We have a wide range of odd and interesting topics for you in this week’s show.
Episode Transcript
Trevor Connor 00:04
Welcome, everybody to another episode of Fast Talk: your source for the science of endurance sports training. I think I got it right this time.
Rob Pickels 00:12
Hey, guys, you know what we should do today?
Grant Holicky 00:14
What should we do today?
Rob Pickels 00:15
Let’s do a potluck!
Grant Holicky 00:16
Well, I’m here, so I guess we might as well, huh?
Rob Pickels 00:19
What are you a casserole?
Grant Holicky 00:20
What do I bring to a potluck? Okay, that is a great question. What is your typical go-to to bring to a potluck?
Rob Pickels 00:27
I don’t have any friends.
Grant Holicky 00:28
That’s a cop out.
Trevor Connor 00:32
I don’t have any friends either, I’ve been to a potluck.
Grant Holicky 00:34
You have family!
Rob Pickels 00:36
Whatever my wife makes.
Grant Holicky 00:37
Oh, there it is, okay.
Rob Pickels 00:39
I don’t know, let’s see, what would I bring to a potluck like…lasagna? I like bringing lasagna to things. It’s pretty good – way more time consuming than it should be – but oh, well.
Trevor Connor 00:46
What do you take?
Grant Holicky 00:47
Do you take pancakes with maple syrup?
Rob Pickels 00:49
Syrup?
Trevor Connor 00:50
No, that’s not paleo at all.
Grant Holicky 00:52
You can make Paleo pancakes.
Trevor Connor 00:57
Yeah, got my issues with those.
Grant Holicky 00:59
I’m sure.
Rob Pickels 01:00
Sprinkle some paleo on it.
Grant Holicky 01:01
You know what I like to bring? Chicken wings. I make a really good hot wing sauce. And I like to bring chicken wings.
Trevor Connor 01:07
Here’s my philosophy on potluck. Do I like the people or do I not? Because if I don’t, I will cook something to do with my cooking. If I like them, I’m gonna stop at the supermarket on the way and get something that actually tastes good.
Rob Pickels 01:22
Fair, can you cook – legitimate question – are you like – no?
Trevor Connor 01:24
No, that’s what I tell people. If you want to talk to me about nutrition, I can tell you what to eat. If you want my help on how to make it taste good, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Grant Holicky 01:34
Can you cook?
Rob Pickels 01:35
Yeah, yeah, no, I love to cook – because I’m like an experimenter, I love to try different cooking techniques and I’m a gadget guy so I got –
Grant Holicky 01:43
Oh, okay.
Rob Pickels 01:44
I’ve been sous vide-ing steak and it is glorious, yeah, it’s legitimately good.
Grant Holicky 01:50
I gotta try that.
Rob Pickels 01:50
Yeah, you can borrow it if you want.
Grant Holicky 01:51
No, we – we have one. I like to cook too. My problem is – I’m an experimenter as well, so I’ll make a sauce and my wife will go “that sauce was great” –
Rob Pickels 02:02
Yeah.
Grant Holicky 02:03
– “what’d you do?” and I’ll go “I don’t know.” –
Rob Pickels 02:07
Yeah, it’s like a one hit wonder.
Grant Holicky 02:08
So she’ll often say “make that sauce you made last time” and I try and she’ll look at me and go “it’s not as good” – which is a bit of a story of my life with my relationship.
Trevor Connor 02:17
So here’s the last 10 years of cooking for me – because I cook for myself -every night I go home, I go “What would I like to eat tonight?”, I think of all these great ideas, and then I followed up with the question of “what can I actually do” and then I just give a big sigh. I cook the same thing I cooked the last night, which was also the same thing I cooked the night before.
Grant Holicky 02:40
We have determined this in past potlucks your love of the same thing.
Trevor Connor 02:44
Oh, it’s the only thing I cook – stir-fry. My go-to is a stir-fry because that’s all I can do.
Grant Holicky 02:50
But you can change up a stir-fry.
Trevor Connor 02:52
I have many different dressings that I can put on top of it.
Grant Holicky 02:55
There you go. It’s like a bunch of LT workouts – you can do lots of different things to achieve the same thing.
Rob Pickels 03:01
You certainly can but I don’t know that we’re – this whole episode isn’t about cooking is it?
Grant Holicky 03:05
Could be but no.
Trevor Connor 03:06
I don’t even know what the questions are.
Rob Pickels 03:08
I guess that was my question?
Trevor Connor 03:12
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On Turning Hoods In
Rob Pickels 04:00
Grant, what’s your question today?
Grant Holicky 04:01
All right. My question is this – and as we’ve noted in the past that I tend to get into a little bit of what’s happening in the world right now, Rob will tell his stories, Trevor will stay married to his science – so here’s my question. You seen it all in the tour this year. We’ve seen it on the cross bike, we’ve seen all these things. There’s this trend of turning the hoods in on the bars. There is this trend of going to 38 wide bars with the hoods turned in – there is a joke on somebody that I think their hoods could touch it they closer –
Rob Pickels 04:36
There was also a trend of going to 48 wide bars and turning the hoods in on the gravel we’re playing – one day I’m gonna turn my hoods out, I think just to buck the trend.
Grant Holicky 04:44
Oh, I think that’s great, but I have been noticing some of my contemporaries in age, A) poopoo-ing the hoods turned in for ability to drive the bike –
Rob Pickels 04:58
Curmudgeon-y bastards.
Grant Holicky 04:59
I have seen some poo the idea of the hoods turned in for aesthetics –
Rob Pickels 05:05
Retro roach.
Grant Holicky 05:06
Maybe Robb is thinking of his –
Rob Pickels 05:07
I don’t have a third thing.
Grant Holicky 05:08
I don’t have a third thing either but what is your take on the bars turned in trend?
Rob Pickels 05:13
I’m not the first person to look at – because of this, I’m not like a value judgment like you should or you shouldn’t do something kind of guy –
Grant Holicky 05:20
That’s an answer. That’s an answer.
