We utilize TrainingPeaks to send out workouts and plans as well as obtain the files our athletes load.    That’s simply the “envelope” we use to send information back and forth. We are not sending out canned plans or pre-formulated anything.   In fact, the only workout I can copy/cut/paste is one particular sprint workout and recovery ride day.

 I (Christian) handle each training plan individually, and we use wko4 for modeling and analytics.   For every athlete we coach, I capture and chart data so that I can plan workouts to build each athlete up uniquely.  Together with our coaches, we determine the rate of improvement that can be sustained for the individual, and we work towards that while we tie it in with the timelines of your goals.  Daily, I’m analyzing and charting the data from each athlete’s workouts to track the progression curves of these markers.   This never stops.  Even if I wanted to stop, I couldn’t.   In fact, most of this data further charted is handwritten, and I keep it in actual folders for each athlete.  I also have a regularly updated notecard for each athlete as a quick reference for workout questions or snapshot analysis.

 We’re not guessing here.  We’re not going with what works for the averages.   We take what is working for you as an individual, and we continue to plan so that we can get the most out of the time you have available to train and accommodate the real world.    If there is a stall in progression, we notice it immediately and can address it.  We constantly strive to optimally help you improve and reach your goals.

 As one of the first coaches to have a client with a powermeter (back when they were over $10,000), I was ahead of the game because I also spent a year training exclusively on a computrainer, only riding outdoors for races.  I was in grad school in the evenings, teaching high school during the day, coaching bike racers during my conference period, and a single Dad (at 2y old, I put him on his bike on a trainer next to me, and he thought he was the “red guy” on the screen).  It wasn’t ideal, but I quickly adapted to the data.  While we were already successful utilizing heart rate as a guide for training and a measure of work, wattage was clearly the way to go to measure improvement and performance from training.   I became so consumed by making use of the wattage component that I was concerned that it was unhealthy for me to be working on it in such detail.  It was what I thought about most of the time.  I was bringing people to my house to do workouts on the computrainer, just so I could get the data.   I became consumed with putting together the best approach to make athletes stronger.  Coaching full time was an easy transition for me.

 What I learned, though, was that I’m not just looking at the data, but I see the data.   Sure, there’s the science of all the training stuff, but then there’s applying it, and that’s where I found my niche in this game to be.   The modeling and analytics, while extensive on our end, is just a bunch of charts and graphs until we can help the athlete not only execute in training, but do so in competition.  We’re bike RACERS, and that is where we focus.    We spend more time training than racing, so it is easy to get hung up on the training aspect of the coaching game, but that is training.   The athlete won’t be asked to hand over his or her best training file at registration.   Your individual goals are our priority, and as a Williams RACING Academy, we’re going to help you be as prepared as possible to perform at your events and races.

 Along the way, we have riders at the pro level, elite amateurs, world class juniors, national and internationally competitive masters…and the data from them.  We’ve been competitive at every level, so we have our own insights as to what it takes to be competitive.   Each of the coaches here has worked with me for at least 7 years, so they have firsthand experience of what it is like to be an athlete with our method of training and coaching.