Chris sits down with Phil Batterson, Ph.D., host of the CriticalO2 podcast and physiologist for Moxy Monitor. They have a discussion about the oft-discussed “Art and Science of Coaching,” focusing on what coaches can learn from physiologists and vice versa. It’s a fascinating conversation that ranges from debunking long-observed tenets of the coaching world (FTP = 95% of 20-minute power, for one, and why 2mmol/l and 4mmol/l aren’t gospel) to best practices for improving your ability to make decisions in your training.

The Critical Oxygen Podcast

In this episode we talk about the importance of annual training plans for athletes and coaches, focusing on the need for clear goals and structured training blocks. We break down the types of goals you should use in your annual plans—outcome, performance, and process—and explain how to effectively build and manage a plan based on those goals. We give you three different examples of annual plans and offer hints and tips about how to use them to best effect: your performance and your happiness.

We also answer a great listener question about the significance of accountability in coaching, contrasting it with feelings of shame that can arise from missed workouts or unmet expectations.

Chris sits down with Joe Howdyshell of Summit Endurance Academy, a mountain sport coaching company based in Breckenridge, CO. What is a “mountain sport coaching company?” Joe (also known as @badasscoach on Instagram, although these days you can find him over on Substack talking to athletes) primarily coaches sports such as Ski Mountaineering (SkiMo for short), mountain biking, and mountain running.

“I work with athletes who want to play in mountains that look like the ones around me,” he says, although he’s also totally comfortable coaching road cyclists, triathletes, and more traditional endurance endeavors.

As with many coaches, Joe’s path to where he is today would be best described as “meandering.” No shade, there—most of us who work in the endurance world took a…circuitous path to our current situations. Joe came up as a runner, and then a cross-country skier, and finally a SkiMo athlete. He has bachelor and masters degrees in exercise physiology, so he knows his stuff, but as with the coaches at Campfire, he tends to keep the athlete first and the training minutiae second.

Instagram
Summit Endurance Academy
Substack

Work with us! If you heard something you liked today, join us! We’re always taking on new athletes, and you can book a free call to chat about your training here.

What is “mastery,” and how can we develop mastery in endurance sports? What even IS mastery? What does it look, sound, or feel like? In this episode, Chris walks through what mastery is and how you can begin to build mastery in your own sports.

If you’d like to learn this process through reading, check out our series on Mastery over on Medium. The link here is a friend link, so you’ll be able to read for free. Want the free PDF that helps you out with this? You can grab that here.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

And, finally, if you’d like to talk to us about coaching, we’d love to chat! You can book a free training analysis here, getting some outside eyes on what it is you are doing.

Chris sits down with Alex Larson of Alex Larson Nutrition (ALN) about how she ended up in this role, why training in a fasted state is so unproductive, how she works with clients and athletes to “support endurance athletes with practical and simple nutrition advice for lifelong health and performance,” (ALN’s mission), and a whole bunch of poop!

Alex talks with us about how she achieves behavior change with her athletes, why she would like to shift away from the word “diet,” and why restricting food isn’t the mindset we should adopt around eating and fueling.

You can find Alex at Alex Larson Nutrition and on Instagram and Facebook @alexlarsonnutrition, playing with three kids, or watching all the Star Wars intellectual property she can get her eyes on.