1.Hello, you beautiful cycling fans and welcome back to another A1 Show…

Hello, you beautiful cycling fans and welcome back to another A1 Show Podcast. It's Friday and all you degenerates are out and about doing what you do on a Friday and I'm here taking advantage of the Friday afternoon and everybody gone out to get some reduced background noise because I know how you guys love to moan about that background noise on the podcast. welcome welcome welcome everyone. As always but maybe not very soon we don't have a show sponsor. So in lieu of not having a show sponsor I will shield you A1 coaching. It's you know we are by now we're the premier coaching company in the world where around since 2012 there's a reason we've endured this long. We have an unbelievable selection of coaches everybody from podiums in Milan Sanremo to top amateurs and we're getting results for a working guy season in season out you know I'd encourage you to you know go with the professionals if you want to job done if you were getting a divorce if you're going to court you wouldn't get a lawyer who was also a plumber during the day so I'd encourage you not to do the same with coaching make sure you go to the professionals so with that being said that may be the last time I Shill A1 Coach and as a show sponsor. We have a good few show sponsors sniffing around. I have one all but confirmed. And the date isn't confirmed yet. And I can tell you that it's a software company, which is pretty cool. And I'm excited about it because it's a software company that I actually use and I'm really passionate about. And that's what I said at the outset that when I was taking on show sponsors it would be stuff that I care about, stuff that's made a difference for me, stuff that I believe in. so you won't get me shilling plastics companies and the likes. And there's another one which I'm also equally excited about but negotiations are very early in that. So we'll see and there's a couple more inquiries that came in that just didn't happen at all. Also what I got in the mail today. I have to start posting some videos and stuff it is because it's super cool. If you send me in shit, if anyone wants to send me stuff you pop me in my comment. I can give you a postal address. I might have to start setting up a PO box if the stuff keeps railing in. I got a trampoline in the forest. It's absolutely class. You've never had so much fun as you've had on a trampoline. Trying to go on a trampoline and not smile, it's impossible. I've built it up today. It was delivered around to my parents house and I was around there today, built it up, left it in their living room. I was on the bike. I obviously got in carrier trampoline home with the bike. The mailman left out my sister and I sort of signed for it and said, yes, please sign for your trampoline. It's trampoline by a company called Belacon and I'm going to be completely honest and I haven't done my research yet so when I do I'll tell you exactly what is cool about it but I know it's based on some really cutting edge sports science and it's about lymphatic drainage and a recovery technique and Belacon got in touch after the launch of our eight week challenge and they seen that movement was one of the key things, movements, keys resetting your Sicarian, red them and telling your body when it's time to wake up and when it's time to go sleep. You know, we've talked about this on the podcast before, like historically for the entire history of humanity, our body knew when to go to sleep because the sun started coming down and it started releasing the sleep hormones as the sun started coming down and the sleep hormones made us drift off into a nice sleep. And then as the sun started coming up, it started waking up. It's our release in those good wake up hormones. And that was normally in tune with us moving. And that was another prompt for starting to release those hormones, movements in the morning. So the eight week challenge really focuses on that and it gone through a series of rituals in the morning to reset that circadian rhythm.

2.Guys at Bellacon have developed a little tread they realize that some…

But the guys at Bellacon have developed a little tread they realize that some people are you know jumping in the car straight away in the mornings and it's not always possible to get movement so I think that's what the Bellacon trampoline is so they've also pimped it out in A1 colours which is pretty cool green springs and a black canvas really class and a lovely note of them so excited about that so the A1 challenge it's launch we launched at last podcast last Tuesday and yeah okay firstly I need to hands up on the last podcast I was suffering badly from sleep deprivation on that last podcast the a1 a 8-week challenge took it all out of me there's so many resources on it and they all took time to like even if someone else was doing the shit you know I'm eventually putting my name to it so I needed to make sure it was all factually corrected was represented of of us as a company. So yeah, I ended up doing a lot of long hours back to back to back days. And yeah, last podcast was a bit of a train wreck. At the time I thought I hit it. I thought I walked away. You know what, I hit that one. That was some of my best share. But yeah, coming back, I actually edited it because I didn't get it out until I won it. I am so I edited myself because there's no one else around it. I won it and what I done was I didn't even edit it out. the dog in the room at the start and me talking to the dog and... I don't even gotta take it down so I go back if you're on the left. It's like 10, 15 seconds to the start and I didn't edit out a little gap in the middle. And what else didn't I also? Oh yeah, I also said Eddie Dunbar's riding the Vuelta. And Eddie Dunbar's not riding the Vuelta. So yeah, long story as to how that happened. But yeah, that was a factual error. I need to point out on the last podcast, Eddie Dunbar in fact is not riding the Vuelta. This is a good segue to say and announce Happily, proudly, triumphantly, can I come up with anymore? Expleative to describe this, I will be doing a daily, well-tapped podcast. The gold news, you're all waiting for. Yeah, I was waiting and chatting to the sponsors, potential sponsors, and stuff like that, and just seeing the viability of the podcast, because it's time-consuming. So, just seeing the viability of the podcast gone forward, full gas on A1 days there, so, look, it's a zero-sum game. I spend my time in the podcast, I can't spend my time bringing you guys content somewhere else but the podcast seems to be a platform you guys are loving so I am gonna reward that and I'm gonna bring you the daily podcast for the Vuelta. So we're gonna start tomorrow, most likely be short or episodes, respectful about my time and your own, we'll try and get them in the 15 to 20 minute mark depending on how exciting the stage is. So who's taking up on the 8 week challenge, who's in? I'm gonna pop another link down below to get information on it, to get started. If you're not in yet, what are you waiting for? Cause so many times I've had a shit season up to now. I'll tell you a story that it was 2012, and I told this one in the videos I think it was 2012, and I had a big smash on the bike in France. And the Physio-Game of the Year all clear about eight weeks from the National Hill Climb Champs, and that was really the catalyst for me to get the head down. And that's why I love that eight week period, because it's long enough that we can make big changes, a big impact really, no matter what fitness you're at eight weeks from now, you could be a different person, but short enough that we can all sacrifice for eight weeks. It's only eight weeks at the end of the day. So yeah, who's in? It's let me know. Jump in the comments and let me know who's in and how you're enjoying it so far. Wind the morning, wind the day seems to be a very popular and getting pictures of people with their checklist printed out on the fridge.

