Coachinginterview

TRIATHLETE? IMPROVE YOUR SWIM IN YOUR 30S AND 40S | JOSH AMBERGER

with Josh Amberger

48:35·28 December 2023

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JOSH AMBERGER

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CYCLING FOR TRIATHLETES

Josh Amberger, one of the world's best triathletes, sits down to discuss why taking a proper offseason matters as much as the racing itself—especially when you're in your 30s and 40s. We explore how swimming technique is fundamentally different from other endurance sports, why most age-groupers are wasting their pool time, and how modern nutrition science has completely flipped the script on what athletes should actually be eating.

Key Takeaways

Swimming is overwhelmingly technical—you can't afford to develop bad habits like an adult, because unlike cycling or running, there are dozens of simultaneous movements to coordinate (hand entry, breathing, timing). Overthinking is the biggest limiting factor for adult learners.
Taking a genuine offseason—including time away from your phone, family time, and even putting on weight—is crucial for career longevity. The young pros doing altitude camps year-round might be setting personal records now, but the long-term cost on mental health and career sustainability remains unknown.
Modern fueling protocols have shifted dramatically: athletes are now consuming 120+ grams of carbs per hour compared to 70 grams a decade ago, and there's zero shame in eating during training. The younger generation has this advantage built in from day one, removing the cultural stigma older athletes had to fight.
Ironman-specific fueling is different from road cycling because you can't rely on team support or aid stations—you must front-load nutrition on the bike leg and adapt to inconsistent availability during the run. Sweat composition testing (like sodium patches) reveals individual variation that static lab tests miss.
Aerodynamics has been the biggest rapid shift in triathlon equipment over the past 5 years, with integrated fairings and custom extensions pushing bike speeds down to 4-hour paces for 180km—what used to be half-iron pace.
Having a partner who shares your sport (like training with your spouse) creates accountability and forces you to confront advice you might otherwise dismiss, though the 'husband-wife' dynamic can make coaching feedback harder to accept.

Expert Quotes

"Swimming is so technical that you can't afford to develop any bad habit. By the time I was 11 or 12 I'm in the pool literally 10, 11 times a week. Sometimes I feel like I didn't have a choice."

"There's so much going on in the swimming stroke—it's not like turning a pedal on the bike or going for a run. There's hand entry, breathing, there's a lot of timing aspects to swimming that is difficult."

"I'm not ashamed to take time off. Being 34 now, I'm looking at the last five years of my career potentially. What's going to really pay for me in the back end of my career is being able to really differentiate when we're in season and when we're offseason."

KEY QUOTES

“Swimming is so technical that you can't afford to develop any bad habits. So it is really interesting whereas you know I'm not changing my stroke at all it's it's set like I just have to make sure I've got a little bit of Mobility through triceps laats um pecs to make sure I'm not sort of chopping my stroke.”
Josh Amberger — Professional triathlete

“Overthinking I think is yeah the biggest limiting factor um to teaching an adult to swim. There's literally so many like hand entry and um you know breathing there's a lot of timing aspects to swimming that that is difficult and so teaching an adult to just think about one thing and one thing only is very difficult they want to like throw four or five things in at one time and try and do too much.”
Josh Amberger — Professional triathlete

“We did 3K the first session 4K the second session and you know our sessions in season are only getting like to sort of 5K in volume so already after taking more than a month out of the pool I can jump in and swim for an hour quite easy.”
Josh Amberger — Professional triathlete

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT2 SECTIONS

Can Adult-Onset Swimmers Catch Up?

