FasCat Cycling Training Tips Podcast

Want to climb faster without adding a single watt? Improve your power to weight ratio. This week on the FasCat Podcast, Frank Overton, the Big Cat, explains how cyclists can lose weight the right way: without losing power, wrecking recovery or bonking on the bike.

Here's the truth: 80% of weight loss happens in the kitchen and 20% happens on the bike. Ride more and eat less is old school thinking, and it stops working once you've lost the first few pounds. Frank shows you how to win in the kitchen.

In this episode:

Go Fast vs Go Slow foods: the simple framework our athletes use at the grocery store, because what comes home goes in your mouth

Diet by math: why a 250 to 500 calorie daily deficit adds up to about 1 lb a week, or 10 lbs in 10 weeks, without hurting your training

How to use your power meter to fuel: 1 kilojoule on the bike is about 1 calorie of food

Protein targets for cyclists (1.2 to 2 g per kg of body weight), plus 3 meals and 4 snacks a day and how much water to drink

When to diet and when NOT to: why the off season and base phase are the time, and why you should never cut calories during intensity, weight training or race season Zone 2 endurance rides and teaching your body to burn fat

How to use CoachCat to fuel your workouts and stay on track We're live every Friday at 2pm ET.

Two ways to ride faster: the CoachCat app or expert 1x1 personal coaching. Both start with a complimentary consultation and a custom training plan.

👉 Start your free trial or schedule your consultation: https://fascatcoaching.com/

📖 Read the training tips:

Weight Loss for Cyclists: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/weight-loss-for-cyclists/ Performance Nutrition:

Winning in the Kitchen: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/performance-nutrition/ Winning in the Kitchen Weight

Loss Meal Plan: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/weight-loss-meal-plan/

⭐ Share your FasCat story, and you might be next week's review of the week: https://fascatcoaching.com/pages/customer-reviews/

Work hard, ride fast, have fun and as always FtFP!

Hope is not a training plan. Most cyclists sign up for a race, ride hard and hope the fitness shows up on race day. The FasCat way is the opposite: pick your event first, then work backward from race day.

In this episode, Frank Overton, the Big Cat, walks through exactly how our coaches build a season and builds four real 2027 plans live with our new Pick Your Event, See Your Plan tool:

• Unbound Gravel 200: the full build with weights, Sweet Spot base and the Unbound plan, with no punchy intervals for a flat, hot course
• GFNY New York City: what happens when you have fewer than 34 weeks, and how the phases compress
• The Firecracker 50: a marathon MTB race at altitude, and why climbing intervals go in before the event plan
• Your spring group ride: why you should treat it like a race, plus our 4 Week Group Ride Interval Training plan

Plus:

• The four FasCat training phases (weights, Sweet Spot base, intervals and event specific), how long each one lasts and what to protect when you're short on weeks
• Why your age decides your plan level, and how CoachCat builds age appropriate plans
• A live demo of the CoachCat custom plan builder: five questions and your whole season is on your calendar
• The FasCat Winter Training Group grows to three rides a week: Turnt Up Tuesdays, Zone 2 Thursdays and Sweet Spot Saturdays

Links from the show:

👉 Build your 2027 plan for free in CoachCat: https://app.fascat.ai/

👉 Read the article and try the Pick Your Event tool: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/build-your-perfect-2027-training-plan/

👉 Join the Winter Training Group (first ride Tuesday, Nov 17). Join the FasCat Coaching club in Zwift: https://fascatcoaching.com/pages/winter-group-training/

👉 Refer a friend and earn cash back: https://fascatcoaching.com/refer-a-friend

👉 Share your story for a chance to be our next review of the week: https://fascatcoaching.com/pages/customer-reviews/

Two ways to ride faster: the CoachCat app or 1x1 personal coaching with a FasCat coach. Both start with a complimentary consultation and a custom training plan. Start your free trial and save 50% with an annual subscription ($17.50 a month): https://fascatcoaching.com/app

Work hard, ride fast, have fun and as always FtFP!

Over 40 and wondering why the same workouts, rides and races hit harder than they used to? On this episode of the FasCat Podcast Coach Frank answered that question and gave you a simple way to train for it: the Masters Diamond.

The biggest change isn't intensity, it's recovery. A hard workout that took one night to bounce back from at 30 can take two nights at 55. After 20+ years of coaching Masters athletes at FasCat, here's how we train athlete's over 40/50/60/ & 70:

⚾ The Masters Diamond Picture a baseball diamond with four bases: 1️⃣ First base is Time: how many hours a week you actually have to train 2️⃣ Second base is Dose: your intervals, sets and reps 3️⃣ Third base is Recovery: the rest you need to absorb that dose 🏠 Home plate is Life: staying flexible when life happens

Touch all four bases and you score a run, and that run is consistency. The bases are connected. Change one and you change the others. Skip a base and you're out.

