Olav - Q&A 2

I'm Oliver Sandaboo, PQM Performance Developer, coach to Christian Blumafelt and Gustavine. I'm Dr David Lippmann, a health and human performance specialist. Welcome to the Norwegian Method Podcast. Welcome back to the Norwegian Method Podcast, joining me as is frequently the case. All of, welcome. Thank you, David. As always. And I wanted to start off by just saying congratulations. Since we are last recorded the podcast, there's been the big announcement. In OX, there's now a well-to-esstraking team. So congratulations in your role in the organization. Yes, thank you. Well, actually, we have been partially a well-to-team already. Our women's team have been a well-to-team and the big change is really now that also the men actually took the step up from pro-to-to-welter. So yeah, thank you. And I thank you for the correction. I wasn't aware of that. So that's even better news. And I wanted to start off with a question about this, because I think it'd be potentially insightful for listeners. What does that change from a preparation, planning, programming, standpoint? I mean, from my understanding, it means you now have an obligation to race a certain set of races versus previously where you didn't have that obligation. So that applies a constraint to you and the coaching staff and all the, you know, everyone basically, which is now we have to do these races. And so what does that mean for you or the team or the staff from a preparation and performance standpoint? So one of the biggest changes is that now we have a calendar where we are obliged to race. We can't choose anymore. But that was actually not the case for us even last year, because it's actually, there's a sweet spot in the calendar, which is actually quite cool. And that is that if you are top three pro two team, then you can actually select which races you want to do both in the world to and in the pro two as opposed to when you are a world two or less a lower rank pro two team. And that means you can actually decide to go to to the France, you can decide to do the zero or you can decide not to do the zero. For example, not to the to the France, but to the zero. The benefit of that is that you can adapt and the calendar much more to, let's say, your team's abilities and work a strategy around that. When you're a lower ranked pro two team, then you have the pro two races and you're just hoping for a ticket to the world to races. When you are a world two team, obviously again, there's a cap for how many athletes you can have in a team, which is 30 for the men's team and 20 for the women's team. And it means also that when you now have a fixed calendar or basically with these other races you have to do, you can't decide not to do the races. Actually, there is a small one. You can't take one world to race. You can take away one year, but then you have to do that race next year. So the biggest change is really that the monsters have gotten even larger and it's a part of stepping up the game. So it will be a little bit of a little bit of a let's say, tuning, getting into it, tuning into it. But the good thing is that we have a really good team and where sports directors or these coaches have been working really close down, looking at it both from a training perspective and from a racing perspective to make the best lineups and when to put people or athletes where to get the best out of it. But then again, it's a completely new calendar for the men and that means also that it's a place where we need to work ourself into a little bit. Theoretically, or at least conceptually from my point of view, this is a great thing. You now have a set of constraints, right? You have these races that are required. Now we optimize how we perform based on that constraint. Whereas previously, it would be almost the other way, which races are we going to choose to perform optimally based on our goals and our training goals for the year. So it's almost like a backwards, it's almost flipped on its head, is that fair to say or not really? No, not really because we were never actually top two or now top three pro team. We were just below that meaning that we actually weren't, we couldn't set our own calendar. Well, we could set our own calendar in the pro tour, but of course, you want to race the world to races and the world to races. That's where the uncertainty were for us because we actually had to apply for the races and hope we got a ticket. And that trades uncertainty in the calendar because then it's like, okay, do we prepare for this race? How do we build the training, getting into those races? What you don't know, what you actually are going to race it or not. So in the pro tour, yes, but in for the world to races, this is a place where unfortunately we couldn't set our own calendar. We were depending on whether we got a ticket. If your top three, which some of the teams are this year, then they actually can. They are in a sweet spot where they can say, hey, let's focus all our energy on this race, not this race and then focus on the points as well because that's what dictates where you end up on the ranking in the end. And that means that also the changes for us really is that from not knowing our calendar, but doing pro tour races, the difference now is that now we know our calendar, which makes it more predictable how we can build it up, which is really good. But also on the other side, it's a completely new arena for on the main side to how do we then build the best calendar for athletes to balance victories and wins versus points as well because we can't forget points still. Yeah, I think we won't get too much into it. This is not a cycling podcast, but the long and the short of it is there's ways to score points that aren't necessarily winning and there's ways to be strategic around it that will allow you to stay up in the world tour. And as a result, I have to worry about then requalifying in three years or something like this. We won't go into that too much more. We had many, many questions come in. So thank you to everybody that's brought questions forward. What I've tried to do is clump them together. So if you get mold on one question in one area is sort of ask questions around that because obviously people are looking for it. And also make sure the questions are, you know, some of the questions are probably at a level that can be answered by many people. And I'm trying to get questions that I think you would have unique insights into. So I'll preface that with before we go into it. But we had quite a few questions after our lactate episode unsurprisingly, which I think I anticipated. So I'll ask a couple of them now just around lactate. So Philippe 2.07 says, "May I ask about exploration of the measurement strips on the lactate Pro2? Is it something you can look for? Can you use the expired lactate strips to deviate? Can you use expired lactate strips to deviate the final measurement?" My answer to this is it should be on the box, I think. And the expired ones are not going to work as well. They may work, but you never really know. You are understanding? Yeah. So actually most of these strips that are used for lactate measurement, they operate under a principle called, I think, enzymatic amparametry. And that means basically what they react with is enzymes. And that means also that this is something that is, you could say organically, meaning also that it will change over time. And since it changes over time, it means also that when it reacts with blood or basically the enzymes reacting with the lactate, the problem is that you then basically get a different signal. Or it becomes a, let's say, a deviation or a change in the signal to what you would expect. So I would say, no, you should not use expired strips for anything else than basically practicing just making measurements, but don't use the numbers. But purely for practicing. And maybe comparing, let's say, that you wanted to see how much does sweat influence a strip, then you can say, well, hopefully in that vial with the strips that they drift somewhat the same. So compared to a fresh strip, there is an offset. You don't know the intercept or the offset from basically when it's out of date. But what you can, for example, do is that they say you took a blood drop and then you mixed it with a little bit of sweat. And you want to see, okay, I make one first before I mix in sweat. And I do one with sweat inside just to see a little bit like how does it rest of water. If you clean and it's moist still, so it's not completely dry, what does that do to the measurements and so on. That you can potentially use it for. I wouldn't guarantee, but don't throw it in the bin just because it's expired. Use it for something that is educational. Yeah, great. And then Laugher