(door hinges squeak)
(door shutting)
- Good morning Trainiacs!
We've got a little bit of a,
just a little swim,
like a 30 minute swim
and then later today a 30 minute run.
It's Friday.
It's rest day.
Typically Friday is a rest day.
You just kind of prepare yourself
for a big weekend
even though I'm not really training
too big right now.
So, one of the challenges
that has plagued the scientific community,
not me but other smart people,
with regards to triathlon,
is that it's such a dynamic sport.
There's swimming, there's biking,
there's running, there's strength.
It's such a long sport.
There's nutrition.
It's a really hard sport
to actually get data on
because controlling variables is key
to actually figuring out what works
and what actually generates results.
So there's really very few studies specifically
about what helps triathletes.
But there actually is one study
that was done at Iron Man Copenhagen
with 61 athletes.
They tested dozens of things
and there were three things
that consistently showed a really strong correlation
with Iron Man performance.
So from these three things
we can design a triathlon training plan
to accomplish each of those three things.
I'm gonna explain what those three things are
and how you can incorporate them
into your training plan.
Right after I get some tunes going
and we swim.
(driving metal music)
Who needs tech talk?
(upbeat jazz music)
(sighing)
30 minutes more or less cruisy
with some faster one minute efforts
at the end
and ended with just a brilliant song.
Here, check this out.
This one.
You'll like this.
("Never Gonna Give You Up")
Rick rolled (laughs).
All right.
So in this study of the 61 Iron Man athletes
at Iron Man Copenhagen,
what the researchers wanted to find out were
what are the physiological characteristics?
What are the things that people can work
on that are correlated
with actually improved performance.
Now, keep in mind,
correlation is not causation.
So it's not that these findings
were what caused the actual improved performance.
It's what were the things that were associated
with the improved performance
and what is the thing that you can do
in your training,
in your diet,
in your daily life
that actually causes
that improved performance.
And the three big things
that they found out were
an improved fat metabolism.
A higher ability to access fat as fuel.
A high Vo2 max.
A high ability to process a lot
of oxygen every single minute.
So you're top end.
And a better body composition.
Now how do you go about adjusting
your training to cater
to getting these three requirements dialed in
without just training blindly?
Well that's where optimizing your training comes in.
This is what we do
on teamtrainiac.com.
We optimize for these three things.
First way that we do that is with diet.
Let me explain.
Okay, so.
(thumping)
the first requirement
of having a high fat metabolism
starts here in the kitchen
with your diet.
And if you know me,
you know that I like using spreadsheets
to explain my point.
So what I've laid out here is the inputs
of what we know typical athletes go through.
Now we know regardless of whether you are low carb
or high carb, you're probably starting
with about 2500 calories of energy
on board stored in your muscles
and your liver.
Next, we know that most people can comfortably consume
about 60 grams
of carbs every hour during exercise.
Now, of course, there's gonna be a lot
of you that say,
"Hey Taren,
"that number's actually 90."
Well, that number of 90 is
when you combine glucose
and fructose,
and fructose tends
to aggravate people's stomachs
especially during exercise.
Also, there was one study
that showed that the more carbs you consumed,
the higher your likelihood
of DNFing a race was.
So do you really wanna bunmp
that up beyond 60
and ride the lightening a little bit?
I don't know if you do.
But we can show you what happens
if you wanna do that.
A typical high carb athlete will
also burn roughly .4 grams of fat
from their on body storage per minute.
And most athletes that are finishing
in the bulk of the Iron Man finishers
in that, like, 12 to 15 hour range are burning
around 750 calories per minute.
And what happens,
just based on the math,
is that you run out of energy
around hour eight.
That's why it starts feeling hard
towards the end of the bike
and right at the start of the run.
And what happens when you run
out of energy?
You either stop.
You DNF.
You go really, really slow
and start shuffling
and you lose your pace
that you trained for
or your muscles start breaking down
because your body has '
to get that energy from somewhere
and that's where you start getting
really sore.
You're not functioning well.
You start seeing people
that are wobbling all
across the finish line.
