A New Coaching Model: Building Better Athletes Through Our Virtual Performance Center

We believe modern coaching doesn’t optimally fulfill the needs of the modern athlete. That’s why we’re introducing our community, education, and coaching membership, Fast Talk Laboratories.

Jim Case descends Passo Sella Dolomites hero image
Photo: Chris Case

We believe modern coaching doesn’t optimally fulfill the needs of the modern athlete. That’s why we’re introducing our community, education, and coaching membership, Fast Talk Laboratories.

So often athletes are given templated training plans. But what if he or she gets sick? Or work gets stressful? That athlete will likely do more harm than good simply pushing through and sticking to the plan. In response to that methodology, we’ve created a virtual performance center, a place for the insightful athlete to be guided to his or her best self.

We have collected the many tools available to modern athletes in one place, offering curated and validated knowledge—through articles, videos, workshops, webinars, forums, and the list goes on—from some of the finest minds in sport science: Dr. Stephen Seiler, Dr. Stephen Cheung, Julie Young, Colby Pearce, Grant Holicky, Jess Elliott, to name a few. We’ll be adding new contributors all the time, and you can be sure they’ll also bring clarity and sophistication to their contributions.

Let’s detail our Listener, Library, Live, and Laboratory member levels.

Listener Membership

We are now producing transcripts of every new Fast Talk podcast episode—plus our catalog of over 135 existing episodes and 27 Cycling in Alignment episodes. What does that mean for Listeners? Searchable podcast episodes, references, and resources. And, of course, you can read along or scan ahead, if you happen to be a faster reader than listener.

Listeners will also begin to receive our weekly newsletter, which will keep them up to date on new episodes, special guests, and opportunities to send in questions for new Q&A episodes. We also have plans to periodically release a few of our most popular training science videos and articles—but only for members.

Library Membership

Our next membership level unlocks a whole library of content, which is why we’re calling it our Library Membership. For our Library Members, we have created training science articles, a whole library of video content, and a moderated forum. This is content like the fundamentals of sports nutrition from Head Coach Ryan Kohler and a workshop on why cold temperatures affect performance from Dr. Stephen Cheung. The Forum is a place to discuss recent episodes, ask questions, and get answers from Trevor, Ryan, and our very smart members.

Live Membership

Live membership is really the heart and soul of what we’re offering. This level includes all the features we’ve already introduced, plus a whole suite of Live Events including social group rides, structured live workouts, live Q&A sessions, and live webinars. Trevor’s and Ryan’s experience in training centers and the group-style approach will shine. This level also includes group coaching and a monthly question answered.

Laboratory Membership

Our Laboratory Membership will open in January. This is our premier coaching level, and of course it includes all the benefits of the lower levels. We believe it’s a vast improvement over existing coaching programs. Our athletes and listeners are not typical. They are intelligent, motivated, and they don’t need email nannying, which is what we often see in endurance coaching. They also don’t really need templated training plans, which we believe are counterproductive for higher-level athletes.

Instead, our Laboratory Membership is a new concept that we call Endurance Mentorship. What does that mean? Well, it’s based on the idea that you already know the basics—but wouldn’t it be great to have an elite coach to answer your questions? Plus, with periodic testing and guidance, you’ll experience the best of what Fast Talk Laboratories has to offer as a virtual performance center.

Episode Transcript

Announcing Fast Talk Laboratories

Chris Case  00:12
Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of Fast Talk. I’m your host, Chris Case and this is your source for the science of cycling performance.

Chris Case  00:21
Today I’m sitting down with Coach Trevor Connor, and Coach Ryan Kohler and we’re here to announce our new coaching, education and community membership: Fast Talk Laboratories. We’ve gotten so much from our listeners, from our members over the last five years about, “We want more”, “You guys are so good at explaining the science of training”, “We want you as our coaches” – all the time we get that that comment- “We want more from you, more content, more advice, more suggestions, more expertise…” And now we’re going to be able to give, going to be able to deliver a lot more with this new membership program that we’re launching.

Chris Case  01:10
We have this collective philosophy that the modern athlete doesn’t get the modern coaching they need out in the world today. Something’s a little bit off, something’s a little broken, you might say, not optimized might be the best way of putting it. We think our platform is able to take all of the tools that are available to athletes and coaches today and deliver.

