Improve Your Fitness Even Whilst You're Travelling [CASE STUDY]

Over the last 16 weeks we've coached an athlete who literally travels around the globe for work. He's in three different countries or continents, either the uk, America or Australia at any given time in any part of the month. And this makes training for an Ironman quite difficult, or so you'd think. Not only has he been able to train efficiently these last few months, he's been able to improve and then some. So dad, why don't you introduce Jeff to this case study episode?

Yeah, it's a great one to talk about and in a short period of time I've gotten to know Jeff's planning and preparation is equal to anybody that we've coached before and it's a real lesson for all of us. When you think about sometimes we really search for reasons as to why we can't train and find them and if you search hard enough you'll always find a reason. But he's the opposite. His mentality is finding a way to get it in and whether there's a 24 hour airplane flight in the middle of a training week he manages to not miss pretty much any session. There's been some periods where he's had some procedures and some, some sickness like we all do where he just can't train and recent one where he can't actually get in the water for a couple of weeks because of some procedures, skin procedures. So there's certainly been lots of obstacles as we say, roadblocks put in his place but he's managed to, yeah, I can do this while this is on and I can't that. And you know, one of the reasons that if anybody's had a procedure on their, on skin on their body they know that you're not allowed to sweat during that healing process. So it's really, you have to actually make sure if you're going to do any exercise that you've got a fan fully on you so that the sweat doesn't cause any more infection into that area that's being treated. So you know, this is the sort of intimate details that he's going into to make sure that he doesn't miss any sessions. You know, it's not like he's young, he's, he's middle aged 53. Middle age is a term of endearment. It's not saying you're old but definitely got a normal family, conditions with kids, three kids, lots of commitments and still has passion for Ironman, wants to do an Ironman and that's his goal and wants to improve on what he's done before and really is reaching out for some help and some guidance. He's motivated, he's keen. It's exactly the athlete we want, who really wants someone to help guide them along their journey and take the Waking up each morning thinking, what will I do today? Okay, I want to ride, what session should I write? And that's been a real game changer for him. You know, knowing that each day he wakes up he knows exactly what his session is, he knows exactly what power or what pace he's running at or what, what times he has to swim. And you know, that's taken the anxiety away from, from actually adding more stress to his already busy lifestyle when he's got someone who's out there looking after him, knowing what sessions suit him and what fits into his busy schedule when there's going to be. We need to have the ability to be flexible with his work and family program and fit the sessions in around it.

Yeah, look, that's a great summary and I think one of the key points around his goals when he signed up was he did an Ironman last year and this year he wanted to do a couple of 70.3s and see how well he could do as an age grouper. And he really wants to just get the most out of himself as an age grouper when he says in his own words, I'm committing so much to this sport, so much time, money and investment and mental investment. And so this year he wants to improve on his iron man from last year. And we're only 16 weeks in, but we want to share his improvements so far because it's just been a great journey to watch and, and coach. And I wanted to read out one quote from his. The start of his coaching process. We get everyone to fill out the reasons why they coach you. And he said, I find the process of reflecting on my training needs exhausting and an unwanted distraction as a husband and a dad. And I not only want to outsource this stress but optimize it through an experienced coach. And I think that was a great mindset to come into this program for in. So let's take a, take a look at the data. So his first FTP test in November last year his FTP was 192 and now at Feb he tests at 246. That's a, that's a 54 watt improvement. And to me we've done so many of these case studies where it's, you know, 40 watts, 50 watts, 60 watts, 70 watt improvement. But he has been training in triathlon for eight plus years. I'm going to keep referring to that throughout the, to that throughout this case study because as someone that's well trained and has been doing it for A while, a 54 watt improvement is a lot. You know, we would expect that in a beginner that hasn't been training or hasn't been riding much. But for someone who has that experience, who's done an iron man to get that 54 watt improvement, improvement in such a short period of time is really a standout. And as you mentioned, it's even more inspiring because of the work travel commitments and because of some of the interruptions that have happened over that period, including the Christmas and New Year period, which for most people can turn into a maintenance period instead of a fitness gain improvement. And yeah, I mean, looking at that data, what stands out to you also?