Now, what about the low carb athlete
that starts with the same 2,500 calories on board,
has 60 grams of carbs,
burns the 750 calories per hour
but instead has increased their ability
to access fat as fuel
up to around 1.2 grams of carbs per minute.
In that case,
you're A okay.
You've got more calories than you need.
Now, they're gonna be a couple of people that say,
"Well, hey, how are all these people finishing?"
Well, you can do things like this.
You can manipulate this.
What if you end up riding the lightening
and risking adding more carbs
and going up to 90?
Well, in that case,
you do end up getting a little bit further
into the race,
but it still gets quite hard.
Now, what if you're in this case, you say,
"Well, I'm gonna take on 90
"and I'm a little bit faster athlete
"so I'm probably gonna finish
"in the nine to 11."
Well, in that case,
you're gonna burn more calories per hour,
more like 1,000,
and again, you start running
out of calories.
Smart people might say,
"Well, if I am a faster athlete,
"I'm probably just going
"to naturally burn a little bit
"more fat per minute."
Which is true.
But you still end up getting
to that point
where you're playing this delicate game
of do you have enough calories on board
and are you taking in too much?
That's why you see a lot
of really talented athletes
that are slowing down towards the end
of a race.
That are walking
and you think like,
these are some of the best athletes
in the world
and they're really struggling
with this event.
Now, what happens if you are a fast athlete
and you wanna perform with low carb?
Well you still have the 2,500 calories
to start with.
You can keep your calories
that you take in nice
and low so that it's less
of a strain on your gut.
You don't even need to have
that high amount of fat burning of 1.2.
What if you only reach one?
Totally fine.
And you're burning 1,000 calories per hour?
Well, in that case,
yes you can still run out
of calories
but, in that case,
you're still in this sort of range here
of the nine and 10
and you're riding that fine line
of yeah it's gonna be really tough
towards the end of the race
but you have more wiggle room.
You can just easily go
and as you start fading,
increase the amount of calories
that you've got
to just 70.
Just a little bit.
It just gives you that ability
to make sure
that you have energy
on board no matter
if you are a fast athlete
or you are in the bulk
of the field.
Now this doesn't mean
that you need to go Keto
but this means that you need
to be selective
of when you use your carbs.
Just like you're selective
in training of when you go hard
versus when you go easy,
you should be selective
of when you take
in your carbs.
You should be selective
of maybe taking carbs
for the hard stuff
and not taking carbs
during the easy stuff.
And this certainly doesn't mean Keto.
In my case, I average around 130 grams
of carbs every single day.
I have Easter dinner
with cabbage rolls and,
and perogies on Christmas.
And of course people are going to be saying,
"Well, Jan Frodeno doesn't talk
about low carb
but he's going
and setting all time world course records."
Yeah, he is
but what Jan Frodeno does
and what most pros do
that we all can't
is they train upwards
of 20, 25, 35 hours a week
and that constant amount
of training constantly depletes
their blood glucose
and their muscle glycogen.
So they're going to be burning more fat
in all of their training
even if they are taking on carbs
because they just can't keep up
with the amount of calories
and muscle glycogen
that they're burning.
So, by nature, even if they are a high carb athlete,
just that higher amount of training
ends up increasing their fat metabolism.
So it's less about diet
and more about just what you're fat metabolism is.
And the theory, we had Dr. Paul Larsen on our podcast,
and he said he believes
that each group athletes can get a 25 hour average
training week kind of result
with only 15 hours of training.
All right.
So that was the first finding.
The next finding VO2 max.
The top end, the speed.
Let's get into that.
(door opens)
(machine humming)
Back in here.
This is where the VO2 max,
the top end, the speed, the strength,
the increased ability to go fast,
increased ability to process
a lot of oxygen per minute.
It happens on the trainer here
and either on a treadmill set
to a really high level
or on the track.
Like really, hard, tough intervals.
Working that top end.
VO2 max is really commonly looked
at as one of the things
that dictates really good sports performance.
It's the ability to process a lot
of oxygen every single minute.
The higher the VO2 max the better.
Now, I've been tested
in the high 50's.
That's really nothing too special.
A lot of pros are in the 70's.
