Training Science Podcast

Lawrence van Lingen, movement specialist and ex-chiropractor who works with elite endurance athletes, explains how breathing, fascia, and vagal tone shape performance. He discusses walking, crawling-like drills, 360-degree breathing, eye-posture links, and nature-based slow walks. Short daily practices aim to improve movement, recovery, and the body’s ability to absorb training.

Dr David Bailey, a sports scientist with 20+ years in Olympic and WorldTour cycling and author of The Science of Cycling, breaks down marginal gains, talent identification, and how teams decide what truly moves the needle. He explores training philosophies, individualized nutrition, heat and altitude use, AI for scouting and monitoring, and the mix of physiology, psychology and race strategy that shapes performance.

Dr Greg Grosicki, a human performance researcher at WHOOP focused on HRV, recovery and metabolic health. He explains what HRV really measures and why context matters. They discuss sleep duration and regularity, effects of alcohol, meals and sickness, and a new HRV-CV metric for stability. Big wearable datasets and practical implications for training consistency round out the conversation.

What actually changes as we age as athletes, and how should training evolve if we want to keep performing while protecting long term health?In this episode, Professor Peter Reaburn joins us to explore the science and real world practice of training as a masters athlete. Drawing on decades of research and personal experience as an endurance athlete, Peter explains why resistance training becomes essential with age, how recovery changes, and why training the same way you did in your twenties no longer works.We discuss muscle loss, polarized training, protein intake, and the importance of balancing performance with longevity. The conversation also dives into heart health considerations for aging endurance athletes and why listening to your body may be the most important skill masters athletes can develop.Today’s speakers:Prof Paul Laursen  https://www.paullaursen.com/Prof Peter Reaburn https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-reaburn-8a498b12/

Prof. Dr. JB Morin, a sprint mechanics researcher and sports science director, dives into sprint force–velocity profiling and tailored speed training. He breaks down horizontal force focus, sprint-specific resisted training, and practical testing for individual speed profiles. Expect clear takes on programming heavy resisted sprints and using profiles to target the remaining 30% of sprint gains.

Dr Guido Claessen, a sports cardiologist who leads long-term MRI studies on endurance athletes. He discusses how low-intensity Zone 1–2 volume, not HIIT, most strongly links to larger cardiac size. They cover MRI methods, mechanisms from chronic wall stress, polarized training balance, recovery variability, and long-term risks like atrial fibrillation and coronary plaque.

We sit down with Prof Guillaume Millet to get clear on what fatigue actually is, why durability became the new buzzword, and what really limits performance in ultra endurance events. We dig into central vs peripheral fatigue, why muscle damage matters so much in trail and mountain running, and how shock weekends can build the resilience you cannot fake on race day. We also talk heat, perceived exertion, field monitoring tools, and his new Zero to 100 project taking sedentary adults to a 100k mountain race in 18 months.References:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22323647/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39405022/https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00692.2025?rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed&url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org_____________________ Today’s speakers:Prof Paul Laursen  https://www.paullaursen.com/   Prof Guillaume Millet https://www.linkedin.com/in/kinesiologui/

Episode 200 marks a major milestone for us, and we celebrate it with someone who played a foundational role in our journey. Professor Ken Nosaka joins us to reflect on how eccentric training research shaped modern training practice and brought our paths together.We revisit the early ECU years, then dive deep into what Ken’s research has taught us about muscle soreness, muscle damage, the repeated bout effect, and how adaptation really works. This episode blends history, science, and real world coaching insights that still shape how we train today.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr Andrew Koutnik to unpack one of the most discussed sports science reviews in recent years. Drawing on more than 100 years of research and a series of tightly controlled trials, we examine evidence that challenges the long-held belief that more carbohydrates automatically lead to better performance.We explore why muscle glycogen and carbohydrate oxidation do not consistently predict performance, how athletes can sustain high-intensity and endurance output with much lower carbohydrate intake, and why protecting brain energy may be a key limiter during exercise.The conversation also examines why some highly trained athletes still show markers of poor metabolic health, what this means for current fueling guidelines, and why context matters when translating science into real-world practice._____________________ References:https://academic.oup.com/edrv/advance-article/doi/10.1210/endrev/bnaf038/8432248?login=false_____________________ Today’s speakers:Prof Paul Laursen  https://www.paullaursen.com/   Dr Andrew Koutnik https://www.instagram.com/andrewkoutnikphd/

In this episode, we sit down with François Fourhet to trace a career that has moved from hands on clinical practice to global performance environments, research leadership, and now consulting and teaching.François shares the three major chapters of his journey: early years as a sports physio in Reims, nearly a decade in Doha within Aspire and Aspetar, then his Swiss chapter at Hôpital de la Tour where he helped build a research driven physiotherapy department and later led it. Along the way, they unpack what it really takes to make interdisciplinary performance support work, how François shifted into research without losing the practical thread, and why dissemination matters as much as publishing.The conversation also gets tactical: ankle return to play, why isokinetic testing is misunderstood, how curve based analysis changes decision making, and the story behind Ankle Go, the free tool designed to help clinicians make smarter calls after ankle injury. If you work in rehab, performance, or team leadership, this episode is packed with ideas you can use immediately.Today’s speakers:Dr Martin Buchheit https://martin-buchheit.net/François Fourhet https://www.linkedin.com/in/fran%C3%A7ois-fourchet-43b7b868/