Exercise as Medicine * Simon Ward and Alan Couzens

On this week’s High Performance Human podcast, I feel like a successful fisherman who has landed a catch after a long chase.  Today's guest, Alan Couzens, has been on my target list for several months now since chatting with one of the athletes he works with, Owen Martin (podcast 125). I have actually known of Alan for many years now since his involvement with Gordo Byrn and his GordoWorld blog. He posts regularly on Twitter and he is one of the coaches/physiologists that I would recommend you follow if you want to find trustworthy training advice.

 

Alan has an interesting and varied journey to his current residence in Boulder, Colorado.  Starting out as a swimmer in a small outback town in New South Wales, Australia and from there to university in Sydney and on to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra. Back to Sydney to work as a swim coach and then onto the US where he teamed up with the aforementioned Gordo Byrn and the setting up of a sports science lab in Boulder. And now his current position as a highly respected sports physiologist working with endurance athletes in cycling and triathlon.

 

Another highly informative discussion which probably deserves at least 2-3 listens to pick up all of the information covered, such as:

• Why ‘exercise is medicine’, and Alan’s 7 Core principles which you can find HERE
• AIS and why it was the first Western attempt to mimic the Eastern Bloc training venues
• Alex Popov swimming - mastering the process and focussing on rhythm, range and relaxation
• It’s the little things that matter - living at AIS and immersion into elite performance and culture
• Eastern Bloc vs Western style coaching and why there are actually more similarities than differences
• Eastern Bloc athlete development culture
• Different again from AIS - working with Doug Frost and Ian Thorpe
• Getting it done - Finding a way, or making one

LINKS

If you want to follow Alan the best place is Twitter and his website

Alan’s latest obsession is Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and you can find out more about this at his site

HumanGo.com

Alan’s “walk on” music…Pork and Beans by Weezer

We also chatted about several books including:

Deep Medicine by Eric Topol.  If you are interested you can hear the author Eric Tool speak about this subject on video HERE

Alan’s current favourite book Running with the Kenyans by Adharanand Finn

Alan spent time observing the great Russian swimmer Alexander Popov. If you’ve never seen him swim here are some videos- Popov Technique Popov Slow Motion, Popov Training

We also talked about Ian Thorpe and for students of swimming, here is a link to Ian Thorpe swimming technique

In this video you can listen to a great presentation by Gordo Byrn on the Business of Coaching

To find out more about Simon’s SWAT programme, please click HERE 

Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes

Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here

For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com