I think the fact that everybody talks about power and, and you know, of course everybody understands power and how to use it and I just don't think that's true. I think everybody knows about it and it's in part of everybody's conversation. But if you really dive deep into asking people, you know, what does that number mean to you, you know, and where does that sit in relation to whatever you've done before? And that's when you get perspective of where you're at. And for him it hasn't been, you know, a lot of power based training and now we're really honing in on making sure that every session is in the ranges that he needs to be in. And I think that's the difference. I think that's the major difference that has been obvious to me is, you know, exactly what he's asked for is he's actually got guidelines as to where to train and not by. And you know, I've got plenty of examples of people who can train well to feel, but it just lacks that next step where you're actually training. Exactly. And I think that's been a bit of a game changer and the progression's been unbelievably outstanding. But we've almost come to expect it, haven't we, that that's what should happen. And he's another example of just massive improvement in periods where it's not, it's not exactly perfect training yet there's still improvement. And I want to make that point that you don't have to have perfect training to get a 54 watt improvement. There's been a lot of things happened to him that have prevented him, even though he's striving for perfect sessions, all green. Majority of his training peaks looks brilliant, but there are periods where he's just been unable to for various reasons. And it doesn't matter the reason. If you're unable to train, that makes it imperfect.

Yeah. If you look at, we've done four FTP tests by now and if you look at each one, it's quite a, it's quite a exact progression, a very linear progression. It was 192 up to 210, up to 230 up to 246, so almost 18 to 20 watt improvement on every single test. And more importantly, what does that mean, speed wise? Well, his speed's gone from 34.3 kilometers an hour in the first test to 37.9. So that's a 3.6 kilometer, almost 4 kilometer improvement in speed, kilometers per hour, which is just astounding. And we definitely don't expect that linear progression, that 20 watts every single time. Sometimes it's seven, sometimes it's 17. I saw a great poll during the week where a cycling page posted what would you rather out of these options? As a cyclist, would you rather I'm going to butcher this because I can't. There was four options you could choose from and it was, it was multi choice and it was a drop drop 3 to 5 kilos, I think b, get 20 more watts on your FTP. C get an extra 200 watts in your sprint, in your max sprint. Or D, I think D was just a funny one. I can't remember if it was anything serious, but overwhelmingly the answer, what would you choose, dad?

Out of those things, I would have to have either ride from A to B faster.

That is such a good answer.

That's all I care about. I couldn't care less whether I rode from A to B fast and I rode 10 watts or a thousand watts.

That is brilliant. That is why you're the super coach. The overwhelming answer was B. 20 watts. People want 20 watts and that's because it's so hard to find 20 watts. And sometimes you look at it and go, 20 watts. Doesn't seem much. And it's kind of tempting to go to 200 watts in your sprint if you're thinking about crit race. But yeah, your answer of going A to B faster probably just puts them all to bed. But my point is it's. Normally we would look at a training program of someone in this situation and we might just go, okay, you've been traveling a lot, you've had some sickness. We look at FTP Test, we probably wouldn't expect progression. In fact, we either see maintenance or even sometimes a worse test. And that can be a little bit deflating. But we'd have to say to the athlete, look, if you look at the past few weeks, you've missed sessions, you've been traveling a lot, which has an impact on your ability to train well. You must be able to train, but your ability to train well can be impacted, especially being sick. It's not just a sickness, it's what happens or minor procedures. It's the couple of days after where your training sessions aren't that effective. So we would expect to have to have that conversation and put some expectations in reality. But instead, here we're seeing someone who just improved the exact same amount again, which has just been awesome to see.

See? Yeah. And you've got to compliment the athlete for actually being the one who's doing the work. You know, it's great for us to set the program and really push the athlete to aspire to ride in those ranges, but the athlete's got to go out there and do that, and we can't make that happen. It's not in our control. The athlete has to have the motivation to want to see these numbers. And let's not be flippant. 20 watts is massive. Jordan. You know, you and I talk about three or four watts. You know, we're ecstatic. If we can do four watt improvement from six weeks ago, that's, that's a major achievement. And as you get, you know, to the, to the peak form that you, you've been training for over years, you know, the improvement, you know, becomes diminished and, and you're going to see, you know, you're going to get to the pointy end of where your limit is. And you know, we always say there's no limit, but there's got to be a ceiling where you actually get close to that ceiling and then the, the improvement will, the improvement will be, can I stay at this level? That's your improvement. Can I stay at this level for a long period of time? And that's the measure of your improvement. And, and you know, whilst, whilst you're, a lot of people start from a low base and, and, but this guy, you know, he's, he's done Ironman, he's had experience at, at being on a bike for a long time. So, you know, you wouldn't expect to see that much improvement. And it's, you know, it's a real credit to him. And it's not just on the bike. Either.