frets 44 asks, can I ask about caffeine intake and how it can influence blood lactate, both at rest and during a workout. I found weird numbers at rest, 2.4 to 3.4 millimolar with no contamination issue. And I suspect caffeine may have caused this elevated value. Do you have any insights here? Yeah. I would think that in this case, caffeine can have an implication or can have an influence obviously or let's put this way, lactate is really, let's say, indian mostly result of your glycolysis. But normally the way that caffeine works is, of course, on the one side, it can act as a diluter. So it will open up a little bit more the blood vessels in the body. It can increase the temperature of your body a little bit as well. But the main thing that happens then is actually that glycolysis actually is reduced because it normally influences rather the, let's say, the aeroprocesses in your body. So when there is an elevation in lactate, of course, there are still things, there are still a lot of things that we don't know about the metabolic pathways and signaling pathways. So one should, of course, be cautious about saying that it is this way or not this way. But I would rather think that in rest because you have this quite high, when you see this high lactate values, I would rather probably link it to something that has been eaten or ingested during rest that then have a large influence. We have seen sometimes before where we have done some smaller polystudies with some nutrients, which has seemingly a quite significant-- or I would even say that in these standards-- astronomic impact on lactate concentration in the blood. But normally-- and you can even have that in low-intensity training when you don't fatigue yourself, but you are basically low-intensity shorter duration workouts, where still can have a massive influence on the lactate concentration. However, what we normally see is that when you get closer to LT2 for Natalie, it normally starts to normalize itself. And that has also to do a little bit with that. We have to remember that in rest, rest is basically the main-- like is the contributor to everything that goes on more or less, that the basal needs in your body as well. The more you start to exercise-- so let's say, when you get up a little bit in intensity, this is also a big difference between elite athletes and amateurs as well. When an amateur goes medium intensity or low-intensity, for example, you can say that if you measure the oxygen uptake in rest versus when you do activity, of course, there is a big jump, of course, in the oxygen demand. But it's not that big compared to an elite athlete. An elite athlete in rest doesn't-- yeah, they can have a 10% increase in or 10% higher metabolic rate at rest than a normal person. But it can also be more or less the same. But the difference is that when they exercise, the difference between exercise intensity or the oxygen cost that they have, or less the energetic demand that is in the body, when they're exercises with what this rest is so big that it basically washes out, let's see, the noise from-- I say noise, it's not really noise, but let's call it noise. The noise from rest in basically quantifying what is cross-metabolic need and what is net metabolic need and gross being basically the rest plus mechanical work, net being only looking at mechanical one. There are papers on this and protocols trying to separate the two. But I would say that don't go that path because it is a rabbit hole. As we're-- and we don't really have tools, practical tools to really separate what is the rest and what is work when you first start working. Because it's not like you can measure the rest before, then you exercise and then you just subtract the same amount because the body will regulate this, depending on what is needed to prioritize. So again, when you exercise, especially a little bit high intensity is an especially for leads. Normally, this will normalize itself so that basically you can lack the values constant, quite a bit as a function of it. So I would rather think that it's not necessarily the caffeine. I'm not going to exclude it, but it's normally associated with the opposite. And I would rather say that in this case it's probably linked to other nutrients that have been ingested. Let's say alongside with drinking caffeine or something like this that brings up the lack of value. And we have seen before, values going from one and a half millimoles, for example. And we've even pushed them up by just going very extreme than on these nutrients, like really feeding a lot of it. And then half an hour later, seen lack of values come up into three millimoles, four millimoles. You can almost say, like, oh, you're above your anaerobic threshold. Of course, you're not. But if you're on an electric concentration, it exceeds your L2 values to put it that way. I think that's always a question for me when I see things like this is like people often collapse caffeine intake with coffee intake. And you and I as big coffee fans, and we spent many an hour talking about coffee, drink black coffee, which is probably then fair to say it's mostly fair to say, like, a caffeine and coffee are the same. But once you add milk, once you add sugar, once you add, and then like this, it's not just caffeine that you've taken. It's caffeine plus any number of other things, fat, carbohydrates, et cetera. So I would say that might be another cause of it. Can you share what nutrients you are talking about here, or is that proprietary? Because I understand it might be proprietary. It's more of a place where we-- the reason why I don't mention it is because it's-- in some situations, we have been able to reproduce it. Other situations, we haven't been able to produce it. And that means basically that we-- if we were able to reproduce it every time, of course, we could just publish it. But since there are times where we have not necessarily been able to reproduce it. And we think we understand why, because it was also changed to an environment as well between some of these times. Then I would say that it's-- Yeah, I got it. It's not-- I understand why you're not going to do it. And that's actually probably the other point that I wanted to bring up is sometimes we blame something that's easy to blame, like caffeine, when so many things impact metabolism and therefore impact lactate that it can be hard. I mean, I'm not saying that we didn't see that from the caffeine. I'm just saying that there are many other factors as well-- hemoconstantration, delusion, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Which brings me to the next question from Joel Woodridge. And this pairs well with our-- on lactate, but also the heat and hypoxia episode-- saying, what effect do these things have on lactate readings? If we do heat training-- and I think this is more chronic than acute, because he said, if we do heat training, plus we want an expansion, you'd appear lower with your lactate, whereas a similar concept applies to the hemoconstantration that we might see at altitude. So how would this appear, I guess, when we're doing lactate measurements? And could this, I guess, impact a step test, or, yeah, like using a step test? The changes to your lactate concentration when using altitude or heat as a tool in the process-- I would say that mainly the change in hemoglobin mass have an insignificant-- normally an insignificant-- impact on the lactate concentration. And the reason for that is that you normally would only expect a couple of percent change in your hemoglobin mass as a function of altitude training. The biggest-- the plasma volume on the other hand is something that, on the one side, we see is very dynamic. And the kinetics are much faster, meaning that you could have a large intraday and day-to-day variations in plasma volume. It's not normal if you have access to-- if for either a centrifuge where you can do microcapularis and centrifuge, you're able to see how much is hematocrit, which is the gold standard. Or you have now the good handheld portable kniters that can also do hematocrit. You don't want hemoglobin and then basically extrapolate the matricrate. Like just for the sake of clarity, it's not normal when you go to the doctor or other places that what they do is they measure your hemoglobin concentration and then they just apply a factor tree, meaning that if you have a hemoglobin concentration of 15 grams per desoliter, they will just multiply that with tree and they say your hematocrit is 45%. This is-- this you want to avoid at all costs because it has no value at all, or the way around. They measure your hematocrit and then they divide it by tree and then you get hemoglobin concentration. The reason for that is because obviously they are linked to each other, but you can also have a change. You can also have a separation in the two. So I would say the check what you really measure that you measure your hematocrit. But if you measure your hematocrit, for example, the handheld meter and you're practicing it, then you'll see-- it actually-- they work the same way as the lactic meter now, looks the same thing. So the black all that people I've seen that we're using, the Nova Bio, like the plus, these ones for hematocrit, are actually just silver colored, same brand, but silver colored and they are more expensive though. But with that one, when you measure them hematocrit, you can actually see in a day that, for example, if you go out, you have a good altitude session. So obviously you're going to build up temperature, you're going to sweat a lot. Maybe you're even at altitude, for example. When you do this, we have seen multiple times hematocrit go from, for example, mid-forties to mid-50s, which is a massive increase. 