Coachinginterview

ROGLIC'S COACH BUILDS A TRAINING PLAN FOR AMATEUR RIDERS | DAN LORANG

with Dan Lorang — Head of Performance, Lidl-Trek since August 2026; formerly Head of Performance at Bora–Hansgrohe

49:22·29 April 2024·Updated 26 August 2026

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DAN LORANG

Head of Performance, Lidl-Trek since August 2026; formerly Head of Performance at Bora–Hansgrohe

PROFILE →

Dan Lorang is Lidl-Trek's Head of Performance, a role he began on 1 August 2026 after his Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe tenure. He has coached leading long-course triathletes including Jan Frodeno, Anne Haug, Lucy Charles-Barclay and Taylor Knibb. In this 2024 recording, he discusses load, recovery, life stress and individual response during his Bora–Hansgrohe role.

Knows about

World Tour coachingLoad managementTriathlon coachingPeriodisationHeart-rate training

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racing.trekbikes.com de.linkedin.com

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Lorang treats consistency as the product of repeatable load and adequate recovery, not one heroic session or perfect week.
Amateur athletes should retain a larger reserve than professionals, whose performance goals require accepting loads near the body's limit.
Power measures external work while heart rate shows the body's response; Lorang uses both, plus perceived exertion and context.
Work, family, travel, appointments and sleep belong on the calendar before a coach decides how much training the athlete can absorb.
Lorang calls sleep the most dependable recovery intervention and warns against copying recovery practices that may blunt adaptation.

TOPICS

CHAPTERS

Dan Lorang, now Head of Performance at Lidl-Trek, breaks down coaching principles from elite cycling for busy amateur riders. This conversation was recorded in 2024 during his Bora–Hansgrohe tenure. Primož Roglič is discussed as a team rider who retained his day-to-day coach, Marc Lamberts; Roadman does not describe Lorang as Roglič's personal coach.

Key Takeaways

Consistency beats intensity: it's not the one perfect session that drives progress, but consistent load management over weeks and months. Avoid injuries and burnout by balancing training load with recovery, which applies equally to amateurs and pros.
Substitute cross-training for bike endurance in winter: running, cross-country skiing, or walking can build your aerobic base if you match heart rate zones, giving you flexibility, mental freshness, and injury prevention without sacrificing adaptation.
Prioritize coaching, bike fit, and nutrition consultation over expensive gear: three modest investments—a good coach for load management, a bike fit session, and 3-4 nutrition consultations—yield lifelong returns and cost far less than high-end equipment.
Let heart rate guide intensity over power, especially for endurance work: heart rate reveals how your body is actually responding to load (fatigue, stress, illness), whereas power output can mask whether you're truly in the right zone—critical for load management.
Plan your full week (work, family, sleep, appointments) before building your training plan: professionals hand their calendar to their coach so load is managed holistically; amateurs should do the same to avoid the stress and sickness that comes from forcing a generic plan into a chaotic week.
Race is your performance diagnostic, not training: stop chasing personal bests in workouts; the goal is to arrive fresh and adapted to competition. A slightly slower interval session when fatigued is still valuable if quality stays acceptable.

Expert Quotes

"It's not about the one key session, about one big day that you have to do. It's more about giving your body constantly a certain amount of load, and to realize this load management is quite important so to avoid injuries, to avoid sickness. This is consistency—that is the same for high performance athletes but also for recreational athletes."

"High performance sport is not healthy. We have to be clear on that. It's not that we want to hurt the health of the athletes, but it's not healthy to do 30-35 hours of sport every week over a whole year. Amateur athletes should leave a much bigger reserve from that border."

"The race is basically our best performance diagnostic. We train for racing. In training there could be some good days, some bad days, but I'm not a fan to create new best results in training. We want to have the best new results in competition—physically and also mentally."

CLAIMS FROM THIS EPISODE

Each tagged with the strength of evidence behind it.

EXPERT
Sustainable endurance training depends on consistent load and balancing that load with recovery.
Source: Dan Lorang
EXPERT
Heart rate shows the body's response to work and can change with fatigue, stress, heat or illness even when power stays the same.
Source: Dan Lorang
EXPERT
A useful amateur plan accounts for appointments, work and other external load instead of treating training as an isolated calendar.
Source: Dan Lorang
EXPERT
Sleep is Lorang's highest-priority recovery lever because, unlike many interventions, improving it does not suppress the desired adaptation.
Source: Dan Lorang

RESOURCES MENTIONED

ToolRoadman FTP Zone Calculator
ToolRoadman HR Zone Calculator
Episode13 Years of Coaching Pros — What Amateurs Don't Know
ToolTrainingPeaks
BookHow To Be A Pro CyclistJack Burke

KEY QUOTES

“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”
Dan Lorang — Head of Performance, Lidl-Trek; formerly Bora–Hansgrohe

