THE SHORT ANSWER
Lorang coaches across triathlon and the World Tour, and his take on reverse periodisation is pragmatic rather than dogmatic: the model serves the athlete's calendar, not the other way round. For an athlete with early targets or a winter stuck indoors, building intensity first and volume later is a legitimate way to arrive sharp without faking big base miles in bad weather. But his core principle still rules everything — he adjusts to the human in front of him daily, watching how they absorb the load rather than forcing a template through. Reverse, traditional or block, the question he asks is the same: is this athlete adapting, or just accumulating fatigue?
WHO IS DAN LORANG?
Dan Lorang is a Luxembourgish endurance coach and Lidl-Trek's Head of Performance. The team's official announcement says his remit covers coaching, nutrition, health, recovery, athletics, and data and AI. Before joining Lidl-Trek on 1 August 2026, he led performance at Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe. He has also coached leading long-course triathletes. His two Roadman interviews are most useful for what they actually establish: sustainable load, season planning, heart-rate context, recovery and individualisation—not a universal weekly formula.
LORANG ON REVERSE PERIODISATION
Lorang’s key positions on reverse periodisation.
- Became Lidl-Trek's Head of Performance on 1 August 2026 after his Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe tenure.
- Treats consistency and the balance between load and recovery as foundations of sustainable endurance training.
- Plans seasons backwards from priority races, then adjusts periods and tapers to the individual athlete.
- Uses heart rate alongside power and perceived exertion because the measures answer different coaching questions.
- Advises riders over 40 to include work, family, sleep and social stress when judging total recoverable load.
IN LORANG’S OWN WORDS
Verbatim from Dan Lorang’s appearances on the podcast.
“you should calculate to have around yeah let me say three to four weeks where you're doing this five times a week probably 1 hour and if you are if you want to do this on a roller um inside um and you want to try this can give it a try but it costs you some like I said it cost you some energy and you should not do it just like okay I'm now doing e training Because the same as with altitude training, you can really overdo it.”
“I never compared performance chart from athlete A to performance chart from athlete B. So for me it's more like oh okay is there some kind of um um relation between what I see there and the performance outcome from the athlete. And if you have this several times during the year um probably then you see okay if I'm there at that point in the performance chart the probability that my athlete will perform and not perform perform is quite high.”
“the stress in relations uh that is something is the biggest one of the biggest stressor you can have. So if you have stress with the family with your girlfriend also on with your wife uh this really has a big impact on on your health on how you feel on on your performance.”
“if we get studies where is the benefit of sports so where do you have the most benefit concerning your health normally we talk I think it's about six seven hours something there and after that already the positiv effects get a little bit less and so if we talk about 30 hours it has nothing to do with health it's it's necessary for high performance to bring your body to that limit”
HEAR IT ON THE PODCAST
Episodes where Dan Lorang covers reverse periodisation and related ground.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
What does Dan Lorang say about reverse periodisation?
Lorang coaches across triathlon and the World Tour, and his take on reverse periodisation is pragmatic rather than dogmatic: the model serves the athlete's calendar, not the other way round. For an athlete with early targets or a winter stuck indoors, building intensity first and volume later is a legitimate way to arrive sharp without faking big base miles in bad weather. But his core principle still rules everything — he adjusts to the human in front of him daily, watching how they absorb the load rather than forcing a template through. Reverse, traditional or block, the question he asks is the same: is this athlete adapting, or just accumulating fatigue?
What is Lorang's main point on reverse periodisation?
Became Lidl-Trek's Head of Performance on 1 August 2026 after his Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe tenure.
Which Roadman Cycling Podcast episodes cover Dan Lorang on reverse periodisation?
Lorang discusses reverse periodisation in these episodes: "13 Years Of Coaching Pros: What Amateurs Don't Know", "Roglic's Coach Builds A Training Plan For Amateur Riders | Dan Lorang".
MORE FROM LORANG
EXPLORE THE TOPIC
Training Plans— The Complete Guide →OTHER EXPERTS ON REVERSE PERIODISATION