25. percent. Exactly. So close to 25 percent. So, or less, a little bit less, but yes, it's a massive, it's a massive increase. So that means also that when we measure that lactate because the lactate is a function of whole blood concentration and we've basically your plasma volume have done be a plasma and the blood have been reduced by 20 percent. It means also now basically lactate is still going to be the same amount in your blood, but it will represent now a substantially larger portion of that blood drop than what it did before. So yes, heat and altitude have a big impact heat because they're directly influencing and you're increasing the plasma volume. While at altitude is the opposite, very often you see there is a reduction in plasma in blood when you're at altitude. Yeah, and so those are, I think the key there is if you're then going to do a step test, you need to factor those things in rather than be concerned about the outcomes, because it's always relative. Those lactate values are going to be fairly variable anyway, where you see in LT2. That's why we tend to suggest using inflection methods rather than an ultimate value of 2 or 4 or whatever we see in sometimes in the research. So it's more about inflections there because you need to understand the kinematics more than the actual numbers. Exactly. Yeah, perfect. All right. So, under the next one, a question from Jonah here with respect to Bicarb and Plasmade and similar types of supplements and he's asking, do you suggest they be used in a periodized fashion and where would you use them say within a micro cycle and maybe within a macro cycle if at all? So think again of Plasmade or Bicarb system from more than us tools. Rather than something that you just without purpose or goal put into your program, meaning that when you use, for example, Plasmade, have a thought behind why do you use it now? So yes, I would prioritize it. The same also with Bicarb. I would also have a clear purpose behind why I'm using it. I think further that what you, the benefit of alternating this as well is that you shift stress a little bit on the body when you use this. And I think in the same way we talked about in the altitude heat period or heat podcast as well is that altitude is not like staying at altitude all your round is good for you. It's the alternation between, or let's say using it or prioritizing it that really is good and single also with heat. Heat all your round is not necessarily good. It's how you prioritize it into your plan. It is really good. It is effectively a training tool. In the end, it's something that you use to support the processes in your plan and thus it should also be prioritized accordingly. The Norwegian method. The reason why you want to have you to master because when athletes or customers come there and they are doing their training, they're putting in money and hours into improving the fitness, you want to have a device that basically allows you to track their progress but also measuring the metabolic power as well. And then on top of that, the only way to truly be able to do an individualization is also to measure the utilization of the athletes and there is probably no better device on the market to do that with them, for example, the view to master. If you've been thinking about adding VO2 testing to your training facility, you know, our viewers get an exclusive one-on-one consultation with their product experts on how to make VO2 master work for you. Head to VO2master.com/Norwegian-method to book yours today or follow the link in our show notes. And so you would bring that in during different phases of the year and would you use that on all sessions or only on sessions that have some intensity, say above LT1? No, the last might of course is different. This is something that this then plans, something you use a more or less fixed in a period like some other Ergo Genix, like for example, Bettalanine or other things. But then you have, then you have a bicarb, a bicarb is something you use more specifically, specific sessions. Yeah, I got you. A couple of questions here on SMO2. So Andreas says, "Is it reasonable to base the training on a reaction of SMO2 during intervals? If the SMO2 during intervals goes as low as 10 to 20 percent, focus on oxygen delivery with sweet spot. If SMO2 during these intervals stays as high, could you focus more on oxygen utilization and more on the high intensity levels?" I guess basically asking here about seeing values in SMO2 and how would you use that to base your training based on this? I guess it's a delivery utilization question really. I think if your SMO2 is really a really good tool. However, one of the weaknesses with SMO2 is that one side, it is a concentration metric. It doesn't tell anything about the volume of oxygen. That's why you need to be too master to tell something about the volume of it. What it only tells is something about the concentration of oxygen in that part where you are measuring. So that then already says that you should measure where it is most, or let's say, on the main muscles involved in your training. If you had two SMO2 devices and you put, let's say, one on your arm, for example, your biceps, where you're cycling or on the back. For example, and you had one on your thighs. You would see that are completely different responses and different concentrations between the two locations. When you measure SMO2, I would say that starting to discuss where there is utilization problem, or less extraction of oxygen, which some papers or some people have talked about before. I would say that I would not do that. I would say that it's saying that somebody have a peripheral problem. I would almost say that it doesn't really apply to the group of listeners sitting listening to this podcast especially if you have both an SMO2 sensor. I would probably say that it's a more qualified as a clinical situation if we start to talk about peripheral limitations. In this case, I would say that where SMO2 and how you would use it instead is the value of it. It's really that on the one side, if you see that you can go very low on extraction when you have a steady state condition in SMO2. So let's say that you are able, let's say, normally what you can use the SMO2 device for is that when you let's say you do a step test and you have a long enough step, you will basically see that OK, SMO2 concentration with every step up, obviously SMO2 concentration goes down simply because you're extracting more of the oxygen. However, at some point when you then make it even harder, you will start to see that you get an unstable, in the same way as a lactate, if you go low, low intensity, lactate value stays stable, little bit higher, stable and at some point it becomes unstable meaning that for every five minute you measure for the same power or put lactate will just still continue to increase. Same goes with with SMO2 but it's the opposite, there is basically the other way, it's higher power means basically that you're extracting more oxygen, more oxygen means lower oxygen concentration or SMO2 value, and at some point when you go to a higher power number, suddenly you start to see that well, SMO2 doesn't stay stable anymore, it actually just continue to draw for the same power output. This means now that you actually have come above your VT2 or at least above LT2 but let's say closer, I would rather say this is more representative for your VT2. The lower this percentage, this occur at, so let's say that this occurs at, now this is of course context dependent again, so I said in this case we talked about triathlon is extreme endurance events, whether you do an Olympic distance, even a sprint distance is an extreme endurance event. A sprint distance is really an activity the last one hour, that's