Hey y’all - I hired a sports nutritionist for about six months this past year and it was a great experience. There was nothing groundbreaking, but being about to talk through my nutrition with someone knowledgeable, have them save me time on doing research on different foods, and have them bring up blind spots I wasn’t aware of was super helpful. Everything I covered with the nutritionist was stuff that has been covered on the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast, but it was really helpful to talk through how to apply it to my life, goals, and preferences.
So, I’ve been thinking I’d love to find a similar coach/ consultant for my training generally. I’d like to keep using TR plans, but have someone to chat with for thirty minutes every couple of weeks to gain a bit more perspective and learn how to self coach better.
I haven’t been able to find anyone that does this. Everyone I’ve spoken with prefer to build out their own training plan or have me do a bunch of detailed performance testing.
Has anyone found a good consulting coach? Was it helpful? Are there good resources to find one? Or is this a totally weird idea? Thanks!
As mentioned, Kolie is great, and he does consultations. I’ve never done one with him, but I was coached for about 8 months by Cory Lockwood, one of his coaches and endorse those guys at Empirical. They’re good at what they do, for sure. I chose them for my personal coaching because their philosophy mirrors my own.
As @WindWarrior mentioned, I do consultations as well (probably less expensively than Kolie, though I’m not nearly as renowned/experienced as him), and I was once a TR user before I had time to self-program my stuff when I was on active duty. Happy to do a consultation if you’d like; I’ve done a few for TR users in the last year or so. Hit me up if you’d like, either PM me here or my website link is in my bio.
This is a tough one for the reasons you laid out. Most (all) coaches want to drop their own workouts in and monitor everything in training peaks, then charge accordingly. I personally don’t need TrainingPeaks as it all goes into TR.
On one hand we want a coach, but the more data the TR team has to work with the better the plans get and short of some really great (and expensive) coaches, the TR plan has a much better chance to get us where we’re trying to go as long as our inputs are correct. Maybe that last bit is the only part a good coach does better than Plan Builder does at the moment.
I’ve been doing this except with my own training plans for the last 2 years. Prior to this I had a traditional coach, and found the consultations to be very helpful to my self coaching. At the very least they provide some reassurance that my plan/strategy has been checked over by a professional.
Ha! Totally fine. I’m not here always trying to drum up business. If people find me here, great. I appreciate the thought, and recommending Empirical is not a bad thing to me at all!
Easy to make statements that are impossible to prove. Is this a case of “I believe in ML and big data” which is fine, we all need to believe in something.
I think a data driven plan has a better chance IF the inputs are right. That is to say ALL of the inputs during plan selection, and training compliance. TR can be adaptive, but we have yet to figure out how to program in empathy or compassion.
Irony is that I’m a cybersecurity guy in charge of assessing AI/ML/LLM usage at my employer. I start with “Trust but Verify” and then go into NIST guidelines from there…
Data driven has to include more soft data IMHO, and why you sometimes need to call an audible on the bike. I’ve been data driven from day 1, starting with HR and perception, but from talking to people that can be overwhelming and why some just want their phone/computer to tell them what to do. You lost me on the empathy and compassion part. The big missing piece on many of these platforms is profiling and doing a gap analysis, a good coach will do that, in addition to some athlete pattern recognition.
True, but I also think that a big part of what’s missing in some of the online training platforms is the frequency with which they select the right workouts, and then in some cases just the philosophy around which the plans themselves are built (usually making things more intense as their only form of progression) is lacking. Having 1000 workouts isn’t necessarily a good thing, IMO. But as you said, a lot of that depends on the rider and their time availability, etc.
agree, although it appears to have gotten better but still a bit high on the frequency side. One thing I’ve learned about myself - in my early days I trained ‘harder’ and ‘easier’ than TR - mornings with a lot of short 0.9+ IF rides and all-out 1-min efforts, longer single interval sweet spot in the afternoon. And by paying close attention to recovery needs, got to a certain level on 7 hours/week. This is when I could be an ad for some of Coggan’s statements/proverbs. And then trained with fewer hours but more intervals on TR, and that taught me what not to do, because I got slower. And then trained far EASIER than ever before, but pushed the hours up a little (up to 8 hours/week last year), and did ‘the right’ mix of workouts with far less intervals and yet more intensity (vs TR) and got back to where I was before TR. And it literally was done on the back of maybe ~10 (15?) workouts. Maybe its been too long but I don’t recall any TR workouts like this: Where did you workout (ride, run, etc) OUTSIDE today? (2023) - #1040 by WindWarrior which are the type of workout which work some magic on me when used at the right time. That might not be the best example, the point of that one is that Erg would have held me back. Those were just spicy enough to not over do it (I’ve learned how to walk that tightline, and when to do the all-out variant of that workout. Its all about timing. Which leads me to another opinion - z6 work can be a double-edged sword and you gotta learn how you respond to it, and if you respond, how to use it to your advantage.
OP, If this is too off topic, happy to dm you individually, but I’m also looking for a nutritionist for some help. I’ve talked to 2 that came highly recommended but they wanted me to sign up for a 3-6 month program, which isn’t really what I’m looking for. I want someone to chat with off the start, give me pointers/help with meal planning, and then check in once a month or so. Ideally hourly rate vs a subscription type thing. Who did you use, and for those on the know, is what I’m asking for unreasonable or should I plan for a subscription program if I want this service?
