The Brick Session podcast

Your watch records the work. It doesn’t tell the whole story.

A 2026 University of Alicante study followed 20 national- and international-level triathletes, comparing training load, perceived effort, blood markers and changes in cycling performance.

The standout finding? Higher perceived training load was associated with greater increases in blood urea, a marker relevant to physiological stress. The objective training-load measure showed no meaningful relationship with urea.

Athletes reporting lower effort relative to their workload also showed smaller urea increases. Greater urea increases were associated with smaller improvements in key cycling power measures.

A small study, but a clear coaching message: combine the numbers with the athlete’s experience.

That fits with what 30 years of coaching has taught me—and the philosophy behind 15 years of developing Train Xhale.

Athlete feedback and RPE - rating of perceived exertion—have always been central to that approach, alongside power, pace, heart rate and training volume.

For me, honest feedback can be more important than hitting the prescribed numbers. Completing a session doesn’t automatically mean an athlete is coping with it.

How hard did it feel? How are they recovering? Is the same workload starting to feel harder?

Those answers help determine what happens next.

This study didn’t test Train Xale, but its findings reinforce the principle behind it: the athlete’s response matters as much as the work recorded.

The numbers start the conversation. Good coaching means listening to the answer.

#AthleteCentredCoaching #trainxhale #EnduranceTraining #SportsScience