Yeah, yeah. And we'll go through the run. I just wanted to mention on that point that we say this a lot, but the 20 minute number is just that. It's a standard of measurement that we use to compare all the time because it's a great standard measurement. But once you start reaching that upper peak of potentially your limit, which you know, that can take three, four, five years to get to, so don't kick yourself out too early, you know, and more, you were improved or you've been improving your FTPs for the last 10 years. So you hit a peak power in the last couple years of your actual 20 minute FTP. So it can keep going up and even if it's by a couple of watts. But my point is that's just one number. And for most athletes, that's not the number we're trying to improve at the most, it's just a standard of measurement for most athletes. They're training for an Olympic or a 70.3 or an endurance ride or a gravel ride, you know, and so then really you're trying to improve, okay, that's my FTP. How long can I hold 90% of that FTP in my 70.3? How long can I hold 90 percent of that FTP or 75% of that FTP in an eight hour endurance ride in a gravel ride? And that becomes more of the question, the test. And that takes a long time to improve that as well. And then even if you've maxed out that number potentially, you know, you're not improving that race on race, then it's okay, how well can I ride that and improve my fitness, that I run fresh, that I run my runtime closer to that fresh runtime off the bike. So it goes into all these elements of where you can improve. It's not just like, okay, I've kind of maxed out my 20 minute FTP here, which we already established will take a while to get to, but that's it. I can't improve as a rider. That is absolutely not what we're saying.

Yeah, it's such a good point. And we keep showing these case study podcasts just to, just to show people really that, you know, consistency and being well prepared and planned, doing the work, you will continue to improve. And that is a major point that we're trying to get across and we're trying to give real examples. We're not trying to pull the wool over people's eyes here. These are real life athletes who are actually starting with us earlier or starting with us for years ago and we're still seeing most people who are willing to do those things quite well. But, but this, as you said, is a measure so that we can train to a certain particular number. And it's great practice for execution learning how to do that in any training session, whether it's a 20 minute FTP or five by five, you know you got to learn how to measure your efforts over five minutes or one minute or 30 seconds. You know, you can go 700 watts for 30 second effort and end up at 200 watts in the last 10 seconds. That's not measuring the effort over 30 seconds very well. And you know that goes from 30 seconds up to nine hours. So they're the things we're trying to learn and the 20 minutes is one of those examples. But the next step is finding out and you know, we will start to do some case studies on how did that transpire, how did that improvement Transpire across a 90 kilometer time trial or an 8 hour gravel ride or 180k Ironman bike session? How did that improvement transfer? Was it 2 minute improvement from your previous Ironman or was it a 20 minute improvement on the bike? And they're the things that are really more important and that's being specific, that's actually taken these testing numbers to the actual event that you're actually trying to train for. And in some cases people are trying to train for a 20 minute time trial. So it's spot on. But that's a rarity.

Yeah, for sure. And we've done plenty of those already. We just did a really good one a couple of weeks ago. Talking about someone specific, 70.3 races. We compared about four races in a row, which was awesome. And we'll continue to do that as we go through. But looking at the run, the run was really interesting as well because when he came in you kind of decided as the coach that he's, you wanted to spend more time on the bike because you just saw a lot of improvement potential in the bike. And the amount of running he did early and it's built up now a lot more. But you're literally doing a couple of runs a week. Yet he's still over this period, has improved the 5k time by about 40 seconds and the 10 Kai time by a minute and a half, which is really a big improvement for someone that has barely been training their running. So talk us through that.

