UAE head of performance on 2025 training

This a surprisingly good video from GCN of all places. It’s a 47 minute interview with UAE teams head of performance on what their training is like, and gets into weight training, altitude camps, volume and intensity and of course zone 2. Also adds a gentle let down of polarized training as training philosophy that has been left behind.

A surprisingly good watch while on the trainer.
GCN vid

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I watched it just now and found it interesting.

Anyone looking for specifics that they can apply to their own training will be largely disappointed, but it is an insight into the training he oversees.

Good to know, I needed something for today’s recovery ride.

Thanks for the heads up!

He’s not afraid to talk about working with a top doper of the era - Ullrich. It cracks me up that nobody would brag about having worked with Armstrong. :slight_smile:

Interesting point - a couple* of hours per week of ISM 2mmol zone 2 - aka tempo intervals.

*his couple is 6-7 hours so 2-7 hours? If a pro rides 20-25 hours per week, then this is like 25-30% of their time doing tempo intervals.

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It comes across from the video that there is a pretty careful calibration involved in setting that tempo training both in terms of intensity and duration (and who knows what else).

But it is never mentioned as being ISM 2mmol zone 2, just that lactate testing is involved to fine tune it.

He talks (at 23:06) of Pavel Sivakov doing 30 - 40 mins at 285-290W in December and “now” (some time in Jan I suppose) doing 310W for an hour

Maybe it is 2mmol, maybe it isn’t. On the basis of the level of detail they appear to analyse each rider, I am not sure it is 2mmol. Maybe it isn’t the same lactacte level for each rider?

I’m only partway through the video. He mentioned ISM just before saying they do a “couple” hours per week of this zone 2 so I assume he’s talking about ISM style zone 2 which is tempo.

I added the 2 mmol part as it was my interpretation that this was ISM zone 2 and not Coggan zone 2.

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Chris Carmichael still does. Ironically there is actually some question as to whether or not Carmichael ever actually coached Armstrong (some people just say he was a cover and Michele Ferrari was doing all the coaching)

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He didn’t…CC was always a huckster. He approached us back in the day about being the official bike sponsor for CTS. When we met to discuss it (2000), it was all “Lance, Lance, Lance”. I finally stopped him and said “Lance is riding a Trek…is he going to be on our bikes if we sponsor CTS?”

The meeting ended pretty quickly after that… :lying_face:

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From wikipedia:

In 1990, Chris was a guest coach at a United States Cycling Federation Junior Development Camp. Realizing he had an aptitude for coaching, Chris made the transition to full-time coaching. Chris believed young cyclists needed to race and live in Europe to become successful professional cyclists so, in preparation for the 1992 Olympic Games, he led a group of young American cyclists, including Lance Armstrong, George Hincapie, Freddie Rodriguez, Kevin Livingston, Chann McCrae, and Bobby Julich on a campaign of racing and training in Europe.

Tyler Hamilton was pretty explicit that Carmichael was not a coach. (That was the Italian car brand)

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No one disputes that he was the coach of the National team in the early 90’s. The point is that he claimed to be -7’s coach during his TdF years and he was not.

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You can go check out what Mcnulty and Sivakov do training wise. Should give enough info to figure out how UAE trains some of their riders.

He did say that high zone 2 wasn’t prescribed as much as what the media is making out.

Yes, but only “6 or 7 hours a week” is still a fair bit. :laughing:

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I watched the earlier short version of the interview and recently released uncut version. Really enjoyed it.