Chris Case  01:40
Trevor, I know that you have predominantly been the one receiving the emails from people saying, “I need you right now to be my coach, I need you to divide the device, this training plan for the next six years of my life. Please give it to me right now, Trevor!” And you, you give them a look like you’re giving me right now because that’s an impossible task, but tell us a little bit about your coaching philosophy that really drives home this point and drives this new program that we’re launching.

Trevor Connor  02:14
Chris, sadly, I have never gotten an email that says I need you right now. I’m actually going to start by saying I am sorry, to all those people who sent emails that I haven’t replied to yet. I have a giant folder of emails I want to get to that are probably months old now, but they’ve been extraordinarily appreciated. And everything we’re talking about right now is really trying to respond to all of you. We have gotten these messages of we want more than just the podcast. We’ve gotten tons of requests for coaching. And we have heard that and have really been spending months now, and this is why Ryan is with us now, to figure out really a new model for coaching.

 

We Disagree with This Way of Personal Coaching

Trevor Connor  02:59
As Chris implied, there are certain ways coaching is done right now that we don’t fully agree with. There are a couple talks I give to every athlete I work with. And the first one is, I don’t give templated training plans. I could build one, I could spend a lot of time, let’s say I even built the perfect training plan for the next six weeks. The fact of the matter is, it’s the perfect template right now. It’s the perfect six week plan for right now. But I have no idea what’s gonna be going on with you five Wednesdays from now. You could be sick, your kids could be screaming and keeping you up all night, you could have had an argument with your spouse and didn’t get a lot of sleep and the next day we have on this perfect training plan, go and destroy yourself on the bike, which is the worst thing you could do. It needs to be flexible. So something that we have never gotten into and we’re never going to do is to generate that templated training plan, hand it to you and say “Go with this. We think it will work for you.” I have told athletes all the time, I would rather actually just have an interaction with you where I help you to direct your own training, but have no plan than to give you a plan with no direction beyond that. I think we can get you to a better place that way. So when we were thinking about how to do this that was one of our philosophies behind this.

 

We Want to Make Thinking, Insightful Athletes

Trevor Connor  04:30
The other thing I tell my athletes all the time when they hire me is my goal as a coach is to get you to the point where you understand yourself and your own training so well that you don’t need me anymore and you just keep paying me because you like me.

Chris Case  04:45
Heard that one before.

Trevor Connor  04:47
Well you never paid me so I don’t think I’ve ever said that.

Chris Case  04:51
I gave you stuff.

Trevor Connor  04:52
That’s true, you did give me stuff.

Chris Case  04:53
This is a barter.

Trevor Connor  04:55
Including a giant light that is on my commuter bike that makes my commuter bike look that much worse.

Chris Case  04:59
And a really ugly helmet that I think maybe you still wear?

Trevor Connor  05:03
It’s actually here at the office, it’s my the backup helmet.

Chris Case  05:07
Great. Well, I’m glad it paid off in the end for both of us.

Trevor Connor  05:11
Yes. You neither need me nor will continue paying me.

Chris Case  05:16
And you still have a really ugly helmet.

Trevor Connor  05:18
So we’re even!

Chris Case  05:19
Yes, correct.

Trevor Connor  05:21
That tangent aside, there was a really important point to that message, which is, I don’t think any athlete can be successful as an athlete without understanding themselves, without understanding their training. Because even if you are talking with a coach, every day, you’re gonna go out on the bike, something’s gonna feel off, you’re gonna look at your heart rate monitor and go, “That heart rate doesn’t seem right for that particular power.” And you have to make choices. And you have to make these choices every day. And if you don’t understand yourself, if you don’t understand the principles, if you don’t understand how training works, you can’t make the right choices. And that’s, again, when I see athletes that just say, “Well, here’s what’s on my plan. And I’m going to do this.” And when the worst examples of this is, I remember when I was running those trainer classes in the morning, I watched an athlete who was really committed, he was cooked, and he did what his coach told him to do that day and I basically watched him fall off his bike. And when I went up to him and tried to nicely say, “You’re tired, you shouldn’t be doing this.” He’s like, but this was on my plan.