equivalent to a half marathon, so it's an extreme endurance event, and anything beyond there is even more extreme. So in these cases you normally want to have a fairly high utilization of oxygen, meaning that the percentage of basically where your VT2 sits, in these cases you're using SMO2 and it's a link closer to ventilatory thresholds, then you normally want it to be as fairly high compared to your V2 max. That means in V2 max context the way you can use an SMO2 is that basically when you see that you go higher, higher at some point, basically you start to see that way, if I go higher in the power now there's no change anymore in SMO2. Obviously you will feel at this point that this is close to all out efforts, but basically let's say that your LT2 or VT2 in this case was 300 watts and we say that you have a utilization of 75% in your V2 max for around 400 watts, again we're not going to go into the implications of basically power at V2 max is also rabbit hole depends on protocol and duration, but for the sake of simplicity, VU2 max 400 watts VT2 300 watts, then we can say in simple terms, utilization 75% at VT2. In this case, you would see that at VT2 then 300 watts. When you pass 300 watts, SMO2 goes down, goes down, but then when you go from 300, that's the last step it would then normally be stable. When you then go to 320 watts, for example, just to make a step up of a 300 and 25 watts or whatever the step you do, then you start to see that when you're cycling there now, SMO2 just starts to creep down, creep down, creep down, and it will actually eventually hit VU2 max or rock bottom. But now if you basically stick now to protocols, let's say your steps are six minutes steps, for example, obviously that's maybe not long enough duration for if you hit the intensity, for it to really creep down all the way to rock bottom. It will creep down when you see that okay, here's unstable. If you'd go to 350, it will start to decline even faster, 375 in faster, but then basically when you go to 400, for example, even faster, but let's say you now went to 410, 20, 25, whatever it is there, basically you see no difference anymore. It goes equally fast down rock bottom and you're anyway at 400, you reach 2%, 2%, as if 5% oxygenation, something like that. Below 10%, you're probably a little bit more, but if you get around, let's say 5, 6, 7%, or something like this, or even lower, you basically can say this is close to your VU2 max or around your VU2 max wheel. So when you then do training, what you really want to do is that if basically the utilization sits around 75%, I would say that that's a way to low. You're probably already feeling that you're super good power outputs, you can even be on a track and do really good sessions with high outputs, but you struggle with a longer duration or to keep a steady state output in pace or powerful longer duration. So I would normally aim for that where you go from steady to unsteady, on the on the moxie, for example, I would normally say that you should see that happening ideally around 20 or even below 20% for on that. If you're a sprint distance, maybe a little bit higher than 20, for well-trained athletes, for sprints, no for ironman, then you can even want to go lower like 18, 17, 16%, but again, at some point if you go too low on it, so basically your VT2 comes to, then it's the opposite again. Then you want to rather focus more lifting the shorter duration. So coming back to the power curve we did in an earlier episode, this is about how do you pivot your curve really. High utilization means basically where steady state goes from unsteady is at a very low concentration and it sits percentage-wise close to where your mute to max would be. And it's really good for for for ultra-s and the ironmans and it gives a flatter curve, but if there's a your steady from steady to unsteady happens at a high percentage of of oxygenation, then basically this means more okay, you are then shorter duration athlete, typically on even the middle distance in running, you could say 5K or something like that 3K track and so on and it's more vertical curve. So to clean it up, just to make sure people get it right, low utilization meaning low utilization meaning that a SMO2 happens at a high percentage means basically you have a more vertical curve. Low utilization, no high utilization but basically meaning that steady to unsteady happens at a low concentration, low concentration, so low percentage number, then basically you have a flatter curve and if it's too flat, you need to work on lifting trying to pivot it back for example out of the part of the season and see if you can raise it the full sealing, the full curve later on in season or even prioritize and vice versa. It's a confusing part when you talk about utilization and SMO2, it's basically you talk about high utilization is a low number which it would be nice to say high concentration means a high utilization but just be mindful about is that the low concentration where you go from steady to unsteady means that you basically have a high utilization of oxygen and means also that you are able to utilize fats as a good source to prepare you forward even at fairly high intensities, power out goods as well. Gotcha, that's super helpful even to me. I'm much less experienced with the SMO2 so I learned a lot there. Thank you. Alex S has asked some questions about threshold training with Moxie but I think we've already answered that. What he did ask though is when using it for running is there a way to get consistently reliable data because it seems to be the shaking of a leg creates an issue and given that it's an optical sensor that makes tons of sense to me. So one of the things that is for example with the Moxie is that when you download the app there or even if you connect to a computer and you use the browser and you connect it will be a Bluetooth using the settings window you can actually change the update rate for the sensor. You can go from 0.5 seconds update or frequency with the no smoothing of the data all or you can go all the way up to two seconds with smoothing. So you have I think half a second a second and then two seconds and then basically can apply whether you want smoothing or no smoothing. That's the one thing that you can look into so probably and choose for example two seconds with smoothing if you're struggling with a lot of noise in the data but I would normally say that this is actually not noise. This is a result actually of for example running versus cycling. In cycling you have a there's a there's a there's a lower variation between let's say the maximum of force that is applied to your muscles versus the low lower intensity is of course it gets higher but then also actually the variation is actually not that high or any more anyway because you actually apply more of the same force throughout the whole power stroke. While in running you have an extreme impact then where you have a lot of loading of your muscle and then you have a long long face which is or relatively speaking that is completely or let's say almost completely de-loaded from your muscles and that's why you will normally see a larger fluctuations here because you tighten relax tighten relax tighten relax your muscles that being said if it is also noise in the measurements so you have more problems with with the signal there then I would normally say that try to move the sensor onto another muscles obviously one of the main muscles. Aider on the back of your calf or for example I would normally say that you change between the different different muscles in the quads normally to to find the best the best place from basically medialis to lateralis normally in running I would normally say that probably medialis is statistically statistically better not always so that's what you need to be mindful about and inside can normally the vastus is more the more normal muscle to use in cycling for stability but also one last thing that is there and that this is it takes a little bit of training but that just experiment around with it because when you first get it is goes on race but it also means actually where you place it on the muscles they normally say place on the middle of the muscle but I can say that for myself for example I normally find it to be better it would be closer to the head of the muscle not at the head but closer to the head that's where I get really my good response from from the sensor. Yeah I've also seen you with the boys you've taped it onto them and then they often put their tights over it as well and I think the more I guess you don't want to create external pressure because that's going to vary your readings but at the same time the more support you have for that sensor of any brand of any type the