Training

The Tour de France is just starting. I’m often asked how hard this race is. One way to answer that question is by examining the workload (intensity, duration, and frequency) of the riders. Heart rate … [Read more...] about How Hard Is the Tour de France?

My recent post on altitude resulted in several questions. The common theme of many of these questions had to do with how to prepare for a race at high altitude when you live at a low altitude. There … [Read more...] about Misconceptions About Altitude

A while back I was asked in an interview for a magazine about how to prepare for an event at a high altitude if the athlete is from a much lower location. Good question. I experience this myself every … [Read more...] about Questions About Altitude. Answer: It hurts!

As you have more than likely figured out by now, I’m quite focused on recovery this past few days. My last three posts have been on this topic. It’s the one area that I have found athletes understand … [Read more...] about More on Recovery on Demand

In the last few days I posted a couple of tweets about the recovery week and got some good questions back. One of them was about how a recovery week should be designed. I'll get to that shortly, … [Read more...] about Recovery Week Design

It's that time of year when the risk of overtraining increases for many athletes due to the warmer weather and the rapidly approaching race season. This is not something to be taken lightly. … [Read more...] about Recovery and Overtraining

I recently answered this question for a German magazine. It's an issue that is seldom discussed and often taken for granted--recovery. Question: Why are recovery days so essential? What happens to … [Read more...] about Why Recovery Days?

On Sunday I returned from two weeks in Italy. The first week was a vacation and in the second I put on a training camp in Riccione on the Adriatic coast.  During the first week temperatures were … [Read more...] about Training and Racing in the Heat

I've recently revised my book, Your First Triathlon. The Intro and Chapter 1 are available here for you to read. Just click on the link. It's one of the book projects I mentioned below which … [Read more...] about Chapter 1 from Your First Triathlon

I've gotten a lot of emails asking if there's something wrong. It's been a long time since my last post. No, I'm not dead. Nor have I stopped blogging. I've been as busy as … [Read more...] about I’m still around

Once again I must apologize for the big gap between my posting of Part 1 and today’s Part 2. This is my busy time of year with lots of travel for clinics and camps so time is quite precious. It seems … [Read more...] about How to Optimize Your Economy, Part 2

I’ve written before about the three markers of endurance fitness: aerobic capacity (VO2max), anaerobic/lactate threshold (AT/LT), and economy. In my last blog on economy I noted that sport science … [Read more...] about How to Optimize Your Economy, Part 1

The diagram here (click to enlarge)  illustrates what happens to heart rate, rating of perceived exertion (RPE), speed, and power while riding a bike steadily uphill, coasting downhill, and then … [Read more...] about More on Power Meters

Should you buy a power meter? After all, they aren’t cheap and sport is already expensive. You’ve spent a small fortune on bicycles and all of their assorted and costly components. And don’t forget … [Read more...] about Why You Need a Power Meter

Fatigue is a primary limiter standing between you and better performance. If you could delay or resist the sensations of fatigue you would go faster and last longer at a given effort level--the … [Read more...] about What Is Fatigue?

It’s common for athletes to take in some carbohydrate after a workout. The desire for sugar is typically high at that time. This is beneficial in that it is known to increase the glycogen stores in … [Read more...] about Should You Use Protein After a Workout?

Someone asked me a while back what books I had read recently that I particularly liked. I read a few in 2011. Some were sport-related and the others were just for fun. Here are the three from the … [Read more...] about My Favorite Books from 2011

On February 4 the FASTER* cycling center and I will present a workshop in Scottsdale, Ariz., for about a dozen athletes I handpick to attend. The purpose of the selection is to have a small group of … [Read more...] about Select Athlete Workshop

It’s that time of year when athletes have gained a couple of excess pounds of flab and are starting to think about taking it off. The traditional method for doing this is by doing lots of long, slow … [Read more...] about The Fat-Burning Myth

In case you missed something, here are lists of my most-read blogs since I started posting in January, 2007 along with my most-read blogs of 2011. Most Read of All Time It’s remarkable how little … [Read more...] about My Most-Read Posts of 2011

Perhaps the greatest thing about the training technology we have now is the ability to track how training and performance are progressing. Before the digital age this was done largely by guesswork and … [Read more...] about Inconsistency

I was asked this question 3 times in the last 3 days, so it must be a common concern. Let’s take a quick look at it. If you have a power meter and set up your zones based on your FTP using Coggan’s … [Read more...] about Why Don’t My Power and Heart Rate Zones Agree?

Someone recently reminded me of the following which appeared in my blog on November 3, 2009. The subject came up because an athlete asked how he should adjust his training when injured. These sorts of … [Read more...] about When Things Don’t Go Right

I’ve commented here before that what I like to see for intensity in base 1 (block 2) for those athletes I coach is a lot of zone 2 time. The accompanying power distribution chart for an athlete shows … [Read more...] about Early Base & Zone 2 Intensity