“if you do for example a V2 Max session no matter in which spot for sure this is the session who should not be uh probably a three or four hour session um but this is the short session if you doing something with an easy endurance fat metabolism training easy endurance training so aerobic endurance training for sure this session can be much longer so basically these are already two parameters where you um that are are working vice versa so if you increase volume you decrease intensity”
Dan Lorang — Head of Performance, Lidl-Trek; formerly Bora–Hansgrohe

“makes no no no no sense to make c training at the beginning of the season three times a week one hour and then skipping it uh somewhere when you start to race because then you will lose it because everything what you don't train you will lose again so um better to from the beginning on to build something consistency something what you can do consistently”
Dan Lorang — Head of Performance, Lidl-Trek; formerly Bora–Hansgrohe

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT10 SECTIONS

Coaching Pros vs Amateurs

You're going to absolutely love today's podcast I have the head of performance from world tour team Bora hrove joining me today Dan larang this podcast is interesting most of us are curious about how the top riters in the world train what are they eating what sessions are they doing but that's not what today's podcast is today I try and deconstruct everything Dan knows about performance with a view to applying it to busy cyclists people who have conflicting demands in their time someone who's balancing work with family with social commitments some absolutely incredible insights that I really wish I knew at the start of my cycling Journey you're going to love this episode with Dan laang Dan welcome to the podcast hello Anthony thanks for having me Dan you've worked with some of the very best athletes in the world today what I want to do is not focus the conversation on how to coach Elite athletes I want to focus the conversation on lessons from those Elite athletes that everyday amateurs can apply into their own training and into their own life does that sound like a reasonable proposition yeah absolutely I think it's also a reason for why we have high performance sport to learn from there and to give it to let me say normal people so that's why um yeah let's have a chat about it yeah that trickle down is interesting and we see it in many Industries like Formula 1 they the tip of of spirit innovates and then years later we get that mainstream adoption so you get changing your gears with paddles in Formula One cars in the 90s and now your family Saloon you can change your gears with paddles so I'm hoping cycl follows the same kind of template yeah I think it's it's uh often like this so you you are striving for high performance and in different departments in high performance sport training nutrition material aerodynamics and so on and on that search you find probably something what U yeah what you can break down then years later to like I said to age group athletes to normal athletes or even to normal persons and um that is also quite uh quite interesting how you can use that knowledge then to make benefit people for example if they are doing sports for their health only and still they can learn something from high performance training so um always always good to take something from there and and it's like for example why do we fly to the mo on the moon so that's that's also a thing so you you try to achieve something really big and on the way you you discover something what you can then use also for a larger amount of of people before we jump into tackling that topic I have to tickle my own curiosity what's it like working with Primos RL yeah so we are really happy to have him in the team um he's a really um um how you say accessible guy so he not that that he's the big star there and that uh you need a special audience to talk to him so it's really from the first moment on he was um he really welcomed the team and he was really welcomed in the team uh what is nice and we also brought from uh from visma is coach Mark um to our team what also makes things easier for both parties for pry much for sure because he can continue on The Daily base with his coach and also from other from our side to better or faster understand the athlete and the human being PR Rish and to help uh yeah to help him to have the perfect environment to perform do leaders like that raise the standard obviously you've guys have had some gror success with Jay Henley in the Euro a couple of Seasons back but there's someone like rugit come in and redefine standards or is that something you're independently just pressing ahead and trying to be a better version of yourselves year on year I think it supports this so for sure in Performance Port you always try to wake up in the morning and try or when you go to bed uh to say okay what did I do today better than yesterday and so on so what which are the progresses that I made but having a a guy who can really win this big races or another guy who can win these big races um that motivates the the whole team that motivates every single person no matter it it's the coach the mechanic the fysal the head of performance or whatever it is the general manager and also so and it's also really important for the whole for the other athletes so basically they see a worldclass athlete who is living every day for his goals for his dreams and then um he can also be a role model without changing himself so he have he has just to be himself and this is already enough to raise the bar and also show to other athletes what you really have to do if you want to be successful and what primot is also doing well is he never lose the fund so you always see that he has a lot of fun in uh what he's doing so it's not a job but it's really something what

