Watts et kilos : qu'est-ce qui se cache derrière le Compound Score ?

Björn: Welcome to the Afasteryou Podcast, where everything revolves around endurance sports and training. Here, Sebastian Schluricke, Björn Kafka, and Niclas Ranker give you valuable tips and insights to help you take your performance to the next level. So, a wonderful good morning Björn. Welcome to a new episode of the Afasteryou Podcast.

Niclas: Good morning. So, after a week of abstinence — illness on my side. Yeah, and training stress on my side. Right.

Björn: Exactly. On the day of the podcast recording, my coach wrote eight hours of training into my plan. That was a bit much for one day, but... That's a double threshold day for me.

Niclas: Yeah, well. Listeners should just complain to my coach. It's a Norwegian Method. Total overload. Make it till you break it. Very good. Now fire away, you've prepared something.

Björn: So, inspired by the Besenwagen Podcast and a bit from my Strava feed of Anton Schiffer, I looked into the Compound Score a bit and found it actually quite interesting. And I also think it's mainly something for the pros, and definitely very interesting for coaches, to do a bit of scouting. So, we'll get to it right away. And my train of thought was, it always goes in the direction of, something gets developed for the pros, and what can you then take from that for the hobby or amateur athlete, for the broader masses. And that's what I want to talk about a bit. And I'd say we start with what the Compound Score actually is. The idea behind it was basically from the working group around Peter Leo. They looked at, okay, how can we improve scouting in the youth classes especially. And in the past, people always just looked at relative power, so watts per kilogram. Everyone knows it — you ride five minutes all out, take that power and divide it by your weight, and then you get, I don't know, four watts per kilo, six watts per kilo, whatever. And they looked at, okay, if we take relative power and then look at race performances and results, is there any correlation. And you couldn't really find a clear correlation. So you couldn't really figure out, okay, because this rider went 6 watts per kilo, good, he should actually win the race. But he didn't. Why is that? And then it kept going and they came up with the Compound Score and said, yeah, okay, maybe watts per kilo is only interesting above 5% gradient. And so it went that they came up with the Compound Score and essentially incorporated absolute power as well. And for example, you ride over 5 minutes, let's say 500 watts, and you have to multiply that by your watts per kilo, so 500 divided by 75 kilos, and then you get 500 times 500 divided by 75. And then you'd have the Compound Score. And then they looked at, okay, when you do it this way, you get significantly better results. So you could correlate the Compound Score with race results. Briefly and simply put. Exactly.

Niclas: I don't find it that awesome actually. No? No. Okay. So it explains some things, but when we're talking about a 5-minute power, which they investigated with Peter Leo, I think John Wakefield was also involved, and we're mainly looking at which classes — and you already emphasized it — everything from 5% and up is really interesting. Beyond that it's not so interesting anymore. So, absolute power on the flats is a topic, and the Compound Score goes up when you're a bit heavier. Heavier and putting down serious power. Put plainly, you can win Cape Epic with a VO2max of 75. It's just not that climbing-intensive. But you won't win Grand Raid. That's the first thing.

Björn: It shows — I think what you have to say about it straight away — it just shows again, simply, it brings up a new side of the coin.

Niclas: Right, so it's something composite. Exactly, Compound — it's very popular to combine values and try to explain things. There are really wild Compound Scores in the World Tour, where rider performance, ability in the peloton, how he moves — data is looked at for how someone can move within the peloton. I think it's rightly thought out, so it's smart to ask, okay, why does it exist, but I find... it's kind of a half explanation, because when Andi Seewald for example came second at the World Championships in Denmark, where everyone said, how can that be, he's a total climber. And that was before the Compound Score, I think. I believe the study came out in 2022 and Andi — yeah, it was around that time. Denmark was '21, right? No, '22, I think. '21 was Italy, that's where Seewald became World Champion. Yeah, right. Right. There are, I think, more interesting scores — and that's where scouting in the World Tour is heading — that I find significantly more interesting. Or rather, there might already be names for them, I don't know. I put one together myself three years ago. It's about... ...that I determine aerodynamic performance, so the CdA value, or Aeropoints in our case, and through that, depending on speed, I can always calculate how much drag power someone actually has. And you can also run that through the Compound Score, or take it. You can also just pull a square root or square it. People always like doing that when it's supposed to look a bit scientific. R-squared. No, so you can include the share of aerodynamic performance. And then, I think, you really have something. And so far we've only been talking about VO2max performance. Yeah. But if we can permanently factor that out, and I know someone has a CdA value of, what do I know, or Aeropoints of 28 in an aerodynamic position, and he can move well in the peloton because I've analyzed the data beforehand... ...then for me that's a significantly more valid value, and I can also use it much better than the Compound Score. So for me, the Compound Score is thought in the right direction. A bit of a sleight of hand, because it only considers VO2max. And then when you factor out every time, how much aerodynamic drag, rolling resistance, etcetera — hey man, now you could just make an Excel table. Yeah. And then with the CdA value you've determined, you can also do that beautifully, testing is part of it for us. For all I care, you just build an Excel sheet, and then you have a real value. And that's exactly how Seewald became vice World Champion. On a course where everyone said, never ever, how is that supposed to work? Because you essentially went —

Björn: You basically took his — I'll say in quotes — his Compound Score and combined it with his aerodynamics, and you made sure to improve that value as much as possible, because the course — so that people can really picture this — Elba was a course where I think we rode 115 kilometers with over 5,000 meters of climbing, basically just singletrack, climbs, super steep, really long, hard race. And Denmark was not exactly the opposite, but the trails in it weren't as technical as in Elba, they were very twisty, had short ramps, and mainly lots of flat. You did 1,500 meters of climbing?

