I didn't think I did.

I had a power meter. I had a plan. My Sunday ride hovered around 65% of FTP and I called it easy.

It wasn't.

That one mistake probably cost me two seasons of progress when I was getting started cycling.

It's also the most common error I see now - 1,400 podcast episodes in, sitting across from the people who train the best riders in the world.

And it's not the only one.

Here's what I've come to believe, after all those conversations:

Most of us aren't training too little. We're training too hard at the wrong things.

Three examples that came up over and over.

The first is the one I just admitted to. Stephen Seiler's research is unambiguous — elite endurance athletes spend around 80% of their time genuinely easy. Conversational. Below the first lactate threshold.

Most amateurs ride at 70% of FTP and call it easy. It's not. It's just easier.

The second is FTP. We test it regularly. Plan entire seasons around it. Treat any drop as a personal crisis.

But chasing FTP without building the aerobic base underneath is the most common failure pattern in amateur cycling. You can raise FTP quickly with high-intensity work. You cannot hold it without the base.

The third is the deload week. Three hard weeks, then a fourth deliberately reduced — that's a complete training block. The body doesn't adapt during stress. It adapts during recovery from stress. Almost nobody plans deloads. They take them by accident, when they get sick or buried at work, and feel guilty about it.

Three different mistakes but they appear again and again chatting to these top coaches.

We've been taught that more effort equals more progress. So when progress stalls, we add more effort.

The coaches I've spent the last 1400 episodes interviewing figured out a long time ago that it doesn't work like that.

Effort is the easy part.

Knowing where to spend it is the whole job.

Anthony

P.S. I wrote the full pattern up this week, seven mistakes that come up over and over, drawn from conversations with Seiler, Friel, Lorang and the rest.

The other four mistakes are in the full piece here → The Most Common Training Mistakes — From 1,400 Podcast Episodes

pps I keep getting asked about weight loss. If you want to try the weight loss app most pro cylists are using Hexis , you’re welcome to try my discount code “roadman” (it should knock 25% off the cost for you)