Episode 479: Is Low Carb Performance Misplaced? | Jonah Rosner

Raj Pannu recently won and set the course record at the USATF 100 Mile National Championships. Raj was determined for redemption this year after being DQ’d last year due to his shoes not meeting USATF guidelines. In this episode, we discuss his trajectory through the 100 mile distance and steady improvements over the years.

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Free resources for audience from Jonah

1. The Gel Cheat Sheet - breaks down race-da y fueling strategy, gel timing, and the carbohydrate recommendations we discussed. Exactly the kind of practical takeaway your audience can use immediately. https://marathonscience.beehiiv.com/new-gel-guide

2. The Foot and Calf Strength Plan - a free gym program targeting th e musculature below the kne e that we touched on when talking about BFR and neuromuscular durability for endurance athletes. Covers calf raises, single-leg work, and progressive loading. https://marathonscience.beehiiv.com/foot-calf-strength-guide-new

Timestamps:

0:00:00 Intro Reel

0:01:06 Podcast Intro And Sponsors

0:02:37 Meet Jonah

0:03:44 SIS Beta Fuel Product

0:05:13 Carb Ratios And Absorption

0:07:20 Pushing 100 Plus Grams Per Hour

0:13:42 Train Low Versus High Carb

0:19:21 Metabolic Ceiling And Fueling

0:22:51 Recovery And Durability Benefits

0:28:01 Health Concerns And Prediabetes

0:33:49 Strength Training For Ultras

0:35:11 Blood Flow Restriction Explained

0:38:58 BFR For Runners And Calves

0:40:17 BFR vs Recovery Boots

0:41:44 Carb Hype Backlash

0:43:02 How Much Carbs

0:46:33 High Carb vs Low Carb

0:51:06 Elite Sport Signals

0:56:12 Keto Training Limits

0:59:25 Science Marketing Nuance

01:04:19 Fueling For Recovery

01:06:17 Within Day Energy Gaps

01:11:33 Wrap Up

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] All right, Jonah, I think we're up. Thanks for taking some time and coming on the podcast. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Big fan. So super excited to be here. You've had some legends on. Yeah, it's been fun. The podcast has been such a cool vehicle to kind of grow and explore over the years. And yeah, it gives me opportunities to talk, like talk with guys, like you dive into some interesting stuff and uh, you know, thankfully there's enough people willing to listen to it that I can kind of keep doing it.

So. Awesome. So I'm definitely one of those people. So there you go. Right on. No, I'd love to hear it. So it, were you just, you're just at the LA Marathon this weekend, right? Last weekend. I was just at the LA Marathon. Yeah, that was a great time. It was hot, but there was some, uh, great basing. Yeah. Were you there running it or were you there?

Just, I was there activated with, uh, science and Sport, the supplement company. Oh, right on and activated with the door for joining. But yeah, it was a great time. So I was not running it. I was cheering, which sometimes I've realized. I enjoy more [00:01:00] than running 26 miles in the heat. Yeah. Yeah. It is fun. That's well for that too though, where I was taking my gels to cheer.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, it is funny 'cause like, uh, we bumped into each other at the running event at the end of last year. You were hanging out at the science and sport booth and I came by to check out some of their stuff. I've been playing around with some of their products recently as I've kind of been getting things sorted for this upcoming race season and things like that.

And they've got some exciting stuff on the, on the market or is there anything specific with their product line that you're excited about right now? I mean, there's a few things I really like. I think I've wondered if it's just like the range of products they offer, but I mean, I love all the beta fuel stuff, specifically the beta fuel gels.

Obviously you get the door source carbohydrates to help with higher fueling rates with the, um, tolerance and infarction, but also like the whole beta fuel line. I think it's really cool. One thing that people sleep on is the beta fuel recovery mix. It's definitely much more relevant for individuals like you and I or like [00:02:00] individuals who are trading multiple times a day at high volumes where they have a recovery mix that has protein, but also the beta fuel dose source of like much reduction and fructose.

So obviously we know that fructose after a drain session may help replenish glycogen faster, specifically in the liver. So I think it's cool for a recovery drink to help replenish liver glycogen before your next training session. But I love all the products. You are, I mean, the fact that I make Joe with caffeine, without caffeine, with electrolytes, without electrolytes, sickle source carbs, door source carbs, it's just like every single type of training situation.

Like you're gonna have a product based on it, which I think is really cool. Yeah. Yeah. This, this last, uh, training cycle, I went all in on the high carb side of things to try to see what that would do for me potentially with a hundred mile racing. And, you know, you get into that world. There's just so many products on the market now and, and a lot of good stuff too, where it seems like it's just a lot easier to find something that works for you.

And kind of one of the [00:03:00] entry points I think that people usually engage with, with that is like, what are those ratios going to do? Yeah. And why you'd maybe pick one over the other. So like, you know, some are gonna have like that two to one glucose to fructose ratio, whereas others are gonna be more like one to 0.8.

The one. Yep. Yeah. Are you, are you using those differently for certain circumstances? Yeah, it's a good, it's, it's an excellent question. So what you're referring to is historically, like when we have dual source carbohydrate joes or drink mixes, we typically have both much dextro glucose, which are very similar to the way they behave in the body, and then fructose.

So two different sources of carbohydrates. And the reason we do that was based on some of the ledger research by asking her, which is essentially like when you combine glucose and fructose, it leaves your body, because they use different transporters in the stomach or they test it. And for absorption, like take on more carbs, absorb more carbs into the bloodstream per hour.

Um, and that lets you essentially use more carbs for energy. And so then what they tried to do is like, okay, so what's the right ratio of glucose to fructose in the mixes so you can maximize absorption and reduce [00:04:00] like GI stress? And it was first like two to one, so two glucose for every one fructose. Um, and that seems to work really well, especially up to 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour.

But those subdural research that shows like as individuals go above 90 grams, um, if you go close to one to 0.8, so a little more fructose, uh, to glucose, but still, still more glucose, the fructose overall, but you're, um, changing the ratio slightly, then it may actually help with absorption once you get to higher than 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour or everyone's a little different.

But once you start to approach those really high fueling rates, the one to 0.8 might actually be better for absorption and, and tolerance, which. It's important, but below that, I probably isn't gonna make a gigantic, gigantic difference if we're being completely honest. But yeah. What products, I'm curious though, what products have you explored from SIS and then also have you noticed a difference with the higher fuel carb drilling versus the lower carb historically?

Yeah. So the stuff I've been using from science [00:05:00] and sport recently has been there, like beta fuel. Yep. Pretty much the, I've done a little bit with their nootropic model one. Yeah. But not enough to really know too much about it. So that may be something that you'd be able to share with me a little bit more context around.

Yeah. If what, what they're looking for with that or what you've experienced with that. But yeah. You know, my, my experience with it so far has been, I mean, it's like a 40 gram pouch, so you, yep. You do take a pretty big, pretty big bolus of it. So I'm curious to get back into kind of the longer stuff where I would engage with it a little bit more.

At a really high rate right now. I'm not quite at that point yet in training, but I'm basically gonna enter that pretty soon. So I'll be able to do a little bit more thorough testing with just the really high amounts of that, uh, of their product line. Because I'm curious about what I'll notice if I try to push up above like 90 to a hundred grams.

'cause so far I've kind of used that as sort of like the ceiling, but I do have some interest, growing interest I guess as I kind of explore this world of just seeing what happens if [00:06:00] I go up closer to 120 grams. So I think, uh, having that product in the rotation might be useful to push some of those higher numbers or, you know, push above that 90 gram number consistently.

I may require that I'm always a big fan of caffeine from a performance standpoint. I think it, I respond really well to it. I don't seem to have, I, I, I shouldn't say I don't have issues with it. If I get kind of crazy with it, I do. I. I've talked about this on the podcast in the past, but I did have a scenario once where I was using a prototype product with caffeine, and my assumption was it was half the amount of what it actually was.

So I ended up essentially doubling my caffeine target for what I was going for and had some digestive issues from that, but I hit like a thousand milligrams in a 12 hour period. So I think that was probably more user error than it was necessarily like the caffeine not doing what it was intended to do.