3.Wind the morning, wind the day seems to be very popular part of it

Wind the morning, wind the day seems to be very popular part of it. The eight week training plans that I'm personally building, then what else we got? We got our goal set and audio book that I recorded. We got our new and updated pre-performing blueprint which is sort of the mental tricks and tips you need to succeed and we got a bunch of other shit for 149 euro. Come on, would you leave it out? That's insane value. Okay, I want to talk to you today about a couple of key, recovery is a big thing I want to talk about today and it's kind of in light of the eight week challenge, very unique philosophy on On coaching and why I think We're a little different So the main principle to keep at the forefront your mind in this is the training It allows for the possibility of increased fitness levels, but that improvement it's only going to occur if you recover properly So the process of getting fit happens when you're rested and adapted to training not when you're actually training So it's extremely important and as a culture I actually often see this. I have problems with highly motivated athletes. Sorry about that. I have problems with highly motivated athletes. Because they really struggle with the idea of sacrifice and training time. They think that if it's they're not on the bike, that that's wasted training time. So, I'm going to repeat this and make sure it sinks in, especially for you sort of holly motivated, mad folk as athletes. The process of getting fit happens when you're resting and recovering. So training gives you the possibility to get fit, rest and recovery allows that possibility to come to reality. So to be times to put your feet up and taking an nap, they're going to advance your fitness goals more than they are trying to encession might. So recovery is important for everyone. It doesn't matter if you're a full-time athlete or you're a full-time worker. But full-time workers, you definitely need to put a higher emphasis on recovery. So, what I've been advocating, you know, across all our plans, but especially this eight-week system, I'm advocating a low-volume, high-intensity system, but it's also predicated upon very good recovery. So, this is one of the areas where your old match-up stuff that you might be bringing in from other sports, like soccer, I know it's a background I'm coming from, that old match-up stuff just it's not going to work because recovery is one of the ways you're going to make huge gains. And those are attempting to pack in high volume training into a really busy lifestyle. They're just going to get screwed on this. So if you get recovery around, you're going to compromise your hard efforts on the bike. It's eventually going to lead to injury, it's going to lead to tiredness, and it's going to lead to a lack of motivation. A sure way to know you're not getting enough recovery is when you're getting up in the morning and your motivation to train is just not there. Just two main types of recovery. I'm only going to talk to you about one of them today and just get this conversation started and I'll drop on them into another one of the Vuelta podcasts. So we can roughly break it down as passive recovery or active recovery. So passive recovery, that involves resting as you can imagine the word passive. So a nap after her session, it's probably not an option for most of us but a good night's sleep is an option for most of us and this is key to passive recovery. So do nothing you can do better for recovery than sleep. Sleep's the time when your body's going to recover, it's the time when your body builds the most. Crucial hormones such as testosterone, human growth hormone, they're free you're released into the system and you shouldn't mess around with your sleep. It's also one hidden benefit of sleep. It's free and it's super enjoyable. So you'll know that you're going to get enough sleep when you're getting up in the morning and you're beating the alarm clock. What's a Mark Twain quote? I've never been beating out of bed but a son. So if you wake up naturally and you don't feel refreshed when you do, sorry, I mean, if you wake up unnaturally, so if you're waking up by the alarm clock and you don't really refresh when you do, try and get the bed earlier tonight before because it's a good sign that you're not getting and I know for a covering.