Yeah. And when we try to analyze the athletes that come on board, we're trying to find where their fitness is in the swim. If It's a triathlete swim, bike and run. We're trying to see where their strengths and weaknesses are. And if they're an athlete who's doing a marathon or a half marathon or 5k or 10k, we're trying to see, you know, are they good as a 10k runner, do they have good speed or are they more an endurance runner that need more speed or are they a speedster who needs more endurance. So we're trying to find out all of these things. And, and, and what I looked at, I could see that his bike was the weak link of, of his particular aspirations to do an Ironman. And you know, that could be the biggest gains for him. So, so if we really worked harder on the bike and just kept his running ticking along and so that allowing his, you know, we say this a lot, allowing his body to absorb the load from a light training program as a runner and really getting some hard sessions into him as a bike rider where, you know, he's really working hard, doing high intensity bike sessions three times a week and, and including some endurance in there and really stepping that up. He's running, you know, comes along as sort of an added session to the program almost. And it's not a focus yet. You know, if you looked at from what he's done in November for his 5k to middle January for those two tests, you know, it's, you know, it's an improvement. Which, which you know, could be many reasons. It could be, it's certainly not from running training. You know, that, that's, that's clear to us who, we haven't, we haven't stressed him as a runner. We've, we've just maintained his running and just added some volume to it. None of the runs he's been doing in that period had any intensity. None. Yeah, he's improved yet. He's improved and, and you know, a lot of that's come from, from the intensity he gets on the bike. And you know, his cardiovascular system is working hard in training in a week, in a seven day period. His cardiovascular system is working extremely hard. It's just not as a runner. And we're trying to tell that to people all the time. You don't need to be flogging yourself to improve your running. And this is a great example of using the swim intensity, the bike intensity to, as long as you are doing some training sessions as a runner, you will improve. And it's not the first person to do this. It's probably out of all the case studies, I think There'd be a rarity of one or two who haven't improved their running.

Yeah, sure. And so let's. On that note, that's kind of the key data points. Oh, sorry, last thing. We actually didn't mention the swimming, but swimming has, has improved itself as well, which is also particularly impressive because when you're traveling, there's huge challenges in equipment and there's huge challenges in, you know, in a different city, finding the right pool to get to. It's hard enough to get to a pool. It's. It's one of the hardest ones to train because it takes so much more travel, commitment, etc. And to be able to travel and get to a new city and commit to getting to a pool, that really does show commitment to the training program. And so to be able to improve your swimming with this kind of lifestyle, for me was actually ultra impressive.

You need good organisation and good planning. And, you know, I've had just people who can't access a pool who live in an area for the last 10 years. And, you know, we have, in summer, we have a lot of schools take over the pools during the day because they have swimming carnivals. So guys who want to swim during the middle of the day get to the pool and there's a swimming carnival there. So straight away, you know, their plans out the window and they have to find somewhere else to swim. And these are all things that happen to people who just live in the same place. Imagine if you're going from, you know, I had another guy who does a lot of traveling. One minute he was in one part of Australia, he was in four different states, you know, and trying to find pools each week and, and that, that shows really good organization and good planning. And he didn't miss any sessions, you know, And Jeff's the same. He's really able to suss out the right hotel. It might have a lap lane pool that's only 15 meters or 20, and at least he's getting something done. He can do some drills in there. He can, you know, just work any stroke technique and not necessarily have to do a proper session. But any swimming is better than no swimming. And that's the message. I keep saying any run session is better than no run session. You know, as long as you're doing something like, you know, that 30 minutes, that's, that's really going to get some value out of you. And people sometimes go, they Scoff at that 30 minutes. It's a waste of time. I'm an ironman trying to train for, you know, AN IRONMAN, well, 30 minutes is still, you know, do four 30 minute efforts instead of doing nothing because they're not worth it. And next thing you know, you've got two hours of training under your belt for that week that you wouldn't have had. And that's the difference between making sure you just do something and you will continue to build your aerobic fitness if you just keep chipping away with the consistency.

Yeah, spot on. And on that note, his pool pace in this period has gone from 150 pace to 141. So that's ultra impressive. And I did like the fact that, yeah, what you talked about with the hotel. But when he probably lands somewhere, he either likes to just find a pool and get in there straight away or go for an easy run. And we would recommend that to anyone. After a bit of travel, you don't have to jump into a high intensity session, but just getting there and doing something is just such a nice feeling after you've been stuck on a flight for so long. So let's talk about and finish off with some changes in training. Some of the specifics that we did, you threw him straight into some mixed threshold and VO2 work, plus some strength sessions, which we find athletes who have been training for a while, they need that, they need to get into that threshold and VO2 work because he's been training for, as we said, probably eight years or so properly in this sport and athletes get quite good at that sub threshold, almost sweet spot stuff, but they don't get good at mixing that with the intensity or specifically strength with intensity. So that's a pretty key change to get straight away, just to get a new stimulus into an athlete.

