Are you stuck on a cycling performance plateau? Have your FTP gains stalled despite doing hard intervals, bunch rides and endless VO2 max sessions?

In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Road Cycling Academy Head Coach Ryan Thomas explains why a dedicated block of tempo training (Zone 3) may be the missing piece in your training program.

Many recreational and amateur cyclists spend too much time riding hard and not enough time developing their aerobic engine through structured progression. Ryan outlines a simple 6-week tempo training framework designed to improve muscular endurance, increase efficiency, reduce fatigue and set you up for bigger FTP gains later in the season.

You'll learn:

✅ Why tempo training is one of the most underrated zones in cycling ✅ How to structure a 4-8 week training block for maximum benefit ✅ Why most cyclists plateau despite training hard ✅ The difference between random intensity and strategic progression ✅ How to reduce heart rate drift and improve aerobic efficiency ✅ How tempo training fits alongside bunch rides and high-intensity sessions ✅ What training should come after a tempo block ✅ Why amateur cyclists should train differently to professional cyclists

Whether you're training for gran fondos, road races, criteriums, bunch rides or simply want to improve your FTP, this episode provides a practical framework that can help you train smarter and achieve more sustainable gains.

📥 Download Ryan's Tempo Progression PDF below.

Topics Covered:

• Tempo Training for Cyclists
• Zone 3 Cycling Training
• FTP Improvement
• Cycling Performance
• Cycling Training Plans
• Endurance Cycling
• Threshold Training
• VO2 Max Training
• Heart Rate Drift
• Cycling Coaching
• Road Cycling Academy
• Amateur Cycling Performance
• How to Increase FTP
• Structured Cycling Training
• Cycling Fitness Progression

Download the PDF here

RCA's 12 Week Custom Plan: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/cycling-plan-custom/

Transcript:

Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA Podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates' legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode.

Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. Today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach Ryan Thomas. And today we're going to extend a conversation we had recently about a simple way or a simple format or framework you can utilize to increase FTP. And it's all about periodizing through the zones or spending, you know, strategic periods of your training working specific zones. Right. And according to you said something interesting, Ryan, in that chat, which I've kind of clung on to.

Which I think is really easy if if somebody's out there listening that that they can think about. I think YouTube and the internet is just covered in all sorts of different you know, workouts you can do, ways you can boost VO2 threshold and people will see a workout or they'll see something online and they'll go I'll try that. And they might try it for a week or two weeks or just not long enough. So, you know, understanding the way training peaks calculates fitness, they look at a six week rolling average.

Forty-two days. Why is that? Because, you know, in a lot of the literature, you know, s it's sort of it doesn't implicitly say, but it suggests that you need roughly around six weeks for the body to sort of absorb a stressor that you're putting on it. In this case, you might be targeting a specific zone. And that's the stress. It could be upper anaerobic, it could be a VO2, it could be threshold. So today we're going to dial it right back and talk about if someone wanted to start on this journey.

Where's the best place to start?

Ryan Thomas (01:54.818) Zone three of tempo. It's usually the first place you would go.

Cam Nicholls (01:58.444) Okay. So let's talk about it.

Ryan Thomas (02:00.034) Yeah. So I think the like most people would see zone two. It's plus zone two's plus it everywhere. And they've you people are usually doing some sort of zone two and then some sort of high intensity. Yep. And I think the the thing that most people come to the RCA with is either fatigue or they're plateaued. So they're struggling to get an improvement and they're doing bunch rides and they're doing random intensity and usually it comes with fatigue. So I guess the negative

Taking a step back. The negative of doing a lot of high intensity is the neuromuscular fatigue, the nervous system fatigue that just goes on and on and on and you don't give it a rest. The benefit of zone three of tempo is there's not a whole lot of neuromuscular fatigue. It's mainly ki you're keeping everything under threshold. You're not getting to a point where you're in that hard or severe domain where you're really getting you're really having to work hard. It's just working on efficiency, endurance and muscular endurance. So I don't think it's something that people

dedicate time to for a six week period or it doesn't have to be six weeks, four to eight weeks, whatever it is. But I think it's really beneficial if you just focus on it for six weeks. Most people get to the end of that and they're like, I just feel good. Like I just feel good at riding in zone two, three threshold. You just feel steady, comfortable at riding at that. It's a very different sensation to doing VO2 and feeling really good at high power, but it's really beneficial for when you actually get into that type of work. So

Cam Nicholls (03:21.154) Yeah, okay.

Ryan Thomas (03:22.05) Kinda wanna start. We'll have a progression when you you'll be able to see this laid out, but six weeks kinda wanna start.

Cam Nicholls (03:28.01) So when you say you'll be able to see this, we've got a downloadable for people below.

Ryan Thomas (03:31.266) Yes, PD downloadable PDF goes through every progression week in for six weeks. and you do these once to twice a week. And you can do the same workout. So a lot of the things that we do, we try to keep it interesting, but if you get down to the basics, doing the same workout twice in a week is completely fine. Like that's you're hitting the same physiology. It actually is probably the best way to do it. So we're starting super simple tempo, zone three, eighty to eighty five percent of your threshold or critical power.

And we're doing that for 10 minutes, three by ten minutes with five minutes recovery in zone one. So that's a pretty easy workout. And most people will go and do that and be like, that didn't really do anything. Like it felt really easy, didn't really get my heart rate high. It was like I want to go harder. And that you should feel like that. In tempo stuff, you kind of should feel like you want to go harder. But it's really important for this type of work is to stay controlled. Stay in your zone because we're working on efficiency and muscular endurance. You go harder.

What starts happening is you start accumulating lactate, your heart rate starts to rise, you start acc recruiting fast-rich muscle fibers, that starts adding the fatigue and it takes away, it's not targeting what you want it to. So you get up around threshold, very glycolytic dependent, you're a lot of glycogen down in tempo, just kind of mixed fat and carbs. So there's a whole bunch of stuff happening there that we're targeting. So as soon as you get above the target, kind of not doing it. So it's really important to teach control.

Minimise that fatigue week in, week out, and we do it for six weeks.

Cam Nicholls (04:58.914) Yeah, okay. And you you know, if people are gonna adopt something like this where they do target an upper end aerobic zone being tempo in this case, they can still do a like a bunch ride once a week or something where they just go tear it to shreds. But the rest of the riding is done in more of that strategic Yes. Obviously a bit of zone two, but also the tempo that you talk about.

Ryan Thomas (05:12.822) Hundred percent.

Ryan Thomas (05:20.11) Yes. And I to like high intensity interval training. Zone three is h interval training. It's intensity. It's just lower intensity than what a bunch ride would be or a VO two session or a threshold would be. And that that's there's a reason for that. We want to keep it reasonably easy. By the end of the six weeks, the progression goes through when we increase time in zone three. We increase the percentage light slightly up to ninety percent. We decrease recovery.

during those intervals and we get all the way up to the last interval session in the at the six week mark is a forty to forty five minute effort at eighty five to ninety percent of threshold. Or you can do two by twenties at eighty five to ninety percent. So up to you. But that's a hard effort. Like you do forty five minutes at ninety percent the top end, by the end of it you're gonna be hurting. But that's the whole point. We start easy and gradually overload, gradually stress the system a little bit more each week and that starts to give really good benefits. This podcast is

Cam Nicholls (06:13.294) Brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. If you're a recreational or amateur road cyclist and you're stuck on a frustrating performance plateau, feeling like you need some guidance, but you're not quite ready to dive straight into one-to-one coaching. At the RCA, we've created something called the 12-week custom plan, which we believe would be your perfect next step. It starts off with an upfront deep dive call with your coach who will understand your goals, your riding preferences, what your not negotiable rides are.

And where you want to go, then they'll create a fully tailored 12-week custom plan that is supported over the 12-week period. We believe it's the perfect intermediate step, giving you a taste of working with a coach and experiencing a customized plan without committing to full coaching. Our writers are seeing real results too, and you can go to our Google reviews to see this. Marvin recently shaved over 30 minutes off his Grafton to Inverel time from doing the 12-week custom plan.

Adam gained 20 watts on his FTP in 12 weeks and 40 watts on his five minute power. And we have riders completing rides that they've failed in previous attempts, like Peaks, Challenge, all from doing this 12 week custom plan. So if you're ready to break through, head to the roadcyclingacademy.com. In the menu system, you'll see our 12 week custom plan and take the first step towards that next level performance. Now let's get back to the podcast. Okay.

So if someone was to do this, first and foremost, what should they experience over the six weeks if they're focusing majority of their work on upper end aerobic?

Ryan Thomas (07:49.716) Usually you will decrease your RPE at that level. So we have to keep in mind that the intensity is increasing slightly, the intervals are getting longer. So theoretically we want to see less drift over that time. So if the first session is more of an introductory session, so it's not super taxing at all. But as the weeks go on, that heart rate at that power level, let's say eighty five percent, we should see that heart rate come down a little bit. So if you're finishing one of those intervals and you're finishing at 160 beats per minute,

Keep an eye on that. Note where your finishing heart rate is sitting. And then over the weeks, compare, this week I finished my 12 minute effort on my 15 minute effort and it was 155. That's five beats less than what I was doing in the first week. So that heart rate drop, the the decrease in decoupling. So what's your heart rate doing in the first effort versus the last effort? That should change week in, week out. And you should be out theoretically, you should be able to push the higher end of the zones as well in terms of power.

Cam Nicholls (08:43.116) Yeah. That's certainly what I noticed when I used to coach people as you'd see in these tempo efforts is that, you know, their heart rate would just be drifting or decoupling, as you said. And it would be quite high. And then after sort of four or five weeks it's stopped drifting as much and it comes down. And they're like, this session's feeling really easy. And it's like, Well, look, you can't have vascular systems responding. you're adapting to the training.

So I think it's interesting training for people because yeah, mu people say, Well, I do tempo work, but you you're probably doing tempo when you're supposed to be doing zone two. A lot of people do that because tempo feels a bit eas easier and you're probably doing a random tempo effort and fading out towards the end. Yeah. You're not doing strategic blocked work where you're giving yourself recovery and then going again. Yeah. So what's one of the negative things people can experience if they did this type of training? And I'm maybe I'll put some words in your mouth here because I feel like, you know, people do

Ryan Thomas (09:26.07) Yes, exactly.

Cam Nicholls (09:35.5) Yeah, their goal is to do the local group ride. They want to get from the A to the B group or the B to the A group, I should say. Not the other way around or, you know, they're racing or or something like that. You will over time tend to lose a bit of that upper end stuff by doing this, won't you? So don't expect to get really good sprint power or anaerobic power from this type of training.

Ryan Thomas (09:41.824) Yeah.

Ryan Thomas (09:57.24) Yeah, and typically I wouldn't as a coach and prescribing this stuff, I wouldn't do it sol would this wouldn't be your only intensity in a six week period. You wouldn't usually only do this type of work. So if you're gonna implement this, maybe you choose this once a week or during three interval sessions, you do this twice a week and then you do bunch ride or you do some sprints or you do some sort of high intensity stuff to maintain that because we don't want to lose that.

Like you're going through training, it you don't need to be doing only one thing. It's like you're not gonna go out and do six weeks of zone two only because you're gonna lose a lot of your top end. Get bored. Yeah, and you get bored. So yeah, there's other important factors, but focusing on that natural progression each week, using one to two workouts a week where you can do it and then do other stuff around it as well.

Cam Nicholls (10:43.214) Yeah. And there is like even if you did say you wanted to overindex on it, because I've certainly done this before. I've gone, you know what, I'm just spending the next four to six weeks, mainly zone two and tempo. And I might do one bunch ride. And I don't care if my bunch ride is not that great. As long as I can get through it. Mm-hmm. Once I then get to the next round of training, I'm fresh. So when I do get into the intense stuff, I'm like, I'm ready to go. Plus I've got a really robust aerobic base because I've kind of maybe overindexed on it.

Ryan Thomas (11:02.296) Yes.

Cam Nicholls (11:10.85) been willing to push aside the high intensity stuff for a period, but I'm it pays dividends longer term. That's certainly been the case for me.

Ryan Thomas (11:18.094) I think this is it's a really good point and I think it's so much more applicable to the everyday amateur athlete than it is a professional athlete. Exactly. So

that they will see what the pros are doing and say, I just need to do that. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. No I've like far from the truth. It's because they have so much time to recover. You have no time to recover as a full time dad worker. You literally can't spend like your rest your recovery time is the hour before you go to sleep. Yep. So it's like there's no recovery time there. So if you're constantly doing trying to replicate what the pros are doing, it's not going to work. You need that period of training where you're not stressing your body too much. Yeah.

So that you when it comes time to do four weeks of VO two work, you're ready and you can really crush that for four weeks and then you back it off. Go again.

Cam Nicholls (12:09.558) If you wanted to go buy the book, not that there's a book about this, but if you wanted to like take it to the next level and maybe this is a the next video and podcast we do, what happens after this six weeks? What are we transitioning to? More sweet spot, threshold, sub threshold work? Would that be the next one?

Ryan Thomas (12:26.04) Yeah, you would mix in a bit of threshold and VO two. So you kinda wanna take it up. So usually twelve to sixteen weeks is kind of the period of training for any this is what we've found out of the RCA is that any amateur athlete who has other stuff going on, if you're training for more than twelve to sixteen weeks in a block, usually you're gonna start to fatigue. And if you don't rest before that sixteen weeks and you keep going and going and going, you're gonna drop or you're gonna plateau and it's gonna be really hard. So don't wanna think about training too much in the long term because there's so much context for these sub

for everyone listening. So we focus on that six weeks and then the six to eight weeks after that, that's where you want to really knuckle down. And that's where you're going to get your peak fitness out of. And we don't want to sustain that for much longer. And the way you peak your fitness is VO two, threshold, sprints, anaerobic work. Depends what your goal is. Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (13:14.638) Okay. Cool. All right. Well, we'll leave it at that. Ryan's put together a, as we mentioned earlier, a PDF which goes through some workout progression in tempo that you can do. We'll put a link to it below and we'll catch everyone in the next show.

In this episode of the Road Cycling Academy podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with RCA Head Coach Ryan Thomas to break down one of the most talked-about topics in modern cycling training: Critical Power vs FTP.

If you've ever wondered:

• What is critical power?
• Is FTP testing outdated?
• How do you test critical power?
• Why do some cyclists struggle at threshold but excel in VO2 max efforts?
• How do professional coaches use power profiling?

…then this episode is for you.

Start the RCA's 12 Week Custom Plan: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/cycling-plan-custom/

Ryan explains critical power in simple, practical terms for recreational and amateur cyclists — without getting lost in overly scientific jargon. The conversation explores why many coaches and platforms are now moving beyond traditional 20-minute FTP testing and toward more accurate methods of assessing cycling performance and training zones.

The episode also covers:

• The difference between FTP and Critical Power
• Why critical power better reflects lactate threshold
• How to perform a simple 3-minute and 12-minute critical power test
• What W' (W Prime) means in cycling performance
• How power curves reveal what type of rider you are
• Why some riders are naturally stronger at VO2 max than threshold
• The importance of testing multiple energy systems
• How coaches use power profiling to personalise training
• Why FTP alone often fails to tell the full story

Cam and Ryan also discuss real-world coaching examples from recreational cyclists and criterium racers, showing how two riders with similar FTPs can have completely different strengths on the bike.

Whether you're training for:

• criterium racing,
• gran fondos,
• endurance cycling events,
• climbing performance,
• or simply trying to become a stronger recreational cyclist,

this episode will help you better understand your physiology, your training zones, and how to train smarter.

Topics Covered

• Critical Power Testing
• FTP vs Critical Power
• Lactate Threshold
• Cycling Power Curves
• VO2 Max Training
• Threshold Training
• Cycling Coaching
• Cycling Performance Testing
• Power-Based Training
• TrainingPeaks
• W Prime Explained
• Cycling Physiology
• Recreational Cycling Performance
• Amateur Cycling Training

About the RCA Podcast

The RCA Podcast from the Road Cycling Academy is designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists who want practical, science-based advice on:

• cycling training,
• nutrition,
• strength training,
• bike fitting,
• recovery,
• and performance improvement.

🎧 Listen now and learn how modern cycling coaching is evolving beyond traditional FTP testing.

Transcript:

Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA Podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates' legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode.

Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. Today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach, Ryan Thomas. And today, Ryan, we're going to talk about critical power for laymans. I'm a little bit of a layman when it comes to critical power. And I think there are a lot of people out there that still are, despite the fact that it's used over FTP quite often these days. Yep. So I don't want to go too deep into the weeds with critical power, which I'm conscious you can. I want to try and stay high-level. But I think before we talk about

you know, critical power for laymans and, you know, how to test it and what it's about. Maybe if we can just talk about FTP first, because it's kind of a different mechanism to using FTP as your way to work out your zones and your threshold and all this kind of stuff. So how is it different to FTP?

Ryan Thomas (01:13.516) Yeah, well I I actually think of FTP just as a term. Okay. But it's typically by the layman, it's thought of as one way to test and that's a twenty minute effort. Typically with a five minute effort before. And it's your approximate sixty minute maximal peak power. That's what they were trying to achieve out of the FTP testing, the old school five minute all out effort, and then your twenty minute all out effort and you take ninety five percent of that. And it's

Cam Nicholls (01:31.265) FTP testing.

Cam Nicholls (01:39.402) Most people don't do the five minute effort though, let's face it. It's a twenty minute test.

Ryan Thomas (01:43.47) still pretty close to estimating your 60 minute maximal power. Which is essentially what they were trying to find a number that estimates your metabolic steady state. Yep. Which was pretty close. And it's a good test, but there's been yeah more science around critical power and your actual power profile and it's shown to be closer to what your actual metabolic steady state is.

Cam Nicholls (01:47.118) Yeah, okay.

Cam Nicholls (02:06.146) Okay. Right. So it's been proven in the literature then that it is more effective. Yes. Identifying that steady state.

Ryan Thomas (02:13.346) Yeah, it's more closely related to your actual L T two. So where your lactate curve, so your lactate threshold two. Yep. We have two lactate thresholds. The first inflection point if you're doing a lactate test is the L T one or your top of your typical zone two. And then your second lactate point is your threshold or your functional threshold power, your critical power, or whatever however you want to determine it. Okay. Or describe it. But critical power is

found to be closer to what your actual lactate threshold is as opposed to your approximate sixty minute maximum peak power.

Cam Nicholls (02:45.646) Okay, interesting. And I feel in addition to it being more scientifically valid, it's actually maybe less daunting for people to do in terms of the testing protocol, external to the ramp test, which you can do if you're testing FTP, because that's just like a ramp to failure. It's pretty easy to get through, even though it can be inaccurate if people are actually doing which I mean most people aren't doing it as well. Yeah.

Ryan Thomas (02:55.35) One hundred percent.

Ryan Thomas (03:02.189) Yes.

Ryan Thomas (03:09.152) Yes.

Cam Nicholls (03:14.464) You know, not testing. So that's another rabbit hole for another day. But s with critical power, you know, before we talk about how you were using it, like how are we testing first and foremost?

Ryan Thomas (03:25.282) Yeah, so whenever I'm talking to a member and I say, we're gonna do testing, you can see their faces just go, no, I'm gonna have to do a long, hard effort. Yeah. And then I say, we're using critical power testing and we're using a three and a twelve minute effort. They're like, is that all? So like people respond really well to that and they find it much more easy to achieve by doing a shorter effort than a twenty minute or however long you want to do. But the

Science suggests you need anywhere from two to four perimeters. So two to four durations that you choose, and typically between two to twenty minutes is what you would choose in your range. The initial examples were three and twelve. And three and twelve would pretty much get you pretty close to if you were to do four tests. So we recommend you do a three minute, a twelve minute, and if you have time and the motivation to do a five minute. Okay.

The five minute is optional and the reason I call it optional is that usually you get within two to four watts without the five minute by just using the three and the twelve. Okay. And we do those on separate days. So we want those to be your maximal effort, not on fatigue legs, not going in after a f effort. We we want these to be maximal, fresh, ready to go, your best power that you can produce on the day.

Cam Nicholls (04:43.158) Okay. And separate days for the three minute and the twelve minute?

Ryan Thomas (04:46.392) Separate days. Yes. Okay.

Cam Nicholls (04:48.632) So if someone was like listening and going, okay, maybe I should trial this, how would they like what would a week look like to do the three minute and the 12 minute test? Would you do them back to back days? Would you spread it out over the week? obviously you want to be fresh that week as well. So don't, you know, come off the back of a a huge volume week where you've done 20 hours and five bunch rides or whatever it might be. So you go into the week fresh, what would it look like to do the three minute test and the the 12 minute test?

Ryan Thomas (05:09.272) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Ryan Thomas (05:15.33) Yeah, usually I would give someone a day off. Yeah, easy week before the day off, let's say starting on a Monday is a simple way to think about it. Start on a Monday with your day off. On Tuesday, do some sort of activations to get your body ready after having an easy week so that you're primed for that three minute effort. Yep. Following day, Wednesday, for example, you would do your three minute. and the key here is you need to do some activations before. You don't just go do twenty minutes at zone two and then go into this three minute effort because you'll get a sh big shock. Yes.

after an easy week. So you do a couple activation efforts, some thirty second efforts, a ramp to threshold, something like that to open the legs. Recover for five, ten minutes and then go for your three minute. Yep. You can do the twelve minute the next day. So on the Thursday, because a three minute effort on its own isn't super exhausting. So you recover pretty quick from one s one individual three minute effort. Okay. Particularly twenty four hours later. So I usually do a back to back days. Okay. But if you schedule a lines and a day in between's fine. Okay.

Yeah, that's it. Once you've done those two efforts, we can we can get you critical power. There's so many different calculators out there. we can I'll tr I'll leave a I'll put a spread a link to a spreadsheet below that you can use. Okay. The key is there's some calculators out there that this is where it becomes even easier for the layman is if you've got a segment or a Striva segment that's two and a half minutes or it's three minutes fifteen or it's your longer ones

Cam Nicholls (06:38.638) Doesn't have to be three minutes.

Ryan Thomas (06:40.086) No, it doesn't have to be. And you can change the duration in these calculators to the seconds. So this the calculators are usually based around the seconds of effort. Yep. So you can adjust based on it doesn't have to be bang on three minutes. Okay. So that's also a benefit of doing this type of testing.

Cam Nicholls (06:55.384) So if someone's done the the three roughly three minute test and roughly twelve minute test, could be eleven minutes, thirteen minutes, as you said, depends on the hill, depends what's practical for somebody. Yeah. And they punch it into the calculator, what are they going to be presented with?

Ryan Thomas (07:08.61) You'll get your critical power number or your threshold. So you need a change in mindset is that critical power number is your threshold. And that's the setting that you use in training peaks for your threshold number.