4.Something we've emphasized a lot on this podcast, you're gonna hear…

But something we've emphasized a lot on this podcast, you're gonna hear it with the next generation of coaching that we're bringing to kinda coaching 2.0, it's coming this winter. It's mental relaxation, because we've talked about this 360 view on coaching. Because mental relaxation, in whatever way possible, will go through stuff from deep breathing techniques to make the body more alkaline, to meditation apps, guided meditation like head space, or a Buddhist stuff like, all your roles, things like this. It doesn't matter what sort of mental relaxation you go through, because it's a passive strategy, and it's really going to help recovery because it's going to affect cortisol. So cortisol, it's that phoieter flow hormone that's produced in the body, and that's produced in response to stress. It's not meant to be a constant drip feed of cortisol into your system. But cortisol constantly drip feeds into your system. This is damaging. We've talked before how our brains are unable to distinguish between cortisol release from mental stress and physical stress So our cortisol level it's when it gets elevated It's impairing us to get into those two phases sleep or trying to get into it's why I was checking out that Weep for the last while because it measures you that sleep quality in the Delta phase and the deep sleep phase And we're gonna get a lot of good cognitive regeneration and muscular regeneration stuff going on in those phases of sleep So, conversely, there will be times when work, family and life in general, unavoidably produce high levels of stress and adequate cortisol. At this time, you might have to look at your schedule and you might have to reduce the load. And this is what I mean by a training. Training has to be dynamic. It has to bend around to the demands of your life. It can't be a static object. So this is why I laugh when I see these, you know, with their trying to road sessions that are just static plans because that's just never, never going to work. I'm a big advocate of proper recovery. What I find when I don't recover properly or I find as well when I see athletes who aren't recovering properly, they're just not ready to hit that session the next day. So if you think about it, like if you have a zone 5 session tomorrow, which I haven't recovered properly today, your zone 5 session, it might be 20 watts lower than it should be. And because it's 20 watts lower, the physiological adaptation you get from that session is lower again. Or say you do hit the watts, but it's taken more of an effort to get there. So it's this knock on effect that's impacting the session after that and it becomes a toxic, a toxic succession. A toxic, toxic succession. At the end of it, it can result in, if you keep going through well, especially for hoiling out of any of that, it can result in some really bad shit. We've athletes come into us who've worked with other coaches, just aren't monitoring this stuff and they're suffering from adrenal fatigue. It's a tough place to back someone back out of. It really is. It's not a place you want to go to because it starts impacting all of us over our stuff to do. All of us have jobs, families, girlfriends, hobbies, interests, order pursuits. We're all well-rounded, I'm sure. That doesn't just impact cycling performance. That impacts getting up in the morning and having enough energy to go hanging out with your kids. It's a nasty shit. This is why I'm a big advocate and I will be pushing this new. We're coaching 2.0 and our 360 vision for coaching because I think it has to be connected the rope lads. Like it just does. There's no, we can't coach someone in isolation, you know, the mental piece, as we can see there, the mental piece, it's so important for getting us into a state of reduced cortisol, which is going to help us get into a deeper phase of sleep, which is going to help recovery, which is going to help us hit that session hard the next day. And all that so inextricably linked to mood, to appetite, you know, we've touched on eating patterns before and emotional eating and stuff like that. And that's so closely linked to how you're performing on the bike in sessions, how you're feeling and work relationship quality.

