All the Seiler you care to listen to on Inside Exercise cast

Two hours of Seiler. Can you handle it?

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I’m doing 87 minutes instead.

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Seiler again in solid presentation mode and nice to see ā€žAgrees with Andy Coggans points that lactic acid does not inhibit fat oxidationā€œā€¦need to link that in the other forum thread here.

What does solid presentation mode mean? In the past I’ve heard Seiler say things that may be true for himself but not me (decoupling stuff).

Interested to know what’s really in those 2 hours. I’ve been sadly disappointed by a lot of his content.

I think he sells himself pretty good. Seems to always have an answer to any question and he’s not leaving me with question marks as opposed to other researchers I’ve listened to.

Look up the chapters in the description of the YouTube video. These are nicely sliced. Pick as you like…nothing new overall but good roundup of many things discussed here in many threads. Like LT1 guardrails and pol in context with 20 hours, 7-10 hours or 3 sessions weekly. Also pointing out that he’d emphasize on the 80% easy part and not whether the remaining 20% are pol or pyramidal.

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I used to the like the guy but I’m not so sure anymore.

Has he ever prescribed an actual training plan? Real question, not rhetorical.

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I wouldn’t say that’s a good thing

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No comments on the explicit mention the TrainerRoad forum received? :smiley:

Big week end with two 6h rides. Was desperate for podcast content, so I listened to this:

Sort of entertaining to hear Seiler and Coggan poop on each other indirectly in their various podcast appearances.

And for me another typical Seiler:

  • you should do only 1 or max 2 hard sessions per week
  • you should do hard sessions only so hard so that you can do recover well and do the next day with quality

If you only do 1 or 2 hard sessions per week, why does it matter how you feel the next day? It’s just very easy for a couple of days until the next hard session.

I’m totally in for training just as hard as one can absorb sustainably. If you need rest weeks you probably train to hard!

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Yes, his daughter.

Also, he’s not a coach. So not sure why this comes up from time to time. It doesn’t matter. Incidentally, neither has Coggan. :man_shrugging: (except for himself or for his wife, perhaps). If you’re listening to guys like Coggan, Seiler, etc., the idea is that YOU are doing the coaching. This forum, among other outlets, clearly demonstrates how incapable many amateurs are at doing that.

Ironically, on most points they are saying the same thing, coming at it from different directions, and certainly using different labels and language. Sort of entertaining to see how they are talking past each other, similar to how we do on internet discussion forums. Kayfabe.

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I’m going to listen with open ears to the Inside Exercise pod even though its almost 2 hours long and not expecting to hear anything new.

Yeah, I often do 3 hard sessions a week. My easy sessions are not what I would call ā€œSeiler easyā€ and no recovery issues preventing me from hitting personal bests. Numbers keep slowly and steadily going up at sixty one and training age of 7+ years.

Disagree. FWIW the first podcast I heard him on (FastTalk?) including a lecture that everyone was training too hard. And we all lacked discipline control. And some other stuff like I needed to do easy a whole lot easier than what I’ve been successfully doing. And somewhere along the lines decoupling helped figure out the lower threshold, but I’ve got low decoupling on some long tempo and threshold rides.

I do understand that for some it was a sort of ā€˜training religion’ wake up call they needed. To my ears he is offering coaching advice without the benefit of actually being employed as a coach, or having coached a lot of athletes over years and years. Contrast that to the Empirical Cycling Ten Minute Tips #28 podcast I posted above.

Will listen to Seiler’s Inside Exercise podcast with open ears and an open mind.

10 minutes turns into 87?

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LOL yes, I felt like it was false advertising until I heard them explain they spend 10 minutes preparing. Point of view and irony.

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Okay but surely he can point to someone who IS a coach and is doing everything right in his book?

I just find it bizarre that he went to so far as to get onto TEDx and make all these Youtube videos/podcasts, presumably to appeal to ā€œregular peopleā€ like myself, but none of his research is directly applicable to said regular people.

Here’s another question… has anybody actually gotten huge gains thanks to this guy?

No problem. Over the next few days go out and do 12 easy sessions & you’ll be golden. :wink:

(I’m actually glad we had this thread. You were probably on the verge of overtraining)

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:rofl: thank you as always!

Whadda ya think, a podcast with PD Gollnick and Seiler on the effectiveness of doing 4 workouts/week at threshold?

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Pretty sure I’ve read you exalting the virtues of basic endurance riding (call it ā€œZone 2ā€ or whatever) over last few years. You literally introduced more basic endurance riding into your training and without using either of the ā€œP termsā€ have advocated and celebrated the benefits of doing such on numerous threads.

The only thing I can chalk this up to is that Seiler is just poor communicator. Or he is giving the general endurance population more credit than it deserves w/r/t nuance. :man_shrugging: Or, people just don’t like his personality.

1:26:00 is something Seiler most definitely left out in early podcasts, etc. ā€œIntensity takes on meaning when you attach a durationā€. So does fatigue. So does the ability to recover. Just like he refuses to use the term ā€œsweet spotā€ (smart move), I would get away from using the term ā€œeasyā€. Why? Because of comments like:

Now, I get that you were making a joke. But there are a lot of ppl who really think like this, and they aren’t joking. I ride tempo and endurance all the time. All of it is categorized as ā€œeasyā€. But I have to find that balance with that wide range of effort that allows me to work day over day (generally). Neither science nor coaching has answered that question.

I give Seiler credit for actually beginning to tackle a question that everybody is (or should be) interested in but haven’t done much work to figure it out: what objective measures can I use to optimize stress? (not ā€œloadā€, not ā€œadaptationsā€, not things based on power tests, and yes, NOT EVEN PERFORMANCE)…stress. Of course the best predictor of success is success, but it sort of happens after the fact and is a lot of trial and error (and aping other people’s trial and error).

Surely there has to be a football coach who has won every Super Bowl since its inception? Surely there is someone who is doing everything right?

Yes, him. In his world, publishing literature (and overseeing others publish literature) and being an invited guest speaker and consultant is the top of the game. That’s literally what his job is.

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Just for the benefit of tangentially interested readers, both personalities on the linked podcast agreed that polarization doesn’t make sense if you’re only doing a few workouts a week.

Good call out (because that still comes up).

I came to think (rather harshly I guess): who cares about 6 hours / week? I know it sets some folks off around here because they have life, family, job, etc. I get it. But I can’t slam dunk, so I didn’t make it to the NBA (or even Division I college). I can’t cheat that limitation. I can’t cheat the lack of frequency and volume in endurance sports either. If you only have six hours, do whatever you want. You’ll recover. But you’re still only doing six hours.

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What does this look like for you in practice? More intuitive?
Been trying to piece together how to move to this approach instead of the load/deload way. Thinking just a lot of volume with some intensity here and there. Im very conditioned to the whole rest week idea and curious to try something like this. Also seems like it would would be a more relaxed approach instead of planning every week.