Cam Nicholls (07:20.022) Okay, so we're now getting if we've had an old FTP or an estimated FTP, goodbye. Goodbye. Okay. In the big Okay, replace that thinking, and now we have a critical power number. Okay.

Ryan Thomas (07:25.838) Replace that thinking.

We have a critical power number. Okay. Yes. And we use that as your leverage for your zones. So that number will leverage your zones for the rest of your zones. The other other number that you'll get is a number that's W with a little asterisk and it's a watt prime or W W prime. Right. And essentially it's measured in joules. So joules is energy. and it's energy that you can expend above critical power. Okay. So if you think about your power curve.

Anything above critical power within that curve, in that exponential curve, all that area in the middle is how it's calculated and that's energy that you can expend. Okay. Every time you go above, let's say critical power's three hundred watts in an event or a bunch ride, you go above three hundred watts, those joules gets taken away from how much you can expend. And theoretically, once you s expend all of those joules or you're above critical power for a certain amount of time, you're empty and that's you're a failure. And it it's really accurate.

Cam Nicholls (08:22.99) Okay.

Ryan Thomas (08:25.122) So if you were go to go and do an FF to 320 watts and your critical power is 300, we could tell you pretty close to the second when you're going to fail at 320 watts. So it's really accurate in that sense. There's not many practical applications for that unless you're a professional athlete or you're doing really short time trials, but it's a good way to measure how much energy change when you're doing testing over a period of time. Now it does that.

energy above critical power change. Do you get more? Have you done training that gives you less energy above but increases your critical power? So there's a whole bunch of play, interplay that goes on with these numbers that gives you a lot more data than just doing a straight 20 blood effort. It gives you one number. This

Cam Nicholls (09:09.09) Podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. If you're a recreational or amateur road cyclist and you're stuck on a frustrating performance plateau, feeling like you need some guidance, but you're not quite ready to dive straight into one-to-one coaching. At the RCA, we've created something called the 12 week custom plan, which we believe would be your perfect next step. It starts off with an upfront deep dive call with your coach who will understand your goals, your riding preferences, what your not negotiable rides are.

And where you want to go, then they'll create a fully tailored 12-week custom plan that is supported over the 12-week period. We believe it's the perfect intermediate step, giving you a taste of working with a coach and experiencing a customized plan without committing to full coaching. Our writers are seeing real results too, and you can go to our Google reviews to see this. Marvin recently shaved over 30 minutes off his Grafton to Inverel time from doing the 12-week custom plan.

Adam gained 20 watts on his FTP in 12 weeks and 40 watts on his five minute power. And we have riders completing rides that they've failed in previous attempts like Peaks, Challenge, all from doing this 12-week custom plan. So if you're ready to break through, head to the roadcyclingacademy.com. In the menu system, you'll see our 12-week custom plan and take the first step towards that next level performance. Now let's get back to the podcast. So

How does it correlate then? I'm going to give you a use case. All right. So recently I had a call with a recreational writer who, like most, actually hasn't done any official testing. Yep. So he had a rough FTP number. but he was doing some pretty good training. So I would say maybe his rough was actually, you know, pretty good in comparison to, you know, some others that I've heard about. And he said to me, Cam, I I really struggle with sub threshold efforts.

So, you know, that's maybe ninety percent of FTP in his world or ninety-five percent of FTP. He was doing six to eight minute intervals. Yep. And I was thinking, hmm, you shouldn't really be struggling, you know, if you're conditioned. But then he said, which suggests that he does have some good conditioning, but I find three minute efforts at VO2 max are quite easy. Yeah. And I'm like, so here's a rider where perhaps he isn't that strong at threshold, but he's actually really strong at VO two. So

Cam Nicholls (11:30.85) How does critical power support a rider like that?

Ryan Thomas (11:34.476) Yeah, it's a really good use case because the essentially critical power is modeling your power curve. So if you see on the new training peaks, if you're in the analyze function or the there's extra graphs in the analyze 360 now that will predict your power curve. Okay. So if you've done a couple of hard efforts anywhere across your power curve, it'll make that curve exponential and it'll flatten out at some point. So what the power curve what the critical power is trying to do is

Cam Nicholls (12:00.334) And just hold that thought. I'm gonna interrupt, just for those who have never seen or heard of a power curve before. Yeah. We kind of look at like top end. What can you do for like one second, five second, ten second, thirty second, one minute, three minute, five minute.

Ryan Thomas (12:14.2) Yep, three, five, six, ten. Ten.

Cam Nicholls (12:16.61) And and it just kind of it extrapolates out.

Ryan Thomas (12:19.128) Yeah, and the benefit of training P it looks at every second of that curve. So two minutes and five seconds is on there. So you'll peak for that duration.

Cam Nicholls (12:26.958) So if you're like a really conditioned rider who's racing and really focused, you're probably gonna have all these numbers. But if you're a recreational and amateur that's never really looked at this before, you're probably gonna have no idea. So the critical power is kind of by doing that three or two minute whatever test and the the twelve minute test, it's it's kind of plotting that out for somebody.

Ryan Thomas (12:36.906) Exactly. Yeah.

Ryan Thomas (12:45.496) Exactly. Yep. It's estimating your power curve. And what what the benefit of that is if we do a three minute test and your three minute is relatively to someone who's not very strong in that anaerobic PO2 area, if it's much higher than another person, then it'll adjust the curve down the bottom end. So we're assuming that you're not very strong aerobically and anaerobically you're really strong. Whereas if you're 12 minute relatively to your three minute, there's fifty watts difference instead of a hundred watts, for example. Yes.

then we're assuming that you're aerobically quite strong. So it's going to adjust your critical power based on that. And it gives us those markers. So if you're doing a three minute VO2 effort, for example, we know that your best three minute ever is 400 watts. So if we're getting, if you're doing efforts and you're like you're they're set at 300 watts, then there's nowhere near what you're capable of. So it gives us a marker to base your efforts on as well. So we know what that limit is. So we can go pretty close to that limit.

In terms of prescribing intervals and j three minute duration, for example, pretty close to that limit and repeat it one after the other. And that's where the big benefit comes from this type of stuff is that we're getting multiple maximal peak powers that we know you're capable of. And we want to push right up to that ceiling, repeat it over and over and over for weeks, and that's that's where we go. Whereas you don't do these tests, you don't do a three minute or a five minute or a 12 minute.

Cam Nicholls (13:50.253) Yes.

Ryan Thomas (14:09.176) We only know what your peak twenty minute power is. What we don't have no idea what's happening with the top end of your curve if you've never done a maximal effort there. Yes. We might have done a couple efforts like ninety, ninety five percent of max, but it may be thirty watts off, so how do we know?

Cam Nicholls (14:22.424) Yeah. It's interesting. I was editing a a client testimonial for the RCA today. We'll drop a link below, Andrew, if you're out there listening. And he was actually saying, you know, one of the things that he really enjoyed about the process of of working with the RCA was identifying what type of writer he was, which I assume is part of the critical power testing protocol. And, you know, he's not a very strong FTP writer, but he's a really good A grade club level crit writer that

wins. And his FTP, if you heard it, it particularly when you consider his weight, watts per kilo, is actually not that great. Yeah. Like on paper, I would be a lot stronger than him, but I can't win an A great club level race. But he's very good at repeating, you know, the three minute or the one minute or the two minute efforts. Yeah. Which makes him a really good crit right.

Ryan Thomas (15:11.022) Well yeah, contextually so his his peak power's around fifteen, sixteen hundred watts. Okay. So enormous neuromuscular. Enormous neuromuscular. Pretty good.

Cam Nicholls (15:20.216) For a forty seven year old, is he or forty six?

Ryan Thomas (15:23.374) Unbelievable. I've never haven't seen you don't see that in the Proviello much at all. Like he's a big guy, but doesn't matter. Sixteen hundred watts is still sixteen hundred watts at the end of a going seventy K an hour, like it dust mean a sprint, that's for sure. Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (15:28.012) Yeah, okay.

Cam Nicholls (15:37.112) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, there's a use case, you know, a lot of people do FDP tests and maybe, you know, if you're not genetically predisposed to have a good threshold, people go, Well, I'm not a good cyclist. Yeah. Well, actual fact, it's only one use c well, a very good use case, you know, which helps a lot of people work out their zones and, you know, be able to operate at threshold, et cetera. But it misses a lot of the picture.

Ryan Thomas (15:59.118) I think so, yeah. It does work and it gets critical power and the sixty minute approximate maximal peak power are usually within it's very dependent, but it's like within five percent. So you're getting close, but it's how you it's the rest of the picture in when you're looking at critical power testing is the big benefit for me. It gets it's a much better measure for your metabolic steady state, but it's the other stuff that it's giving you, the other benefits of that are other maximal peak powers and the power profiling that

Most good coaches would do regardless anyway. So if you're doing a twenty minute effort, you would do s other short maximal efforts to get your power profile correct. But if you're an amateur out there just riding around and you're just doing a twenty minute and you don't know what your peak two minute, one minute, five minute is, then what type of rider are you? You don't really know until you do it.

Cam Nicholls (16:43.714) don't know. Yeah. The other interesting point is like if you are like trying to improve and you're going through maybe your own training plan or you're working with a coach to be able to get to the six week mark and retest or twelve week mark and retest, unless you say you're not inclined to have a big increase in threshold. And then you do the test and you're like, the training hasn't been doing anything. But if you've got another test there, which I think was the case for Andrew, who didn't have a huge increase in thresh his critical power, I should say, his ability to operate at critical power increased significantly. Yeah.

But where he saw big improvement was his three minute, which I think went up by fifty watts in in twelve weeks. Yeah. so once again if he didn't do that test, wouldn't

Ryan Thomas (17:22.584) Exactly. Yeah. And testing is I say this to all all the athletes that I work with is testing is like it's you have to be on your best day, right? It's hard to and if you have testing across three different days, one day you might have a good day, you might have a bad day the next day and an average day the other day. So if we have three or four measures to go on, then usually one of them's gonna be good. Or if for whatever reason it's you have a busy life or stress and stuff happens and we use that context, but you say we can still say, three minute went up twenty watts, but this was just a bad day.

other day. So it gives a yeah, gives us a lot to work with.

Cam Nicholls (17:55.598) Yeah, cool. All right. Well, I think that's soldered to me. Critical power came in after my time as a coach. Yep. so I feel like I'm still learning about it and then the use cases and you know how powerful it can be for pretty much any writer. So we'll drop a link to the calculator below or in the podcast description, and we'll catch everyone in the next show.

Summary

Cycling causing lower back pain? Dealing with sciatica, disc injuries, or recurring pain after long rides? In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with expert bike fitter and sports physiotherapist Neil Stanbury to unpack one of the most frustrating issues cyclists face: lower back disc problems.

Neil explains the difference between common muscular lower back pain and more serious disc-related issues, why cyclists can develop chronic back pain from asymmetry on the bike, and how poor biomechanics may contribute to disc irritation and sciatica symptoms.

In this episode we cover:

✔️ The difference between muscular back pain and disc injuries ✔️ What disc herniations and annular tears actually are ✔️ How poor bike position and hip asymmetry can overload the spine ✔️ Why cyclists may experience sciatica, hamstring tightness, or numbness ✔️ Bike fit changes that may reduce lower back stress ✔️ Recovery strategies including swimming, strength training, ice baths, sauna and inflammation management ✔️ Whether core strength training can help prevent future issues

If you're a recreational or amateur cyclist struggling with recurring back pain, stiffness after rides, or nerve symptoms down the leg, this episode may help you understand the causes and potential solutions.

Subscribe for more cycling training advice, bike fit insights, injury prevention tips and performance content for recreational road cyclists.

#Cycling #LowerBackPain #BikeFit #Sciatica #CyclingInjuries #RoadCycling #CyclingPerformance #BackPain #DiscInjury #CyclingTips

*]:pointer-events-auto R6Vx5W_threadScrollVars scroll-mb-[calc(var(--scroll-root-safe-area-inset-bottom,0px)+var(--thread-response-height))] scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" data-turn-id= "request-WEB:a74dc3cc-662f-4a79-96ce-7afcca30d1f3-0" data-turn-id-container= "request-WEB:a74dc3cc-662f-4a79-96ce-7afcca30d1f3-0" data-testid= "conversation-turn-2" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn= "assistant"> Podcast Summary

In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with expert bike fitter Neill Stanbury to break down their top three modern race bikes — but from a bike fitting and geometry perspective rather than the usual marketing hype around stiffness and aerodynamics.

Neill explains why geometry, sizing range, and adjustability matter far more for recreational and amateur cyclists than marginal aerodynamic gains. The conversation dives into why some bikes suit a wider variety of riders, how aggressive race geometries can limit comfort and performance, and why finding the right fit can completely transform your riding experience.

The episode highlights three standout bikes:

• The Pinarello Dogma for its exceptional sizing range and geometry options.
• The Cannondale SuperSix EVO for balancing race-bike performance with a less aggressive fit.
• The Polygon Helios for riders needing an ultra-aggressive, long-and-low racing position.

The discussion finishes with a broader conversation about how the "best" bike is often the one that actually fits your body correctly — not necessarily the most expensive or aerodynamic option.

Key Points 1. Bike Geometry Matters More Than Marginal Aero Gains

Neill argues that for most recreational cyclists, bike fit and geometry are far more important than tiny aerodynamic or stiffness differences between modern superbikes.

2. Modern Race Bikes Are All Extremely Good

According to Neill, there are very few genuinely "bad" bikes at the top end of the market anymore. Most performance differences come down to rider fit and comfort rather than frame technology alone.

3. Pinarello Dogma Excels in Sizing Options

The Dogma stood out because of its massive sizing range, with 11 frame sizes that allow extremely precise fitting for riders of vastly different body proportions.

4. More Sizes = Better Fit, But Higher Cost

Neill explains that producing more frame molds dramatically increases manufacturing costs, which partly explains premium bike pricing.

5. Cannondale SuperSix EVO Balanced Comfort and Performance

The previous-generation SuperSix EVO was praised for having a taller front end and less aggressive geometry, making it ideal for middle-aged riders wanting race-bike performance without extreme flexibility demands.

6. Modern Bikes Are Becoming More Aggressive Again

Neill notes that the latest SuperSix geometry has become more aggressive, which may reduce its suitability for everyday amateur riders.

7. Polygon Helios Is Built for Aggressive Racers

The Polygon Helios was highlighted for its extremely long-and-low geometry, making it ideal for younger, flexible, performance-focused racers.

8. The "Best Bike" Depends on Your Body

The episode reinforces that choosing a bike based on your body proportions, flexibility, and riding goals is far more important than chasing pro-level marketing claims.

9. Comfort Can Improve Performance

Cam shares how finally finding the right geometry significantly improved his comfort and long-duration power output after years of riding unsuitable setups.

10. Bike Fit Education Matters

The episode concludes by promoting RCA's Bike Fit Fundamentals program, designed to help cyclists better understand what bike geometries suit them best.

Bike Fit Fundamtenals: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/bike-fit-fundamentals/ Transcript:

Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA podcast designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode.

Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. So please excuse any visual references. Today I'm joined by expert bike fitter, Neil Stanbury. Neil's going to give us his top three favourite race bikes, but we're not talking about how stiff it is and how fast it goes. We're talking about...

Neill Stanbury (00:45.581) Geometry and adjustability. Or d-d-d-d-d So these are the things that really matter to me. Because when you're talking about the level that you and I would be potentially racing at, or most people watching this podcast, the tiny 1%, you know, two watts here at 50 kilometers an hour, that kind of stuff, the aerodynamics of the Frank... It just doesn't matter.

Cam Nicholls (00:46.926) adjustability.

Cam Nicholls (01:03.786) important very very important

Neill Stanbury (01:07.924) Okay, all of these bikes, the top end of the road bike of the road bike world is all so good now that it's actually getting hard to sort of delineate much between them in terms of like the speed and the stiffness and the ride quality and all this sort of stuff. They're so good. There's so many that we have to choose from. There's very few real dog bikes out there anymore, I find. Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (01:28.622) I'll also ask the boys at the Nero show, that's what they're doing every week. There's lots of dog bikes apparently.

Neill Stanbury (01:33.07) Yeah, well, I mean, they're looking at it. They're looking at the aesthetics of it and that sort of stuff. Honestly, I've had my butt kicked by 65 year old guys on steel framed down tube shifted bikes with the levers on the down tube. I've kicked some guys with a 15, $20,000 Pinarello. The legs are what does, you know, what makes the bike go around. So this is the stuff that they're more interest me, which is the geometry. Let's go with number one. The number one that I love the most dealing with is the Pinarello Dogma.

Cam Nicholls (02:00.206) Geez, if you've got a spare 30 grand floating around.

Neill Stanbury (02:02.913) That's the problem.

Cam Nicholls (02:04.92) You went bad with Pinarello these days Bill, yeah what's going on here? I've never heard you mention this bike and now all of a sudden...

Neill Stanbury (02:10.568) I've been riding a dogma for about a week now. Yeah, Now why do I love the dogma? Yes, it is expensive. We're not talking about the cost. It is a beautiful race bike from all reports. Yeah, cost aside. This is the stuff that I love about it. So they apparently ride really well. They're very stiff. They handle well. They've got all those good attributes.

Cam Nicholls (02:14.764) Yeah, you got three in your head.

Cam Nicholls (02:24.216) we should have prefaced his cost to size.

Neill Stanbury (02:34.11) like a lot of these bikes that we'll talk about. But what is best about them is the sizing range. They are amazing. So for example, just yesterday by a stroke of good fortune, I had a lovely lady from Northern New South Wales, Karen, if you're watching this, I hope you're enjoying these videos. Karen was very short, you know, not to beat around the bush. She was pretty small. She had been advised to buy a Dogma in the or the 415 size, the smaller size that they have, which was a great decision because it

matched her perfectly. The smaller size Dogma F has a reach dimension of 350mm. Which is like, it's the smallest bike in the world. there's very, it's, if someone out there knows a road bike with 700c wheels that has a shorter reach than 350 whatever, I think it's 351 or 352mm, please let me know. But they are tiny. This bike suited her beautifully. It had an 80mm stem on it. It was perfect.

She had a seat height of about 620 millimetres, so short legs, short arms. These bikes go tiny. They also go really big. And in between those, there are 11 sizes. Eleven! It's fantastic. A lot of modern bike brands, you'll get five sizes, right? There'll be an extra small, a small, a medium, a large, and an extra large. And the reason for that primarily is that you don't have to have as many frame moulds. Keeps the cost down. And there's often big jumps between the sizes or the small one is just

not that small, you know, just doesn't go that small. And so you'll have this really annoying large jumps between them and you can't quite get the geometry perfect for the person and so forth. But with Pinarello, it's fantastic. You'll often see particularly, I think there's there's five one five, a five three zero and a five four zero. And the reach change between these three sizes is about five millimeters or six millimeters, something really, really small. And it's mainly the stack that changes.

So they change because there's 11 sizes of them. They change in really tight increments. So you can spec them perfectly to suit the person. So, you know, if it turns out that the 530 is just a little bit low in the front end, you can jump to the 540 and the reach is only three mil longer. But the front end is 12 mil higher. They're fantastic. They just have so many sizes, so much adjustability.

Cam Nicholls (04:49.71) Maybe this explains their costs now because this would cost them a lot to produce so many sizes. now maybe they can justify that price point a little bit.

Neill Stanbury (04:57.966) Well, it's a very carefully thought out geometry chart. It's the most wide ranging geometry chart of any bike pretty much that I know of in the road bike scene. Really, really good because of the number of different frames that you can choose from. They're just fantastic. They are not cheap. And part of the reason is Pinarello name tax, you know, and part of the reason is because for each one of those sizes, you need four, five, 10 frame molds for the production process. And frame molds are not

So when you've got 11 sizes compared to five, it does blow out the start of the production run initiation costs for each series of dogmas that they bring out. They've also, should talk about in a different video, we'll talk about the Pinarello X, but these, these are talking about race bikes here. Pinarello X is their endurance bike. The downside of this thing, obviously it's very expensive. The top tier ones come with a one piece cockpit.

but there are a lot of different one-piece cockpits that they offer. So you can, you know, if you've got the money and you can afford to spec it right, fantastic race bike due to the immense number of geometry iterations that you can get out of them. Number two, the Cannondale Super 6 from last year. Now this video is going to come out in 2026. There has just been a new one released. I was riding with a couple of the boys from EF earlier this year on the new bike and they loved it because it was more aggressive than the old one. Oh, okay.

Cam Nicholls (06:03.927) Number two, please.

Neill Stanbury (06:20.27) means it's not so good for me. So the old Super 6, the one from 2023, I think it ran through to 2025, had about in the 54 size, it had about a 10 or 12 millimeter higher stack than almost any other race bike out there. It was, I would describe it as the least aggressive top end race bike on the market. It was not, certainly not an endurance geometry, but it was kind of in between. It wasn't hyper aggressive.

And I loved that bike because there are so many people out there that have got enough money to spend on a good bike. They want it to be stiff. They want it to be aero. They want it to feel like a race bike, but they're not that flexible. They're not a pro. They don't have amazing hip mobility. They're a middle-aged bloke, know, that is here. So these bikes, we would spec them all the time because they had that more upright front end and that increased stack across the whole range of about 10 millimetres.

in the medium sort of sizes, primarily, it was really helpful for me from a positioning standpoint, because it opened the bike up to a much wider variety of customers. This year's model, the 2026 one, they've gone down in the front to make it basically now just a conventional race bike geometry. There's nothing unusual about it. It will therefore suit less people generally. Okay. And there was no complaints about that bike in terms of the aerodynamics, the climbing ability was a beautiful way all around. It was very stiff.

It's just everyone who had a Super 6, particularly the Lab 71 and the High Mod models, everyone who had one quite liked it, from my perspective. So no complaints about the bike generally and fantastic geometry that's not hyper aggressive.

Cam Nicholls (07:59.478) No longer a Kraken file. Yeah. Well they used to call it back in the early days.

Neill Stanbury (08:02.178) Colin? I have probably can't see this. See, I've heard of stories of a couple of them cracking around the seat post, but I don't know how prevalent that is.

Cam Nicholls (08:10.444) Yeah, I think it's the thing of the past. Yeah. And number three.

Neill Stanbury (08:13.646) Number three, so this is the polar opposite. When you're a bike fitter, you're often trying to squeeze people onto bikes that don't really suit them. And we also have, as we just described with the Cannondale, we have that same problem in reverse fairly regularly, where you've got a person with short legs, lowish seat height, really long torso, who's quite flexible and they need ridiculous geometry, like really, really low and long bikes. And shout out here to Polygon. Now, I'm not just saying this because these guys sponsor our race team.