Rob Pickels 05:21
Quite fankly, I don’t really care. I hate – this is my cop out episode, you guys have copped out in the past – I don’t really care what people do.
Grant Holicky 05:28
I love that answer – more power to them.
Rob Pickels 05:30
I would be more impressed if they were wearing tank tops in the tour while they were doing – you know, let’s just buck all the trends – but no man for me, I don’t care if they’re doing it because it’s faster, if they’re doing it because they think it looks better, makes no difference to me. You do you. Done. Mic drop.
Grant Holicky 05:44
What about –
Rob Pickels 05:45
Trevor can’t even say anything.
Trevor Connor 05:46
You’re looking at me?
Grant Holicky 05:47
He’s just staring at me.
Trevor Connor 05:48
So you’re asking the guy – the handlebars of my bike over there were probably bought in the 1990s –
Grant Holicky 05:54
Yeah, but you’re –
Trevor Connor 05:55
You should be asking me whatever the trend was in 2003 and maybe I’ll respond –
Rob Pickels 06:00
That’s like an old school Ergo Drop, I feel like over there.
Trevor Connor 06:03
Well, I’m serious, I’ve got handlebars in my garage that I bought in the 90s that I probably put on one of my bikes or another. I don’t think I bought a new set of handlebars in 20 years. So you’re asking me about this trend – I need somebody to explain to me what this trend is because I have not caught up?
Rob Pickels 06:20
You can still turn your hoods in.
Grant Holicky 06:21
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.
Rob Pickels 06:22
You need a five mil Allen key – you can just loosen that baby up, turn it in a little – we’ll do it right now.
Grant Holicky 06:27
We’ll do it right now and see how you like it.
Rob Pickels 06:29
Bryce, go get me an Allen set and I’m gonna I’m gonna fix Trevor’s bike.
Grant Holicky 06:33
I thought Trevor would have an answer on the aerodynamic piece, I really did. I thought it’d be all about it.
Trevor Connor 06:38
So, my answer is kind of a throw here because we actually had Leonard Zinn on the show, we brought up those handlebars and he just said “I don’t get it” –
Grant Holicky 06:48
(laughs) Okay.
Trevor Connor 06:48
– so I personally don’t get it but I was waiting for Leonard to be like “well, here’s all the science behind it” because he is the tech guy so if Leonard goes “I don’t get it”, I’m right there with him.
Rob Pickels 06:59
But Leonard is 7 and a half feet tall, he can’t do anything and I love Leonard – going out the window –
Grant Holicky 07:07
I’ve seen the head tube on his bikes.
Trevor Connor 07:11
So, here’s the question because there are trends that you see in the gear that actually have an explanation – be it aerodynamic, be it performance –
Grant Holicky 07:20
Sure.
Trevor Connor 07:20
There are other trends that are – let’s just face it – they’re fashion.
Grant Holicky 07:23
Absolutely.
Trevor Connor 07:24
Which one is this?
Grant Holicky 07:25
I think it got its start from a belief that there is an aerodynamic advantage. And I think that now it’s become a degree of fashion. And I fall in the camp very similar to Robb, which is: who cares? I do think guys my age get into this idea that the way the bike should look should always be the way the bike should look – I remember when they started wiring cables underneath tape –
Rob Pickels 08:00
Oh my gosh –
Grant Holicky 08:01
And people lost their minds because “that doesn’t look right, that doesn’t look right” – now the trend is “make sure there’s no wires or cables anywhere, nothing showing”, again, ostensibly under the idea that there’s a huge aerodynamic advantage to this – sure, maybe there is but it’s not dramatic. But it looks really sleek, and it looks really cool.
Trevor Connor 08:24
Well, so this is totally off the cuff – and this might be right or wrong – but here’s my potential explanation. If you have the lower part of the drops – so they stick out – that means the top of the handlebars are a little narrower. My guess is the reasoning here is when you’re up on the hoods, you’re trying to be aero, you’re broken away, so bring those hoods in closer, bring your arms in and get more aerodynamics. When you’re down on the bottom of your drops – you’re sprinting, you want more leverage on the bike, and the further out they are, the more leverage you have – so that’s my guess of the explanation behind these. My one issue with this – and they’ve done this in wind tunnel testing is – unless you bring your arms right together so they’re practically touching, bringing the arms in closer makes no difference. So just getting a couple inches closer – no difference whatsoever. So to me, I get the “leverage for when you’re sprinting”, I don’t get the “bring the hoods a little closer in order to get a little more aerodynamics”, that’s – for the science I’ve read has been proven doesn’t help.
Rob Pickels 09:26
You know, the best part of this conversation is? The three of us have absolutely no clue why people do this – – which really just drives home the fact that I’m like, 40 years old and I’m getting older. And we’re like speculate – like, why are all these cool kids doing it this way? We have no clue what’s going on.
Trevor Connor 09:30
Yeah.
Grant Holicky 09:36
This is my whole point – that there’s a whole bunch of people our age sitting around, they got no clue too –
Rob Pickels 09:49
I know!
Grant Holicky 09:50
– they’re just passing judgment based on what they think is the right thing that should be done and “here are the roles”. My point is, “screw your rules”, who cares? If they want to do this, I’m tired of people getting up there and going “well you can’t drive your bike when the hoods are turned in”. You can’t – I can’t – I’m terrible driving my bike with the hoods turned down –
Rob Pickels 10:11
You need a steering wheel!
Grant Holicky 10:11
– so, what does it matter?
Trevor Connor 10:13
So here’s my counter argument – I don’t see the 20-something year olds buying all the new trendy stuff, because a lot of them don’t have any money. Now the people who are buying all the new technology, the new in-thing, are the people in their 40s and 50s because they can afford it.
Grant Holicky 10:29
But this isn’t new technology, this is just – as Rob said – this is taking a five mil and turn in your hoods in. And you don’t really have to do anything about this.
Rob Pickels 10:37
Now I do wonder because I’m speculating – and I hate to speculate and I hate the fact that I have to – is it wrist comfort maybe? Like, in maybe even more more of a neutral position?