Had I been dosing it the way I normally would, it usually works quite well. So usually with products I kind of have caffeine in with it. It's kind of nice to have that, that two for [00:07:00] one opportunity to hit the fuel you're taking, get the caffeine and kind of phase that in at the right times and dosages the way you want it.

Um, so yeah, I've really liked that. I would say in general, I'm really, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm optimistic about the really high carbohydrate side of things just because. One of the bigger pinch points for me historically was always finding a way to engage with it to a way where I felt like I could sustainably take in that much carbohydrate per hour.

And that's just been one of the evolutions of ultra running where we've sorted, we've essentially solved for that, in my opinion, in any way that you would need to, to make it incentivize yourself enough to do it if you're trying to compete. Because if you don't, others are, a lot of other people are gonna be able to, it's not gonna be something where it's like just some rare occurrence that someone's able to hit a hundred plus grams per hour.

It's gonna be like the entire podium and then some that are going to easily be able to do that. So, uh, at that point you kind of eliminated that friction point that was, uh, maybe assumed earlier in the ultra running space. And then it's [00:08:00] just like, okay, how do I structure things around that approach that makes it more doable?

So my assumption is like, if I want to be hitting a hundred plus grams of carbohydrate per hour, I don't see a great workaround outside of high carb daily nutrition. So that kind of comes along for the ride, I guess. It has been interesting though, like, I would say like carbohydrate consumption at really high rates.

And granted, like the way I'm engaging with fuel is in the context of performance that probably goes beyond any strong argument for health and longevity. Not that it's terrible for those things, but the way I like to look at it is like the way I engage with running probably crosses that optimal point.

If you're focusing primarily on Yeah, the want to optimize for health just because there's gonna be trade offs to train the way I do where like opportunity costs essentially. Yeah, like opportunity costs of like, I could go to the gym and do something that would maybe also really help with, uh, with health that I'm just not gonna do [00:09:00] as much of or none of because I'm spending all my time and energy training for these hundred mile races.

And so like, I, I just like to lead with that usually because that becomes kind of a point of interest I think when people are determining like. Why am I doing what I'm doing versus what maybe someone else would maybe do. But yeah, I I, I find it maybe a little trickier in the sense that you do have to engage with carbohydrate in a way that feels a little more sensitive, is the way I maybe describe it.

But when you get it right, it's very potent as well, so. Exactly. Yeah. I'm finding like, and a lot of it I think just becomes intuitive after time once you've kind of got reps doing it. Like anything, you don't really overthink complicated processes once you've really gotten good at them and really got rehearsed and you know how the experiences were for me over the last eight months has sort of been learning what that looks like and how to get that into my rotation of things.

So it just feels like it's on autopilot versus something I have to consciously put a lot of mental effort into. You know, that goes, [00:10:00] goes towards just like meal frequency in sizing, carbohydrate amounts per eating session. And then ultimately, like during sessions, like how much carbohydrate to target for specific training sessions.

And then on top of it, like what are the requirements I'm gonna need to do in training to make sure that my digestive system is ready to tolerate what I'm gonna do to it on race day? And that one was actually kind of surprising to me. I thought that was gonna be a much harder process than it ended up being.

Um, granted I haven't tried to go well north of a hundred grams per hour yet, but I seem to pretty easily be able to train my gut up to 90 to a hundred grams without any, any real issues at all during, during the races that they've done. Oh man, I have a set of thoughts. I'll just start. I'll ask you two questions.

It hit through them. What should I do? Yeah, but no, I, I totally think, um. We've definitely, with a lot of the things that were living us historically for ultra runners, things like energy density of food, but it was just super hard to get enough calories to support your trading and the racing. But now with some of the new higher carbo nutritional supplementation and things, it just makes it a [00:11:00] lot easier like the liquid forms to get a large amount of carbohydrates in with smaller concentration, which I think solves a lot of that.

Before I go on, I'm curious, do you ever experiment with any kind of, do you still do any like low carb or like train low sessions at all, or not really? Yeah, you know, that's actually a great question. 'cause one thing I was curious about is like when I kind of went 180 on, that was like, what is my experience gonna be like if I would just say go out for like a two, three hour long run with just water and electrolytes and not introduce into the fuel.

And because like one of them, I talked to David Roche and other people about this, and they would always say like. Like along the ox side of questions is little like, like I, I can still do those sessions. Yeah. They didn't seem too concerned with it. I think. Uh, um, yeah, I'm super biased. I have a few biases here.

Number one is I think all the bested dots athletes I've ever trained in a lab, even if they're higher carbohydrate fuel, so high carbohydrate availability, most of the time they have extremely high [00:12:00] rates of fat oxidation when you hook them up to a metabolic heart. Mm-hmm. So even though they're not really ever training low and they always have high carbohydrate availability, there's two things that come to mind.

Just by the nature of their training where they're running multiple times a day and doing such high volumes, they're gonna naturally incur states of low carbohydrate availability and higher fat oxidation. Just because like by the end of some of those hard training sessions mm-hmm. Like it's just, just running low just by the nature of the high volume training, and they'll get those adaptations.

And I also think it comes to the point that the biggest stimulus to create is like. More mitochondria or some of the things that lead to high fat oxidation. The ability to use high levels of fat as a fuel comes from consistent high volume trading. And if high carbohydrate availability and high carbohydrate fueling allows you to train more, you're gonna create the metabolic stress on the system that's gonna lead to not underlying physiologic auto.

It's like more mitochondria. Some of the enzymatic activity that leads to high fat oxidation and all the best dedos athletes. The best marathon was the best product I've ever tested, even though a lot of them do eat a lot of carbs are still [00:13:00] unbelievable. Uh, I have the unbelievable ability to metabolize and oxidize high levels of fat much more than most individuals per hour just from the training stimulus I would say.

But they probably do occur at some levels of, uh, low carbohydrate training just by the nature of the high value training. It's just something that comes along with it. But I do think that whatever allows you to maintain high volumes and consistent training is gonna lead to the best fat adaptations. And that may be with high carbohydrates 'cause you're recovering better.

Mm-hmm. I would say that I, 'cause I have done that a few times where I've just gone out for like a 20 mile long run and said, okay, I'm just not gonna, when I'm far enough along into this experience where there's like, yeah, you know, I've had a plenty of a washout period from my low carb days. I generally speak like if there's nothing quality in there outside of just a steady effort below zone two, I don't worry too much.

Yeah, no, I don't notice too much. Like if maybe a little bit at the end I start noticing like, you know what, if I hit a gel right now, I'd probably feel a little bit better. But it's [00:14:00] the, yeah, the bar for quality at that intensity is pretty low. I do go back and forth because one thing you will can't argue with, like you study some of the elite Kenyan runners in Ethiopian runners, they do a ton of sessions fast probably with low carbohydrate availability in these marathoners and there maybe is something to be said like fuel for the work required.

And like some of the famous researchers like James Morgan and them, they still like to potentially advocate. Although there are still times where it's like that. If you're going for a long, easy, low intensity ride, like going with low carbohydrate availability might increase metabolic stress, right? Like that's a higher metabolic stress, which may lead to more metabolic adaptations.

Listen, take it with a grain of salt. But like a lot of those African runners, the Kenya and Ethiopian S don't do a lot of things like probably low carbohydrate availability studies and are extremely high fat, have the ability to incur high levels of fat oxidation. Even when you test 'em after a few hours of running with high carbohydrate intake, they're still burning a ton of fat and that may lead to high levels of performance if they have high [00:15:00] fat oxidation and high carbo oxidation at the same time.

So overall high energy turnover. Mm-hmm. Um, so it's one of those things where it's like, is there still a potential advantage to some sessions that are low carbohydrates to improve the metabolic stress? Maybe. It's really hard to say. I still think it's just a change over time. It's most important, but like if you have an easy, long run or just an easy run like.

If you do it with low carbohydrate availability, there's not a ton of like quality in it. And you don't think that that low carb is gonna impact the run, I don't know if it's a terrible idea. Listen, if you struggle with things like low energy availability and like red ass and like getting enough calories, I definitely never recommend it.