But the new Helios, the A series that they've just brought out, it rides beautifully, very, very lovely feeling bike, good compliance, good stiffness, all of that sort of stuff. But man, the geometry is nuts.

Cam Nicholls (08:55.404) It's probably out of speaking to all the boys, it's that and they say how stiff it is. Yeah. But the geometries think they love the most because they can get really aggressive for their racing.

Neill Stanbury (09:04.552) So these are young guys, flexible, lean, and part of the reason why they're so, they're at the top of the sport is because they're very aerodynamic. It's one of the things that predisposes you towards being a high-performance cyclist. And so they need geometries that are really long and low. And man, this thing is crazy. Like when I, you know, the one that I rode for a couple of weeks or a month. You had a big chimney on it. I had the chimney to end all chimneys, mate. was, yeah.

Cam Nicholls (09:30.328) make a video about it which will be we can put up there you talking about it specifically

Neill Stanbury (09:33.678) So I had to size down to the small, would normally be a medium. The small has an incredibly low stack height, I think it's like 520 something. And the reach on the medium, the one that I would normally have ridden was 400 millimetres, which is like 15 millimetres longer than most 54 centimetre medium race bikes. So really, really long, really, really low. Fantastic for these guys. Not so great for mere models, but when you're trying to squeeze people, unusually shaped people.

onto bikes, having something like this, you can refer them to for purchasing is great because there are very few bikes that are this long and low on the market. Very, very, very few. And as a bonus, it's a really good bike and it's incredibly good value. you can get a... Yeah, so you can get a Dura Ace version for like six and a half grand or something. It's insane. Yeah, they're just unbelievable good value.

Cam Nicholls (10:20.279) to how we started the video.

Neill Stanbury (10:29.666) So I highly rate that bike. It looks good, rides well, and it's hyper aggressive. And if that's what you need from the geometry, it's a really good pick. So shout out to Polygon for making that thing. Yeah. It's terrible for me, but for you guys out there that are long and low, great bike.

Cam Nicholls (10:37.987) Yeah, okay.

Cam Nicholls (10:45.996) Yeah. that's interesting. I'm looking forward to the next one, which will be endurance bikes. So that we're doing endurance bikes next. Hopefully my BMC road machine gets a mention. No? Okay, damn. Okay. That's a shame. Well, look, if you're out there listening and you want to dig a little bit deeper into what geometry might be best suited for you. Cause I know from my experiences in riding for such a long period of time, like I found the road machine sort of 20 years after I took up the sport almost. I'm like, this, finally found a geometry that works for me.

Neill Stanbury (10:55.416) Probably not.

Cam Nicholls (11:13.76) I can ride longer. feel more comfortable. My power output's great, you know, over long durations. So it's great. It's great for me. So, you've, put together or we've put together a program called Bike Fit Fundamentals where people can kind of identify what sort of geometry is probably going to best suit.

Neill Stanbury (11:19.49) See you that

Neill Stanbury (11:28.45) their needs. will, yes. This one of the modules has a fair bit of information about that type of thing. And yeah, hopefully that'll be of assistance to you if you're trying to navigate your way through this at home.

Cam Nicholls (11:37.262) More link below. Thanks everyone. Catch you in the next podcast and YouTube video. Cheers.

Summary:

In this episode of the RCA Podcast, expert bike fitter Neill Stanbury interviews Cam Nicholls about the biggest training mistakes recreational and amateur cyclists make when trying to improve FTP, endurance, and overall cycling performance.

After completing more than 80 one-on-one coaching calls with plateaued cyclists, Cam reveals the three major problems repeatedly holding riders back:

• Training to inaccurate FTP and power zones
• Skipping key aerobic development work like tempo and sweet spot training
• Failing to implement proper recovery and adaptation weeks

The discussion dives into Zone 2 training, VO2 max work, sweet spot intervals, fatigue management, cycling recovery, aerobic base development, and how recreational cyclists can train smarter instead of simply training harder.

Whether you're struggling to increase your FTP, feeling stuck in a cycling plateau, or wondering why your structured training isn't delivering results, this episode provides practical insights to help you improve your cycling fitness and performance long term.

Topics covered:

• FTP testing and training zones
• Zone 2 vs tempo vs sweet spot training
• VO2 max workouts for cyclists
• Cycling fatigue and recovery
• Adaptation weeks explained
• How to break through a cycling plateau
• Structured training for amateur cyclists
• Common cycling training mistakes

The QUIZ: https://roadcyclingacademy.scoreapp.com/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the RCA Podcast 00:27 Interview Dynamics: Host and Expert Bike Fitter 01:58 Identifying Performance Plateaus in Cycling 02:23 Training to the Wrong Numbers 07:30 The Importance of Aerobic Work 09:52 Strategic Easier Weeks for Recovery Transcript:

Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA podcast designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode.

Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. Today I'm joined by expert bike fitter, Neil Stanbury. And for the first time in a, I think about five years of content, Neil, you're actually going to interview me. It'll be funny if this video gets like five views.

Neill Stanbury (00:38.702) The rolls are reversed here.

really on something. You mentioned to me off camera, this is a kind of an interesting one, I didn't know you'd been doing this, but you have with your RCA members, you have a service where they found that their performance is stagnated or plateaued. They can actually call you direct and it's a decent length conversation that you often have with them. I'll give it out to everyone.

Cam Nicholls (00:58.862) Well, I'm not giving out my number to everyone now. People wouldn't necessarily call me and it's not for RCA members. It's for people that they've definitely plateaued from an FTP perspective. It's a quiz that we've got on our website and I'm not here to promote the quiz. I'm here to talk about what I've learned. But if people want to do the quiz, it's a quiz where people fill out, I think 15 questions, takes three minutes. And then they get a report on where the low hanging fruit opportunities are for them to improve their cycling fitness or to FTP.

Neill Stanbury (01:08.376) So not just for members.

Neill Stanbury (01:26.466) And you'll have a decent one-on-one conversation with these people to sort of tease out where they might be struggling.

Cam Nicholls (01:31.49) Yeah, exactly. So those who fill out the quiz and say that consider some tailored advice or even working with a coach, we then offer a call, which is currently with me because it's like a beta offering we have. Not even on our website, this offering at the moment, because, you know, jumping straight into coaching can feel a little bit daunting for some people. So here's a one hour call and let's identify your low hanging fruit. Well, probably now, like no exaggeration, we implemented this back in the last year. So it's been about six months now.

Neill Stanbury (01:50.742) You've done quite a few of these.

Cam Nicholls (01:58.99) I've probably somewhere between 70 to 80 calls now with recreational and amateur road cyclists that have hit a plateau and they're probably training somewhere between six to 12 hours per week, depending on the week.

Neill Stanbury (02:08.364) And you've learned absolutely nothing and that's the end of the video. Exactly right. You've learned a fair bit from these people, which is what you wanted to share.

Cam Nicholls (02:11.598) No, nothing of interest aside

And I haven't shared with you what they are, so hopefully, you there might be bit of interest from your

Neill Stanbury (02:20.6) You mentioned there were three major things that you'd found?

Cam Nicholls (02:23.38) Big things that, I mean, there's lots, everyone's different, but three big things. First one is people are training to the wrong numbers. you've done this before. I thought you would have been probably a little bit more because you've, you know, we've coached you in the past. think once you've been coached and you'd become more intimate with your numbers, it's, know, even if you don't retest, you kind of have a good feeling of where you're.

Neill Stanbury (02:27.054) Alright, hit me with number one.

Neill Stanbury (02:35.704) I'm doing it right now.

Neill Stanbury (02:49.838) I'm terrible. always, you know, I had a bit of a layoff recently with bad weather and illness and stuff and didn't ride much for three weeks and I thought, I probably haven't dropped that much in three weeks. And I have, because when I tried to do some VO2 sessions to the same numbers as what I used to, there was just no hope. So I underestimate how much my numbers dropped back during those periods.

Cam Nicholls (03:11.158) Yeah, and look, you know, we wouldn't recommend you go do VO2 work, you know, after some time off, you'd want to give it a good, obviously, if you're doing a bunch ride, you're going to do it or something like that or push with a mate. But if you're riding by yourself, you'd probably want to spend a good six to eight weeks at a below threshold, reestablishing the base.

Neill Stanbury (03:26.894) Yeah, I'm too, uh, too impatient for that. I think I did two or three weeks, maybe four weeks of a bit of bass, and then started hitting the VO2s again and um, yeah, they were nowhere near what they used to be. Yes. So, training to the wrong zones, mate.

Cam Nicholls (03:29.089) Yes, almost did, Valar!

Cam Nicholls (03:41.07) Yeah. And that's ultimately what it means. So people taking an estimate off, you know, their Wahoo or their Garmin or Strava or some people use AI coaching platforms and take a number and nothing against those platforms because they're doing the best they can with the numbers that they've got. But nine times out of 10, the numbers are wrong. And then people are going and doing, I'm going to do this session on the trainer or I out on the road. You know, I watched it on YouTube and then they're actually targeting the wrong areas. Yeah. They're not actually at threshold. They're at VO2 max or they're not actually at

zone two, they're actually at tempo, which in turn, and this is probably an underlying cause of a lot of people having underdeveloped aerobic engines. If you're not doing targeted zone two work or if you've never done it before, when I say zone two, from a power context, I'm talking around 60 to 70 % of your FTP. You know, a lot of people, every rider bringing lactate into the working muscles, which disrupts the aerobic adaptation. And then they're never really doing targeted zone two stuff off the back of having the wrong numbers. Yes.

So that's the first lesson. you know, really for people out there, you know, the best way to get your numbers is just to do a test. Yeah. You know, as simple as a ramp test, you know, we were a bit more advanced at the RCA where you something called critical power. So that's typically three tests you can do with critical power, but we typically get our members to do a three minute test and a 12 minute test. So you get more of an understanding of the bigger picture. You might be really good at sustained efforts and not so good at the shorter efforts or vice versa. In fact, I had a call with somebody recently.

where they're like, why is it, and he'd done a test, he's like, why is it when I do sub threshold work and I'm doing eight to 10 minute efforts, I really struggle. I'm like getting to the end of that eight to 10 and I'm like barely being able to finish the effort. Whereas when I'm doing a three minute effort, I can perform really well. It feels easy actually with my current FTP. Well, it's like, well, most likely genetically you're stronger at VO2 and not at threshold. So having, know, if you can get more comprehensive with your testing, then your zones are going to be...

more accurate and your training is going to be more effective.

Neill Stanbury (05:38.264) I mean I can relate to that because I'm the exact opposite. So I can cruise along at upper end zone 2 for a very long time without a lot of fatigue creeping in, but I'm terrible once I creep into VO2 or neuromuscular. It's just not. You're a grime. yeah. Yeah, I'm all slow twitch mate. All slow twitch. So it's very much fighting against my genetics to try and do a lot of VO2 and neuromuscular stuff.

Cam Nicholls (06:02.286) This podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. If you're a recreational or amateur road cyclist and you're stuck on a frustrating performance plateau, feeling like you need some guidance, but you're not quite ready to dive straight into one-to-one coaching, at the RCA we've created something called the 12-week custom plan, which we believe would be your perfect next step. It starts off with an upfront deep dive call with your coach who will understand your goals, your riding preferences, what your not negotiable rides are.

and where you want to go, then they'll create a fully tailored 12-week custom plan that is supported over the 12-week period. We believe it's the perfect intermediate step, giving you a taste of working with a coach and experiencing a customized plan without committing to full coaching. Our writers are seeing real results too, and you can go to our Google reviews to see this. Marvin recently shaved over 30 minutes off his graft into Inverrell time from doing the 12-week custom plan.

Adam gained 20 watts on his FTP in 12 weeks and 40 watts on his five minute power. And we have riders completing rides that they've failed in previous attempts like Peaks Challenge, all from doing this 12 week custom plan. So if you're ready to break through, head to the roadcyclingacademy.com in the menu system, you'll see our 12 week custom plan and take the first step towards that next level performance. Now let's get back to the podcast. Yeah, cool.

Neill Stanbury (07:30.446) So what's number two?

Cam Nicholls (07:31.054) Number two is an interesting one. A lot of people are not doing that work before threshold. So if they're doing some structured stuff, you know, they've watched a few YouTube's or read a few articles, they'll typically, you know, think they're doing zone two, even though they may not be doing zone two because they're not doing it exclusively and they may have the wrong numbers, but let's just say they are doing it. They're doing zone two, then they'll go straight to threshold work or VO2 work or anaerobic work, know, 3015s or over-unders.

And they're missing out on that upper end aerobic work. So what do I mean by that? I'm talking about tempo work zone three, and I'll put a zone model up on the screen or sweet spot work, which is like high 80 % to mid 90 % of FTP. Yep. Which is in this, you're ironic in the scheme of some platforms, they tend to over index on that stuff, but the general recreational and amateur aren't doing a lot of work there. They're just going straight to the meaty stuff, which makes sense, right? Because that's where you get really fast gains. And that's where there's a lot of content about

you know, people want to increase their VO2 max, I'm going to do a VO2 max workout. But the challenge with that is, you know, assuming they're targeting the right numbers is it's very fast acting that work, but also very fatiguing. So people find, and this is why they filled out the quiz and wanted to chat, the plateau. So the idea is, and this is research-based, right? It's the pyramidal methodology where you're spending in a three zone scientific model, more time in zone two, which is that tempo sweet spot. So the key is,

And look, a lot of people say, I'm doing tempo work when I'm on my bunch ride or I go out and ride hard, you know, once a week and I'm at tempo. It's not really strategic tempo intervals where it's, you know, lactate in, because you will bring a bit of lactate in during a tempo zone for interval and then recovery and then doing another one and then recovery. And then next week, progressively making that a little bit harder. And then once you master that kind of tempo work, what do I mean by master? I'm talking about

rate of perceived exertion so that session feels easier. I can see my heart rate's not drifting as much in that tempo effort and coming down. Then you move up maybe four, six weeks later and you do some sweet spot stuff. And the beauty of that work as well is it's not overly fatiguing. So you kind of freshen up, you build a really strong aerobic foundation. And then when you do get to the VO2 or the threshold stuff, you've got a much better foundation to work from.

Neill Stanbury (09:47.874) Yes. Yeah, makes sense to me, mate. Yeah. Very nice. Cool. All what's number three? Number th-

Cam Nicholls (09:52.568) Three is, and we've made content on this a lot, is they're just not having strategic easier weeks. So we don't really call them easier weeks at the RCA because that sounds like you're not doing anything.

call them adaptation.

It's good. And it's as simple as just backing off your intensity and your volume by about 30%. So if you're doing 10 hours a week, you're doing seven hours a week. And instead of doing three intense sessions in your normal weeks, you're just doing one intense session in your easier week. And the idea is you're absorbing the stress from the previous week's adaptation. Yep. And you're freshening up for the next round. So when you do get back into a training week, you're fresh and you can tackle it and you can probably overextend because you've got some freshness.

and provided you recover properly, you get fitter from it. So that's a real easy one people can implement without getting too bogged down in the details of training. It's like, every third or fourth week, and I've got mates that do this now who are not interested in structured training, but they just, every third or fourth week, they just back it off a little bit. And they find that's had a huge increase in their performance longer term because they're giving their body rest. And yeah, they can tackle the next weeks with greater frills.

Neill Stanbury (11:04.142) Yeah, and cycling, in my experience, cycling fatigue, like the chronic fatigue that you develop from big blocks of training and that sort of stuff, it's insidious. It's not like when you go to the gym and you lift a bunch of heavy weights and your muscles are sore for a few days afterwards. That sort of perception that you're still in the recovery zone is really clear because, you know, your biceps still hurts, your quads still hurt. Cycling is different, isn't it? Where you just sort of, you you wake up and you're like, geez, you got no motivation, you're a bit tired.

You get to the end of the afternoon and you want to have a nap. It's insidious fatigue, isn't it? That kind of creeps up on you a lot of the time. It's not as clear cut as the type of fatigue that you get from strength training. it's much, I've fallen into this hole many times over the years. It's much more insidious and therefore harder to sort of know that you're doing it to yourself, you know? And so you have to really monitor those feelings. Cause I'd never really thought to monitor them until I talked to you guys years and years ago about this.

And I sort of, I'm now much more aware of it when it's happening. Like, and I think, okay, for me, it's that I either haven't eaten enough, because I have to keep the calorie intake really high. I've got a very fast metabolism, or more likely I'm just a bit cooked from those three big bunch rides I did this week, or that big VO2 effort I did two days ago. I'm much more cognizant of that fatigue now, but it is hard to sense that fatigue feeling for a lot of people, for a lot of people, it's their default state.

Cam Nicholls (12:29.806) That's exactly what I was about to say. So the amount of calls that I've had with people and some of them do transition into coaching. And I've said, think I believe you're actually in a fatigue state. No, I don't feel fatigued. I mean, it's not that defensive, but it's kind of like, can tell they're like, what's this guy saying to me? I don't like this guy anymore. Probably haven't been to that. And then when they actually do have an easier week and then they start the training and then they have another easier week and then another one.

This is what freshness feels like. This is what actually being able to overextend in a workout feels like. So as you said, it's that body awareness and a great use case to wrap up here. One of our members, Andrew, if you're out there listening, not all our members race, in fact, probably only about 10%, but he races the crits. He came to us, he, well, I had a call with him. He's doing other things as well, like a lot of cross-training stuff. And I said, Andrew, I think you're doing a bit too much. For 46 kids, you know, got a job. And he's like, no, I feel fine.

The very first, he started working with Ryan Thomas, our head coach. The very first thing Ryan did with him is like, we're going to back it off a lot this week. We're going to have more than 70%. We're going to go like 40%. He said, I can still go race the crit on Sunday. Hadn't placed in his crit for like six months. What happened? Got a podium, third. Just fresh, just from recovery. And now he's like fully in tune with his body and dialed in and appreciates it. So as you said, his body awareness, it's often not until you come out of that state.

Neill Stanbury (13:42.594) This fresh.

Cam Nicholls (13:53.288) until you recognise it. So Neil, they are the three things.

Neill Stanbury (13:56.174) Very interesting mate that and a lot of it makes sense to me and I can see myself in some of those comments You have to change some of the ways that I'm doing things as well

Cam Nicholls (14:03.34) Yep. So if somebody does want to do the quiz and wants to take a call, we'll put a link below and we'll catch everyone in the next podcast and YouTube video. Cheers.

Summary In this episode, expert bike fitter Neill Stanbury explains the importance of Q factor (aka stance width) in cycling and bike fitting. Notably, how it affects power transfer, injury prevention, and how to optimize it for individual riders. Learn practical tips on measuring and adjusting Q factor for better cycling performance and comfort. Key topics

• What is Q factor and why it matters
• Symptoms of incorrect Q factor
• How Q factor affects power transfer and injury risk
• Practical methods to measure and adjust Q factor
• Impact of Q factor on cycling performance and training

Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Q Factor and Cycling Performance 02:44 Understanding Q Factor: Definition and Importance 08:35 Identifying Q Factor Issues and Symptoms 14:24 Adjusting Q Factor: Solutions and Recommendations Bike Fit Fundamentals: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/bike-fit-fundamentals/ Transcript:

Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA podcast designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode.

So welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. So please excuse any visual references, which is going to be hard with the man beside me, Neil. You use your hands. Yeah, it could be an interesting one, but today we're going to talk about Q factor. Notably, you know, I'm interested in how you can produce more power through the pedal stroke with your Q factor. But Neil, before we talk about the intricacies of Q factor and bike fitting and more power, what is Q factor?

Neill Stanbury (00:35.426) There's going to be a few of those. You liked it?

Neill Stanbury (00:56.078) Yeah, so Q-Fact is, the easiest way to think about it is how far apart your feet are. Okay. It's a terrible term really. I think it's a bastardization of a medical term in the orthopedic literature called Q-Angle, which sort of refers to the angle of a person's knee, whether it sort of kicks in or kicks out. it's been adopted by the bike fitting world from that, but really we should describe it as stance width. Yes. The distance apart that your feet are. And on a road bike, you're looking at about 25 centimeters.

And on a mountain bike somewhere closer to 27 or 29 on some of the big dogs with huge bottom brackets, massive tire clearance.

Cam Nicholls (01:28.684) I found super interesting and I might be cutting into your storyline here, but you mentioned this in a video we did four years ago. Jeez. Q-Factor long time. Been a while. That all bikes, all road bikes have the same Q-Factor no matter the size. It's just really odd.

Neill Stanbury (01:35.886) Here we

Neill Stanbury (01:43.842) Yeah, it's kind of strange, isn't it? Yeah, because it would be logical that the Q factor or the stance width of a bike would need to scale up or down depending, generally speaking, depending upon the size of the bike. That, mean, there's, plenty of exceptions to that rule. There's, short, wide-waisted people, broad-waisted people who need a wider Q factor on a tiny bike. And there's also really tall, beanpole, six foot four people who've got a really narrow waist and amazing hip mobility who need really narrow Q factors. But as a general rule of.

you know, of extrapolation of thumb, you would think that bigger bikes would have a wider key factor, but they don't. There's a whole bunch of industry reasons behind that. Like it would be prohibitively expensive and difficult for a lot of the groupset manufacturers to make different bottom bracket, you know, different width crank systems and that sort of thing. So it just doesn't happen. And we're just kind of left to our own devices to deal with this.

Cam Nicholls (02:33.198) So if you are a recreational amateur road cyclist and you are lift your own devices, how do you get to the bottom of whether you've got the right Q factor or the wrong Q factor?

Neill Stanbury (02:44.334) Yeah, tough call. So let's talk about first of all, the symptoms that you might get if it's wrong. I'm going to tell you that probably 98 % of the time that your Q factor is grossly wrong, it's that it's too narrow, right? So there's like a 2 % chance that your Q factor is too wide and there's about a 98 % chance that it's too narrow if it's wrong, right? So let's say the symptoms that you would get if it was too narrow. Generally what will happen in cycling biomechanics, we really like to see your knees descending more or less vertically over the center of the pedal spindle.

And if they're descending straight down the center of the pedal spindle or slightly inside the line of the pedal spindle, you'll very rarely have a problem, right? That's kind of kinematically biomechanically kind of optimal in a lot of cases. Sorry, what did you just say? Let's say you've got a circle that your foot is prescribing in the air. We want your knee moving straight up and down over that pedal center. Okay. We don't want your knee.

Cam Nicholls (03:35.052) layman Neil you gotta break it down simply for me

Neill Stanbury (03:37.166) I've always known you're a layman. I've known you for a long time. You'd never graduated beyond layman, but here we are. So we want your knee descending vertically over the center of the pedal spittle, ideally. Or slightly inside the line, but we do not want it chopping in from outside the line of the pedal. And we've got plenty of stock footage of your left knee doing that. It's the same B-roll every time. So if your knee is descending across

Cam Nicholls (03:56.874) I've been in the audience this second time.

