10 Things Nobody Tells You About Indoor Training

This podcast is brought to you by Trivalo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivalo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. The truth is, riding the indoor trainer can be your biggest ally or a total waste of time if you use it wrong. There are crucial mistakes nearly every cyclist makes indoors that's actually slowing you down and limiting your progress. So today we'll break down the 10 indoor training traps and mistakes you need to avoid. Plus, we're revealing some of the recent pro tactics, racing and training prep secrets that you can actually steal for your own training. But first, back with our normal starting segment of the podcast. Dad, welcome back in. What are you grateful for?

Thanks, Jord. This is, I don't want to talk. This is a. This is a generalization across the board. And I'll just use an example of my own last two years where I've had a couple of setbacks that have prevented from having my normal routine training program. And I want this gratitude to have a coaching point across to it. I'm really grateful for the fact that I can. I have no interruptions. I have nothing wrong with me at the moment. There's still a few health issues there, but I can still train as much as I like now. And I'm surprised, but I shouldn't be at the improvement that's happened since I've been able to be consistent. And I was looking back at some, some of the athletes who, who've been really successful over, over the years that we've been coaching them, and a couple I just used to flick back to when were they in their best form. So I'd go back to say, December 2024. And what were they doing for those previous three months? And I know what they were doing because they were doing the standard sessions that we give them to get them that form. And this is the gratitude that I've got is you don't have to do anything outstanding. You just have to turn up and be consistent and your form will grow. And I was trying to look for what specific sessions did we give that guy. So he was writing unbelievably there, what do we do that made him so good then I couldn't find anything that we did any different. It was just that he didn't miss any sessions. That was actually the difference. And so I'm grateful that I've realized that and that and I don't have to do something special to get to get fast tracked to where I want to be. And I'm just happy to be turning up every day. And all of a sudden I'm riding 2% better than I was last month, which is freaking 5% better than I was six months ago, which is nearly 20% better than I was 18 months ago. So just by sticking at it, you can change everything for positive and I'm grateful that I'm realizing that and I want to get that message across.

Yes, we speak about this a lot. When you're the most informed, you rarely realize it and you're rarely great. We're rarely grateful enough for it at the time, at the time we're so motivated, we're always looking for what's next, where's the next improvement. And it's important to take a step back and always look at if you're at your highest FTP ever, if you're at your best time trial ever, you're in the best form of your life. Just stop and soak that in and breathe that in. Of course you want to keep improving but as we always say, the interruptions are inevitable, whatever they are. Injury, sickness, a big life event, a big family event, something will come along and then you'll, you'll wish for the day where you're back in that form that you're in right now. And so yeah, while you specifically dad, are grateful for it right now, it's because you've had such periods of inconsistency that you've just been wishing you were back at this point where you were training well. And it's a really good reminder for all athletes is, and even if you're not at your very best right now, but you're up there, you know, you're only 10 watts off your fittest ever or 20 watts off, but you're 30 watts ahead of where you were three years ago. That's something to be very grateful for.

And hang in there like, you know, just trust the process and we actually want to talk about that later a bit. But you know, trusting the process and standing firm will inevitably proved to be successful. I've got no doubt.

My gratitude is I just got myself a secondhand but new for me. Wahoo kicker. As the listeners might know, I, I live in Indonesia and it is hard to ride around the roads here all the time and you really have to ride first thing in the morning. Otherwise you, you can't really make it work just because of the traffic and the heat. And it's quite hard to source a wahoo kicker over here but I managed to get one and and I'm really excited. I got it set up this week and I felt like a kid on Christmas finally setting it up and me some more flexibility in the writing which is awesome and had the first crack at it last night which I, I executed poorly and made a lot of crucial mistakes that we we talk about a lot on this episode and maybe we'll mention some here as well with with this episode. But very grateful just to have the kicker in the first place. That's our gratitude. If you'd like to show your own gratitude for the show, you can help our ranking by subscribing wherever you listen to the podcast that really does help us subscribe on Spotify, subscribe on YouTube and or leave a five star rating. We do see your ratings and really we really appreciate you when you leave them. Before we get into the episode, just a quick shout out and welcome to this newest members of the Trivelo coaching family. These athletes have all jumped on board with the hopes of improving their results. We've got Jackie Boy, who actually has a great YouTube channel and is a fellow Celtics supporter living in Australia now. Damien McCauley from Canberra, Aaron Spurr from Victoria, Helen Roach also from from Victoria, Brian o' Laughlin from Alaska, usa. That's one of the most wild and rogue places we've had sign up. So welcome in Brian. Mark Preston from New South Wales, Mustafa from Queensland, Ben Lyon from Victoria, Ben Lowe from New South Wales. We can't wait to help you all improve on your journey. And if you'd like to join these athletes and guarantee your improvement, we have a money back guarantee that you'll improve in the first block of training. Otherwise it's money back. You can go to our website travelocoaching.com and as a reminder, as you just heard, you know, Brian's joined us from Alaska. We do coach athletes internationally from anywhere in the world because everything is online, all the program is programming is delivered online. We can analyze all your data. No time zone is a problem. We have coaches worldwide now, but we can match you with any coach that suits you. Whether it's time zone wise or, or just a good fit wise. We can coach athletes and we do coach athletes successfully from any continent and have had great results all around. So go to our website tribalo coaching.com to apply. Now just before we get to the main topic of the episode, there's some really key things that have caught our attention in racing recently and we just, we just Thought that was so worth mention because there's some great lessons in here that athletes really can take for their own mindset in training, for their own race tactics and their own training tactics. And I just want to start by talking about the fact that I'm loving watching the way the format of the Ironman series and the T100 series are now formulated being a points system where athletes get points rewards for. So basically first place gets 5,000 points in Ironman, et cetera and it's accrued their top five races for the year. Because what we're really seeing, especially after last year, is athletes having to really pick carefully what races they enter. Unless you can wurf and you enter every single one. But what ends up happening is you set your plan for the year and a lot of athletes will pick five to six key races. But something I've noticed this year is that they set their plan for the year but then something goes wrong in race one, they didn't get the result they want. In some cases athletes had a puncture, they, they got sick, they were injured and then that then changes their decision for the rest of the year. And it's this, it's really interesting game to watch where athletes having to reconsider and if you're too rigid in your planning and you're not willing to be flexible for stuff that can go wrong. If you just pick five races, you've only got five races to get right. If something goes wrong, that's a little bit out of your control in those races or it's in your control, you just didn't race the way you want to. Your series for the year is down the drain. So yeah, it's been really interesting to see some big mistakes happening early on and athletes having to readjust their season. And that's hard to manage as an athlete.

