Jani rode at the highest levels of our sport and shares his unique philosophy on training principles which took him to the top.
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In today's podcast, I chat with Yanny Frakovic. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our long-chevages? That is the question on this podcast, and give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Rolmen, it's Wednesday, welcome back to another Rolmen Cycling Podcast. Thank you for joining me. Today I've got another brilliant interview for you. I love Wednesday, it's the long form podcast and I get to chat with some of the greatest minds in cycling and this has been one of the highlights of 2020 for me. If you said to me back in March when I started this podcast, you're going to be able to talk to, text, stay in touch with somebody is just absolute giants of this board that we've had on the podcast. I would have said it was a completely impossible dream. I would have said, you know, pinch yourself, cup yourself on. That's not possible in such a short space of time. But that's what's happened in such a short space of time. And I'm delighted to welcome to the podcast today someone I actually class as a friend now, Yanny Brackovich. he's been on the podcast before and his story is absolutely brilliant. Yanny spoke to me in the last podcast which is definitely worth going back to check out because this interview kind of builds upon it. He spoke to me about having eating disorders in the world horror and he's somebody who's raised the very top of our sport being teammates with Lance Armstrong on the criteria of the Dauphiné like dropping Alberto Contador on Apto Wes but he's also someone that's suffered and had a private battle himself. Today the podcast takes a slightly different tact. We talk about training principles and philosophies that Yani has, how you can just inch out a little bit of extra speed from your training and your race preparation. So I'm delighted to bring you this interview with Yani Brakovich. Hey, hey. It's good to have you, Yani. Yeah, thank you. Thanks a lot. I'm back again. You're back again. I'm going to be exclusive return to e-club. Yeah, yeah, it's it's an exclusive club. Not many people have been on twice. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I should be proud of that. What was the biggest race you want, Dofene? Yes, I think so, Dofene. I think this has got to rank pretty high on your achievement list coming on here twice. Yeah, yeah. Jani, I want to talk about training today because I think you're in a uniquely positioned from being at the very, very top of our sport. Now you're still racing at a continental level and race the world this year brilliantly and support a Roglitch and you now have an understanding of the sport from multiple different angles because now you see how to balance a life outside of cycling and you're managing to perform at a super high level maybe as high as you were years ago but you have an entire life going on whereas previously you were just a world tour rider and everything that goes with world tour rider. So I want to talk on it around your processes and around that because I think a lot of our audience will identify with that and maybe they even put a cap on what they believe is possible that they think oh I have a family or I have a job so it's not possible for me to achieve at this level but you have all these things and you go and write the World Championships this year? Yeah, I mean, and still for me, as of now cycling is number one. It's not coaching. That's why I only have six, seven clients. And with coaching, I wanna take it slow because if I get 15 clients now, there's no way I can give 100% of my dedication to that coaching. So I'm thinking it's slow, but I'm also learning a lot because I've been coaching for only three years now. And there's a huge difference between coaching a world tour rider or a professional cyclist and coaching somebody who works from nine to five with a family, three kids and other obligations. It's a huge difference. And it's the main difference. I know the cliche is, oh, you can train as hard as the pros, which you can't recover as hard as the pros. Is that a cliche or is there some truth to that statement? I don't think you can train as hard as pros because there's no way because there's not enough hours in the day and you finish with your work at five and you're already mentally extremely tired. So you cannot focus that much for that training session. that much for that training session. Of course, you can do you can do very, very good training, quality is high, but being a professional cyclist, having only cycling in the whole 24 hours is a different thing.