Grant Holicky 10:47
When you are – I will – I have tried this. Mine are –
Rob Pickels 10:50
Oh, he tried it!
Grant Holicky 10:51
A lot of my riders are mid 20s and their hoods are turned in. And I’ve tried this on my cross bikes, when you are in your hiding position as somebody wants to describe it to me, when you’re trying to get aero, when you’re trying to get small and your forearms are down on the tops of your bars and you’re holding onto your hoods, and they’re slightly turned in – it’s way more comfortable. Yeah, I mean, that’s why you see arrow bars, that tips of the arrow bars are turned in. So some of that’s aerodynamics, as you said, when you can bring something together in front of your chest, you create an aerodynamic advantage – but that slight turn in is more comfortable, you don’t want to be out there like this.
Trevor Connor 11:32
Yeah, I will fully tell you, as a breakaway rider, I completely set up my handlebars for breaking away and not sprinting because, it’s me, why bother?
Grant Holicky 11:41
So we can look at you –
Trevor Connor 11:43
I always kept my hoods a little higher than most people on the handlebars – not as much as you see now, but I always have been turned in just a little because that was more comfortable.
Grant Holicky 11:52
And I remember too, like, when we went to hydraulic disc brakes and the hoods themselves got Jaeger, they got huge –
Rob Pickels 11:59
Those first RAM ones, wooo….
Grant Holicky 12:01
They were – they were huge, but all the sudden you could ride gripping the tops of your hoods, and not necessarily your bars and so the other thing that may come into this is “what did those younger riders learn to ride on, what do they like, what do they like to grab onto?”. Because we grew up – what did we grew up riding on? Like hoods made out of gum, right?
Rob Pickels 12:26
I grew up riding mountain bikes, personally.
Grant Holicky 12:28
Whatever, but I think that’s a thing that us older Masters guys that have the money, that are buying the stuff, as you say, need to get over ourselves a little bit and stop declaring what is appropriate and not appropriate for a professional rider in their mid 20s. Because – this drove me a little bit crazy when people were like “oh, you can’t handle your bike on hoods turned in like that” – I’m like “I can’t, you can’t but they sure as hell can” because they’re riding front tour –
Rob Pickels 12:56
Sure, yeah, no doubt.
Grant Holicky 12:57
And yeah, that was a little bit of my high horse this week but I was just curious to where you guys came with it. I don’t know that you gave me much.
Trevor Connor 13:04
We gave you abolutely nothing.
Grant Holicky 13:05
This is Potluck! Some of this is about nothing – it’s the Fast Talk version of Seinfeld.
Trevor Connor 13:10
Look at who you’re talking to – that over there, you’re looking at it, is my newest bike -2014, that is my newest bike.
Grant Holicky 13:20
I don’t know, I looked at that and thought it was pretty fancy for you.
Trevor Connor 13:23
It is fancy, that’s my point.
Grant Holicky 13:25
You show up for races in like jerseys that barely freakin fit and nothing matches… you’re a train wreck man. And then you just go sit on the front and demolish everybody for an hour.
Trevor Connor 13:35
I’m proud of this. You have no idea like this isn’t –
Grant Holicky 13:38
It’s actually part of his image – he cultivates this feeling of not caring.
Trevor Connor 13:44
Yeah, I remember when I got into racing – I was racing up in BC when I was starting to take it really seriously – and Swain Tough would show up to races. And Swain would be this guy sitting under a tree in a beat up kit, on a Norco bike – which in Canada, you’re like “seriously, you’re on Norco, Swain?”. Okay, so you would look at all this and go, “Who is this guy? He’s a train wreck” – and then you get in the race and he would destroy all of us. And I was like “that’s who I want to be”.
Rob Pickels 14:11
That’s the ultimate flex, right?
Grant Holicky 14:12
It is.
Rob Pickels 14:13
If you look like you’re trying really hard and blah, blah, blah, whatever people expected or they make fun of you – but if you look like you don’t care? Ooo, flexing hard on people.
Grant Holicky 14:24
So this is my approach to life. If everybody can – if you don’t – if everybody just underestimates you every time you walk into a room –
Rob Pickels 14:32
It’s not that you look like you don’t care, it’s that you look like you’ve given up. There’s a difference. It’s an important difference too. Like “great, you have something to live for”.
Grant Holicky 14:44
Give it up and who knows.
Trevor Connor 14:47
We – look – we have gotten every little bit of blood out of this stone and it was not a lot.
Grant Holicky 14:51
It was not a lot but, okay, so we’ll move on here from that to you, Trevor.
Longer Thresholds?
Trevor Connor 14:57
Okay, I’ve got a question – and guess what? It is a training question – And I’m gonna go with what I’m doing in my own training, because I want to hear your opinions on this. I have always, when you’re doing threshold work, been more into the short intervals – five minutes, maybe eight minutes with very short recoveries, because if you have the short recoveries, if you do 5 by 5s, it’s really a 25 minute effort, because your body isn’t going to back down that much – but you could do it at a higher wattage, and you get a higher quality workout. I was never a big fan of the 15, 20 minute threshold intervals because I just don’t feel you do with this high quality. This year, just because I’ve been doing the 5 by 5s and the 4 by 8s for so many years, I wanted to try something different, so right now I’m doing 2 by 20s – actually, I’m doing them on Sunshine, you hit the top at 19, so 19.
Grant Holicky 15:01
Awesome.
Rob Pickels 15:52
I love it. But it’s a hard place to do long intervals,
Grant Holicky 15:55
I don’t have a problem with it.
Rob Pickels 15:56
Like trying to roll a boulder uphill for you
Trevor Connor 15:59
So yeah, I technically do a 2 by 19s. And I’m loving it. They’re fun!
Rob Pickels 16:05
Okay, I get why you’re doing 2 by 19s.