better off it will be and some of them you know have had better mechanisms for that than others so yeah that's that's great there. A couple I guess more I guess slight diversions here and Martus Shelley 7 asks the biggest myth or common advice you see that you would like to change or dispel the biggest myth as I guess as it pertains to training or something else. Yeah yeah. Oh well to start. The beginning. No then we can make an own podcast on this. Well what's what's annoying you at the moment? What's something you're seeing at the moment or hearing at the moment you think listen let's just get this out of the way. Did I have to do this bad? Yeah yeah go back and check the altitude and heat podcast. I honestly I think your altitude and heat takes are quite different to most so maybe perhaps that's the one direct people back to that and say listen that's the bit where you dispel or have a different viewpoint or maybe it's not a myth dispelling as much as like just a different way of conceptualizing it and therefore yeah seeing it differently. I actually would probably say that the two last podcasts we actually did actually would probably be it simply because it is such a crucial part of Flesse when you come up a little bit of higher performance processes, heat altitude lactate and these kind of things and because of that I would probably say that those are some of the places where there are most confusion or misunderstandings around what it really is how it should be done and so on. So I would say there are many more as well as I say we could probably or we can make our own podcast simply on this topic. It would be a little bit fun to score on the banky a lot of things but I would say the two last podcasts listening to them we have so much data to back it off and you would be able to reproduce it yourself. as well. So yeah, I think we have to leave it with that. Yeah, I also say just thinking about the questions we received in, we received someone's strength training for instance, that sort of stuff. We did, when we set out this podcast, it was set out to be a single series, with just you at that stage. And the discussion that you and I had at the beginning was like, we wanted to make a resource that people would listen to in years to come, not just something that people listened to and forgot about or died off. And as a result, it's quite comprehensive. And so almost, I would say 50 to 80% of the questions we get in are something we've answered already. That's not the say that they're bad questions or anything like that. What that's to say is, Hey, if you haven't gone back and listened recently, and you have some of these questions that we haven't gotten to, maybe there's a, there's an answer for you back there. So I would encourage because we're, we're still getting new listeners, we have, you know, new subscribers all the time, I would urge them to go back and listen to series one because there is a lot of really good stuff there. I mean, it's all really good stuff. It's what I'd say. So I would even say that in this case, it's, it's really, it is really good questions because it's actually the same questions we have asked ourselves. Yeah. The same process is same questions we have asked ourselves. And on this journey, we've been fortunate to be able to exactly have a very systematic, systematic approach to this to figure out empirically, both based on previously to sure and the experiment around that as well as doing our own discoveries for what works and what doesn't work. Yeah. So agreed. Yeah. Karen Panehl, a triathlon coach says, how do you motivate your athletes? I think this would be interesting because I'm, I'm not sure you've had to motivate like given, given the organizations you've worked with, I'm not convinced you've had to do a lot of motivation. I actually, it's actually a little bit interesting. I've been very fortunate to work not only with athletes, but of course, even more coaches, coaches and scientists in in in in this process is over these last 10, 15 years. And I, yes, there has been times when there have been talks or we've had discussions or processes around motivation. And but a coach that I work with now, he actually had a, had a very good take on this. And he says that if he have to motivate an athlete, then he also knows that something is wrong because he will never be able to like motivation can't come from the coach. The motivation have to come from the athletes himself. And I, it's a super interesting topic is a super interesting topic because I like, or I always approach things in a way that's, I think based on all the research we have done, that I don't actually find anything in the genes anymore, which basically tells me that somebody within reasons within reasons that somebody are qualified to do a sport. And somebody else is not in order to look at Christian, Gustav and Kasper, how different to seeks those three boys have. It's a little bit like the money ball, like, like the moving money ball. It's, there are so many ways to do it. Like look, look at the tool vibe, for example, like look at her running technique. It would be, if you put her into running cap, but you didn't tell somebody that she is world champion, it would be super easy to say, Hey, come on, you have to do this. You should do that. You have to practice your running technique. Yeah, maybe, maybe she could get better from that, but she still will have champion and she has a running technique that is something you very quickly, like focus on that. This is a deviation. This is a deviation from what you normally see. Still, she is the best athlete in the world in a winning, winning, winning the world championship. So it is also when it comes to, it also ties it back to the myths as well. What kind of myths would I like to debunk? It is that somebody is, you have to, like, don't say somebody have the genes to do something and somebody else don't have the genes to do something because we don't have any evidence really say that that is the case. It is rather something that is a process, obviously systematic process, that's the most important, systematically applied process of trial and error over a long time that leads to really the best results. And of course, the most systematic you are and the better you are at asking the right questions or trying to nail down the right questions. And that's a little bit also sometimes difficult, but that is what really sometimes is the only thing that is missing for some people to really accelerate and get really motivated because of course, if you stagnate and you work on something for a long, long time, you feel you have no progress, you have to remember also that still is progress. But even sometimes taking a step back is also progress. It just depends on what's really happening and what's happening on the surface is very seldom really a full representation of what's going on inside the body in this process. And that's also where you see that with these athletes, some are big lungs, some are good extraction, some are big hearts, some are high heart rate. Very often they don't have it all. Or in most cases, they don't have it all because the body is so smart that it deps a little bit to it. But it's a very outstanding way to apply. Let's say the training to try to work on this in a way that they also feel like, oh, now I'm starting to have progress at least on something here. Very often motivation comes down to this, but motivation is also remember that stagnation is something we all experience throughout life. No matter whether we are coaches, whether we are scientists, whether we are athletes, we all experience stagnation. But then we also have to remember that those that give up, those that give up or stop in that process there, they are not going to win. The people actually understand that everybody goes through this and it's just a matter of how can I actually apply the highest quality even in my sessions when I struggle. That's very often the key to making the next steps. It's a brilliant opportunity to then just when you're repeating to evaluate, okay, what did I do? What can I do better? And focus more on what's going on in your body, your feelings, look at the waters, it look like in terms of data. But motivation, it has to come from the athletes themselves and I wish to excel. And that means sometimes doing things that are not necessarily obvious. And sometimes it even means shifting the focus. Yeah, I think to your point, there's certainly the physiology is a ticket to the dance, right? It's your entry, it's your price entry. If you don't have the physiology, some fundamentals, like it's not going to happen, right? That's just the reality of it. But a lot of what we think of as talent is physiology or physical and we often