Technology in cycling has come a long way in the past decade or so. Along with equipment, clothing, and bikes, the tech used to improve athletic performance has improved significantly. Even for a recreational rider, there is now the ability to easily collect multiple streams of biometric data both in training and in everyday life. From power and heart rate to sleep scores and HRV, data is almost unavoidable.
This does mean that it can all become too much for some. Healthy habits can become obsessive and quickly develop into a controlling force in an athlete’s life. For all the benefits that increased data acquisition can have when used positively, there’s a more troubled side to the equation.
Talk to any group of cyclists, especially those with a nose for performance, and at least one rider will likely reveal they have had an unhealthy relationship with data at some point in their cycling history. Some were lucky enough to identify the potential issues before they became too problematic; others are not so fortunate with obsessive behaviours around data linked to a lack of motivation, decreased performance, and depression.
To discuss this topic and shine some light on the methods athletes can use to build a healthier relationship with data, I spoke to Dr Jim Taylor.
Dr Taylor is an internationally recognised authority on the psychology of performance, sport, and parenting. He has also authored numerous books including ‘Train Your Mind for Athletic Success’. As a keen triathlete himself, Dr Taylor speaks from experience with data-driven training and some of the mental hurdles it brings.
Data has never been so easy to come by
Any rider looking to improve their ability on the bike will likely have a GPS head unit and a heart rate monitor as a minimum. Power meters, too, are becoming increasingly popular. This means that just whilst on the bike there are three avenues of data collection. Speed and distance, heart rate, and power. When paired with a wearable like a Whoop, Garmin, or Apple Watch, the amount of data at our disposal can quickly become overwhelming.
Rewind 20 years and the story is incredibly different. At best a serious cyclist might have had a heart rate monitor and those really invested in the sport may have had access to a power meter. Beyond this, most riders outside of the professional ranks simply used a magnetic speed sensor to keep track of their mileage and speed. Having less data available almost removed the ability to obsess and over-analyse performance because it simply wasn’t easily achievable.
Has Dr Taylor seen a change in athlete relationships with data in recent years?
“In the last decade sure, I have seen a dramatic increase in – and not only an increase, but also a dramatic change in how people think about data; how cyclists, triathletes and for that matter other endurance athletes use data,” he says. “One of the biggest things I see is that data has become an end in itself, not a means to an end.”
This is especially the case with modern power metrics. Metrics such as TSS (Training Stress Score based on the power and duration of a ride), power-to-weight ratios, normalised power, and intensity factor all mean that riders can compare their efforts to others far more easily than ever before. Now athletes do not need to ride the same route to have comparable data – instead, being able to compare weekly training loads or how many W/kg they can hold for a specific period all feed into this easy-to-compare stream of data.
Something Dr Taylor commonly hears is, “I’ve got to hit my numbers.” He explains that this can lead to potential issues. “Their self-esteem, their self-identity, and how they feel about their workouts become dependent upon ‘Did I hit my numbers?’ The classic thing I hear all the time is that athletes got all greens on their TrainingPeaks schedule.”
Dr Taylor points to this as the starting point of issues around data and training. Training is part of the process to get you into the shape you need to perform at your best come race day or when you have planned to achieve a goal. Putting pressure on yourself to over-perform in training, to hit or exceed certain numbers, can be a slippery slope to overtraining, along with other issues.
The dark side of data
Much like other behaviours that become obsessive, a fixation on performance data can become an addiction,” says Dr Taylor. “People don’t come to me because they have a data addiction, but very often it underlies some of the challenges they’re facing.”
He goes on to explain what happens in the brain when athletes achieve or exceed target numbers. “It triggers dopamine which is our pleasure hormone. And so when we do something like hit our numbers we get that shot of dopamine. Of course, if you feel that good, you want to do it again.
“If you don’t, it’s like you have withdrawals, leaving you feeling bad. I see this even with the professional cyclists and triathletes I work with where if they don’t hit their numbers for the week or if their TSS isn’t quite as high as they want, they feel this urge to do more.”
In some cases, an addiction to data can lead to depression. Athletes try harder and harder to reach numbers that they deem are high enough to feel good about themselves. The issue with this mentality is that it can quickly spiral into a state of overtraining. It is common for athletes with obsessive behaviours around data to see more as better.