Trevor Connor 16:08
They are a lot of fun – probably because it’s up the dipper – but here’s my question…. and my wattage is lower when I was doing the 4 by 8s, I was doing those probably about – surprising the only about 20 watts higher – am I getting as good a workout, because I’m struggling with that, because I was always so against the 15, 20 minute interval?
Rob Pickels 16:29
So something that’s really important to think about here is Trevor, who knows so much about training, constantly asks us questions about training –
Trevor Connor 16:37
Because I’ve always thinking about it. I know you’re kidding – but look, this is my approach. I think if you ever just go “this is the absolute truth, I’m never going to re-question it” – you get outdated. Everything, even if I felt very strongly about it, I think you always need to go back and re-question. And the answer might be “Yeah, no, we had it right the first time” –
Rob Pickels 16:38
I think everybody should be a little afraid of the dubious advice he’s been giving because he has no clue what he’s doing out there – I kid. Yeah.
Trevor Connor 17:05
Or you might discover something new, but if you aren’t requestioning, if you aren’t willing to challenge even your most sternly felt beliefs, I feel you fall behind. So this is what I do. This is how I experiment. I love to challenge these things.
Rob Pickels 17:18
I’m gonna jump on this one first, unless you have more –
Trevor Connor 17:20
No, go ahead –
Rob Pickels 17:21
When you’re doing longer intervals, then you’re obviously trying to target a threshold wattage or threshold adaptation or whatever else – and we do have a great threshold episode that people can listen to with Hunter Allen – so that implies to me you have a very specific goal with why you’re doing this workout and I believe that a volume, at this intensity level, I do think that volume is important and that maximizing volume is there. And so if you have a decreased fitness and you’re only able to do five minutes, then do five minutes and try to work that up. And for somebody that’s stronger like Trevor, than working toward an hour’s worth of work at this level is great. But this is more of a maximizing that volume, right, where it seems to me if you’re doing shorter intervals at 20 watts more, are you doing the same workout? Or are you targeting something totally different? Now, if we’re talking about doing a threshold, and you’re targeting 95 to 100% of your FTP, if you can do that only for 10 minutes and hold that because that’s all the ability that you have, then yeah, let’s break that up into five minute chunks, let’s break that up into eight minute chunks, let’s make it so that you can do 20 minutes, 30 minutes worth of work there instead of flaming out at 10 and then not being able to do a second one because you’re so fatigued. You know, Trevor, in your case, though, I think because you can hold that 95 to 100% of your FTP for 20 minutes and do it again for the next one, then I think that yeah, that is the progression of an athlete. And that in my opinion, those longer intervals are important, because I think that there are other adaptations – and this is getting more sciency than a Potluck typically is – that are involved with say, some glycogen depletion, and PCG1 Alpha expression and all of those aspects, that you do need that volume to get the total thing, so my vote is if you can do it for longer, do it for longer, if you can’t, then do it shorter, but maximize your totals.
Trevor Connor 19:18
So what quick response? Remember the definition of FTP is the power you can hold for an hour –
Rob Pickels 19:24
Yep, I was gonna say –
Trevor Connor 19:24
So everybody –
Rob Pickels 19:26
Whatever.
Trevor Connor 19:26
– can do 20 minutes at 95% of their FTP or they got their FTP really wrong.
Grant Holicky 19:31
All right, this brings to the next piece of the puzzle, okay, so why do we do intervals in the first place? Because our power is not something that mentally or physically you’re going to be able to do all the time, you probably are going to need to be tapered, prepared physically to do that and really mentally need to be prepared to do that. Alright, so let’s back it up, so we’re going to break that into pieces. The shorter the piece, the shorter the rest, longer the piece, you get a little bit of a longer rest, right. We – what’s generally the rule of thumb is, if you’re trying to keep something at the threshold idea, make sure the rest is less than half of what you’re doing, just a general rule of thumb, so if you’re doing five minute-ers, you’re trying to recover at one to two minutes, something along those lines, it’s a mental break. I have a whole bunch of things to throw at this, I like to go the longer stuff early in the season with just a little bit lower intensity because we’re working our way up to that. I think that usually the load early in the season is probably a little bit less, maybe they’re not, the rider is not as tired, they’re probably not as mentally fatigued because they haven’t been racing nearly as much – so they’re going to be able to handle that 20 minute mentality. Low power output, still in the same range, still in the same training idea, but then when we get into the season, a little hotter out, little different situation, maybe we got some residual fatigue from racing, then we’ll go to the 5 by 5s, we’ll go to the 4 by 10s or on that idea of Dr. Seiler, maybe we go 4 by 8, we have an exceptional great week, maybe we’ll go 5 by 8 this week, we’ll extend that time under load.
Rob Pickels 21:05
In your 4 by 8s, we’re talking above threshold or – ?
Grant Holicky 21:07
Below FTP.
Rob Pickels 21:08
Okay.
Grant Holicky 21:08
4 by 8s – this is a totally different question – but I don’t have any understanding of why anybody would do an 8 above.
Rob Pickels 21:15
Because you can.
Grant Holicky 21:18
That’s the answer! Anyway –
Trevor Connor 21:21
I do agree with you.
Grant Holicky 21:22
I have one last piece to put in this and this is a little bit of a soapbox – and I think this is the great part about Potlucks is we each get to get up on our soapbox for a minute – people do threshold intervals uphill. 2 by 19s, 2 by 20s up Sunshine is easy to do at that wattage.
Trevor Connor 21:44
Yes.
Grant Holicky 21:45
Quotes, “easy”. Now go out, find a flat course right and give me 2 by 20 on a flat course –
Trevor Connor 21:53
It’s much harder.
Grant Holicky 21:53
– people aren’t gonna be able to do that. It’s a super hard thing to do, so depending on where you are in the country, do you have mountains to go uphill for 20 minutes? No? Maybe this is when we break it down into five minutes because you can stay on top of the pedals for five minutes or eight minutes or something along those lines. I would advise anybody who exclusively does their intervals in the mountains to do some of them on flats, because we do not race in the tour. If you race in the tour, yeah, get in the mountains. But if you’re not a tour racer, 90% of the races you’re gonna see around here are on flats, make sure you’re able to put that power out flat.