And also what is your goal? Is your goal to accumulate points to get prize money or are you aiming for a world championship event like the world titles at Ironman or Half Ironman or the Olympics Olympic distance races? So you know, you've got to be really quite strategic in, in the event events and races you're, you've put yourself down for. And obviously if you're basing it on points or just individual successes, it's almost like as a cyclist I want to just win the one day stages or I want to win a tour. So I kind of equate it to that. You know, the triathletes now have got this, this general classification across five events or do they just want to target the one race and make that their be all and end all and use the other races as age groupers do, you know, just pick events that they can use as stepping stones to, to reach their goal. A race in six months or 12 months time. And I think, I think there's a bit of a dilemma for the pro triathletes who are trying to earn a living trying to get certain standing in the sport. And you only get that by winning races or podium or accumulation of finances by doing well at a lot of, a lot of races. So there's a lot of decisions they have to make about what is my year. And we, we, we picked this last year. We actually said this on the podcast last year. This is going to be really interesting to watch how the triathletes of, of the world, the professional triathletes haven't had much experience at this and there'll be a lot of lessons to learn, a lot of mistakes made and, and you know, in hindsight I should have done this, I shouldn't have done that race. And yeah, it's going to be intriguing to watch, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. And some things I'm noticing early on is, is it gives such a good chance for a deeper field of athletes to have their kind of time in the spotlight and you turn up to a World Champs event and you can kind of predict potentially the top five, top eight or top ten because the favorites are all there. And unless something goes glaringly wrong, which does happen in at the Ironman World Champs very often for sure. But for all these minor races happening throughout the year, anyone can win, anyone can get themselves two and a half thousand or five thousand points and climb that leaderboard, which is really, really good. And what we're seeing across both the men's and women's fields is, is such a less dominance from the major athletes all the time. And I think that's because the, the fields are spread quite thin. But I think a really good example I want to touch on was recently at ironman Texas. Taylor ne just looked unbelievable and unbeatable, especially across the 70.3 distance. And granted she, I think she's only done two Ironmans now, but she went out on the bike and rode the fastest bike split ever for a female and an Ironman. And that is her strength. Um, but what was more impressive for me was Kat Matthews also rode the bike record but because she was in the same race as Taylor Nib, she doesn't get it, you know, so she's ridden the second Fastest bike split ever. But just this experience and history. They both got off the bike and cat ran 15 minutes faster than Taylor. Um, to ride that speed and that aggressive and then to run a 2:49 off the bike, which is the fifth fastest run all time by a female, that was pretty awesome to watch. And you know, it's, it's going to be really interesting to see that this series and Taylor newb is so dominant. 70.3, but it's a 70.3 in Ironman series. And to see Kat with, I think it was the third or fastest just I am ever in the women's category. Yeah, that was just a really, really interesting result to me because a lot of the times a Lucy will turn up or a Taylor, Taylor will turn up and you'll just think, oh, they've got this win and Kat Matthews is in that category as well. But to see her bike that aggressively and run a 249 off it, she's doing something really, really correct in her training.

And there's also a lot of, as you said, a lot more opportunities for the lesser known triathletes to start to get podiums and get top 10 places in events where, you know, the pros, the pros who are, who are the ones we know. In the last five, six years, you know, the standard male and female triathletes have been winning the small amount of races that are available now. There's a, there's pretty much triple the amount of races. So, so the fields are going to be thin down. So you're not going to have races where there's, there's 45 pros in it that and 20 of them are a chance to win. You know, you've got races where there might only be 15 pros or, or 9 pros in some of the less, less known races. And so it gives, it gives a lot of the new professional triathletes an opportunity to, to race for a win. And I think that's a, I think that's a great thing to, to make, build the sport where people can aspire to be professional at it. And, and the more opportunities we have through more events, I think that's, that's only a good thing.

You mentioned at the start of the episode, the thing of trusting the process and sticking with the plan. And there's three examples we want to talk about right now that have just stood out like anything we've ever seen in the last month. And look, we spoke a few weeks ago on the podcast about Wildfire Spring Classic season And we said it was. It's been really hard to watch. It's been really, you know, as, as big fans of him. It's been really difficult to see him just not get there. And, and he, he came. His last six Spring Classic results were 2nd, 2nd, 4th, 4th, 2nd, 4th. It was just. And the most heartbreaking one was when they were. It was. I can't remember if it was two or three Yambo riders against one, and they mucked it up and he didn't win the sprint. And that was just a dagger to the heart where you cannot lose that race, especially if you're wet by now. You cannot. And he lost it and they mucked it up and it was hard to watch. But we spoke on. The point is, we spoke on the podcast about the fact that, you know, the expectations on him to come back so early after his crash last year in the Vuelta and return to the same champion form that he's been in previous years, where he's the best cyclist in the world. We thought that was unfair. And the lesson we were trying to tell people is that you've got to be patient and that you can get your form back, but don't expect it straight away. Don't expect us to immediately return. And the, and the, the pressure from the media and the fans was too much for him. And I'm so glad we said that because Stage nine, Jira to tell you, he comes out and finally he came second on stage one in a sprint. That's just got to hurt your mindset. And he comes out in stage nine and. Far out. What a performance. And I will say we did a separate video on this, so we're only going to spend a little bit of time talking about this right now. We did a whole 15 minute video on this on our YouTube channel because it was so good after the stage, so you can go watch that if you want our full breakdown, but we are stage nine, dad. That was just trusting the process to get back to your form.

And it was ironic, Jordan, that all the other events that he had the expectation that he wanted to win, and in stage nine, he actually set out about helping his teammates hold GC position. And sometimes when you're least expecting success, it comes your way. And sometimes that could be because you're putting too much pressure on yourself. But the point that we're trying to make is if you stay with the process and trust everything you've done to get you to be the champion that you are in the last five or six years, you know, of course you filter and manipulate the program to make it better and better. But, you know, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You just have to trust that what you've done before will get you back there again and stick with that and be confident that that will work. And I think I'm so happy that we mentioned this before previously, that you just wait. He will win again. And wow, what a victory it was. I think it was. You know, I've never seen him so emotional about a race. And it's, you know, I don't want to say this flippantly. It's only a stage in a, in a Grand Tour. You know, hardly anybody can do that. But, but for him, he's won a lot of stages in Grand Tours, he's won a lot of races. He's won 50 races. And for him to be so emotional in this one race for me was, that was how much it really meant to him and the way he won, you know, just to hang in there. And he was probably the second best rider on the day or third best rider, or maybe he was the fifth best rider. He certainly wasn't the best rider, but he was, he was the best all round rider because he won. And I think trusting the process and backing himself in when it counted most, making the moves when it counted most, making good decisions when it counted most. These are all the things we talk about on our podcast for the age group. And the reason we bring this up is so that you can think like that. We want you to think like, I know what works, just stick with it and there'll be highs and lows. But if you abandon it because you're not getting the success that you want and you know that you've got there before, it should be a lot easier for you to go back and trust it again. When people are starting something new and they haven't experienced that, it's easy for them to go. This isn't working. And so you get a lot of people chopping and changing from program to program and not sure about what they really want instead of giving something a really good go. And you know, this is a great example of someone. And we did talk about POG getting injured last, last year and you know, injury, and all of a sudden he's come through. But so we've, we're just giving many examples of how this works and, and I think that's the message and it was so exciting to see what it means to him to win that race.