An example Dr Taylor gives is if an athlete is set to ride at 250 watts, they think that doing 260 watts must be better. The issue is that it has a knock-on and compounding effect on the following workouts. Fatigue accumulates faster than you can recover from, leaving you unable to hit your numbers in more intense sessions.
This cycle leads to what Dr Taylor calls ‘learned helplessness’. This is when the efforts are not being validated and where you think, “I’m trying so hard and I’m not getting faster.” Depression can arise if your self-worth and emotional state are closely tied to your ability to hit target-specific numbers.
In this sense, all of the dopamine typically associated with exercise is no longer being released as the threshold for dopamine has been moved. No longer is the pure act of moving your body enough to release dopamine; it also relies on achieving certain numbers on the ride. In these cases where an addiction to data is negatively impacting your emotional state, it is always beneficial to seek professional medical support. Much like any other addiction, it is possible to rebuild a healthy relationship with training and data however it can be an impossible task working from inside the bubble.
Data can become a limiter
Access to data might not just be an issue from an addiction perspective; it can also limit your ability on the bike. With all of the metrics on display right in front of you all the time it is very easy to create a metaphorical box that you sit in regarding your performance. This means that you can self-limit based on what you think you are capable of rather than what you are capable of.
“I’m working with a young American pro, and he had been working with a coach and they had done some testing and decided his FTP was 320 watts, and then his power meter didn’t work in a race so he was just going on feel,” Dr Taylor explains. “It turns out that in this race he put out 340 watts. All of a sudden it was this mind-blowing experience because if your FTP is 320 W well that’s what the data says – that’s as [hard] as you can go for an hour right?
“Well, the data was wrong or it was older, so simply by going by feeling he performed to the level he was actually capable of. This one performance totally rewrote the data thresholds which changed his training and enabled him to go faster.”
Anecdotally, this is something I see all the time within my riding group where a disproportionate number of athletes will conduct a 20-minute power test and finish with a round number. Statistically, the chance of this happening is one in 10, however, it appears to be considerably more common than this. Dr Taylor’s story almost confirms that by riding with data you can end up limiting yourself based on what you think you can achieve rather than pushing yourself to your absolute physical limits.
Listen to your body above the data
Dr Taylor believes the increase in readily accessible training data has disconnected athletes from their body’s sensations. Regardless of how they’re feeling, athletes will base their training and recovery on readiness and recovery scores from the tech they wear.
“I think all the data in terms of HRV, sleep, and all these other things are valuable if you’re a serious athlete,” he says. “Using data is really helpful for achieving your goals. The problem is that it externalises internal experience.”
Although the latest generation of wearable tech can take all of the data it collects and estimate the impact it has had on you and the amount of recovery you need before the next training session, this is only an approximation based on trends in your data. It ignores one key element of endurance training; the psychological component. Sometimes we wake up and do not feel like pushing our limits. This could be for many reasons but ultimately, regardless of how recovered your watch might say you are, if you are lacking motivation when typically you are well motivated it is a sign that you might not be mentally recovered for the next session.
“Our bodies and our minds have a tremendous capacity to communicate messages about how we are doing,” Dr Taylor says. “Unfortunately, we often ignore them. And part of that is that we have lost touch with them because now it’s a case of feeling tired, but my HRV is fine today. Or I’m just so not psyched for this workout, but I’ve got to do my workout because I got to hit my numbers.
“Again, it goes back to the idea that it’s a tool to use in collaboration with your feelings. Ultimately data can’t talk; what we really need to listen to is our mind and our body.”
The importance of disconnecting: Introduce a “data detox”
Going cold turkey is rarely a method endorsed by medical professionals when it comes to more typical addictions, but removing yourself completely from the data bubble can help athletes reconnect with why they first fell in love with cycling.
“Getting away from it enables you to get back in touch with why it’s so fun to just ride,” Dr Taylor says. “It’s so fun to do a ton of climbing or just ride with your buddies, and so you reconnect with the sensations of getting on a good road and just thinking ‘this road feels really good.’”
Even for athletes without any addictive habits around training and data, it is still advised that in the off-season athletes take some time to just ride without the stress of hitting numbers or staying within the right zone. Instead they should just ride off feeling.