Chris Case  06:34
Hmm. We don’t want to produce more robots. More automatons. We want to produce thinking, breathing, insightful athletes.

Trevor Connor  06:44
Right. That’s what we wanted to do with this new membership. I mean, that’s what we wanted to do it with Fast Talk. The whole idea behind this was, we want to give you the knowledge so that you can direct your own training. So we want to take this a step further and say, we want to have more interaction with all of you, for those of you who are interested we want to have more for you. But this isn’t a “Here’s a six week template, go have fun.” This is a we are going to teach you to understand yourself so that you can direct your own training, and do it to the best of your ability.

 

Our National Training Center Approach

Trevor Connor  07:20
Another thing that sparked this that Ryan’s gonna talk more about is both Ryan and I have worked at centers, working with very high level athletes, and, again, it’s not the here’s a templated training plan go away. It’s actually much more of a, let’s go for group rides, let’s do these different things together. And so Ryan’s going to talk about our Live program, which is really built off of the sort of model that you see at National Training Centers.

Ryan Kohler  07:49
You know, we both have this background of working with national centers, in large organizations, in a lot of groups scenarios and we’ve found a number of things that really worked well. So we’re trying to bring that to the Fast Talk Labs community now so we can help build your knowledge, regardless of the level that you’re starting at. And you can engage with us and engage with the rest of the community with people that are more knowledgeable than you and people that are on the same level. So I think just really bringing everyone together to share that knowledge.

Ryan Kohler  08:22
To summarize it a bit is empowerment, really. To say, well, here’s how you do this, and why you might do it versus here’s a templated training plan and just follow this. So having that access to ask questions to us and the community, I think, is pretty key.

Trevor Connor  08:37
What really sold me on how powerful group training can be is I remember when I was at the center up in Canada, we had this kid Tyler, who was pretty new to cycling, who joined the group, had some talent, but certainly when he joined us wasn’t up to the strength of the rest of the riders. And he wasn’t getting any personal training. I don’t think he was even getting a plan. But he just would constantly go out and ride with us and try to do what we would do and on the rides ask us questions on all this stuff and you could see the wheels spinning in his head and he was learning this stuff. And he went from that, somebody who just knew nothing about training, was trying to hang on, to two years later he got third at Canadian nationals in cyclocross.

 

Coaching Without Borders: Group Coaching Through Live Workouts

Chris Case  09:21
Those group ride experiences that you’ve had, Trevor at the National Center, Ryan, you’ve had those with your your junior athletes. Those are exceptional learning environments. Now, we want to have these virtual group rides, indoors through our membership on platforms like Zwift. Tell us, Ryan, what that’s going to look like. Take us inside the group dynamic. You’ve had a lot of experience in a group coach setting, we’re bringing this now to a virtual world, tell us what you were able to access from that great experience in the past and bring that to Fast Talk Laboratories.

Ryan Kohler  09:57
You know, there’s a lot of questions that go on not just between one athlete and a coach, but just questions among the athletes. So in some of the offerings we’ll have we’re going to be doing recovery rides, where we just ride together, and it’s a time to chat and ask questions. We’ll be able to bring this into learning how to do certain workouts where now anyone can join from anywhere. You know, you’ll understand the why.

Trevor Connor  10:23
We actually tried this in the spring with Dr. Seiler. We, for those who remember I think we had over 100 people and it was a last minute thing we just set up this really kind of fun, let’s go do a group ride together, we all got on discord, and talked. It was an hour and a half of riding together with a whole bunch of our listeners asking Dr. Seiler questions about training that we would all try to answer and it seemed like it was a really good experience. And it was one of the things that we kept in mind of this is a great forum for just getting your workout in and sharing knowledge learning from one another. In this kind of unique format, virtual opportunity that we have,

 

World-Class Experts in Your Home

Chris Case  11:06
The whole philosophy really sounds like it’s bringing the performance center atmosphere into a virtual world so people can tap into expertise that they couldn’t otherwise tap into. We are curating talent here for people to utilize to become better athletes.

