“We found the solution through motor control” – UAE insider reveals how Tadej Pogacar’s brain helps make him so hard to beat

Dominance is usually explained in watts, weight, training blocks and talent. But inside UAE Team Emirates - XRG, one of the most important performance shifts has happened somewhere far less visible: in the way riders’ brains control their bodies.

That is the picture painted by Michele Del Gallo, long-time physiotherapist and osteopath with the team, speaking in an in-depth interview with Bici.Pro. His comments lift the lid on a quieter revolution inside UAE, one that has reshaped how riders prepare, how they move and, ultimately, how they perform when it matters most.

Del Gallo describes a team that no longer looks for answers only in muscles and power numbers, but in how the brain recruits and coordinates the body under pressure. “We found the solution through motor control,” he explained.

It is a line that sounds abstract, but it sits at the heart of why riders like Pogacar can look effortless when others fade.

Testing before the season revealed something unexpected. Many riders were not pushing equally with both legs. “Thanks to the tests we carry out before the season starts, we noticed that many riders have a difference in strength between one leg and the other,” Del Gallo said. “In the end it was a recruitment problem: on one side the athlete managed to recruit 100 per cent of the muscle fibres, while in the other leg he recruited fewer.”

The issue was not weakness in the muscle itself. It was that the brain was not activating both sides in the same way. That imbalance wasted energy and limited performance long before fatigue ever set in.

So the focus shifted. Not to heavier gym work or harder intervals, but to teaching the brain how to send better instructions.

Fans often see Pogacar and his teammates using resistance bands before races. It looks like a simple warm-up. Del Gallo says it is nothing of the sort. “What is the point of warming up for five minutes before a race that will last five or six hours, where the difference is made right at the end?” he asked. “Instead, the work on motor control lasts throughout the whole race. They will pedal in a different way, use less energy and find themselves in a better situation at the finish.”

The exercises are designed to change how the brain fires muscles during effort, not just to get blood flowing. The effect is meant to stay with the rider for the whole stage.

That is why the work happens not only on race mornings, but also in training camps, hotels and rest days. It is about building new automatic patterns, not something a rider can consciously “think” through at 90 pedal strokes per minute.

Modern cycling talks endlessly about core strength. Del Gallo is blunt about its limits. “You can have the strongest core you like and be number one in those exercises,” he said, “but if when you give the command to push on the pedal, the brain does not do it in the right way, having such a strong core is useless.”

Muscles do not decide when to work. The brain does, using patterns built over time. If the brain does not include the core or recruits one side differently, even the strongest body cannot use its full potential. “You do not consciously decide which muscles have to contract, the brain decides based on patterns,” Del Gallo explained. “If within this movement pattern you do not have activation of the core, when you push on the pedal the brain will not recruit it.”

So the goal is to make correct activation automatic, not something riders have to think about when racing at full speed.

The technical work sits inside a wider cultural shift at UAE, one Del Gallo traces back to leadership. “It was another planet compared to where we are now,” he said when comparing the team today with the one Pogacar joined in 2019.

He points to Mauro Gianetti’s influence and to an environment that encourages initiative. “He gives us all freedom, each in our own area, to bring something new,” Del Gallo said. “It is always people who make the difference, and the sum of the best from each person, even if it is made up of small things, ends up producing the biggest improvement.”

That trust also means investment. When staff identify something that can make riders better, it gets backed. “If there is a need to make investments, they are made, it is not a problem,” Del Gallo said. “Mauro trusts us.”

Pogacar is not winning because of one magic trick. But in a sport decided by tiny margins, being able to use more of your body, more efficiently, for longer, matters.

Teaching the brain to recruit muscles better means riders waste less energy, produce a more even power output through each pedal stroke, and reach the final kilometres in better condition when races are decided.

That is why what looks like a simple band routine is part of something much deeper. It is not about warming up muscles. It is about reprogramming how the body works under pressure.

In an era obsessed with numbers, UAE’s insider message is almost old-fashioned. The biggest gains are not always found in data files or gym weights.

Sometimes, the real advantage is in teaching the brain how to use what the body already has.