And we're, we're a fair Few stages on from that now, and, and you know, they basically, him and del Toro came into the last kilometer, if you didn't see it, neck and neck. And del Toro is now leading the Giro d' Italia and. And is shaping up to be one of the strongest riders. A very surprise package. Young rider who's a gun climber, but no one knew how seriously he could contend for the overall gc. But looking back now, they come into this last kilometer where it's up the. Up the steep 13, 16 Cobble climb. And the amount that wout Bernard had to dig deep to hang on to him. In hindsight, now that a few days has passed, is even more impressive, because to watch Del Toro climb right now in the following stages and see how good he is, he's up there with the best climbers in the world, and Van Out's a great climber, but he's not. He's not on that level. And so to see how dig he. How deep he had to dig to hang on to Del Toro, up that climb, he was. The band almost snapped. You know, he lost a meter and he was just digging in there, digging in there and just made it over the top. And then had then the strength because del Toro had turned himself inside out to drop Bernard. And then I had the strength to come over the top of him and then sprint past him for the, for the win at the very top of the stage and then just let out that emotion. That was the emotion of six to eight months of pain and disappointment and pressure and second places and fourth places and, and 15th places even, and, and not a win. To see him just let out that emotion was quite incredible.

Yeah. And even the sporting stage, Jordan, where he led his teammate out to the sprint victory, you know, he's such a team man and, and he's such a humble person. To see him have that emotion was. Was quite, quite a. You could see how much it meant to him. It was pretty impressive.

In other quick news, Australian football or soccer coach, depending on where you are around the world, Ange Postecoglou has led Tottenham to their first trophy in 17 years and first European trophy in 43 years. And we've spoken about him on the podcast before, and we're just so proud because he's an Aussie. But we spoke about him because of this same message of trusting the process. And mid January, his job was on the line. He was about to get axed with the amount of pressure and cruel attitude from the media and fans calling for his head about his performances and he more than anyone, stuck to his guns and stood strong to what he believed in for what was going to bring them success. And this is a club that hasn't won anything for 17 years across many, many opportunities. And he said himself, better managers and better players have come through this club. But I'm sticking to what I know to bring us success. And against all odds, won the European trophy, the European cup on Wednesday morning. That was just unbelievable to watch. And again, if you can stick to your values when you've got that much external noise coming at you, then you can almost do anything. And we're talking about trust the process. When you've got people telling you that this is the best thing for you, you just have to trust the process. So what an awesome week in Aussie sport. Yeah.

And look, you would be within your rights to second guess yourself because your performances aren't good enough. And that's when you start to re evaluate am I doing the right things here? And because he's had huge success, successes in his whole career, that's what he was really digging deep on, I think. And as athletes we should think the same. Look, I've done this before. I might be going through a rough patch right now, but I have to really stay strong here and don't wilt. And you know, you create this aura almost of if I believe it, you all should come along with me. I'm like the Pied Piper. Just follow me into paradise and I'll give you the result that you want. But we all have to stick together here. We all have to believe. And I think, I think that management of his, of his group was, was outstanding. Even though there's sort of two things for people who don't know how it works. The, the local competition that you're in is a home and away games over, over the season and then they have these cup games which are, which are trying to select the best, best club in Europe and, and that means a lot. It's, it's like, you know, as an American winning the world, the World Baseball Series or, or the basketball, you know, championship or the, or the, or the gridiron football title. You know, that's how much it means to, to these clubs. And it's huge money for, for them to, to win this for their, for their club. And, and he's got this pressure from the media telling him how his system sucks and then he's crap as a coach and, and they'll never win anything. And, and you know, you start to hear all that noise and you really start to question yourself. But, boy, did he say, stay strong. And, and he did say this statement, which I didn't like at the time. I always win a trophy in my second season as a manager. And he said that literally four months ago. And, you know, their performances in their local league has been really horrible. And, and he still managed to get himself through these cup rounds all the way to the final. And it turns out that he wins the final, wins the trophy, and, and, you know, he has the last laugh, really. But I just want to get that message of, you know, when you're doubting yourself, just remember, trust the process, stand strong. And of course, if, if, you know, you need to change and adapt if things are, you know, obviously not working the right way. But, you know, this is just an example of when we know things do work well, that, you know, you have to go back to your, your, your basics.

I think, yeah, it's, it's why we use data so much, because we say to our athletes coming into race day, especially when they're doubting their ability or they're deep in the race and they're wondering, can I hold this? And we always say, remember, you've done this in training. You've proven. And this is why getting the training right is so important. But we. You've proven this, that you can do this, this, These numbers in training. So believe that on race day. And that gives them a lot of comfort, because if you've never done it before and you're. You're trying to reach for something that you haven't done before, then it's natural to have those doubts because, yeah, you've never done it. But we race our athletes to the, to the data they've proven they can do. And so you just need to reach into that, that metaphorical cookie jar of, of positive results that you've had in the past and reach in, grab that memory of what you've done before and then use that for your motivation. And the last example I want to use is our favorite man, Lionel. We spoke fairly critically of him after the Ironman World Champs. We never speak critically of his effort and determination. He's one of the best personalities on YouTube. And we're never coming from a place of we know better. We're just commenting on what we're provided in terms of information, because that's all we can do. We don't have all the data and information. We're just giving our opinion. And a lot of the frustration with his decisions this year were around the fact that he Keeps chopping and changing things and not sticking to the process and seeing them out. And I will say he had one of the best wins of his, I think his career last week, winning St. George 70.3. And to do it in the fashion that he's done, I just. The way he was talking and the way he's approached the training since those times months ago has actually been a really great turnaround and really, really impressive. And I think he's been asking himself really brilliant questions and, and he coaches himself now. And we were critical of him just jumping around again. He just said, no, I know what to do and I need to just stick to it. I know what works. I need to stick to it. And that is true. But he has said that same thing for the last few years, but not actually followed through on that. Whereas this time I think he's following through on that. But the way he talks about his decision making reminds me of how you talk about your pro days and what you needed to do to, to train well and race well. And you basically, in the 80s, decided that if, okay, if I want to compete at Kona, I need to move to this location in Victoria where there's the most hills and I need to ride around these hills, get the most strength. I need to run around these hills to get the most strength. I need to run for these times in order to be competitive, to be able to perform nine hours for the Ironman at Hawaii, which is what the world champions were doing. You know, that was your logical thought process and that's a really, really impressive way to train. And he was asking the same thing, Lionel. He was saying, what do I need to do to win these races? You know, know. He's saying, what power do I need to be able to push? What pace do I need to be able to run off the bike? And he started training to those numbers. And that's actually, you know, quite intelligent. If your ability's not there, that's not going to help you because your, your ambition ability is going to be, you know, too far off and you're going to burn yourself out. But he was right there. So it was a smart way to think. And, but it wasn't just that. He was doing so many specific things. Like he's asking myself, okay, I feel like I'm really slow in the water at the start. What do I need to do? Well, I need a bit of warmup. So he improved his warmup routine. He said, actually, I'm actually quite slow in the first 100 meters at the Start. I'm off the back of the pack already. So he did 10 practiced ocean water starts the week of the race where he went out and practiced getting out of the blocks quick so he wasn't dropped immediately. He knows he's going to get dropped eventually, but it doesn't need to have to be the first a hundred meters. He started using feel on the bike more. And we talk about this a lot. That stick to your power for sure, but get a better sense of not being a robot and using your body as guidance for what you can achieve. So he's done all these little things, and just the way he was talking, you can start to see why he's putting things really well together now and getting back on track to his best career form.