Trevor Connor  11:25
That’s the part I am the most excited about. I can tell you personally, as a cyclist, I never would have won a race or probably got out of the cat fives if it wasn’t for the extraordinary luck I had meeting some very knowledge people who took the time to share their knowledge with me. And when I went to the center in Canada, and then came down here to Colorado and experienced the centers down here, I was always very lucky to be exposed to all these extraordinarily knowledgeable people who are willing to talk and willing to share. So when we said we want to create a coaching model based around this center idea, the way these national centers are set up, the first thing we said is we need to have experts on a whole variety of areas of exercise science, that are available to the people to the members of our program. And Chris, you can probably speak to this because you’ve been the one doing the most on the day to day this but it has been extraordinarily rewarding the number of people who have said they wanted to be part of this: Dr. Seiler, Dr. Cheung, Dr. Pruitt and we hope to expand that. But these are people that members of our program are going to have opportunities to talk with.

 

Coach Grant Holicky

12:47
Hey, everybody, this is Grant Holicky here from Forever Endurance. I’m a longtime contributor to Fast Talk Labs and I really, really love their new platform. One of the great things about it is all this information is just there for you in one place. You can take it at whatever speed you want. You can take it at whatever focus you want. There’s going to be information on there about training methodology, tips for how to race, all this just incredible information from these incredible coaches and athletes. One of the great things about Fast Talk Labs is the people they’ve managed to bring into their community. You’re getting advice from some of the finest sports science minds and some of the best athletes that are out there.

Chris Case  13:37
Because of the work that we do and the philosophy we bring to first the podcast now the entire membership about the value of science, the value of understanding the why, people have joined us; and it is, it’s Dr. Seiler, Dr. Cheung, Dr. Pruitt, other coaches out there, Colby, Julie Young, Grant Holicky, and so on and so forth. And the list of people that will contribute will continue to grow as time goes on. You’ve seen them, many of them, on the podcast already. They kind of love what we’re doing. It’s what they bring to everything that they do. They love the sport. They love the science. You put those two together and that’s why they want to be a part of this.

 

Coach Jess Elliott

Jess Elliott  14:24
So my favorite part about being a part of this whole team is kind of twofold. One, these are just some of my favorite people in the community to have conversations with. Secondly, I just I really love that Fast Talk Labs is at the tip of the spear with presenting the most up to date, scientifically backed information to the endurance community. So I think the greatest benefits of this platform and all the content that’s a part of it, is that it’s information from sources you can trust, it’s from credible sites, scientific based sources.

Our Special Offer for Podcast Listeners

Chris Case  14:58
Hey everyone, during this episode, you’ve been hearing about our new coaching education and community membership Fast Talk Laboratories. And now we want you to try it out. So we have a special offer for you. Try us for 30 days free. That’s right, you can get full access to Fast Talk Laboratories with our one month trial offer. Just sign up for an annual membership at any level by December 1 using the discount code “podcast”. You’ll get 30 days of full access to Fast Talk Laboratories including online articles, video workshops, live q&a sessions and webinars, virtual rides and workouts, our moderated forum, and even our “Ask A Coach” guidance – we think you’ll be impressed. But if you decide our membership isn’t for you just cancel within 30 days and you won’t be charged. To get your one month trial membership, visit fasttalklabs.com, choose your member level, and check out with the discount code “PODCAST”. Hurry, our offer ends December 1.

 

The Listener Membership Level

Chris Case  15:59
Let’s take a step back now and really detail our Fast Talk Laboratories membership and the different levels that people can engage with us on. First we have the Listener level. It really stems from our podcasts. We’ve got a lot of devoted fans out there, you’ll notice that now the episodes 135 and counting of Fast Talk, 27 and counting for Cycling in Alignment, they all have transcripts. Those transcripts are now on the pages, references, resources, you can scan through those transcripts, those are now all available. You can search them obviously. So you can get to a certain section of a podcast that you listen to, revisit that material, perhaps Trevor has pronounced a word that is incorrect, or he’s got that weird Canadian pronunciation going on. You might need to search that term say “Oh, he was actually saying ‘about’.”

Trevor Connor  16:56
As opposed to “aboot”?

Chris Case  16:57
I’m not really criticizing you. I’m just saying some people might be unfamiliar with the language you speak.