Trevor Connor 22:30
Look, another way, a great way to do this, which I used to have the opportunity for, is there a weekly time trial going on?
Grant Holicky 22:36
Yeah.
Trevor Connor 22:37
And I used to love to go to that because then you have that motivation about the power out on the stuff that’s flatter.
Grant Holicky 22:43
Yeah. And that’s a great, that’s a great point. Having – and this is one of the things that I actually like Zwift for, is Zwift racing is not super punchy. It’s – there’s some surges in it, but you get it, you can do a 15-20 minute crit and you’re basically hanging out at your threshold the entire time with a little surge above, a little surge below. And so it’s very real world-esque LT work.
Rob Pickels 23:09
The flip side of this though is when it comes to doing all of your training on the trainer, again, that’s not very good specificity for going and racing a ride –
Grant Holicky 23:18
Yeah, but you can turn your hood so far in –
Rob Pickels 23:21
So far in, you don’t even need hoods at that point, but –
Trevor Connor 23:24
You had to bring that back, didn’t you?
Rob Pickels 23:27
You know, for a cyclocrosser, as the weather gets bad, days get dark – I know, I find a lot of time on the trainer and I can crush trainer workouts, but it doesn’t translate through riding through heavy ground that’s bumpy, it’s just, it’s not the same, you have to be doing, applying this power where you need to when you actually perform.
Grant Holicky 23:46
So that’s, uh, that that would be my take. I like the longer stuff early, Trevor, that I love the idea of mixing things up. I love the idea of keeping it mentally fresh, because what are you going to be able to handle and create a cumulative time at an energy system? And that’s, as you said, that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to be in this LT energy system for a period of time. And if you can’t do it in 2 by 20, you can’t get 40 minutes in, that’s the one downside of 5 by 5 – it’s only 25 minutes under load.
Rob Pickels 24:21
Yep, definitely.
Trevor Connor 24:22
This is the truth here is this is because Grant never writes anything down so he can’t remember the last workout he gave his athlete. So he just gives them something to do – thinking about going, “yeah” –
Grant Holicky 24:36
I do, I do think that after some of these Potlucks, I always go back and wait and see how many clients I lose.
Trevor Connor 24:44
I think this is true of all of us – mutual self destruction.
Grant Holicky 24:47
We pulled back the curtain and I have a whole bunch of athletes who are like – (scoffs).
Trevor Connor 24:50
So look, I will – before we move on to Rob’s question, I’ll give you the little bit of the history here on why I’m experimenting with this. We We’re talking with Dean Golich in the winter, and he was talking about his routine that he does in the winter, as you said earlier on, give his athletes, he actually gives a 3 by 20, because he wants them to have an hour. And his comment was ” I have seen no difference in the improvements if they do it at 100% of FTP or 95% of FTP”. So I want to get that accumulation of time and 95% of FTP, 3 by 20 is actually a very manageable workout. At the time, I was doing my 4 by 8s, and I wasn’t enjoying – so this is like my 15th year doing 4 by 8s – I’m tired of them, he brought that up, and I’m like, “let’s give it a try” – even though I’ve spoken out against this – and hate to say it, I’ve been loving them.
Rob Pickels 25:43
Yeah. And that’s right there. That’s it for me. I don’t know, which is better. I don’t know if we can know which is better. But the best thing, go and try it. Yeah, see how it does for you,
Grant Holicky 25:55
I will admit to being in a place last week where I went out and said I’m gonna do some threshold and it was hot, and I was struggling. And I looked at it and went, “I just can’t get 10 minutes under load in a rowtoday. I’m gonna do 6 by 5, because I’m going to get myself 30 minutes out of that and I can stay under load for that long”, even in pieces and I think it was purely mental because I was only going to take two minutes rest between the 5s and it worked out just fine. I was gonna take 3, 3 and a half minutes rest between the 10s but it worked for me that day and I think – we used to go with Neil all the time and Neil loved Sunshine –
Rob Pickels 26:36
Yeah.
Grant Holicky 26:36
I hate –
Rob Pickels 26:37
It’s because we used to work at the bottom, literally, right?
Grant Holicky 26:40
I hate Sunshine, so everything we would do would be going up Sunshine and we would do 5 by f5s up Sunshine and I remember – or Pyramid of Power or something up Sunshine – I remember people looking at me going “How am I supposed to be recovery watts going up this?”.
Trevor Connor 26:54
Yeah, it’s like a 15% grade.
Grant Holicky 26:56
Right, so 2 by 20 makes a lot of sense up that because you’re not recovering when you stop pedaling.
Rob Pickels 27:03
Literally turning back downhill.
Grant Holicky 27:05
Yeah, and you might not have enough time for that. Like you’re doing 250 watts recovery –
Rob Pickels 27:10
Yeah.
Grant Holicky 27:10
– just to move.
Rob Pickels 27:11
Hey, I will say – I was testing a Pro Tour rider for HIPAA purposes – I won’t say who it was – and at the end of their tests, they said “hey, I’m gonna go out and do a quick recovery cooldown ride and they went up Sunshine”. I was like “only in your world is that a recovery ride.”
Grant Holicky 27:26
Yeah, yeah.
Trevor Connor 27:33
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Extreme Measures for Training
Rob Pickels 28:05
Oh, guys, my question always begins with a story – and for full disclosure, because we’re always learning things about people – the reason they become story-based is I don’t really think about these until I’m riding my bike the day before we record, I come relatively unprepared and I take that time –
Grant Holicky 28:21
And yet everybody makes fun of me.
Rob Pickels 28:24
I know it’s true, but I look – I showered this morning.
Trevor Connor 28:30
Look, you know what these Potluck episodes have done to me? Like I’m 51 years old and –
Grant Holicky 28:36
Trevor’s nightmare.
Trevor Connor 28:39
– the whole year going, I am 51 and single. I don’t get what’s going on. After these Potluck episodes, I’m like “Oh, I get it”.
