Science of Ultra - Muscles, Tendons, Durability, Speed, Nutrition, Recovery, Interviews ...

Tim Sullivan

Last week I posted this podcast series on the Dashboard.  A lot of people have really liked these podcasts. 
These podcasts try to target the "science" of endurance racing. While it is targeted at "ultra" running, this series is good for anyone that wants to learn how to become faster and more durable.

This podcast has some very interesting material on tendons, muscles, and how to help strengthen your tendons so that you don't break down.  There are some VERY simple things you can do to help strengthen or get back to work after an injury.

https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/58

This study paper discusses the use of "gelatin" as a supplement to help build/repair tendons
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55b7ffebe4b0568a75e3316b/t/59c2d9239f7456491473b72f/1505941811821/Shaw2016+(Gelatin).pdf

This paper discusses minimizing injury to tendons/ligaments and returning after injury
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55b7ffebe4b0568a75e3316b/t/59c2d959d2b8571382750f1a/1505941861147/Baar+2017+(Eng+Ligament).pdf

Please post anything you find helpful from any of the podcasts, or other sources, in here.  There's lots of great material.  Thanks again @Gabe Peterson for introducing me to these podcasts
 

Gabe Peterson

@Tim Sullivan thanks for starting this thread!  The Science of Ultra podacasts are unique because they really focus on actual science directly from researchers.  Most podcasts focus on the experience and community ultra distance events.  Or worse, they're packed with pseudo-science like Ben Greenfield's podcasts.

This podcast in particular was a gem on how to be a more durable athlete.  I listened to it on my commute, so I didn't take notes.  The two key take aways I remember are:

1. Athletes should do strength training 2-3 times per week, especially if they have a history of injury.  The lifting should involve heavy weight.  Not a lot of reps are needed.  My n=1 is that strength training has kept me injury free, except for stepping in a hole last year at Leadville, which no amount of strength training would have prevented.
2. Six minute jump rope sessions several times per week will help prevent tendon injuries.   This was the part I think where they had the subjects take gelatin and 50mg of vitamin C in advance.  Tendons have poor blood supplies and instead act like sponges.  Taking the gelatin and vitamin C gets the nutrients to the tendons.  I hate gelatin, so I don't know if I can do that part, but I'm thinking of adding some jump rope sessions to my routine.

Scott Alexander

I don't get to listen to podcasts much, but I'll try to add this to my list.

I've just been strength training since January, and I can already tell it's helping me on my cycling and overall durability. I don't have any ultra (or even any what would be called "long course") events on my 2018 calendar as of yet, but I honestly believe it helps prevent and stay injury-free.

This isn't the first time I've heard/read about gelatin lately. I regularly take glucosamine, if for no other reason other than I was told to many years ago and haven't stopped, but would prefer something that has a little more science behind it. Is this something that gelatin has over glucosamine?

Tim Sullivan

@Scott Alexander - if you don't have time to listen to the podcast the study papers (links above) are short.  Generally, they found that either heavy slow weight movement and/or jump rope for ligaments for "10 min of activity followed by 6 h of rest" was best. "After 5 days, the engineered ligaments that had undergone the intermittent activity protocol produced more collagen than those that were exercised continuously [25]. These results are similar to what we know occurs in bone in vivo; very few loading events followed by 6–8 h of rest result in the greatest amount of bone mineral deposition"  

The gelatin is mixed with some Vitamin C but not that much.  15g of Gelatin and about 50mg of Vitamin C.

tim cronk

@Tim Sullivan -  great thread , maybe you should change the title to just "Science of Ultra Podcasts" to cover all ? 

I just listened to these two today. 

https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/13
ON Carbohydrates for Ultra athletes and it was exactly what I expected.

https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/19
ON Fat Adaptation and it was NOT what I expected.  But very good and confirmed most of my nutritional beliefs.

Gabe Peterson

I listened to the Avoiding the Mediocrity of the Middle on my drive into work this morning and found it very thought provoking.  There is a full transcript on the site, which is worth reviewing because it was almost like a college class.  He presents the case for polarized training, or as he says "keep your easy days easy and your hard days hard." 

• The ROI of tempo runs is low, the stimulative effect is small for the recovery cost.  They may have a psychology benefit for the athlete.
• 80% of your runs should be at an intensity where you can hold a conversation or count out loud to 20.
• Your hard workouts should be at an RPE of 8-9 with 30-40 minutes of work.  The best ROI is at 90% of your critical speed, which looks like it would roughly equates to your 5k speed (my take).  Well conditioned athletes can do two hard sessions per week.

It got me thinking about how much EN workouts fall into this.  My sense is the runs mostly follow this, although there are tempo runs in the plans.  The bike workouts have a lot of the middle.  Thoughts?

Tim Sullivan

@Gabe Peterson I haven't listened to that podcast yet, but it seems to follow what I've heard from other experts that have been interviewed.  I know for me, I can't handle two hard sessions of running a week, so I compensate for really hard bike days at really high IFs.  A majority of my rides are very near 1.0. I do very few bike workouts in the middle.  Generally, the easier biking I do is just trying to recover from a race before I start another hard effort.  

I do really love how the information provided seems to be based on research by reputable researchers.

I don't remember the science of ultra podcast I heard this from, but one talked about the fact that each individual is different and that no single training method works for different individuals. While there was no solution, it did praise coaches who work with individuals rather than just instructing them to do this or that.

Gabe Peterson

@tim cronk I listened to the podcast on Fat Adaptation.  It aligns with my n=1 experience.  I never went full fat adapted -- I went from high carb to moderate carb and upping my intake of healthy fats.  It was interesting that most people who think the are fat adapted are actually not.  My take is that could be helpful for 100+ miles ultra races, but anything shorter is going to need carbs to fuel performance.  The most interesting part, to me, was the discussion of periodizing nutrition.