 

Dr. Stephen Seiler

Dr. Stephen Seiler  17:05
Hi, I’m Dr. Stephen Seiler of the University of Agder in Norway and I’m a longtime contributor to and a fan of Fast Talk and now Fast Talk Labs. So I’m really happy to be involved. I think Fast Talk Labs with Chris and Trevor and their team exemplify some aspects of the coaching and the process that I value. One is science and being evidence based. But another is communication: communication between coach and athlete, communication between coach and other coaches, and then finally, trust. Building trust in that communication, in that forum where everyone wants to learn and work together to be better. And I really believe that’s what you’ll find with Fast Talk Labs. So I’m proud to be part of it. And I hope you will enjoy it.

 

The Library Membership Level

Chris Case  17:59
Next up, we have our library of content. It is a virtual library, it contains articles, it contains videos, it contains workshops, it contains all of these different things that you can learn from, from experts. We’ve got, of course, coaches, Ryan Kohler and coach, Trevor Connor. We’ve got pieces by Dr. Seiler, we’ll have pieces by Dr. Cheung. We’ll have all of these contributions from world leading experts in their field and there’ll be sitting there waiting for you to really dive into them, digest them revisit them. You know,  these are complex science topics that we like to unearth on Fast Talk and now in Fast Talk Laboratories.

Chris Case  18:47
Let me give you a little bit more detail on what I mean here. We’ve got these things called workshops. Trevor, Ryan, other contributors out there will share their screen as they walk through a particular topic. Maybe that’s how to perform a long, slow distance ride. We’ve gotten a lot of questions about that, you’d think it would be an easy thing to understand, but it’s not it’s got a lot of nuance to it. So Trevor and Ryan will walk through what that looks like as you look at their data. Dr. Cheung will pick apart the topic of why do I slow down or why is performance affected when I ride in the cold weather? And he’ll walk through the science of that very topic as he goes through interesting slides with a lot of interesting data and graphics and so forth.

Chris Case  19:37
There’s also straight up articles on everything from how to take care of your knees so they stay healthy, to the fundamental principles of sports nutrition that Ryan recently wrote and published.

Chris Case  19:49
We also have a wonderful forum where you can expand on all of these topics, ask questions, engage with others on all of these different topics through the forum.

Chris Case  20:02
We know a lot of people don’t just want to read or listen to more podcasts, they want to watch what we’re doing. We’ve got those workshops that I mentioned previously, we’ve got technique videos, so specifically going into whether it’s strength and conditioning with expert Jess Elliott, who you may have heard on previous episodes on Fast Talk now she’s going to be producing videos for us. We’ve also had how to pedal a bike with Coby Pearce, a Cycling in Alignment episode, you probably thought, why did you guys do this as a podcast, you should have done that as an video. Well, we have done it as a video. And it’s coming soon, to the Fast Talk Laboratories membership. We’ll also have many workout videos produced in house with Ryan Kohler, leading a lot of those workouts so that you can follow along and do them yourself.

 

Testimonial from Colby Pearce

Colby Pearce  20:56
Greetings and salutations listeners, this is Colby Pearce. What you didn’t know that already, just from the sound of my voice? Of course you did, because you listen to my podcast Cycling in Alignment.

 

Colby Pearce

21:09
I’d like you to know why I’m on board with this crew. I’m working with Fast Talk Laboratories because they’ve got it together. They’ve got the equipment, they’ve got the knowledge, and they’ve got the motivation, the dream to make it happen. They’re doing cool stuff. And they are producing content that I believe will be valuable to my audience and their audience to build knowledge, understanding and over standing.

If you want to go deeper on these topics, check out the membership community on Fast Talk Labs. And speaking of exclusive membership community benefits, Jana, Chris and I recently filmed a companion video to my How To Pedal a Bike podcast. You know that episode where you thought you knew how to pedal a bike, and I told you you didn’t and then I went on for two hours talking about how to pedal a bike. Well, there was a lot of technical stuff in that audio. And so we made a video to go along with it. And you may find this helpful, but in order to access it, you must become a member of the Fast Talk Laboratories, exclusive community.

 

The Live Membership Level

Chris Case  22:21
That details the library level. Ryan, why don’t you talk a little bit more about the Live level.

