For years, coaches have relied on performance management charts and threshold-based zones to build training plans. But what if those metrics are actually holding you back? In this conversation with cutting-edge coach Alex Welborn, we explore why the old framework has real limitations, how to think about training stress as part of your broader life stress, and why knowing your athletes as people—not just data points—is where real coaching happens.
Key Takeaways
- Training plans should start with your unmovable life events (exams, holidays, weddings, work stress) before adding training load—not the other way around. Your nervous system has a fixed capacity for total stress, and ignoring life stress while pushing training stress leads to burnout.
- Recovery rides and easy rides aren't the same thing. Recovery means minimizing stress to the nervous system (lowest average heart rate and power); easy riding can still add stress. If you think you're going too hard on a recovery ride, you are.
- Performance Management Charts tell you training load, not fitness. Two athletes with identical CTL scores could have arrived there through very different methods (pure volume vs. volume + intensity), leading to completely different adaptations—yet the chart doesn't distinguish between them.
- Threshold-based zone testing (the 20-minute test) has a built-in bias depending on your phenotype. If you have high W-prime (anaerobic capacity), your 20-minute power inflates your threshold estimate, making all your zones wrong downstream.
- Coaching is about understanding the story behind the numbers. You might see identical session data on two different days, but the context—a bad day at work, family stress, or great sleep—completely changes what that session means and how to adjust accordingly.
Expert Quotes
"Half of my job is to manage stress for athletes. Like, actually no, let's we can make it up. We can change a few things so you're still going to get the overall volume. Just it'll be the same over the month just not in the day or the week."
"I can see the data. I know if you completed the session. I know what watts you did but I want to know what's the story behind those numbers."
"If you think you're going too hard, you are. Like if you have to think am I going to... yeah, you are."