In this episode: 🔹 The four age bands we coach by (40+, 50+, 60+ and 70+) and what changes in each 🔹 VO2 max intervals by age: why 50+ athletes do 2 sets of 2 x 5 minutes instead of 3 x 5 🔹 The new Rønnestad VO2 workouts in CoachCat 🔹 Sweet Spot for Masters: shorter sessions (45 to 90 minutes), done more often 🔹 Sprint work at 40, 50 and 60+ and why you shouldn't give up Zone 6 🔹 The golden rule: cut sets and reps before you cut intensity, and pull the plug before you're fully cooked 🔹 How many hours a week you really need (even retired, more isn't better) 🔹 Recovery weeks, comebacks and why your plan's rest is the floor, not the ceiling 🔹 Year round strength training for Masters cyclists 🔹 How CoachCat adjusts your training for your age, from morning recovery scores to 8 to 12 week adaptation blocks 🔹 Live Q&A with your Masters training questions

Whether you're 42 and chasing a PR or 68 and hanging with the fast group on Saturdays, this one's for you. Run the bases, stay consistent and you'll keep getting faster.

📖 Read the full article: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/masters-coaching/

Want help? We provide two types of coaching to help you ride faster:

🚴 CoachCat, your AI cycling coach built on 20 years of FasCat coaching: free trial at https://fascatcoaching.com/app 🤝 1x1 Coaching with a FasCat coach: book a complimentary consultation

Join us LIVE every Friday at 2pm ET and bring your questions.

The rainbow jersey 🌈 will be decided on Mount Royal. Coach Frank breaks down exactly how many watts it will to win the 2026 World Championship road race in Montréal, built from race data, and which riders can make those watts/kg.

What we'll cover:

• The course: three climbs, twelve times. Mount Royal (1.6 km at 7.7%), the Polytechnique (370 m at 9%), the Pagnuelo (470 m at 7.8%) and the uphill drag to the line on Avenue du Parc

• Our prediction: 8.0 W/kg (about 515 watts) for 3:40 on Mount Royal to win the men's race, 6.6 W/kg for the women, and about 9 W/kg on each of the two kickers

• What the race files show: Pogačar's 3:27 up Mount Royal in 2024, and last week's GP Montréal where Seixas and Del Toro rode it at 7.5 W/kg twice on the exact Worlds lap

• Why time above threshold decides this race: 45 to 60 minutes over threshold in short, repeated efforts, not one big number

• No Pogačar, so who wins? Evenepoel, Del Toro, Seixas, McNulty and Quinn Simmons for the men. Niewiadoma-Phinney, Vollering, Reusser, Longo Borghini and Vallières for the women

• The Montréal Worlds workout: 5 laps of Mount Royal in 70 minutes, waiting for you in the CoachCat workout library

• Your questions, live 📊 Full power predictions, charts and race data: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/montreal-worlds-road-race-power-predictions/

🐱 Ride the Montreal Worlds workout in CoachCat described in this podcast, first week free: https://fascatcoaching.com/app

🚴 Work with a FasCat coach: https://fascatcoaching.com/pages/hire...

Most cyclists call the next five months the off season. We call it the ON season, because this is the time of year where you can add 10 to 50 watts or more by spring. Join Coach Frank Overton live Friday at 2pm ET for a walk through the training that makes that happen, straight out of our all-new 30 Week Off Season Weight and Sweet Spot Plan for 2026/2027.

What we're covering:

Why every month off costs you two, and how a two month break turns into a four month swing

Winning in the gym: the 10 week, four phase cycling specific weight program covering hypertrophy, strength, and power

Muscle tension intervals, and why they turn new strength into watts

Sweet Spot base training between 84 and 97% of FTP, and why it beats zone 2 when your time is limited

Zwift as your atomic habit, plus the Saturday Sweet Spot group rides with Coach Jake and Frank

What's new in the 2026/2027 plan: refined periodization, rewritten workout descriptions, Coach's Tips from 20 years of FasCat coaching, demo videos, masters appropriate volume and intervals, and FuelTrix fueling on every workout

Plus announcements, our reviews of the week, a live CoachCat onboarding walkthrough for new athletes, and your questions answered live in the comments. Drop what you're training for and Frank will give you his best coaching advice on air.

Ready to start your on-season? Two ways to ride faster:

1. the CoachCat app or

2. expert 1x1 personal coaching.

https://fascatcoaching.com/

Both begin with a complimentary phone consultation and a custom training plan. Start a free trial and follow the 30 Week On Season Plan. Work hard, ride fast, have fun, and as always, FTFP.

What did you think about this episode? What do you want to learn about next? Drop a comment 👇

Last week Coach Frank Overton walked through FasCat's 10 week, 4 phase weight lifting program: the lifts, the sets, the reps, and the 10 watts or more our athletes gain from it. This week is the part nobody writes down: how to actually do it when you have a job, a family, a long ride on Saturday, and a gym that closes at 9.

Follow the 10 week weight lifting plan FREE for 1 week referenced in this podcast: https://app.fascat.ai/

What you'll learn:

▶ The pro's & con's of lifting at home or going to a gym

▶ How to find your 1 rep max safely, and know how much to lift each set & rep

▶ The warm-up: on the bike vs. in the gym, and how long it should take

▶ Riding and lifting on the same day: which comes first and what to skip

▶ What to do when you miss a session, get sick, or travel

▶ Soreness that's normal in the Hypertrophy phase vs. soreness that means back off

▶ Gym substitutions when your gym doesn't have a leg press or hamstring curl machine

Whether you have a full gym membership, a squat rack in the garage, or 40 minutes on a Tuesday, there's a version of this program that fits.