For those who are struggling more with an obsessive and addictive relationship with data, Dr Taylor says that removing the data from your rides is more akin to putting a bandage over a bullet wound. This is because simply removing one outlet for this behaviour does not mean that it has gone. Often athletes with obsessive or addictive behaviours around data will find similar issues – related to perfectionism, for instance – manifest in other areas of their lives.
Athletes who fit this description may be best suited to working with a sports psychologist to dive into the root cause of the issue to enable them to work toward a solution where they can build a healthier relationship with training data and their view of themselves. Dr Taylor explains that for athletes with a data addiction, “Fundamentally it makes you less happy; it makes life less enjoyable. What’s the point of going through life unhappy, insecure, worried, doubting, stressing?”
Address any underlying issues
On the topic of why data addiction is such an issue in endurance sports, I asked Dr Taylor if people with a predisposition to data addictions find endurance sports more appealing in the first place or whether the process of endurance sports develops this mentality.
“It’s pretty safe to say that cyclists, triathletes, and anybody who does sports where there’s a high degree of unpleasantness involved are attracted to these sports for a couple of reasons,” he says. “First of all, self-medication. If you’re hurting physically, it feels like you hurt less emotionally and psychologically.”
It has been well documented that a large proportion of people who discover endurance sports later in life come to it after experiencing emotional trauma; as a way of medicating and processing the pain. Secondly, Dr Taylor highlights that for some, “it is a form of self-flagellation, meaning that they are punishing themselves for the sins of being human, for their shortcomings.”
Something that can impact how much enjoyment athletes get from participating in sports is the amount of self-inflicted pressure they put on themselves every time they head out to train. Ultimately Dr Taylor points out, “If you’re not having fun, unless you’re a professional, why do it?
“The problem is, when cyclists get on the bike to race or train they don’t leave their personness on the side. They take whatever they are as a person and use that for good or for bad in their training and competitive efforts.”
Dr Taylor explains his method when working with athletes with a data addiction: “I look at them as people. Some of the things that I see most often with this kind of cyclist who develops a data addiction and no longer has a healthy relationship with it is that they are usually over-invested.”
This over-investment comes as a result of athletes drawing their self-worth and value from their athletic ability. With quantifiable physiological metrics like power so readily available it is easy for athletes with this mindset to have their mood dictated by their numbers. It is natural for the human brain to want more, but it also very quickly gets used to something, so even when you do hit your target numbers these will not be good enough long term so the goalposts will shift again. This means that for athletes in this mindset, any moment of happiness is always short-lived.
A big issue for those who either race or ride in a group is the desire to always compare themselves to others within their social bubble, and in the age of sports social media platforms like Strava it is easier than ever to compare data.
Dr Taylor explains that although comparison is a normal thing for our brains to want to do, athletes should avoid falling into the trap of chasing the performance levels or training volumes of others. This can lead to unrealistic expectations, self-doubt, and a distorted sense of progress. Everyone has their own lives with different goals, stressors, and situations – comparing yourself to others is never going to happen on a level playing field.
Instead of comparing yourself to others, a healthier view is to be the best version of yourself that you can be given the constraints of life in any given period.
Not all motivation is equal
It’s easy to believe that any motivation is good motivation. After all, finding a reason to do something consistently even when you prefer taking a day off is not easy. Interestingly this couldn’t be further from the truth in Dr Taylor’s eyes. He believes that there are two types of motivation, which he refers to as ‘contaminated fuel’ and ‘rocket fuel’.
The concept of ‘contaminated fuel’ is based on motivation that is external to an athlete and is often manifested in comparison with others.
“The urge comes from contaminated fuel: unhealthy needs that are driving you to do things that are not in your best interest,” Dr Taylor says, referring back to the urge felt by data-addicted athletes. “Having that ability to compare with other athletes could be part of that spark that begins the data obsession because you are trying to match or better other people in different circumstances.
“Underlying this data addiction is the belief that somehow the data is not going to present us in such a favourable light and we need to make sure that everybody thinks we are unbelievably fast or strong.”
On the flip side, Dr Taylor refers to ‘rocket fuel’ as an internal motivator that is more positive. Things like passion, joy, love, inspiration, pride, meaning, satisfaction, and fulfilment are all forms of motivation that are not subject to external validation. With this mindset, Dr Taylor is confident that athletes will always surpass their ability compared to when motivated by contaminated fuel. This is because contaminated fuel motivates you up to the point where you deem yourself good enough. In contrast, when you have purer motivations you will push yourself right to the limit of your ability because you want the best for yourself with no comparison to others.
