A conversation with Justin Harrington, performance coach and cyclist, on how to build an athlete who can do it all without breaking down.
This is part of Performance Rewritten, conversations with the people and communities changing what it means to move. Each installment looks at the same questions from a different angle: What is performance? What keeps people consistent? And what does it mean to build something that lasts?
Justin Harrington coaches a wide range of people. Youth athletes. Total beginners. Elite cyclists who have spent years dialing in their performance on the bike. What he has found, working across all of them, is that the fundamentals do not change much regardless of where someone is starting from.
Eat enough. Sleep well. Move with intention. Build the foundation first and let everything else support it.
Justin is a performance coach based in Denver, Colorado, where he has been coaching in a gym setting for eight years. He holds a degree in Kinesiology from Colorado Mesa University and is an NSCA Certified Personal Trainer, TRX Certified, and USA Weightlifting Level 1 coach. He also rides himself, which is part of what makes his work with cyclists different. He is not applying a generic strength template to athletes who happen to pedal. He is genuinely curious about what makes them fast and how the weight room can serve that.
We talked with Justin about how he prepares for long rides, how he thinks about recovery, and where supplements fit into a system that is already working.
The Day Before Matters as Much as the Morning Of
Most people think about ride prep as a morning-of activity. Justin starts the day before.
“Preparation for a long ride really starts the day before. Sleep is one of the biggest performance enhancers we have.”
That means a dinner built around carbohydrates and a solid source of protein, consistent hydration throughout the day, and getting to bed on time. By the time the morning arrives, the work is mostly done.
On the morning of the ride, Justin gives himself enough time to move before getting on the bike. His warmup includes lateral band walks, monster walks, bodyweight squats, glute bridges, and lunges with a rotation, all aimed at getting the glutes, hamstrings, hips, and core firing before any real effort begins.
Once he is rolling, nutrition gets the same level of planning as the route itself. On longer or higher-intensity rides, he targets around 100 grams of carbohydrates per hour from gels, drink mix, or other easy-to-digest sources. Staying ahead of fueling rather than waiting until you feel depleted, he says, changes both how you perform and how you feel the next day.
Warmup Before, Mobility After
Justin draws a clear line between what a warmup is supposed to do and what recovery work is supposed to do, and he does not mix them up.
“Before a ride, I like to focus on dynamic mobility and movement rather than long static stretches. The goal is to increase blood flow, improve range of motion, and get your body ready to produce power, not relax the muscles before you need them.”
His pre-ride favorites include the World's Greatest Stretch, seated hip openers, banded face pulls, and band pull-aparts. The upper back focus is intentional. Cyclists spend hours in a forward, rounded position, so waking up the posterior chain before a ride helps with posture and comfort on the bike.
After the ride is when static stretching earns its place. Hip flexors, glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves, and the chest. Five to ten minutes is enough to restore movement and reduce stiffness. It does not need to be elaborate to be effective.
Recovery Is a System, Not a Tool
Justin uses cupping, massage guns, and the sauna regularly. He is also careful about how he talks about them.
“Those tools can definitely help, but they're meant to complement good nutrition, hydration, and sleep, not replace them.”
Recovery, in his view, starts as soon as the ride ends. That means getting carbohydrates and protein in quickly, continuing to hydrate, and following up with a full meal later in the day. For athletes balancing riding with strength training, he is emphatic: eating enough is not optional.
He recommends three full-body strength sessions per week, scheduled around rides so athletes can get quality work from both. He also tracks metrics like heart rate variability and resting heart rate as signals for when to push and when to back off. Sometimes the best training decision you can make is to take an easier day.
The Mistake Most People Are Already Making
Justin sees the same pattern repeatedly. Someone puts in serious work on the bike or in the gym and then wonders why the results are not coming.
“A lot of people wonder why they're putting in the work but not seeing the results they'd expect, and often it comes down to not giving their body enough fuel throughout the day.”
The scenario is familiar. An early morning workout, a long ride, and then life takes over. By dinner, the day's nutrition has barely made a dent in what was spent. The body is trying to recover from a deficit it was never going to close.
Cycling burns a significant amount of energy. Add strength training on top of it and the demand goes up further. Under-eating consistently makes it harder to recover, maintain muscle, and continue improving, no matter how disciplined the training is.
Sleep carries the same weight. Once nutrition and sleep are dialed in, he says, everything else, from training quality to recovery tools to supplements, becomes more effective. Not the other way around.
Where Supplements Actually Fit
Justin is deliberate about the products he recommends, and the ones he uses himself.
“Supplements should complement a solid foundation, not replace it.”
The products he reaches for most are the Floyd's Creatine Recovery, Focus Fuel caffeine strips, CBD Recovery Balm, and BiCarb A.R.C.
Floyd's Creatine Recovery, is a consistent part of his routine because the research behind it is strong. It supports strength, power, and recovery, which matters when you are splitting time between the gym and the bike.
The Focus Fuel caffeine strips fit easily into a jersey pocket, which is part of the appeal. They work before a ride or during a longer one, and they skip the gas station detour that tends to happen on rides around Denver anyway.
After harder efforts, he uses the CBD Recovery Balm on the quads or calves when they are feeling tight. The BiCarb A.R.C. capsules come out for high-intensity efforts where a small edge can matter.
Justin is quick to point out that no supplement, recovery tool, or modality replaces the work. Sleep, nutrition, consistency, those come first. Everything else is there to support what is already being built. And according to Justin, that is exactly the point.
About Justin
Justin Harrington is a performance coach based in Denver, Colorado, with eight years of experience coaching in a gym setting. He holds a degree in Kinesiology from Colorado Mesa University and is an NSCA Certified Personal Trainer, TRX Certified, and USA Weightlifting Level 1 coach. He works with clients ranging from beginners to elite cyclists and is an avid cyclist himself. You can reach him on Instagram at @justtrain.fit.