Yeah. And I think a lot of athletes don't actually know how weak or strong they are on the bike. And if you start to do some strength efforts on the bike, you find out very quickly that whether you can handle those sessions or not. And I think that's a really great starting point. And I think a lot of riders aren't strong enough. They don't have the leg strength and I think that's a key component and that's why we push the endurance ride with so many undulations in it. And I'm really pushing midweek sessions so that they can do some strength efforts on the bike. And I think that combined with some VO2 where we've always talked about really pushing Some, some high zone 5 and 6 efforts into a program is going to really contribute. And those people who've been doing the 28 day threshold challenge that we set out, they've all improved because of that combination of getting stronger on the bike and then really getting the VO2 work into their cardiovascular system.

So my only caveat to the training. Sorry. And just to finish off and follow up and through each block, we've kind of upped the VO2 a little bit more and up the volume of kind of threshold, threshold indoor sessions mixed in with some intensity. He's really been able to do some great indoor solid sessions where you're really riding good solid volume for a long period of time mixed with intensity bursts in there, which is just one of the strongest sessions you can do. And his ability to find a trainer to ride on in different cities is absolutely huge. And ideally, you're riding on the same bike with the same power meter all the time and then you can test on that bike and you're testing the same position with the same power meter. He's been able to test on the same bike, but he hasn't been able to train on the same bike yet. That hasn't stopped him from improving. So it just really shows what's actually possible. My caveat here that I want to add in is that I would say for these shorter efforts and for the testing and for the type of training he's doing, he's performing really well. But he's probably, because of the travel and because of some interruptions, he's lacked the consistency with, you know, that monster endurance stuff that's specific to the Iron man, which is his goal. And if we tested him over more longer stuff, he probably wouldn't do as well right now. But that is totally fine because it's February, it's not August when his Iron man goal is. So right now for what we're testing him, the numbers look really good. But if you were to throw in him an Iron man right now, he wouldn't be performing very well because of all these factors that are limiting. So the challenge over the next five months, six months is going to be okay. How do we now take this structure? But you know, make sure that we're getting consistent consistency with that real endurance work that's going to be conducive to a nine, man.

I think that's the key, George. We wanted to get that consistency in his program first, get him stronger and, and then we can add the endurance duration as the weeks and months tick by. And of course he's, you know, being from the Northern hemisphere, it's, you know, it's been December, January of Middle of winter. And, and so, you know, the expectation is that you can't go and do. Some people are actually managing to do it somehow in diabolical weather conditions, but the expectation isn't that you can get out there and ride for four or five hours. And at the moment, we just wanted not to do that. We wanted to actually get his consistency of training up so that he can then use this as his platform to then add the duration time to those endurance rides.

Yeah, spot on. So do you want to give us a conclusion here of to finish this case study off? And what's the lesson here you want people to take from this case study?

It's really straightforward, isn't it? We as human beings are either in two camps, I feel, where that person who's super motivated will find a way to achieve whatever their aspirations or goals or determination is. And, and then there's the camp that. That wants to talk about it, but actually isn't. Isn't the doer. And, and I think Jeff's a great example of that person who has really drawn a line in the sand and says, okay, this is my goal next year. I want to do really well in these races, and I'm gonna do whatever I can and I'm gonna. I'm gonna find ways to train no matter what situation I find myself put in with. With work or travel or. Or fatigue or illness. And that's the lesson I wanted to get across to everybody in this case study, is find a way, whatever's happening to you, be that person who's going to find a way to achieve the daily goal, the weekly goal, and the monthly goal. And before you know it, two months have gone by and you're a 25% better athlete than you were because you found a way. And, and don't be that person who finds a way to miss the session and throws up an excuse. And it could be relevant, could be absolutely valid, but there's still ways to get around things if you just think outside the box. And that's my message, be that person. Be that person who can really look for ways to achieve rather than putting up reasons. And you don't want to be the talker, you want to be the doer. That's what I'm trying to get across here.

For sure, there's, as you said, there's always going to be a potential reason that you could use not to train. But if you are going to be the person that chooses that excuse, then you're not going to get that consistency. But if you're willing to do the preparation and the planning, like you said, and especially around travel. If you're just willing to be the person that says, no matter what travel is put in front, I'm going to find a way, then the improvement will be there. So that's a great way to finish this case study. We hope you've enjoyed it. For anyone that travels a lot for work, we hope it's motivating for you to show that, yeah, obviously it's hard, and obviously there's a lot of roadblocks in front, but you can do maybe potentially less amount of sessions and less volume, but still get the improvements you want. And hopefully we've showcased that in this. So thanks very much for listening to another episode. I'll see you on the next one.