Consistency Over Hero Sessions

He likes to do and I think this is also a big um a big asset what what you need to be a worldclass athlete when I compare to other world class athlete that I was uh happy to work with this is for sure a common Point um comparing women man no matter what it is but those athletes who really achieve the top they really love what they doing let's dive in and talk about broad Strokes I want it start Broad and then get more detailed and granular as the conversation progresses do you think there's an overall coaching philosophy that amateur athletes should be subscribing to um so I think in overall philosophy could be that um if we talk about endurance sport consistency is quite important so it's not about the one key session about one big day that you have to do it's more about giving your body constantly uh um certain amount of load and to realize this load management is quite important so to avoid injuries to avoid sickness to avoid yeah probably also mental issues so and that is something what is the same for high performance athletes but also for uh um recreational athletes so that you take care about this balance between load and recovery and I could Now list a lot of systems in your body bones tendons muscles cardiovascular system and so on and so on uh what all plays a role there so that's why I think um one General thing is to develop a training system where you are able to do your your sport over a long period consistently and if you are able to do this in general also performance is coming so for sure it's not only that where if you just own is running easy and you if you if every training session is 1 hour easy running for sure at some point you will make no progress anymore but um this is a good foundation a good base and always when you see that you are often sick you have often pain somewhere you you feel often fatigue then there's something wrong with what you're are doing so it's probably not a coaching philosophy it's more like okay what does it really need to be successful or to be good in endurance Sport and this is consistency well I I think that's a great place to Anchor this conversation because maybe that's also one of the areas where high performance athletes and amateurs should differ that the lens that we View High Performance through is a shorter term lens even if we look at a long career it spans 15 years whereas we look at the career of an amateur athlete this can span multiple decades so the actions we take in the short term for high performance athletes aren't necessarily the same actions you would take if you're looking to optimize over a 30 40 50 year period yeah absolutely because um if you have an a professional athlete so he's he or she's basically um so the income is also linked to basically the the level of success that the athletes have so it's it's it sounds not so romantic but it's also a job so they also have to earn money for themselves for for their family on so on probably also already for the future and uh for this for sure if you want to be successful uh you come really close to the to the Border what is possible and what is probably a little bit too much so I think and that is really um something where you have to look into and I think in in um when you take an amateur athlete it's not necessary to go so close to that border I think that's really important to understand exactly like what you said anony it's they want to do this sport over the decades they want to keep the body healthy and high performance Sports I would not say that this is healthy it's I think it's uh we have to be make really clear on that it's not that we want to hurt the health of the athletes or that we try to damage that but for sure it's not healthy to do 30 35 hours of sport every week uh over a whole year and so on and so on so probably um also when we look 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 but um there should be a difference and I think there um it's always good if the high performance atlet just has a small reserve between that border um where you have too much the amateur aage should leave quite a bigger bigger reserve for that I wonder is there like a lot of diminishing returns at play here because I know last year in the summer I don't some big rids and you know some 200 kilometer plus rides and it always struck me when friends asked how was the ride I always had the same answer I said the phone went out of it

Loving The Daily Process

About 160 km in and it felt like a chore after that so maybe this is a simplistic view but you think actually enjoying the whole process should underpin any long-term training plan so I think um also something what is similar between worldclass athletes and I'm not athlet could really be the process so if you are if you love the process to get to a certain goal um it's it's a day byday thing it's not just okay you have I don't know you have a special cycling Marathon or a triathon that you want to do and that's the only goal and you do everything for this no I think it's important to go on a daily base and to enjoy that process and also to to be aware of there is not this specific there is not this master plan so it's not that you can say this is the one and only training plan that leads you to this goal because individual individual adaptation have to be made there are different ways to get there so basically you should be aware on The Daily base what is good what is not good where do I have to make an adaptation um so that's why I would think if you if you love if you love for example that process that you get better week by week months by months you love to have good nutrition to take care about training about good recovery and so on and so on that's much more fulfilling than just having that goal and B basically every day after work after eight nine hour of work forcing you to do the training just to achieve that one goal I think that's just not not big enough to to do that it's more to to look behind that and see what's what can sport gives me more than just achieving a goal that I set myself so if we start to zoom in a little bit now so we started we talked about the philosophy now if we zoom in a little bit and we look at a macr training plan so if we assume which I think is a fair assumption that an athlete especially a time crunch one only has three levers they can pull in terms of their training sessions they have the frequency of their training session they have the duration of our training session so how long is a session and then they have the intensity within that session how should they think about manipulating these three variables frequency duration and intensity so I think um a general approach is always there is something what you find in all the training exercise books um if you bring up intensity you have to decrease the volume so if we talk about one specific session if you do for example a V2 Max session no matter in which spot for sure this is the session who should not be uh probably a three or four hour session um but this is the short session if you doing something with an easy endurance fat metabolism training easy endurance training so aerobic endurance training for sure this session can be much longer so basically these are already two parameters where you um that are are working vice versa so if you increase volume you decrease intensity and the same in the other way around and that is for for one single session but it's also for uh your weekly or your monthly training let's say um if you're training for example like three weeks loading and one week's recovery then basically in this three weeks loading when you go up with the volume step by step normally in the last week you probably decrease intensity to be able to have a higher volume and then uh like you said if you come if it comes to U density so how often should you train I think this is then the last parameter to um to adapt so basically first you increase volume after you add intensity and the last one is that you then um open up some more training days or you put more sessions uh with a shorter rest period and that's exactly why you are doing this because if you go a higher intensity the recovery time is shorter and that's what you have to take care of and I always say and that's the same for the professional in the first training pH you always have to build up some resilience so resilience I mean that your body is able to support the training load that you want to give to the body yeah and that is for all the systems bones tendons no matter what it is and this needs a certain amount of time before you start then with the wheel training process and that is similar from the world class admet to the amateur ad unfortunately there's a situation in the cycling coaching economy where everyone is a cycling coach the guy who DEC DEC Ates your house the painter and decorator he'll also do a bit of cycling coaching for you on the side there seems to be thousands of cycling coaches but that doesn't mean there's thousands of good cycling coaches what I worry with cycling coaching at the moment is that they've taken the philosophy from training the top level guys and they are applying this to time crunch Riders and by that I mean