But there are times too where it's like, I don't know, it may not be a terrible thing for some athletes to do it. Yeah. It's almost like anything where I think if you try to leverage that too frequently, you probably run into problems. Exactly. And if you'd leverage it, never, you maybe leave something on the table.

And I don't know if you've read, uh, Killian Jane had that writeup about, about everything along the lines of just like metabolic processes with these high active individuals. [00:16:00] Exactly. And if there's like, like a metabolic ceiling, so to speak, in terms of like energy, like is there a cap on how much energy we can burn?

And just a fascinating writeup. The new, yeah, some of the new stuff about the metabolic ceiling and energy expenditure is really fascinating and it comes from a lot of the work from Herman Pot's Lab. Mm-hmm. And Eric Drexler who's doing great stuff. And then you could talk, there's other individuals like Javi Gonzalez, Dr.

Javi Gonzalez, who's doing great stuff on this too. And the theory is, it's like, it's so, actually, actually a set point about the amount of energy we can burn in a day. And like the caloric expenditure, our body's gonna let us, and also like H VH or other research, I just wanna give credit where like historically they think over a long period of time, like you can only, and Borin here in just this study, sorry, do like 2.5 times your metabolic rate of your resty metabolic rate.

Like holding that daily caloric expenditure for extremely long periods of time. Just 'cause like the body has some kind of defenses [00:17:00] to where it's not gonna let you burn more to that. And there may be some individuals who can go closer to 2.9 or three and that's like killing you. Should bloom and be felt for long periods of time.

And in the short term you may be able to do whatever like four to five times your daily. But in the long term it does seem like people do tend to go to that 2.5 times resty metabolic weight for some kind of defense system. And there's some variability. And the variability may be like people who kill in like Christian Blumenfeld could absorb more calories or intake more calories and their digest is just a good absorb and that calorie intake allows them to output more.

But it is a very interesting topic. Yeah, and I mean one of my curiosities within that whole timeframe is something of the nature where like, like anything in endurance, a long timeline gives you an advantage Exactly when, when we look at just like aerobic development of how long of a process that can actually be to optimize, I think there may be something there with like your ability to train up your [00:18:00] caloric expenditure tar like ceiling with respect to how you're engaging with fuel.

Over those years of development too, where if you're someone who is chronically under fed during the activity sessions you're doing, and then certainly just in general too, I bet you end up limiting that versus say somebody like Christian Blumenthal's probably the best example of this 'cause he seems like a guy who's feeling all the time.

It's like his body may be set up in a way where it's engaging with an incoming energy source so frequently that it's so fascinating. Pushes that ceiling up. Yeah. This is where you get into things like the microbiome and stuff and it's like you look at people who historically, like were deprived of food and like how that changes the rest of the metabolic rate.

Maybe short term, long term we don't really know or vice versa. So it's like if you have the ability to absorb a lot of the food or not absorb a lot of the food you're ingested, because there probably is some individual variability where it's like every calorie you eat, you know, to actually absorb and use for like energy or rebuilding.

Some of it just is like waste, like that's like the thermic effect of food and [00:19:00] stuff. So it's like. If there's some individual variability, if someone's really great at essentially absorbing all the calories they get from food, that's more calorie intake, could they potentially trade more? That's like a very interesting thing to think about.

I've had some conversations with people and like maybe Christian Blu could just absorb, uh, every single ounce of calorie or a ton of calories from the food he intakes, which lets him train more. I guess that's something I'm curious about when you've gone to higher carbohydrate fueling, because something I've thought about too, like do you feel like you recover better?

Because if you recover better with the higher carbohydrate fueling in session, maybe it leads to better glycogen punishment post. If it's still sitting there like, and allows you to accumulate more high quality training volume, that could potentially be an advantage too. Have you noticed any difference recovery wise?

Yeah, it's, it's an interesting point because I would say if, if I look at it through like a little bit of a shorter term lens of like the last four or five years, there was a pretty noticeable improvement there where I hit like my biggest training block since my wife and I moved to Austin four years ago.

And it was like I was [00:20:00] hitting, the way I look at peak training is I kind of have this range where it's like, I wanna land in this range, but I'm gonna listen to my body as to where it is. So like. At best, I'm sometimes at the top end of that range, and then maybe at worse I'm near the bottom and more often that somewhere in the middle.

I was hitting the top ends of that to the degree where it was like, I felt like I could maybe go more if I had to, but I also knew that I was getting on thin ice with, I mean, I was already at like 150 mile per week training, so I was like, I'm, I'm probably on thin ice. I don't really wanna necessarily tempt it beyond that for this particular training cycle.

And so that stood out. But I would say if I map that on to just the history of training in total from when I started ultra running to today, I wouldn't say it exceeded some of my bigger training blocks of, uh, it in terms of volume and, and relative training load definitely matched the biggest ones I had done though, so.

And how did you feel? Like perceptually? Yeah. Did you feel any different? I felt different for sure. It was [00:21:00] just kind of interesting in like the ways I felt different where I felt like. If I were to do something a little bit higher on the aerobic intensity spectrum, it was a lot easier to generate that sort of performance even within fatigue.

Whereas if I were fatigued enough, it would've been much more of a challenge to try to do that type of a session. Or if I did, it would come in at a lower quality. I don't know that it necessarily changed a ton about how I felt with respect to doing kind of the real specific stuff to a hundred mile running.

Like yeah, a three hour long run on the back end of another three hour long run. Um, that I would say, I say, I would say it was on par with the best I've ever felt doing that, but maybe not in excess of that. Interesting. Yeah, I think so that is interesting with the higher carbohydrate fueling is number one there one paper like that from a OV or to, I don't know if you saw it in mounted money and that went to 120 grams per hour and they saw improved recovery the next day, um, and like lower RPE.

So that is one interest. You think it's like, oh, well maybe higher car fueling [00:22:00] if it is not even, you'll get to use all the carbohydrates during that session. Because you're just not absorbing all of them. If they're sitting there, then they're available for you post-session. Maybe that improves your recovery or the next day muscle damage.

'cause there's some relationship between muscle damage and glycogen and levels and all that and the way the body interacts. So that is an interesting thing. If it helps you recover faster, even though the carbs may not be used in that session, they help you recover post session. If it's higher carb fueling and obviously the psychological element of like glucose in the body is interesting too, since that is your brain's fuel source.

And the other thing is the durability where like some of the things we do see, especially in marathoners, it may not be as relevant for longer duration. Ultras is like durability is complex. So the ability to maintain your output as the race goes on. Mm-hmm. It's obviously a hot topic like the decay thresholds, running economy and VOG max.

But there does seem to be something like the ability to maintain high carbohydrate oxidation and prevent that crossover to where fat becomes the predominant fuel source for [00:23:00] like a marathon does seem to correlate with some element of durability. You're gonna maintain your running economy and form later in a race if you can maintain higher carbohydrate oxidation versus, um, switch it over to fat as your main fuel source and it makes sense.

It's carbohydrate typically. Mm-hmm. Higher intensity use is a more efficient fuel source. Yeah. And another interesting thing that kind of goes along this line and a little bit back to your question prior to with like the fasted long running versus the fed and stuff like that is one spot that I do notice a pretty clear difference is in those second training sessions of the day where it, it's almost to the point where I had to be a little careful because like it was almost easy to over overdo the intent of that session.

Yeah. Whereas like there would've been like a much a, a much clearer like roadblock just in terms of desire when I was doing a big morning session and then a smaller afternoon session when I was low carb with high carb. It felt like if I had wanted to, I could have made [00:24:00] some, some bad decisions with my training.

Um, definitely. I understand for sure. Or, or I, or the other way to look at that is like you stress test things up enough to the degree where now all of a sudden you're trying to pull that lever and do something like a double threshold session or something like that. Now all of a sudden I have a better opportunity to maybe thread that needle than I would uh, yeah.

Previously. It is interesting too, and like how you bounce like the mechanical risk metabolic load, like you don't want to use too much mechanically. Mm-hmm. Um, from that standpoint it is one way. I always like to look at it as well. So that's all. Yeah. One point I do wanna just you up earlier is, um. It's a question I'm getting a lot of and I'm definitely not an expert in this area, but I feel like I know enough to be dangerous.

