Unlocking the Power of Anaerobic Capacity with Coach John Croom

8-Time US National Champion and CTS Coach John Croom is the anaerobic king. His power numbers and FRC (functional reserve capacity) were phenomenal at the height of his career. In this episode of "The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast", he reveals the techniques and workouts he uses to help athletes unlock the power of anaerobic capacity for race-winning performance. And anaerobic capacity is not just for racers... AC is the power all cyclists rely on for sharp accelerations in a group ride, to charge up a hill, or sprint against your buddies.
// Guest: John Croom
John Croom started his athletic career as a 305-pound football player turned wrestler before finding track cycling. Even at 200-215 pounds, he was frequently told he was too large to be competitive as a cyclist, but he persevered and won 8 USA Cycling National Championships on the velodrome! Shortly after realizing he would not qualify for Team USA for the 2024 Olympics, he seized an opportunity to join the American Magic professional sailing team as they prepare to compete for the 37th America's Cup. John continues to work as a CTS Coach.
// Host
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for more than 14 years and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.
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[@tristanm8250]

51:20 "Make your hard days hard and make your rest days even harder." Is this specifically referring to incorporating some short sprints into your endurance rides or is it more generally saying to increase the training load of your endurance/easy days? Like if a rider is already doing 4-5 hours on endurance days, are you saying they should throw in a few 2-10 minute intervals as well?

[@ds6914]

he's joking

[@edgibbs3229]

Fabulous discussion! Thanks so much!!

[@richardmiddleton7770]

Another question, if you're stopping eating at 8pm, but are up at 4, 5 even 6am, why the hell would yoi need breakfast for a relatively short workout?! What you ate the night before is likely still digesting! Reseach some biology on fuel availability timing from ingestion! It's not just stomach emptying time!

[@richardmiddleton7770]

Aren't 20/40's, 30/30's etc. just fancy vo2 workouts? Surely you can get more time anaerobic with 20-30s on, 2-3 minutes off without taxing the aerobic system and creating too much sympathetic nervous system stress?

[@iancarson8614]

sometimes you guys confuse me with your descriptions or definitions. unless i've got this wrong, all aerobic production of ATP takes place within the mitochondria, using fats and lactate. all anaerobic ATP is produced outside from glucose initially, but this takes place almost always at all intensities, since we always have blood lactate. so the anaerobic capacity is the overall size of the tank. the ability to produce ATP outside of the mitochondria. however you will never fully exploit the anaerobic capacity, if your mitochondria cant handle the byproducts. in other words, the aerobic process is king.

[@DDai-qd8uk]

Yeah go win a sprint with your king aerobic capacity

[@richardmiddleton7770]

​@DDai-qd8uk how longs the race before the sprint?!

[@DDai-qd8uk]

@@richardmiddleton7770 10min