Prioritizing Limited Training Hours

If we look at data on what we know is good for somebody long term like the amount of time under tension they need with strength and conditioning each week the importance of Mobility exercise the importance of stretching core workk physiotherapy all these supportive stuff but you take a rider who only has 10 hours a week to for total training time because of family and work commitments and they go into one of these amateur coaches this amateur coach now allocates their full 10 hours a week to on the bike and quite a lot of intensity into that I feel like they're missing so many of the benefits from strength condition Mobility that other stuff listed hey Ro man excuse the short Interruption I love riding the bike but on account of being so busy with the podcast at the moment I'm now what's called a time crunch Rider I never thought I'd see today but I have a tool I'm using what bike to keep myself sharp and on point with specific sessions to maximize that available training time I have a w bike atam right here in the recording studio beside me and when I have an hour in between interviews I jump on it's removed Ming all the friction points for me just's no more 10 minute setup unfolding legs banging my knees off stuff getting my hands dirty usual connection issues it just works every single time the atom's perfect for virtual racing as well because it has crisp gear changes it has 1% accuracy and it has Max gradient capability of up to 25% if you're looking for an indoor trainer I honestly couldn't recommend this any higher I've been using a w bike since 2013 honestly it's the last indoor trainer that you're ever going to need if you head on over to what bike.com now and you use code roadman 10 that's r o a Meen TN and that's going to get you 10% off your W bike I I think it's really important to um and that's why it's good to have a coach also another Lev to put priorities so exactly what you say depending on the time that you have you should fix uh what can you put into the training and what uh so with which training do you have to biggest effects so if you want to if you train for cycling Marathon for example for sure the most important thing is to be on your bike so if you just have eight hours of trade or if you have eight hours of training uh probably you cannot off um you cannot put four hours from this eight hours into strength training because this is not the limiting factor at some point so you have always to see what how much time do you have and then make prioritization of depending on your goal if if you are do Sprint Tri La if you're doing like I said a cycling Marathon cycling race or whatever it is and um there you can also learn learn from the pro you can make some kind of periodization for example an amateur athlete in the winter basically probably the weather is not so good um you train a lot indoor probably there you can put more focus on on strengths more focus on on core and so on and then coming into the season you can use that and then really train in the spot that you want to be good so to find the right balance here because with amate Aid normally you don't start the season in January like the professionals are doing but you start your season probably March April May somewhere there so you have enough time that you can spend on building your endurance so it's always finding the right balance so how much time do you have and then looking also about how is your weekly plan so probably under um in from Monday to Friday you just have every second day one hour probably there you can put some some intensity if you have just one hour and then on the weekend when you have more time you can probably put your longer session so that's why the training plan has to be adapted to your to your specific situation is there something that you wouldn't skimp on do you think we should be doing mobility and strength conditioning All Season around um so I think what is important is um the mobility and C stability and so basically that your body um has resilience so basically that for example if you are three hours on the bike and and you get always back pain um for sure you have to to to do something so you should prepare your body that it's ready to support the load that you want to put uh we talk about cycling so that we want to put in cycling I think if you're doing out squats or or bench press or or leg press or whatever this is not going make to make you necessarily faster on the bike this can give you some basic strengths but the transfer from the strength exercise to the bike is probably the 50/50 probably you working more with I don't know plyometric something uh what is a little bit more functional and um this is something what you then should keep over the whole season but it's not a on hour session