Yeah, and it's. It's no different to what we profess on this podcast is understand the requirements of the race. And that's how we coach. We're trying to get each athlete to really understand particular event that they're doing, whether it's a marathon run or an ocean swim or a triathlon or a cycling gran fondo. Understand the requirements of that event and then train accordingly. And once you find out where your level is, then race at that level on race day. It sounds very simple, doesn't it? But, boy, can we complicate it in this world. We really put a spin on it. Everybody's sort of confused. It's information overload. And that's really how you should be actually training and preparing for races, is identify what you need, go and practice that, learn where your level is and execute it on race day. And that's simply what he's actually doing now. And that's where the most successful people around the world, no matter what sport you do, if they can actually identify what the requirements are, then you can go about getting yourself prepared properly for that upcoming event.

All right, moving on to the main topic, which is talking about the indoor trainer and some crucial mistakes you might be making, which is actually hindering your progress and not helping you be a better cyclist, whether you're a triathlete or cyclist. And so we're go through some of these key ones, and there's 10 here. So they're not that complicated, but they're really, really important to mention. And the first one, and we see this a lot, and it's a little pet peeve of ours, is people put a different bike on their trainer that they want to race in. The reason that people do that is they don't want to potentially wreck their bike or something to go wrong when it's on the trainer, they want to keep their bike nice and clean and fresh or just convenience that they want to keep their racing bike for outdoors. But you need to train with the bike you're racing on. It's that simple.

Replicate what's going to happen on race day is just what we finished off with in the previous discussion five minutes ago. And so we want to actually replicate what's going to happen on race day. And if you're going to ride a different bike, that's actually not replicating what's going to happen on race day. So you need to, you know, there would be some occasions where someone would have exactly the same bike, identical geometry, identical setup. That would be a rare occasion. Most people have an old clunker of a bike on their trainer and they have got their really great racing bike machine to train on outside. So what we want to do is practice on the same bike the whole time. And if you've got a different geometry, you could be working the muscles slightly different indoor. And imagine if you trained 90% of your time indoor and only trained 10% outdoor, you could actually get your muscles developed in a slightly different way. So when you come to to ride outdoor on your race ready sessions or in your actual race, you could find you're using slightly different muscles because your bike setup is completely different. You could be, you know, obviously using a different power meter on that same bike. So there's so many reasons why this is such a bad idea. And the positive thing is, you know, you should get used to putting your actual race bike on and off the trainer. That will get you into the routine of how quickly you can change your wheel if you do get a puncture in a race or something mechanically goes wrong. If you're not adapt at actually taking the bike on, taking the wheels on and off your bike, then that's some skill you actually need to learn. And by, by taking your bike from outdoor to indoor back to outdoor all the time, you will get really good at it. It takes me literally 30 seconds to take my back wheel off, put it onto the trainer and away I go. And then I ready to go outside, I do the exact, the same opposite, you know, take it off the kicker and put the wheel back in and off I go. And that's a skill you should, you should learn.

It can sound a little bit silly saying, you know, oh, there might be some slight muscle variation, but we know from the fact that every time someone gets a bike fit, and even if it's a minor adjustment up to a major adjustment when they get a proper bike fit. We know that has a huge change in what the athlete can push, power wise. So often an athlete will get a bike fit and we retest them straight away and their watts might be 5, 10, 15 or 20 watts lower for a 20 minute FTP test because it's a different position, cycling is different to running or, or you might just think, you know, it's a bike, it's going to be the same. It's not that slight difference impacts a lot and it can take our athletes sometimes, sometimes only a couple of weeks, but sometimes 4, 6, 8, 12 weeks to get their power back in a slightly different position. So if you're riding one way on the indoor trainer and then you go out to race, you're not going to have that same muscle specificity. So it's a really, really important point. The next part, and you touched on that kind of in point one is, is what power meter are you using on the indoor trainer? And counterintuitively, even though we've got these smart trainers that can now track power, we don't want to use them, we don't want to use the trainer power ever. Always use the power from your bike for consistency.

We are absolutely adamant. This is one of my biggest bugbears is people having two different power numbers. So oh yeah, I've got my indoor trainer number and it's 25 watts lower than my, my race number. Why would you do that to yourself? You just need to use one number and you've got to train to that one number indoor and outdoor. So come race day, you're not confused about what is this my trainer number or is this my, my time trial bike number? You need to have the same consistency across all training sessions. And so it is super important that you know, you and I as examples, you know, your old kicker used to read I think 20 watts higher than your bike trainer than your bike power meter. And mine read 10 watts lower than my bike power meter. So there's a 30 watt difference across the sample size of two. So we don't have anybody that we coach. I'm talking 100%. We don't have anybody that we coach has the same power number on their trainer as they do on their bike power. It's always 1 or 2 watts or 3 watts or 5 or 10 or up to 20 in your case. So why put yourself through that having two different numbers? You just need to work and train to the 1 number. And that's the thing you need to set up. Get that right. Don't use the trainer power number because as I always say to people, if you could use the smart trainer's power meter in the race, then I'd say, okay, train to that smart trainer power meter because that's what you're going to use on race day. But you're not, you're not going to use the smart trainer. You're going to use your bike power meter. So train with your bike power meter at all times.

Yeah, it's difficult enough to have your TT bike and then have your outdoor number versus your indoor number because most people can ride slightly different power outdoor to indoor. Then to add a trainer power in there as well just makes it even more confusing. So just always use the same power meter where it's power pedals or your crank power all the time. And for anyone wondering when you log into something like Zwift, you still want to use the resistance of the trainer. That's the purpose of having a smart trainer like that where you can ride a virtual course. But just when you're selecting what power you're going to use, select your bike power. Keep the resistance as the trainer use. Use your bike power the next one. We talk about this a lot. We still get the same question very frequently and we're just going to lay it out really simply. Here is a mistake is riding to Erg mode. And there's so many very key simple reasons why this is a bad idea. A is that you can't have Erg mode when you go to a race. So people say, but it holds me to good power. You need to be able to hold that power yourself. If you can't, that's a problem. So that's point A. The argument people say against that is, well, I will get more value out of the session if it forces me to hold a certain power. Again, if you can't hold that power, that's an issue. But also what power is it getting to you to hold? You know, the reason that we give a range of power in a session is because on Sundays you might be able to push higher and some days you might be able to push lower. So whatever you set the bike to put you at, let's say you're doing five by five minutes at 190 to 210 watts, it's going to hold you at 200. What if you feel like pushing 210 that day? You're missing out on gains. And what if you're too tired to push 200 and you're pushing your body beyond what it needs that day. That's kind of a major problem. But the other part is the range is there because we are humans that are varying all the time. And so you need the ability to adjust what power you're doing throughout the session, just like you would on a race, and to be held at one constant power. How the hell is a machine going to be able to tell you what the best power for you that day is? One specific number. It's just not possible.