underestimate the mental aspects of talent. And I think the intrinsic motivation and these sort of things, I think that stuff is, can be the differentiator with similar physiology, right? Which is exactly what you're saying here. An example here, Christian needs no motivation, he just needs a loss. As soon as Christian hasn't won something, he's never been more motivated. It's very apparent, go listen to the podcast that I, you know, on the same feed, you can hear it. He's so motivated for my Bayer. We're recording this just before my Bayer. He's so motivated for my Bayer because he didn't do as well as he wanted to in Nice. He doesn't need motivation, right? And then I think the other thing that I would say to people is you've engineered it or you had engineered an environment whereby the athletes, not necessarily on a motivational standpoint, but certainly on our happiness and vibes and whatever else standpoint, really brought their own stuff and you brought people in to help, you know, talking to the boys, they brought in Jackson Laundry recently. They've got Casper in with them. So they certainly, that sort of thing I think can help with what we think of as motivation, but I'm not convinced it's truly motivation. It's sort of how we're feeling and the feelings around training. I'm not convinced that's all motivational, but I think there's some other things for people to consider in and around that question as well. But I think also sometimes also for motivation as well, when you don't know one of the things that maybe would be easy to put on Christian Gustav and Casper and also Soul by that side, but is that of course they have like, Soul by actually is really inspiring at it. I actually tell a little bit of story there and I hope I don't offend her. But she what really actually inspires me with with Soul by is that I remember, sooner than that get a go, she actually wasn't good enough. She wasn't good enough to be on a national team. So she actually was saying, okay, we won't extend the contract for next year. You have to go back into racing or whatever and prove that you're good enough and then you come back. And she did how many people do this when you get this kind of slap in your face and look now, well champion. How motivational was that for her? But it is of course it is probably a place where she had felt enough on that, okay, she have experienced something that she really enjoys most of the time. And of course there are more days with discipline. The more days of discipline. And I think that in order for people to stay motivated, you obviously need something. where you feel there is a progress, so you understand how you can pay that you understand the process, that there's a process ongoing, meaning that you will be looking for different things in order to find back the motivation, because I think also motivation is very much associated with ather performance. So you benchmark yourself against your peers and you see, I am better. Of course, that is motivation. You really get a reward, you get rewarded for that. We put in the work over a long time. But the other part of it, the other part of it also is actually, yeah, it's a motivation. It's a huge and difficult topic. Again, that's also what you say, psychology is very often underrated because it's or not equal much talked about when we talk about talent, because the data sits very often on the facilities, that's where we are good at quantifying. The psychological part, we don't really have good tools for quantifying it becomes more of a soft topic. The main is hard, it's less tangible. - The Norwegian method. - The reason why you smoten with the boys is because it reduces the GI stress and the reason why it reduces the GI stress is basically because carbon rates are packed in a hydrogen. And why that is important again is because if you can then take more carbide risk per time, it means basically you can train faster or race faster, which ultimately is the goal in our sport. - To benefit from the one time code and get 20% off your next purchase on Morton.com, simply enter the code TNMS1 at checkout. The code is applicable, one's per customer on all products except the Morton Bicub system, valid until the 31st of December 2025. - Then Norwegian method. - I think where you're going is like, there's a motivation which is, I've performed well and that's motivational. There's also motivation which is, I'm improving, which is motivational and where it gets difficult is where you may be not performing at level you are and you're starting to stagnate and you cannot see a way out of that. That's where the real differences between the elites or the top 1% from a psychological point of view and the others are is when you feel like there's not a lot of answers coming and you haven't quite got there yet and you can stick out for a little while and that's probably not motivation. To be honest, that's probably discipline. - I think yes, I think maybe where I wanted, there was a study that this was actually what I wanted to reference a little bit. Just need to recollect 100% how it was but basically this was a study presented by one of the leading sports institutions in the role and by accident or by coincidence, maybe not accident but coincidence, they are located in Norway so this is then, we just school of sports science. They actually studied why there were so many people in the beginning of the year that, or can be any time of the year, but for example, beginning of the year, new year resolution. The people that subscribe to a training center and they are out, you know, like I think it was like 50% or like a massive number already quit after one month. Why do they quit? And one of the things that they actually, one of the things, two things, two takeaways they had there and that links back to this. And that is that one lack of joy and lack of achievement but lack of joy and lack of achievement are basically the two things. If you achieve something, that's joyful. And I think that's the thing here that if you sign it for, I think that's also why that you can say that purely from a physiological standpoint. My coaching is not only about writing the perfect the training session or something like it. It's about understanding what is the need of an athlete. And that means, for example, I can say that there are so many ways that there is no single best view to Max workout. Exactly because it is past psychology, past physiology and those are like we talked about before. The same thing unless we have a clinical condition where we need to separate one or the two. That means also I can say that if I, let's say that I want to accumulate in one hour session, I want to accumulate 30 minutes of time. Well, let's say 20 minutes, that's really not a bad one. Let's say for me, let's say it was 30 minutes of time around view to Max. I can say that doing three minute view to Max efforts obviously scale and because it's a three minute and not shorter, for example, three minute efforts for me. That's what I need, but I hate it. I really truly hate the three minute efforts. Other athletes I work with, but that's compactly in between how you curve is and these are things there. If you have normally a more of a steep curve, then normally my experience is that at least that you tend to like better also the shorter duration efforts. So, but again, we have already said that the frames are here. There's gonna be equal size warmups that I said we put that to 10 minutes and there's gonna be a five minute cool down. That gives you now 45 minutes to do the view to Max work. We have already said that you're gonna do 30 minutes of work inside those 45 minutes and it gives away how much you can actually use for breaks or pauses in between that. This again means also that if I basically now do three minutes obviously I will go a little bit lower power than if I did do 30 second efforts, for example. But obviously also the breaks between the three minutes can be longer because I haven't had all the 30 seconds breaks in between each 30 second it is added longer. So I can have a longer break as well, but I can still even going down a little bit on intensity. So I'm still targeting for example something that brings me up to view to Max eventually in the session there. By longer pauses in between, I just despise it. I hate it. I know that's what I really need. That's probably why I struggle with it both mentally but also in terms of discomfort. But that's why I also do it sometimes. But if I need more of a motivation on view to Max work out, where I still do the same amount of work, same amount of work, but actually maybe even well in the same session, but then 30 seconds intervals for me, fantastic. Then I can just go, I can even say, oh wow, this fantastic, I can even