Cross-Training For Base Fitness

Three times a week it's probably just a 30 minute session three times a week um so keeping it short but continuously doing it makes no no no no sense to make c training at the beginning of the season three times a week one hour and then skipping it uh somewhere when you start to race because then you will lose it because everything what you don't train you will lose again so um better to from the beginning on to build something consistency something what you can do consisteny consistently and then um yeah reduce it to the minimum what is really necessary for that sport in cycling it's different than in Dr la it's different than in running it's different than in I don't know feed and track or whatever I think a lot of time crunched athletes fall into the same trap and they create one sacrificial lamb because it takes up the most time and that's typically endurance writing zone two writing because it by by its very nature it needs to be done for extended periods of time you mentioned athletes kind of optimizing around their environment is there a case to be made for in the winter we can substitute some of our cross country some of our endurance writing for cross country skiing or when we get into the summer season can we substitute it for walking if for time crunch does it have the same physiological adaptations 100% so I think that is a really a big benefit what amate andl have that they can really build their base with different sports basically it's about moving uh let's take heart rate basically we want to have physical adaptation and we want to have a certain amount of time in a certain amount of um training Zone and there sometimes it doesn't matter if you're doing a video to Max interval Now by running by cross country skiing or on the bike because we want an unspecific adaptation at that moment we want to increase your general view to Mex for sure if you're doing on the bike um the expert will say it's a little bit different because you you are using the muscles that you that you are really using during the biking but in the winter this is not so important it's more important that you can do it and that you can also choose between different training methods or different training disciplines and it's also good for the head so it makes fun H and also it it develops your your skills in a larger way what is quite good also for for amateur athletes and more sustainable in the winter with bad weather with long working times and so on so I I'm a big fan of that how do you think about measuring the adaptation for it if I go for a three-hour bike ride we would normally think you know around 30 training stress points per hour for a zone two Riot if I went for a three hour walk should I attribute the same training stress score to it is there a linear relationship um I think training stress score is probably hard to to take that one I would make more go on on a heart rate so basically to say okay how much time let me say your aerobic endurance heart is between 120 and 140 uh and then to say how much time did I spend now in that Zone by doing the the sport that I did probably on the bike it will be 120 to 130 probably when you run it's 130 to 140 but that you spend enough time in that training Zone one trap that you can fall one trap where you can fall in is with running because running is quite demanding for your bones for your tangent so if somebody says I have a 2hour ride on my program and he's now doing replacing it by 2hour one is something completely different for the muscles for the bones and there sometimes also the injury are happening because the the the athlete says hey cool I go outside it's it's it's cold but running is always so there I don't get cold and then he he starts running and after one and a half hour everything is just hurting probably knee pain starts so running is a discipline or every every um sport where you have an impact are disciplines that you have to build up step by step not because you cannot do it from the cardiovascular system but just because your um your your bones tendons and so on are not ready for it so you have to build it up step by step that's not the case with cross trainer with cross country skiing with uh those some spots where you don't have this this impact I love the idea of the par principle where 20% of our inputs get create 80% of our outputs and I'm wondering if we could apply that to the high performance setup obviously a team like Bora they're blessed to have a big budget and with that comes performance chefs Sports psychologists physiotherapists is there anything from that high performance ecosystem that you think amateurs are missing or they neglecting or they're missing a big trick by not working with one of these professionals um so the first thing is um having a coach I think that's quite uh important um why

Where To Invest Your Money

Uh because at least the coach can try to figure out the best load management so basically looking at your situation and then have give helping you to find the right balance what we talked before between load and Recovery like I said if you have a 10-hour working day also this should have an influence on what you're doing in training and having a person who can help you on that side uh I think that's quite valuable um if you have a a a good coach he can probably also help you already in or a good coach somebody who is a little bit wider he can also help you probably in nutrition because this would be the second topic to say okay nutrition wise what can I do nutrition wise like which effect does nutrition have on training adaptation on training itself um I think here you can even do it if we have for example some consultation sessions so probably having a nutrition is that you say okay I've us the him once probably two weeks later again and three weeks later again so having three or four sessions and then normally you have already a lot of knowledge on amate athlete that you can work on your own with it I think that's is also a good um a good um good advice and one last thing is also how you are sitting on your bike when we talk about uh recycling so do you have an efficient position on your bike biomechanically aerodynamics probably depending if you do Tri ties or um or trions but especially biomechanically so that you are not uh you don't come into a situation that you get some kind of injury some kind of um overloading of your tenance because you have a bad bike position I think that would also be a shame to lose weeks or months of training just because probably your sell heate was um 1 cimeter too low so these are the points where I think it's important to invest it doesn't take so so much time but they have a big input impact and after this comes all the other stuff I would say yeah I think that's great advice as well and they're modest enough financial commitments especially compared to the price of bikes and stuff we see at the moment you'd be better off buying a midlevel bike and investing into some of these consultations you'd probably have a much better outcomes yeah exactly that's what you what uh what I also would say was the the amount of money you put in these days in the bike uh basically this consultation is the basically for free already but um and it has so much value so it gives you something an education what you can use on The Daily base you know if you have a an expensive bike probably some years later you you change your bike but this Basics things what you get on training on nutrition and so on they will last would say nearly forever because the this basic recommendations they are not changing so much probably some detail are changing about different supplements or if you now take 80 gram of Cs 100 gram or 90 but the basic recommendations if you once have this you have them for your whole career and I think that's a good investment one of the things you mentioned earlier ROM which underpins a lot of what you're saying it's consistency not missing sessions and when I think about the barriers for an amateur athlete with consistency it's normally time management it's how do we manage our family responsibilities our work responsibilities and still fit training in I know you've worked with two of the greatest triathletes ever Yan ferino and Lucy Charles Barkley they get through so much work in a week they do so many training sessions in a week is there any lessons around time management you learned from being in close proximity to them that you think amateur athletes could apply to their lives Rob man I know how serious you take your goal setting whether their Fitness or life related goals if you're looking for a powerful alloy to support you on this journey look now further than Hu C has become my secret weapon for when I don't have time to prepare a balanced meal it ensures I get the nutrition I need without sacrificing time or taste plus it stops me from reaching for that takeaway menu I always throw a bottle into my backpack when I'm heading into the city to work and it stops me eating junk convenience food snacking on crossons and bars of chocolate because I know they don't support my training goals it's a handy nutritious meal on the go and it's got over 22 grams of protein hu is perfect for athletes that don't have time to cook or prepare food before a training session it's convenient nutritious fuel at your fingertips ensuring you hit your daily fueling needs for that session H ready to drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals in every single bottle you're getting a whopping 175 health benefits plus it's made from natural ingredients like Topeka Sunfire seed coconut and more the best part it's the flavors there's eight crazy beautiful flavors iced coffee is what's in my back back pack right at the moment you can get hu directly to your home all you got