Neill Stanbury (04:03.374) the line of the pedal spindle, you're much more likely to get biomechanical issues. And what are those issues going to be? Look, if it's on one leg, there'll be things like lateral knee pain, patella type knee pain, lateral foot pain from as the knee descends across the line of the pedal, you're going to load the outside edge of the foot, that type of thing. ITB insertion syndrome issues. If it's bilateral, your biggest, most frequent symptom is going to be lower back pain.

So as the patella or the knee tries to move across the line of the pedal, your glutes will work over time, trying to stabilize this. Or in some people they will just switch off and your pelvis will rock excessively. And both of those will cause lower back pain for slightly different reasons. The first one is because of the excess muscle contractile effort and your glutes just makes them hurt. And the second one is just the excessive movement of your pelvis means that you're going to get instability and therefore pain as the pelvis rocks back and forth.

Cam Nicholls (04:56.504) Good Neil, I only care about powertrain.

Neill Stanbury (04:58.606) Power transfer. transfer. The big one. Big what? So yes, it is very inefficient. If the Q factor is grossly wrong, you can lose a lot. Most of the time the loss is in those efforts beyond about five or six minutes. So once you get beyond a VO2 effort, the efficiency becomes a really big limiting factor and the lack of glute engagement or lack of proper glute engagement.

Cam Nicholls (05:01.336) care if I get injured as long as I'm produced in-

Neill Stanbury (05:21.996) And the fact that your medial quad can't work properly. you're losing out in multiple different kind of kinematic areas on optimal power transfer. can say. And so I've seen plenty of people over the years where we've changed, we've fixed their Q factor as a major issue that we're solving in their position. And they've picked up like five to 10 % on a 20 minute effort in the weeks following the fit. So Q factor can be- Weeks? Close to instantaneous. Wow.

Cam Nicholls (05:45.602) So instantaneous space.

Neill Stanbury (05:48.846) Yeah, so I think I told this story in another video probably probably a long time ago But I have had elite level riders pick up 10 % like National Road Series type guys I had a bloke go from about a 440 watt 20 minute effort He was a big guy to a 480 watt 20 minute effort a long time ago. This was probably 10 years ago Purely with the addition of some 15 millimeter longer spindle pedals, which I'm going to show you guys in a minute. Yep, right

Cam Nicholls (06:14.446) Okay, so he had a 30 millimeter increase all up in his Q factor. Yeah. And that was the outcome essentially.

Neill Stanbury (06:21.012) Yeah, so he had chronic bilateral knee pain that he could never get rid of on the bike and it basically just instantly deleted his knee pain and partially you could maybe say that his power went up because he wasn't in pain potentially he could train harder, but it was real quick It was like within like a month or something his power jumped by like 40 watts across the 20 minute It was huge and so the nervous system has a lot of Safety like fail-safes in it that if you're in pain and you're damaging your limbs when you're pedaling It's gonna curtail your output to the pedals

And so he probably had a neurological limiter due to the inflammation in his knees. But then you could also argue that it was just biomechanically much more efficient and he was using his glutes better and his quad better and hard to know, probably a combination of both. Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (07:03.662) Yeah. The thing that comes to mind for me is, probably what you can't measure because you didn't track him over the next one to two years, but the compounding effect of actually getting it right. Yeah. Not having the knee pain, being able to train more, being able to recover.

Neill Stanbury (07:16.152) Cover better consistent training. Absolutely. Yeah. Even like I've seen this in a lot of people doing big volume. Some of my world tour and my continental guys who are There's a couple. we're not allowed to mention names. Most of these guys are sort of sworn to a vow of silence with this because they're sort of contractually not.

Cam Nicholls (07:26.936) world tour guides these days.

Neill Stanbury (07:40.918) to come and see people like me that are outside of the team medical system. I can't mention names, but I have had plenty of people with stuff like that where you've gotten rid of chronic bilateral knee pain and suddenly a couple of months later, they're fourth in a mountain top finish and they've been mid pack. Because they've been able to consistently train without the knee pain.

Cam Nicholls (08:02.414) Gosh, I feel you're fitted in. Two months later wins Melbourne to Waterpool, Australia's biggest biker.

Neill Stanbury (08:06.734) World tour all the way. World tour all the way that fella. Just an unbelievable win wasn't it? Yeah that was amazing. So I'll take full credit for that. Josh probably 5 % of the credit. I'll probably say 95%. Congratulations to Josh.

Cam Nicholls (08:22.286) So, you know, if I'm watching this at home, I'm like, okay, this sounds pretty important. If I feel like I'm experiencing some of these issues, like where am I going? What am I doing if I don't have access to a bike fitter like you? what can I play around with?

Neill Stanbury (08:35.96) So the big risk factors for sort of guessing or sort of extrapolating the EQ factor might be a little bit too narrow. Have a look at your hip internal rotation range. This is something you can check yourself at home. Flex your leg up to 90 degrees, turn your hip into internal rotation. If you've got more than about 30 degrees, you're probably going to be okay. If you've got less than 30 degrees down towards like 10 degrees, this is a sign that your internal rotation of your hips is not that flash.

And therefore it is going to be harder for you to tuck your knees tight to the frame. It's going to be more biomechanically difficult. So that's possibly a predictor that you might need to go wider in the Q factor. If you're just a heavy set, like a broad waisted person, like I'm obviously very narrow waisted. You're a bit, you're kind of middle of the bell curve. And then if you've got really big wide waist, big hips, it's much more likely that you're going to function better with a wider Q factor. have some jump on a trainer and grab some footage of yourself. Yep.

from the front. So jump on a trainer directly from the front with your whole body in the shot and just look at where that foot is and where the knee is relative to the foot. We can overlay that for the entire 12 minutes. And look at that. If that knee is chopping across the line of the pedal.

Cam Nicholls (09:35.989) used by footage again here.

Neill Stanbury (09:45.846) on the down stroke. It is not moving straight down vertically above the center line of the pedal. If it's chopping out, especially at the top of the stroke, whipping out and then whipping across, and it's doing that potentially on both legs, but often you'll see it really bad on one and not too bad on the other because of compensatory asymmetry, you're favoring your dominant leg. But if it's happening on both sides, definitely test the effect of widening your Q factor.

So if you're chopping outside the line of the pedal, that's the dead giveaway and use a really high resolution, you know, camera phone to take that footage and you should get a bit of a note. Yep. And if you want to move your feet further apart, I've got a whole bunch of options here for you and I'll run you through them quickly. There's a lot. They're all on the table in front of me.

Cam Nicholls (10:24.588) I'm gonna need speed plays aren't I or what are they called these days?

Neill Stanbury (10:27.24) You would, but I've got other options as well. Yeah. So let's say you need a tiny bit of Q factor increase. Shimano in their infinite wisdom is the only mainstream pedal manufacturer apart from Speedplay, the only mainstream three bolt pedal manufacturer who does make a wider spindle pedal. And they make these Ultegra and there's also a Dura Ace version, but the spindle is only four millimeters and four millimeters is not. These will do you if you're just a shade too narrow and you just need to get a little bit wider.

These can be good. Four millimeters, eight millimeters on both sides, therefore, not a message.

Cam Nicholls (11:01.198) you going to experience those type of symptoms or potential injuries that you described with a four millimeter each side discrepancy or is it normally got to be bigger to experience that or depends?

Neill Stanbury (11:11.062) It depends on a lot of things. It will scale depending, like if it's grossly off, like you need 15 mil on each side, you'll get much worse. Okay. Typically. If you're just getting subtle symptoms of that, it could just be that you only need four mil. And unfortunately, trial and error is the only way to really know. If you come in for a fit, we do that during the fit. But if you're buying these pedals and doing it yourself at home, it can get expensive quickly to try this stuff. Yeah. Unfortunately. Second option. Let's say you want to stick with a three ball pedal system, but you are happy to use Kio.

So SQ Labs, the German company that makes a whole bunch of nifty little bike fitting products and saddles and stuff, they make two different variants of this 512 race pedal, they call it. There's one with an eight millimeter longer than standard axle and one with a 15.

And I use these all the time. So this is plus eight, this is plus 15. These are pretty good quality. I experienced like a very small percentage of them failing here at the pivot point with it getting a little crack in the pivot point here of the opening clip at the rear, but very, very solid pedal. I haven't had any major problems with bearings or anything. They're pretty good.

Cam Nicholls (12:11.662) So plus eight and plus 15. So what if you plus 11 or 12?

Neill Stanbury (12:14.688) Well, luckily you can move the cleat sideways. yeah. So you've got in a Keo cleat you got about four or five mil of lateral play. A Shimano one will give you about six. So you can fine tune it within those jumps using the lateral play. Okay. Let's say you're using the king of all pedal systems like that. the one that you love. The most adjustable but also the quirkiest pedal system. I keep a really good stock of plus nine and plus 12 millimeter titanium spindles. And this will be visible on the video, but...

For those of you playing along at home, I've basically got a titanium spindle here that's just 12mm longer than the standard speed play spindle. These are about a 5 minute job to swap into the pedal. We've got a video we can link somewhere down below showing you how to do that. Very straight forward, works great.

Cam Nicholls (12:55.742) Are they technically compatible with the Wahoo B-Play system? So if you put those in and you experience an issue, well, Wahoo go, no, sorry, you're using the wrong spindle. It's not possible.

Neill Stanbury (13:05.902) Okay hasn't happened before but possibly not that I know of anyway, but yeah, if they were really finicky They might go all that that's a non-standard axle. Da da da speed play do actually sell these longer ones, but they are horrifically expensive Yeah, wahoo sells them. They're very expensive. I go aftermarket. Of course. Yeah, if you're using speed play again, there is a

Cam Nicholls (13:18.403) Do I

Neill Stanbury (13:26.326) An extender plate made by Form Bike Fitting out of the UK and this is an MLR 618. I don't know where they got these product numbers from. Ronan, let me know where you got this from. And this is a really nifty piece of gear. This replaces your standard base plate and it has a laterally drilled set of four holes. I think they're six millimeters offset. you can, depending upon which shoe you put this on, you can increase or decrease your Q factor by six mil just using that on the bottom of the shoe. Wow. That's create a bit of a funny situation where the

The center of the pedal is a long way towards the medial or lateral aspect of the shoe. Not many people have a great lot of trouble with that if you've got a stiff sole shoe, but it can be a bit of a weird feeling if all the pressure is going through the outside edge or the medial edge. So if you're putting out a lot of watts, I'd probably go with the, uh, the longer spindles rather than those. Okay. But not least, let's say you're a total mess. Okay. You've got horrific hip mobility. You've got arthritis in your hips, you're six foot eight, you're broad as a brick dunny, as we say. Let's say you've got a really wide waist and you need.

Cam Nicholls (14:24.024) for all these side, Neil.

Neill Stanbury (14:25.198) yeah, sorry. I don't think that's common. All the empiricants at home. Brick Dunny. Brick Dunny. Let's say you've got really bad hip mobility and you're massive. A 20 millimeter pedal extender, you can get these in 16 mil longer variants, but I don't trust them. There's not enough meat in this section where the two threaded sections join for them to be really strong and safe, in my opinion. So the minimum length I would go with with these, there's a plus 20 that I'm holding here. And this is the big dog. This one is a 27 millimeter extender. That's as far as you're wanting.

Because you're putting massive tangential like torsional loading on the crank face with this as you put pressure down on the pedal It's gonna be wanting to twist the crank face and they can be a bit sketchy if you've got a big heavy set dude I would be very nervous about cracking ranks. Okay all of the other systems that I just showed you right out to the plus 15 millimeter length and SQ labs pedals I've never once ever had anyone break a crank with any of it. Okay. I've actually never had anyone break a

crank with a set of 20 mil extenders either, but I am led to believe that it can happen. So I'm nervous about those with big, heavy set, powerful people over a hundred kilos. And if they're using them, I usually advise them to use a solid aluminium crank like something really tough. Not a lightweight carbon crank. Yeah. So there are your options for changing your Q factor mount. And what you're looking for is the NIN more or less vertically over the center of the pedal on each side, if possible.

Cam Nicholls (15:46.496) Okay. And being able to go for a two hour ride without feeling like you're going to get an injury.

Neill Stanbury (15:51.266) Hopefully. Yeah. It is a very common thing. I go through probably four to five sets, four or five riders a week where I have to move their feet apart substantially. And often we're using the SQ Labs pedals because they're just a straight swap in neat solution.

Cam Nicholls (16:04.942) thanks for sharing Neil. So if someone's out there listening and they want to go even deeper on this topic, we've created or you've created an online program for bike fitting called Bike Fit Fundamentals and it incorporates a lesson.

Neill Stanbury (16:17.696) on this particular topic? one of the modules is all about cleat position and Q factor and that sort of stuff. So if you're looking to delve more deeply into your positional problems at home and try and nail this stuff down people, that is a highly recommended resource. It's really good.

Cam Nicholls (16:30.382) We'll link it below. Thanks for your time Neil. We'll catch everyone in the next video or podcast.

Podcast Summary: In this episode, Mitch Boyer shares his journey from a casual cyclist to a more confident and skilled rider through coaching, structured training, and community engagement. Discover how personalized coaching, mental resilience, and strategic training can lead to significant performance improvements and life benefits. RCA 12 WEEK CUSTOM PLAN; https://roadcyclingacademy.com/cycling-plan-custom/ key topics

• The impact of coaching on cycling performance
• Balancing social rides with structured training
• Mental resilience and motivation in cycling

Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the RCA Podcast 01:02 Mitch's Cycling Journey Begins 02:13 The Decision to Get a Coach 04:09 Initial Training Experience 08:03 Key Learnings from the 12-Week Program 12:22 Building Confidence Through Training 18:09 Integrating Group Rides with Training 23:46 Long-Term Growth and Self-Discovery 28:22 Navigating Peaks and Troughs in Motivation 32:31 The Importance of Recovery 34:34 BMC Bike Discussion and Personal Preferences Transcript:

Cam Nicholls (00:01.816) Welcome to the RCA podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode.

Welcome back to the RCA Podcast where today I am joined by one of our members, Mitch Boyer, all the way from California. How you going, Mitch?

Mitch Boyer (00:37.442) Good, how are doing? I'm excited to be here.

Cam Nicholls (00:39.534) Excited to be here. You've got some big things happening over the next few weeks, I'm hearing.

Mitch Boyer (00:44.334) Yeah, my wife and I are expecting our first child. Kind of a big thing. Thank you.

Cam Nicholls (00:48.91) I if you're having a boy or a girl. A girl. I've got two of them.

Mitch Boyer (00:52.334) Thanks. Any advice? That's maybe another podcast. Yeah. I'm equal parts excited and terrified, which I think is probably normal.

Cam Nicholls (00:55.822) Good luck.

Cam Nicholls (01:02.744) So yeah, we're not going to talk about how deeply you're into your training right now because you're no doubt that you're not really trying to peak for any events. It's probably the opposite, but I wanted to bring you on because one of the, I guess the challenges that we have as a business and I have running the business is really trying to normalise cycle coaching. Cause I think a lot of people think of it as maybe a little bit beyond them. Maybe they think it's going to be another thing in their life.

Uh, you know, there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding it. So you being one of our members, know, you being in that sort of recreational amateur slash basket. I wanted to speak to you about your journey, you know, in coaching and I'm going to, you know, I would like for you to not tell everyone how good the RCA is. don't want this to be a promo for the RCA, even though it may be difficult because I know you and Ryan have a great working relationship, but more so, you know, just your experiences as, you know, just a regular Joe Blow that likes writing is

bike eight to 10 hours per week when you're consistent, what your experience has been like. So maybe if we wind it right back to when you first decided to get a coach, it was pretty early days for you and your cycling journey. Yeah.

Mitch Boyer (02:13.71) So I picked up, I'm a COVID baby when it comes to cycling. I picked up my first drop bar bike, I think May, 2020. And then I started working with the RCA. You guys are my first and my only. I think around November, December, 2021. So yeah, I was about a year and a half into my cycling journey. Okay. At that point.

Cam Nicholls (02:37.24) which is pretty early days for somebody that steps into coaching. Normally people that do make the leap have been sitting on a performance plateau for a good three to five years. And it's just like, all right, I'm so frustrated with my mate going past me and not performing in Fundo events. I'm gonna finally make this leap of faith and they do it. Whereas you were 18 months. So why do you think it was in the scheme of the general population a lot faster for you to consider some coaching?

Mitch Boyer (03:05.326) Yeah, that's good question. think in general, in my life, I'm always looking for people to mentor me. And I think there's a lot of value in having just another person who knows what they're talking about helping you, whatever it is you're doing. And so I had done that with my career in design before I had done that with, so like I have ADHD. So I had hired an ADHD coach to help me make sure I like actually do my work and stuff.

So I'm always looking for coaches and everything. Cause I feel like if I don't have other people keeping me accountable, everything kind of goes haywire in my life. I think specific to cycling, I had gotten really into watching a lot of cycling YouTube and seeing what other people could do. And it kind of snowballed in that like I got a trainer and I started seeing what my power numbers were. And then there was the question of like, how high can I get my power numbers? And then just because of that.

kind of history I told you about where I'm always looking for mentorship. was like, okay, like are there cycling coaches? And I think I stumbled on your videos and you know, one thing led to another and then I met you.

Cam Nicholls (04:09.838) So before you met the RCA and you decided to do what was back then our 12 week up level program, what kind of training were you doing? And then do you feel like you were stuck? had you sort of performance plateaued or was more about wanting some guidance than anything?

Mitch Boyer (04:27.726) Yeah, well before that point, so you know my first couple rides in 2020, it was probably similar to a lot of people. I was just getting out and riding for fun and then I noticed my rides started getting longer and longer and then further and further and in LA there's a bunch of mountains and so I started with the smaller mountains and then got bigger and bigger and bigger and I think my biggest ride at that point there's this mountain out here called Mount Wilson. It's a pretty big climb. I think it's about 5,000 feet.

in climbing from if I were to go out my door and then ride to the top of this mountain. And that was the biggest ride I had ever done. And it just killed me at the end of it. I guess as far as plateaus at that point, I had no idea about pacing. I had no idea about fueling. And I thought that's the biggest ride I'm ever going to do. There's nothing any bigger than that. And then again, I was just watching other cyclists on YouTube doing these amazing long rides and I couldn't figure out how they were able to do that.

as normal people and not as professionals. And I think that's probably part of it. It's been a couple of years, so I'm kind of trying to think back. the other thing is my wife and I were getting married and we had got a Peloton and I did my first FTP test on a Peloton and my FTP on the Peloton was inflated because the power meter was just wildly incorrect and it gave me an FTP above 300 watts on the Peloton. And I just forgot about this.

When I put real power meter pedals on, I found out my actual FTP was like 234 Watts. So going from 317 watt FTP in my mind to that was so devastating. I was like, I got to fix this. And that's what got me to reach out to you.

Cam Nicholls (06:04.814) Okay, interesting. Yeah. If the Peloton was giving you great numbers, why did you decide to get, I think you got the Astioma Power Pedals for memory?

Mitch Boyer (06:12.142) Yeah, that's right. It was very, I don't know. I'd rather know how bad I am than live in delusion.

Cam Nicholls (06:19.16) Which yeah, okay. Some people like living in delusion. Me sometimes. But of course you can't take the Peloton out onto the road. So did you buy the the Asiomers because you wanted... because a lot of people do that. They have the indoor trainer set up with power and then the outdoor they just they don't have power setups.

Mitch Boyer (06:35.672) Yeah, I think seeing the numbers on the Peloton inspired me to get the power meter pedals because I wanted to put them on my bike. then immediately made me depressed upon seeing the reality. And then of course, every video I watched about the Asioma pedals were like, these are the most accurate pedals that you can get. Each time I watched them, I'm no.

Cam Nicholls (06:53.646) Yeah, he's...

Yeah, you're looking on all these forums and trying to find out maybe the Peloton is, you know, is more accurate than the Assiomus. Exactly. Maybe I can find something. Were you doing any kind of structured training before you started with us? Were you doing like, you know, exclusive zone two rides? Were you doing high intensity training sessions? Were you doing any sort of periodization or were you just riding your bike?

Mitch Boyer (07:18.69) just riding my bike and then Peloton, which had like a few structured rides, but it was very rudimentary. Looking back, it was just a bunch of like junk thrown at me. Like you would like have a warmup and then basically a bunch of not even VO2 max intervals and then a cool down. So nothing like zone two training, nothing like any real structured training. All of that was new.

Cam Nicholls (07:40.878) Yeah, okay. So then stepping into coaching initially, and I might be pushing the memory bank here a little bit. Maybe we need to go back and watch that video that you made after the 12 week experience with us. But can you remember what your biggest learnings were from that first 12 weeks? And what were the biggest needle movers for you in terms of fitness gains?

Mitch Boyer (08:03.016) I think if I'm thinking back to then, the biggest things that I really learned was one, a reinforcement of that having somebody to coach you is incredibly valuable just from an accountability standpoint. just knowing, cause you were coaching me at the start, just knowing that like, Cam's going to be like looking at my power file encouraged me or scared me into like actually doing my best or like actually getting out the door more than once and going on the ride.

Whereas if I didn't have that accountability, I know not just in those first couple of weeks, but in the years after there are plenty of times I just wouldn't have gone out and rode my bike that day. That accountability is probably the most beneficial thing for me personally. And that's something that I think only comes when you have an actual person reviewing the files. If you don't have that, then that you get a lot of the other benefits from training, but not that personal accountability.

The thing I was most proud of though, when we were working together in those first 12 weeks, I remember part of the program was doing like a benchmark climb. And the benchmark climb I chose was the second half of this Griffith Park Hill climb that we have out here in LA. That's part of the Pony's group ride. And so now I ride it every single week, but that second part of the climb like kicks up. think there's like a 9 % average at the end. And I think I went from doing like 300 and something watts to almost 400 watts over the course of that, like five minutes.

at the end of it and just seeing that like jump in power and seeing those numbers on the power meter in real life as opposed to the Peloton was just so exciting for me.

Cam Nicholls (09:38.658) Yeah, I think for memory, had quite a big lift in your FTP and your maximum aerobic power because back then we were using the half Monty, which is an FTP testing protocol on Wahoo system or Wahoo X, I think it's called now. Obviously we've shifted now to more critical power testing, but I think you had the biggest uplift in both of those metrics because we tested halfway through around six weeks. And then the last time you tested at 12 weeks, the uptick wasn't...

that significant, but what we could see from your benchmark climb and on road testing was it was kind of like you actually caught up to what your testing results were. Because a lot of people do a test and they're like, there's no way I could hold that out on the road. And you didn't say that to me specifically, but often it's the case people see these big gains in terms of the testing, but then they think to themselves, don't think I could actually hold that out on the road, which they may not be able to, but then you keep training and you keep conditioning yourself. And as we saw in your data that you kind of

caught up to, you did increase your FTP and your maximum aerobic power, which is VO2 max at the end of the 12 weeks from the six week mark a little bit, but your on-road performance was vastly improved in that last six weeks.