And there are some experts who I'm talking to, which is, um, do we need to worry about high carbohydrate fueling, if it has diminishing, um, or negative effects on our health as neuro athletes is probably the right way to word it. And a lot of it comes back to this idea that it's gonna lead to things like pre-diabetes or dysregulation like blood glucose and things that are signs of [00:25:00] diabetes.

Um, and I think the one thing I will say, based on my understanding, just to clear it up, again, not an expert in this area, but from talking to experts is it's about the energy intake versus energy output. And that balance with a lot of these metabolic diseases, and we can think of it kind of like a sync where like if you're a high volume adult athlete, you have a high level of energy output and when you have high levels of energy output, then you have high carbohydrate demands typically, and you're gonna use a lot of those carbohydrates.

We get into danger from a pre-diabetic standpoint. When you have high levels of energy intake but not energy output. So intake is much higher than output. And that's when you start to accumulate fat mass. And when you accumulate fat, actually fat leads to potential like inflammatory properties and things, uh, especially around the visceral fat.

So like the adipose fat, which is like that dangerous fat. And that's what typically leads to the inflammatory properties that cause dysregulation of blood glucose and that dysregulation of insulin risk, glucose response, which typically is like the signs of underlying [00:26:00] metabolic syndrome. But what we see in high level endurance athletes who have high levels of energy output and their energy intake is matched via calories and carbohydrates to their output that they typically are extremely lean with the low levels of adipose tissue and don't have those prediabetes.

And those may be rare cases here or there, but I don't think it seems to have negative effects on health. The high carbohydrate intake is like you have high carbohydrate output. Yeah. My, my question with that, that sort of concern is always. You just made a massive, like a professional athlete is typically gonna make a massive lifestyle change upon retirement.

Exactly. Where like, like think of someone like, I don't know, like Lance Armstrong or because that guy was doing insane, or, or any tour cyclist is doing such a massive amount of training to the degree where they're doing training sessions that are not fun. It's purely in the mind of performance, probably detrimental to their long-term health.

They're not going to do that when they retire. Because I would like it exactly. So then it's like if [00:27:00] I, I, I wonder about some of those like dia to the degree that it's a concern in the first place. I haven't seen, I mean maybe it's there. Maybe there's data that shows like Tour de France athletes have a higher likelihood of developing type two diabetes post-career than the average person does.

I haven't seen anything that suggests that. I haven't seen it either and definitely do not like pre-diabetes during their career. Um, is what I would say as well. Um, again, from my understanding of type two diabetes, the. Mechanism is actually more related to adipose tissue accumulation and unwanted areas leading to this inflammatory response.

And most, and those athletes I work with are actually extremely lean and have, um, very healthy metabolic. Um, the, one of the key determinants of type two or key signs of type two diabetes is the inability to like, obviously handle like glucose and insulin, just like that mismatch are, they're actually not insulin sensitive, whereas the athletes I work with are extremely sensitive to insulin.

Like once they intake carbohydrates, they actually have a very healthy insulin response. So again mm-hmm. Just my 2 cents regarding if you [00:28:00] have to worry about carbohydrate and intake health for a dose athletes in particular, who the energy matches the output. Yeah. Yeah. So like, my guess is similar to yours, where the biggest risk factor is probably if you get someone who's like a Tour de France athlete.

Yeah. Or like marathon runners. You just have someone with a relatively low salary. Just mass in general compared to, certainly compared to their energy intake. So if you take away that output, that's not exactly kind of, that's, that's one. It's dangerous. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah. So they do, they do have some risks, some risks with that kind of off ramping of their professional career that they probably wanna be concerned with, with the way they engage with food in general.

And my guess is a lot of those type two diabetic situations are because they didn't engage with that in a way that was, was, uh, adequate. And, and that's gonna be a slow process too because it's like if you're a hundred and twenty five, a hundred thirty pound endurance, professional endurance athletes and then you retire and you want a bigger metabolic sink for carbohydrate, the really only [00:29:00] way to do that outside of continuing exercise is adding more muscle mass, which is gonna take a while to do.

Exactly. And I actually think on the metabolic side, or like that do side, is actually a better metabolic sink, like muscle mass matters. I actually think high level symbol dose activity is a much larger metabolic sink, if I'm being honest. Yeah. Yeah. 'cause we, we have to get into, we have to get into the range of pretty big extremes.

Yeah. Within muscle sinks versus just going out for an extra run or something like that. Totally agree and clear it. I'm actually super curious now that I'm on here, because I think something that's really interesting about ultra endurances running is actually like mechanical muscle damage being a huge factor for it.

What is your, like strength, what does your strength training look like now? Like anything you do more neuromuscular training wise, um, over the years, has that evolved? What does that look like? Are you trying anything new? Like, I'm biased towards should trading based on my background, like blood flow is, should trading, have you tried anything like that?

Yeah. The way I've done it more recently would [00:30:00] be like, I kind of have a phase, especially during the off season where I'm just focusing on kind of like heavier compound lifts as the primary strength and just making sure everything is kind of like. Dialed in there and consistent there.

And then as I kind of get into the training, the more structured training of interval sessions and building up my long run, I start to kind of transition more towards like single leg movements with less, less like heavy weight type compound movements. And then even more like trick style, like strength work as I'm getting closer to competition.

And then I sort of rinse and repeat that rotation throughout, you know, the off season into the season, race season and then back into off season and that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't tried any, I haven't really gotten into the blood restriction stuff. Uh, I've looked into it a little bit, but is there a compelling use case that you're finding for that?

Oh, I, with respect to endurance, have a big fan. Yeah. So when I worked in the NFL, we used blood flow restriction training all the time. Mm-hmm. And I think there's a few differences, the, I'll walk through the different use cases. I use it number one. Um, so [00:31:00] such an opposite blood flow restriction training is to put a cuff on either the top of your arm or the leg and to certain pressure to include blood flow.

And so that means just, it pretty much stops blood from returning to the heart. You still get a little blood into the muscle. So you get this big blood pooling effect either at the muscles below the leg or the muscle below that arm, wherever you're wearing the cuff, and it creates this huge metabolic stress, right?

And so the body responds to stress. And so that blood pooling, that creates a metabolic stress that leads to few different adaptations. Number one is you get very similar adaptations to hypertrophy and strength as you would from heavier lifting to failure, very similar hypertrophy gains, so gains in muscle size.

And that can be beneficial because as such as you lift 20 to 30% of the load, you typically would lift for things like hypertrophy or heavier weights, for example, where you're going after mechanical tension. And so that's beneficial because you can essentially get very similar hypertrophy gains for a lot less weight.

So that leads to less mechanical damage. So if its loading's contraindicated, where in rehab? [00:32:00] I'm hurt or I just don't want high levels of muscle damage. You can essentially get very similar gains in muscle size, which may be beneficial post-surgery or when you are hurt as a runner. And then muscle strength's, like 90 to 95% of what you would get from heavier loads.

90% may be, again, depending on the literature. It's a little mixed, but again, very similar. If I'm hurt or I'm coming off of surgery or I just can't load heavy, but what those maximum shrunk gates for a performance or rehab, it could get me that with like 20 or 30% of the load where heavy lifting may be contraindicated.

So then that also gets into the fact if I'm a runner who's doing extremely high volumes and I have a lot of mechanical damage and fatigue in the legs, but I wanna get some type of neuromuscular stimulus, but I can't do it right now because I'm just so fatigued. Mm-hmm. We see from literature that leads to much less muscle damage 'cause you're using significantly less loads.

So it's less mechanical fatigue on top of your already muscle damaged legs, you could say for lack of better term. And so you could still potentially get some of the strength and hypertrophy adaptation so that could potentially improve. Right. Economy and other um. Benefits [00:33:00] for running whatever durability with uh, low loads.

So those are the very proven use cases. And then those novel use cases of the literature, because that metabolic stress is such to create a metabolic environment that's very hard to mimic at the peripheral level that you would get from something extremely intense like interval to failure. So obviously VO O2 max is if you components one of them is the central component, like the heart's ability to deliver blood and oxygen to the muscle.