Planning Around Real Life

To do is head on over to the hu website hu.com Roan um I think to to um to make a good plan so basically what they are doing when yeah no matter which training platform we are using let's say training Peak for example so they put they private appointments into that platform and then already you as a coach see okay they proba there's an appointment that can take some time there's a photo shooting and and so on and then immediately in your planning you you put all so you you man you try already there to have a good load management so that you incorporate this additional load by let's say photo shooting in the whole concept and if I take an an atlet basically what I would do is sitting there um looking at my working week or looking at my yeah work family and so on putting it in my calendar and being being also honest to myself so not saying okay this will take 45 minutes but you know sometimes you also need to for example if you do a session you have to to take a shower you have to dress you and so on so on but really putting these blocks and then seeing really what is the free time what I have and then when you start to build your training to to to Really incorporate all this into the the plan already what people try in general is they get a training plan and try to fit it in somehow and then it just end up in pure stress and sickness is just a consequence out of it but and like this the professionals are not doing it the professionals they have their appointment for sure they it's their job so that's why they have more time for Recovery more time for the trading but they give their appointments to their coach and then we we try to align it or even in advance we are looking when I have to do a photo shooting when do we probably have a recovery week where we have less training and then we plan it like that so planning is basically the main the the the the biggest Milestone there so a good planning in advance it's a subtle shift but I remember having mate mic on the podcast and again he made another subtle shift in the way I taught about training and it he said it took him nearly a decade to realize that the function of training was to get faster in races and that sounds like a very simplistic statement on its surface but a lot of us view the function of training as to complete training sessions or to put green boxes across our entire week on training Peaks but the goal is to get an adaptation from that and I think that can be lost and like what you're saying there about planning really underscores the importance of that we're trying to get an adaptation not just do stuff for the sake of doing it yeah that's a a really good point um that's why I also don't like to comment every s session like oh that was a great session or that was perfect or whatever it's not about that one session it's about about the the whole block what you have to do to be successful then in in the races and I always say the race is basically our best performance diagnostic so we we train for racing and um in training there could be some good days some bad days but I'm not the fan to say we need to create some new best results in training I even try to avoid this so we want to have the best new results in in competition physic Ally and also mentally because if you always come mentally to a point you have to do a critical power testing again and again and again in training at some point um you just get fatigue in your head so you have to make this this best values in the race for sure you have to prepare it but in training you can also be fatigue and and still the session can be good I had a case yesterday and andf called me before the session he said I'm feeling quite tired should I do the session like this what do you think and I I said exactly what you said yes we we want to do it as long as the quality stays in in a Range uh what is still acceptable but we want to give that load even if you run uh five seconds slower on a c that doesn't matter um but we need that load basically to come to our final result and that's why on the other hand also competitions are always competition so when I send athletes to a competition we always go there to have the best possible results not for testing or for having already an excuse before we start so competition is competition and we use that as a competition how do you weigh up like subjective feedback from an athlete like that and like what weight would you give to that against say heart rate variability or resting heart rate of an athlete um I'm I like to have so if I can choose I like to have both so some measurements if we take that case for example

