I’d say he is generation SRM
No love for quite a few folks, Brooks, Friel, all-you-have-to-train-at-fatmax-folks …
and not to forget Seiler!
Good that he encourages skepticism and critical thinking. Applying that, it’s a good reminder that he has just as much skin/ego in the game as any of us. 
I’d say his ego his a “tiny bit” above “as any of us” … however, in contrast to all the social media darlings out there, his publication list is impressive. And these are high quality studies. When it comes to what science can actually tell us, he’s one of the few I would trust.
There was this podcast with legend Ed Coyle. Both, AC and SS did their PhDs in his lab. When asked about this he talked exclusively about AC. What a brilliant mind, what an athlete. Not a single word about SS. I found this quite telling. Of course, he probaly hasn’t seen the evil side of AC when going berserk on internet forums. Never really understood why he wasted his time with simple minds like us.
It’s so funny that this was all a hobby for him. He made his living working as a researcher in medical schools. Yet, his name looms large for any cycling nerd that has trained with power.
I love these Coggan interviews. There is no secret sauce, no secret intensity, no secret zone, you can’t just ride slow all day in zone 2 and get fast (specificity), there is no lower aerobic threshold, ride more if you want to get faster, when your progress stalls out change your training, …
In case anyone missed them, Kolie Moore did two long episodes with Coggan that were great.
I’m guessing its because he is a competitive cyclist, and wants to share some of his insights. Thankful he does.
He did say something new this time, something along the lines of: Above 15h, all you need to do is ride. “All roads Lead to Rome”.
That was a reference to the Mike Joyner interview (also very good) where they were talking about three different runners in the Toyko Olympics that used three different training methods yet all achieved essentially the same fitness:
Which is a bold statement for a scientist, 3 treatments with n=1 each 
This is a good episode, too!
This was in the “Do people do zone 2 partly because it’s easy?” section. This specific reference starts around 1:19:00 with a discussion of his son training 10 hours a week (swimming), and some other schools are training 20 hours a week. He and his wife are convinced their son will get faster if he trained more hours, but how much more? On an individual basis the only way to know is to do more until you crack. Coggan’s experience/instinct is that somewhere around the 15 hour/week mark is where you start to trade intensity for volume. All roads lead to Rome. Lets say you are training 15 hours/week, and you want to get better, you gotta go hard. Thats not pleasant. So how much motivation do you have to have, to do that 52 weeks a year? Or is it easier to just ride more and have fun? All roads lead to Rome.
This individual - me - it feels like I crack before 15 hours. But I haven’t been in high school since the 70s 
Again the point is at the individual level, you figure it out.
Also enjoyed the ‘broad strokes’ discussion (around 1:05:00) on 3 types of adaptations:
- typeA: increase maximal power or force
- typeB1: increase fatigue resistance during high intensity, non-sustainable exercise
- typeB2: increase fatigue resistance during lower intensity, prolonged exercise
He keeps talking about “reversibility”, in the context of big training principles, do you know what is he talking about?
Two aspects: a) if you stop training, you lose fitness, and b) as you become more fit, more work may be required to achieve overload and further fitness increases.
I took it to mean the reversibility of a training effect. But agree that it’s not a term I’ve heard used in that context.
Also noticed the 15 hr comment and I thought wow how many times has an interviewer pressed a prominent coach or physiologist to throw a rough number of hours regarding intensity. They all dance around it. I’ve never understood why that is so hand wavey. Of course you can’t put a precise number on it but it’s not like it 6 hrs for you and 18 for me.
I think there is a smaller range there and it has always struck me as a bit over cautious not to say “it’s about 13”. And then the other guy says “oh it’s around 15”.
Another thing that Coggan is explicit about is: Intensity compensates for Volume, up to a point , with the usual caveats of recovery.
I happen to agree with him.
When people stop responding …
not just negliggible influence but as AC pointed out, even an increase in fatox
(already shown several times here;)
But as AC pointed out, too, why should you care 
Refreshingly to different to the other AC. By the way the other AC and ISM ended up in my ignore bucket. Not really ignore because they always show up in my twitter timeline but I read their posts with a certain degree of amusement. With the other AC I often wonder if ChatGPT writes his posts.
If training adaptations were strictly regimented along zones, however defined, no beginners would ever get off the ground.
Coggan’s internet persona was very off-putting during the 1st gen polarized debates some 10yrs ago. Moreover, he struggled to convey the knowledge he had to the audience. For instance about SS not being studied. Now he has a good answer IMHO.
So, his recent podcasts within the last year or so have been very good, and his no-nonsense, first principles first kinda stance is presented in a robust manner.
I especially value his ability to communicate knowledge of the history of ex-phys to the wider public. Regarding the topic at hand, Coggan has for example clashed with Brooks on (fat) metabolism in scholarly debates in the 90s.
More generally one gets the impression that many currently hot takes and problems related to training are not necessarily very new at all. Brings to mind Maynard Keynes’ famous dictum: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
Even before. Not sure from how many internet forums he got thrown out. Quite bizzare for such a distinguished scientist. Jekyll and Hyde.
Still, as alluded to before, when it comes to what science can teach us for training he’s one of the few I really trust.
He used to be here in this forum under @oldbutnotquitedead
Was that really him? I wondered about a year ago if it was because the level of knowledge was obviously high, but he behaved exactly like Coggan did prior to getting thrown out of slowtwitch several years ago.
The guy is brilliant, but he needs to stay off of message boards.