What the worlds biggest bike race can teach you about your health, fitness, and physique efforts.

If you haven’t watched the TDF; Unchained documentary on Netflix about the 2022 Tour De France then I can’t recommend it enough. Even if you don’t love cycling, the lessons from this series are great. Here are my top takeaways.

1. Great athletes aren’t always great competitors.

Jonathan Vaughters, ex-pro cyclist and now GM of the EF Education Easy Post cycling team noted something about one of his riders that made me pause and take note. Neilson Powless is an up and coming rider who is an incredible climber on the biggest of mountain stages. However, he lacks the restraint to know when to push, and when to hold steady. Vaughters said “I worry about Neilson because he's an incredible athlete, but he’s got to learn how to be a competitor”. It takes effort to be an athlete. It takes restraint to be a competitor.

Images - The Tour De France; Unchained on Netflix

Knowing when to increase the intensity of our effort in our health and fitness is crucial too. I have worked with countless guys who were great at working hard to a point of diminishing returns. They’d go past the point of no return, they’d feel sick, and we’d have to cut our session 30 mins early. In cycling this is known as blowing up. Once you pass the threshold of your legs filling with blood and lactic acid that you can’t recover without stopping, your race is over.

Athletes go here often. Competitors go here when it supports their goals (usually 2km before the finish line).

2. You won’t win alone.

Cycling is a team sport. Even if it's 1 man to a bike, if you want to win the TDF, you’ll need a team. Most teams have 1, occasionally 2 lead riders. The best allrounder that has the best chance of winning the 21 stage race. The other 3-4 guys on the team are known as “domestiques”. They take the wind at the front of the peloton so that the leader can ride behind them in the slipstream, allowing them to use 40% less energy. The domestiques take it in turn trying to stretch the race and make opposition riders and leaders follow them to tire them out, creating an energy advantage for their own team. They also carry the water, energy gels, ice packs, and anything else the leaders might need during the race, even grabbing them off support cars as they ride.

If you want to be successful in your health, fitness, and physique goals, then you’ll want a team of supportive, knowledgeable, understanding, and dedicated people with you. This is where social support from friends and partners, the direction and accountability of a coach, and the common goals and shared experiences of a like minded community of guys comes in. This is an integral part of the builtXyou system.

3. It will be difficult and that’s ok.

If you want to see physical pain and suffering, watch the mountain stages of the TDF. These guys climb faster and sprint harder with their exhausted legs than most cars can, and that BURNS. They know it’s going to be extremely difficult and even more challenging if they want to win the coveted yellow jersey. If you’re a climber, you’re pushing your limits to win, if you’re a sprinter, you’re trying to just hang in there and make it over the finish line before the stage time cap. It’s difficult in different ways. What gets them through is being prepared and having clear expectations.

On many occasions during the series you’ll see clips of riders telling journalists how they kind of enjoyed the challenge of the biggest climbs or fastest sprints because they could simply focus on the effort needed because they had a clear plan and realistic expectations.

When it comes to your health, fitness, and physique efforts, it pays to have a clear plan and realistic expectations.

4. Consistent high effort over time is where results live

In theory, a rider can win the Tour De France having never won a single stage (though not likely given the extreme ability and capacity of the best riders). The winner at the end of the tour is the man who has the lowest total time for all 21 stages. For example, In 2022, Jonas Vingegaard won the Tour De France having only won 2 of 21 stages outright. He won the tour overall because of his ability to stay near the front, to be patient, to take the right risks, to push hard at the right times, and to back off at the right times. He completed the 2067 mile, 21 stage, 3 week race in a total of 79 hours, 33 minutes, 20 seconds. Just 2 minutes 43 seconds ahead of his fiercest rival.

He and his team built a long term plan around his physical and mental strengths, limitations, environment, and competing responsibilities. That's exactly what needs to happen if you want to get the best results from your health, fitness, and physique efforts and it’s exactly what we do with our guys at builtXyou.

Images - The Tour De France; Unchained on Netflix

5. Plans change

Team Jumbo-Visma originally had a different leader before Vingegaard. Primoz Roglic was the front man before 2 bad crashes in the middle stages of the tour, one of which he dislocated his shoulder in and withdrew from the race. Jumbo-Visma had to scrap their original plan of approach and recalibrate it to match the skills and experience of Vingegaard.

Similarly in your life, things will come up. Unforeseen events like a trip to the vets when you planned to workout, a last minute work trip when you planned a quiet week at home, a flat tire on the way to the gym, a wrong grocery delivery, a forgotten lunch. Things will happen and the guys that need everything to go perfectly will struggle the most.

In your health, fitness, and physique efforts, having an ideal plan makes it easier to recalibrate if things change. Accepting an expecting things to change creates real time and realistic flexibility when they do.

To recap;

Guys love to work their ass off and show they are an athlete. However, it takes restraint to be a competitor and follow the plan today to get the result 1 year from now.
You won’t win alone. You need the right people and environment around you to achieve your goals.
Accept and expect things to be difficult at some point on the journey. Just like the cyclists in the tour, you’ll have things you find easy and will enjoy, and things you find difficult and that you’ll have to grind through.
You can win by never going full throttle. Consistently high effort (not max) over a long enough time horizon is where results live. Some days you’ll have to give it everything, and some days you’ll have to hang in there. Just don’t stop.
Have an ideal plan, but expect life to challenge it. It’s much easier to tweak an existing plan than to start over from scratch every day. Expect things to change and commit to being the kind of guy that figures it out.

We work with busy guys who want results. Guys who want a specific plan that is designed for their goals, needs, and preferences. Guys who want certainty that their efforts will be rewarded with the results they work for so that they can live the life they want.

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