Rob Pickels 28:48
So if anyone’s actually entertained by this, then trevor@fasttalklabs.com is waiting to hear from you.
Trevor Connor 28:55
We’re on our fourth episode and if anybody ever wanted to date me and they listen to these, I’ve never dated again.
Grant Holicky 29:02
I just – I love how you’re looking at me as if the Potluck format is entirely my fault.
Rob Pickels 29:09
The name is your fault.
Grant Holicky 29:10
The name is my fault – and format might be my fault too – but –
Rob Pickels 29:13
You know.
Grant Holicky 29:13
I think it’s good. I think we all get – like I said – the curtain is being pulled back.
Rob Pickels 29:17
So there I was just riding along – which is how all good bike riding stories go –
Grant Holicky 29:21
Any good stories starts with gerrae.
Rob Pickels 29:23
I was just riding along at 10 o’clock last night because I have taken to this habit of doing weekly night rides on Wednesday night – mostly because I like to do a volume day after an intensity day and I do a shorter climbing workout on Tuesdays full disclosure – and this is the only way I can get a long ride in during the week, you’re busy, we’re all busy, we’re involved in small businesses and families and whatnot. How do you get riding time in? My solution was this: I go home, I hang out with my family, I cook dinner, I put people to bed and then I get on my bike and I set off into the sunset. Literally last night, as usual –
Trevor Connor 29:59
Just to back this, I sent Rob a message at six o’clock last night, I hear nothing. At 10:10, my phone bings and it’s Rob going “I just finished my ride, getting your message.”
Rob Pickels 30:09
I texted you back from the garage, I was still kitted up in the sweating when I sent that message and I have a beautiful sunset picture that maybe we can use for this episode from last night. But my question is this, what extreme measures have you guys gone through to get training in? And at the end of the day or the end of the season, was it worth it? Should you have gone to that measure?
Grant Holicky 30:33
I have a lot of experience with this because I used to travel so much when I was coaching swimming and you know when – either when I was racing triathlon, or I was racing cross and trying to be really serious about it, I have a lot of workouts that I did on an incline bike in a hotel workout room –
Rob Pickels 30:55
Everybody’s staring at you.
Grant Holicky 30:56
Yeah, “who is this guy hammering that seated bike?”
Rob Pickels 31:00
And thinking that you’re doing 900 watts for 20 minutes.
Grant Holicky 31:03
Yeah, really feel good about myself walking out of there – yeah, so I did a lot of that, honestly. And I think within reason, I would find some benefit out of that. I think I had to go in understanding that, while this is working a very different muscle group than when I would be sitting on a bike, right, or I found a upright bike but the saddle was bigger than my head and I – it hurt if I tried to ride for more than a half an hour. I do think what I started to do was move to a place where I would try to load before I left and then just go on the trip and say, “You know what, this is my rest and adaptation and I’m just gonna let it be”. Because eventually what I started to find – and I think this is a little bit of what you may be alluding to – is the fatigue, the stress, all of those things started to overwhelm the potential fitness gain I was getting out of them. So I would go on, I would go in these situations and start to exercise for sanity, not train for benefit.
Rob Pickels 32:12
Yeah. And I’m glad you brought that up, because that’s exactly the reason I’m thinking about this. I didn’t finalize my question until this morning, when I looked at my Whoop score and it was in the single digits. My heart rate was through the roof, my heart rate variability was down, you know, and I question I was like “man, should I have actually gone out to do that ride, was that worthwhile for me if it hit me so hard?”Fortunately, I always take Thursdays as a recovery day and so today’s a recovery day for me, but I got to ask that – I had fun, I’m glad that I did it – it served that purpose, but I’m not sure it was the best choice for training for me.
Grant Holicky 32:44
I remember playing indoor soccer back in the day, and you’d play games at 10 o’clock at night and I remember coming home from a 10 o’clock game, getting home, drinking a beer, in part to try to calm myself down so that I could fall asleep – I cannot fall asleep after working out that late. I remember vividly after Cross Vegas, like, being awake till three in the morning – not just because there’s some huge after party going on either, like, just sitting there like “oh my god, I cannot get to sleep because I am just so jacked up”. I think it really messes with the rhythms.
Rob Pickels 33:22
Trevor, I’m sure that you have.
Trevor Connor 33:24
I’m silent here because I’m just overwhelmed by the question. I think the easier question for me is what extreme measures have I not gone to?
Rob Pickels 33:32
I can picture Trevor renting this like Aqua bike that he rode across a lake because it was the only thing that he could pedal.
Grant Holicky 33:38
One of those pedal kayaks.
Rob Pickels 33:40
He’s like on the ground, just making pedaling motions in the air, you know.
Trevor Connor 33:44
So continuing with the making sure I’d never get a date in my life, another thing you should know about me is when I get an objective, be it at a workout or a race or whatever in my mind –
Rob Pickels 33:55
He gonna do it.
Trevor Connor 33:56
I’m gonna do it, no matter what – so two – like, I have twice now been hit by cars in the middle of a race or a workout. And my response after I picked myself up is “I have to finish the race and or the workout”. Not “I got hit by the car”.
Rob Pickels 34:15
Right.
Trevor Connor 34:16
But “workout ain’t done, let’s get at it.”
Rob Pickels 34:19
“My ankles broken, but the workout ain’t done.”
Trevor Connor 34:21
In the case of the race, I fractured my femur.
Grant Holicky 34:25
Nice.
Trevor Connor 34:26
I kept racing.
Grant Holicky 34:27
All right.
Rob Pickels 34:28
Was that a smart thing to do, Trevor?
Trevor Connor 34:30
No.
Grant Holicky 34:31
No, I don’t think he’s standing there going “I made the right choice.”
Trevor Connor 34:36
I mean, the actual bubble was one of the cars in the caravan stopped – a couple of cars stopped – but one of them, they picked me up off the road, they put me in the car and I’m still kind of delirious what’s happening. I look outside and the guy is out there fixing my bike because the handlebars had been turned. And my response is “Oh good!”.