There's a whole lot of things I can add to that. And look, the one thing is, if, again, if you were able to use Erg mode on race day, then we would kind of say that's a good thing to practice. But again, it's not available to us. It does hold you at a good cadence and forces you to do that, and it holds you at the mid range of your power range. But as you've said with those examples, that's not actually what we want to do. But one of the key things is cadence. It'll do the same as it does with power, hold you to the middle. The example you gave was 190 to 210. In the middle of 190 to 210, power is 200. If we gave you a range on the cadence of 90 to 100 RPM, it'll hold you at 95. So if we're trying to do some strength efforts, you know it'll do the same. If I give you a 60 to 75 range, it'll hold you at 67. Instead of letting you have the option of riding at 60 or 67 or 72 or 75. So it's actually controlling you for power, and it's controlling you for cadence. Two things that you need to get good at so that when you race, you're in control. And if you're letting a machine do that for you day in, day out, you don't get to practice how to ride cadence differently. You're letting a machine control you, and you don't get to practice where to ride in the range. When you go to a race, there's hills, there's headwind, there's tailwind. The machine's just holding you at a constant power. You need the ability to ride at different power numbers according to the terrain of your race or the wind on your race. You need to be riding at different cadence numbers. So it's not allowing you to learn how to ride cadence, which is pressure on the pedals. And we see this example, and all of the new people we come in contact with who've come from riding Erg mode, they are so lost how to ride cadence and power together. When they do our training sessions, they are unable able to do the training sessions because they're so used to being held at a particular cadence and a particular power. When they've got this freedom to do whatever they like, they can't do it. And so this is the reason why we just don't ever want to use it. We want to make sure we're practicing what happens on race day in our training sessions.

And what ends up happening is it prioritizes power. So it will just hold you at 200 watts. In this example, we keep using no matter what. And so if you're struggling to hold it, you start grinding away because it'll just keep increasing the resistance so that you are holding 200 watts. But if you're not capable, what ends up happening is the cadence keeps dropping and dropping and dropping until you're just grinding away at 50 RPM, at 4, 40 RPM. Because the machine kind of goes, if you're going to pedal this slow, we need to increase the resistance to get 200 watts out of this. And it just becomes an absolutely ridiculous session. So if you've ever had that happen, it's because. It's because the watts are set too high for you and you can't hold it. And that's the danger of erg mode.

We do call it the spiral of death. And you know, that doesn't happen when you do it out of erg mode. You know, you're completely. If you find that you're struggling on a day, you can ride lower power and lower cadence if you want to, because you're in control of the day. And that's what's going to happen on race day. Remember, replicate what's going to happen on race day using the power meter from the trainer and using Erg mode from the trainer. They're two nos.

And this leads us to mistake four, which is you should know if you're on erg mode or not. And if there's no variability, if you're watching your data correctly, you know, if you're. If you're looking at your data and paying attention properly, you should be able to see what your instant power is versus your power for that lap. And the mistake that a lot of people make is they're not looking at their data properly. They're just kind of looking at maybe the instant power on the screen and not really realizing or not paying any attention to the data at all. And that brings us to our next point, which is probably one of the most common mistakes on the trainer and one of the biggest things we see which is really holding you back from having the most effective training session you can. And that is what data screen are you looking at and what power are you looking at? So if it's on erg mode, you should be looking at whether it's Zwift or any other training app. The instant power on the screen, which is what most people look at or the three second power, is just showing you what your wattage is in real time. If you're on erg mode, that should, in this example, just be showing 200 the whole time. And that's a clear indication to you that you're in erg mode because it's holding you right there. There might be slight variations. I don't even, I don't use erg mode. So I actually don't know if it does vary between 198 and 202 or not, depending on your slight pressure. But do you know the answer?

It actually sits you. It sits you in the middle. Jordan, if Your range was 190 to 200, it'll sit you at 1, at 200.

Yes, yes. But in instant time, is it actually, you know, because it's because the trainer has to catch up to your resistance if you can keep up with the trainer or not. So is it fluctuating between you 198 and 202, but keeping you at 200? I think it is, yeah. Yeah. But the point is a lot of people are just looking at the instant power. And if you're doing a five minute effort, you know, your session is five by five minutes and in those five minute efforts, you're supposed to be holding between 190 and 210. Most people are just looking at the instant power and seeing if it's around 200 and assuming that they're holding around 200. But what's happening if you're not in erg mode? Let's get that mistake out of the way. What's happening is you might be at 210, then 190, then 215, then 200, 195, 185. And it kind of looks like in real time that you're averaging 200. But unless you've got the average lap power on your screen to tell you what the average of that section is of that lap, quote unquote lap, that five minute effort. You've got no idea if you're actually in the range or not. You might look like you're in the range, but you might, if you had lap power up, it would say that you're actually averaging 178 right now, or 176 or 186. And you're 20 watts lower than what you should be for the effort and losing out on that. And we can't tell you how many people aren't looking at lap average power. They're just using instant power. And it's, it's a blind way of writing. You actually might as well not not be looking at it because you're just having to wait till the end of the session to see what your averages were. If you're looking at your data, that is anyway, so, so the, the, the misuse or the non use of lap average power is one of the biggest mistakes we see that, that cyclists are really at a disadvantage if they're not looking at that.

Oh, there's so much to unpack on this one. It's my biggest bugbear. And let's just make it plain and simple. If you're just looking at instant or 3 second as you @ the example you gave instead of the lap average for that particular segment of your training session, you are at best guessing and you're not mathematically, and neither am I that intelligent that we can average it out in our head by what we're seeing over five minutes where it fluctuates high and low. We just can't do that. We, we're not a computer. And that's what the lap average is for. It tells us at the 43 second mark of that 5 minutes or the 1 minute 17 or at the 4 minute 32 mark. If you can just look down at your bike screen, it'll tell you what you've averaged for that last 4 minute 30. And that's the thing that you should be looking at. And this is what we want you to do on race day. Remember, replicate anything that happens on race day in training. So get used to looking at what your lap average for that last. When you're out on race day, you come to a U turn, you start accelerating the bike back in the other direction. You should get back in the TT position, then you should push lap, get rid of what you've just done. Now you're starting with a new lap. That's what you do in a race. So then you'll be looking at what you're averaging for that next segment. Whether it's 30 kilometres or three kilometres before you do your next turn, we're talking about things you do in training that you should take into race day. And obviously the requirements of race day you should take back into training. So if you're just looking at instant power, that's the goal of instant power, is to stop you riding outside of the range above and below. So if Your range is 210 and 190, the goal of instant power, that's why we have it on the screen, is so that you don't see a 230 or 250 or 270 or you see a 110 or a 150 or 160. That's what the goal of instant power is. The goal of lap power is to guide you through that five minute effort to make sure you're in the range. And if you're not glancing down at your bike computer's lap average power for that five minute segment, again, you're riding blind. So at the end of the, say you're doing the five by five, at the end of the first five minute effort, if you actually know what you've just done for that five minute effort, then you can make a decision about what you're going to do for the next four. But if you've actually just done that five minute effort looking at instant power, you're really blind about what just happened with your average power. You might know that it felt hard or it felt comfortable or it felt easy. It's one of those three scenarios. But if you actually look at the lap power, you'll come into the next segment knowing that, well, that was 192, that felt okay. Maybe I can push lap average power for 194 for the next five minute effort. And that's the value of digging deep and paying attention to your training session. And I don't think anybody really is digging that deep. Here's my session today. You've got five by five and I just go through it looks like I'm in the ranges and I don't know what happened until I finish the session. And then I, I might look at my training session, I might just go on with my day. And so at any given point, you're not really in tune with what you've, how well you've trained, how detailed you've trained. And that is the biggest difference from the people in our program who are hugely successful, from the people who are also in the program who are not getting the gains that the others in the program are. And it's about attention to detail. And this is a huge aspect of training that people are missing.