continue to do more afterwards after the session. Point is same accumulated time around view to Max. One session motivates me, another one does not motivate me at all. And of course, sometimes I have to use motivation and as a currency to discipline myself, to do the tough one because that's what I need. But also a lot of the times I also have to put into the bank and do workouts that are very close by the same, gives us somewhat the same stimulus, target around view to Max, but they are motivational for me. I like them, I look forward even to doing those sessions. So again, same out, let's say, these are the things that are important to understand in these processes, that yes, you might have a program and you like this, but you have to remember that the motivation of an act is very also close link to quality on the session. So the quality is now, if you just do the three minute because you said this is what you need because you struggle with it, yes. But to have the motivation and to apply necessarily also the mental focus, clarity to my pedal stroke or running technique, whatever I do there, that is so underrated and so important that I also need those as well because then I can go back and I can scale it up to, let's say, one minute into was two minute into was and then three minutes and all then eventually five or 10 or whatever that is needed if that is specific in the end for my intensity. So coming back to motivation, changes sometimes are important in order to excel. But not change in variety for the sake of change in variety but change in variety in the same way we talk about altitude and heat and all this kind of thing, it's tools in the toolbox of our coach and of course the more experience, you have the more secure or more confident you will feel and basically juggling around this without compromising the end goal of it rather the opposite, you're maybe even better at juggling the tools to get even better result in the end of when you do the racing. - Yeah, that's great. I had a question here from M&J on Spotify. You talk a lot about competitive advantages. What do you think will be like a big determinant of greatness in triathlon and the near future? Is there anything you can see like the next big thing or something like this? Maybe it's motivation, maybe we're gonna start psychologically profiling athletes, maybe it's something else. Is there anything you can look at? Do you think it's still, I mean, the thing that comes to mind is error and increasing error gains given there's, many less constraints on the bikes in triathlon versus cycling and it's still a significant component of triathlon. That's the biggest component in particular in Iron Man. Is a cycle, but. - Yeah, so I think it's a combination. I think wanting, but which is very, you can say if we break it down and we look at, let's say the specialist in each of the sports. Sometimes I like to take a step back and have a couple of perspectives and just look, okay, what are we really doing? How close are we to peak human performance? Has we talked about many times before? And that means looking at what are the benchmark? Like how fast can people or how fast have people up out to the day really done something? And if you only, let's say, confine yourself to triathlon, you will never be able, you won't capture, let's say the nuances to all that. You can say, on the swimming there's a couple of minutes difference between the fastest open swimmers in the world and basically the track is when it comes to 1800 or 1900 or 1900 or 1800 meters of swimming and it means also that yes obviously that is percentage wise the difference that you see there is it's big it's big the energy consumption is even bigger between them because efficiency is low but they're able to because of how let's say resistances water is working you don't see it in the same way in terms of pace it holds through the water but it means basically that in swimming I don't think that the time will really drop that much moving forward that's not going to move the biggest needle anyway in in triathlon where the times comes from moving forward if I understood now the question correctly but then in in cycling there I for sure think that the times will drop more why when Christian set the record which is still standing in kosmol now four years ago actually four years it's four years actually almost on the date when I'm thinking about it now 2021 November 2021 I think it was um at that time the aerodynamics of triathletes and cyclists was more or less the same so if you look at the time triathletes and you look at the triathletes in cycling and and and and or the even the ones that goes on the for the for the hour record and then you look for the same size triathlete that went on in triathlon the CDA actually between the two were actually not two different and then you can say but why why didn't why didn't the cyclist even go lower they only have to do biking for now well they couldn't sustain it the problem was that if you forced them to go even more internet positions you weren't able to put out the power and in the end it's about power versus CDA when you're on a track or on a velotron however as people forced to think okay where can we improve moving forward they looked into okay how can we even lower the CDA anymore but it required also in the same way as anything else even bridging more into your training you have to practice it even more having a plan for actually what you go you can't just to say decided tomorrow I'm going to have an have an LT 200 400 watts and then you go out practicing 400 watts and then building it up you could potentially go out and write 400 watts for one minute or two minute or five minutes but the problem that from there up to the hour is going to take you a long long time now better strategies to get there by just starting with one minute thing or two minute thing or two minute because that's going to take you a much longer time and the same thing also with the CDA like you can say okay fine this is CDA I want to have and you just go into the position say I'm gonna I'm gonna just practice this position now I would rather say yes you can do that but I would rather say figure out what CDA you need to have in order to do to reach a certain time and being able to run off the bike really fast but you have to have a plan for how you're gonna work yourself into that position and how you're gonna bridge it into the training that's of course where you can build purpose quality into your sessions moving forward focus and that means also that one of the places where we know now that there is going to be even bigger gains to be made on the bike is that exactly having a really good strategy for how you're going to improve the aerodynamics that is going to be the single biggest shift in here because it means you can go faster but without more power you can maybe even lower power little bit so that you can actually go off and actually run faster because you've got a certain little bit more energy little bit less a little bit less temperature problem of the bike as well and in general just spend less energy energy on the on the bike section itself and it's if you are able to train yourself into a really relaxed position that are more aerodynamic that will single hand it have like it's it's almost what I would call free speed for you and it also preserves more energy for the run path afterwards the running itself will also come down I think that we will we will eventually start to see times that go 715 on the fastest really on a really good day really fast Ironman of course then you will start to see times come even even lower and I think why do we are going to see it's no problem actually jumping around with the numbers and building a seven hour chart or even like this is actually on a really fast Ironman course I'm not going to use like a special build course that that is just made for the record itself like one of the problems with what I don't like with with for example let's take changelot is of course a super fast course but you don't start it stop at the same place and it means basically you can start a high elevation and go down or you can pick a location just know that in statistically speaking 80% of days the wind is going to blow just that direction on your course there so obviously there are many ways to do it but it does it do it in a way where you where you basically you start at a you finish at a so not go a b but start and finish a then basically they're on a really ideal day super fast course meaning good time at good wind conditions good temperature playing around with numbers to get down to seven hours yeah doable but it's a project and it's going to take take some time so I think I think that within 2030 we'll see some