We've even had somebody like Gustav Iden,
last year's half Iron Man World Champion,
be up around 90.
I think even a little bit higher than that.
And how you end up building VO2 max is more
with the HIIT sessions,
the High Intensity Interval Training sessions.
The anywhere from 15 seconds
to eight minute intervals are your real sweet spot
for the VO2 max building sessions.
Now, how hard is hard enough?
Well, the rule of thumb
that I like to use is
it's hard enough that it feels really challenging
but it's not so hard that you are fading
towards the end of an interval
or by the final interval that you do
and feeling like you could have
done one more interval.
That's a real key one.
If you go to the end of the well
and you drain your tank
and you just completely, like,
have those instances
where you're spent
by the end of the workout,
that's gonna deteriorate your ability
to back up training tomorrow, the next day
and the day after.
It's gonna start dipping you
into over training.
Now how much of this is enough?
Well, you can do maybe one session a week,
maybe two sessions a week.
Rule of thumb is that even really elite athletes
can't handle more than
about 60 total minutes
above their threshold
in a week.
And that's a lot.
If you think about how hard you're going
and you're looking at just the amount
of time accumulating
all of the intervals
and you are pushing yourself hard enough,
60 minutes of threshold
or above threshold is pretty hard.
The last requirement of a good body composition,
is maybe not surprising,
but the exact nuances are probably gonna surprise you
'cause it surprised me.
It's not exactly what you think.
(feet thudding)
So, I've been going to Kona since 2013
to spectate, in all fairness,
and one thing that I've noticed is
when I first started going
to Kona everyone was thin, wispy, like,
almost how pro cyclists look.
And then lately, the last couple of years,
what I've noticed is everyone all
of a sudden looks
like a friggin body builder,
like a bunch of gorillas qualifying
for the world championships.
What's really interesting about this is
start thinking well how is
when we've always thought
that lighter is better?
Well, is lighter better?
Or is it maybe Crossfit is better?
Bodybuilding is better?
So what this study found was that
body weight actually isn't associated
with improved performance.
Body composition was.
What that means is it's a low body fat percentage
that actually makes a difference.
So what's with all these bigger athletes
in Kona that are doing well?
Well, it's not that Crossfitters are all
of a sudden getting into Iron Man
and doing well.
It's that by nature, if you've paid attention
over the last bunch of years,
there's been an increased focus
on strength as a supplemental activity.
So you've seen a lot more athletes getting more muscular
and those athletes just happen to
be the ones that are qualified.
And the reason for that is that
triathlon is a very strength endurance kind of sport.
It's not as strictly endurance based as, say,
just a marathon
or a cycling event.
It's more strength endurance
because you have to run while tired.
Because it's such a long event,
being able to hold up your body weight
and function and be strong
all the way to the end
of the run is what's critical
and you need to have a lot
of strength to be able to do that.
So, how we build this into training
on Team Trainiac is, we have,
as you start progressing more,
a minimum of two strength sessions a week
because it's just so, so important.
So when people say,
"Well, I don't wanna do strength
"because I don't wanna get slower.
"I don't wanna put on mass."
You don't need to worry about that.
It's not that way.
You really need to focus on strength
and science supports that.
(traffic sounds)
And
save.
So that's it for today Trainiacs.
A little 30 minute run.
A 30 minute swim earler this morning.
That's a Friday.
Now if you are listening to this
and you're like,
"Wow!
"How, I want more.
"How can I put more of this together?"
'Cause a lot of this is really just ideas.
What we are doing right now
until the end of at least April
maybe the end of May
basically as long as lock down is going on,
to help keep everyone busy
and working on triathlon
while you've got more time,
we've put together a free virtual triathlon training camp
that you get by going to trathlonteran.com/freecamp
and we had in PHDs and strength training coaches
and we've talked about how you actually put this
into a training plan.
And essentially what we do on teamtrainiac.com
that is very backed by science.
So triathlonteran.com/free camp.
You just put in your email address
and boom, done.
You're keeping busy working
on bettering yourself in triathlon.
Well, we're not doing triathlon
but hopefully that keeps you entertained
and if you aren't already subscribed
hit subscribe button below.
Later Trainiacs.