So how good do you think you can get if you take up swimming in your mid-30s to you know mid 40s is there a sealing on that progress um I think probably the data would say my name is Josh amberger and swimming is so technical that you can't afford to develop any bad habit by the time I was um 11 or 12 I'm in the pool yeah literally 10 11 times a week um 12 even sometimes yeah you know swimming sort of 50 child abuse sometimes I feel like I didn't have a choice I didn't have a choice like there's so much going on in the swimming stroke it's not like turning a pedal on the bike or going for a run I'm guessing you're training with Ames from time to time as well when you look at their swim strokes and their swim training what are the biggest mistakes they're making um yeah it's a question on sort of everyone's lips Josh welcome to the Roan podcast thanks Anthony how's the offseason treating you um yeah mate it's going pretty good so I've taken a month off um my last race was the end of October I did am man casc which is in Portugal and it actually the race went really bad I I didn't finish um it's probably the the the first race in my career where I've pulled out during the race literally thinking I don't have it today um so I think my body really was um like out of gas at the end of the season so I'd planned a little bit more racing after that but decided to to call it there and and take some time off and I've been yeah back home in Australia now and and camping with my wife and um yeah enjoying a couple weeks off catching up with family and friends have been away from home for 6 months now so um yeah nice to be home and yeah just starting to dabble um in a little bit of exercise this week so it's been good Camp's a different experience in Australia I'm guessing like campan in Ireland is you get absolutely soaked every single time you pitch the tent Australia just seems like such a cool place to go camp yeah I mean like our camping here is particularly in my area um off the coast of Brisbane um on on the East Coast we've got these massive sand Islands um like ancient um sand drifts and formations but yeah they they're really remote so typically the the island we go to is Morton Island um or Fraser Island to the North Fraser Island's world heritage listed so it's probably a bit more well known around the world but these places are it's all sand there's no sealed roads so you need a full drive to get there you need to go on a boat to get there um with your car um and once you're there it's just like it's like you just take a step back in time um and yeah you can't use your your phone to call anyone there's no reception there's like no Services here at all so we're going for like a week without a shower because there's just no showers available um and we're pretty much fishing to to catch our tea um at night time so it's I mean it's it's an experience and it's actually it's not an easy holiday it's quite quite a rough um and very active holiday but um it's definitely what we love to do to refresh ourselves in kind of like a sick way you know what we talk all the time about like offseason the importance of it for refreshing and getting ready for next season so much of that is mental like physically yeah sometimes we need a break but often it's just an escape from obligations drudgery you know pluging sponsors meetings the merry go around that we've find ourselves in and even the social expectation to check social media respond to whatsapps like it just gets like sometimes like someone's hold my head underwater it's like okay I just need a break from this yeah 100% And like we've been doing this particular holiday um this remote holiday to Morton Island I say remote it's only like literally two hours from our house in Brisbane and brisbane's a city of two million people but once you get there it's you literally feel so far removed from everything and it's that we've been going there for 13 years now and that this holiday has like taken new meaning for us over the years when we first started going there we didn't have iPhones or anything like that and it was literally like it was kind of it was an adventure like we were discovering a new world um and that was the real thrill for us and that's what um kept us going back but now um me and my wife were a bit older um early to mid-30s and both having a professional care career for quite some time actually my wife she's number two in the world um at the moment um Ashley gentle so um got yeah she's got quite a bit going on at the moment but like now it's to go on this holiday it's it's like it's our unplugged holiday it's a chance for us to set the the auto email saying like we're literally not going we're not going to get your message for the next 10 days so um and don't expect to reply and it's it's amazing to yeah just put the phone down and not worry about it and I always thought of myself as someone who wasn't sort of addicted to to technology and um and the dopamine of you know of social media but it's it kind of inevitably happens when you part of your business as a and and profile as an athlete is to put yourself on these platforms they do suck a lot of life out of you 100% um it's just such such an amazing week to to forget about all of that and the thing we really like this year we actually called it our sleep Camp because we actually got really good quality sleep like when the the sun goes down you know you're you're not looking at screens or anything like that we literally um are in bed by 8 8:30 which is unheard of um for me and my wife and yeah we sleep we were sleeping 10 hours a night some days so it was amazing but is bike packing camping kind of generally being a well-rounded person is that becoming a drawback in this new era of athletes like Gustav Eden Christian Blumenfeld who seem to be pushing that upward boundary of professionalism all the time yeah like in performance terms um I know I'm not going to be a world champion by spending my um offseason or pre-season camping and you know going bike packing and these sort of things but I think that's that's sort of like the Line in the Sand perhaps between the old generation and the new generation and I've had this conversation a lot with um some of my friends in the world tour who are um kind of around my age or late 20s and they're talking about these young guys um they just don't take any time off and that's part of the reason why they're getting so good of course there's a lot of other um facets of that but yeah literally one of them is they don't have an offseason um and that's in many ways like a conscious decision they they see the level like I'm I'm riding with a 21y old guy who's got a proc Continental team actually sorry he's 19 he's got a pro Cony team um in Australia and he he wants to go big and he literally said to me like it's now whenever and he's 19 and that's that's the attitude and they don't take holidays so they don't take holidays but also what they're doing as well is like so if you think of holidays as like the macro break over the season but they're not taking those micro breaks where you go and you do a camp and then you come home from the camp and you go back to normal life and you know you can meet some friends and catch up with them maybe have the odd beer they're just spending time racing altitude camps racing altitude camps undoubtedly