Reading Athlete Fatigue Signals

From that athlete uh there we have hard ability we have resting heart rate um we have to sleep so over the over every day and then you look at the trends and then you um for me this is so how 50% then the 50% what is the athlete saying and then it also depends on how no which athlete is saying what so it could be that two athlet saying I'm I'm tired but it means something different so the the the scale of saying I'm tired is is different from athlete to athlete this is something where you have to make some kind of calibration as a coach working together with an athlete over the first weeks and months and then I look at the data then I look at I I I listen quite carefully to what the a is saying and then I give uh her frame and say okay look this is the frame that we are working in so if you are doing this intervals and you can stay in that frame you continue but if you drop in the first two intervals already the quality at that point then we Skip and then you just make an easy run or an easy run and we we reset the program so then the asset is clear and knows okay that's what he wants from me he he understood that I'm tired but it's okay and that also gives some reassurance for the athlet so the atlet is then sure okay it's it's fine that I'm tired and it's fine if I have not my personal best session today and with some for some aslet this is important to have this confidence also that the coach say hey it's fine to be like this some other athletes they don't care they are they already so long in the business they know what to do but from some other evid they need that info from the coach everyone has a parameter now you know when I started outs Clin I forged a loan application in the bank and bought a two and a half thousand Euro parameter I told the bank I needed a car to go to college and I think it was like the only one in Ireland who had a power meter now I go out in a group ride and every cat 4 and sportif guy has a power meter and I often wonder are we too focused on output rather than input with heart rate being our input and the power being our output should more of us be listening to and observing heart rate as a metric for judging intensity um I'm I'm honest I'm a big fan of heart rate so if I would have to choose between one of both I would always take heart rate because heart rate is um and I see it exactly like I said heart rate is always the the reaction of your body to something what you to a load that you give so basically you put in some wordss and you get a reaction over the heart rate and and heart rate really tells you what is what is going on there for sure it's nice to have both because then you can really compare um but I'm always happy to have a heart rate and would take decisions sometimes more based on heart rate than now on on whats with wats you always have the the um I give a simple example what everybody understand if you are in Sarah Nevada and you ride up from 700 M up to 2,000 M and you have a basic endurance of 200 to 230 30 watts and you try to keep this for sure it will not work because it's 1,600 M the intensity zones are shifting but if you say the atlet you stay at 130 heart rate that is still the same so 130 heart rate atlet has to drop the power depending on the altitude and it's just more accurate the only thing where where power is just more powerful is short intensity stuff if you're doing 303s or something like this the hard is just to slow to to to use it as a control mechanism or to use it as intensity control there for sure power or even speed uh is is more accurate for for hitting the right intensity and you know the example you gave of riding up to side of SE in Nevada the only difference there is an additional stressor has been introduced altitude but for amateur athletes were getting introduced by additional stressors every day at a week like I remember jumping on the W bike last week and I had two 20 minute efforts to do at 350 watts and the previous week I done the two 20 minute efforts at 350 Watts at around 150 heartbeats 150 to 153 heart rate and for whatever was happening this following week I jump on and a 350 Watts I'm at 175 beats like straight away and I'm getting heart rate DFT towards the end of the interal I'm up over 180 beats firstly it's like a totally different adaptation I'm guessing at a different heart rate but secondly it's mentally draining to be able to perform that session when we're using power as a guidance yeah exactly and also at that moment where you see that heart rate um uh let me say like this when

Why Heart Rate Still Matters

You start on your bike and you do the warmup and you see your heart rate is already I don't know five to 10 beats higher than it should be in general then you also know okay something is different here so probably my body is still working on something what I did in the uh yesterday probably an infection is coming but something is different probably I should uh should adapt what I plan to do so probably at that day if you have on your program intervals probably should could just skip them doing an easy session and look what happens with your body because there is a reason why your heart rate is five or 10 beats up and the reason and and then sometimes people say yeah but I know I drank a glass of alcohol or something like this yes but still it's the heart rate is higher the same with heat so it's 30 degrees my yeah I know my heart rate will be 10 beats higher yes but then you have to adapt it because exactly what you're saying otherwise you're just targeting a different intensity so you're targeting a different effort from your body so there is a reason why hard rate is higher so it has to be considered in the load management we've kind of when I'm chat to I chat to a lot of world to writers on the podcast and I've noticed a shift in the last couple of years people used to talk a lot about training stress score they used to talk a lot about normalized power the vocabulary has shifted where a lot of people are now talking about kogs can you explain to me why we started talking about kogs and is this a terminology that amateurs should adopt I would I I think the the reason for this is um let me say we have two athletes they go to the lab they're making a performance test both are fresh both come out with a treasure hold of 420 Watts uh or I don't know at 6 Wat kilo and then in a race you see a completely different outcome so and people always think yeah but why basically we are at the same level we have the same same treasure even probably the same metabolic profile like V2 Max and let that bu every way everything seems to be the same why is um why is that guy better than than me and then in the last years there were some studies who took a look at that and they found out that differences come up after a certain amount of work has been done or let me say like probably like this after a certain amount of energy has been spent so after two or three hours after 2,000 3,000 Kil have been spent there seems then there are differences from the same so from these two athletes you see that every atlet is reacting differently in the state of fatigue and that's why now comes up more and more this terminology uh kilog also nutrition I came um became a much higher importance in the last years because everybody saw oh if I fuel myself with 80 90 100 gr of cars per hour I I also more um my performance level at the end of the rate is much higher as it has been before and it's just by adding more sugar in certain amount yeah in a in a special way to the body just to keep uh the the the performance level high in the past it was completely different in the past it was always try to eat less and try to avoid too much cars and so on and so on so this completely changed and there's a much higher focus on energy intake on energy consumption and also on what kind of effort is possible at the end of a race because when you look at the cycling race the race are normally not decided in the first two hours but probably in the last hour and there comes big differences between worldclass Rider and probably Riders who brings the same physiology from the lab but um still there seems to be a difference and now science is looking more deeper and deeper deeper into the details what are the differences how can we uh how can we man manipulate them or how can we even detect them um to make to make a higher differentiation between writer between the different writers super interesting I think this has been super helpful for amateur athletes just before I finish up is there anything that you feel I've missed is there anything else that the pros are doing that you think would have you know effective implementation to an amateur athletes life and training we we just uh talked briefly about it about this recovery so um I think that's really a big Point uh where where the professionals take care of about that they recover enough so let me say they train four six four to six hours a day and then they have still a lot of time to take care about their recovery and when you are am athlete and like I several time mentioned already when you are working 8 to 10 hours and when you have have a high stress level you have to take this into a account probably it's better just to make an