Niclas: Yeah, compared to the year before, nothing. So, in the end... we practiced it a bit and determined the CdA value for the race. And I knew you could hold the CdA value because the race wasn't so technically demanding, with lots of rolling sections. Then I knew who was on the start line. And then I knew, okay, if a Sam Gaze — who decided relatively last minute — what does he push on the flats? How does he normally sit on the bike? CdA determined, calculated through. And then I knew, okay, we have to get under 0.3. And then we have a real chance. And then everyone was wondering, how can it be that someone — Andi attacked once, and closed the gap to Gaze, alone, against such a beast. And yeah, that was actually the idea behind it, that you prepare more specifically for the race and can hold that position. And the course really allowed for it. And that, I think, is a significantly more exciting matrix, or a significantly more exciting... a significantly more exciting mix to bring in. And then it's just a numbers game. I designed a spreadsheet for it and a program. That means, every time we ride, we have the CdA value, we have the power that goes into it, and per gradient we also know what goes in. Our AI determines the CdA value anyway. Not 100% super dialed, but at least. And then you get a good feel for what's actually going on. And the next score — I already discussed it — especially on the road: how can someone move in the peloton? I mean, sure, you can ride 7 watts per kilo for 5 minutes, those are pretty good values. But if every time you're getting dropped by the peloton, you have a problem. Also take that into account. And scouting in the World Tour — there are some World Tour teams that throw the guys into the wind tunnel before they're even allowed to start. And then they see if they can even hold an aerodynamic position. And if not...

Björn: So they look at whether they can hold an aerodynamic position while also producing power. Right, exactly. So they basically have to, plainly said, ride a 20-minute test in an aerodynamic posture in the wind tunnel.

Niclas: Right, exactly. Can you actually sit aerodynamically? Is that possible? Or is there any room at all? Some people are unfortunately shaped so that aerodynamically they're an IKEA shelf, and others are like a penguin. I mean, Remco Evenepoel is the living penguin on the bike. He's super aerodynamic. And then on top of that he has the power. And I mean, the Compound Score — I mean, Jonas Vingegaard — I mean, his career, from a KT rider scratching his way through Belgium and cutting fish in a fish factory. And still managing to pull it off, that also shows, even without a Compound Score you can ride damn well. Exactly, and that's a bit my — not criticism, but — in the last three years you should, and you also see it, it has developed further. So for me the score is meh. Mm-hmm. A bit well thought out, but not thought further, and maybe a bit too simple. I saw that and thought, oh, come on. But still, it was a good start, and this aero story — everyone knows that, and many, many years ago — I was a kid — now I'm digressing a bit — I saw a documentary about people. I think they were some kind of scientists. I don't really remember it exactly. They had bikes that were solar-powered. At least they charged the batteries and so on. And they rode super fast. They were going something like 60, 70 km/h. And at some point there were tipping points. Namely tipping points — they of course were still producing power themselves. But there were tipping points where the women suddenly became faster than the men. Because the women of course had a better CdA value. A woman is typically smaller, typically narrower, typically also more aerodynamically shaped, because not such broad shoulders, and so on. And I kept thinking about that the whole time when I was doing this with Andi, I thought, exactly, we need these tipping points, and then the thing starts working. And that was the idea behind it. And that's how I got some athletes... to that point on the road bike, and I think that's where it will go. The better we can measure, and we also see it with the teams that work with us, that there are training sessions where it says, ride aerodynamically. What is an aerodynamic position? Is it always hooking into the drops and just seeing? It's not that at all. And if you test it once and look, okay, this is my CdA value, and I thought this was an aerodynamic position — it's not at all. Then I have to position myself differently. We can also invite Sebastian on for this. I tested quite a bit on that, but you have to sensitize the riders to it. And that's actually the big problem, I'd say. A lot of people don't really feel like doing it. They just want to train. But the fact that with some athletes I can quickly pull out 20, 30 watts at threshold power that you save, that's massive. But then it's, my forearms and this and that, I can't hold it that long. That's what training is, right? Train, hold it. And so, when you integrate that... we'll also build something in, that you have a score for that — or rather, we already have such a score built into the CdA curve. You mean the Ero points? Exactly, especially for each, when you analyze the activity, you can relatively quickly see, you have a race, and then you see, okay, which of these riders — of course you can look at the wait values, sure you can do that, but it's of course much smarter to say, I have individual segments that the system marks anyway. Then you see, okay, the athlete rode 50% with a CdA value of 16, because he was in the peloton the whole time. And can save much more energy. And that's where it really becomes clear. Because pure wattage, sometimes you can't really put it in relation. And then you see, okay, that one rides significantly more aerodynamically, saves significantly more because of it. And even with a Compound Score — even a lower Compound Score — he's much better, because he's riding significantly more aerodynamically. And also significantly, or potentially significantly more cleverly, moving through the peloton. So.