Mitch Boyer (10:48.748) Yeah, I think that was kind of a recurring thing throughout my training over the last few years is like all these little breakthroughs that like working with you and working with Ryan, a lot of the things that have helped me is whether it's deliberate or not, I assume it's deliberate. But for example, Ryan would push me to just like extend my, whether it was like an FTP effort or the O2 max effort or even like a zone two effort.

At the beginning of training block, sometimes just to see those numbers a little bit higher than what I was used to. So like in an FTP effort doing a six minute interval instead of like a 12 or a 15 minute interval and seeing that those numbers up higher than I'd ever seen them before when I was doing like a FTP interval. Just seeing those numbers kind of clicked something in my mind where it's like, okay, I know I can do it. And then the rest of the training block was working up towards, you know, extending the amount of time that I could hold that power.

But there was something about just unlocking that. And I guess that started with the journey with you that really, I think that's something fun about training. just seeing something that's possible and then working towards extending it.

Cam Nicholls (11:55.082) Well, I mean, it's, guess what you're describing there and from a scientific standpoint is progressive overload. So, you know, the coach is slowly helping you progress, see what's possible. And then in a week's time or two weeks time, then you go out and you extend it a little bit further. And that is giving you confidence. And I recall from the early days content that, you know, there were some streets in your area that you were like, I'll never get up those. And the training gave you the confidence to go to the streets.

Mitch Boyer (12:22.03) Yeah. Immediately after that 12 week training block, that's when I started doing steep streets. And for anybody who doesn't know my content, my main shtick is riding up steep streets. going and punishing myself. And there just happened to be a few of the steepest streets in the world that are in my neighborhood. Cause the part of LA that I live in, they just decided to ignore the topography of the land and just put.

like straight up mountains. And yeah, if we had not, couldn't, know for a fact, cause I've seen the, like my numbers, if we had not gone through that training block, I would not have made it up those streets and I would never have even made that first episode. And yeah, I guess that's, that's a whole different trajectory than I could have ever anticipated.

Cam Nicholls (13:03.502) What do you think it is? Because I think it's intertwined in training and in pushing yourself and in sort of aspiration. But like, why do you think those Steep Streets videos, obviously they're well produced. Mitch, I know you're a very good producer over there, but there's obviously, you you produce a lot of different videos and the Steep Street ones are the ones that tend to really get the views. Why do you think that is?

Mitch Boyer (13:24.066) I think that, mean, this is something I've thought a lot about because I'm like, why do those videos get 10 times the views of any of my other videos? And how do I replicate that? I think, well, for one, I do fall a lot in those videos. And I think people crashing gets views, even if it's a really ugly slow motion crash on a steep hill. But I think there's the, they're short, they're generally about a minute long and there's the accomplishment at the end. People have a short attention span. It's really hard with cycling, especially road cycling. There's a lot of really long efforts and to tell a story.

That's engaging where basically the beginning, middle and end happen over the course of an hour or several hours. Even if you've condensed that in a YouTube video, that's a lot of story to tell. Whereas a steep street, that's only a minute or long, a minute or so long, there's a beginning, middle and end. The payoff is really, really fast. And it's something anybody can really understand because even if they've never ridden a bike up a steep street, they've tried walking up one or driven a car up one. And everybody has an opinion.

about how they've seen a street that is steeper than what they see in the video. So I think it's got a bunch of really kind of interesting points.

Cam Nicholls (14:28.236) Nah, fair call. And going back to that first 12 weeks before we sort of migrate to what you've learnt with Ryan over the years, because I know you've been working with our head coach for quite a long time now. Did it feel like, in all honesty, did it, because I know there's when you're first coming on board and you've got to, you know, using different technology maybe, some people have never even had an indoor trainer before. I think you might've.

purchased a new indoor trainer as you were getting set up, but how did you find that onboarding experience? Was it a lot to take on? Was it overwhelming? And then over the 12 weeks, like did the training, you you talk about accountability, did it feel like a bit of a weight on your shoulders or was it more freeing in terms of you didn't have to worry about what you were doing and you could just get on with the show?

Mitch Boyer (15:13.622) that's a good question. For those initial 12 weeks. Yeah. So I started out with a tax Neo, I think. And much like the Peloton that I think the tax trainers are a lot better now, but that specific tax I had had issues with the power meter. and so I did the same thing after I'd seen the Peloton numbers be so drastically different from the Asioma pedals. put the Asioma pedals on my bike when I was on the tax trainer. Once again, the numbers were not consistent. So I ended up.

giving my dad the tax trainer and then I went on and bought a Wahoo kicker. So I did get a new trainer for that. That was a little frustrating, but that was again my fault. I probably should have done a little more research. There were plenty of videos that could have warmed me about that. I think so that I mean, there's just like there's a bunch of little things anytime you try anything, but I think that's part of the journey and part of the fun. The nice thing about having the RCA and I assume any coach, but was I was able to ask you questions about that.

and kind of get instant feedback on like, yeah, I'm noticing the power of data is different between these things. And having an authority figure to ask questions for me personally is very, like remove some of that stress, right? Rather than trying to bumble around and figure out and search on all the forms. And then you don't know who's actually writing on these forms. This person could sound like they know what they're doing, but they may not know what they're doing at all. So it's always nice to have somebody else that you trust to answer those questions. And I think that that really helped.

Cam Nicholls (16:41.912) This podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. If you're a recreational or amateur road cyclist and you're stuck on a frustrating performance plateau, feeling like you need some guidance, but you're not quite ready to dive straight into one-to-one coaching, at the RCA we've created something called the 12-week custom plan, which we believe would be your perfect next step. It starts off with an upfront deep dive call with your coach who will understand your goals, your riding preferences, what your not negotiable rides are.

and where you want to go, then they'll create a fully tailored 12-week custom plan that is supported over the 12-week period. We believe it's the perfect intermediate step, giving you a taste of working with a coach and experiencing a customized plan without committing to full coaching. Our writers are seeing real results too, and you can go to our Google reviews to see this. Marvin recently shaved over 30 minutes off his graft into Imburel time from doing the 12-week custom plan.

Adam gained 20 watts on his FTP in 12 weeks and 40 watts on his five minute power. And we have riders completing rides that they've failed in previous attempts like Peaks Challenge, all from doing this 12 week custom plan. So if you're ready to break through, head to the roadcyclingacademy.com in the menu system, you'll see our 12 week custom plan and take the first step towards that next level performance. Now let's get back to the podcast. Yeah, cool.

And what about the training itself? Did it feel like, cause I think, you know, some people are worried and maybe this is more of a question because I feel like when you first started working with me, you were riding mainly solo, but as you've sort of developed as a rider over the years, I think your first bunch ride might've actually been here in Noosa where I said, come, we'll go out and do this big ride and just tag along to the first part of.

the group ride, but obviously as you've gotten stronger on the bike, you've got more confidence. And I now see on your socials, you do a lot more group rides. So maybe this is more of a question about, you know, in more recent years working with Ryan, how have you felt the training and, you know, intertwining with your not negotiable rides and the rides you want to do with your friends? Do you find it's a struggle or do you find that it can work cohesively? Cause I feel like this is

Cam Nicholls (18:59.566) One of the big challenges we face as well with a lot of recreational is it's like, oh, I don't want to give up my Saturday group ride. And I don't want to give up, you know, this, but because I really enjoy that. So I can't do the training where, you know, we really preach people to have the not negotiable rides, but you know, me, us preaching it and reality can be two different things. So how have you found that sort of experience blending those things together?

Mitch Boyer (19:23.616) Yeah, at the beginning I was riding mostly solo and I think maybe as a result of also just coming from mostly doing my training on the trainer when I started out, I was like religious about my structure on all my rides. I forgot the word you used. I think you said like highly compliant or something like that when you were describing my training at the start, because I would just like to a T try to follow

the exact training plan for every single workout, which I think was really, really good at the start of my training because I learned how to pace efforts really well. And when I went from being on the trainer to starting to train more on the road, I developed the skills to learn how to like hold an effort even on undulating terrain a lot more. So that was really, really good. The, I think my first bunch ride was with you in Noosa and that was like a gateway drug for me. Cause yeah, I do ride a bunch of group rides now and fitting them into my training.

I think there's kind of like seasons to it and not like literal seasons, but just there are periods where I want to be doing more group rides and there are periods where I want to just have more structured training and I want to be riding more with myself because I'm preparing for an event or I'm just feeling like I want that sense of accomplishment that comes with like going through a big training block. And then there are other times where, yeah, I just want to be cruising around with my friends a lot. so

Working with Ryan's really nice. Cause we just have open discussions about that. Like, are you feeling like you're ready for like another big training block? Or do you want to, are you feeling like you're, you want to kind of just like noodle around and, and do that. So like right now I'm kind of in one of those more like noodle around session, like periods of time. But last year I was getting ready for Phil's Fondo. And so I told Ryan, I wanted to do like a big training block and all of my training because of steep streets had really been focused on the left side of my power curve and building up.

kind of that like one to five minute power. I never really worked on developing my like 20 or 30 minute power for these longer climbs that we have out here. And so we worked on that. then, so that was really great. Cause last summer I went and I ended up over the course of this, there's a big ride that goes through Malibu. You have a bunch of, it's like five or six long climbs. hit PRs on every single climb for that event because I'd like really worked with Ryan to build that part of my power. And I just, I didn't do as many bunch rides.

Mitch Boyer (21:47.788) then I still would do like one or two a week, but I just had different training goals.

Cam Nicholls (21:52.162) Yeah. So what you're saying though is it's you are able to blend in. You're still able like when you transition to, all right, let's get focused. You know, I've got a goal. This is what I want to achieve. You're still able to blend in those social rides on a weekly basis.

Mitch Boyer (22:06.274) yeah. Yeah. There's one I do almost every week called the ponies group ride. And the nice thing about that one is it's like, there's like a 15 minute climb. And then after that, there's like a six minute client. basically depending on where I'm at in the training block, Ryan would use that as like, one of my intervals. he's like, okay, smash it on the 15 minute climb and let's see, or not even one of my intervals, more of like a test, almost like a, let's see, let's see where your power's at.

But depending on where I was in the training block, he would use that group ride and that climb specifically either as a test for my fitness or just like an interval. then he'd tell me, go, you know, do a couple more climbs afterwards, that kind of thing. But yeah, he was able to fit that into the training rather than being like, go be a hermit and just ride on your own. was never, you know, that.

Cam Nicholls (22:54.316) Yeah, cool. So, I mean, we've obviously we're talking about, you know, the work that you've done with Ryan. And obviously, after we initially worked together for 12 weeks, that was from a personal standpoint when I was trying to remove myself as a coach and become more of an administrator at the RCA. And, yeah, I moved you over to Ryan. And I remember it might have been a six or 12 months after you started.

work or had been working with Ryan, I should say, you might've been here and he said, Cam, I hate to tell you, but Ryan's a way better coach than you. Thanks Mitch, appreciate it. But no, you're right, is. All our coaches are way better than I am, which is one of the things I'm proud about. Here at the RCA, we've got really good coaches, but I know Ryan's a top level coach. What have you discovered about yourself?

Mitch Boyer (23:29.601) Okay

Cam Nicholls (23:46.906) you know, over the last, what's been three years or something like that, even longer, you know, you about you through the training. And it doesn't necessarily need to be, you know, I know you made a video which had over a million views about becoming an above average cyclist and hitting over 300 Watts and, you know, for your FTP and that's great. And a lot of people have those FTP goals and nothing wrong with them, but you know, and I'm, don't want to put words in your mouth here, but you know, I read some of our Google reviews and speak to our members.

on a weekly basis over many years. the training obviously helps you with your cycling performance, but sometimes it goes beyond that, there's more to it. So when I ask you this question, doesn't, it could be, maybe it is your 300 watt FTP, but feel free to go elsewhere.

Mitch Boyer (24:37.772) No, that 300 watt FTP is the greatest accomplishment of my life. it's all, man. There's a lot of things, from a embarrassing standpoint, I've realized how neurotic I am just by all the notes I leave on my, on my workout things for a while. Yeah. I would leave all my notes to Ryan, like on every workout and be like, okay, this is going on. this then I feel this and that. And then Ryan was always very,

consistent and calm with his responses. I think he's kind of learned like give Mitch a day or two before I respond like let him let him come back down to earth. I think every single like time I did a test like a critical power test with him I was always say something like I could have done better but you know this is this happened I'm really disappointed in myself and then he come back and be like I like you did really well actually so that kind of I'm still working on it but it's helping me to be a little bit easier on myself and just see all the

the improvements. But think a big, I guess, life lesson that I think about is a lot of my breakthroughs in cycling have come down to, right, and I had a conversation about this, just increasing my tolerance for discomfort. And I think it's really empowering to push through those levels. And to a certain degree, obviously, your body's making all these like physiological changes, and it's adapting and it's becoming stronger in certain ways as you're training. But you're

The breakthroughs that you make mentally can be just as beneficial or even more beneficial because those are the ones that I think like stick even more. So getting ready for this baby right now, I'm not riding as much as I was like last year when I was getting ready for and training for that Fondo, but I am so much more in tune with my body, my mind and how far I can push myself that when I do go out for a ride with friends, I

still, like I haven't, I haven't dropped off as dramatically as I would think I would have. And part of that is I can really, really dig deep now. So I can bury myself for at least one ride with friends. The next day I'm cooked because I just don't have the adaptations to survive, but I can really, really dig deep. you know, I can hang out for like one big ride with my friends and then I have to recover for a couple of days, but that's doesn't just happen on the bike that happens in life. There's a lot of times where you do just have to kind of like dig deep and cycling.

Mitch Boyer (27:02.432) has kind of expanded a bit of my ability there. And that sounds kind of mushy, but that's the truth that's helped me out.

Cam Nicholls (27:09.112) Nah, it's not mushy. It makes a lot of sense. know, a lot of people, and you can go, not suggesting you go and read the Google reviews, Mitch, but if people want to, if you go pretty deep, a lot of people have found that the training and the improvement on the bike and feeling fitter and stronger in general just gives them more confidence.

A lot of guys have broken through some mental health barriers because quite often as well, it comes with losing a bit of weight as well. So they just feel better, better in life. So you completely make sense. What did you just say? Squishy or something like that? Squishy, squishy, squishy. Not at all. So, you know, it's been a number of years. How do you work through the peaks and troughs of staying motivated? Because I know you haven't, you've worked with Ryan for a number of years, but you're not working with him week in, week out.

back-to-back years, you've had some down times and you've had some periods where you don't really want to ride your bike. And then you have some periods where you're actually not ready to roll, motivated to get back into another 12 week block. So has there been anything specific that you've done to help you get that motivation back when you're feeling a little bit like you're in a trough?

Mitch Boyer (28:22.734) Yeah, I think the biggest thing I've kind of learned is to give myself like permission to have those troughs. Whereas I think early on, like a year or two into training, the first time I really had one of those dips, I felt so guilty and I felt so much pressure to just push through and, you know, keep training harder or like I make

YouTube videos about riding my bike. so like, have to keep doing this and I have to keep going. And what I've kind of learned is that things do ebb and flow. luckily after going through that a couple of times, I've learned, yeah, there's always like a little dip in fitness, but when I get back to it, it'll take a little bit of time, but that fitness is going to come back faster than it came the first time. And then I'm going to continue to grow in whatever area, like my sprint might not always get like.

higher as I get older, but there are other areas where I can grow. So you can still find other areas of improvement. And I don't know, that's just, I guess that's kind of life, right?

Cam Nicholls (29:29.55) People are worried because I feel this is a very common misconception. People are worried, particularly, and you're relatively young, but I think men, once they get into their 50s and 60s, they're worried, which is completely not the case, that if they back it off for a bit or have a week off, heaven forbid, or a couple of weeks off, they're not going to get their fitness back. Was that a concern for you when you first were losing motivation, but you didn't want to have that downtime because you didn't want to lose your fitness?

Mitch Boyer (29:59.938) Yeah, that was a worry many, many times. I remember even like two years ago, I was worried that I had had a training block where I worked on my sprint. finally got over a thousand watts. I was so excited. And then I went through one of those troughs and I was like, I'm not going to ever get a stronger sprint again. And then I went through another training block and sure enough, like the sprint went up and the same thing with like my 20 minute power and the same minute thing with my five minute power.

And I'm 38 years old, I'll turn 39 this year. So I'm like, you know, at the beginning stages of my middle age. And so I'm at that point where I'm starting to realize my own mortality. And then because I'm kind of neurotic, this is all, you know, ways that weighs down. And I think training has been really helpful to show, Hey, there's still stuff that can improve. And I think just finding different reasons to train really helps out with that too.

Like whether it's an event or whether it's a specific goal and finding those reasons makes the training worth it. It makes just like riding a bit more fun. Cause otherwise I would just be noodling around all the time feeling sorry for myself. Like you are from Winnie the Pooh and complain about how I'm not like I used to be and I'm only 38 years old. So that's pretty sad.

Cam Nicholls (31:17.678) The old back in the day son, when I used to be fit and strong. Yeah, yeah. It's, yeah, those peaks and troughs are actually, there's a big silver lining to the troughs. And that is you do come back, not only with motivation is, the big one, but, you know, you've given your body the ability to have some recuperation is that to stop stressing yourself, you know, the cardiovascular system.

Mitch Boyer (31:21.595) Exactly.

Cam Nicholls (31:42.402) your heart, You your heart, you know, when you're constantly taking your heart to close to max, you know, week in, week out, you know, that does stress over time. People neglect that it's a muscle. You know, the people end up in this sort of like, I'm always feeling sore in the muscles. It's like, well, you know, you're in a fatigue state and your musculoskeletal system needs a rest. And then there's a central nervous system and then there's, you know, the brain. So there's motivation. So.

All those things combined, I personally find, and I've seen it so many times over the years, people fight with taking a break, but then they finally take a break. And whether that's having complete time off the bike or just backing off intensity and volume by 50 % or whatever it is, I mean, it's normally always good. When you've had a break out of curiosity, have you just backed it off or have you like literally just wrapped the bike for a week or two or even longer?

Mitch Boyer (32:31.63) I've done both. Okay. Um, yeah. So last year I had a hamstring strain and so I had to be off the bike for a little bit while I was going through PT and my PT, the guys working with PT wanted me to take two weeks off the bike. So I had two weeks where I wasn't riding at all. And that was kind of terrifying, but then I ended up last year hitting like all time best power numbers when I started training again. And then I was thinking about this actually this week, cause I'm in.

As we've, as we've mentioned, I'm in this like little period where I'm just kind of noodling around right now because of the, you know, have kid on the way. But even with me noodling around, my fitness right now is so much higher than it was four years ago or five years ago when we started training. And I think the consistency over years, even though within those years, there are the ups and downs and the troughs, the long-term consistency has really.

paid off and I'm seeing the dividends from that even in these periods where I am kind of in a downtime. And so these dips that I'm going through now are higher than my peaks were at the start.

Cam Nicholls (33:37.804) Yeah, makes sense. mean, the conditioning is a real thing. You mentioned before, I can get through a ride that I probably not conditioned for right now because of years of riding, but I'll be cooked the next day because you've shocked the system. But that's just part of the conditioning that you get with riding year on year, particularly when you're training to structure, because when you're trying to structure, you get to really know your body as well. You get to understand how to pace efforts and that body awareness as well as the...

the years of conditioning, yeah, means that you can still do some pretty good things on a bike, you know, with limited training. Well, look, Mitch, thanks for sharing your journey. I appreciate it. It's something a little bit different here on the RCA podcast. We're often talking about, you know, science papers and training sessions and stuff like that, but it's good to have a real world conversation with one of our members. Before I let you go, and look, we can't, we're both ambassadors for BMC, so we can't tell everyone how good the BMCs are, but I'm curious,

You've got a BMC sitting behind you there. I've got two just tucked away in the other room over there. You've ridden the road machine. You've got the SLR01. You haven't had much time in the team machine art, have you?

Mitch Boyer (34:47.054) I haven't, I've actually never written the T-Machinar. yeah.

Cam Nicholls (34:49.422) never in the T-Machine R. So I'm doing a project at the moment where I'm comparing the road machine, so the endurance BMC, to the T-Machine R, which is the aero bike, which is, know, sexy and cool. And I've got some big, you know, I've got a 65 millimeter rear and a 58 front. I've really sort of beefed that thing up. And I'm just going to be, I'm spoiler alert for my upcoming YouTube video.

much prefer riding the road machine. Even though like the T-Machine R is cooler and you when I rocked up to the bunch ride the other day people were asking me questions about it and you know I felt like I didn't feel like a know middle-aged man in micro I felt like a cool cyclist and it descends incredibly well it's clearly faster on the descent. But outside of that I just love the road machine just it's I don't feel it's that much slower if at all on the flats.

climbs well, the weight's about, I've got the weight to be about the same and the geometry just suits my old man body so I'm loving it.

Mitch Boyer (35:49.366) Yeah. That's so interesting. So I've got the T-Machine SLR, the climbing bike, and then I have the road machine. Yep. And I have been riding the road machine for the last month. And then this week I just started riding the T-Machine SLR, the climbing bike again. don't know if it's cause I've got it like dialed in with a really lightweight setup, but I am loving it right now. So you feel so fast on the climbs and that it's kind of thrown a wrench because I was working on a video.

Cam Nicholls (36:04.43) Okay.

Mitch Boyer (36:19.264) along the lines of what you were saying. But I don't know, the road machine is so much more versatile. We have a lot of like great dirt trails around here. So I just put gravel tires on the road machine and I can ride that all over the city, over our bad pavement on the dirt trails. A couple of gravel like single track that I probably shouldn't take it on, but it's still fun. I don't know, they're different.

I guess I'm at a point in my cycling journey right now where I've ridden enough bikes that it can start to tell the difference between like a bike specialized for climbing versus a bike that's like really good all around. Yep. And I'm enjoying the zippiness of a climbing bike. Yeah. But you can't be, I guess if I had to have one, the road machine is just so much more versatile. I don't know. It's hard.

