 I genuinely believe, if you can stick with me in this video today, it's gonna be roughly 10 minutes of your time, I'm gonna share with you a formula that could change your cycling journey. It could change the way you train, the way you perform, and ultimately make you a lot stronger on the bike. Now this formula goes like this. It's fitness minus fatigue equals form. And in this video today, I'm gonna go through three critical elements relating to this formula, including the biggest mistake cyclists make that's holding them back when it comes to this right here. So let's get into it. So welcome back to the 21st edition of the RCA Training Tips Show. As many of you will know, I've had a four week absence from YouTube from the RCA Training Tips Show, and you would think I have come back feeling refreshed, but I need to take a leaf out of this book. I'm absolutely still fatigued. Reason being, I was polishing off a brand new online course for road cyclists looking to take their performance to the next level, which will be available within the next couple of months. And I am confident this is the course that all road cyclists should do that have plateaued and are looking to take their cycling performance to the next level. But the course won't be available for a few months, as mentioned, so in the meantime, while we wait, feel free to download my free e-book for road cyclists. So this formula here is from a book called The Cycler's Training Bible, written by a famous endurance coach called Joe Frill. I'll link to the book below, which I'd highly recommend for those out there interested in cycling training performance. Now technically, this formula is derived from analytical information you can get from training software. So I use today's plan and it uses information such as heart rate and power data, but according to Joe Frill, who was referenced here in this Training Peaks article, how is form determined? It's the result of subtracting today's fatigue, which is acute training load, or ATL, from today's fitness, which is chronic training load, or CTL. But for the purpose of today's video, we're not gonna get into rabbit holes of ATL and CTL, nor are we even gonna talk about heart rate and power data. We're actually gonna keep things at a very high level. We're gonna talk about how this formula can be used by all cyclists out there to take your cycling performance to the next level. Now the other thing about this famous formula is that it's ultimately positioned for peaking at a specific time. How do we get the most fitness without fatigue so we're right on form for a specific event? However, many of us out there, we don't wanna be on form for one specific day of the year, one specific week, whatever it may be. We wanna be on form as much as possible for beating our mates around the block, local bunch rides, criteria racing, Zwift racing, et cetera. And the beauty of this formula, in my opinion, is we can use it as a general framework or guide that sits across all our cycling to ensure optimal performance as much as possible. So we're gonna break this video into three main parts. Number one, we're gonna quickly break down each component of this formula. Number two, we're gonna discuss the biggest mistake cyclists make with this formula. And number three, let's discuss the right approach to take. So number one, let's break down each component and we'll start with fitness. Now you're probably thinking, I know what fitness is, we don't need to go into much detail here, but I do wanna break it down so you can properly understand this formula. And according to Google, fitness is the condition of being physically fit and healthy, pretty simple. However, we're gonna go into a little bit more detail and in the case of Joe's book, he pinpoints fitness as being race readiness. Do you have the specific qualities such as certain power, certain endurance and a certain ability to recover that will enable you to perform during a specific race or event? However, more broadly and for the purposes of what I'm trying to emphasize to you today, fitness can be defined as physiological adaptations that will occur from your cycling training. Some examples would include more efficiency with oxygen utilization and increase in muscular strength and or endurance, the ability to tolerate the rise of the lactate system, et cetera. And the list kind of goes on, but ultimately the more fitness you have, the greater possibility you have of being stronger or having more form on the bike, which brings us to the second part of the equation. And that is fatigue, where the irony comes into play. And that irony is in order for you to become more fit, you need to become more fatigued. As Joe puts it, fatigue is your friend. Without it, you can't increase fitness. And according to Google, once again, fatigue is extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness. And as we know in this instance, fatigue is actually driven from physical exertion. We're alarming the body, which transitions into physical stress, which becomes fatigue. And that fatigue, if managed properly through rest and recovery done the right way, will ensure we can properly absorb fitness adaptations which leads to greater form, which brings us to the final part of the equation being form. Now, if you read Joe's book, you will hear him reference where form actually originated from. And I'll quickly outline it for you here as well. And that is apparently back in the late 1800s within horse racing in Europe. If you went to a race and wanted to place a bet, you would find a bookie and that bookie would provide a sheet of paper, a form with a list of all the horses racing that day and how they performed recently. Ultimately, outlining which horses were on form. And as you would know from hearing commentators in sport, Tour de France, whatever it may be, that they're constantly referencing which