Jacob Tipper is a high-performance cycling and triathlon coach working with athletes such as Ben Healy (Tour de France stage winner and UCI World Championships third place in 2025), Lucy Byram, Dan Bigham and Jonny Brownlee. He is also a team coach or the EF Education-EasyPost WorldTour team. In today’s interview we discuss training for amateur triathletes and we dive deep into Ben Healy’s training and preparation that led to his breakthrough year in 2025.
HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:
- Jacob’s thoughts on doing aerobic runs at a decent clip to optimise biomechanical development and running economy improvements.
- The key characteristics of Ben Healy’s training in 2025
- Being a high-volume athlete on an annual basis without having very high weekly training volumes.
- The changes in race tactics Ben implemented in 2025 to be able to win races at the highest level.
- The differences between the scientific literature’s view of cycling training and what it actually looks like
- How age-group triathletes should think about volume and intensity as drivers of adaptation when it comes to their cycling.
- How to maximise training return on investment for time-crunched athletes by not following rigid rules
- Monitoring training improvements by feel
- How working on speed as the ultimate training metric is still important and still underestimated.
DETAILED EPISODE SHOWNOTES:
- We have detailed shownotes for all of our episodes. The shownotes are basically the podcast episode in written form, that you can read in 5-10 minutes. They are not transcriptions, but they are also not just surface-level overviews. They provide detailed insights and timestamps for each episode, and are great especially for later review, after you've already listened to an episode.
- The shownotes for today's episode can be found at https://scientifictriathlon.com/tts690/
LINKS AND RESOURCES:
WHAT SHOULD I LISTEN TO NEXT?
If you enjoyed this episode, I think you'll love the following related episodes:
You can find our full episode archives here, where you can filter for categories such as Training, Racing, Science & Physiology, Swimming, Cycling, Running etc.
You can also find separate archives for specific series of episodes I've done, specifically Q&A episodes, TTS Thursday episodes, and Beginner Tips episodes.
LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON:
HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)?
I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time.
- Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
- Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far!
- Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
- Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack.
SPONSORS:
- Precision Fuel & Hydration produce our favourite gels, sports drinks, and electrolyte and carbohydrate products here at That Triathlon Show and Scientific Triathlon. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised plan for your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid intake in your next event, and get 15% off your first 2026 order by using the code TTS2026 at checkout.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
That Triathlon Show