And then peripherally can your muscle actually uptake and utilize that oxygen via like capillaries delivering it to the muscle and the mitochondria at the muscle level. And we see that B FFR very affects that peripheral side. Does it make sense? 'cause you're creating a ton of metabolic stress in the muscle. And so some of the novel studies, they've had people like trained with one leg with blood flow restriction training and one without.

And the blood flow restriction training like time to exhaust was like 200% more in a leg extension task. Because essentially what happened is the metabolic adjustment, blood flow restriction training created all this like blood flow response that led to more capillaries at the muscle level and that improved VO two max.

So that's like I deliver more blood, oxygenated blood to the muscles. That metabolic stress and that [00:34:00] includes VO two max and the metabolic local metabolic stress, the local VO two max at the muscle level. And that's important too because if you have more capillaries, you could devote more blood and oxygen.

That's an endurance adaptation, which you wouldn't get often, maybe hard from typical. And then there's some potential recovery benefits 'cause you're getting more blood, fresh blood flow in and we're moving old blood as well. I could talk about that more. It's called profusion fusion, but I'm a huge fan of it because the return on investment is very high, potentially for low cost.

You're losing very little weight. So there's very little mechanical damage or mechanical load and you're potentially getting big gains in hypertrophy and strength and also potentially due adaptation for like very little fatigue cost. Mm-hmm. That's interesting. I actually do some, I can't remember the name of the brand, but they had sent me some like blood flow restriction cuffs a couple of years ago and I just haven't put them into any sort of practice yet.

But are there any movements that you would suggest to someone in my scenario of training for an endurance race? Yeah. When people typically use them for strutting the night phy, we do like a 30 15, 15, 15 protocol. So it's like 30 reps of light loads, 20, [00:35:00] 30% of your max for things like squats, lunges, whatever. But one of my favorite ways with runners is calf work.

'cause we know like the calf and foot and Achilles are such huge players, specifically a calf musculature for endurance running versus spreading where it's like 50% of the load or like propulsive force circuits are created below the knee. So like it's a good way you can use super light loads and get a very potent stimulus on calf musculature.

Without adding a ton of extra fatigue because that area is often relatively fatigued from high volume of training. So like calf raises, single leg, double leg, high volume, low reps, I mean high volume, low weight, so less mechanic fatigue. And your potential also gets some endurance adaptation to the calves too, which I think could be beneficial.

Mm-hmm. So you're putting that cuff then like above the calf muscle in that situation, you're still putting it above the upper leg because the calf muscle still sits well below where you would put it on the upper leg. It's still seeing reduced blood flow and chopping and pulling of blood at the muscle level.

It's like you're working it in the movement. So it still has a lot of potential benefits. [00:36:00] Okay. Interesting. All right, well I've got gonna give that a try. Yeah, man. And for double days, the profusion fusion stuff is great. So essentially like you sit on the couch for five minutes with it on, strap it on at the right pressure, you sit there for five minutes, so you chop the blood, you release it, and then it sends all that old blood to the heart and it pumps out fresh blood with fresh nutrients.

We see some novel literature that it may improve recovery if you do a few rounds of that, like five rounds of five minutes on, four minutes off, and because you get that fresh blood flow being rushed in the old blood flow out, it's acting like a sponge and that potentially can improve recovery during double days.

A lot of athletes I work with who train twice a day have been finding really good benefits after the first session. What is, is that what, like some of those, like in the major brands like NormaTec or Mueller making the recovery boots air, it's different that air compress it's different than that.

Yeah. The air compressor, blood flow restriction is different. So the air compress would actually restrict the blood flow. This is different. I actually think the literature around this is much stronger than that if I'm [00:37:00] being completely honest. Interest. Cool. No, that'll be fun to play around with. So I've got one more.

Yeah, I'll you, I'll if you, you have a separate, I can send you a set too. Okay, cool. Yeah. Lemme I, I'll check to see what I, I mean I think they got sent to me a couple years ago, so maybe there's a better one out there at this point, but Awesome. That'll be fun to play around with it. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, anything that will shake the blood, I mean any of the systems now are pretty good, honestly.

Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, so I'm trying to think about what we were talking about before that something carbohydrate based or lack of carbohydrate. Yeah. Carbs being healthy or not healthy before we went on the trading BFR tangent. Yeah. You know, the one thing I do find interesting is I remember when, specifically in ultra running and then marathon running too, when we started seeing this kind of like big wave of like carbohydrate kind of swing in into the conversation was my first thought was, alright, how is this going to get misapplied and create a backlash?

Because my thought was like, [00:38:00] alright, if we see, you know, someone like myself or someone like a professional marathoner or anyone training aggressively at the professional level in an ultra marathon targeting these really high, maybe 120 grams of carbohydrate per hour side of things. How does that translate to the average person engaging with that content?

Yeah. And my first thought was like, okay, there's gonna be people that just plug and play thinking like, well, if it worked for them, it'll work for me. And then we're gonna see like in five, 10 years this like pendulum swing back and all of a sudden, like low carb will have another, uh, another like, uh, a bump in popularity for a while as people like blow up their digestive systems on races and decide, okay, that's, yeah, I'm not just gonna titrate down.

I'm gonna go the opposite direction entirely. Like do you have any thoughts about that? There's two areas where I see a BMS applied if you hit the nail of the head. Like everyone sees what the lead runners are doing. I think that applies to them. And for the majority of individuals it does apply. And so the two things I see where it doesn't apply is.

Now all of a sudden everyone wants to take more than 90 grams of car projects per hour. Especially like [00:39:00] any marathon runner would go to 120 grams of car projects per hour. But I actually think when you review a lot of the literature, like I still think 60 to 90 grams per car per hour for some individuals may even lower like 50, 90 grams.

It's still the sweet spot for the majority of runners who are running marathons like events. Shorter than that, you definitely don't need that much. And I'll be completely honest with you, I'm not gonna sell you a gel when you don't get a gel. Mm-hmm. Like half marathons. I typically say 30 to 60 grams per hour marathon, 60 to 90 for the majority.

For the individuals who are seeing benefits going above 90 grams would be closer to that 120 grams. I think it's the elite athletes who have extremely high levels of metabolic turnover. So like an elite athlete like you are an elite marathon runner, like one Joe collector took whatever, 170 grams. That New York marathon Joe has an extremely high rate of a TP turnover in production than most individuals and a high rate of metabolic turnover.

So he has a higher level of carbohydrate demands 'cause he produces more energy per hour. So it's kind of like a pull, push, pull system. If you have a higher [00:40:00] demand for carbohydrates because you have the ability to produce so much energy, 'cause you're an elite runner, then those are the individuals who probably need higher level carbohydrates above 90 grams per hour.

I'm still not convinced based on the code literature that the majority of individuals will see benefits from that. So I think that's one way people are gonna go wrong. Like most people still 60, 90 grams per hour, it's gonna be the sweet spot. More than that, their stomach and body just won't be able to handle it because it's gonna be too much.

Mm-hmm. I would say it is number one. And we see a huge actual area of personalization for this and we're like, it actually is personalized, your ability to tolerate and absorb carbohydrates. So that's where we see oxygen, sorry, carbohydrate, carbohydrate, oxidation tested, become very popular. Well they'll actually like to stay with sport isotopes, car 13 isotopes and trace the carbohydrate throughout your body and if the drink makes and see how much of the carbs you're actually using and absorbing how, which I think is really cool and interesting.

So I think that's number one. And the second mistake too is I still think energy balance is super important. So. Again, like the elite athletes like you who have extremely high volumes of trading or other elites [00:41:00] like you eat an extremely large amount of calories or energies and car per day because your training demands it.

But at the end of the day, that's your energy balance, like your energy. Mm-hmm. In versus energy out. I see a lot of it differently now too. Who's energy or the training demand should start nearly as high, which is fine, like not being able to meet those energy demands, but you should match your intake to those demands.

Like if you are using what elites are doing as an excuse to just pound calories and calories and calories and you're actually in an energy surplus, like I'm a huge fan of fuel and anyone who knows me knows that. I think those times where you should slightly overfull, I'd much rather have you slightly overfull than under fuel, depending on your situation.

