A 3x World Champion and her Coach talk Training Progress, Rest, Overcoming Adversity and HRV
When you get a three time world champion and her world class coach on the same podcast, there’s a whole lot of wisdom and expertise that arises. Enter Amber Neben and Tim Cusick.
Amber Neben
Amber Neben is no stranger to cycling. With two world time trial championship gold medals to her name and one team time trial world championship title, plus over 70 career wins, including several national road and time trial titles and being a 2x Olympian, she has more than a little experience to share with us today, and it shines through. Does she use a lot of technology? How have her rest days changed over the years? What does she think most cyclists could work on to maximize their time on and off the bike? I wanted to know, so I asked!
“It took actually breaking myself multiple times to understand how important rest was. I just refused to listen to my body and listen to the cues it was giving to me. I really like to tell people to learn to listen to the whispers. If you learn to listen to the whispers and take care of the whispers you can save yourself so much trouble down the road...” Amber Neben on the importance of rest. Listen for more on this.
Tim Cusick
Tim Cusick arrives at the mic with a long history of coaching experience. Tim is the Product Leader for Training Peaks and WKO, the head coach of Velocious Cycling Adventures and Joinbasecamp.com. He also happens to be Amber Neben’s coach, along with several other professional cyclists. It’s safe to say Tim knows a thing or three about building a progressive training strategy. I made sure we got clear on what elements need to go into a good strategy and how both athletes and coaches can make sure they’re building progress into training cycles while avoiding non functional overreaching and balancing athlete freshness and fitness. He also shares his opinion on HRV, technology, and coach athlete communication, which I believed was one of the most poignant parts of our discussion.
“Non functional overreaching is really more insidious. You sort of can do the work, you’re just recovering enough to keep working again that next day and then working again that next day but without the appropriate rest, you never have the energy to adapt. But then you don’t actually get improvement or adaptation…you’re just stuck in that grey zone….” Tim Cusick on overtraining vs functional overreaching. Listen for more on this.
Today’s conversation is such a smooth blend of physiology and the art of coaching.
Today you’ll learn about:
- Building a training strategy and rhythm
- How to build and measure progress
- Non functional vs functional over reaching
- Why rest is the overlooked yet KEY to progress
- Athlete signs of Non functional overreaching
- Common barriers that impede progress for many cyclists
- HRV – what is it, are they using it? Why? Why not?
- The power of coach athlete communication
- Are we losing something amidst all the “data?”
- Mindset and how it can shape your success
- Thoughts on overcoming adversity from both Tim and Amber
Amber and Tim really complimented one another well as they have similar philosophies but come at them from a bit of a different angle, giving great perspectives to consider.
I walked away from this conversation knowing that any athlete or coach will learn something by listening today.
If you want to learn more from Tim or Amber, please visit the links below and follow them on social media. Now let’s get listening! Click on the media player below.
Share this episode and tag @guzmananne on your IG or @guzmannutrition on twitter, to let me know what you learned from Tim and Amber. Share this episode with a friend and please rate my podcast on Apple and leave a comment, I would love to hear what you thought! By sharing and rating the podcast it allows me to work on growing the platform in order to continue brining on such incredible guest who we can all learn from. I truly appreciate it.
Keep the rubber side down, work hard and REST hard. Until next time.
Links to learn more from Amber and Tim:
Amber Neben Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ambernebenpx4/
Amber Neben Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amber.neben.9
Tim Cusick Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tim.cusick_coach/
Tim Cusick Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tim.cusick
Amber Neben Website: https://nebenpx4.com/
Velocious Cycling:
https://www.velociouscyclingadventures.com/
Joinbasecamp.com: https://www.joinbasecamp.com/
