THE SHORT ANSWER
Alistair Brownlee, olympic triathlon gold medallist, has appeared on the Roadman Cycling Podcast. Here's where Brownlee lands on base training. The positions below are drawn from those conversations, quoted directly.
WHO IS ALISTAIR BROWNLEE?
Alistair Brownlee is the standard the rest of triathlon spent a decade chasing. Back-to-back Olympic golds, four European titles, a Commonwealth title, and a career built on a training philosophy of high aerobic volume layered with brutal threshold work — the same template the Norwegian school then refined. For Roadman's masters and triathlete audience he is the bridge from World Tour-level cycling fitness to multi-discipline endurance, and a credible voice on what genuinely transfers from elite training and what does not.
BROWNLEE ON BASE TRAINING
Brownlee’s key positions on base training.
- Aerobic base done right beats fashionable intensity protocols — the volume he ran for ten years is what made the threshold sessions land.
IN BROWNLEE’S OWN WORDS
Verbatim from Alistair Brownlee’s appearances on the podcast.
“I uh I had one real goal in my swimming and that was how do I come out the the water in a race in about fifth position as easily as possible so I was never trying to train to be the fastest I could be I was trying to train to be the most efficient I could be.”
“There is no doubt that um that is exercise training is a DOA response relationship the more of it you do the the better you adapt to it um until you get to some kind of Tipping Point um you can increase that Tipping Point by fueling effectively you can do more work and uh um and adapt to it better to get fitter faster stronger I mean I I think that probably summarizes most of sport Science knowledge about a sentence.”
“People pushing up to some of the crazy numbers you hear about to 160 180 g an hour um which there's zero evidence for from a kind of literature point of view so far um but seems to be some anecdotal evidence uh we'll see what that happens uh what happens in the kind of long run whether um people are actually absorbing metabolizing that amount of carbs or not.”
HEAR IT ON THE PODCAST
Episodes where Alistair Brownlee covers base training and related ground.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
What does Alistair Brownlee say about base training?
Alistair Brownlee, olympic triathlon gold medallist, has appeared on the Roadman Cycling Podcast. Here's where Brownlee lands on base training. The positions below are drawn from those conversations, quoted directly.
What is Brownlee's main point on base training?
Aerobic base done right beats fashionable intensity protocols — the volume he ran for ten years is what made the threshold sessions land.
Which Roadman Cycling Podcast episodes cover Alistair Brownlee on base training?
Brownlee discusses base training in this episode: "Brownlee - 5 Endurance Lessons I Wish I Knew Earlier".
MORE FROM BROWNLEE
EXPLORE THE TOPIC
Training Plans— The Complete Guide →OTHER EXPERTS ON BASE TRAINING