the ceiling has going up and we're seeing better and better times across the board in Troy what like what's the longtail cost of that yeah I think that's that's definitely like the observation that um all of us like older BLS are like waiting to see um the longevity of these athletes and um yeah it's a question on sort of everyone's lips um for myself like I'm not ashamed to to take time off um I think being 34 now I'm sort of looking at you know the last sort of five you know years of my career potentially um you know a lot of people racing till early 40s successfully but um I think that's it's it's what's going to really pay for me in the back end of my career is being able to really differentiate when we're in season and when we're offseason and you know offseason means a whole bunch of things like um you know family time um literally stepping away from the sport and forgetting about everything um you know putting on weight things like this that um it's actually a really good feeling to to put on five kilos in a few weeks and then um slowly chip away at that when you start to get back to Fitness like it feels horrible but you know I think in in many ways that's that's actually healthy and I've been fortunate to have very few injuries over my professional career um and particularly no bone stress injuries which are typically the ones that um you know very sudden and and forced and come about when you're you know in an unhealthy state so yeah like I'm I'm not ashamed to to keep doing what I've been doing and and my wife as well um that's that's part of our recipe for success and I think and yeah it's just really going to be interesting to see um yeah what what how the young guys you know how they progress their career and and the level that they keep going to because you touched on that point there maybe twice progress progress is so important to us as humans like you talked about putting on a little bit of weight and then chipping away to get that off because each week when you jump on the scales and you put your training Peaks weight in there's progress and you can do that all through the offseason when you come in a little bit fit as well you do your first Bel to test and oh it's not very good you train for like a first block you come back to like test again okay I've made progress and progress makes us happy and progress keeps us going but I I really have that concern with those guys are they going to be able to stay motivated with the lack of progress we keeping that level so so high like all year round yeah 100% And I think you know you can also look at other sports you know if we um swimming is obviously a component of triathon if you if we look across to to the development of athletes um in a swimming context you've got guys like Michael Phelps who are you know famously winning gold medals from 15 years of age and by the time they're 25 they've won I don't know whatever it is 16 of them or more um and you know famously in Beijing he won I think it was eight in one Olympic Games when he was 21 or something it's just insane um the progression these athletes make and swimming is a sport where it's it's literally total dedication it's eat eat sleep train repeat you know um and a lot of these athletes they're done by the time their early 20s particularly the sprinters it's a really short window um that they're at the top of the sport and a lot of them particularly in Australia you know they Unfortunately they sort of cycle after their professional careers they you know they explore things like partying and having fun well you look at Michael Phelps to somewhat Deery and yeah a lot of them like Phelps he's Dawn but he's also Dawn in the sense that he's come out of that whole period of his life with some pretty legit mental health problems as well like he's not a Happy D from all accounts yeah um I haven't I can't speak much for Phelps I just know like a lot of the the guys we've had here in Australia Grant hacket um and thought they they might ring some Bells as being some of the greatest swimmers of all time but they've all really had their struggles um after the pool and a lot of the females are in that category too but they don't sort of end up in the media the way that Grant hacker on a bender might um but definitely swimming being such a consuming sport yeah we have seen a lot of um Elite athletes finish their careers and and yeah the health implications from that so like I don't I hope that this happens to no one in in um in in our Sports you know cycling and Tron but um unfortunately there's always the real chance if if the if the attitude is to towards your sport is all consuming and and all in so you're one of the best swimmers in the game what do you put that edge down to where did that edge come from um it's pretty simple for me I was I Swimming by the time I was um or in the pool in the Water by the time I was eight months old um in Australia they kind of just grab babies and literally Chuck them in the water and you you work it out so for me swimming I mean for swimming is like another language um being in the water feeling the water knowing how to move through it it's yeah it's literally like trying trying to learn another language and this is the difference between trying to teach a a child to swim and an adult to swim the the kids somehow just get it like if you go to to watch any sort of young Squad of of kids at your local pool you'll just see that that they like know how to move through the water um they might not be going that fast at such a young age like six or seven or right but if you watch an adult in the water um generally like they're fighting it like they kind of have an adult knew to swimming they had kind of no idea um and that's for me like I it's yeah just so easy because I learned from such a young age and that's just culture here in Australia so how good do you think you can get if you take up swimming in your mid-30s to you know mid-40s is there a sealing on that progress um I think probably the data would say yes um there's I think developing like swimming muscles is quite specific and developing the position your body needs to be in the water to swim effectively is quite difficult that being like flat a lot of people um jump in the water and they literally like their leg you know the their toenails are like scraping against the bottom of the pool so trying to teach someone how to actually like float properly in the water um to be able to swim well is is quite a unique skill I think the the biggest limiting factor for for teaching adults to swim and I'm not a coach by any means so this is just all like opinion or anecdotal but we just want to think about too much like there's so much going on in the swimming stroke it's not like turning a pedal on the bike or going for a run there's literally so many um like hand entry and um you know breathing there's a lot of timing aspects to swimming that that is difficult um and so teaching an adult to just think about one thing and one thing only is very difficult they want to like throw four or five things in at one time and try and do too much so um overthinking I think is yeah the biggest limiting factor um to teaching an adult to swim there's a really interesting book called thinking fast and slow and the central idea of it is we have two decision-making Pathways type one