Björn: Now I've been talking. What you just mentioned at the end goes exactly in the direction that after I looked at the Compound Score — and the working groups basically went further and combined Compound Score with Fatigue Resistance, so, what happens — let's say, you have a Compound Score of 3,500. They say — I think Inigo Samilan categorized it like this — that 3,500 to 3,800 Compound Score you'd be at World Tour level, 3,200 to 35 Pro Continental, and from 38 plus, monument podium. And then they looked at, okay, what happens to your Compound Score after 1,000 kilojoules, 2,000 kilojoules, 3,000 kilojoules, 4,000 kilojoules. But this categorization, just putting it in kilojoule buckets, is — like you said earlier — not thought far enough through, because it's extremely different how you produce those 2, 3, or 4,000 kilojoules. So actually, you'd only be allowed to include race performances in this calculation, and even with race performances, you'd have to look — let's say, 4,000 kilojoules, you ride another 5-minute all-out at the end of the race, because the last ramp up to the finish is exactly 5 minutes long. And really, you'd have to look at which zones the athlete produced those 4,000 kilojoules in. Because it makes a huge difference for your Compound Score, or generally for your 5-minute power. After 4,000 kilojoules, whether you spent those 4,000 kilojoules hanging in the back of the peloton, just rolling in zone 1, zone 2, or whether you were, I don't know, Nils Politt, pulling at the front of the peloton, and burned 2,000 of those 4,000 kilojoules in the lead somehow at threshold or maybe even above threshold. That means it does something to your carbohydrate stores. You're not getting the energy from the aerobic system, but from the anaerobic system. And by then, of course, you have a worse Compound Score after the 4,000 kJ than if, I'd say, beforehand you'd only ridden base.

Niclas: The next topic — absolutely right, two things, so first Fatigue Resistance, we'll come back to that — but the Compound Score, as mentioned, is composed of a 5-minute power, and it's mainly based on the idea that someone with a lot of absolute power also just rolls a bit better through the peloton. And doesn't find it as hard to ride 300 watts as someone who weighs 60 kilos. So if I ride 300 watts at 80 kilos versus 60 kilos, it's really a difference. At least... it accounts for that, but what about the glycolytic power of the rider? Can he really burn hot for five minutes and then be toast, or is he someone who's totally a diesel and maybe has a higher Fatigue Resistance? Yeah. Then you could also look at VO2max and VLamax if you want. That would explain the model somewhat. Or lactate clearance would also explain the system. There are various possibilities. You don't really have to commit to a methodology. At least when we're talking about the Compound Score, we're really talking about VO2max power. Especially VLamax power. At least in the model as they currently present it. And then, Fatigue Resistance is also again such a term that says zero. I recently heard a podcast with David Bailey. David is the... Oh, now I'm going way out on a limb. And this is now mega uncomfortable because I work with several riders from Israel. From the team. And David does Performance Management at Israel Primary Tech. Is that what they're called now? I always forget. I can't say exactly what they're called right now. Exactly. At least... I'm only interested in the people, not what the teams are called. But I know — now we know, we know what it's called on the bike, and that the supermarket chain isn't in it anymore. Also with me for a year, with the ones that are in there, I always try to, you know, we know. No, at least, the ones who are now, look, now I've lost the thread again, where I was right here — let me take another sip. Cue music please.

Björn: You wanted, I think, to talk about Fatigue Resistance.

Niclas: How to sort of dance around what it actually is. It is, as you said, how is it composed. And there's no real definition at all. And when I, when we sometimes sit in calls with some World Tour teams and people are talking to them about Fatigue Resistance, then for me it's like, I always have to first say, okay, define that for me now for your World Tour team. Is it 3x20 minutes sweetspot with 5 minutes, every 5 minutes afterwards, or in sweetspot another 2 minutes, or 90 seconds VO2max, or 30 seconds attacks, and then another 30 minutes and then a 20-minute test on top? That would be a classic from a World Tour team. But there are also completely different ones. And then for me it's totally hard to grasp, and I'm also not happy when people talk about it, because we're comparing apples, berries, oranges, raisins — dried and not dried — to each other. So we're still far away. Absolutely.

Björn: So that's also exactly — I thought it was super funny. When we did a long ride the other day, I listened to your podcast on Innovation Science, no, what's it called? Innovation... Endurance Innovation Podcast. Endurance Innovation Podcast, I listened to it. And there you spoke about... how the more you know, the more uncertain you become. And I think, especially when you start dealing with Compound Score and Fatigue Resistance, exactly that happens. You engage with it, you think, okay, yeah, I'm basically opening a new door and maybe making some progress. But in the end, after you've opened the door, you have many more question marks in your head than before. Because it's just — sports science is still such a young science that you don't really know yet where it's going, and we haven't really defined it all properly yet, and not... Yeah, so you know, okay, we can work with it in some form, but it's not really clear yet, okay, what does this bring us, and where does it take us, and how do we set, I'd say, standards for this so that you can... Yeah, I mean, so that all the World Tour teams together could work with it, for example — you'd have to, as you said, first define Fatigue Resistance somehow. You can't just say, okay, we measure Compound Score after 4,000 kilojoules, because it's super decisive how those 4,000 kilojoules came about.