of the track days go 715 I know there are some pros in works and it will happen in armen it will it will happen in armen but it will come mainly from better cda on the bike and even slightly roar faster running on on on on the run part of it I think also potentially a very competitive race because again the psychological component right you need somebody else there and obviously there's a drafting benefit there on the bike even if it's small and then I will also say probably in a one that's not in the middle of summer traditionally triathlons in the summer and if you think about marathony it's often in transitional seasons I think if we can get a cooler one on a better course I think that that might be the goal there or it might be the the sweet spot there because again metabolic heat such a big cost and if we can lose more to the environment that's a that's a win right so I think I think also just just on that note as well just to put it also in perspective just the bike numbers as well cda a couple of years ago was around 019 020 or 021 but let's say okay average 020 for some of the best triathlons and also the cyclist the numbers now for the guys that actually are going on to track if you're a smaller rider we we talk about 016 even below and for the big riders 017 for example 017 0.1 I would say absolutely not higher than very much higher than 0.18 but it's actually gone down significantly and then you can say the well triathlons doesn't have the same limitation as cyclists have cyclists are forced to be within a certain frame frame setup triathlons don't have that limitation it means that's also why that's also why triathlons could be at the same place as cyclists before simply because it didn't cost them so much to assume or take the same position on the bike and that's the same thing now as well you have the opportunity to go even more aerodynamic air with all the same constraints as the cyclists so that we will see that the cda drop down for sure that's awesome last question i wanted to get to this is coming from Owen and we talked about this beforehand and i said this is not necessarily an uno x discussion but he sort of said if you could create a role with a high performance team what would the role be and he was talking about or thinking about sort of cross industry learning and skills and you said you had an answer for me so i'm interested to hear it now it will be a boring one very boring one less positions okay so you're talking about an agile organization moves quicker and better rather than having more people and more reporting lines and all those sort of things the thing is that on one side you want to decentralize decentralize power in our organization and really do what our owners are focused on and that's trust-based trust-based leadership trust-based have trust-based yeah leadership in organizations and the reason for that is because when people understand understand what their what what the goal is and the tasks are they will normally the reason why you employ them is because they know better what to do than you do but of course you need alignment and that means also that the moment you start to put in more people into an organization it means even more too much distribution at the moment tiggets to distribute it say a little bit bluntly everybody will say that if if if i'm going to make a little bit of a funny case out of this but this and it doesn't apply to our organization but one have to be cautious about this and then that is if you ask the aerodynamics aerodynamics how important is your work it would like he could say basically well if you don't focus on aerodynamics it doesn't help how good your physiology is or how good lubricating your bike is so whatever it is because you will just waste all the power everywhere like you can put up huge numbers but it will still go slow if they're in emphasis not to place you then go and ask the mechanics the mechanics will say well if you don't have a lubricating bike and it's really not like lower the friction of it than tire pressure is good in this country, you can still have your best aerodynamics, you will still move to slow. It doesn't matter. If you don't have the mechanics in the place and it doesn't work, and you ask the physiologist and says, "Well, come on, aerodynamics are mechanics, nothing like that really is important if you're not fit for the race you're going to do." And on the best aerodynamics, you will still win any race, even with the best aerodynamics in the world. And that's the problem when you get too many compartments, too many compartments, too many people in an in an organization. It's not wrong what they say or they claim, but the problem is how do you know what to prioritize? And that's where you need to rather invest in competence in fewer people, investing competence in build competence in people. So they're able to have a better overview and make the right priorities in organization. So it's not actually about inventing a new position in there is rather about how can we actually merge positions, ideally, if we can. At some point, you are not able to do it. So you have the organization that you need to have, but very often it's not about adding more. It's about removing. So I can say, for example, ideally, in our team, I rather want to have a coach, for example, take on the role of a sports scientist that necessarily have a separate sports scientist during the work there. Because the coach knows all the processes that are around, he analyzes the data and he knows what to prioritize in there. Because we also have to be mindful about that what we get in from sensors, power meters and heart rate monitors and lactate, what not is a very limited picture of what really is going on in life. And that only can be captured by that one is present and one sees the things that are actually outside that maybe needs a higher priority sometimes than necessarily just the number that comes in from a workout. So simple answer to that is very often that I rather want to invest in the people I have in our organization and building their competence so they can do even more. In the same way that we train our athletes, we train the skills of our athletes so they become better, they can manage more things so they can do they get better tactics, they get better at making decisions, they become better at the execution or purely the physical part of the workout. You build their competence and that's a little bit okay, you can see it three boys. The batch girls have now become PhDs and managing basically their days and projects and a lot of things that they don't know about that. I saw the spider web they did. That thing looks like it was written with the crayon in their left hand so I'm not sure about the PhDs but no your points were made. Joke's aside your point is very well made. No, no, they are like the level of knowledge and competence those guys have now are they are really extreme not just guys just doing what is there they actually understand the processes around it and that's of course the important part, important part and that's the same thing here as well. Why would we invest and train our people or staff and people in organizations the same way so we have the people we have for our good reason is because they are really good and the best thing we can do is actually also invest in them. So coming back to motivation as well being able to achieve more, to achieve more and feel that actually master more that's that's a better efficacy that's motivational not only for athletes but it's also for us as support for the athletes as well. So simple answer is I would rather look at what can I add them rather merge into so instead of inventing a new position rather if I find something is really brilliant see can I actually see if somebody internally in organization we can invest in that person to do that task instead because it gives better decisions. More of that diamond shape I can see you've gone through and I'm sure there's a career progression to this as well right as we go from young to to more experienced coaches we sort of add more and then eventually the more experienced coaches add less again or start pairing away at it. It's very Bruce Lee right it's not about it's about pairing away at the inner central. So I think that's a great note to end on love we really appreciate your time this season and and in general and best of luck with UnoX next year I'm sure many listeners will be watching very closely I know I will and for the listeners thank you very much for listening as always please do share the podcast with people there's a lot here for everybody you haven't subscribed yet we'd appreciate that and of course if you haven't rated us yet please do so on there thank you all off thank you David