decisions and type two decisions I'm not sure if you drive like a a manual standard car but if you do when you I got a l r behind nice nice so when you got started on that you remember that process of you're putting clutch down your like move to the left and up to find Force Gear checking your mirrors like there's a lot of stuff going on and you're trying to process this so that's a hpe one decision where it's very conscious and it has to be very deliberate when we spend enough time on an activity the auor suggests that we move something to unconscious to type two decision making so that's you driving the Land Rover right now you know you could be drinking not that you would but you could be drinking you know Soda coffee kind of beer going down the motorway chat to your girlfriend radio's on on the phone smoking a cig you could do a 100 things at once you don't have to think about that gear change anymore that's just automatic we've built that machinery and that chemistry and I wonder is that the exact same with swimming where we build that Machinery by just erors reps and it then becomes unconscious you're becoming a fish 100% like I think that's to you could apply that to swimming fish or like my wife um Ashley she's she only started swimming when she was 14 um and in Tron swimming generally her weakest leg only 14 like it's still so young so like right now we we've just swam in the pool twice this past week and um we've progressed pretty quickly we did 3K the first session 4K the second session um and you know our sessions in season are only get getting like to sort of 5K in volume so already um you know after taking more than a month out of the pool I can jump in and swim for an hour um quite easy but but Ash on the other hand she's her feedback is oh Josh you know do your arms hurt here you know is is your back saw here um so like her her body just has less memory for swimming than mine I can kind of jump in the water um yeah anytime and not think about it whereas right now I'm really conscious about making sure Ashley um is swimming with good technique if she jumps in now um and is reporting all this muscle soreness everywhere it's a really um like a time where she could develop bad habits heading into the season and swimming is so technical that you can't afford to develop any bad habits um so it is really interesting um whereas you know I'm not changing my my stroke at all it's it's set like I just have to make sure I've got a little bit of Mobility through triceps laats um pecs to make sure I'm not sort of chopping my stroke um but yeah Ash is really really struggling with uh yeah the just the muscle groups and and that Moor pattern that that you need for swimming do you ever have swimmers who change their stroke like I'm thinking of Tiger Woods when he was number one golfer in the world and his ambition wasn't to be the number one golfer in the world his ambition was to be the greatest golfer of all time so he's seen limitations in his current swing and he said this swing I have is good enough to keep me at number one in the world but not to make me the greatest golfer of all time so we went away took some shortterm pain didn't win some tournaments people said it was a mistake but he came back and solidified that reputation as the greatest golfer ever with a new swing do you see athletes doing this in swimming you do to some point I mean there's this um idiom Different Strokes for different folks like some people just don't get the conventional way of swimming um and that could be restrictions from Mobility they might have never stretched until their you know early 30s or something um and you know we see a lot of a lot of professional female triathletes specifically um come into imen racing in the early 30s and they're professional by 32 or 33 and that um they don't know how to swim and and properly so to speak so like I've had training Partners before where the coaches taught them to swim with straight arms for instance and it looks like horrible um it's like a windmill going through the pool but for whatever reason for this particular athlete that's something that they've been able to understand um and obviously see benefits from so it's definitely not at the level of like Tiger Woods like trying to invent the the stroke the swimming stroke that's going to get you the greatest of all time but it's it's enough for a swimmer to get by um just yeah just like trying to find little hacks of you know do you swim straight arm or slightly bent elbow or do you swim with a a shorter a shorter stroke at the front a bit longer at the back um yeah just trying to find the right mix for for a particular swimmer is something we see every now and then tr's quite interesting because even the biggest races in the world you're thrown in with a lot of amateurs into the race and I'm guessing you train with amateurs from time to time as well when you look at their swim strokes and their swim training what are the biggest mistakes they're making you're talking at an amateur level yeah like the the age groupers who are ambitious time crunched and they're just like almost standing in their own way with these mistakes yeah so I the the pool we swim at here in Brisbane The fery Hills pool there's no real squads so there's just a lot of like lone wolves that rock up um and swim by themselves and what I've seen a lot at the pool is um athletes turning up and they're just so um set on hitting hitting the targets like hitting the volume um you know doing 90 a 90 minute swim but that 90 minutes of swimming they've done technically um and physiologically is like really poor um so that almost becomes a waste of time you know they're just basically swimming for swimming sake and and in some ways that's a lot of you know a that's part of endurance is doing the volume of Endurance Sports is doing the volume but if you're doing it really poor and not thinking about what you're doing then you know you have to basically go go back and ask yourself the question like is this helping me get better and most often like throughout the year Ash and I we we're at the pool and we're seeing these athletes kind of get slower like we're looking at um someone and if there's anyone listening to this thinking that that's them like I'm sorry about that but like we're looking at these athletes going like oh yeah like that almost looks like a new low for this particular swimmer um so you know you can you can make really quick gains with your swimming um if you just are very focused on um trying to improve technically through the water and I've mentioned Mobility as well like for me Mo if I don't have the mobility through my lats and triceps and rotators um I'm not swimming at my potential so like just finding a coach that can help you with that is super beneficial um and it's not always something we want to go out of our way to do but someone who can teach you to swim properly is going to help you um in the long run it's super interesting that you've mentioned Ash quite a few times I spoke with the coach for Gustaf Eden and Bloom Fel Alexander Buu and the main thing he credits the success of that Norwegian movement too the kind of athletes that are coming out of Bergen it's the culture that when and I've been in squads like this in cycling where someone finds a gain whether it's an arrow gain or a nutritional gain