Ryan Kohler  22:30
So each week, we have a number of live events that we’re planning on doing. We have basically two rides that we’re looking at to get started. One is going to be live structured workout and then we’re going to pair that with one of our easier recovery rides on Zwift, where you have that opportunity for additional q&a. We’re looking at doing a mixture week to week of live webinars and live Q and A’s. And one of our first webinars coming up is looking at some sports nutrition topics on how to start organizing your plan for an event. So we’ve got that we’ve got some mental skills, we’re going to be looking at bringing in some strength training pieces live, so you can follow along there and ask those questions in real time.

Chris Case  23:15
What if somebody misses a live event, Ryan?

Ryan Kohler  23:18
Not to worry, we’ll record those. So we’ll be recording everything live. But we’ll also have those recordings available for you after and you can go visit them anytime, you can go pick out the workouts that you may have missed, or checking in on some of the q&a sessions and just always find those and have access to them.

 

Dr. Stephen Cheung

23:37
This is Dr. Stephen Cheung. I’m a professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Brock University in Canada. I’m also the author of the textbook Advanced Environmental Exercise Physiology, along with being the  co-editor of the book cycling Science. I’ve also been the editor since 2002, for the toolbox feature on Pez Cycling News all about the science of cycling, along with being the chief sports scientist for Baron Biosystems and the Xert training platform. I’m really excited to be part of Fast Talk Laboratories family because I got into physiology, I got into science because of my love of cycling. So for the last 30 plus years that has really been my passion to spread not just my love of cycling, but also of the science of training and physiology of the human body and how amazing it is and how we can make a work better. And I think that’s really one of the cool things that is going to be in Fast Talk Labs is that it’s going to be a community of like minded contributors and also members with really one shared goal in mind and that is to use science, use solid evidence based training advice, to improve our enjoyment of the sport and also ultimately our performance. I’m really looking forward to sharing my personal areas of interest in environmental physiology and also in fatigue and exercise physiology with everyone on this platform.

 

The Laboratory Membership Level

Chris Case  25:16
Which brings us to our top level the laboratory membership, which entails this new endurance mentorship concept. Tell us a bit more about that. Trevor,

Trevor Connor  25:27
This goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning, which is we don’t want to do that templated plan for you. So this is how do we coach you in a way that we think is a lot more effective? And this is that endurance mentorship. Here again, is the issue with that templated plan: What’s going on with your physiology? What are your strengths or weaknesses? What are the gaps that you’re trying to address? I can hand you a plan that says here is the perfect 12 week plan to get you to whatever event, and yeah, that’s the perfect 12 week plan for somebody, but is it the perfect plan for you? How do we know? What is it that you need, in particular to work on.

Trevor Connor  26:08
So I’m going to tell a quick story because this was what I really pictured in my head as we were designing this program, this different way of coaching, this different way of mentorship. A couple athletes reached out to me, who wanted to improve their training, wanted me to help them out, I ended up getting them down to Colorado, this is back when you are running the CU Sports Center. And we got them in for a day. We did the physiological testing on them and then Ryan and Jared sat down with them, took them through the results, said here’s your strengths, here’s your weaknesses, here’s what we’re seeing about you as an athlete. Then talk with them: what are you trying to do? What are you trying to accomplish? What are your goals? And then using that information that was unique to them in conjunction with where they’re trying to get to said, here’s what you need to be doing. Here’s the best training for you and sent them off with that. And that was more helpful to them than any plan that they could have just bought, that says, you know, here’s the perfect plan for getting you to that event. No, this was, here’s what we see in your physiology, here’s the best bang for the buck, the best type of work for you to get where you need to. And you also offered to them, you know, check back with us in a couple weeks. So this was the motivation of instead of putting together that that templated plan, we want a program where we’re going to test you fairly regularly.

Trevor Connor  27:34
Now, no, you’re not going to come here to Colorado. So this is part of what we were working on. And so we have remote testing, we are excited about some potential partnerships that we hope to announce soon. But part of this program is going to be we’re going to have you at home, whether on the trainer or out in the road, do some testing that we can analyze, see you as an athlete, and then we will sit down remotely and talk with you about here’s what we’re seeing about you.