One of the biggest mistakes, certainly, and that's mistake number four. And mistake number five is something you just mentioned. In that mistake there was getting to the TT position. And this is, this applies to triathletes and cyclists doing time trials more than just general cyclists. But if you're on a time trial bike, you need to be doing your sessions and as most of the session and most of your sessions in the TT position. Now some caveats to that is to be careful that if you're not used to it, being on the trainer in TT position is a really locked and fixed position. And so that's one of the few things we see causing injuries on the bike because there's no movement like you get on the road. That's why the kicker rockers have come out and are quite popular. But you want to be training yourself and practicing, spending more and more time in the TT position because once again, exactly what you just said, that's what you're doing on race day. So there's no point doing a training session up, sitting up. Cause you can push more power, not in the TT position on the bike. Cause that doesn't help you on race day. So we've spoken about this before, but make sure you're spending as much, if not majority of the time in a TT position on the trainer.

And also, Jord, are you using the same bike that you're gonna race on? You know, I've got so many examples of people, you know, I'm trying to work out why they can't hit their numbers. And it turns out they're riding a completely different bike with a completely different power meter than they're racing on. And so that's a huge mistake. And so, you know, that's what we, that's what we talked about in point number one. But the TT position is really important that you, you maintain that position in testing on race day because it's the fastest aerodynamic position you can ride in. And also, you know, you, you are going to push more power if you sit up. We know that if you sit up, your hip angle has got the ability to push far more, greater force because it's open. The minute you go into a TT aerodynamic position, your hip angle closes and it's harder to push more power. So you've got to simulate the position you're going to test in and race in in your training session. And we've got people testing sitting up. And then when they go to do the training session. When we make them in the TT position, we've ask them to be in the TT position for the testing as well. But they go to train and they can't hit the numbers because they, they want it. They were so fixated on the, the actual 20 minute power number that they would do anything, they would stand up or they would sit up as high as they could so they could get more leverage to push more power. And that's actually not what we're trying to do. We're trying to train and test and race the same way. So you need to get used to that TT position. Your ligaments, your tendons, your huge muscle groups, the small muscle groups, the minute muscle groups, they are going to be getting used to you pushing and exerting force in a certain position. And then when you run off the bike you are, you know, you've got this six or, or six year or six month or six week period where you have actually been in this position now and your, your running will be determined by the position you sit in because that's going to have an impact. I've got examples of people sitting in a different position and then trying to run and they can't run properly because they've ridden in a different position than they've been accustomed to. So all of these things have a flow on effect. So you've got to really nail this number five, be in the TT position.

And we actually. And you. Yeah, that is such a brilliant explanation. And we did speak about that in point one. And for those listening, we actually had a huge power outage halfway through recording the episode. So this is actually our second go at it. And so I can't remember how in detail we went into that in terms of mistake one to one, mistake number one, talking about a different bike to your racing bike and it ties into, you know, being in TT position. But the point remains the same. We hammer this home because the amount of people that resist this with us that they don't like, they either tell us after an FTP test that they were tired and so they, they got out of the TT position and, and sat up to push more power or they were using a different bike does astound us because we say we don't care what power you can push sitting up. You know, you, you might feel satisfied because you got an extra 7 watts and that's a good ego boost. But that's, that data is now relevant to us because we don't care what you can push sitting up. You're not going to be sitting up in the race, you're going to be in the TT position. So that's really, really important point for us. The next mistake is course selection. We speak a lot about course selection outside, but it matters just as much on the trainer because whatever app that you use, sometimes you can. And in the case of Zwift, if you choose a specific session, a structured session, it takes whatever course you choose, it takes away the gradient. And so you're just doing the effort, which is really helpful when you want to control environment. But sometimes you want that and sometimes you don't. So understanding when a control controlled environment is good versus days where you want changes in gradient, where you can practice writing against different undulations, getting that right is really, really important.

Yeah, it's a. People don't really think about indoor as the course is important. And normally that's because most people just load the training peak session that's being created by us as a coaching group and it just gets automatically transferred onto the Zwift screen. And doesn't matter what course you select on Zwift, if you load the trainingpeak session, the course gradient is nullified. But if you don't load the trainingpeak session onto Zwift and just load it onto your bike computer, then you can select a course that might have variations in terrain, which is what we want you to get practiced at. And as you said, there's two types of training. One where we don't want you to do that and just concentrate on even power. And then as you get a little bit more advanced, we want you to start practicing changing gears and going uphill and downhill and over crests and flat sections, which is what happens on race day. So there is almost an area where you're trying to go from the basic training model to level one to level two. And really, course selection on an app, an indoor app, really is getting closer to what happens in the real world, where you have to change gears a lot and you have to adjust your pressure on the pedal so that you're in the ranges that you're supposed to be in. And so just like outdoors, if you select the wrong course where you're supposed to be riding high power and it's a five minute downhill stretch, it's really hard to match the power when you select the wrong course because you can't push enough power because you're going downhill. So if you're supposed to be in a recovery section of your particular session and you're on an 18% climb, you're not going to, you're not going to have a recovery period. So that's the extreme examples of giving you of what the course selection can actually do. Sabotage your own actual training session. So you need to think clearly about what are the requirements of this session and where is the best place to do it. Is it best to do indoors and select a course that's got some rolling hills or is it best to do outdoors where I've got no interruptions and I can deal with the temperature and the wind? So course selection has a lot of at stake about what you're doing, whether you choose indoor for a start or outdoor. And what are you doing? Are you using a nullified course or are you using course where it's got variation? So it is really, really so important that you start to nut that out. And as you get closer to your race, you should try your best to actually get practice that changing gears indoors if you're going to use that method of training.

Yeah, for sure. And this is quite specific advice to when you're on the indoor trainer and you're using one of the smart apps where you're actually riding a longer course and we've spoken about the huge value in, you know, using something like full gas where you can actually ride the Ironman courses around the world and get used to what the gradients are like on there and that is super, super value. But you wouldn't do a VO2 max session where you're doing one minute hard, one minute easy on necessarily undulating course because like you just said, if you have your hard period on a downhill, it's really hard to push the power you need to get into that VO2 max zone. So that's where the differentiation is. And the next mistake is along the same lines where if you're in an app where you can race like Zwift again, racing too much is a really, really big mistake. We see on the indoor trainer where it's super fun for sure to get on and do a 20 or 30 minute crit and there's huge, huge value in that, make no mistake. But just like riding in the same bunch ride four times a week outdoors is a big mistake. Just doing the same Zif races over and over each week is also a really big mistake.