but there's such a culture in the squad that it's it's zero sum for me to win you have to lose that there's only a limited number there's four of us are only going to this world cup and there's nine on the squad so you're competing against your teammates so it doesn't have this open culture of transparency of sharing information but the two guys even though they're each other's biggest Rivals when one of them finds an edge he's fostered a culture where they don't keep that edge hidden they share that edge because the problem he said when they keep the edge hidden they rely on the edge and they're not going to win races they're going to be the greatest ever in his words so when they share the edge it forces them to up every other area of their game and I'm thinking this as you're talking about Ash because it's such a perfect Synergy for you because you can share breakthroughs because you've nothing but her best interests in mind and the exact same for her is that how important is that to your you know de continuing development and evolution as an athlete yeah I 100% think that you know Olive is right and they're on to something there um I I guess tongue and cheek the the most interesting thing to say here is I am Ashley's husband so typically she doesn't want to listen to me like most of the time it's really really hard to imp impart advice on her without there being like the husband lens and she's like don't tell me what to do sort of thing um which like in all seriousness I could um like I'm doing some error testing and I've found C sleeves are you know five or six WS faster and she's like doesn't like C sleeves you know she hates the look of them or whatever and she's like nah not wearing them Des the and then and then next time she's at the arot testing and and you know she's got she tests the cast slades and she's like okay yeah yep all right I guess I'm wearing cast slades from now on so like I can I can say something but um it might not necessarily uh be on the uptake for Ashley but generally like we do have a very complimentary style to what we do um particularly with you know the facets like nutrition um and recovery and things like this and it's really funny I mentioned you before the show I've been a bit stressed this week um missing some sleep and it's actually quite a shame off the back of my amazing um sleep camp that I mentioned earlier but um yeah she's she's giving me like these you she's telling me what I need to do like look you're on your phone at you know 8 9 9:00 you're sending emails like what like what are you doing of course you're going to sleep like and wake up thinking about stuff um and I I on this on the same hand like I'm also not that proactive in taking up that advice and I'm living with um with one of the best and I'm not listening to her in a sense so it's always yeah it's definitely a good point and it's always a reminder to to um yeah sort of put your relationship to the side and just look at look at the facts black and white and um take your advice and and yeah it's I don't know maybe you could call it like the the Socialist we we should come up with some sort of uh coin coin a term but it's it sounds very socialist to me to be sharing all this uh performance information well for the record I identify a lot more with your setup that I do with that Alexander buo one because my girlfriend's got into cycling in the last year and like I'll say to her you know you're long rides you're doing them too hard and she's like shut up what are you talking about like they're fine they're fine and then someone else who's like you know a cat four or something she go out on a ride with them she come home like oh he said I'm doing my long rides too hard I was like I'm gonna start doing them a lot easier I'm like all right just don't talk to me anymore just I cannot talk to you about but uh how do you keep your training fresh because when I think about someone that's been in the sport course you know we referenc those kids that maybe they have these long careers but we won't know we'll have to put a pin in that one and revisit it in 10 15 years but we know you've been around the sport for a long time you're 15 years at the top of the game seeing some crazy Evolutions how do you keep the trainer fresh each year I mean I think that's first and foremost the benefit of Trion so I started competitive swimming and you know by the time I was 13 or 14 I was like totally burnt out from that I needed a change I was probably at a at a Crossroads where I could have gone professional in swimming if I wanted to pursue it um but it just wasn't any interest in me because there was no variety to it I I just needed more stimulus you know by the time I was um 11 or 12 I'm in the pool yeah literally 10 11 times a week BR even some sometimes yeah like yeah you know swimming border km yeah I mean some sometimes I feel like I didn't have a choice in it and it was sort of M that was making me go training every morning but do you resent that all maybe in some ways that was on I mean I think me choosing to do Trion in some way was pushing back on that and um just really exploring the variety that of training that Trion has to offer so like when I worked out you could go um running on Trails through the forest and how that made me feel and um and you can go ride your bike up up you know mountains and um on the mountain bike like through the bush it was just like such a liberating feeling to to go wall this is like so much better than swimming um it was incredible and that's that's still the diversity that keeps me invested in Trion as a professional sport the the variety that we're doing like this this next few months month uh this next month before say New Year's we're going to be riding um off-road on the gravel much more than we'll be on the road um and same with running we'll be running you know hilly trails and um you know by the time we're looking closer to racing that's obviously totally changed we're not really on a gravel bike you know we'll be doing stuff much more specific but the variety is just something that's incredibly liberating and inspiring as well and then you know we've got our preferred training locations around around the world so we when we're in Europe we're training in Endor and we're getting totally different stimulus in Andora than what we are here in Brisbane likewise when we're in the US we're typically in Boulder and it's like different again um and yeah just that that variety is definitely what keeps me going like we're 15 years in the game you've experienced a lot of changes and I often think changes fall into kind of two categories we have the those creeping changes like you referenced you go to the wind tunnel and you find three Watts with a new sort of fabric on your cves there're slow changes and they kind of creep but then others come along every now and then which are just a dramatic fork in the road where like whoa this is like a total shift on what I've previously been doing have you had many of those fork in the road moments um put me on the spot here but probably like generally aerodynamics on the bike in general is something like if you if you look at photos of Tron um particularly like Iron Man from sort of 15 or 20 years ago like they're doing nothing eror like it like you know the you know the arms are flat the head's like