If you are wondering what motivates you, Dr Taylor has a simple test that you can use come the next race or event you line up at. On the start line take a moment to pause and think about how you are feeling. He explains that if you are feeling overwhelmingly anxious, scared, and looking forward to it all being over, you are running on contaminated fuel.
On the other hand, “With pure rocket fuel, a little twinge of nervousness is normal, but you’re just excited to be out there and you’re grateful to be out there.”
This is the same at the finish line with contaminated fuel rearing its head in a feeling of relief more than anything. You are happy to have got to the end and for it to be done, knowing you didn’t fail. The reality is this should not be the dominant emotion after completing a marathon, 100-mile gran fondo, or bike race. Instead, if your motivations are healthy you should be feeling excited, proud, and inspired by what you have achieved.
“I always feel terrible when athletes go, ‘Man, I’m just so relieved when I have a great race,’” Dr Taylor says. He explains that when he hears this he thinks to himself, “That’s the best you can do? You just crushed it!”
It can be really beneficial to spend some time being honest with yourself as to what drives you to get out and train. The reality is that if there is an element of comparing yourself to others you could be selling yourself short and with healthier motivators that align more with your personal goals, you could become a more capable athlete with a healthier relationship with data.
Data is only part of the puzzle
All of the accessible data is simply one part of an intricate puzzle that is performance. As much as HRV, power, speed, heart rate, sleep quality, and all the other metrics at our disposal can be very useful, they are not the only components to consider. The most powerful part of any athlete’s ability to perform cannot be viewed as a number on the screen. The brain and your emotional wellbeing control everything else associated with performance. This means that listening to what your body tells you should always be a primary consideration in the context of all the data you have access to.
It is important to remember that data is simply a tool to help guide you in training, and training is a journey to get you to your goals. There may be specific sessions that require an increased awareness of your performance metrics in order to get the most out of them, but equally, when it is not required, dial it back and enjoy the ride. If you are not training for anything specific, then periodically taking some time away from all of the numbers to reconnect with the joy of riding can be great not only for your body but also your mind.
Although it might not seem like it, data-free training is possible. Not every ride needs to go up on Strava or TrainingPeaks. Adding one data-free ride a week or having a week every so often where you leave the head unit at home will allow you to focus solely on the body’s signals and the inherent enjoyment of cycling. This practice can help reconnect intrinsic motivation and cultivate a stronger sense of body awareness.
Something that Dr Taylor encourages all athletes to do is engage in mindful data analysis. Rather than obsessively chasing specific numbers and comparing their abilities to others, he suggests adopting a more reflective and analytical approach. In this way, the key is to use data as a tool for understanding patterns and trends in performance, identifying areas for improvement, and making informed decisions about training adjustments. This involves discerning which metrics provide genuine insights and which might contribute to unnecessary stress or anxiety.
The biggest issue that an over-reliance on data can result in is a disconnect from the signals your body is giving you. Paying attention to fatigue, soreness, and recovery needs, and adjusting training intensity and volume accordingly, will keep you healthy. However, often this cannot be provided to you as a score and as a result, you need to be in tune with your body to understand what it is trying to tell you.
Conclusion
As much as it might sound simple to put these steps into action, Dr Taylor is quick to explain that there are no easy fixes here.
“Just like there’s no easy fix to being the best cyclist you can be,” he says. “Easy does not apply to this because we’re talking about a fairly significant change of behaviours, attitudes, thought processes, and emotions that have been deeply wired into our brains.”
Again, it is also vital to dive into the underlying causes of the addiction with data. Simply removing the outlet does not resolve the issues around external validation, self-flagellation, self-esteem or any other forces that have resulted in an unhealthy relationship with performance data. For athletes who are suffering, seeking professional help from a sports psychologist is a great first step in better understanding yourself and your motivations. Working with someone can help you to find solutions that will allow you to build new, healthier relationships with training and data that will mean you are no longer beholden to numbers on a screen.
And even if you’re not addicted to data, there’s still value in spending time reconnecting with your body and the sensations of training purely on feel. Not only does this allow your body to tell you how it is responding to the training load you are putting it under, but it also allows you to lift your head up, take in the view, and remember why you swung a leg over a bike in the first place.
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