Yeah, there's more that we want to get out of the training session. We don't. You know, the majority of time you go into a Zwift race or an event, you're going to be asked for periods to do really hard when you come to a hill, you're, you're riding almost VO2, you know, zone six. And then that might be an easy period where you're, you're riding, you know, downhill and you're literally in zone two. And if that's the goal of your session, fantastic. But it's really quite unpredictable type of riding. And sometimes that's good too, if that's part of the program that your coach wants you to do. But generally we want to use these high intensity training blocks where we're actually doing specific structured sessions, because we know that if I look at the data on one of these races, and I do this all the time, I look at a lot of the data that people have used in a race compared to what they should have been doing if they were doing a VO2 set. And so they might have eight or nine sections of 30 seconds where they've ridden in the VO2 area, whereas our training sessions ask them to do it 30 times. And so they're not getting enough of the right areas in that training session. Sure, it was a hard race, but they're actually not getting what we want. And if you wanted to do that style of race and it's not part of your block of training, then that's fine. But I'm talking about when you're in the middle of a training block, if you're using as with race as your almost core session, it's actually not probably going to give you the improvement you need.

Yeah, that's such a brilliant point. And it's such a really, really smart way of coaching is, is to, yeah, look at, that's what we're doing in VO2 sessions. We're trying to accumulate a total volume at VO2 work. And so it's really good to look at a race and see, oh, how much work did you actually spend in that zone? Was it a hard race or not? You know, and that's, that's a really, really good way of analyzing a race. Mistake number eight is for, you know, thinking about the indoor trainer, a big mistake is only using the trainer. And if you're planning on doing any sort of racing outside, just doing all your training on the trainer is not going to bode well for when it comes to race day. And this is another mistake. We see where people can get comfortable on the trainer during winter or a certain period of the year when it's your only choice, obviously you have no other option. But for a lot of our Northern hemisphere athletes, the moment they can ride outside, we're encouraging them to ride outside. And we'll even think about adjusting the sessions and change the session we want to give so that it's suitable for outdoors. Because they need to start practicing that execution, that pressure on the pedals and riding in the ranges and the power outdoor, because you can be a master of the indoor trainer, but if you just do indoor training, you'll get outside and you won't know how to ride.

Yeah, it's such a good point and it almost aligns with the previous points that we've been making. There are a lot of examples around the world where people can't train for more than two months out of 12 months outside. So, so we have to come up with some scenarios where you are getting real world experience rather than virtual world. And so we, as we said before, you can go on full gas as another app and you, you can use Zwift where you don't load the training peak session for repeating myself. But that's what you should be doing. You should be doing a combination. So if you know that you're going to spend so much time indoors, you shouldn't be doing as a lab experiment where there's no changes in gradient. You need to do a free ride where you're actually getting exposed to changing gears. And that will make sure that if you're only able to ride on the trainer, you're getting that real world experience indoor. And so that's the point that we're making here. It can be a huge mistake just jumping on the trainer and just doing training peaks sessions that are loaded onto the, onto the app and not getting any variation in terrain. And that's just not true in any race. That does not happen. There is no race in the world that's pancake flat. That has no. That has no. Some races only have a hundred or 200ft of elevation or 200 meters of climbing, but they're still not flat. There's dips and troughs where you have pressure off, pressure on, and you have to keep adjusting that. So if you're just used to the constant resistance of the trainer without any variation, you'll be very good at just having constant resistance. But what happens when the wind changes or the gradient goes dips or rises? You are just lost. And, you know, those of you been practicing this outdoors understand exactly what we're talking about. How the hell do I keep my power in the ranges? That's the thing we get asked the most. And it's just practice. And if you're not doing it indoor and you spend eight or nine months training indoor, you're going to miss out on them. A huge opportunity to be a faster bike rider.

Yeah, couldn't have said it any better. Speaking about indoors versus outdoors, mistake number nine is making sure that you don't do the equal amount of time for both of them. So because of the nature of the control of the trainer, because of how locked in you are to that position, it actually is a really good example for pressure on the pedals. And we see that when athletes do extended time on the trainer, they do find it a lot easier to stay in the range. And so they actually spend more quality time in the range for the session, which is really, really valuable. But the consequence of that is that it becomes a much harder ride. And so an athlete that can, you know, ride in zone 2 for 100 km outdoor, or sorry, goes for a, goes for a 3 hour ride outdoor, might find that out of that outdoor session they're actually only spending an hour and a half in there's in their zone 2 range with pressure on the pedals because of the just, they're just not executing as well as as they could. But when they go indoors, the trainer forces them to hold that range and so they spend the full three hours in that zone too. And their legs are absolutely smashed for the three hour ride. It's a totally, totally different ride. And so you just gotta be careful of that. That yeah, the outdoor time that should not equal the same indoors. If you're a three hour ride outdoors kind of equates to about what is about an hour and a half or two hour ride indoors because of that controlled nature.

Mind you, that's the best part about training indoors is that it's constant and you don't get, when you're training indoors, if you stop pedaling, if you're in a group, you'll get dropped. If you stop pedaling outdoors in a group, you can still keep up for a certain amount of time because you're in a draft and if you're outdoors you still move. Whereas indoors, if you stop pedaling, your bike immediately almost stops. So that you know the pressure on the pedals is, is incredibly invaluable to your fitness improvement. But as, as you said, it is so much more taxing. You know, I use the example of there's a lot of guys who've been really nailing the endurance ride for, for years. I'm talking 5, 6, 7 years where they've been doing endurance ride outdoors for 90 or 80% of the time and 20 or 30% of the time they, when the weather's bad, that's the only time they jump indoors. And so they're doing four to six hour endurance rides on the weekends. And we talk about how the pressure on the pedals is different outdoors. You've got these periods where there's dips in the roads where the, the pressure comes off and then there's raises, rises in the road where all of a sudden you feel the pressure come on. And that's happening all the time, every single 10 seconds that's happening. Whereas on the indoor trainer, if you're doing it without variation in terrain, you've just got constant resistance equal the whole time. So, so at the end of the day, those people who've been riding outside, when they go to ride inside and they do, you know, three or four hours, they're cramping, they're unable to finish the session yet they've got this amazing aerobic endurance base from outside. But it's, it's got these minute recovery periods when you ride outside compared to riding inside. So that's why it's so much more valuable almost if you can get the free ride factor instigated on the indoor trainer. But, but it is so much more taxing. And it's happened to me that many times where I think I'm really fit. I go and train indoors and at the 80 or 90k mark I'm getting cramp and for me outdoors I'm not getting that after 140k. And the difference is, as you said, you have to allow for that. You can't, you can't expect, if you can ride on a Saturday or a Sunday for your endurance day, 140k regularly and then try to do that indoors, you, you won't survive. You will be, you will be falling off the trainer with cramp and running out of fuel. So you have to really allow for this in your training.