Niclas: Sure, sure. I mean, if I'm just dinking around or riding GR2, and still slamming 120 grams of carbs the whole time, and then also another — let's say I ride the thing at a 70 cadence, so I'm mainly using slow-twitch fibers, yeah, Henneman size principle — and man, so much comes together, and the definition is really difficult, and that's why... So you have to be careful. I think fundamentally the problem is, we always have way too few participants in studies, they're mostly completely mixed, then the tests — sure, sometimes you get lucky, then they did a VO2max test, then they determined a threshold somehow, hopefully not derived from the VO2max power. And then you at least have a picture of what they can do, what the aerobic performance is, what do they do glycolytically, and so on. And then you can read some things from it a bit. But the groups are just so small, and nothing really happens. It's super hard. And what will definitely come in the next few years, is that you have a heap of data that you run through an AI, and then try... to explain things with very small models at first. Just don't start with, hey, we look at cadence and we also look at this and we look at heat. That won't lead to anything at first, because we'll have more question marks than before. Instead, we have to first build up simple models. I mean, VLamax, VLamax, yeah? I mean, VLamax is a simple model. And it certainly doesn't always hold up, for heaven's sake, not at all. But... you can already explain some things with it, just like with Critical Power. You can explain some things with it. And it's really... a lot of water will flow under the bridge.

Björn: I think that was also ultimately the goal of this working group, that they said, or with this study, that they wanted to look, okay, we do scouting and we now want to somehow figure out, how can we quantify this? So how do we manage, not just through relative power in this case, to say, okay, I now have 20 U19 riders here, they all have this relative power, and why does this one win the race now? Yeah. And that's where the Compound Score comes in and works quite well, at least.

Niclas: Yeah, on the other hand — now I'll be mean — of course you can also produce riders who you don't really — you no longer see the classic climber. You get two, three freaks — I'll say Tadej and Jonas — then you have a Remco who definitely comes through mainly via aerodynamics, he's of course good, but not nearly as good, and then you produce a few more bruisers. I like that. Yeah, exactly. Let's put on 5 kilos. But good, Abrahamsen is also such a nice example from Uno-X. So mass is power. I'm curious. So I think... the development is at least insofar quite good to say, you don't have to be insanely thin anymore to deliver power. At least it's already — mentally it's already quite interesting. But for me, the aerodynamics aspect is still completely underrepresented. Now they're, somehow they're coming with insanely many aero bikes, and I'm thinking, yeah... sure, we just saved 15 watts on the frame, but actually get on and ride, and hold the position.

Björn: So I think in the next few years there will definitely still be a lot coming. But if we now go to Fatigue Resistance, to basically bring it closer to the... listener, because we've already talked about it a lot. Fatigue Resistance is essentially nothing else. You look at, okay, at the end of a race, how capable you still are, for example. The studies I've seen on this have, thankfully, also already looked at the whole thing. I think it was only under 14 professional riders. They looked at, okay, what happens? You produce, for example, 3,000 kilojoules at base pace, let's say zone 2, and then you ride a 5-minute test, a 20-minute test, whatever. And you do the same — they ride a HIIT workout beforehand, I think they did 4x8 minutes, and thereby produced 3,000 kilojoules, and then had to ride the power test again. And you saw, yeah, okay, both produced 3,000 kilojoules, but some... had basically no significant drop in Critical Power. The others had a drop in Critical Power. Or rather, I think it was 5-minute power where they had the drop.

Niclas: How were they weight-wise, the riders? Were they roughly equal? If I do 3,000 at 80 kilos and at 60 it's really a world of difference. But I hope they did it. I can't imagine otherwise. Definitely the right direction to think about this. Then also maybe — maybe look at the Critical Power Curve and then somehow a W-Prime, DF, RC, VLamax, whatever, everything that hovers above threshold and can be defined. Look at how much performance capacity is in there, and from that determine a Critical Power, then it gets interesting. And sure, if you have an absurdly high oxygen uptake, then you also get by pretty well with a high W-Prime. That means it doesn't kill you as much, because you're already better anyway. Yeah, so as I said, Fatigue Resistance interesting, determinable still difficult.

Björn: I'm not really happy yet. You have to define it more clearly. First, I think, you'd have to, for example, only include certain powers. Because plainly put, it doesn't matter what you can still do after 3,000 kJ of base riding. Sure, that might give an indicator. So anyone who's ever ridden 4 hours of base and then tried to ride a 5-minute all-out test afterwards knows that it doesn't feel that awesome anymore like when you ride it after a warm-up. But... in the end it's still doable. I think that's definitely the first thing that maybe athletes should just try. so they get a feel for it, and maybe also just get the mental confidence, cool, even after four hours of base I can almost hit my 5-minute personal best. Next, I think, is more interesting especially for professional sport — how does the whole thing look under race load — that you basically just take the race load, then look, okay, how was your power at the end? And then you try to somehow improve it or draw conclusions. Okay, this time it was better than the other time. What did you do differently? Did you eat more? Did you move differently in the peloton? Those are the things you then have to look at, how the energy came about and what was the energy supply during. Exactly.