That doesn't mean that you cannot achieve great things. I have a client from France who is a very successful lawyer, so a lot of responsibilities. And he's able to train 15, 17 hours a week. That's big. That's big. Yeah. Yeah. And he's very professional. And he says what he does what I want him to do, which is great but I think that's that's extra pressure on me because I don't want to make mistakes because if I tell him to do three times 400 watts five minutes he's gonna try to do it and he's gonna kill himself and and that's That's my extra responsibility to be very careful what I tell them to do and how I design their training. Because I think the important thing with that is, a lot of times, and I find this, I can get through a session, but it's almost like, is it a good idea? Because if I get through a session, I can't just come home and flake on the bed and flick on Instagram for the rest of the day. I got to be switched on to record a podcast or I got to be switched on talking to clients building China plans. And if you're so screwed after a session that like you're falling asleep and you just need to lie on the bed, you know, the rest of your life falls apart. And then when that starts happening inevitably you start missing China sessions because, you know, you're not a pro and you need to prioritize work. And if you fall behind on work, you have to catch up on work. Yeah. Yeah. I think first is work. Well, first his family and then work and then training. And this is what I see with the law of the moment that guys are doing like these with leagues and with races and are hitting new PB threshold power and new PB threshold heart race and you're like, it's December. They're screwing themselves inside out so hard, but you're just like ruined for the rest of the day and you're like, where's the sustainability in this? Like, you know, it's December. Yeah, yeah. I used to start on March. Yeah, exactly. And I would ask myself, am I happy doing this? Is there like, does it make me happy or do I do it because I just want exposure? And I think most of the times they would tell you they're not happy. They're not happier. And I think that's a problem. Do you have a particular coaching philosophy? Is there a particular doctrine you subscribe to? I know some guys go with reverse periodization that they think that's more applicable for people with nine to five jobs, or is it very much on a case-by-case basis? My philosophy is very simple, very simple. Because I have worked with Inigo San Wilan, who taught me a lot at that time. And I don't want to make things complicated at all. It has to be as simple as possible and as effective as possible. And when I start coaching people, we would do some testing in the beginning just to see their power profile. And from that testing, 90% or 95% of the time, you would see that they're aerobically very poor. but, glycolitically, they're okay. That's because they're doing Zwift races all the time, and they can do five minutes at pretty high wattages, but they cannot do one hour or 35 minutes at decent wattages. And that's what we work on in the beginning. And it's a long process. It's not just one month of work and then go on. funny how simple it is and how overcomplicated platforms like Swift. Have you ever looked at like a Swift or a trained offline? It's all these cadence changes and yeah, it's crazy. Like trying to write one of those sessions. Yeah, but the thing is why it's so crazy because people think if training is complicated, it's effective. Exactly. And it's more interesting. And And if I design a training, like I give you two hours at zone two, and that's it. It's very simple. It's very basic. And people will say, well, that's not, that's not special. But if I give them two hours with zone two and zone three and 60 RPM, 90 RPM, which I think doesn't make sense. I hate that. that's something new and interesting. I have Lawrence Tendam on the podcast, while Lawrence was talking about his training when he became pro at the start. I can't remember the name of the writer, but he was a veteran writer in his team and he used to meet him every morning for training. He used to just copy all his training, to do every mile together. So he said he turned up the first day and he's like, okay, what's the plan? And he thought it was going to be this big shopping list of intervals and cadence changes. And he's like, today we we write, four areas steady?