Yeah, there's two lessons there. One is that don't try and do the same amount of training indoors as outdoors because it is harder on the legs and so you shouldn't be able to match it, make sure you do it a bit less. But also it's a lesson for you to ride outdoors with more pressure on the pedals and we talk about this all the time, but you should be getting that same feeling outdoors so you don't have to ride indoors to get the same value. And dad, you're still one of the best at it that I've ever ridden with, where anytime we ride outdoors, even if it's in the absolute mountains of the Dandenongs, where it's huge descents and huge climbs, you just never not pedaling. And it's such a good lesson to learn riding next to you. But so often when you're riding with, with a group of friends or something, you get to the crest of climb and everyone freewheels for a bit. And then in the, in a three hour ride around the mountains for you, there's two minutes of freewheeling if you're going 70ks an hour, you know, around a corner, but that's about it. Apart from that, you are pedaling away up and downhill and over the top. And it's such a good lesson for you. Whether you're indoor or outdoor, you're getting the same value, which is really incredible.

And look, that's a real art. And I've been riding with a lot of the guys who've been on our program for a while now, and they're really masters of it now. And it's really impressive because when you come up to a rise, people ride too hard. If you say you're trying to ride zone two, people start to go into zone three and four on a rise and then when they get to the top of the hill, they ease up and the person who stayed with pressure on the pedals keeps it going and they actually ride past that person who's eased up. So you've got this yo yoing of people riding past each other, people going too hard, people going too soft. And the people who are riding hard and easy are looking at the other people who are riding slow on the hill and then catching up and passing them on the crest and on downhill, saying, why are you riding so erratically? And it's actually the opposite. The person who's riding the hill hard and soft pedaling on the crest of the hill, is the erratic rider. If you use the method in the car where you put it on cruise control, if you just lock it into cruise control at 100 kilometers an hour and someone beside you is doing 90, then they're doing 110. They're forever going backwards and forwards and looking at you saying, what are you doing? Why are you riding? So that's the same phenomenon that happens. And, and now that I've imparted this knowledge, I reckon five or six years ago with some people who've been on the program that long, they are absolutely guns at it now. And if you can race like this, this is a game changer because you just don't blow yourself up the Key.

Difference with that car analogy, and this is a really big mistake that we've seen athletes make, is we don't want to hold the same speed on cruise control on the bike. So the cruise control is for speed in the car. But on the bike, we're not trying to say, hold 30 km an hour no matter what, because anytime you get to a hill, you'll have to gas yourself to hold 30k's an hour. And then you'll have to put the brakes on downhill 30. That's not what we're saying. It's about power. So it's basically no matter whether it's uphill or downhill, you're trying to hold 200 watts and up the hill, that might equate to 11 kilometers an hour, and down the hill, that might equate to 60 kilometers an hour. But your wattage, meaning your effort, is the same. That's the key.

We did have an example, Joe, when I started a bunch ride one day and I said, today we're going to spend the whole day in zone two. And you know, that should be around 30k an hour. I just flippantly said that I should never have said that sentence. And so we started on a climb and one of the riders just took off. And I thought, I've just explained to you that we're going to ride zone two. And here he is riding literally in zone four in the first four minutes of this ride. Got to the top of the hill and we just shot straight past him. He spat him out the back. I thought, oh, he's blown up. And he said he was yelling out, saying, we're supposed to be riding 30Ks an hour. So he wanted to ride every uphill at 30Ks an hour, every flat at 30K's an hour, and every downhill at 30K's an hour. So he was putting his brakes on on the downhill. And I mean, that's taking someone literally, but that's an example of concentrating on the wrong thing. And you got to be so careful about what you actually say because it can be misconstrued and we don't want it to be for this particular time. It's about staying in the power ranges and the speed will obviously change when you're going up or down.

Yeah, we've digressed a bit there, but we're really passionate about getting this right. So the last mistake is for the trainer making sure that all your settings are correct. And what can end up happening is, especially if you use training peaks like we do, you've got your FTP settings in Training Peaks. But then you've got your FTP settings in your trainer app, whether it's TrainerRoad or Training Peaks, virtual or Full Gas or Zwift. And then you've got your FTP Indoor and your FTP outdoor. And so you have to make sure that if you're using multiple range of things like indoor and outdoor training, that all your settings are the same. You've also got your head unit, whether it's your Garmin or Wahoo or Element or whatever. You've also got the setting on there for what your FTP is. And it's very easy to just change one of them once you do an FTP test and you get a new FTP number, but not the rest of them. And so you might have the setting set right on Training Peaks, but when you go and do your session, it tells you to train to a different number to what you should be. So you have to make sure that all your settings line up and stay on top of that. So you're training for the right numbers whether you're indoor or outdoor.

Yeah. A good example of that is Zwift will adjust it automatically to your best last FTP. And so the example I give is, okay, you've been training fantastic up to this main event and you've got the highest FTP recording that you've ever had. Zwift will put that right. They've got the number right and you should be adjusting manually. You can do it automatically in Training Peaks as well, but I turn that function off so that I can control it myself. And so you might do that race and then have two or three weeks where you're just recovering and working back into your program. There's no way you're now at that FTP. So unless you go in manually and change the Zwift setting down, then your next few sessions you're going to fail because the number that's set in Zwift is too high.

Yep. And TrainingPeaks has a good function where you can put a second bike in. So because we know that someone's 20 minute FTP test number indoor will be slightly different to their outdoor generally. And so you can actually add a second bike in called indoor bike on Training Peaks. And whenever you do an indoor test, change that number for your FTP. And whenever you do an outdoor test, change that number. And so that's really helpful. But regardless, whenever you go to train, you have to make sure that the settings that we are looking at to train to are correct.

You need to make time each week to keep checking to make sure that Zwift hasn't changed something that you're happy or unhappy about in terms of the settings, your bike, computer, your training peaks, your Zwift, your full gas, all the ones you mentioned. You need to be on top of this. And this is not something you just let go for three or four months. It will be the difference between you failing a session or not getting the most value out of the session because you're ridden too easy. So unless you're looking at the details about settings, then that could be a huge game changer to actually how well you progress through your program.

This has been a monster episode and these are some really big key mistakes that we hope you can fix to help improve your training. If you want help with this, if you want help with the indoor trainer, as we mentioned at the start, we have spots available. Tribalo coaching.com we coach athletes from around the world and one of the beauty beautiful things about online coaching is that you can get all this help really specifically and we have a full membership site explaining these kind of things of how to get you through. But we coach you through individually because there's so much to learn and it can feel like there's hundreds of things to learn. We've just listed 10 mistakes here. But there is hundreds of things you kind of have to get right with cycling training and running training and swimming training and we walk you through it at the pace you need and we tell you what you need to know at the start. You don't need to learn everything in week one. You know, there's things you need to learn in week one and get that right for the first month and there's things you need to learn in month two, in month three. And we stagger that out in your coaching. So if you want help with that, go to trivalocoaching.com we guarantee your improvement in the first six weeks. If you don't improve your FTP, then the coaching is on us. Go there to apply for a coaching spot with us. Thank you very much for listening as always and we'll see you next time.