In this episode, we sit down with John Wakefield, the managing director of Science to Sport and performance coach with the Bora-hansgrohe World Tour cycling team. John, from Cape Town, South Africa, shares his insights from years of coaching and an advanced training facility in Girona, Spain. Understand why recovery is the key to progression and how ignoring it can impede an athlete’s performance, no matter their level.
John believes recovery is the critical element in athlete training. He shares details about a routine ‘sub-max test’ he utilizes with his athletes, whether pro or amateur. He can document progression and shape optimal training by using power and heart rate data in concert with subjective feedback from an athlete on wellness factors like sleep, stress, and mood. An athlete with freshness can execute a workout much better and find more adaptations in the future.
Recovery isn’t just about easy days or days off. John breaks down other factors to consider in recovery protocols, like stretching, nutrition, massage, and mindfulness, to fulfill the “Three Rs:” refuel, rebuild and rehydrate. He also takes us inside a team bus to learn some of the cyclists’ critical recovery strategies while competing in a Grand Tour.
Standout Quotes
The Importance of Recovery: “For me, recovery is key. If you don’t recover, there’s no progression, essentially, from your stimulus. And I do find that whether it’s a professional or even an amateur athlete, sometimes even more an amateur athlete, because they have a limited time or availability to train, they always remove the recovery side of it.
How to Track Fatigue and Recovery: “As a bulletproof system that we do run is our submaximal fatigue test. Which is obviously power-based or heart rate-based, but it also has a subjective wellness component, which when you correlate the two, it’s a really good way of monitoring athlete’s progression for simply fatigue.”
“Typically if someone is fatigued, their mood is really on the downward spiral. Mood is really important because if you’re not motivated to go and hurt today on the bike, there’s a reason why.”
On the Importance of Recovery
On Nutrition for Workouts: “So, if it’s like a recovery ride, and this is general, as a recovery ride, I like kind of doing 40 grams [of carbs] an hour as a basic nutrition plan. And then obviously, it depends what you can or cannot absorb as, you know, as an [athlete], but on those interval days and on those long rides, you’re looking at sort of anything from 80 to 100 [grams per hour] for a general amateur cyclist.”
The Pressure on Young Pro Cyclists: “These guys can’t even buy something at the shop as an example, but yet you want him to go win the tour at 20 years old.”