And he's like, OK, okay. And then he turns up the next day he's like, Hey, what's the plan is like today we write five hours steady? And then he turned up again the next day. He's like, What's the plan is like? We write six hours steady. And then he turns up the next and he's like, hey man, I'm tired of what we knew today. And he's like, we write one area easy, and then he turned up the next day and it's four hours, five hours, six hours, one area easy, four hours, five hours six hours, instead they done that our winter they built up for four or five six, then an easy day. And he's like, there was not complicated but it just built such an effective engine for him. And I think that was the year you stopped in in Tour de France, I think. Absolutely, yeah. And I've had coaches or I was on the teams where we had some particular coaches. And the training I had, I had to print out my training intervals on a stem. You know what I'm supposed to do because it was so much of this crazy information. There was no way I could have remembered everything. Did you respond to that type of training? No, it didn't work. Because at that time, it was a few years ago, I already knew a few things about training. Well, I knew a lot. And I knew it was just BS. It was pure BS. but not doing it would get me in trouble. And eventually it did because I confronted this coach and I told him what I think about my training. And that was a problem. I became a troublemaker. And that was also one of the reason why I was out of the team by the end of the year. Well, they don't want the independent thinkers. They just want like, No, full soldiers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Janine, you're particularly dialed on nutrition. You, I'm not sure, like looking at you in last season in race and it looks like you're as lean and light as ever. What's your sort of philosophy around managing waste? And I noticed a lot of listeners with that stubborn last sort of four or five kilograms that they wanna get off, but they just feel like they can't shift it. Well, first of all, I have to tell you, Well, you know, but I had to tell your listeners that for 15 years, I had bulimia. So whatever I was telling you or others in that period was a lot because I was lying. And it was very, I felt, I was a hypocrite because I was giving advice to others how to eat and what to eat. At the same time, I couldn't fix myself. And that made me think twice. And I decided if I was going to coach people, I have to do something about it. And that was also one of the reasons why I fixed myself with the help of professionals. But that's the case. And I think just like training diet has to be simple. It has to be effective. That food has to be something you need to perform. You have to enjoy it, of course. But there's no special supplements or food products or meal timings that's going to help you lose more weight or less weight. It has to be very simple. You need more carbs if you're training more, less carbs, if you're training less. You need two grams per kilogram of protein per day, and the rest is fat. And it's very simple and then build your own meal plan. Dude, doodle, Roman, Intermission. It's a while since we had a Roman Intermission. I hope you're enjoying the interview with Jani Brackovich. I just want to give you a gentle, not so gentle reminder to press pause on the podcast right now, head across to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. The link is in the boy down below. And over there, you can buy me the price of a beer once a month. That's how you support this podcast. And that's how you make sure it stays around tomorrow, the next day, next week, next month, next year. Thank you, old man. I appreciate your support. It's funny as well, then. I think the problem that a lot of people get themselves into if you look, maybe during their 20s, during university, at the end of their 20s, they're starting to make a little bit of money, then come into their 30s, they're kind of maturing into their career, into their 40s. Now they actually have some sustain about money and some disposable income. And as your income goes up, also those poor choices, because you start to think now a bit more, you can afford to take away. And, you know, because I remember racing in France, I used to earn 50 euro a week in France and I had a friend that came to visit me in my apartment and I was probably there for six months and he said like what's the coffee shop like downstairs?
It was like sold coffees and croissants and I was like I don't know I've never been and he's like it's underneath your apartment and I was like I've never been. I was just so dialled on you know the basics but as you get that disposable income fast forward now where you know I'm not exactly a baller but I can afford cross-sounds and I can afford coffee. There's stuff you don't need. It presents, I suppose, an extra element of having an extra willpower to say no to these poor choices that you know aren't helping you get to your cycling goals. Yeah, and I think that the very, very big mistake that people do is they believe that if they write, If they train, they're allowed to eat whatever they want. And what happens, they would go on a Saturday morning ride, they would ride two hours all out, come home, have copious amounts of food, and then they would lay on the couch for the rest of the day. And this is where the damage is done, actually. They ingest more than they need. they have trained the wrong way, and they're useless for the rest of the day, useless for the family, for other people, for everything. Yeah, I think that's something you see over and over again, and I even anecdotally see it from people on Instagram where they post like their Strava file from the morning and they've done like 100 kilo meter ride, and then they post later on that day, like a picture of like a 16 inch pizza or something, you're like, dude, like your other hundreds, kilometers, like, you're eating like a tree and a half-housing calorie pizza. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the thing is people, as people, we are programmed to over-report good behaviors and under-report bad behaviors. And that makes us feel better. It's like calories don't count if you're standing up, that type of thing. Yeah, you eat after fridge. It doesn't care if there's calories. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're coming into a period at Christmas that's especially challenging for a lot of people because there's biscuits and sweets and stuff lying around the house. Are there any tips for people? They're kind of trying to manage waste coming into a period where there's a lot of temptation. Well, I think there's two kinds of people. There's people who can have some treats and be fun with it, but there's also people who cannot have because if they have, they will eat way too much. So just avoid everything. Avoid everything you feel like you cannot control. And I think just a little bit of exercise goes a long way. Just because you don't exercise today, it doesn't mean that you can tomorrow. And if you're not able to exercise today, just don't worry about it. I think that's a good tip. Because you see this at Christmas a lot where somebody goes and they do like one huge ride but then they have four days off. Like they'd be better off just doing smaller rides every day. Yeah, rather try to write two hundred fifty dollars. And also, like, let's say Christmas period, one week. In one week, you'll gain, let's say one kilo. But there's still 360 days in a year. So it's not a big problem if you're doing well for the rest of the year, you know? Yeah. just when I think exceptions become the norm, because people say just this once, and then just this once becomes every good or day, and then every good or day becomes every day. Like you see it with people where they make associations between certain foods and feelings, like somebody comes home from work and they've had a stressful day, so they say, I've had a stressful day, so I'm going to have a glass of wine. Like wine doesn't help that stress. It's just the association of relaxation. You could make that same association with an ice-cold glass of water or cup of tea with zero calories. Exactly. I think we trick ourselves a lot of time into these bads, destructive behaviors. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. For somebody who's trying to balance work, family and training, what do you think is the... So I love this idea of, I spoke about it on our podcast, Archimedes had this idea of a lever. What's this one lever that if I can figure this one thing out, it will solve all my problems. Is there like one big mistake that you see busy riders making over and over again? Sleep? Sleep, yeah. The quality or the amount? Both. Okay. Because sleep is the foundation. If sleep is bad, nothing works. So first you have to have good sleep and you'll have recovery. You'll be ready for training. You'll be ready for work. You'll be ready for your family. And it's not so hard to sleep well and long enough. just about priorities. Because most people come from work, okay, they train 9pm, they turn on TV Netflix, and then they binge watch.
You don't need to do that. Yeah, I see the founder of Netflix, and he was being interviewed on CNBC, one of the American news channels, and they asked him who was the biggest competitor to Netflix, and his answer shocked me. His answer was sleep. They spend all their time not worried about competitors. They spend their time worried about how we can get you to watch another episode. Get you to watch another episode. That's why the episodes they just roll in. It's like, yeah, next one into the next one. There's no break for you to walk away. Yeah, yeah, because people do do watch it until two-two in the morning every day and I think it's there's a lot of time we can save like like I don't have Netflix anymore because I don't see okay maybe I'm a little bit strange but I don't see value in Netflix I'd rather spend an hour with my wife just talking about stuff yeah and then go to bed and when you talk about the amount of sleep versus the quality of sleep. Is there any, do you subscribe to sleep tracker's devices like this? I have everything, but I also know that most of the devices, they don't work. I have whoop. And I think it's the worst tracker ever invented. Yeah, I don't. Honestly, I've tried it as well. I, I believe it has potential, but it's, it just, it doesn't make sense. I had orang which I think it's pretty decent and no tracker can measure sleep stages that just falls and Back in the day I had It was called Zio. It was a strap that actually measured sleep stages brainwave brainwaves and that one was pretty decent but the problem was was wearing those and using those made me more stressful. So there was no benefit of having those devices, zero. It still isn't. Until I learned that I just see how I feel in the morning. And I go back to the last evening and see what I did, what I didn't do. and why I slept great or why I didn't sleep good. But the people that I talked to that used these devices and believe in them a lot, they've completely forgotten that observation is a real thing. Like if I go to bed at night and the ground is dry and I wake up the next morning and the ground is wet, I don't need to have seen the rain to know that rain lasts. I can observe this. Like I wake up in the morning and I know I've had a good sleep. I know I'm ready to take on the day or I know I've had a very distorted sleep and I've been up gone to the toilet like tree forest arms and I don't like the idea when I had a woop of I'm big into morning routines and trying to control that first 30-40 minutes in my morning. So when I had my woop first thing I would do wake up in the morning and I would pull out the mobile phone and then it would say I slept bad and I'm like actually I feel like I slept pretty well but now I'm starting today on the back foot. Now I'm starting today with a negative momentum rather than positive. It's a no-see-boy effect. Yeah, exactly. I hated that. I can see a benefit that if it's like your coach has seen the data, but for me seeing the data, I just hated that. It was a really toxic way to start my day. Absolutely. And the thing is, we are becoming so disconnected with our bodies that we need a device to tell us how we slept, how much we have to drink, how much we have to eat, and all these things that are just, we're born with it. Humans are the only living beings on this planet that need to be told what to eat and how to eat. Other animals know what to eat, but humans don't. I even find that on the bike, you know, we're in an era, and so much stuff is brilliant, like the power meters, the heart rate monitors. But often the best days are the days on the bike when as cliche or corny as it sounds, you feel connected with the bike. You just feel like one with the bike. It flows. You're sitting perfectly on the bike. Your pedal stroke flows and it just feels easy and you can ride all day. But other days I go out and all the data looks good, but I just don't feel like I'm fighting the bike all day and it's just not enjoyable. And there's no data to capture this. It's just a feeling. Yeah. Yeah. results were always and it's not a coincidence when my power meter died. Before the Vuelta, before every huge race, my power meter died and I didn't care about it.