Niclas: And then you could also include things like Gross Efficiency. If you've measured it, under lab conditions — although that's also difficult. I still remember the study I was involved in with bikefitting. And the people got positioned differently on the bikes, so better fitted. And then we were all of course first really happy about it. And then the oxygen uptake went up, and then we noticed, ah wait, Gross Efficiency has actually gotten worse. Uh, uh, uh. Just like it's worse on the triathlon bike. And that's also always such a value, I find it super interesting, but it has to be tracked so closely that you... yeah, you really need one bike, one season, and you have to get used to that bike over the season and permanently measure your Gross Efficiency, because it's also going to permanently adapt and change. Horror is always a new bike, longer stem or something like that. Exactly, so those are factors you should consider.

Björn: Point that a lot of people forget — so, you're going, for example, to the lab and doing your lab diagnostics on your training road bike, because you — you're doing the diagnostics in January, say, up to two months before you've been riding the whole time on the trainer in Zwift on your training road bike, you then do the diagnostics on your training road bike. So, and now you go out in February, because maybe the first race is in March, and you get on your mountain bike. Then the — you might even notice yourself — things with the values can get really tricky again. And then it's also a point, ride the values in the terrain. Because that's what matters in the race. And then some riders wonder, huh, I had such awesome values in the performance diagnostic in January. I trained so awesomely over the winter. Yeah, but not on the race bike and not under conditions that you have to call up in competition. And I think that's always the... problem, a bit, when I look at riders who have super awesome values on paper, but for example in the race really don't deliver, because they neither trained well on the race bike, nor trained under race conditions. And then something like efficiency — they get on the race bike, go into the terrain, and then they burn significantly more carbohydrates, because efficiency is just significantly worse, and they're done after two hours of racing. Yeah.

Niclas: Yeah, definitely. So how many watt monsters have we seen, and oxygen-V2-max monsters. And they still somehow didn't become anything. So much more is needed. So, we've now explained a lot, left a few question marks certainly. I hope so. Much more exciting is, what do I mean with all this stuff? Because up to this point I'd just plainly say, like people who like to talk about this or in science tend to — we've been cutting our own hair up to now and haven't made any money yet. That's awesome. I don't know that book. Yeah, great, right? But in the end, it's true. Yeah, yeah. Um, so what do we do now? First, quite plainly, I don't know my Fatigue Resistance, I don't know if I want to test it, but can I probably improve my Fatigue Resistance? Can I? Does it work? Is there a way? Of course there is. Namely, for example, plainly, like a Fatigue Resistance test, I have, what, 4x8 40/20s, and I ride them only after 3 hours, instead of after one hour. For example, that would be just the simplest step. Right. So just move intervals to later. Or to say, I ride one up front, then I'm already a bit taxed, and then the base also already feels really crap. And then the last three after three hours. Classic. Old as the hills. I mean, you don't even have to think about it. I have so many older racers who say, well, I ride two before and three at the end. Then it's more race-like. And that's exactly how a race goes. At the start everyone just hammers, then maybe some calm sets in, and then at the end it's hammering again. So I simulate that, and through that I can train my Fatigue Resistance. Or I do the whole thing long. I ride eight hours on the bike. Why not? Definitely has effects on your Fatigue Resistance. A hundred percent. Those would be the things. Move intervals to where they're actually uncomfortable. People always like to ride, ah, I've got those done and then I just ride base. Try it differently. Spread them out.

Björn: So I think what you just mentioned is exactly the point, to also do maybe uncomfortable things. So sure, it's super easy, you always just ride your 90-minute sessions, your VO2max training. But in the end, when it really... that's now also already very specific. Only the people who, I'd say, even have the performance capacity or have the base capacity to do well in races, with those you can start and say, okay, we're now riding intervals at the start for example, or we ride five times one minute at the start, and you really lay down the hammer, then you ride three hours, and then you have to ride sweetspot intervals at the end. Like that, for example. Those are things you can do very well there. And I think for athletes especially, or what I've always experienced, it's that it just hurts more. And you're mentally fatigued, but then learn, okay, I can do this. And what I — and that was a big point when we started working together — was that I learned, yeah, it feels crap, but it works through the head, if you're willing to put it into practice. So you can't go into such a training session and say, yeah, okay, this is going to be nothing. What was he thinking? How am I supposed to pull this off? And there's plenty of that, I see it with lots of athletes, that they keep doing that, they look at the training session and ask themselves, what's this nonsense now? But if you go in with the mindset, okay, I want to use this to train my Fatigue Resistance — there we're back at the informed athlete — then mentally you can approach it completely differently, and then after three hours, I don't know, you have to approach the last session with a grin, because you're thinking, okay, now I'm basically making the difference for the coming season, so I don't get dropped.