Rob Pickels 34:54
Trevor’s like “I can ride that”.
Trevor Connor 34:55
I could ride it – so I get on the car, they’re like “literally what are you doing?” – I just walk over to to him, I grabbed my bike and they’re all yelling at me like “stop, what are you doing?”. I get on the bike and I race another two and a half hours.
Rob Pickels 35:06
I want to know about training. What crazy training things have you done, Trevor?
Trevor Connor 35:11
Oh, god, like I said, I’m just overwhelmed here. Like I’ve already told you about the ride where I was so done, I literally had to crawl into my kitchen, lie down on the floor, and then just make things fall off my counter so I can eat them. I have done that. Honestly, I think the craziest one, which isn’t going to sound that crazy was you know I love my training camps. And I just decided by last winter at the center up in Canada, we had a six day training camp, and I was going to put in over 40 hours. And this isn’t easy 40 hours. This is the training camp where on the third day, Wu Shang broke us up into groups of four and we did, I think it was 10 by 12 minute team time trials, and I was in a group with two Olympians and we were all, it was all about “Let’s see who cracks first”. So this was not easy 12 minutes. One of the guys in my group, a friend named Derek, at the end of that we were riding home close to about the six hour mark, we’re on the bike path, a woman in her 60s passes us on a commuter bike. And I look at Derek and go “should we catch her”and Derek looks at me and says “I can’t”. And the next day I got up, leg shaking, absolutely destroyed. Like “what am I going to do today? Seven hours? Yeah, of course.” Okay, same thing, more intensity. So this was not an easy – I ended up doing 42 hours and it was a hard 42 hours. I think that might actually – even though it doesn’t sound that extreme, if you do what we were doing over those six days…
Grant Holicky 36:08
That sounds pretty extreme.
Rob Pickels 36:53
The funny part of this is you had a lot of outs. So you could have fixed this train wreck at any point in time.
Trevor Connor 36:58
I didn’t want to, is the thing, I was enjoying this.
Rob Pickels 37:01
Alright, realize the secret.
Trevor Connor 37:02
I did not have a Whoop score but if Whoop went into the negative, it would’ve gotten into the negatives at that camp.
Grant Holicky 37:10
I did have a rider recently who called me up and said ‘Hey, my whoop score this morning was one” –
Trevor Connor 37:15
I’ve had that.
Grant Holicky 37:16
– was like, “that must have been a good night, buddy”.
Rob Pickels 37:19
“Oh, wow, you got after it.”
Grant Holicky 37:20
“Good job.”
Rob Pickels 37:21
Well, I think that people can end up in situations where they want to drive – it’s like a sign right? Where you drive it even lower, “look at how hard I worked”.
Grant Holicky 37:28
Yeah, and I do think that’s a big piece of this, right? It’s – we are committed to the work, whatever that work is that we can’t, like, one of the things that I don’t like about Training Peaks is that they give you the red or the orange when you don’t do it and I really think that’s disruptive to athletes when they’re looking at that and they see a lot of red.
Rob Pickels 37:49
It’s a value judgment.
Grant Holicky 37:50
Yeah, it is, especially if that is based on – it’s almost only based on time.
Rob Pickels 37:56
Oh, 100%. That’s all it’s based on.
Grant Holicky 37:57
Right.
Rob Pickels 37:57
No question.
Grant Holicky 37:58
So like, they did a 90 minute session with intervals and I put it in as two and a half, they got a big red thing – they didn’t miss that much. They miss like an hour of base riding and what are they training for? They’re training for cross race – okay, you probably miss nothing in the grand scheme of things. So I think a lot of what we ended up doing is this idea of I said, I’m gonna get it done, so I have to get it done. I do think there’s a big piece of taking that step back and asking “Is this the right choice?”.Not a plug for any specific coach, because as we’ve discussed, you probably want to hire none of us after these Potlucks –
Trevor Connor 38:37
I’ve given up on anybody hiring me – I bet that nobody’s gonna date me, nobody’s gonna – I’m gonna live alone the remainder of my life. That’s where I’m at with this –
Rob Pickels 38:48
Trevor’s gonna try to adopt a dog and the dog’s gonna be like –
Trevor Connor 38:53
To the end of the dog, I’m done. I’m out.
Grant Holicky 38:55
I get a phone call. Who’s this? “It’s Trevor’s dog, come pick me.” But I do think this is where a coach is valuable, right? This is that person to say “No, don’t do that, not a great idea.
Rob Pickels 39:09
Yeah.
Trevor Connor 39:10
I will fully say this is my “do as I say, not as I do” and look, the only thing I will say about that asset to me, it was the only thing that gave me an advantage, whatever you want to call it, an asset in racing because when I am in a race, that is my mindset, I will get hit by a car, fracture my femur and I keep racing, I don’t quit, no matter what – and that was an asset. But taking that into training, we could do a whole episode with the stories of how I’ve gotten myself in trouble because that can be a really dumb attitude.
Grant Holicky 39:43
And you got to know that about yourself. You got to know who you’re dealing with here and I used to, I had a colleague who’s been on the show, Neal is a great example of somebody who – I remember one of his athletes pinned him up for the state TT and they pin the pin through through his skin and he didn’t know until after the race. He’s pulling the skin suit off and said, “Oh, it’s stuck on my undershirt”. Everyone’s like “Neal, you not wearing an undershirt”. And it’s so – like that ability to turn off the brain and just get really tunnel vision-ed on the outcome, athletes are fantastic at that, but it doesn’t always serve the right purpose.
Trevor Connor 40:25
So I actually have another story to share, just because why not? Let’s flog me a little more.
Grant Holicky 40:30
Listen, you’re flogging yourself.
Trevor Connor 40:34
So I’ll do this.
Grant Holicky 40:35
But there’s a theme here, right? That’s fair.