Obviously context matters, but I don't think the goal is to be in a constant energy surplus. I think the goal is to be in energy balance if you're at a healthy body composition. So if you're not an elite athlete, you don't really need to fuel like one either. If you're just running whatever, 50, 60 miles a week.

Sure. Not just, but you know what I mean? Those are the two big areas where you might be going overboard with calories or carbohydrates. Yeah. [00:42:00] It is one of those things when any, anytime you see what someone is doing, the next question almost has to be like, well, what lifestyle are you applying exactly?

And how does that compare to mine? Exactly. The context is everything. Yeah. It is interesting now too, because. I see almost like the divide occurring between the high, the very high carb and the low carb groups with respect to the high carb groups are kinda looking at this as like we're seeing performance occur at these higher thresholds of carbohydrate intake that go above and beyond just the oxidation side of things.

Yeah. And they're kind of using competitive pressure maybe to understand that, where it's like, we don't have the answer to this exactly yet, but we see it happening at the top. Yeah. Of the most competitive sports. And then you have the really low carb folks saying, basically the starting point is 10 grams per hour and above and beyond that needs to be proven as effective.

Yeah. So then they're trying to minimize the whole. Yeah. So that whole argument from that group [00:43:00] with the 10 grams of carbohydrates power is like the sole goal of carbohydrates is to essentially maintain your blood glucose or your body's blood sugar levels. And as long as you do that, that's all that matters for performance.

And we. I just know that that potentially isn't true because there's potentially other benefits from higher carbohydrate intakes besides blood glucose. Um, from the standpoint of like it does lead to potentially higher car oxidation rates, even if you go beyond just maintaining blood glucose at the muscle level.

And then there's obviously just a whole string of benefits that are just super hard to measure. Um, so their whole theory is there's typically two sinks of like glucose, the blood glucose, which is like that small amount of the bloodstream. And then at the muscle level, muscle glycogen is another big storage site of glucose or carbohydrates and their argument is muscle glycogen doesn't matter and all that matters is maintaining blood glucose.

But we just have a lot of literature that shows that muscle glycogen is probably super important from that standpoint. I'm not gonna say, I still think, yeah, I think maintaining blood glucose is actually probably more important than endurance [00:44:00] performance. But I still think we can't say some of the claims they're saying where.

Muscle glycogens are irrelevant because a lot of the studies they've done, they don't actually directly measure muscle glycogen, even though they're saying it doesn't matter. So it's really hard to say muscle glycogen doesn't matter when you're not actually directly measuring it. And the second thing is we still just have a lot more literature that shows a dose response, positive dose response between carbohydrate ingestion and performance.

So like from 30 to 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour, for example, as you increase the carbohydrates in a lot of these other studies, you see improved performance and improved, like read economy. Obviously Dr. James Morgan and Jamie Pugh, Sammy, I'm gonna mess up Sammy's last name. She and they all had a great study from 30 to 1690 to 120 grams of carbohydrates per hour essentially showing a very positive dose response relationship between the more carbs the individuals elite runners took on that, the improvements they saw in running economy and performance.

So we definitely have a lot more evidence, I would say, towards as you increase car intake, those are positive dose response relationships and the 10 grams [00:45:00] of carbohydrates per hour that just maintains blood glucose. I don't know enough about, um, some of the claims they're making is what I would say based on my understanding of, um, the literature is what I'll say to that.

And I do think maintaining blood glucose is important and yeah, that's what I'll say about all that. But like you alluded to, there's probably a ton of other benefits to carbohydrates that are just really hard to measure that we don't know. Like maybe it's having some benefits on the liver as you run.

Maybe like it does maintain higher level of blood, of liver glycogen. So that is something we definitely do know that like ingesting carbohydrates during a run or during a L chain session helps preserve your liver glycogen, which is another source of, um, stored carbohydrate. And that's supported because during the longer duration advance towards the end, like your liver will release if it's short glycogen into the bloodstream to maintain your blood glucose levels, xanax extracts your muscles, but also for your brain.

So that's another potential benefit. But also maybe there are benefits from high carbohydrate intake that runs and like brain benefits, like neuro neurologicals fuel source. But [00:46:00] yeah, a lot of it is just super complex. Yeah. And it is, and I think it's one of those things where, the way I look at it is, especially when we get into this world where there's clear biases, right?

Like there's exactly, no, no question about that. So it's like, well, where can we look at examples where the biases favor us actually getting to the answer of this? And that's where it's like, alright, let's look at the most competitively pressurized sports in the world, that their bias is performance.

Because if they start making compromises towards performance, there's just gonna be someone close enough to them that is gonna take advantage of that and beat them. So when we look at the Tour de France and professional marathoning, the more direct we can get to the actual lifestyle and demands that those sports are requiring, the closer we can get to answering the question within those contexts.

And that seems to just drift. Further and further into the very high carbohydrate, I think this is a really key point where if you look at elite traded [00:47:00] environments, like that's where we're gonna go after the 1%. And if something works and you see a massive adoption, that means there's probably a signal versus noise there.

And so if you look across elite cycling, elite triathlete and elite running distance running like Edward's moving to a higher carbohydrate intake. So that clearly is a signal that there's something there. Mm-hmm. Like no one is going closer than 10 grams. Edward's moving in the opposite direction. Higher carbs.

Yeah. And I mean, there's two things where I see people maybe getting tripped up with all that. And one is like, they'll. They'll get into an argument online, and then it just becomes kind of like, how do I prove what I'm saying versus trying to understand what's actually going on. And some of that'll be like, well, let's compare, let's pick an example of someone who did really well with low carb.

So like, I've been, I've gotten used to it a lot of times over the years where, oh, right, he, he broke this world record using low carb. And it's like, yeah, but you're comparing, if you compare me to a professional marathoner, for one, you're comparing a sport that has had a lot less [00:48:00] competitive pressure mm-hmm.

On applied onto it. So right away we have an apples and oranges comparison there. And then on top of that, we have different demands between even, and I, I tried to be open about this even when I was low carb, which is like, 'cause people would ask me like, well. What would you do in the marathon? I was like, well, I'd probably have to change my fueling strategy exactly if I wanted to reach my own individual peak performance potential because the demands of me trying to optimize for the marathon is gonna be optimizing at lactate threshold.

Whereas another, the demands for me to optimize for a hundred miles is closer to the aerobic threshold. So those are like far enough, apart from an energy demand standpoint where doors are opened and closed between the two. But yeah, people want to kind of like make it a one size fits all argument versus a contextual one oftentimes.

And then I think we run into problems there, and I think something that we had to look at across elite sport from my time at Professor Achieve sports that I always came back to is like, you could be successful despite certain behavior, right? Like mm-hmm. Performance is super complex and so much goes into it.

And a lot of these things we're talking about with [00:49:00] like the in race fueling other strategies are like maybe the last five to 10%. Like 90% of it is just, are you maintaining a high consistent training volume over time and are you genetically super gifted? And that's gonna explain a large proportion of the performance and you could be successful despite your carbohydrate intake.

Mm-hmm Like a long time ago people were running super fast marathons and not really taking gels. So they're still successful despite what they are doing nutritionally. Yeah. Well and that's where the highest amount of pressure really matters. Exactly. 'cause now you have a big enough group of these genetic freaks where that's sort of accounted for to a large degree.

And now Exactly. It makes a big difference if they're not fueling the way they should. Exactly. So we're at the point as support evolves. It's a really excellent point. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean that's the interesting thing about ultra marathoning to me too, is like we're, we're on this kind of continued growth phase right now where it, like if you go back five, six years, you would not see as much congruency between.

The fueling amongst the top in the [00:50:00] sports to the degree where now you look at like Western states, which has been a little bit easier to tease out what the top performers have been doing because a lot of the brands and the athletes are, are reporting those, those data points. Yeah, and it's getting to the point now where like you're just not finding men in the top 10, not getting at least close to a hundred grams per hour and like you lu Joe, I think that lack of variability, everybody says something.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You start getting tighter, tighter variances as the, as we get closer to having the answer to the question. So it's interesting stuff. Exactly. Yeah. Like you're seeing across, you see a lot of commonalities probably in the trading methodologies as well too. Like the same principles apply to training.