Cam Nicholls (37:03.916) The thing about the road machine, and maybe you've adjusted yours, but our stock out of the box, I liked it, but not nearly as much as I appreciate riding it now. The reason being it was set up for endurance. So it had more of a compact setup, gearing wise, which doesn't suit the types of rides I do, which are more fast bunch rides, do a bit of racing. And then the wheels were some good DT Swiss wheels, but it was their endurance carbon wheels. So they were a bit heavier.

and it made the overall bike quite heavy. So it had heavier wheels, the gearing wasn't quite right. So I put on some nicer wheels that were much lighter and I changed the gear setup. And so then, you know, I sort of pimped it up for me. So have you done any pimping up of your road machine or you left it stock?

Mitch Boyer (37:48.29) It is, I've done the same wheels, but I do have, I've got rival on my road machine and I have force on the team machine. So it's got a little bit heavier grip set. yeah, I don't know. I'll have to do a little more tests. It's still very early days on this. So I rode this road machine for like a month and now I'm back on the team machine. could just be, you know, shiny toy syndrome. And as soon as I go back on the road machine, I'm going to be thrilled about all of the trails I can ride. Cause with the

The T-Machine right now with the climbing wheels, LA's roads are horrendous. I have to be really careful about which climbs I choose to do. So I zip up the climbs I can ride, but I can't ride all of them. Whereas on the road machine, I've got like 36 mil tires on there and I can ride anything I want. That's going to affect how zippy it feels as well. I don't know, maybe I want to ride the R and all of the aerobike. I have no idea.

Cam Nicholls (38:41.324) You probably won't be riding any bikes over the next few weeks anyway, Mitch.

Mitch Boyer (38:45.134) That's true, I need to get the trainer set up again.

Cam Nicholls (38:48.33) Yeah, exactly. You can do that in like a half asleep state probably. Cool. Well, look, Mitch, thanks very much for your time and sharing your journey. Greatly appreciated. It's great to have you as part of the RCA community. And yeah, we wish you and Val all the best over the next few weeks. And then, you know, it's going to be a big change of life. yeah, wishing you all the best.

Mitch Boyer (38:52.738) Yeah.

Mitch Boyer (39:11.246) Thanks Cam, great talking with you.

Cam Nicholls (39:12.782) We'll catch everyone in the next podcast.

This episode explores the differences between indoor and outdoor cycling, examining research findings, muscle activation, and practical tips for optimizing indoor training. Hosted by Cam Nicholls with expert insights from RCA coach Ben Treble, it offers valuable guidance for cyclists aiming to improve performance and understand the nuances of training environments. Stannards: https://stannards.com.au/ RCA: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/ key topics

• Indoor vs outdoor cycling differences
• Research findings on power output
• Muscle activation during cycling
• Practical tips for indoor training
• Equipment and setup considerations

Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the episode and guest 00:27 Why are we discussing indoor vs outdoor cycling? 01:20 Research insights on indoor vs outdoor power output 02:09 Adjusting power zones for indoor training 03:00 Power meter differences and calibration 04:19 Key research findings on power output differences 06:43 Muscle activation differences between indoor and outdoor cycling 08:01 Summary of research and individual differences 09:52 Variability in power output and environmental factors 11:42 Practical tips for indoor training setup 14:07 Why indoor feels harder and how to adapt 16:44 Muscle activation and fatigue in indoor cycling 19:52 Key takeaways for indoor training optimization Transcript:

Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA podcast designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode.

Cam Nicholls (00:27.746) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined by RCA coach Ben Trevill. We're in a hotel room in Sydney. Why are we in a hotel room in Sydney, Ben? What are you doing here?

Ben Treble (00:38.411) I'm here supporting the RCA Pro Velo League team for the Sydney Harbour City GP races.

Cam Nicholls (00:45.602) You're doing the DS, the director's sporting.

Ben Treble (00:47.667) Yeah, filling in for Ryan who's getting on the pedals.

Cam Nicholls (00:51.308) Yeah. And I'm here attempting to make some content and I thought we'd use this opportunity to get together face to face and, you know, talk about some relevant topics for the audience training related, of course. The first one that I wanted to talk about is indoor versus outdoor cycling and the differences in, I guess, sensation and power output. Because I know a lot of RCA members that I've dealt with in the past and I know that you deal with do...

tend to not struggle more, but they feel it's a little bit more difficult on the indoor versus the outdoor. But Yona, you've had a look at the research and the research may suggest something a little bit different. So I wanted to dig into that and hopefully we can come to some sort of conclusion at end of this discussion. I'm not sure if we will, but what's the research telling you when it comes to indoor versus outdoor?

Ben Treble (01:41.486) Yeah, I think I will start by saying often when we look at research to practice, we find differences. So yeah, in practice, it's exactly what I felt personally, the feedback I get from my writers, what you've heard is that yeah, indoor training feels harder and it's kind of the perception that people even go as far to say you need to test indoors and outdoors and have different thresholds for indoors, outdoors and different zones or down adjust your zones by 5 % for indoors, for example.

Cam Nicholls (02:09.198) Is that what you do with your members?

Ben Treble (02:10.765) I do not know. Okay. If they need to down adjust it a couple percent for a certain session, like I'm not against it if it means they get through it, but generally, no, I don't set up separate zones for indoors outdoors. would only be if someone said to me, I'm going to do three months entirely indoors, or I want to do Zwift racing. That was their main goal. Then I would test indoors, train indoors and set zones based on indoors.

Cam Nicholls (02:35.598) Okay. And what about the, this is a kind of like a, I guess a side note, but quite often, you know, people using different power meters as well. And, know, there will be even outside of the fact that the sensation feels maybe a little bit more difficult on the indoor, the indoor trainer reads a little bit lower as well. You know, like the kicker trainer or the indoor bike versus, you know, the Asioma power pedals, it might be 10, 15 Watts. So what do you do surrounding that?

Ben Treble (03:00.888) first tip I give athletes when I have an onboarding with them and we chat about equipment is do you use your kicker's power meter or your trainer's power meter or do you connect your bike's power meter and use that as the power source when you do indoor training. that's what I would ask my athletes to do because then they want the same power source, you want to use the same power meter, indoors, outdoors. Where that's getting tricky though is a lot of people are moving to these sort of the Wahoo indoor bikes and the Zwift indoor bikes.

Cam Nicholls (03:27.896) Got one myself.

Ben Treble (03:28.78) where, you know, unless you're going to swap over your Asioma pedals or something, yet you don't get that choice. So it's important to know there are differences in power meters and a couple percent when you're doing high intensity efforts can make a big difference. Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (03:42.062) Okay, so the conclusion of that is ideally use the same power meter if you can, if you can't know what the differences are and adjust accordingly.

Ben Treble (03:48.782) Absolutely. So back to research, I sort of assumed I was just going to search the journals and find papers that prove that indoor and outdoor there's differences and we should have different thresholds. Fully aware I would have confirmation bias that that's what I was looking for. It's not what I found. So I was a bit surprised. Caveat, again, there's not actually a lot of research on this topic and I've only spent probably half a day digging. So there's probably a lot more out there still. But from what I found, there's a paper, a lot of people have, you we've referenced in our newsletter in the

Cam Nicholls (04:17.3) Seems to be the main paper people point to.

Ben Treble (04:19.214) Exactly. There's a 2022 paper from Lipski. There's two points I find interesting in this paper. One, they looked at mean maximal powers and threshold tests, indoors versus outdoors. That's probably the main component of the paper. They only looked at males. It's a small sample size. I think it was 12 and they're elite, you know, essentially world two or level athletes. So, pretty specific population group. And they found differences where...

they could do better power essentially outdoors than indoors. There was a significant difference enough where they would say, yeah, this is worthwhile looking at. I think it was about 20 Watts, give or take.

Cam Nicholls (04:53.39) Is it around 20 watts?

Cam Nicholls (04:58.072) I'll pull it up while you keep talking then.

Ben Treble (04:59.822) Yeah, so the two points I really wanted to touch on, one, the population group people need to be mindful of. It's probably not relevant to 99 % of our audience.

Cam Nicholls (05:08.418) Yeah. Amateurs and recreational pro athletes. 19 watts.

Ben Treble (05:11.294) Absolutely. Yeah, 19 watts, which is measurable and that's fine. But I think this is the next bit. When you dig into that paper, there's a statistical piece of analysis that they used, which it's appropriate, but I don't know if it's appropriate when we know this is high performance in small samples where individual differences matter. So we always say these people use group mains, for example, in this paper, what they did is they used a trimmed main.

And they used a pretty high percentage of trimming, 20%, which means that they cut out the top 20 and the bottom 20 % of data points and their group means are only based on that middle 80%. Now, I know I looked at individual responses out of the 12, two of them did better indoors, but those data points got cut out because of the trimming. Already, if they had used total group means, like you would have had a different outcome. So, this is...

Cam Nicholls (05:53.153) Okay.

Wow.

Ben Treble (06:04.248) just a bit of a mindful thing, I think, for people when they quote. This paper gets quoted a lot and like all papers, you get a lot of individual difference and that's probably going to be our main discussion point.

Cam Nicholls (06:14.872) Yeah. Okay. So what, was there anything else that you found that was worth referencing? think the one that came to mind, which isn't so much about results, but it was more so relating to, was a paper done just recently and it wasn't, it wasn't a super comprehensive paper, but they looked at muscle activation and how your muscles respond differently on the indoor versus the outdoor, notably our calf, quadricep and shin. I'm not sure why they're measuring the shin muscle.

You may have a better understanding why. I don't really think of my shin muscle and I think about cycling and the paper didn't look at glutes at all, which is probably a major oversight and probably a cost reason behind it. But it was interesting to note that a lot of people feel a different sensation when they're on the indoor and that paper is basically shining the light on, yeah, you are activating the muscles in a different way.

Ben Treble (07:05.25) Yeah. think, can we finish on that paper? Cause I think it's a good way to wrap up the summary to some respect in the discussion. So when I did my little digging in the journals, I found a couple of papers and in summary, they all had a similar conclusion, which there's no measurable difference between indoors and outdoors when they looked at true threshold testing and mean maximal powers. Again, they're finding individual differences. So in the discussions, they talk about people who had more

experience in indoor training, trended towards doing better on indoors than outdoors, which makes a lot of logical sense. And the people who, you know, spent 90 % of their time training outdoors, put them on indoor trainer and yeah, the RPEs went up higher and they couldn't do as, do as well as they do outdoors. So that makes sense. The papers are, if you are wondering, there's an unpublished paper coming out later this year at, science and cycling conference at the tour.

So this is pre-publication paper, 2026 from Lee Inn, comparison of indoor outdoor writing ability. They looked at 18 males and 12 females. They're trained, but unprofessional. They found a moderate to high correlation between FTP results across indoor outdoor tests was 0.83. So not, I wouldn't call it a very strong correlation, but definitely not pointing the other direction enough to say there is a difference between the two.

It's pushing you much more to a direction to say there's no difference. The other paper was from 23. It's a comparison of mean maximal powers. This one's probably slightly more nuanced because they looked at mean maximal powers across indoor outdoor testing. They also looked at recorded maximal powers from training data and competition data. This paper's from Sebastian Doock et al. They only looked at seven male amateurs. So again, very small sample size.

Notably, the only power durations they ever really found measurable differences was a five and 15 second. So sprint power, very neuromuscular. No real measurable difference in the five and 20 minute power durations across all four of those environments or contexts. So yeah, and no significant difference in mean maximal powers for the indoor and outdoor testing at all. The only differences they really found was in within the training data, they often found higher.

Ben Treble (09:24.46) sorry, lower maximal powers. And it was the race data where they were doing some of their peak powers outdoors. Okay. So a lot of context to that one. The third paper I looked at was a 2019 paper. So a bit older than the others. They did an analysis of it's the variability in power outputs. So that's where we're coming to our last discussion. During indoor outdoor cycling time trials, 20 male cyclists, no measurable difference in 20 minute time trial power between indoor and outdoor. However,

What they did find was there's a greater variability in the power across the two. So in simple terms, they're finding no measurable difference in the average power for the 20 minute time trial. But if you were to look at the normalized compared to the average, you're going to expect a higher normalized for outdoors. So a greater degree of fluctuation in the power versus indoors where it's more steady state.

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to their business in the podcast description and let's get back to the episode. Yep. Okay. Makes sense.

Ben Treble (11:42.446) Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Cam Nicholls (11:44.302) I'm just a bit of a side note. I'm one of those rare crazy people that has actually done that one hour test. Really? Yeah. On the indoor and outside. And I did it within like a two week period. So I gave myself like a couple of weeks because I was pretty fatigued. Yeah. So this is just an interesting anecdote. So I did three, this is when I was in better form than I am now, 365 Watts for an hour.

Outdoors, that's average power, it's not normalized power. And 300 and think it was 336 watts or 335 watts, somewhere around that. This is about 30 watt difference on the indoor going all out for an hour. Don't recommend it to people at home. It was the worst thing ever. My physiological stress though on the indoor was a heat. My heart rate was just going through the roof. I think I hit an all time best heart rate number. So just dropping that one in there as you're going through the research paper.

Ben Treble (12:35.222) Yeah, I think, I mean, that's where the discussion is going to lead us, right? It's one thing for the research to say, here's what we see. It's another then kind of confirm or validate why is it different to what we see in practice? So currently, like from the research I've found and seen, I wouldn't expect within testing, like you should be able to do the similar power indoor outdoors. There's no difference. So then why in practice are we seeing reasonable differences?

And a lot of the papers still talk about this, it's, it's again, it's environment and context, including bike setup or equipment setup. Even if you were just, for example, to go within outdoor cycling, you can change the environment and see significantly different, you know, test results. You could say, go do a one hour effort up climb and go do a one hour effort on the flat. If you go take a climber and say, go do one hour on a climb and then try to do one hour at the same power on a flat.

you're probably going to see just as big variation in power output as you did with indoor outdoor. And I think that's where the discussion is going to go. So why do we see this difference? Because you do have a lot of context. How much training are you doing indoor versus outdoor? That's probably the first part. And then we're going to talk about setup. Have you got fans? Have you got air conditioning with your indoor trainer? Core body temperature slowly rising up on indoor training is probably one of the biggest key factors.

as to why the RP starts to go up as you experience heart rate starts to go up, especially during maximal longer efforts. And of course the RP is going to go through the roof as a result, like your power is going to drop off.

Cam Nicholls (14:07.214) Yep, that's what happened.

Ben Treble (14:09.398) Yeah. I mean, what is your experience, Cam, like with some of your writers who say indoor feels harder?

Cam Nicholls (14:14.87) It's probably like when I reflect, they're probably less focused on indoor training. Maybe they're just getting into it. A lot of our, you know, as you would know, a lot of people that come on board to the RCA don't necessarily, there were a lot of indoor training initially, but then they start embracing it because they recognise the benefits, particularly around doing structured training, being able to hit your targets and being efficient as well during the week. So I think a lot of them are inexperienced on the trainer and thus struggle with it a bit because they're not used to it. It's a different adaptation.

But then conversely, you know, we've got some members and Thomas Martinez, the cycling tattooist on YouTube comes to mind who train with us for a bit. And he's actually stronger on the indoor trainer. His power numbers are better and he prefers the indoor, but he does most of his riding indoor. It does make a lot of sense.

Ben Treble (14:59.678) That makes a lot of sense. This is back to that paper you briefly mentioned earlier. Why else would there be a difference indoors and outdoors? I think if you're a newer rider, of course, if you've never done indoors, again, one of the biggest differences, those Ergo trainers, especially if you turn Ergo on and for people listening, if you haven't done it, Ergo holds you to a certain power. So if you turn it on, it forces you to push that power.

And not only do you have to push, let's just use 200 Watts as an example, it forces you no matter what your cadence is, you have to push 200 Watts evenly through the entire pedal stroke. And even if you get a very well trained cyclist and you say, do a steady state effort outdoors, if you look at the power production through the pedal stroke, it'll never be like force applied evenly through the full stroke. They might get it very good, but it's not going to be perfect. And then if you look at the indoor training,

It forces you to hold it through the full pedal stroke. So what does this do as a result? Well, if you haven't done it very much, it's going to feel significantly harder because you've got to apply force evenly through the entire stroke constantly. There's no point at which you can just have that little back off at the top.

Cam Nicholls (16:12.086) Yeah, or coast down the hill or like what most people do when they're outdoors.

Ben Treble (16:15.31) Yeah. So suddenly this accumulates even a one hour zone two feels significantly harder than zone two outdoors. So this paper that you brought to me that started this conversation is pretty recent, 2025 or late 2025. I'll probably pronounce it wrong. Why Chi Tasi at all? Again, it's from Journal of Science and Cycling. Its focus was on not if there are differences in power necessarily, but it wanted to understand more about why is there a difference in the variability of

power, which brings us back to that other paper I spoke about where they found no difference in power output. The difference they found was greater variability in power with outdoor riding. So these guys, went and did indoor outdoor testing. They've gone and essentially struck, you know, electrodes on different muscle groups to work out which groups are activating more or less at different points. And what they were finding is ultimately the quad and the calf had significantly higher activation during indoor cycling.

So if you're pushing the same Watts, but you're your quads and your calves a lot more, that means you're using other muscle groups less. So you're essentially just going to work the quads, these big muscle groups more earlier and faster, which will lead to fatigue faster earlier and RPE higher. Makes a lot of sense. mean, they don't really, you know, they don't propose too much like why is that the case? They essentially just summarize with a needs more research, of course. Yes. Love our labs.

Cam Nicholls (17:29.432) Yep, hiya.

Ben Treble (17:41.986) I don't know what's your hypothesis.

Cam Nicholls (17:43.842) I mean, I'm surprised it didn't do the glutes, but it made a lot of sense to me because it's the feedback we get from lot of amateurs that, just feels a bit more challenging on the indoor, feels harder. So yeah, I think there's a lot more to it, which we've sort of discussed during this chat. For example, know, cooling and high heart rates, but the activation side, which is what that paper is about was, yeah, just validating what I already assumed. Yeah.

Ben Treble (18:08.718) And I think it's too easy on the indoor trainer. lot of people, again, this is a hypothesis. I don't have any data to support this, but N equals one. And you know, my glutes turn off. I already have glutes and I struggle to activate them on the bike and that's outdoors. And as soon as you stand up, even a couple times in a ride, you're going to activate your glutes a little bit and it just turns them on. And in indoor training, you have a tendency to sit down a lot more and you can put a lot more weights and hold your body up just using your arms and by sitting a lot easier.

And you just rely on the quads and as a result, also the calves to pull through that stroke. Cause you're trying to get this, you've got this applied torque through the full stroke. So you're going to be turning off your glutes. And also I think your quads. So I think your upper body, which does take, you can be able to push some force through moving the bike sideways, which we all know. So it's just contextual. think you can't do that, which means you have to rely on these major muscle groups more. They fatigue earlier and therefore ergo, feels harder. The guys who train indoors more.

They're just used to this. Yep. So they can still push the same power. It's the same quad muscle. The muscle hasn't changed. is power. Power's not changing in the same power meter. So yeah, I mean, if you get the air conditioning and the airflow with the fans right, and the context in the environment is similar, I don't see why you can't push the same output, but it's just like practicing. You give someone a bike with a different bike position where they activate the muscles slightly differently, it's going to feel totally wacko.

Cam Nicholls (19:32.994) Yeah. So what would you say the key takeaway is? Because I would have thought a lot of people that are listening to this, particularly the end of the podcast, may struggle a little bit more indoors. So they've just heard all the research and they've heard some anecdotes. If they're struggling a little bit, what's the key take? And I'll start with takeaway one, make sure you're using the same power. Yeah.

Ben Treble (19:52.672) That's one. Two, if you're new to indoor training, don't be afraid to down-regulate the power a couple percent. It's easy to just, I would pop the percent down a little bit if you need to. That's one until you get used to it. Now it does get easier the more you do it, but you have to do more of it to get used to it. And the third tip, which I would do actually is if you want to make this a bit easier, it'd be an interesting experiment is before you do your warmup on the bike with the indoor trainer, get an exercise band and a yoga mat next to your trainer.

and spend even just five minutes, 10 minutes doing some glute activation exercises with the bands to turn your glutes and do a little bit of core work to turn your core on before you get on the indoor trainer. Okay.

Cam Nicholls (20:36.466) interesting. might try that myself. I haven't heard of it. Haven't heard that one. And the fourth one I'll say is, you know, I think a lot of people get on Zwift or, you know, these indoor platforms and go, oh, that looks like a fun ride. Cause it's like they're seeing all these bars popping up and down, but it's probably a brutal ride. So, you know, as you kind of said, ease into it, start progressively on the trainer. Don't do really difficult workouts upfront. You know, pick something that looks a little bit easier and work from there. Yeah. Cool.

Ben Treble (21:02.51) Definitely.

Cam Nicholls (21:04.398) All right, thanks for time, Ben. Much appreciated. If you're out there listening and you're looking to integrate indoor into your training a little bit more strategically, make sure you check out the RCA's website, One-to-One Coaching. You can work with one of our coaches and get that down pat. That's at www.roadcyclingacademy.com. We'll catch everyone in the next podcast.

Summary:

What if the best VO2 max workout… isn't the one everyone's doing?

In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with Head Coach Ryan Thomas to break down a lesser-known, research-backed VO2 max protocol from 2020 — and why it's been delivering serious results with RCA riders.

Instead of traditional intervals like 30/15s or sustained 3-minute efforts, this session flips things on its head:

👉 Decreasing intervals 👉 Incomplete recovery 👉 More time above 90% VO2 max

And that last point is key.

Because in the research world, spending more time above 90% VO2 max is strongly linked to greater aerobic gains — and this workout gets you there faster, and keeps you there longer.

In this episode, we cover:

• The 2020 research paper and what it actually found
• Why this "reverse" interval structure works so well
• How RCA adapted it into a practical workout (without destroying riders)
• Exact structure, power targets, and execution tips
• When to use this session in your training (and when NOT to)
• How to integrate it into a 6-week build toward a key event

If you've been stuck rotating the same VO2 sessions and not seeing progress, this could be the new stimulus you've been missing.

Research paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-020-04463-w

🎯 Who this is for: Recreational and amateur cyclists looking to break through a plateau and train smarter — not just harder.

📈 The takeaway: It's not always about doing more… sometimes it's about doing it differently.

Transcript:

Cam Nicholls (00:01.454) Welcome to the RCA Podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode.

Ryan Thomas (00:24.91) you

Cam Nicholls (00:26.124) Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. So if you're listening over audio, please excuse any visual references. Today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach, Ryan Thomas, and we're going to be talking about a different way to boost VO2 max. And it's based on research and it's a workout that's been going through the RCA ranks in recent times. We've been utilizing it with a lot of our members with great success. So Ryan, maybe we first start off by talking about the research paper. What did it say?

Ryan Thomas (00:51.564) Yeah, so it's called high intensity decreasing. It was done in 2020 and they were comparing three pretty common VO2, two common VO2 workouts with this new VO2 protocol. guess what they were trying to achieve is what workout got you the most time above 90 % of VO2 max. Within the research world, if you've read research papers around VO2 max, they're trying to get to that mark. They're trying to spend a lot of time above 90 % of VO2 max.