Niclas: And I also see this often when I look at studies or similar, or people transferring things from studies into training. The study is the basis for your training, for the design of the training. But then a study protocol basically gets simulated. It's just, hey, that's half thought out. It's so well done, but not thought further. Because, um, we need — first you have to see, does this form of training even fit the point in time I'm at now. Does it make sense to slam in a VO2 max block, just as an example. Can I maybe integrate it into other things? What is actually being trained? Do I do the oxygen uptake — how do I lock it in? Can I maybe even measure it directly? How was it measured in the study? And then to think further, okay, how do I possibly extend these... ...intervals, or how do I make them a bit smarter, so they fit individually on me and on the race I want to ride. And that's what I always see with very good coaches — they do take input from studies, of course, but they're able to combine. They see right away what's actually happening, why this stimulus works. They mainly look at how the study participants were. Why did the study participants react like that? What was the VO2max? What was the threshold? Ah, incredible, they had insanely high W-Prime values across the board. That's why it hit so well. Is it also the other way around? People with high threshold values and not such high oxygen uptakes? And that's where I'm always so real-world, and the study — my god, that you hear this from my mouth is rare, because I'm a big fan of many studies and I look at all of them. But it has to be thought further. We have to get out of the lab, out of model development, and be able to apply it to real life. And then it gets exciting. And that's why you sometimes see — astonishingly — with some coaches, especially maybe older ones, they feel like they have a small toolbox, but they can work so unbelievably variably with these training ideas they have, and respectively design such a grandiose mix, that it's sufficient. It's the combination of the stimuli. And you don't have to say, hey, 3x15 minutes, or 3x12 minutes, and 30x15. And then I see these whole pre-built TrainingPeaks things, all running down. It looks totally nice. But then I think, now you have these pre-built workouts already, you've set up a library with 100 workouts somehow, but isn't that — then don't you lose your brain a bit, if you just pull it in and don't think about it. You've definitely built a lot — I'm sorry for this, Niclas — but I know that you think about it.

Björn: Yeah, and especially, I've built a lot, but I think my athletes, I hope they see it and notice it, that I always adjust them for the athletes. So it's — well, look, you always have to see the whole thing like this. You have to see the training, and that's what Peter Leo also just said in the podcast I listened to — you can't reinvent training anymore. It's relatively common sense what works and what doesn't work. So... if you train a lot of base, then you do a bit of HIIT. So periodization and stuff like that, that's all known. So why should you start basically building workouts completely from scratch? You have your 4x4 minutes. What else is there to invent? Now you of course have to adjust the 4x4 minutes in power and in rest period for your athlete. That means, that's where you do the adjustment. The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that you adjust the training at the right time and fittingly for your athlete. Can your athlete even process this amount of stress right now? Does he have super much stress at home this week? So I definitely still coach more hobby and amateur athletes than professional athletes, but you always have to look, okay... does it fit the athlete, does it fit his stress level, and those are the adjustments, and that's the individual part, which is why you still manage to make differences with your athletes. And that's again the point, why athletes have to communicate. They have to tell the coach, hey, I've got so much stress at home right now, it's not working. Or, I don't feel great this week because the weather is getting to me. And say, yeah, you have to communicate that to your coach, that you're currently, I'll just say, not feeling well. And then we have to adjust the training so we get the maximum stimulus out of your current situation. And in the end, it doesn't matter whether you... ...ride 4x4 minutes, they just have to come properly adjusted at the right time. And that's also what I — I don't really want to talk about this, because I don't want to step on anyone's toes from my past — but what often just isn't done, because sessions get dragged into the calendar by scheme, yeah, that's what was shown in the study, and then that's how it's done. But then less thought is put into other points.

Niclas: Yeah, definitely. But now again, grandma — now we've explained a bit what I would do, for example, when it comes to Fatigue Resistance, how to deal with things, with studies and so on.

Björn: What we should actually mention now is, how can we — so what can the hobby, amateur, or also the pro do with the Compound Score for himself? What can he maybe do with Fatigue Resistance? And I think what's awesome about the Compound Score for everyone, or what it's great for, is to look, okay, does it make sense for me to drop another two kilos to pull out better performance? Or should I maybe hold my weight and try to work on my absolute performance? Or where does my Compound Score actually stand, so I can now roughly estimate where my performance is? I think for that it's quite nice, because the Compound Score shows that it's not just about relative power — so especially for lighter riders, I'm a big advocate of it. If you weigh 62 kilos now, your goal shouldn't be to increase your watts per kilo even more, because getting even lighter will bring you less, unless you only ride mountain time trials or, for all I care, you ride every race like the Grand Raid. Then you should just look, okay, where's the sticking point — so what's just my limiter — I was also thinking about that again recently, when you look at — in WKO you can get that displayed quite nicely — I'll just call it a limiter, like how is your 20-second personal best, how is your 5-minute personal best, your 30-minute personal best, and so on. And then you see in this beautiful curve, yeah, okay, at 20 seconds there's not that much coming — yeah, well. Maybe, to improve your overall performance, you should maybe work on your limiters, because through that you can in turn unlock new performance potentials. So with that I think you can definitely — every hobby athlete should maybe calculate his Compound Score once, and maybe from the last few years calculate it too. And then he might see, okay, I've been stagnating over the last few years, I've gotten better. So you can use it for that quite well, I think.