Like you can argue over double threshold, single threshold method. It's the same argument. I get people with training. It's like, well, what are these people actually doing when you look at their training? Like maybe the Xs and Os look slightly differently, but if you look at the commonalities, it's like they're all just running a ton.

I need a ton of race, specific intensity, having easy days, hard days so they can maintain high training, quality, protect their hard days, and [00:51:00] probably something to be said about that being the most important factor rather than if you ran a 600 versus 800 meter at the track, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the other, the other flaw, or potential flaw I should say, within kind of like the more strict ketogenic type stuff when it comes to this performance is a lot of the research that we have that points towards some sort of like performance neutralizing thing is, I don't think they're stressing those participants nearly enough for us to really answer that question.

So I agree. Yeah. So when I think of it this way it is like, I remember way back when I first was like, I was a, I was a couple years into low carb, and one of the things that I was playing around with in those early years was like, what? 'cause low carb is a fairly large umbrella, relatively speaking, you could go strategic.

Yeah. Like what does that actually mean? Yeah. Right. So it was like I was trying to find where the variety within that was gonna be good for [00:52:00] what I was trying to do. And one of the things I learned early on was that strict ketogenic was not the answer for performance, even within the context of running at or below aerobic threshold because the training demands required to optimize for that, still included.

Short intervals, long intervals targeting VO two max, targeting lactate threshold and things like that. They were just unspecific important variables. So I would do 'em earlier in the season versus later in the season. Like I would if I was training for like a five or a half marathon or something like that.

I totally agree. I think the most, yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, so then it got to the point where it's like, well, to be competitive, you need to train like an elite athlete, which means not 50 mile per week training protocols with one speed session. It was like a hundred plus mile training weeks with maybe two quality training interval sessions and a long run with some quality in it.

And I think when you, like I could have done any one of those sessions on a strict ketogenic diet and maintain quality, what I couldn't do is string together two or three weeks of them. Multiple. Yeah. So I think that's where the devil's in the details with [00:53:00] that is it's like, yeah, you can go and do a test on people and have 'em run a six by 800 in a ketogenic state, or one time to failure test or something like that and maybe get the answer you're looking for.

But if you start putting them through an actual. Endurance training protocol where you're doing a couple interval sessions in a quality long run every week and you're trying to rinse and repeat that from multiple weeks in a row. I think that's where you see the fall off or would see the fall off in some of that stuff.

Yeah. I think this makes up an excellent point. I think number one is we also see a trend towards high volume and high quality training, right? Like people across these endured sports are like, how much volume can I accumulate at high training quality without completely destroying myself? So clearly I think any type of intervention, whether it's dietary or whatever, that's gonna potentially hurt your training.

Consistency and quality is not the right way to go because I do think consistent training, quality and volume over time is well supported. So if you're partaking in a diet there is also a type of intervention that prevents that. That would [00:54:00] be a big flag. And you brought up a good point. I think a lot of these studies, and this is actually an argument that if you're pro keto, you can make two that are short term and some of these interventions to understand what the actual effects are gonna be on longer term performance.

You just need a longer term study, which is super hard to do 'cause they just take time for some of these adaptations to happen. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I, you know, the thing I do kind of enjoy about some of it too is I think there's some and some questions answered. Unfortunately, I think it's the communication half the time that's the problem with these things where if we take even like the 10 gram side of things, to me, I thought that, I found that kind of interesting in the, at the, at the very beginning because it was like there are gonna be people who choose to engage with low carbohydrate ketogenic diets and wanna do endurance sports for reasons outside of performance.

And if that's the way they're finding value for one way or the other through their nutrition. You know, more, more power to them. But we do need to help them figure out how they are gonna go about [00:55:00] fueling their efforts. Because I think intuitively someone thinks, okay, I'm on a ketogenic diet or a low carbohydrate diet, what's the point of fueling at all?

Yeah. And I think what we learned from that study is even if you're on a strict ketogenic diet, small amounts of carbohydrate are going to improve your performance. So now we have at least some data on that. That's what they showed. And I think this brings up an excellent point about how we communicate science.

Mm-hmm. And that study wasn't a bad study. It was super interesting, but I think then the authors used it to make claims on social media that, um, will be absolute. And I don't know if I actually address the nuance of that study. So if you look at the underlying mechanisms or how that study was done it is super interesting.

I agree. Like they definitely showed it potentially, um, maintains blood glucose, which is critical. It was a very small sample size of a study. I think the test was done at like 60-70% of V two max, which often you're not racing at. So it was at a lower intensity than what a lot of people race marathons at.

They didn't directly measure muscle glycogen and then like the way they did the time trial test at the end, was it actually a flex, um, [00:56:00] representative of how you would race? So they made all these claims about it showing that this is the best way to improve endurance performance, where number one, you actually probably didn't test that intensity that was relevant or test that was super relevant to how people actually race.

You actually didn't load up individuals on carbohydrates or maintain typical carbohydrate feeding patterns leading up to like the time trial test the day before and the morning of that people typically would, which could skew the results. And yet a super small sample size, you didn't actually measure muscle glycogen, so other claims you were making and the way you communicated those claims were not probably accurate.

So it just goes back to like how you actually communicate science as well. Yeah, I mean, my experience with it was the study comes out, the marketing around, it was an. Insanely exaggerated claims. Yeah. And then, and then once those, it's like 90 grams of carbs are dead. It's like, whatcha talking about? Right.

That's not what you showed at all. Yeah, exactly. And then it's like, so that gets everyone's attention, right? 'cause now all of a sudden we're like, okay, wow, I better look into this because right now I'm pounding 90 grams of carbohydrate. [00:57:00] Exactly. Or, or I haven't been. And I need to find evidence to prove that I'm doing it right.

So everyone's interested then. Right. And then we start digging into it and the people who know what they're talking about start asking the questions about Why are you making this insane claim? And then the communicators are, then they retreat back to something much more modest where it's like, oh well we're not saying elite athlete performance.

We're saying Yeah, exactly. So then it's like, okay, I'm gonna, now I'm gonna defend something way more defensible than the original claim that I insinuated at the onset of the marketing side of things. And then you get this sort of like, you get two sides arguing a different baseline. Of what was said. So it just kinda muddies the waters in an unnecessary manner.

And it's likely just trying to capture the current landscape of online engagement and stuff where it's like instead of trying to actually answer a question, we're trying to also grow the awareness of something. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I think it's what we recognize, like once [00:58:00] study like comes out and it causes us to ask questions that that's not a bad thing, but that we have to do more studies, follow up research, like other ways to corroborate it or prove that it's true.

And so you can't make these definitive claims off one study, but the way science works is like you have a study that. Maybe make you ask further questions and then you try to go to those questions. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I engaged with a lot of that commentary when it first came out too, and it was kind of comical to some degree where it would be like, I would see a post that would go up and it would literally say in the post like performance.

I'm like, okay, well you've set the standard there. That's the claim now, let's look at that. And then someone would jump in the comments and be like, oh, well it's not always about the performance, it's about the average person engaging with the sport. And then I would like to take this, the, the initial comment, like, this is what they claim we're talking about here.

So that's our Exactly. That's our Congress. If we want to talk about the average person, we can do that. But the claim was not, yeah, it's a different lens, but you have to make sure you talk [00:59:00] about it through the context you're claiming, which I think is important. Yeah. So you could waste all day online if you wanted to argue these things, but at the end of the day, I think you.

Honestly, a lot of people do. Yeah, they do. Yeah. It's interesting stuff one way or the other. But yeah. So what else? What else is new? Anything that you're interested in right now along the, Hmm. I think we had a lot of performance, honestly. Like the fueling and performance I find super interesting.

Optimizing for like double days. We talked about some of the supplements you've had like Brady and stuff on, so they're much better to talk to about the supplementation than I ever could be. Um, but yeah, like a lot of strength training interventions. Super interesting. Like durability from a neuromuscular standpoint, like is there a way we could potentially improve durability through things like strength training interventions or things that affect the neuromuscular system more?