Cam Nicholls (00:53.966) Yep, we'll link it below.

Cam Nicholls (01:18.52) because that's where they say the biggest gains for people.

Ryan Thomas (01:20.462) Yeah, and if you're below that, you're kind of just working threshold. So you want to kind of want to get up over 90 % of VFC max and spend a lot of time there. We're comparing 3020s, which is an interesting one, but it's kind of the short intensity is what they call it. So on-off, really short on-offs. So similar to 3015s, but probably not quite as good as 3015s. We've done a bit of stuff on 3015s and I...

Cam Nicholls (01:27.992) So what were the two workouts I was comparing?

Cam Nicholls (01:44.492) They were trying to manipulate the paper a little bit. The 3015s were... We did a video on this by the way. We'll link it up there on the 3015s.

Ryan Thomas (01:46.786) Yeah

Ryan Thomas (01:51.022) There's probably a research bias there. the, yeah, they compared 30 20s, similar duration against long intensity there to workouts, which was three minute on, two minute off. So three minute VO2, quite a high percentage.

Cam Nicholls (02:05.55) That's a common sustain VO2 workout.

Ryan Thomas (02:08.205) Yeah, not a common recovery period. So they've done some interesting things here in comparing the protocols, but I think they were trying to manipulate the time in VO2 and actually about 90%. So they were comparing against those two. So the theory is that they're short intensity, they're really quick on-offs and then they're sustained VO2. Like what's the best with those compared to this new interval workout? And the new interval workout was kind of, was a new theory for me and a new theory for I feel the RCA coaches as well, which is why we've been using it.

It's a much longer interval. that typical 30-15, you're doing like maybe seven to eight minutes there. The three minutes is obviously three minutes. So it's quite different. And this one goes for around 12 minutes, but it's a, you start with a three minute effort, then you have two minutes recovery, then a two minute effort. It's at 50 % of the power you were doing. So it's around zone.

Cam Nicholls (02:54.072) full recovery though or is it?

Cam Nicholls (02:58.902) Yes, I think that's when I did the work out of Worked Out About Zone 2.

Ryan Thomas (03:01.566) Yeah, so it's middle of zone two roughly. So you're not completely off. I think that's why it keeps the oxygen consumption a bit higher is because you're not fully deloading. three minutes on, two minutes off, two minutes on, 80 seconds off, one minute on, 40 seconds off, 40 seconds on, 30 seconds off, 30, 20, 30, 20 until failure. That's what they did in the research.

Cam Nicholls (03:23.374) Which early 20 till failure. Okay.

And repeat that all that stuff. Just that one. That's it. one.

Ryan Thomas (03:30.798) Right, so it's a very hard effort going to failure. Yeah, so they're trying to get the most out of it But when what they found was I'm looking at the plot now We can probably put the overlay in here is that the longer the effort that just with the with the recovery periods the vr2 was just staying over 90 % for that one essentially once you get past the two-minute recovery and you into the two-minute effort you're above 90 % and pretty close to 95 % for majority of the remainder of that effort So you're getting close to eight minutes above

90%, whereas the other efforts, it takes about half of that interval duration to get above 90%. Okay, so the theory was here that quickly you're getting up over that 90 % and you're staying there for eight to 10 minutes. The rewards, theoretically in the research, the rewards are much higher.

Cam Nicholls (04:14.486) Yeah. So was the outcomes more so aligned to just spending time above VO2 or was there a testing protocol?

Ryan Thomas (04:20.77) They were predominantly just looking at spending time above, they really looking at what the outcomes performance were, were looking at the actual VO2.

Cam Nicholls (04:29.23) Okay. Yeah, I mean, the thing that I really enjoyed about it as somebody who's been training for a long period of time is you get to a point where you've kind of done all the workouts and, you know, we know through the research that variability in training is key to helping you, you know, extend to the next level to get that new stimulus. So I'd never done this workout before and it hurt a lot, which suggested to me that, this was a new stimulus.

for the body and I think for a lot of people out there that are watching or listening, if you've done the 30-15s and you've done the sustained VO2, this is a really good one to consider for a new stimulus. let's, obviously the workout that's in the paper, it's not practical really to make people just do 30-20s until they fall off the indoor trainer or out on the road or wherever it might be. So you took the protocol and you created...

you know, in an interval session, which I did, which we'll put as overlay on Training Pigs Virtual, that people can actually do. how did you dissect it and turn it into a workout? This podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. If you're a recreational or amateur road cyclist and you're stuck on a frustrating performance plateau, feeling like you need some guidance, but you're not quite ready to dive straight into one-to-one coaching, at the RCA we've created something called the 12 Week.

custom plan, which we believe would be your perfect next step. It starts off with an upfront deep dive call with your coach who will understand your goals, your riding preferences, what your not negotiable rides are and where you want to go. Then they'll create a fully tailored 12 week custom plan that is supported over the 12 week period. We believe it's the perfect intermediate step, giving you a taste of working with a coach and experiencing a customized plan without committing to full coaching.

Our riders are seeing real results too and you can go to our Google reviews to see this. Marvin recently shaved over 30 minutes off his graft into Imburel time from doing the 12 week custom plan. Adam gained 20 watts on his FTP in 12 weeks and 40 watts on his five minute power. And we have riders completing rides that have failed in previous attempts like Peaks Challenge, all from doing this 12 week custom plan. So if you're ready to break through.

Cam Nicholls (06:46.702) head to theroadcyclingacademy.com in the menu system, you'll see our 12 week custom plan and take the first step towards that next level performance. Now let's get back to the podcast.

Ryan Thomas (06:58.926) Yeah, so was actually Carter Beddell, one of the RCA coaches who brought this paper to my attention and he created the session and we worked on it together to try and figure out. He came to me and said, this is really cool. I've created something. Can you do it just to test it out? I did it. And originally we had same up to the point of 230 20s. So we didn't go to failure. So it was the three, two, one, 40, 30 second efforts. And it was around a 12 minute effort. So we used that and originally

we had it set three intervals. So I did it with three intervals and it knocked me for six. Like I got to the end of that and I was like, I was probably one of the hardest work out to ever done. So in my mind, I was like, I'm as an experienced writer myself, I was like, if I'm giving this to anyone who hasn't done proper VO2 work before, they're going to fall in a heap after it. And it's going to probably take a week to recover from it. It's not practical. So we kind of tailored it back a little bit. We stopped it once the...

interval got to 30 seconds. So there's only one 30 second effort at the end in the session that I give and it's only two intervals. So it's a lot, it's tailored back quite a bit to what the research said, but you're still getting, think we're gonna highlight the effort for most people if they do it in ERG mode at 110 to 120 % of critical power is what we try to get the on bit at. If you're doing that and you're keeping the power around 65, 70 % in the off periods, you're still getting a 10 to 12 minute effort above threshold.

Okay, so it's.

Cam Nicholls (08:27.254) So you're prescribing it in erg mode for people on the trainer?

Ryan Thomas (08:30.164) I don't like to do it in Erg personally, some people just like Erg mode because it's easy to execute. They don't have to think about it too much. So either or works. My preference is always non-Erg mode for anything in VO2, but some people it's just easier to do it in Erg mode.

Cam Nicholls (08:44.53) So let's lay out what the set looks like and I'll put my overlay of me doing it on the Training Pigs virtual. So the first rep is three minutes.

Ryan Thomas (08:53.358) First rep is three minutes. I think you had it set at 115 % of threshold. Yep. So that's a good place to start. 110, probably if you haven't done much VO2 work and you're trying this out, 110 is a good starting point. You can always increase it in the second rep. Two minutes. Two minute effort.

Cam Nicholls (09:07.788) Okay, and then the recovery, two minutes, then the next, which is the one that hurt the most. That's the one that really hurt. Your recovery after a three minute VO2 effort and then the two minutes really not at recovery and then back to two minutes. Yeah, that last sort of 90 seconds, I remember it. And then the recovery after that, all the, yeah, and then.

Ryan Thomas (09:25.762) Yeah, yeah, it hurts.

80 seconds, a 60 second effort, then 40 second recovery, 40 second effort, 30 second recovery, 30 second effort.

Cam Nicholls (09:37.078) Okay, so there is if you want to do it, but the question is, when should you be doing it? Because I think the thing about these videos is people go, that's interesting. I wouldn't mind trying that. And then they'll try it for a couple of weeks and then move on. And maybe it was the wrong time to try it. Two weeks is probably not long enough to give it a fair shot. So when should people be thinking about implementing this into their training regime and how long should they do it for?

Ryan Thomas (09:59.064) You want to do it pretty close to when you want to be peaking or your target event. So within that six week window of that event or target or whatever you're trying to achieve. Yeah. Yeah. Using it in within that period. So starting it pretty solid and then tapering it going into, but within that six weeks, yeah, you could do this session once a week for the six week period going into an event. Yeah. There's a good and then doing other stuff around it obviously, but you use it with that or you could interchange it with another type of interval. So what I like to do instead of giving one

This just one every week for six weeks in a row is give this one week and then a different type of VO2 effort the next week and go back to that one. So change your stimulus every couple of weeks, but you don't want to be doing this like 12 weeks out for an event because it's going to get you going pretty good. It's a type of interval that's going to peak your physiology because it's a lot of time above that 90 % of VO2 max. And it's going to really sharpen you up for a testing or a race or whatever it is. So you want to be careful about doing it too far out from whatever that goal is.

Cam Nicholls (10:58.252) Yeah, and if people are sort of curious as to what would come before this, we had a chat just before this one and that video will be live. So we'll link it up there. It's about periodising through the training zones. So make sure you spend plenty of time, you know, around base zone two work and sweet spot sub threshold before you start tackling this. Because if you do that work before you get to this workout, then this work out is going to yield better outcome.

Ryan Thomas (11:21.758) Yes, in my opinion, yes.

Cam Nicholls (11:24.194) Yep. Cool. All right. Thanks for your time, Ryan. Thanks, Cam. Much appreciated. And we'll catch everyone in next podcast.

This episode provides a comprehensive review of supplementation in cycling performance, based on recent research from the UCI sports nutrition project. Cam Nicholls and RCA coach Ben Treble discuss food-first approaches, effective supplements like caffeine, creatine, beta alanine, nitrates, and more, emphasizing evidence-based choices for cyclists.

Research: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12912213/

AIS: https://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/nutrition/supplements

Stanndards: https://stannards.com.au/ (podast sponsor)

Key Takeaways

• Prioritize whole foods for macro and micronutrients before supplements.
• Use the AIS framework to identify high-efficacy supplements (Group A).
• Caffeine can improve performance by 2-5% and should be dosed 3-6 mg/kg about an hour before effort.
• Sodium bicarbonate (bicarb) and beta alanine buffer muscle acidity, effective for high-intensity efforts.
• Nitrates from beetroot juice reduce oxygen cost of submaximal exercise, beneficial in hot conditions.
• Hyperhydration with glycerol or sodium can improve thermal regulation in long endurance events.
• Avoid unverified supplements; choose those with third-party testing and certification.
• Supplements like ketones currently show mixed results and are not recommended for performance enhancement.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the episode and guest 00:26 The context of cycling performance and supplement discussion 01:28 Overview of the UCI sports nutrition project and key authors 02:53 Navigating supplement marketing noise and the food-first approach 03:43 The importance of macro and micronutrient intake from whole foods 04:49 Training on 100 grams of carbs per hour and its benefits 05:46 Using the AIS supplement framework to guide supplement choices 07:35 Key supplements in Group A: caffeine, creatine, bicarbonate, beta alanine, nitrates, hyperhydration, exogenous ketones 08:23 Caffeine: dosing, effects, and practical tips 12:24 Sodium bicarbonate: buffering capacity and application in high-intensity efforts 16:40 Beta alanine: muscle carnosine loading and effects 28:59 Nitrates from beetroot juice: reducing oxygen cost of exercise 33:27 Hyperhydration with glycerol and sodium: benefits for endurance in hot conditions 35:06 Exogenous ketones: current evidence and performance implications 39:07 Summary and practical advice on supplement strategy Transcript:

Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA podcast designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode.

Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined by RCA coach and science geek Ben Treble and we're in a hotel room in Sydney. We're here supporting the boys at the RCA Bikes Online boys at the Pro Velo. Ben, what are you doing?

Ben Treble (00:40.53) I'm filling in some big shoes from Ryan, our team manager in DS and playing the DS role while Ryan's on the pedals.

Cam Nicholls (00:47.458) Nice. And I'm here to try and make some content. So we thought we'd use the opportunity to get together for a couple of podcasts. And today we're to talk about a comprehensive review on supplementation in cycling performance that was released recently, February, 2026. And this was a paper that Ben brought to my attention, I think via Instagram story, I saw you share it. And I was like, that's pretty interesting. And it kind of sort of validates a lot of supplements that are

you know, we know that work, but also highlights an area that I think a lot of people tend to forget about. So Ben, you've looked at the paper in detail. What do you make of it?

Ben Treble (01:28.054) I love it. My caveat is, I'm, I'm, very biased on this one. So firstly, it's one paper out of, think there's 15 papers that are being slowly released. So they're not all released yet. And it's part of a much bigger project where the UCI commissioned essentially the world experts in all their different topics related to nutrition. And it's called the UCI sports nutrition project. And there are many, many papers on different topics about cycling. So.

Yeah. One of the papers is the sports nutrition paper. It's on the use of sport foods and supplements to improve performance in cycling. One of the key authors is Jamie Whitfield, who was a supervisor of mine when I did placement at a lab in Melbourne. cool. I hold him in very high respect. He's, he's much smarter than myself. I would think of him more of a biochemist, sports scientist actually, but he's brilliant. You know, of course, Burke was a big part of that paper. Who's probably one of the top.

I would argue the number one sports nutritionist in the world. contribution to both research and practice within Australia in a global context is phenomenal. So very good paper, highly recommend. We will link it that paper, I'm sure, for people to have a look in the potty. So what are we doing about this paper? Well, they just really want to dig into, as you all know, you probably all get bombarded on media from a hundred million companies about take this supplement, take this, take oxygenated water. There's so much noise.

Out there, it's difficult for people to navigate what actually works.

Cam Nicholls (02:57.422) I'm in an ad actually promoting AgeMade. guess a lot of people would have seen that ad.

Ben Treble (03:02.319) I have received this head many times. I'm in my mid thirties and I've received the age mate.

Cam Nicholls (03:07.926) Yeah, sorry about that. It's a good supplement though. I did my blasts, my bloods it worked for me. So, okay. I stand by that one. Okay.

Ben Treble (03:14.222) Cook me up and I'll try it. Back on topic. I'm not talking about age made in my list today, just for the reference. Sorry for your plug. What this paper does is it tries to really break down what's important and what's not for people. And I think the first point that we really want to get across to the audience today is you should really try to have a food first approach, which means try to get your macros and micronutrients from, you know, like

natural whole foods first.

Cam Nicholls (03:45.582) Feats any supplement, hands down, every day of the

Ben Treble (03:48.152) Every time the bio availability of all the important things you really need from whole foods is just so much more important than worrying about spending too much money on supplements. Yep. Good. We can agree on the first point. Did everybody hear that? Yeah. Food first approach. Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (04:03.918) The last training block I did for Grafton to Indoveral, which is a big bike race here in Australia last year, was the first time I properly did train on 100 grams of carbs per hour. And I know that's not necessarily whole food, that's a lot of sugar, but it's part of the macro nutrient approach. And I'd never trained so well in my entire life and I'd never recovered so well as well. Like for example, a five hour ride, hard, on a Saturday.

used to leave me like in pieces in the afternoon, fatigued, tired, grumpy, but training at 100 grams per hour, I was recovering better, I was sleeping better, I wasn't grumpy, and then the adaptation was better, and then you can take that adaptation to the next training session. So just this is one small example of getting my macronutrients right for training, made such a big difference.

Ben Treble (04:49.198) Yeah, I can think of a new RCA athlete of mine and we've spent, you know, the first few weeks not even talking about power or doing fancy VO2 intervals. The entire focus has been how do we get you eating more food on the bike? And that's what's making the difference. Trying to slowly build up the ability and experimenting with different foods. Is it bars, gels, liquids? What works for her and her stomach?

and what's going to help her get more fuel in to do the effort. There's no point doing the efforts until we know we can get the right fuel in. So yeah, big point on that, but we're not here to talk about that right now. We're here to talk about the juicy stuff, which is supplements. So, the first part of this conversation is what is this paper reference and what do I tell all my athletes when we first talk about food and supplements? And that's probably one of the best resources out there. Firstly, because it's free.

You know, I would argue, you know, they don't have any bias because they're not leaning towards any certain company. It's published from the Australian Institute of Sport. So the AIS has a supplement framework and there's an entire team of sports scientists and researchers who are digging through the research, doing their own research. And they publish a framework where they're grading certain supplements based on their efficacy. Like does the supplement do what it's supposed to do?

If they claim it has a certain performance benefit, does it actually do this? How strong is the body of research behind it that then supports that? How safe is it? And what are the downsides or the risks from an antidoping perspective or a health risk, health hazards? And they factor all that in and then they grade it. Is it an A group, which would be like the highest level? You know, this is the group that you can pretty confidently say it will do what it says it does. It's safe to take and.

That's where your focus should be on this group, group A. Group B would be there's some evidence for it. It's interesting and we're keeping an eye on it. And you'll see supplements move between these groups as the research bodies grow. So an interesting one would be, you know, for example, nitrates, beetroot, that used to be a B group supplement. And as the research has grown to support it more,

Ben Treble (07:06.126) It's been lifted to a group A. Supplements. That's just, they're regularly updating this framework. So I tell people to keep an eye on it. And then you've got group C and D, which are essentially supplements you should ignore in my eyes. I would just check the list because maybe you want to try something that you've got a marketing ad for. And if you see it in these groups, maybe it's a good sign to just keep an eye on it, but not touch it yet. So today we're going to focus on, we're going to talk about quite a few different supplements that are within the group A category. So I'm just going to...

wrap them off real quick. The ones that we care about. Caffeine, creatine, bicarb, that includes sodium citrate, beta alanine, nitrates, hyperhydration, that's through glycerol, and then exogenous ketones are added to the list. That is a B group supplement. I've just put it there because I know it's a hot top.

Cam Nicholls (07:54.866) Interesting and it's relatively new in comparison to the other ones as well. So there's a fair chance it might end up at the top of the tree, would you say? okay, interesting, I already saw that.

Ben Treble (08:02.67) My view is it won't. Well, there's multiple papers now across different sports that show it actually has a detrimental effect on endurance performance. Interesting. Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (08:17.102) Okay, alright, maybe that's a rabbit hole for another day. We'll leave it at that. I like that, we're on the caffeine right now.

Ben Treble (08:23.672) I'm on number three for the day already and let's, it's just after nine and we've got races starting at just before lunch. So hot topic. Let's kick it off on caffeine, Ken. I don't think we need to a lot of time on this, but caffeine does what it says it does. know, caffeine at the end of the day, the primary mechanism it's via the central nervous system. It reduces your perceived effort and fatigue whilst improving focusing and pacing strategies.

What I've done for this conversation is I've had a look at what was put out in the UCI paper and I've gone and, you know, cross-checked it with what's in the AIS framework from a dosing perspective. Just as a heads up to listeners, the UCI paper is, from my eyes, is fairly focused on acute dosing. Whereas if you go into the AIS framework, they often provide acute and chronic dosing strategies for these supplements. So I would actually tell people, if you see something in the UCI paper you're interested in,

go check it out in the AIS framework where you can get, you know, they have these great PDF infographics on each supplement with dosing strategies and guides and things to watch out for. So I'm just

Cam Nicholls (09:31.406) Just conscious a lot of our listeners are European, USA, Canada. So the AIS, which is the Australian Institute of Sport, would you say that their guidelines here would be similar to that in the US and Canada and Europe? Do they tend to be aligned or have you seen discrepancies in the past?

Ben Treble (09:49.8) Not that I've done a lot of digging, but of all of my American and my European athletes I work with, none of them have ever seen anything like the AIS framework before. Okay. And they don't know of anything in their home countries. Okay. With that available. So whether they hold that information internally, because they think of it as IP or a competitive advantage, would be my guess that they probably do. And they might provide it to certain athletes and teams or performance staff.

But it's probably internal only, they don't publicly share it. Okay. So then, yeah, we don't know if it's the same or not. Okay.

Cam Nicholls (10:23.918) guess AIS1 though can be trusted because we all know Australians are good at sport. We know what we're doing so it's a good reference point.

Ben Treble (10:31.502) Yeah. I think we're an over performer in the winter sports as well. There you go. For the size and not being a winter country. Off topic. Back to caffeine. We'll go through this one quick. Cause I think it's, everyone knows caffeine does do what it does. It works well. Main things to be aware of the dose is probably anywhere from three to six milligrams per kilogram of body mass. Ideally you take it around an hour before your exercise, or if you have a longer event, you can stagger it through the event. So you don't have a massive dose.

AIS recommends a max of three milligrams. Caffeine used to be a banned substance on the anti-doping water list. It is no longer a banned substance, but it's just, you you need to keep an on that. This gets updated every year. So who knows if in two years they'd ban it again. Unlikely, but yeah. Other than that, you just probably need to be aware of if you take too much excessive use gives you anxiety, jitters and sleep disruptions, which most people are aware of. yeah.

Cam Nicholls (11:24.194) Sounds like May every day.

Ben Treble (11:25.87) What I thought was cool, I've never actually looked at it, but they do reference in the paper, you know, the expected performance improvement is from two to 5%. And that's been proven across multiple sports and distances. So caffeine guys, if you're not taking it, second point on caffeine I would have, I typically get my athletes to switch from coffee in terms of racing to, we call it anodos here in Australia, which would be caffeine pills. So you know exactly how much you're taking for your race if you want to take.

50 milligrams at half an hour before the line and then halfway through the race, you take the other half, whatever you want your dosing to be. Typically large people take a little bit more, but yeah, I would recommend that you switch over to pills because you know, a standard cappuccino, the range and how much caffeine you get from that varies massively. So you don't actually know how much you're taking. True. Let's move on to probably one of the supplements that Kem is a big fan of. And I'm a big fan of as well.

setting by car. Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (12:26.67) buffering the lactate. Yeah. Just grind at threshold all day long.