cyclist is on form. And even at our local cafe when we've finished a bunch ride, criterion race, whatever it may be, there's mermas through the group. Who's on form? Who's pulling the most turns? Who won the sprint finish, et cetera. I've done that multiple weeks in a row, they're on form. So it's fair to say that with our cycling, it's not so much about being stronger, being faster all the time. It's actually about who's on form, which is all encompassing. Which brings me to the second part of this discussion. And that is the biggest mistake cyclists make with this formula. And that is way too many of us out there were going for fitness in pretty much every single ride we do, if not definitely most rides that we do. And I get it. It is arguably the most important part of the equation because if we sat on the couch for three months and felt super fresh with very little fatigue, our form is gonna be in the bin because there's simply no fitness. However, what you need to think about very carefully is fatigue or freshness becomes equally as important when you start to build fitness. You see fitness only comes when your body absorbs fitness adaptations, which happen in recovery during a fatigued state. This is very important. So let me say it again in a different way. The workout itself is only the ticket to fitness adaptations. Fitness comes during rest and recovery, properly absorbing fatigue from your cycling workout. So let me ask you this very important question. How well do you manage fatigue? And I bet you there are many people behind the screen right now giggling away because you know that you don't manage fatigue well at all. Well, stop laughing. This issue here of not managing fatigue properly, riding in a fatigue state more often than not is one of the biggest mistakes cyclists make because by going for more and more fitness, more and more hard workouts, we crush fitness adaptations by not properly absorbing fatigue where fitness adaptations occur. You know what I'm talking about this constant back to back days of riding hard, riding hard, pushing through fatigue. Well, if you actually want to improve, you need to stop this. This need to always be beating your personal best time, increasing how many kilometers an hour or miles an hour you're doing on an average loop, whatever it may be. It leads to this sort of moderate to hard riding all the time. And you simply can't ride proper hard because you're just too fatigued all the time. And guess what? If you can start to respect the fatigue, the rest and recovery, and then inadvertently start to respect your hard days even more, welcome to a double-edged sword of beauty. The ability to train harder means you have a ticket to greater fitness adaptations. And if you rest and recover from the fatigue that comes from harder training, you absorb fitness adaptations more effectively and your cycling form will continue to rise. Which leads me to point number three and that is the right approach to take. Now, I'm just gonna quickly pause here for a second to ask you a question. Are you getting value out of this video today? If you are, could you please give the video a like? And also, if you're yet to subscribe, please do it below, hit the bell notification to ensure you get notified of when videos like this go live in the future. So, the right approach for you to take when it comes to this formula. It's a big question to ask because everyone is different. Everyone responds differently to different types of training techniques. The list kind of goes on, but if we're to put a general framework surrounding how to ensure we're getting fitter, how do we ensure we're better managing fatigue and ultimately how to ensure we're on form more often than not, here's a few guidelines. Assuming you have reasonable aerobic base conditioning, no more than three high-intensity sessions per week. What do I classify as high-intensity? Any workouts where you are working around or above threshold. Threshold is your hour power, so it's kind of like a 20 to 30 minute intensity. Anything where you start tipping over that, I would consider a high-intensity workout. Between each high-intensity session have an easier day. You could do a zone two aerobic ride for maybe an hour or two, or maybe you spin in zone one for 45 minutes or an hour, which will actually speed up the recovery process and reduce fatigue through something called cellular exchange, where healthy oxygen and nutrients are provided to muscles as waste products and toxins are removed. Or you could even have a complete day off in between high-intensity workouts, and I'll definitely recommend doing this at least once a week. Now I'm not saying that you must not do back-to-back high-intensity days, it's just gonna happen, but try and steer away from them unless your target event requires you to go back-to-back to back, maybe even further, hard days in a row. Then in training you need to condition your body to be able to deal with that, but as a generalization for most cyclists out there, if we can strategically place easier days in between our hard days, we can better manage this component which will lead to greater form. Another thing I'd like you to keep in mind is think about gradually making your high-intensity sessions harder and harder as the weeks progress. And every now and again, it could be every third or fourth week, have a slightly easier week to give your body an extended period of time to absorb accumulated fatigue. So I truly believe if you follow this formula, you use it as a framework in your cycling, you're gonna get a lot stronger on the bike because inadvertently, by managing fatigue better, which most cyclists don't do, your high-intensity days will become a lot more efficient and your rest and recovery days will become a lot smarter. And as a result of those two things combined, your cycling form will go through the roof.