And then I show up at the race and I'm doing well. Because with power meter, you're always trying to you challenge your numbers and you're always trying to do a little bit better and better and better and then you get in a trouble. Were you over trained? We're getting more and more disconnected from our feelings. There's a lovely quote I like Niche, the philosopher, he's a great quote and it's like Tots of the shadows of our feelings, they're always deeper, emptier and simpler. We're just so disconnected from how do you feel today. It's like, what does the number say today? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And as with the trainer road and things like this, I feel are compounding the problem. They're not moving as closer to a solution. No, no. I think Zwift is a great idea for indoor riding. But I would never use it for racing, never. I have a client at the moment and I was trying to explain to him. He's like, well, why can't I just do it indoors? And I'm like, there's a difference between being at max heart rate on the side of a mountain, holding onto somebody's wheel and max heart rate indoors on Zwift where your girlfriend can hand you a biscuit if you're feeling a bit tired. Or if you're feeling a bit tired, like if you crack, you can step off and you're on your couch. When you're in a mountains and it's raining and you're on someone's wheel, there's more going on. You have to navigate your surroundings, you're watching for potholes, you're looking for surfaces, you're calibrating your efforts, you don't get dropped. And also you don't run into the back of his wheel and there's a mental game. And it's different, you're not the same thing. Of course, I mean, riding outside, it's a scenery. You see new things, you see how beautiful the world is. That's not the case on Zwift indoors in your bedroom. Right. Right. You know. Okay. Yeah. And I think many people ride because they love being outside connected with the nature. And also connected with people. Yeah, exactly. I know you're big into your longevity and health and biohacks and I love studying this stuff as well. Have you looked into these blue zones, the areas where people live the longest in the world? One of the commonalities in these zones, it's connection, it's social connection. Yes. Yeah. Well, they always try to make it look like it's only about the food what they eat. But the real reason is the connection. They live like a huge family always together. they're old people are the most important part of their communities because they are telling stories and connecting other people. And like the cycling comparison to finish on this one where I love to pull it back to is I'll have clients and say, well, why should I do the group ride? Because my power is down on the group ride. It's like, it's about more than just the number on the group ride day. There's a social connection on the group ride. There's a skills component on the group ride. There's a camaraderie and there's also, I would say, our equivalent of a cycling social responsibility where you get to a level and now there's someone just starting and you're meant to try and pull them up because someone pulled us up to get to here so you need to reach your hand back down and help someone up. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yani Rakovic, thank you for joining me on the roadman's summit. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you again, Yani. Thank you. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Quick I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the roadman community. It's a challenge, it's a challenge called a 14 day kickstart challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you the leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans, regardless of what your level is. There's the master's beginner advanced, there's meal plans, shopping list and even a video course, holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoidglings.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio. That's roadmansoidglings.com slash 14 day.
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