Niclas: Yeah, I do it a bit differently. Thought so. I don't really look at it. For me that's just one more number. I don't even know anymore, is it still being used at UAE? I think I have to ask at some point. You have the insights. I'll ask Javier whether they even still use it. John Wakefield is also Bora — I don't even know if they use it at Bora. Well, at least — no, totally simple. If I have a light rider who weighs 60 kilos, he'll always have problems on the flats. I mean, why does Matteo Jorgenson drag Jonas Vingegaard through the peloton and try to shepherd him through during the Tour. He just has someone who does that for him. No, I look at, where's the VO2max, where's the VLamax — or call it the W-Prime without phosphates — and then you look, okay, what do I have to work on? Is the — for all I care, watts per kilo you can also take — 5-minute, 4-minute watts per kilo and then somehow 20 minutes, and then I see, hey, there's the limit, we have to work on that, and your morphology — I can't make you a head taller, and I can't cut off a leg — so I have to somehow approach it, and fine, two kilos more, two kilos less, that can sometimes be decisive, with women definitely significantly more decisive than with men. And then I think above all, damn it, about my aerodynamics. Done. And then I can do it. If my VO2max is low and I barely have glycolytic power, I'm still the ultra-diesel and can ride pretty good mountain races after three hours. But then I have to pull it up. I first have to pull up my glycolytic power. And how do I do that? And the Compound Score doesn't tell you that at all. It just says, hammer five minutes. But how do I get to those five minutes if my starting position is XY? If I have a high W-Prime, it's much easier for me to achieve an increase in VO2max, than if I'm somehow crawling down there. And that's why it's a bit diffuse, it shows a bit of something. And I always look at — I just got a pro now, who has unbelievable VO2 max values, a killer Compound Score, but got kicked out of his team. Too bad. Exactly. Because, um, he also has a killer W-Prime. That means he's done after three hours. Dead. Like, really, nothing works anymore. VLamax, uh, too high. And, um, a lot of attention was paid to that, and a lot of 5-minute power training was done, and so on. Works for many, but just not for everyone. Namely, if lactate is shooting out your ears, then you might need to bring in a bit of efficiency, and then maybe also say, hey, instead of always hammering for 4 hours or 5 hours, just go ride for 7 hours. Or 8. Yeah, exactly. I'm scared of that. We're doing it now. It'll take you further. And that's also the next thought. Our body adapts permanently. And that's why you always have to do things you normally don't do. So look, I was basically in bed for a week. And my body adapted. That was a training stimulus that doesn't really work that way — it went downward, I want it to go upward, but it went downward. Everything I do has a stimulus, up to a certain point, because then the stimulus diminishes, the stimulus just decreases, and that's why I always have to think, when do I set a stimulus? How long is the stimulus? There are also great studies on this. How long does such a stimulus hold? I mean, Saltin already showed this. How long do stimuli last? In the '70s. Check it out. And then you can clearly think, okay, so two, three weeks, a stimulus hammers in pretty well. For a maximum of six weeks I can hold it. Then I have to rearrange things a bit again. Then a bit of recovery in. Then I can do it polarized if I want, but what does polarizing even mean? What does polarizing mean if I have someone who has insanely low glycolytic power — then it's almost already at threshold again, or just above threshold, then it maybe makes sense to control that with an oxygen measurement, instead of on pure numerical values, or you have someone who's informed, yeah. And you see, it's a large field, which is flexibly shapeable. Exactly, so what I want to say is, relying on one value is always critical, and don't try to force yourself into a form, and be afraid that the Compound Score is too low. Then to say, okay, how is my aerodynamic performance, can I still improve something there, then I'll become competitive. Or my basic race execution. Or, if I have an awesome Compound Score and say, I still blow up. Why is that? Because my 20-minute power is crap.

Björn: Bottom line, we can definitely just invite people to, ideally, just look at their overall performance, and I'm not just talking about watts, but also — how much power can I put down? How is my weight at that? How is my aerodynamic performance? How is maybe also my equipment? We talked about that again, because that flows in too. Do I have a clean drivetrain? Do I have a clean bike? Do I have good tires? What kind of wheels? Whatever. So those are all points that in the end, when it comes to pure results, you have to consider. And then I come back to the... ...to the thought of Olaf Alexander Buth, who essentially says, it's just velocity. So it only comes down to speed, who comes across the finish line first. That's all that counts. It's completely irrelevant how many watts you can ride — if you're the fastest, because you're ultra aerodynamic, look at Remco, you just win.

Niclas: Exactly, and now it just comes to mind, I called that the Speed Factor back then with Andi, and made myself a little formula from it, and then I looked, okay, how fast is the person, or can she be, with this and that performance capacity, across various performance scenarios in aerodynamics, and I also generated various positions, and yeah, at the end of the day it's — who comes across the finish line first? And that's by no means always the best one, not at all. The best by the values, but also — and that's where Fatigue Resistance is such a step in. Andi Seewald is such a nice example. He can just ride unbelievably fast after four hours. And many just can't do that. He even gets faster in parts. What's happening metabolically there, we haven't measured through. But there are athletes who, after a certain time, have warmed up. And if they're then also basically equipped with a relatively high oxygen uptake, then that maybe hurts them a bit at the start. I mean, Andi, when he won the World Championship, I mean, Nino Schurter came in there with a full team. And they played the race for three hours. made it very long, the field was very long, and they smoked one after the other. I mean, who was there? Forster, Frischknecht, Schurter, and Schurter just flew in by helicopter, I think, and said, I want to become World Champion here. He dropped out after three and a half hours, because Seewald just kept the gas on. Done. Yeah. Nice. What do you want for Christmas?