scooped up you know even if you look at World Tour time trials like the positions are just horrendous you look at them ones from back in the day and they're like I can already tell that's error yeah like and you've described error as a creeping change but it's also if you know in the context of like our Sports age as a whole it's happened very rapidly um you know the positions that athletes are adopting and the equipment needed you know like custom extensions to to get into these positions it's it's wild and within the space of like two years you've gone from you know like round stock round EXT extension to literally everyone just having these big huge fairings off the front of their bike with integrated everything so like I'd probably say that that's a rapid change and we're definitely seeing that in in the bike times you know there's athletes consistently riding um 4 hours or or below even um for for 180k pretty crazy um IR man so that's 45k an hour um average is you know roughly that that sort of for low 4H hour mark so it's just like and you know that that used to be the pace that we were riding at in halfi mans you know only five or six years ago um it's just it's a rapid change um but also you know nutrition is also one of those things where overnight like you you know when I when I first started doing long course rathon I had no idea about nutrition I was having like three gels an hour that was just basically the rule if you do an IM man hit three gels an hour and that's like if I look at the products I was using that's the equivalent of like 70 gram of carbs an hour now we're punching like 120 average you knowy quite Progressive that same for training like cuz I wasn't taken near that like as a full-time bike rider especially in France I remember you'd be in the break in a race and you go back to the car and you be like I need another jail and be like now you had your jail for today it's like what it was wild and World hor Riders were doing six hour rids with training rids no food like eating is cheating was a phrase I heard so many times if you pulled out a jail on a training ride you were a laughing stock like people were falling off their yeah yeah you get shamed into doing that and I think that's obviously we you know we're spoken about the younger generation earlier but they already have this information at such a young age so that's part of how they're so good so young is they you know there's no shame um in in eating it and that's already been sort of you know demystified for them they don't have to worry about that they're they're on high carb protocols from the time that they're Talent spotted whereas yeah we were hunger flatting and um doing God awful things for our recovery because it was that was just the culture yeah it was like a long game of tril era wasn't it cuz even things like I'm thinking my in France where and I still do this I don't know why it's like we talked about automatic program and maybe it's in my automatic program I'll go with my girlfriend to a restaurant and I'm digging the center out of the bread roll she's like what the hell are you digging the center out of the bread roll for I don't even know people told me here to do it in France they said you get bread legs if you eat jing a cob cat yeah what are bread legs that's not a physiological term I always remember um there's a famous little cycling book it's called um the racer or something it's written by a Dutch guy and he's talking about um or the the race do you know the book I'm talking it's it's fascinating maybe I'll link it to you after the after the um show but he's if you if you break it down over the course of this Amateur Road Race that he's telling the tale about he had like five figs and that was his fuel for the whole you know 260k race five dried figs or something it was just like um I definitely get the sense that yeah like you said perhaps triathon was head of the curve before cycling but um it's really interesting now like cam worth is a good friend of mine he rides you know half a year for anyos and then they cut him loose and he he can pursue Tron for a bit but he always says um when he's going from the Road Race season um back into Tron he said saying that um part of his transition back to Trion and getting ready to race Tron is um actually reducing his his carb count um because tra on such a like a fat burning sort of more of a fat burning race interesting um he's he's saying in the road races you're literally going back to the car and eating the whole time and you become so dependent on carbs as a fuel sourcer in Trion like if you're on the bike um you have to have all your nutrition with you um for the imen like before you start you can't really rely on grabbing nutrition at a stations because you know you it's slow um you're not guaranteed to actually get what you want like Aid stations are absolutely chaotic um we don't have a a musette where there's we know there's 10 guaranteed things that are going to be in that bag it's literally whatever you can grab at 45k an hour um sometimes faster um so you need to start your ride with you know your 400 gram of carbs or whatever um which is extremely difficult on to fit on the bike and it's also super heavy so you can't rely on he Cam's saying he can't rely on the same fueling protocols in Trion that he can in probike racing because in probike racing it's easy there's a car there there's a team well that's that's super interesting it is so for you like we're being kind of pushed the by the modern Nutrition Company is the agenda of okay you need 120 some people are pushing that sailing up to 140 and playing around 160 gram of carbs per hour but for the Iron Man bike leg the Iron Man run they're sub threshold efforts they're like zone three Sweet Spot efforts which aren't entirely glycolytic there's a combination of fat and glycogen fueling for that type of effort so do you adjust your carbohydrate intake based on that um a little bit I think the biggest thing about Tron is your carbohydrate intake is just inconsistent throughout the race um because you start the swim um and you can't eat or drink for an hour the first hour of the race so by the time you start the bike you're kind of in deficit and you need to front load um and then when you're running you you're not you know you can't run with water bottles or you I mean you can but it's heavy and it's uncomfortable personally I don't like to run with anything in my hands if I've got a lot of fuel in my pockets in the back it's bouncing and it annoys the out of me so I'm relying a lot on what I can grab at the aid stations um so it's just you have to um and of course yeah when I'm on the bike I can run a super high carb um mix if I've got that prepared on my bike so it's just the the the fuel loads are very inconsistent throughout the race and it's um you know you can't really look be looking at your watch when you're running and be worried about um you know sucking all the all the nutrition when you're supposed to because sometimes it's just not available Today's Show sponsor is pillar well we're all familiar with the importance of electrolytes and carbohydrates and their role in our race preparation pillar is taken a completely different route it focuses on micronutrition 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Aero Sensors and Hydration Tech

