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# You Don't Need a Bigger Engine
- URL: https://www.grantgiles.com.au/you-dont-need-a-bigger-engine/
- Published: 2026-11-04T20:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-04T20:00:00.000Z
- Description: You might not need a bigger engine. You might need to stop wasting the energy you've already got. Less tension, less force, more economy.
- Author: Grant Giles
- Tags: Training, #from-reels

An athlete struggles to hold pace [late in an Ironman run](https://www.grantgiles.com.au/ironman-truth/). The obvious prescription is more endurance, more long runs, more fatigue resistance. And that's a fair enough assessment, isn't it?

But what if the limiter isn't endurance at all? What if they're recruiting too much muscle, carrying unnecessary [tension](https://www.grantgiles.com.au/relax-at-speed/) or using a movement pattern that becomes increasingly expensive under fatigue?

They might not need to develop a bigger [engine](https://www.grantgiles.com.au/eighty-twenty/). They might need to stop wasting the energy that they've already got.

## Same power, different cost

You can have two riders pumping out exactly the same power under exactly the same conditions with two completely different energetic costs, simply because one rider is more efficient or resilient than the other. So how much neuromuscular load are you creating to achieve that power?

Watts are the engine, yes, but the engine doesn't directly tell you how fast you're going. You can produce more power and actually go slower, or you can produce less power and go faster. The mistake that athletes make is they're chasing bigger and bigger numbers instead of becoming better cyclists.

So stop asking how many watts did I put out, and start asking how much speed did I create for the watts that I produced. Because the best cyclists aren't just producing power, they're wasting less of it. It's the two E's: efficiency and economy.

## Performance grows by subtraction

When people are trying to make progress, they think it's all about more force, more training, more intensity, more data, more fucking everything. But the better question is, how do you use less force? How do you become more efficient with less effort?

Your performance doesn't grow by addition. Sometimes it grows by subtraction.

So subtract the tension, subtract the wasted effort, subtract the unnecessary work, subtract the things that aren't moving the needle north. And what you're left with might be the very thing that you've been looking for. Less force, more efficiency, more speed.

## How are you moving?

This sport is about one thing. Movement. How are you moving? What is it costing you?

So what are the digits really measuring? Heart rate, stroke rate, flight time? They're measuring movement.

Every single session, your focus should be inward. Not just what, but how. What does it feel like to flow? What does it feel like to be efficient? What does it feel like to be economic? Your sensory perception gets there before your mind does.

So find your feet, find your spatial awareness. Explore flow. How is your breathing responding to the movement?

Now you aren't just moving, now you are movement. So let the digits represent that, because everything else is tension.

Gilesy