Sleep As The Top Recovery Lever

Easy training to come down and to to to shift intensity to a day where you are uh yeah we we don't have so much stress so you always have to find the right balance here to keep consistency that is what professionals that do try to do not getting sick um avoiding um injuries and so on so we talked already about this but really also take um having the the courage to say okay today I leave the bike or like what I said after the first 20 minutes the heart rate is just so much higher than it should be just to say okay the day I call it a day probably not the best day to go to train so I see what what comes tomorrow that is also what professions are doing so it's not just training hard but it's training smart what will make the difference and I think it's the same for amateur athletes yeah it's interesting I chatted to Olaf bu on the podcast and he talked about Eden and bloomfeld a lot of time they'll forgo massages ice bats wearing compression boots in favor of just getting more sleep because he said sleep is undeniably the lever they pull where they reap the greatest return on their recovery yeah exactly so I completely AG on Olaf um so that um the sleep so if you can manipulate the quality of sleep that can have a high impact on on on your recovery and also on your performance and this starts already with when do you turn off your phone before going to bed uh what are the last last news that you are reading before you go to bed so when you when you see or when you when you feel that your sleep is bad so that you wake up in the morning and that you're still completely dead TR to to change that probably it's better than to change something in training just take a look at it why why is my sleep not so good probably last training session was so close to going to bed that it just was not possible so there are a lot of factors how you can manipulate sleep and sleep is still the most efficient um methods to to recover so that's that's really important then the nutrition um take care that the that you have your nutrition um on a regular basis so like I said here it's always good if you have a a consultation with a nutritionist two or three times it will helps you just to to arrange your day to to adapt it to your situation and um then you can already achieve achieve a lot just by recovering better from the session so you're doing still the same training sessions but just better recovery helps you also to perform better to get get a better outcome D this is brilliant thank you for being so generous with your time I know you have a lot of things on your plate but I know amateur athletes listening to this will have benefited an awful lot yeah thank you very much anony was really nice nice check and ah one last thing probably what I want to add because we talk about recovery when we have an eight eight hour day FR or eight hour tradings per week for sure this is not something where you need to go every day to the m physiotherapist where you have to do all this recovery um um stuff like like I ice baring like what you said now what the Norwegians are doing and there's a reason for this because if for example the atline is doing after every session an ice bu so if you always bring down the inflammation that you create then also the adaptation is less and if you have just eight hours of training you should be take care of that you not uh basically shut down all these adaptations too early the same with if you have too much antioxidants and and all that stuff so there be careful that you not overdo it but with sleep you can do nothing wrong so sleep recovery you can do nothing wrong and that's uh the most important part of recovery D thank you very much so if you like this video you should definitely check out this video because I know you're going to love it and don't forget to subscribe to the channel

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How does Dan Lorang structure training for amateur cyclists?+

Dan Lorang argues that the core principles are the same for amateurs and professionals: consistency and load management take priority over any individual hard session. For time-constrained amateurs, this means building a sustainable weekly structure that can be repeated for years rather than chasing short-term fitness peaks.

How do I know if I am overtraining as an amateur cyclist?+

Dan Lorang defines sustainable training by the absence of recurring illness, injury, or persistent fatigue. If any of those three warning signs appear regularly, the training load is too high relative to the rider's capacity to recover. Reducing volume or intensity until those signs disappear is the correct response, not pushing through them.

Should amateur cyclists train with heart rate or power?+

Both metrics have value but serve different purposes. Power measures output precisely and is useful for setting and tracking effort during intervals, while heart rate reflects how the body is responding to stress on a given day. Dan Lorang recommends using them together rather than relying on one exclusively.

How should amateur cyclists plan their training long term?+

Dan Lorang advises amateurs to optimise over decades rather than single seasons, which is the opposite logic to professional racing where income depends directly on short-term results. A periodised programme that builds gradually and protects health will produce far greater cumulative improvement than aggressive training blocks that lead to burnout or injury.

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CHAPTERS

Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

CLAIMS FROM THIS EPISODE

RESOURCES MENTIONED

KEY QUOTES

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

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