Shop and use the code roadman on your local website for 15% off your first order if you're watching this in the US head over to the feed.com pillar and use the code roadman for 15% of that first order as well now let's get back to the show so equipment has changed so much in the last few years and even you know we're we've changed to wider tires chains have gone wax jockey wheels are all oversized ceramic bearings but there is some cool new tech that does kind of excite me as to what's possible like you mentioned Arrow Arrow testing in the wind tunnel for a long time that huge barrier to entry for age group athletes on that is just cash like you don't have a sponsor paying for this wind tunnel time it's very expensive to find these gains but we are seeing like realtime Arrow testing devices now have you played around with that or any of the other a wearable tech like continuous glucose monitors continuous Lac type monitors or any of this kind of I call it next gen Tech yeah I've done like a little bit I haven't done a lot I've um I've got an eror sensor and it's actually just really hard to work and to understand I used it recently on the track um on the Val Drome I was testing with Jordan Kirby who's a um IP world champion um I think it was 2017 um so he he know he knows a lot about what he's doing um um on the track but I actually finally felt years after purchase I had yeah some I got some value from this device um I'd never successfully been able to use it on the road there's just too many variables um for it to be reliable on the road for the data to be reliable um I think yeah indoors is where that's really singing um but in terms of other sort of wearable tech have been playing around recently with um a NYX hydration sensor it's um actually so like I've always had problems with um cramping uh in a race particularly like the run but typically it's from overloading sodium and not like underloading sodium which might be sort of common wisdom so for me it's been really interesting to sort of wear this device and set parameters um on how much I'm sweating and the composition of that sweat in terms of sodium so obviously like patch or what is it yeah it's a it's a patch and it's like fully sealed and it's just collecting your sweat and um you know determining the composition of it but I've really found some interesting data between like the environments where I'm sweating like if if you have been doing a if you've done a sweat test um in recent years it's pretty much just been you're sitting static in a room I've done one in a lab and it just feel so pointless it's like like sweaty because I'm in a lab like this is a totally different environment to erase it yeah exactly so I've just I've been wearing it for different bike um sessions like indoor outdoor um run as well treadmill outdoor um hot cold and it's just been really valuable to see the data from those different environments and then I'm obviously testing before a race trying to get similar conditions to understand what I need to replace better understand what I need to replace during the race because yeah I've had some times where I'm sticking to my normal um protocols and I'm cramping or you know I have upset stomach or something and generally it's I haven't changed anything from my last race but the conditions are different so I'm just adapting learning what to adapt for for the new condition so I think that yeah like this weable Tech is opening like a lot of doors and just helping us understand um how to to better optimize what we're already doing awesome different environment I definitely want to check that out so I'm going to look it up after this uh conversation just finishing up like you might have all gone well burn injury sickness five six years left at the top of the sport have you taken time in the off season to reflect or maybe I'm putting you on the spot right now as to what sort of Legacy you hope to leave behind in the world of Trine um yeah go going deep here I think for me I've you know like I'm not hitting the very top of the sport I've my best result of well Champs is second in the I2 longdistance World Champs which is sort of considered like a B level World Championship in a sense that IR man is always sort of the you know the the the top rate um world championship race and long distance but um I've had some top 10 at Worlds but C certainly like nothing where anyone's really going to remember me for my results or being the best of course I'll I'll remember my results and the best races but I think what I really like to do um in you know how how I go about um my racing and my training and everything else between is I like to show people you can have fun doing Trion and that you can have a balanced life doing Trion you can do stuff like camping and um bike packing and you can enjoy gardening on the weekend or roasting coffee and even drinking beer you know like I I that's how I live my life it's very balanced and um and that's also like we have to remember a lot of people are doing the sport for enjoyment and they might be struggling with like trying to find that balance um because like Endurance Sports and Tron specifically is very addictive by Nature like you need to you need to put in the hours you can't do the sport without in some ways being addicted to it and of often that comes with sort of like unhealthy Obsession to training and balance is forgotten so yeah that's definitely my thing is to show that like you can perform and enjoy the sport and you know still have um a network of friends and and people um that you can spend time with and you don't have to yeah hibernate and train all day and live unhappy so Josh I think your attitude is a valuable Counterpoint to the way Tri triatlon is pushing at the moment and I think it's a breath of fresh air that will hopefully inspire a new generation of athletes to think there's many different ways to become a pro triathlete and many different type of Lifestyles that can take you to the top thank you very much for Tak to CH me thanks Anthony it's been great everybody thanks for tuning in into today's interview if you like this interview I'm going to put another interview up here which I know you're really going to enjoy and please click on that subscribe Bon talk to you soon

