cycling, what the Homestretch Foundation is and its purpose, an unlikely friendship with a raunchy comedian, and much more.

Show Notes
Kathryn Bertine
STAND
Homestretch Foundation

This episode discusses (and debunks) five training myths regarding training volume, and your listener questions asked on Kolie's Instagram.

Myths addressed:
-You can overtrain on volume but not intensity
-Women can’t do as much volume as men
-You can replace high volume with high intensity
-Easy spinning is junk miles
-You don’t need to train many hours to be fast

This episode looks at two classic studies illustrating the often overlooked connection between calcium and endurance performance by way of inducing mitochondrial biogenesis through more familiar pathways. We then discuss applicability of these learnings, plus potential pitfalls interpreting this information, and your listener questions.

Show Notes
Raising calcium in L6 myotubes mimics effects of exercise on mitochondrial biogenesis in muscle
Whole muscle calcium study
HIT study from WD#28

This episode contains expanded musings on VO2max and FTP training and progression, based on the years of feedback since the VO2max series debuted. We talk about whether or not you need to work in blocks, ways to determine the effects, interval durations, whether to start hard or not, recovery timelines, and more. We also answer your listener questions on time in zone, breathing, periodization, high cadence, testing, and more.

Adam Pulford, coach of Alison Jackson, joins to discuss the methods and ideas behind training and coaching a professional cyclist, using his article analyzing Jackson's Paris-Roubiax winning power file as a jumping off point. We get into CTL and volume, when to build vs maintain fitness, athlete mental health and motivation, and the coach's role in professional vs amateur athletes. We also answer your listener questions on race specific training, coach-athlete communication, setting goals, stress management, and building fatigue resistance.​

Show Notes
Behind the Victory: The Power File and Training Behind Alison Jackson’s Paris-Roubaix Femmes Win
Adam's Instagram
Adam's CTS Bio
CTS Instagram
The Time Crunched Cyclist Podcast

To celebrate a half million podcast listens, we roast some of the earliest training plans Kolie wrote almost a decade ago. We get into lessons learned and how the coaching has changed, changing training fads, working with natural talents, and listener questions on "the science", impactful events, and advice for new coaches.