📖 Read the complete guide: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/weight-lifting-for-cycling/

Do you goto the gym or lift at home? Let us know in the comments plus anything else about this episode. Work hard, ride fast, have fun and as always FtFP!

Ten weeks for 10 watts or more. That is the typical FTP gain our athletes see from FasCat's cycling specific weight lifting program, and by spring, once base training is done, they routinely show up to their first races 15 to 50 watts stronger than the year before.

Join Coach Frank Overton live this Friday at 2pm ET as he walks through the entire 10 week, 4 phase program we have been coaching cyclists through for more than 20 years. Bring your questions and Frank will answer them live from the comments.

What you'll learn:

▶ Why lifting raises your FTP and what makes this program cycling specific

▶ The 4 phases: Adaptation, Hypertrophy, Strength, and Power, with sets, reps, and percentages of your 1 rep max for each ▶ The only lifts you need: the squat, the leg press, and the hamstring curl (plus the optional hip thrust)

▶ When to start lifting in your off season and how the 10 weeks fit into your Annual Training Plan

▶ How to transfer gym strength to the bike with neuromuscular sprints and standing starts

▶ How many watts you can realistically gain and how to keep them with one session a week

Whether you are a road racer, time trialist, mountain biker, cyclocrosser, triathlete, or masters athlete, this is the strength work that puts more power into the pedals.

📖 Read the complete guide https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/weight-lifting-for-cycling/

💪 Get the full 10 week plan scheduled for you in CoachCat, sets, reps, and weights computed by the resistance training calculator, plus the on the bike workouts timed to the right phases. Start your free month: https://app.fascat.ai/intro

More strength training resources: Proper Squat Form for Cyclists: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/proper-squat-form-for-cyclists/

At Home Weight Lifting for Cyclists: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/at-home-weight-lifting/

How to Maintain Your Weight Lifting Gains: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/at-home-weight-lifting/

Subscribe for a new live show every Friday and free training tips every Tuesday.

#WeightLiftingForCycling #FTP #CyclingTraining #StrengthTraining #OffSeason #CoachCat #FasCat

Coach Frank demos the brand new Fuel Trix feature** in CoachCat version 6.4.9, live on screen. Fuel Trix tells you exactly how many grams of carbohydrate to consume for every workout on your calendar based on duration and intensity, built from an algorithm Frank created using the findings of 11 scientific journal articles. He walks through the fueling matrix on the FasCat website, explains why your gut can only absorb 60 grams per hour of glucose and how adding fructose opens a second pathway to get you to 90 and even 120 grams per hour, and breaks down which of 30 popular sports nutrition brands are suitable for short, medium, and long rides. Plus a tour of the new workout view, calendar tags, sweet spot's new color, and the post workout analysis screen.

** Learn more -> https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/coachcat-fueling-matrix/

Then it's time for the hardest workout of the year: the two week postseason break. Frank explains why two weeks is just right and six weeks is way too long, what to do (and not do) during your break, soul rides, cross training, yoga, hiking, fixing that nagging injury, and how to come back hungry and motivated for 2027. He also answers live questions on end of season field tests, cyclocross timing, VO2 max blocks, and tracking cross training in the CoachCat app.

New episodes live every Friday at 2pm Eastern. Drop your questions in the comments and Coach Frank answers them live.

Work hard, ride fast, have fun, and FtFP.

The power data you have from your 2026 season is a goldmine of insight for what worked, what did not and how to leverage your learnings to plan for an even better 2027. Join Coach Frank, and dive into your data with the 5 prompts +a bonus prompt to ask CoachCat about your season for planning 2027 ahead!

Key Takeaways from this training tip: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/using-power-data-to-review-your-season/

• See below for 6 Prompts you can copy and paste into CoachCat's chat to review your season.
• Zoom out in steps. Last month, then 3 months, then 6 months, then the full year. Trends that hide at one zoom level jump out at another.
• Translate your Level into weekly hours. That is how you actually plan training around life.
• Compare your power PRs to a fixed reference point like January, not to your best day ever.
• Copy the prompts below into CoachCat and it builds every one of these charts from your own files.

Want to be able to review your season and be able to follow a custom training plan? Try CoachCat where the 1st week is free:

https://fascatcoaching.com/app

Coach Frank describes how to build your Annual Training Plan (ATP) for 2027, as described in this training tip:

https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/yt-using-an-annual-cycling-training-plan-atp-all-the-phases-explained/

Key takeaways are:

• Take a two-week post-season break, not six. Six weeks costs you the adaptations you spent all year building.
• Three dates anchor the year: when you want to be fast, when base starts, when weights start.
• The full plan is 46 of 52 weeks, leaving six weeks of flexibility for travel, illness, and life.
• The 10-week weight block is the phase most athletes skip and the one that most reliably separates a breakthrough season from a flat one.
• Use the custom plan builder in the CoachCat app to work backwards from your A race