Trevor Connor 40:38
So, this is a true “do not do what I do”. Tour of the Hela, 2012 – I probably got in the best shape of my life for that race, I wanted to go to that race and get a result because the previous year, I had a really good race and I threw my back out, so I’m like, “I gotta get revenge”. I ate some –
Rob Pickels 40:56
Another theme.
Trevor Connor 40:57
The day before the race started, got bad food poisoning. That night, I was in and out of the bathroom at least 10 times.
Rob Pickels 41:05
Did you cook it yourself?
Trevor Connor 41:07
I actually think it was a grapefruit. Pretty sure it was a grapefruit
Rob Pickels 41:10
Okay. Said no one ever.
Trevor Connor 41:11
Okay, oof, I’m saying now. But whatever it was –
Rob Pickels 41:16
Okay.
Trevor Connor 41:16
In and out of the bathroom, 10 times, I started the race the next day. That race – if anybody know Hela, the first day is – what? 100 miles? It’s mostly flat until you hit a category one climb at the very end and finishes at the top of the climb.
Rob Pickels 41:32
So you had a good weight loss plan.
Trevor Connor 41:34
I somehow managed to stay with the field almost to the climb –
Rob Pickels 41:39
Because your watts per kilo were good.
Trevor Connor 41:41
No, because I honestly feel, I got popped. I was dead last finisher, but I got to the top. I walked over to the Gatorade table where they are handing out drinks to get a drink the water behind the table. I have no idea what I looked like, but obviously I looked horrible because she took the drink out of my hand and walked me to the med tent. And I got three IV bags. My blood pressure was 60 over nothing and they said with the third IV bag, they said “if this doesn’t do it, we are taking you to the hospital”. They let me go after the third IV bag. And of course what did I do?
Grant Holicky 42:19
Started the next day.
Trevor Connor 42:21
I started the next day.
Rob Pickels 42:22
Well, you were fully hydrated, so obviously…
Trevor Connor 42:24
– and I was doing great for the first 80% of the race until all of a sudden in the middle of the race, I pulled over, I ran into a field, I traumatized the cactus.
Grant Holicky 42:37
Whoa. But the cactus didn’t traumatized you? You pulled a –
Trevor Connor 42:41
I’m not gonna tell you what I did, just gonna say “I traumatize a cactus”. I finished that day. I finished Hela. That was stupid. I will be the first to say that was just absolutely dumb.
Grant Holicky 43:01
Well, yeah, I’m glad you said it. I was waiting for the moral of the story. As long as the moral of the story was – I’m all for it.
Rob Pickels 43:09
Self reflection is probably worthwhile.
Trevor Connor 43:11
What was the point of this?
Grant Holicky 43:12
I think the point of this is coming back to Rob’s initial question is like my ask is think it through, my ask is go to that place and say “why am I doing this” – I know I always come back to this – “Am I doing this for the experience?” Great. Go do it, man. But don’t confuse –
Rob Pickels 43:31
Don’t fool yourself.
Grant Holicky 43:31
Yeah, don’t confuse something epic with something beneficial. And I think that’s something that is hard for a lot of athletes, a lot of people to get together. Just because it’s epic, just because it’s huge, just because it’s different, foesn’t mean it’s good.
Trevor Connor 43:49
And to make that point. I finished Hela, it was probably two months before I could race 100% again, I did damage.
Grant Holicky 43:56
Yeah.
Trevor Connor 43:57
Don’t damage yourself.
Grant Holicky 43:58
Did you do any damage last night, Rob?
Rob Pickels 44:00
I don’t think I did.
Grant Holicky 44:01
Okay.
Rob Pickels 44:01
I had fun. I have a rest day. If all goes – if all goes well for rides this weekend, I’m in the clear.
Grant Holicky 44:07
What are you doing for your rest day today? You’re just gonna sit – you, you sit?
Rob Pickels 44:10
Yeah, you know, my rest days are days off.
Grant Holicky 44:13
100%.
Rob Pickels 44:14
And then Friday is an easy base ride and then big days on the weekend and then easy base on Monday, so I tried to get a good polarization with the intensities out there but one day off completely.
Grant Holicky 44:26
Yeah. So by just kind of added into this, I’m going to Montana on Sunday.
Rob Pickels 44:31
Yeah, you are.
Grant Holicky 44:32
So I will stay on the gas all the way through Saturday – Yep. – and then go to Montana and just not worry about it for a couple days. Just not gonna worry. I’m gonna dig a hole. But then I’m gonna go to Montana and be like, I earned this beer, I earned this fishing time. That’s kind of my mentality behind it.
Rob Pickels 44:52
You got it. Listeners, since you listen to Fast Talk every week, you know that knowledge is power and power is fuel, there is no better way to get faster or to achieve your goals than by training smarter, not harder.
Trevor Connor 45:09
We know that more is not better. So check this out, we have reduced the price to join Fast Talk Labs.
Rob Pickels 45:16
So you’re saying less is more?
Trevor Connor 45:17
Mmm, something like that. Now listeners can join Fast Talk Labs for just $5 per month – that’s 75% less! Get full access to all our guides to training science, intervals, sports nutrition, pathways and data analysis – all from world class experts – for just $5 a month.
Rob Pickels 45:35
There’s never been a better time to join Fast Talk Labs. Join now at fasttalklabs.com. That was another episode of Fast Talk. The thoughts and opinions expressed on Fast Talk are those of the individual. Join the conversation at forums.fasttalklabs.com or join our coaching and education community at fasttalklabs.com/join. Something, something, something, for Trevor Connor, Grant Holicky, Bryce, our videographer in the background – thanks, Bryce – I’m Rob Pickels. Thanks for listening.
Trevor Connor 46:08
That was surprisingly close. Well done.
Grant Holicky 46:12
That was pretty good. I’m impressed.
Trevor Connor 46:14
You flipped. Let’s become a member of Fast Talk Laboratories at fasttalklabs.com/join and become apart of our education. You flipped them.
Grant Holicky 46:22
I was impressed.
Rob Pickels 46:23
As you should be.