Trevor Connor  28:06
And testing isn’t the only benefit of the Laboratory membership. Yes, we are going to test you, we’re going to take a look at the results to tell you what we think we need to do. But in between this regular testing, we are going to have an athlete coach conversations; Regular check ins where we see how it’s going and what sort of results you’re seeing and adjust if necessary before we get to your next test and tell you what you need to do them. So we might in that first test say, here’s what we think you need to do, you go and do that and then we have that test a few months later and say, okay, now we’re really seeing those results. You’ve improved. Now, here’s what we think you should be able to do. Or sometimes it’s no, we’re actually not quite seeing the results. It gives us more information about you. And then we say, let’s try a different road. But it’s getting at what is most effective for you. And combined with that are regular check ins with a coach to see how things are going and see how the training is going. And then we retest, you see where you’re at.

Ryan Kohler  29:08
Really, it’s like bringing the laboratory to you because in reality, not everyone has access to a center like CU or a national center like you’ve worked at, right? So it’s a good opportunity to be able to bring that level of testing home for you. And I think the other interesting pieces, I mean, a lot of people are moving indoors now, you know, this is the first year I’ve hit my mileage goal on Strava because of indoor riding. So I think with everything moving indoors, it’s a way to really bring that inside and I think evolve with how we’re cycling.

 

Why We’re Excited About Fast Talk Laboratories

Chris Case  29:45
Let’s close out this episode much like we do our traditional episodes of Fast Talk, not with take home messages but the things we’re most excited about. This is an incredible new platform Fast Talk Laboratories Membership is is unique; we want it to be something very different, very powerful – Trevor, tell me why you’re so excited about this.

Trevor Connor  30:11
I have been very fortunate to have been part of many centers over the course of my career, I have seen how effective they can be this style of coaching this way of developing athletes. This is why we have national centers because they know it works. When we started this years ago, we had this idea of we really want to bring people to the centers. We want to bring people to CU sports. Unfortunately, right now, travel is something that isn’t really an option. So that forced us to get creative and actually came up with something that I think is better, that I’m really excited about, which is instead of bringing all of you to the center, we figured out a way to bring the center to you. So this is what I’ve been calling it to everybody is this is the virtual National Center.

Chris Case  31:10
Ryan, what are you most excited about?

Ryan Kohler  31:14
Yeah, I think having been in front of so many groups in the past with these different with different teams, and indoor cycling classes and everything like that over the years, it’s really enjoyable to work with those groups of people and just see the dynamic sort of develop. So like Trevor said, bringing that to you is really the exciting part. And it is a new model. It’s it’s all virtual right now. And I think it’s going to be an exciting way to do this. So yeah, I’m excited about that. That group interaction, getting a lot of people involved in it, and seeing what it develops into.

Trevor Connor  31:50
And Chris, what are you most excited about?

Chris Case  31:53
I’m a cyclist, and I’m really intrigued by the science. And so now I get the pleasure of working with honestly some of the best scientists and researchers and athletes and coaches around the world to bring members this incredible information. So I get the fun job of curating all of that cool content, but then also turning it around and delivering it to people so that they can improve their lives performance, health, just purely enjoyment, ride that grand fondo that they never thought they could, win the state championship they never thought they could, whatever their goal might be, I get to provide information that helps them along that journey. And that’s pretty exciting.

 

Coach Julie Young

32:42
I am coach Julie Young, Julie Young Training, run the endurance lab at Kaiser Sports Medicine, and I’m a longtime contributor of Fast Talk Labs. In a former life I spent 10 plus years as a US national team and international pro cyclist spending most of that time competing in Europe. I am so excited to join Fast Talk Labs as a contributing writer. I’m just wrapping up my Master’s in sports science and human performance and look forward to having a good reason to continue to study the science and write articles for Fast Talk applying the science to practice. For good or bad, we are in an age of a lot of information. But is it good information? I so value what Chris and Trevor have built and are building, and they’re passionate, sincere dedication to empower athletes with knowledge and tools to be proactive in their own training, to be their best athlete. I appreciate that Fast Talk invests the energy and time to take a deeper dive to provide the most credible, accurate information from the best in the business in science and practice. I look forward to helping Fast Talk Labs continue to develop their community and pursue their mission to make you fast!