@Tim Sullivan wow, I'd need a puke bucket to do my rides at IF=1.0!  I was thinking about how many intense workouts per week for multi-sport athletes.  My guess is that it would be 3 per week.  Maybe on bike focused weeks you do 2 intense bike sessions and 1 run, and vice versa for run focused weeks.

Francis Picard

Thanks for these podcasts, will listen to these when I'll go run this week.

Tim Sullivan

@Gabe Peterson I listened to that  https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/68
 podcast and found it really informative. I'm glad that my really slow running is helpful as I don't spend hardly any time at tempo. I think I can handle the "hard" efforts they talk about for the hard day(s).  Not 30-40 minutes but about 20 minutes for me at this point.
  
This is from the show notes - For most runs, you HR should be "70% of maximum heart rate for many athletes. Run 20% of your workouts as hard interval days where you get your HR to 90% of maximum" (in the podcast they said try not to go above this). "The goal is to accumulate time where your HR is at 90% of max during the work part of the intervals. If you don’t have a HR monitor or don’t like following HR, use an effort that’s 8-9 out of 10. Vary the work times in the 5-10 minute range with 3-5 minutes rest intervals" (in the podcast they said that longer or shorter intervals were not as effective) "while accumulating 30-40 minutes of total work time for the session (15-20 minutes if you’re just getting started."

tim cronk

@Gabe Peterson and @Tim Sullivan  great discussion about the amount of work, bottomline is individuality, based on experience, background, age, size, gender, how many other sports, and other life stresses, etc,  most people do not make the easy (easy enough) and the hard (hard enough)... Its a balancing act, to reach goals etc, The more work we do the more work we can do, and I think this can be applied to all three sports... Over the years I have come up with what I believe to be my max training stimulous in each sport each week and still be able to hit those or more the following week.
They are.  Weekly totals while training 3 sports.
BIKE
Vo2 day 15-30min
FTP day 30-60min
Z3 day 2-3hrs
Z4 day 5-6hrs
RUN
Z4/Z5 work 2-4 miles total on one interval day
Z3  3 miles push at end of long run
SWIM
2x weekly speed work

Of course I can add more of one if doing less than the other.  But these are general training guidelines I like to use.   I will also take 4 weeks to go from the low side of those targets towards the high sides of those targets , implementing the more work we do the more work we can do, allowing for adaptation to slowly accumulate in the body.

Ironically lots of people talk about hard vs. easy percentage etc, but if you break it down you may find out you already have a 80-90% easy to 10-20% hard (that is a 30 mile running week with one day of 3 miles worth of hard intervals)  Course @Tim Sullivan this does not apply to your bike :-)

I thought Koop also does a good job at laying that out.

 

Gabe Peterson

I hope everyone has continued listening to the Science of Ultra podcasts, as I get a lot out of them! The most recent Coaches Corner: Performance Metrics was another gem. They coaches pretty much agreed that performance metrics were most useful to keep athletes from overtraining. One recommendation I hadn't given much consideration to was to have regular blood tests. For example, most ultrarunners have low vitamin D. Anyone experimented with this?

Tim Sullivan

I haven't listened to that particular episode yet but they are great
podcasts. I was having my blood checked fairly frequently and was very
surprised when they told me my Vitamin D was low as I'm in the sun alot.
It's not always tested for so ask.

Gabe Peterson

@Tim Sullivan did you use a service line Insider Tracker (I think that's the one EN has a discount for)? Did you notice any difference getting your vitamin D levels back up?

Interesting aside...Shawn Beardon, the host of Science of Ultra, did Wasatch 100. I saw his name on the start list and he posted on the Wasatch FB a couple times. I was hoping to run into him on the course, but he DNF'd. Probably a good thing I didn't meet him so I didn't go all fan boy in the middle of a 100. :)

tim cronk

Glad this thread has resurfaced. I had listened to a few podcasts originally and then let it slip.

I have used Inside Tracker, I think I did 4 over 2years. Mixed feelings on IT , its good data ,but what do you do with the data, I found trying to manipulate the numbers to optimum being a complication in my life I did not need, on top of that results were mixed, most of my numbers were in acceptable ranges just not optimal, IT is expensive, then you go buy all kinds of foods or supplements to try and adjust a number as opposed to just eating good and letting your body regulate what it needs. That said I was low in Vitamin D (tested in AZ when I had sun exposure every single day) I was blown away how could that be. Vitamin D was the one thing I had luck with supplementing and to this day continue. Now I just have Vit D tested with my yearly physical to confirm. Many people are low in Vitamin D and athletes are usually low in Iron , Testosterone, and high in all the fatigue/inflammation numbers... Duh we train all the time. They say to test after a week or two of down time... Impossible LOL

Gabe Peterson

@tim cronk thanks for the info! Sounds like I should make sure I get my vitamin D levels check during my next physical.

Jeff Horn

I listened to a couple nutrition episodes today, one on GI Distress. Really good info and mentioned some of the leaky gut stuff that @Sheila Leard has been guiding me through.

Tim Sullivan

No it was just a normal blood panel ordered by the Dr in a physical @gabe
petetson I just take a vitamin but have forgotten lately so I need to do
that again. Not sure if there is a better supplement for Vitamin D or nor.

On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 8:53 AM Gabe Peterson <
teamenforums+d24609-s6029573@gmail.com> wrote:

> [image: Endurance Nation Community]

Tom Glynn

I just started to listen to this podcast a few months ago. I really liked the one from Dr. Seiler on May 24th with regards to interval training. He is a big proponent of polarized training.