Ben Treble (12:31.148) Yeah. Yeah. So this one's a good one. Sodium bicarb. Cause one it's cheap. It's easily available and accessible. Everyone's supermarket has this within the same group is sodium citrate. They're essentially the same thing for the point of this conversation. What does it do? It's, it improves your buffering capacity of the hydrogen ions. So it slows down the rate of acidity and the shifting pH as the intensity goes up. So at the end of the day, what is it doing? It delays your exercise induced.

acidosis during high intensity efforts. The research shows that the performance benefits are in that like one up to 60 minute efforts, but the research is a lot less supportive the longer you go outside of that range. So when we talk about road racing or a Gran Fondo event where it's anywhere from two to four or five hours, the efficacy for using bicarb gets a lot lower.

Interesting. So would I use it for a road race? Probably not, personally. Would I use it for a crit race or if you do any track cycling or sprint work, would I use it in training for a sprint session? Yes. So is it worth using in training, even if it's not going to be used in your race? Potentially. Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (13:46.54) I think there's a bit of a gash prone issues that people can experience with this one as well. They need to be aware of. So like slowly dose it in kind of thing.

Ben Treble (13:54.638) Yeah. So from a dosing and a risks perspective, the biggest risk on bicarb is gastro issues. I mean, at the end of the day, it's almost like the more you can take the better. But at some point you get significant gastro issues, which will stop you performing. So there's a little bit of trial and error for individuals and you can progressively, you know, train yourself to take more to reduce those gut issues. Another tactic you can do is some companies will sell bicarb in pills.

even better and harder to find is they sell it in a slow release capsule. Yeah. Okay. So if you take bicarb, you know, just from the supermarket in a powder and you mix it in water or however you want to take it, it tastes terrible. If you can put it into a slow release capsule, it's probably going to help with the gastro issues. The loading protocol is typically one to three hours pre-exercise, two to 300 milligrams per kilogram of body mass. The chronic dose is big.

which would be 500 milligrams per kilogram for five days. Wow. So big chronic loading dose. They also recommend that if you do that acute dose that you can either take it with fluids or take it with a carb meal. And that will help with the gastro issues. Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (15:10.38) I know what got me onto it. I was at the Tour de France behind the scenes, 2024, Visma Leesa Bike and Nathan Van Hoede, something like that, who I can't pronounce his surname. He's a very good Belgian rider. He actually had a heart attack the previous year. So he was racing with Visma. He was just in the car. But he was telling me that the number one supplement that the team was using at the time that everyone loved was the Morton gel mix by carb. And I was like,

Pro athletes are saying that it's the best supplement that they're using at the time. I need to get onto this. And think there was a famous scene of a, I think it's, don't know the writer's name. He was the Canadian world champ though, in a road race, actually eating bicarb because their races are like five, six hours, like halfway through the race, having a bicarb gel mix and eating it out of a tub during a race. obviously it's held in high regard, that elite level bicarb.

Ben Treble (16:05.698) Yep. I mean, it works. Right. And at of the day, one of the biggest things that often holds people back during high intensity racing is, you know, their ability to clear lactate, right. And reduce acidosis. The longer you can hold that back, it's going to give you a performance gain. So cheap, accessible, safe. Just have to do a bit of trial and error for gastro issues and with your loading protocol. yeah, sodium bicarb is a really good one to jump on if you've never tried it.

The other one that has a, it's a very similar outcome via a different mechanism is beta alanine. I think you tried it.

Cam Nicholls (16:40.194) I use it for years. Yeah, I like that one as well. I love the little tingling sensation you get on your neck when you have it, which is so odd. But it's the only one that as soon as you take it, there's like some not within seconds, but like within five minutes, you get a little bit of a skin tingle, which is weird.

Ben Treble (16:56.43) Yeah, it's a funny one. So what is beta alanine? At the end of the day, what it's doing is it tries to overload your muscle carnosine levels. And what that does is it, again, it improves the buffering of the hydrogen ions. So it holds back the acidosis. What is it good for? It's good for one to 10 minute max efforts. There's some research showing that maybe it has a better effect for longer durations than bicarb. Interesting. So this is a supplement that...

I used for Grafton to Inveral. The downside to beta alanine compared to bicarb is from the research, the loading protocol to take it, there's no acute protocol because you have to flood the muscle carnivore levels and this takes weeks with very high doses. So it's very difficult because the body is very good at self-regulating these kinds of things. And so it's very difficult to get it to actually increase muscle carnivore through exogenous supplementation.

So that's why the loading protocol is it's around four to six grams per day for at least four weeks. Four weeks. So I remember taking, I split that dose into four doses per day. And that was, I think it was four pills every dose. I had 12 pills to take every day and I did it for six weeks prior to my event. they say once you've done that four week loading, they say the maintenance dose is only 1.2 grams per day.

So that's new since I did it. They're saying you could sort of get away with a four to six week loading protocol. And then there's a maintenance dose once you're in that saturation phase, which is only 1.2 grams per day. As you already brought up, the main downside, there's very little evidence of gastro issues, which is why some people lean towards beta alanine over bicarb. So for those of you who've tried bicarb and get really bad gastro issues, maybe give beta alanine a go. But again, yeah, this side effect is

You get this tingling sort of pins and needles and people get it either all over the body or in different places. I used to get it in my cheeks and my fingertips. I didn't get it in the toes. Some people get it in the toes. You got it in your neck like, it's all, it's quite constant. And if you do this for six weeks, some people can't handle the tingles for six weeks. So maybe before you start this one, be prepared. You have to be ready to have a bit of an unusual sensation for six weeks. I swear by it.

Ben Treble (19:23.296) I put down a big part of my performance for back when I was racing at Grafton down to beta alanine.

Cam Nicholls (19:30.594) This podcast episode is brought to you by Stannards, a proud sponsor of the RCA's Pro Velo cycling team, RCA Bikes Online. And they've been a big supporter of Aussie cycling over the years. They're a Melbourne headquartered business with offices right across Australia. And they've been around since 1946, helping businesses and high net worth individuals with accounting, tax and broader business strategy. And just for a bit of transparency, I've actually known one of the partners since 1994.

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to the

starts to come in and your power drops by 10%. I could probably go another half an hour or an hour when I was on better aniline. And that was really, really noticeable.

Ben Treble (21:33.55) Yeah, I think it makes a big difference. yeah, two, there's two supplements that both work on reducing or buffering the hydrogen ions. So reducing the acidosis or prolonging it, but they're through different mechanisms. There's very little research looking at both of them together. So what happens if you combine them? So I actually think there's a potential big gain to be doing both. Yeah. So it's not well researched, but I'm for certain races. If you have like a hard start race.

Cam Nicholls (21:54.659) Interesting.

Ben Treble (22:01.624) I don't see why he couldn't do bike carb to sort of get through the first hour, which is usually a very key part of a race versus beta Alanin. Maybe for our listeners, if you think, for those of you who are in Australia doing a Gran Fondo Worlds at Lawn, where you had a climb, like I think it was in the first kilometre, you go up this like 15, 20 minute berg straight out the gate. Like that's where your bike carb is going to be helpful. But then in the backend of the race, like two hours later, the bike carb's probably not doing anything.

Beta alanine if your muscle carnivine levels saturated that's going to help you buffer the acidosis in the second half.

Cam Nicholls (22:37.518) Just phase them in though, don't be double dropping both of them. You'll be running to the toilet and tingling at the same time.

Ben Treble (22:43.732) Yeah, and this was, I mean, for any of my athletes who try this and for the listeners, I trial this ideally, like at least six months prior to an event where they're thinking of using it for the first time. So, we go through a phase where we really test this out and we test it out with a race that they don't necessarily care about, a race we're using for training. And we really test out one, a protocol, and then we know for the race we care about.

Okay. Did it work? Did we have gastro issues? Do we want to tweak the protocol? Did it just not work? Cause you always get some non-responders. Was it worth it? Yes or no. You can make that decision. Don't try this first time at a race you care about. No way. So two very cool supplements. I think, you know, and both of those are in the A group in the AIS framework. So yeah, we'll jump on the next one. Let's talk about creating. Okay. Group A supplement. you on the creating?

Cam Nicholls (23:36.93) Yeah, I actually take it with my age mate. Splendid, do you? Yeah, so you scoop your age mate into water and then I scoop my creatine, shake it up and I drink it before I have my morning coffee. Then I run to the toilet. Yeah, so I'm on the... because there's a lot of research now that creatine isn't just good for sports performance, it's also good for just general health and wellbeing.

Ben Treble (23:52.684) Is that a single or a double shot?

Ben Treble (24:03.758) So jumping on the sport performance side, the paper, you know, essentially what is it supposed to do? It improves high intensity sprint performance and repeated efforts. here we're talking about fatigue resistance. And in my eyes, fatigue resistance is how many times can you repeat your like best sprint power before it drops off a cliff?

Cam Nicholls (24:21.856) Yeah, it's like watching yesterday's Pro Velo race surround that crypt track. Yeah. Just neurological, you know, if it's neuromuscular, I should say.

Ben Treble (24:29.474) second laps with a boot up a small hill every 30 seconds for like 60 laps. How many times can you do your best sprint if it's let's say 600 Watts? Can you do that 60 times every 30 seconds for an hour? Yeah. So that's what the paper's talking about. Obviously there's a lot of other benefits to creatine that it's not going into. How does it do that? It increases your intramuscular phosphocreatine stores. And what this does is enhance ATP, which is energy currency.

resynthesis during maximal efforts. What's the loading protocol? It's quite big. It's around 20 grams a day for five to seven days. One of the risks or downside is you do initially get a water retention weight increase. So that's typically from 500 grams up to a kilo. That's in the muscle. Yeah. So as a result of having this increased creatine levels in the muscle, those creatine, you get more water molecules bonding to them.

Cam Nicholls (25:16.514) muscles, yeah?

Ben Treble (25:25.966) So just stores more water in the muscle than normal and water weighs. So yeah, your weight goes up as a result. There's some evidence that says once you go through a period, if you continually have a very high level of creating stores, your body will normalize and the water levels will drop back down. But particularly in that first week or two, like, yeah, don't be surprised if your body weight goes up. So if you have a very, very, you know, what's a big kilogram focused event, don't do this five days before probably, if you care about your weight.

The other loading dose you could do is so around five grams, four times a day for five days, or you can do three to five grams for 20 days. So you could do a more chronic dose. And then once you've done that loading protocol, the maintenance dose is three to five grams daily. And once you stop, it takes about four weeks and your body will return back to normal baseline levels. So it has a pretty long, I would say a pretty long efficacy period. Hmm. Good. Yeah. I think it's a simple one again.

Relatively cheap, not as cheap as bike up, pretty accessible. We can buy it in a supermarkets in Australia. You don't need the fancy stuff. I feel like I've seen some marketing branding for like.

Cam Nicholls (26:33.198) Don't worry, I'm buying the fancy stuff. I've been sucking. Yeah, the pharmaceutical grade, you know.

Ben Treble (26:35.66) Yeah

Don't do what chem's doing. The only thing that's worth spending money on is making sure you get creating that's, um, you know, like has to test it in Australia or different countries around the world. have supplements that are, you know, tested by third-party labs to make sure there's no contaminants. So for those of you who race in grand Fondo events, any event that falls under UCI regulations or rules, which includes most grand fondos. I know we have a lot of those writers in our listening group. actually fall under the anti-doping rules. So.

Yeah. Highly recommend that you make sure any of these supplements you take are either has to certified or sport integrity tested. They're the two big testing labels that you'll see on, on the brand. The reason for that is the large majority of doping infractions are from contaminated supplements. So they're not people doping on purpose. For example, they've gone and taken some supplement that wasn't tested and they get contaminated because they're made in a warehouse in the same warehouse often where

they're brewing up, you know, pre-workout extreme mix that accidentally got a bit of meth in it. Yeah. Or speed or something. And literally it only takes a minuscule amount of that that was left in the batch tub to go into your mix, into your system. And then it comes up as a positive result in a doping test. Okay. There we go. Kradian, do you want to say anything else on it?

Cam Nicholls (28:01.358) I think creatine to me is almost becoming as elevated as caffeine, I feel. Like it's really, it's been around so long now. It's so well researched. Everyone knows about it. Yeah, I just take it daily. It's part of my repertoire, whether I'm training or not.

Ben Treble (28:15.981) Awesome. Yeah, to be fair, I take it. I think it's probably been a lot more common in the gym goers prior to the endurance bros.

Cam Nicholls (28:23.968) I'm a bit of a gym bro though, so I can gym doing my beach weights and getting the water retention in the bicep

Ben Treble (28:30.366) Kam's upper body looks as big as his legs now guys. All righty. Let's everybody go take your creatine. So next stack in the A group supplements, they call it dietary inorganic nitrates. What's that fancy for? Beetroot juice. People have probably seen like people doing these nitrate shots, drinking purple juice after races. That could also potentially just be cherry tart, which is a different supplement, but yeah, beetroot juice.

and have you taken it? Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (29:01.306) I remember it, but I probably didn't do it. I'm assuming there's a loading protocol. There used to be these little, and I think you still get them, the Beat It, which is like a beetroot concentrate. So I used to take when I was racing down in Caulfield, Carnegie, Glenvale on a Sunday, I'd have one of those. Never really knew if it did anything. I think when you're racing on the limit for an hour, you kind of don't know if anything's doing anything down there. yeah, so I've taken it, but not really. Unlike...

you know, other supplements where there's a noticeable effect, like betalain I've noticed, bicarb I've noticed, never really noticed anything personally with.

Ben Treble (29:39.512) Beats. So Beats is a interesting one because it was a B group supplement and it's moved up to the A level group because the evidence has got stronger and stronger on it. What's it supposed to do? It's supposed to reduce the oxygen cost of submaximal exercise. What does that mean? When you push the pedals and you push watts, you've got to produce that energy somehow. The effect typically you would say like for one watt you need 12 and a half.

Some people might say 13, it's typically 12 and a half millilitres of oxygen. Push that one watt. So what this does is it reduces the amount of oxygen required to push that one watt. How the heck does, when I heard that, was like, how the holy heck does beetroot juice, you can't reduce the amount of oxygen it takes to push one watt. What? That's ridiculous. This stumped researchers for a long time because we kept finding the same result. You get people.

On a metabolic cart, we have gas exchange and we can measure the amount of oxygen in carbon dioxide out. And you have two groups. It could be a blinded study where they think they're taking the placebo or the beetroot. And every time the group who had the beetroot, it took less oxygen to push same Watts. Okay. The math is not adding up. No. The mechanism was quite complex. I'm not going to pretend I know a ridiculous amount about it, but in brief.

It came down to talk production at a muscular level and ultimately reduced, you know, the way we produce, you've got velocity times talk to produce power and the amount of talk that your muscles needed got reduced to produce the same Twitch response. And that's what the nitrates were doing. So reduced this, this level of talk required for the same Twitch response, ergo then less oxygen for same power output. it works. The research is consistent.

What do we need to do? You can do an acute dose and that's six millimole of nitrate. I think it's the equivalent of around two of those beta shots, two to three hours prior.

Cam Nicholls (31:42.68) I wasn't having two shots. I was just having the one shot probably an hour before.

Ben Treble (31:46.53) So I would smash two shots like two, three hours when you have that last big carb meal before an event. Okay. Yep. I would be doing that. The chronic dose, three to 15 days duration and taking around 350 to 600 milligrams per day as a minimum. And then three days prior to the event, you do three to 600 milligrams and then you can do two to three days before the event. You can even ramp it up again and do just those six millimole shots.

Yeah. So it's pretty big dosage, but research is good. would be doing it. That is nitrate shots are pretty expensive though. So unless you're sponsored by baited or you have a lot of funding. Roots. Yeah. This is where the AIS framework is really good. Cause they talk about the equivalence and it's, it's a lot like, you know, for one baited shot, it was like two or three entire beetroots. That's. Yeah. I don't like beetroots that much. know, or like 500 millilitres of beetroot juice for one shot.

Cam Nicholls (32:27.81) What if you just ate a lot of beetroot?

Cam Nicholls (32:39.008) Yeah, no thanks.

Cam Nicholls (32:46.222) That's when you go to the toilet and you think you're going to the toilet, blood's coming out.

Ben Treble (32:49.966) Yeah, the Beat It shots are probably the go, they're just a bit pricey.

Cam Nicholls (32:54.23) Okay, cool. Yeah. How many more on the list? One more?

Ben Treble (32:57.826) Yeah, there's two more, but we're just going to touch on hyperhydration quickly. This one got me because I hadn't really thought about it that much until I read about it. It does sit as a group A supplement in the AIS framework and it was in the UCI paper. So they call it hyperhydration, but it was via the use of glycerol with your fluids or sodium. So what you're trying to do is increase the total body water and plasma volume in your blood.

offset the sweat loss during prolonged exercise. So it's good. This one is good for the long endurance events or hot conditions, less useful for your short high intensity sort of think track, crit racing. It's improving your thermal regulation and performance by two to 5%.

Cam Nicholls (33:44.258) Wow, this is a good one for I live in the sunshine ghost where it's quite hot and humid doing these four or five hour rides where I'm cooked at the end. So that's where this sits quite nicely or a big long hot road race. Fondo event, big long Fondo event. Peaks challenge is happening today. Those guys should be doing this.

Ben Treble (34:01.304) Big time. this kangaroo is on the golf course. Sorry. I'm easily distracted guys.

Cam Nicholls (34:06.382) We have a lovely view from this hotel room by the way.

Ben Treble (34:09.101) You have gone all out. The glycerol loading is one to one and a half grams per kilogram of body mass with fluids, or you could do that with sodium. So you could do sodium one to one and a half grams per kilogram. And you just do it pre-exercise. The risk is some people do get GI issues. So you probably want to experiment with this one in training first to find out what works for you. Some people get a body mass increase. I mean, obviously if you drink a liter of fluid.

your weight's going to go up, sorry. So maybe just keep that in mind. But other than that, it's a very simple one. The performance benefit is measurable. It's cheap and accessible. So, yeah, have a read of that one, guys. I would definitely check that one out. That would be high on my list.

Cam Nicholls (34:53.535) Okay, good. And what's the last one?

Ben Treble (34:55.658) Last one, caveat, this is a B group. So there's mixed scientific support. It's an emerging supplements. It's probably been a hot topic. I feel like it's not that new anymore, but ketones. Yeah. Exogenous ketones went nuts a few years ago until some of the research started coming out. You know, the first papers that came out were all sponsored by, you know, the companies themselves that were selling these supplements. So in my eyes, I just don't even almost bother reading the paper. just write it off.

Cam Nicholls (35:06.732) three years ago it was going nuts.

Ben Treble (35:23.03) And once some actual third-party labs started looking into it, you know, the results either became so mixed that you had to really question it until they did some better repeated studies that were far more controlled. And they started finding detrimental effects of taking escogenes, ketones for endurance performance. So, I mean, why were people taking ketones? The idea is if you go into a ketatonic state, which is like a fasted state, instead of it preserves your glycogen stores for longer in the note that

you you would be using more fat or ketones for energy production instead of glycogen, is your sugar stores, saving your sugar stores for later in the race. The logic makes sense. One of the problems with it is if you're in a race and you do a high intensity effort, your body can't selectively go and use ketones. It's still going to go use glycogen because the way it works is these things have a rate of synthesis to produce ATP. And, you know, when we want to do a high intensity effort,

It uses an anaerobic system with glycolysis. You can't really avoid that. There's no way for your body to go use ketones to produce 400 Watts in a few seconds. Right. You've got to use phosphocreatine for the first five seconds. And then you run into your anaerobic and your glycolysis system to produce energy that quick. So, I mean, we started to have repeated evidence that shows actually people perform worse when they're taking it. So they've done blinded studies on race walkers.

and Maranfonas, I think they've also now done it on cyclists and had the same result where the group that was on the ketones performed worse in their time trials.

Cam Nicholls (36:58.926) us in

Ben Treble (37:04.686) Cause there's still some studies that show mixed results. Like some individuals do still do better with it. And there's still, know, we're talking about small sample sizes here where there's, know, probably two, three studies that show it has a bad, a negative effect. But then there's still arguably, you know, four or five papers that show inconclusive results. And there's a couple of papers that were sponsored by the companies that showed positive results. So, so it still sits in this mixed outcomes.

Or it's an emerging supplement. So we still want to keep an eye on it because it's still logic says we need to do more research. It's safe to take, it's accessible. And maybe if we do more research, we'll find something out, but I'm certainly not hopeful and I'm not taking ketones. Yeah.

Cam Nicholls (37:49.334) Interesting. think when I was kind of, so I was over in sort of France the last two years with Ketone IQ actually, as a sponsor of Isma and from what I could gather, you know, that they do hold their cards slightly close to their chest, but ketones were taken more as a recovery drink than actually a performance enhancing drink.

Ben Treble (38:10.542) think that's where this paper, you gotta be mindful this paper is all about performance and they're not really focused on recovery as much. So that would be also what I may expect in the future that we find out if you're doing multi-day events where recovery is really important, maybe there's a very marginal gain to be had in terms of recovery from taking ketones post-race, but not in the race or loading pre-race, expecting high power output in the race because you took ketones.

The only reason you'd have this performance benefit is if it lets you recover a little bit better every day in a three week grand tour, by the end of the third week, maybe you can do a higher power output because you've been recovering better a little bit every day accumulated for three weeks. Yep. So that would be my guess as to why Yumbo taking it. Maybe it's also cause they're probably getting a lot of funding from them to take it. You know, there's always that bias. Cool. Yeah. You don't see them downing shots anymore in the ProPello. You used to see teams.

smashing shots mid event. Yeah. And don't see teams and teams used to take it who weren't sponsored by ketone companies. And I think the biggest proof in the pudding here is you no longer see that happening. Or I don't, I haven't seen it. I don't see pro writers who are not sponsored by ketone company taking ketones anymore or spending their money on ketones.

Cam Nicholls (39:27.182) Yeah, no, I think it's, you know, from the because we need to have a chat with the nutritionists from Visma last year. And I think they're so drilled in on calorie intake and carbohydrate intake during the race that ketones don't make the carbs are better for performance. You know, going back to the start of this conversation, get your macro nutrients right. If you want to perform in a race, know, carbs is the focus.

That's a really comprehensive list, Ben. I think we'll end it there because we've been on this topic for quite a long period of time. But I think what it does shine a light on is, you if people are out there listening and they want to start, you know, implementing some supplements into their regime, do it strategically. Don't just start, as you said, grabbing anything that pops up in your marketing feed. Look at credible lists and maybe we can dump, you know, the AIS list or link.

in the podcast description as well as the link to the research paper. But I think as well, like if you know, if you're working with a coach, know, Ben's an RCA coach and you know, he's working with his members, not just on training, but also on supplementation and when to bring it in and how to bring it in. So if you're looking to bring supplementation into your training, you're interested in working with a coach, make sure you check out the RCA's website, www.roadcyclingacademy.com. Check out One to One Coaching and you can find a coach there. We'll catch you all in the next podcast.