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Can you improve your swimming as an adult triathlete in your 30s or 40s?+

You can improve, but Josh Amberger argues there is a real performance ceiling for adult-onset swimmers. Freestyle technique is too complex to self-correct once poor movement patterns are ingrained, making significant gains much harder than equivalent improvements in cycling or running.

How many times a week should a triathlete swim to get faster?+

Josh Amberger swam 10 to 12 sessions per week by age 11, and he credits that early volume as the foundation of his swim ability. For adult triathletes without that base, higher session frequency is still the most reliable way to build water feel, with most coaches recommending a minimum of four to five sessions per week for meaningful progress.

Should triathletes take an offseason every year?+

Yes. Amberger strongly defends the traditional offseason, arguing that skipping a proper macro break carries a long-tail cost to both career longevity and mental recovery. Athletes who replace rest with back-to-back altitude camps may post short-term performance gains but risk burning out over a multi-year career.

Is triathlon swimming talent natural or can it be trained?+

Amberger addresses this directly, concluding it is largely nurture rather than nature for elite swimmers in triathlon. His own ability stems from an exceptionally high training volume at a young age, not innate talent, which is why adult-onset swimmers struggle to replicate that foundation no matter how structured their current programme is.

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Key Takeaways

Swimming is overwhelmingly technical—you can't afford to develop bad habits like an adult, because unlike cycling or running, there are dozens of simultaneous movements to coordinate (hand entry, breathing, timing). Overthinking is the biggest limiting factor for adult learners.

Taking a genuine offseason—including time away from your phone, family time, and even putting on weight—is crucial for career longevity. The young pros doing altitude camps year-round might be setting personal records now, but the long-term cost on mental health and career sustainability remains unknown.

Modern fueling protocols have shifted dramatically: athletes are now consuming 120+ grams of carbs per hour compared to 70 grams a decade ago, and there's zero shame in eating during training. The younger generation has this advantage built in from day one, removing the cultural stigma older athletes had to fight.

Ironman-specific fueling is different from road cycling because you can't rely on team support or aid stations—you must front-load nutrition on the bike leg and adapt to inconsistent availability during the run. Sweat composition testing (like sodium patches) reveals individual variation that static lab tests miss.

Aerodynamics has been the biggest rapid shift in triathlon equipment over the past 5 years, with integrated fairings and custom extensions pushing bike speeds down to 4-hour paces for 180km—what used to be half-iron pace.

Having a partner who shares your sport (like training with your spouse) creates accountability and forces you to confront advice you might otherwise dismiss, though the 'husband-wife' dynamic can make coaching feedback harder to accept.

Expert Quotes

"Swimming is so technical that you can't afford to develop any bad habit. By the time I was 11 or 12 I'm in the pool literally 10, 11 times a week. Sometimes I feel like I didn't have a choice."

"There's so much going on in the swimming stroke—it's not like turning a pedal on the bike or going for a run. There's hand entry, breathing, there's a lot of timing aspects to swimming that is difficult."

"I'm not ashamed to take time off. Being 34 now, I'm looking at the last five years of my career potentially. What's going to really pay for me in the back end of my career is being able to really differentiate when we're in season and when we're offseason."

KEY QUOTES

“Swimming is so technical that you can't afford to develop any bad habits. So it is really interesting whereas you know I'm not changing my stroke at all it's it's set like I just have to make sure I've got a little bit of Mobility through triceps laats um pecs to make sure I'm not sort of chopping my stroke.”
Josh Amberger — Professional triathlete

“Overthinking I think is yeah the biggest limiting factor um to teaching an adult to swim. There's literally so many like hand entry and um you know breathing there's a lot of timing aspects to swimming that that is difficult and so teaching an adult to just think about one thing and one thing only is very difficult they want to like throw four or five things in at one time and try and do too much.”
Josh Amberger — Professional triathlete

“We did 3K the first session 4K the second session and you know our sessions in season are only getting like to sort of 5K in volume so already after taking more than a month out of the pool I can jump in and swim for an hour quite easy.”
Josh Amberger — Professional triathlete

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Can you improve your swimming as an adult triathlete in your 30s or 40s?+

How many times a week should a triathlete swim to get faster?+

Should triathletes take an offseason every year?+

Is triathlon swimming talent natural or can it be trained?+

TRIATHLETE? IMPROVE YOUR SWIM IN YOUR 30S AND 40S | JOSH AMBERGER

Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

KEY QUOTES

Can Adult-Onset Swimmers Catch Up?

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