Björn: Oh, nothing. I have — tricky, what do I want for Christmas? I've actually, in the last few weeks, everything has come together that I want for next year. Really? Yeah, there's a new bike, I'm happy about that.

Niclas: What do you have? Can you already reveal it?

Björn: Yeah, so I think, what kind of bike it's going to be, I can reveal. It's going to be a Scott.

Niclas: Ah, nice.

Björn: That's a real upgrade. Brutal. Cool. I'm really looking forward to that. The rest, what else is on the jersey, is not all final yet, but the bike is basically final, and that's also already working out. So I think when I come home from Girona, it'll also be ready. Then I still have to get it fitted. And then from late January, hopefully, we'll be racing fun again. So exactly, that's what I want for Christmas. I want for Christmas, that next year I just get through well.

Niclas: That's more of a Christmas wish.

Björn: It's a New Year's wish.

Niclas: Is that a New Year's wish? Yeah, but Christmas wish... Didn't you just have something like Pokémon cards or... A Meta Quest 3?

Björn: Yeah, you asked me something about the Meta Quest recently.

Niclas: What did you actually want with that? I would never buy it. You know, a household without technology. You don't even have a TV. At least in my imagination. Yeah, in your imagination. Everything gets written here in Kaijo script. Printed. No, um... Yeah, I'd have an appetite for trying it out somehow for months, then I'd sit in my secret lab, in my secret section, and watch movies the whole time or play through some awesome games, while my kids at home — I don't even gamble, but it would appeal to me, yeah, so a few movies to watch, I'd be up for that, that would tempt me. And the Apple goggles are just way too expensive. And I'd be curious how the Meta Quest performs, quality-wise. But I don't want to buy the thing, and I also don't want to rent it somehow. So not rent it for six months or so. Or sure, you can rent it for a month now, but I thought, Niclas always has a gaming chair. All gamers. He must have a thing like that, he has such a thing here in the drawer, and then we can — in the circle — can I borrow it, over the Christmas holidays. Total gamer.

Björn: I play now and then, so when I'm at home, I play relatively regularly with an old school friend. What do you play? So, this year, while I was in bed for eight weeks, I played Elden Ring through completely. Does that ring a bell? It's an open-world game. You have to smash monsters. And then now quite classic first-person shooter with a buddy, COD. It's like — we played it back in school, we still play it. It's fun, in the evening two, three hours of playing a bit.

Niclas: So back then — it was like this for us, the computers got dragged somewhere and then you sat with five or six people in such a run-down shared flat. And had a LAN party. With lots of Chili Nachos and even more Coke. But I really only did that a few times. That's more wasted time. So, okay.

Björn: Well, otherwise, I really don't have such a classic Christmas wish. I'm, when it comes to that, someone, if I want something, I usually buy it relatively directly, and I also give myself — so my girlfriend and I, we never give each other anything, for birthdays or for occasions. Most of the time, so if we for example go into town and she says, oh, I want this book from the series, and I currently have the means for it, then I just buy her the book. That's more how it goes. So I walk with her through the town and see, I don't know, a new brush for the espresso portafilter, to clean my portafilter. Two days later she buys me that brush. So we try to just give each other gifts in between. That's why Christmas always stresses me out too. I also have no gifts yet, for example. My family is more still classic there, we all give each other something, and I have to now — on the last rest day here in Girona, because on the 23rd we fly home, 24th is Christmas, that means on Thursday I still have to go buy gifts somehow, and that stresses me more than your training plan.

Niclas: It's also going to Girona. That's hard now. In Girona there's this little shop, where you can buy stones. It's pretty cool. What kind of stones? Yeah, colorful stones. My kids always go in there and absolutely want to buy such colorful stones. Then you can make necklaces from them and what do I know. Then my family's getting colorful stones for Christmas this year. Yeah, colorful stones. So I want a chef's knife. Okay. And yeah, I think that's it.

Björn: Awesome. Yeah, good knives at home. That's also always fun.

Niclas: I bought three new cookbooks. Shoutout again to Martin Kühn, from Protenz, from the wheels — who was mainly a damn good cook, also worked in starred kitchens, and whom I always exchange ideas with. Our current plan is, the two of us drive together to Mallorca or somewhere else, and rent — I'd most like to rent a finca — and we ride a bit of bike and cook. Awesome. Ride and cook. So anyone who wants to join can come along. In February maybe. Nice, Mallorca, a week or two weeks maybe in the finca. Nice, cooking, learning tips from the cook, doing a few loops now and then, but everyone free in design — that I picture as mega awesome.

Björn: Yeah, cooking is a bit of a topic here. We always end up fighting about who has to cook in the evening. And mostly the rice cooker gets turned on, vegetables chucked on top, because we're all gray and no one feels like cooking.

Niclas: Why don't you just eat churros all the time or something?

Björn: That doesn't make you fast, I think.

Niclas: Oh, don't know. The Spanish ride so fast. We do pay some attention to it, so... Yeah, that's good. Then I don't have to anymore. Good. Very nice. All good. We watch Christmas movies too, of course. Die Hard and so on. Is the best.

Björn: Yeah, absolutely. Very good. Björn, then I wish you a nice week. We'll hear each other again next week. Exactly. And to all the other listeners, also a nice pre-Christmas season. See you soon. Ciao, ciao.