5.There's a few pieces that this jigsaw that I'm going to help you guys…

There's a few pieces that this jigsaw that I'm going to help you guys put together over the next months. I suppose this is a journey. We're not a journey. I'm sure the destination, as we said before, it's a mirage, but the journey, you should enjoy us and we'll throw down some no-goods of information as we go. One of my favorite writers in the bunch, Marcel Kittle, he has retired 89 professional victories, 14 Tour de France stage wins, more than any German in history and yeah he announces retirement. He sort of cited a loss of quality of life. I'd like to tell you all today that I'm ending my career as a pro-cyclist. I've taught long and heard about this decision on the side. And this goes to my closest friends and family. The decision process has not been a quick one. It's one that has taken place over a long time during my newly 20-year sports career. There's been not only incredible success but also difficult times. I have always been, I have always been one to openly question and reflect on such things, sort of like learn and get better. together with the people around me has made me a successful athlete that I am now, but this method has also told me to leave my old ways and learn new ones. I know there is much more than just sport, for example my own future family. Recently I taught on this future without cycling has grown. As has the awareness of the sacrifices that such a beautiful but also difficult sport like cycling brings. The big question for me the last few months was, can I do what I do and continue to make sacrifices I need to be a world-class athlete? And my answer was no. I don't want that anymore because I've always found the limitations on a top athlete as an increasing loss of quality of life. That's why I'm very happy and proud at this point in my life that I can make a decision to follow my heart in a new direction. It's interesting. I felt like a retard reading his broken English. I almost felt like I couldn't speak English. But there you go. It's interesting because you know, we see these athletes on the TV and we've almost disassociated them from being real humans. I remember listening to Bradley Wiggins's wife talking and she was talking about the experience with their children watching Bradley in the Tour de France in 2012 and she said the kids to be watching the TV and they'd be disassociated their dad Bradley Wiggins from Wiggle on the TV. And like if the mom was to ask them, you know, who's that? And they'd be like, oh, it's Wiggle. And if she dug deeper, it's like, who, well, who's Wiggle? They'd be like, oh, it's Daddy. But it was a disassociation of that. And I think we often do it ourselves. We see them just as athletes. We see Kittle. I know, definitely I've got a story like Cher, which in Minute, what I've got. We see him as the athletes who, you know, romped to those 89 victories, but we don't really see the man behind that. We don't see the frailties. We don't see the sacrifice. we don't see the, you know, the yearning to grow as a person and not just to be, not just to be a cyclist. I think it's one of the great, the great purposes of education and I suppose I use education in a really broad sense to mean travel and new experiences and it makes you realise that there's more to life than just the very narrow world you're brought up in and whether that's educating somebody who's coming from a super rough neighbourhood to say, you know, there's more to the world than just being the top dog in your local neighbourhood and trying to climb to the top of the criminality ladder or in our case if it's education and you know, shown in athletes, look just more to life, you can go out there, you can build yourself a business, you can start a new career, you can get a job, you don't have to live your life in the limelight, you don't have to take these risks, there's a million different directions you can go and each is textured and colourful and beautiful as the last one, he's woven, who's to say he won't be a high performer in whatever new pursuit he goes and you know if he's not that fine too.

6.Definitely from the bottom of my heart I'm going to extend the very…

So yeah definitely from the bottom of my heart I'm going to extend the very best look to Marcel Kittle because I know he gave me one of my fondest cycling memories myself and a friend snagged and backstage passes to the Tour de France when the Jure de Talya when it came to Ireland and Marcel Kitwell won the opening stage into Dublin. And it was brilliant, brilliant day out on a lovely experience. And yeah, it was... Thank you, Marcel. Another fast man, Ellie Viviani, and he is on the move. Ellie Viviani is on too cough-rous. Viviani just doesn't see a problem what replicates the success he had in quick step and confidence. The step, a good future, the top riders, you know, we talked about Dan Martin stepping down a level and now we have Vivian, he also stepping down a level. So it's it's interesting. He's a big focus from on the Olympic Games. So yeah, he said I'm trying to hang tough now and keep my torque condition going for these last two races. Then after a short rest I'll be focusing on the track. It's the tough out kick when you're riding the track and the road all in the one season. He said obviously after the 0 is lacking a bit well I really needed to believe in myself a bit more. I had to try and hire and get stronger than I've ever been before and I went to Switzerland with a big desire to prove myself all over again to shoulder hadn't lost anything. He'd done some serious riding on the front in some of the mountain stages in the tour which was amazing to see. Winning on the tour closed the circle in terms of what has been left for me to win. When I think of what has left for me now, all that's missing is an important classic, Ghent Veligum or Milan San Ramel. Look he used to say you can't do La Prima Verra next year, it would be amazing to see it. I don't know if Yani meant to be a super nice and super likable character. So yeah, I wish him the best of luck there. Rimco Evanpol has also extended his contract with the Conic Quickstep until 2023. The 19 year old who's obviously sprung into stardom of recent days said I am happy and proud that I've extended my stay with the Conic Quickstep and will continue to build my future together with this amazing group, Go on the Wolfpack. That has been the a one show. It's only Friday, but we will be back tomorrow If you're listening to this on Saturday, you're gonna hear me later on today the Vuelta Spanias starts tomorrow and The last of the days of us having a show sponsor could be upon us soon We might get a couple more depending on how negotiations going what they the show sponsorship starts, but looking forward to it Anything we make out of the show sponsorship. It's getting pumped back into the show lad. So Yeah, we're gonna upgrade audio equipment, we're gonna upgrade production equipment. Yeah, we're gonna crank this shit up, we're gonna crank it up. Thanks for listening, if you're enjoying it, share it around. Actually, this is one of the first episodes I haven't shared on Facebook. I did mention we're gonna start transitioning to the podcast only platform because I do love this podcast only platform because I'm not even wearing any jocks. Nah, I'm just getting... But it is a possibility, you don't know. Now I've planted that seed and me just sitting here nipping, you just don't know, you just can't be sure. That's gonna be which is sewn into your... the fabric of your brain. Thanks for listening to the rambling and I'm gonna chat you tomorrow for the weld out of Spania. Stay Drex, opener! The grand apart.