ICYMI – Alan Couzens, MS: Better Performance Through Smart Training, Top-Three Tips for Every Athlete to Follow!
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Alan Couzens, MS, is a Colorado-based exercise physiologist and triathlon coach with Endurance Corner. He is a wealth of knowledge on coaching endurance athletes, and in particular an expert on the sports science and numbers side of things — he will gladly admit that he loves geeking out on the data (as such, he’s created some phenomenal tools and calculators for athletes to better interpret, use and apply data found on his blog alancouzens.com). Alan also pays close attention to the art of coaching and makes it a top priority to keep athletes healthy, happy and performing well — and avoid overtraining.
On this show we pick the brain of this sports science expert and discuss:
- Quick story of Alan and Tawnee’s friendship and their idea of “project openness“,
- Alan’s a lifelong athlete himself and has his own story finding his path to health over the decades,
- How his experiences has shaped him as a coach,
- Top three things that athletes should make a priority to better themselves:
1. sleep – don’t slack on it
2. intensity – watch out for HIIT!
3. recovery – more emphasis on stress reduction, yoga, relaxation. - HRV monitoring from his POV and the value of this metric to guide training, to avoid overtraining, etc,
- Understanding the day-to-day fluctuations in one’s HR and using ranges instead on one static HR (power/HR = efficiency; there’s about a 10% swing in daily HR),
- Zone-based training correlating with MAF training,
- The need for a strong aerobic base above all else, and using Alan’s “two-zone rule” – aka easy/steady – for aerobic workouts,
- His run calculator – turning weight and pace into power that would be equivalent to watts on bike and using this for racing,
- The sub max FTP calculator – get fresh data but avoid going too hard if not appropriate
- Balancing the art & science from this coach’s POV,
- And more…
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