Training Advice and Exercise Physiology

ryanfiddler

I'm trying something new. I have considered starting a coaching business but have instead decided to start a training blog offering free training advice and explanations on the physiology of cycling. I am a doctoral candidate at Oklahoma State University in Exercise Physiology with a Masters degree in Nutritional Sciences, additionally I am a category II racer who has just recently started racing again following a two year layoff.
The blog serves several purposes: 1) because of my profession, writing skills are extremely important. I'm hoping the blog will help to enhance these skills 2) I view the blog as another way to improve my understanding of and ability to explain exercise physiology to others, I hope this will complement my teaching and research responsibilities and 3) I want others to have access to information regarding their own training for those who can't afford a coach or choose not to hire one and/or to help those who do have a coach better understand why they are doing specific training/workouts. If interested check it out at http://www.ryan-fiddler.blogspot.com/
Any and all feedback is appreciated. Thanks.

hopper1

Sounds good, Ryan...
I can't access your blog from work, but will check it out when I get home.

bigpikle

thanks - I sound exactly like your target audience for the blog so wil check it out.

Alex_Simmons/RST

ryanfiddler wrote:

Any and all feedback is appreciated. Thanks.

Cool. Keep working on it but don't view public blogging / writing and paid coaching as mutually exclusive activities. You can do both.

There are many of us with blogs that provide a lot of freely available information about training and some of the science (it's not all physiology, there's physics, psychology, planning etc etc as well) and cover a lot of what you are looking to write about, so look into them and see what others have been writing. e.g. here's a few, although as with many bloggers, they start out all keen but fade away over time:

http://groups.google.com/group/wattage/ ... mber-blogs

Good blogging isn't easy, it needs commitment.

If you are not already a member, suggest getting yourself into the archives of the Google groups wattage forum. Plenty of gold in them thar hills:

Here's a pretty darn good blog if physiology and cycling is your bent:
http://www.trainingandracingwithapowermeter.com/

and there are many many others listed on the wattage forum.

Some other comments:

- be prepared for criticism of what you write

- think about what you write - is it really backed by the evidence, or just that's the way someone (e.g. Friel) told me?

- use paragraphs - your posts are laborious to read in that format and I struggle to get past the first 5 or 6 lines before taking my eyes away

- don't get bogged down by quantity of posting - you'll tire of it. Focus on quality.

At RST we are always interested in added world class people to our coaching team, so keep that in mind if you are still thinking about coaching.

vorsprung

I've added your blog as a link on my blog

In your article on "Endurance Rides or Junk Miles" you talk about doing training in the gap between high intensity and low intensity

Some trainers recommend "Tempo" rides in this level of intensity of an hour+. However, most trainers seem to think it's a waste of time. Interesting to see your views.

Alex_Simmons/RST

I might have recommended ditching the weight lifting at that point, rather than reduce the intensity of rides

IMO one can't really comment on what's too hard or easy for any given day unless you really know all of what a rider is and has been doing.