The brains behind Coach Jack (Andrea Morelli)

#1

I just asked my Coach friend if I could start using his name in our conversations and he said it is not a problem. Wow, I should have gotten that clarified a long time ago. He and I are the primary brains behind Coach Jack but other coaches as well as all of you have provide ideas as well.

So his name is Andrea Morelli (i.e Coach Jack), he is the head coach at Mapei (multi-billion $ Italian company). Mapei no longer has a pro-team but has one of the top cycling lab facilities in the world and tests pro-riders from different teams every day.

They also coach aspiring youth. Andrea is still is invited to all the main cycling races and all the Trek training camps for example. He has been coaching for about 30 years and is called Aldo Sassi’s protege. Aldo was considered one of the best cycling coaches of all time. Andrea was his “science guy.”

Italy is one of the few countries in the world where cycling is so big that the Giro Italia has a commercial from a major food manufacture in 2021 featuring an ex-pro-cycling coach instead of a rider(Andrea).

Andrea is an amazing individual and very humble. He might also be the top cycling biomechanics expert in the world. He spends lots of days 3d modeling cycling movements. In his lab they have an 80-thousand dollar treadmill for cycling. (I will find a video and add it to this post.). He loves the questions I bring to him and happy to answer stuff. My ideas were fairly similar to his when I met but my ideas have really been formed now by his ideas.

So I will just start referring to him as Coach Andrea, instead of all the other funny terms I use. I will give bios on some the coaches I consult with as well at some point.

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#2

I asked Andrea to review this and he said the bone modelling was a bit much and I said everyone exaggerates a little and he said “not me I do the opposite…” So there you have it, humble. I swear he does do 3d modeling he sent me examples when he was working on modeling cycling movements but I guess this was not completely accurate. :slight_smile:

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#3

Alex,

Thanks for the update and glad to hear who is partially behind Coach Jack! Will be nice to hear the other names as well. I went into the program on faith and now just makes me all the more glad I did. Looking forward to what is to come, hopefully sooner then later - LOL, and to hear more from Coach Andrea and the others! Keep up the great work to everyone involved!!

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#4

Yes Andrea was Cadel Evans Coach when he won The Tour de France for example :slight_smile:

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#5

Hum, so here we have the responsible for all my suffering in the past few weeks. Good to know.

:grin:

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#6

Really, what interval level are you on? Usually Jack should not cause so much suffering if you slowly work up starting at the lower levels… But if you are getting late in the plan it definitly gets harder.

#7

And regarding cycling movement modeling. This is the software he uses and to me this is for crazy people… :slight_smile:

https://scone.software/doku.php?id=about

And I don’t see my exaggeration so far off.

#8

Just a dash of humor :stuck_out_tongue:

I think that I’m currently level 10 (?); for ex. Monday I did a “SFR #10”. Really, everything is quite “easy,” except for that long 2h30 I have to do every Saturday. Yet I know that I have to work on my long endurance, so it’s fine: in the next couple of months, I guess that I will feel way better outdoors. Overall, the workouts are totally bearable.

#9

I thought you were joking, I just wanted to make sure. If someone starts at level 10 for example they might not be fully prepared for the harder efforts.

If you plan is still going for a while it will get harder, I would love to hear everyone’s feedback on how it feels as it gets to the later sequences, it should feel acceptably hard. Your body should be well prepared for each harder sequence.

#10

2 posts were split to a new topic: Add 2/1 recovery model (currently there is only 3/1)

#11

Andrea loves tests. This should be his linkedin profile :slight_smile:

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#12

Here is him doing wind tunnel tests on some riders

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#13

Here is the treadmill in his lab

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#14

One big familiy :-). Another Reason to stay with TD, Sponsor 2020 for our Team.

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#15

I love it. Yes for some reason TrainerDay just resonates with Europeans. Being an American I won’t forget my roots but happy for the big European family we have here, and this picture brings it all a little closer.