I think we can do that with some of the gym stuff and BFR, but I do think stress trading and other potential modalities from that standpoint is super adjusting. But I think we covered a ton of the fueling stuff. I don't know, just I think I was, fueling wise you're interested in, but [01:00:00] I definitely think it's super adjusting, like viewing, fueling as a way to support high quality trading and from a recovery standpoint, like how could I use fueling to optimize that.

So maybe it's the end of a training session and I'm in an extremely high volume training block with multiple sessions at a day, and maybe I don't need that gel at the end to optimize performance of that session, for example. But that gel may help me replenish glycogen faster once I finish that session.

And then maybe as soon as the session finishes, like what's the optimal ratio of like different types of carbohydrates to replenish glycogen quickly as possible. Does that matter based on the time into the next session? So the way I like to view it, I think a lot of people view periodization as like a day-to-day thing, but I like to view periodization as how much longer to the next session and what are the demands of the next session.

And based on that, that's gonna determine my fueling and recovery modalities from a nutrition standpoint. Yeah, thinking, thinking about what's next is definitely an important piece to that puzzle versus just trying to get through what you're currently doing. That definitely opens up, I think, opportunities.

Yeah, like day to day, I'm a big fan of [01:01:00] fuel for the work required and fuel for the work required, rather than be like my daily calorie intake or macronutrients on a 24 hour clock. It's like, what is the day? Next session clock and viewing my macronutrient intake, uh, based on that. Mm-hmm. It is funny because like we, there's like this, that kind of underlying assumption kind of when it comes to energy intake and caloric needs that there's like this like reset every 24 hours.

Yeah. But it's like, no, that's not how, it's so funny. That's how everyone views it, but it's like, I think it's really interesting like people view energy deficits and energy surpluses. Like by the day it's like, oh, today 500 extra calories. Or it's like, what about like within a day? I think something that's really interesting is within day energy deficits, surpluses, like I just did a two hour long run and then I don't eat for five hours, but then I have a huge meal five hours later.

For a few hours of that day I was in an energy deficit. So within a day and then I was in a huge energy surplus. Mm-hmm. And does that make a difference? Like did that deficit cause harm for those five hours after the session hours recovery first, like the surplus later on? Would that make a difference?

What if I [01:02:00] just was in energy balance? Consistently throughout the day, rather than one part of the day being in a huge deficit than one day being in a huge surplus. And I think there's some interesting literature coming out about that deficit, short term deficit, like throughout the day, like leading to like different homeowner responses and stress responses versus it being consistent, which I think is interesting.

So like, I think for the majority of individuals, nutrient timing is that big of a deal. But I think for high volume endurance athletes trading multiple times a day, it does become much more relevant. Mm-hmm. Like these within day deficits. Yeah. And I, I even wonder about like the, I mean, it's a relatively small amount compared to the high workloads of an endurance athlete, but just the non-exercise energy outside of the equation.

When we have these kinds of weird patterns of eating that potentially kind of put the body in this state of scarcity in maybe like an artificial or, or in a, in a more of an acute way versus a, a macro way. I think there is some interesting literature, like people will actually down regulate their [01:03:00] non-exercise expenditure.

We see. Energy deficits. 'cause like the body's low on fuel, like the fidget less move less, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which, you know, for someone like you or me in a high training block, three, 400 calories a day of a downregulation might not be something that registers on the scale in any meaningful way maybe, but maybe a good thing actually, right?

Yeah. But for the average person who's maybe on like a 2000 calorie per day diet or something like that, that could be a meaningful change in the way that they're engaging with their food and their a hundred percent performance and stuff. So, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I do, I do wonder about that. And I mean, that gets into the world of sometimes I think too with like, like all the, the fasting stuff and how exactly how that plays out.

That's one thing I do slightly differently. Like I don't track, like I track my daily macronutrients, but I track it from session to session rather than being on a 24 hour daily clock and try to have as little within day energy deficits as possible. So obviously if I have a big chain session, I'll eat closer to that and [01:04:00] then throughout the day I eat less.

So I'm mm-hmm. Try to maintain very little within day energy deficits. And I think from an energy standpoint, how I feel throughout the day, I've noticed a big difference, um, psychologically and also just like levels of mental clarity and mental energy. And I think there is something from some of the novel literature coming about, like within day energy deficits, if you have huge hours of within day energy deficits and having some type of increased stress response in hormonal response, which I think is interesting.

Mm-hmm. So if we could mitigate that, you would theoretically argue it can improve recovery too. So I do think viewing nutrition through the lens of how can I manipulate as many nutritional variables as possible to improve my recovery? And that's gonna let me train more at higher volume training.

Which would lead to better performance, I think is something I find very fascinating. And you could do that across other modalities besides nutrition too, to optimize your recovery. But I think Nutrition's a really addressing one where it's like you view nutrition as a way to support training and recovery as much as possible.

It's a recovery modality. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I know it's funny to think at the individual level too. 'cause I think if I just mindlessly [01:05:00] go about my day, my intuition is typically I end up just automatically back loading a bunch of calories where Me too. When I'm way less hungry during the day, and then at night, all of a sudden I feel like I could probably eat the equivalent of three full meals.

Yeah. I just look at the clock, it's like, oh, time for a huge dinner. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So I find myself trying to actively resist that, that intuition and, and. Push more of my energy intake earlier in the day for all those reasons that you were mentioning. Exactly. And then I, I do find when I'm consistent with that, I get to the end of the day and it's like, I'm hungry for dinner and I still probably need a decent amount of calories, but you're not like Raven ish.

Right? Yeah, I've noticed that too, too. Yeah. It's like, and I think there is Ty potential to be said from like the li glycogen response. Like obviously there's just like so many complex, um, interactions and signals going on in the body, but like if I could really like have a same session where I'm depleting huge amounts of liver, glycogen, glycogen in general, and I don't do a good job of replenishing that.

Is that a potential signal [01:06:00] or like I don't fuel the session well, so like obviously if you fuel session it protects liver glycogen or maybe I don't feel well and then like it's a three hour run and like my liver glycogen shot and it's like, does that destroy hug signals or something later in the day?

Mm-hmm. That wasn't a very scientific way to go about it, but it is something I think about that leads to rapid over feeding later in the day. Yeah. And, and I wonder how that feeds into the sleep quality side of things too, which is exactly huge recovery levers. Exactly. So they all interact with interesting stuff.

Well, awesome man. Yeah. Jonah, we'll have to have you back on. I'm sure we'll come up with more topics to chat about. I want to do some, some, uh, I'm very curious about your strength training, so I'll have to do some of that stuff. Yeah, yeah, that'd be fun. Maybe we can do a bigger podcast with that as a kind of primary topic and dive into that.

I'd love that, man. A little bit more, more deep. Awesome. I really appreciate you having me. Like I said, I'm a huge fan, a huge fan of everything you do here. Yeah, absolutely. And before I let you go, I mean, I, I love your Instagram page and there's a ton of interesting stuff on there. I know you're active on Substack and [01:07:00] places like that too, so if you wanna let the listeners know Yeah.

Where they can find you. I'll, I'll send you all my links just so they have it for the show description. But the main thing is I'm, um, producer probation. I have my newsletter on beehive marathon science, and I'll send you the link. And essentially, um, it's just. Free newsletter that translates the latest literature on papers into actionable insights for marathon runners, hybrid athletes, A lot about lifting, nutrition, running, but maybe some of the other stuff that's not always running specific but still matters a ton.

And then I have my Instagram where I share shortform videos, um, across TikTok, Twitter, all of those two, I'll send you all the links. And then launching the YouTube series that will be more in depth, uh, lager, like 20 minute episodes where I'm actually visiting labs throughout the world and some of the biggest names to like sports sites research, doing testing on myself.

And similar to the Instagram traits, say that taxable insights for runners and other hybrid athletes maybe, but a little more laggard form where we actually interview the researchers but create practice insights. And everyone who signs up for the newsletter itself gets a ton of free trading plans.

So [01:08:00] just to convict you and I'll send you all those links. Awesome. Well we appreciate it, Jonah. It's been a great chat and I'm excited to get this one up. Yeah, appreciate it.