This week on the podcast, @robstubbspt and @ashgrossman.coach are joined by @hallmightyone to discuss the testing [read: sadistic torture] they inflicted on Ash the past 4 weeks… on the dreaded Assault Bike.
Delving into the data, we find out how “fit” the lab rat truly is, and how the findings could be useful to us all, and transferable to our own training too.
We get geeky about ⬇️:
🧐 Positives to the torture device (aka Assault Bike) that you might not have considered
🧠 Is it mental or physical capabilities that can help push you to your limits?
🤓 The nerdy stuff: How we use oxygen when we exercise
🥯 Nutritional interventions: was it the beta-alanine or bagels?
🙄 Factors we forget to consider that may impact our training (or in Ash’s case, excuses)
And a whole load more!
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00:00
hi guys welcome to the lunge and lift
00:01
podcast today we are rejoined by a very
00:04
special guest mr luke hall
00:06
so over the last month i’ve been running
00:09
an experiment with luke we did a test of
00:13
my vo2 max and other things and
00:17
we go through the results um up first
00:20
one and apply a very targeted
00:23
intervention we’ll go through the
00:24
details in the episode which was
00:26
horrific some of the worst training i
00:28
think i’ve ever consistently done
00:31
and then we go through the retest and
00:33
see what’s changed and there’s some
00:35
really surprising results out of it it’s
00:38
not what we or what you might have
00:40
expected um but we did learn a lot and
00:43
we’re excited to share the results with
00:45
you um but before we get into it as
00:48
always a big thank you to our show
00:50
sponsor with fitness please check out
00:52
the website at wit hyphen fitness.com
00:55
and use discount code ll15 to get 15
00:59
off your purchase
01:01
right
01:02
let’s get into it luke
01:04
welcome back to the show thanks for
01:06
coming back mate how are you today
01:08
thanks for having me back guys yeah i’m
01:09
good good to be back i’m excited to talk
01:12
through the torture that we’ve put you
01:14
through for the past kind of four weeks
01:16
yeah finally making it all worth a while
01:18
so
01:19
um
01:21
maybe i’ll give a quick summary of where
01:23
we are and what we’re going to talk
01:25
about in a little bit more detail so
01:28
i did a
01:29
test with luke it’s a vo2 max test but
01:33
it’s so much more than that which we’ll
01:34
go into in the discussion and it’s
01:36
important that we understand that it’s a
01:38
lot more than that and um i’ll let luke
01:41
talk through the protocol first and then
01:44
we’ll go through what happened
01:46
ace yeah so uh the test that we carried
01:49
out was on an assault bike the most
01:52
fantastic bit of kit going but
01:54
ultimately the
01:55
most sport specific to the kind of
01:57
training that ash has been doing on
01:59
obviously to crossfit training as well
02:01
the test is called a 3-1-3 step test
02:05
literally just because that’s the amount
02:07
of work that you’re doing so three
02:08
minutes work one minute rest
02:11
three minutes of the same work
02:13
and another minute of rest and then we
02:15
take the intensity up um and so we take
02:18
that intensity up linearly after those
02:21
three one three segments to
02:24
essentially max to failure till in that
02:27
no any more um and so the reason that we
02:31
have the little rest period in there is
02:33
ultimately so that we can look at blood
02:34
flow between work and rest so when
02:36
there’s tension being applied
02:39
by the muscle how that affects blood
02:40
flow and when it’s released what happens
02:42
as well
02:44
three minutes it’s basically been
02:46
developed from a 515 test which is quite
02:48
a traditional test and the reason that
02:51
they use five minutes is ultimately so
02:52
that in each
02:54
rest periods you reach homeostasis
02:57
essentially we know that kind of
02:58
immediately upon work we see ash use
03:01
oxygen but the supply of oxygen to kind
03:05
of meet that increased work capacity
03:06
takes however many seconds minutes to
03:09
kind of level out so you want to get to
03:11
this point of basically steady state
03:13
within that work period
03:14
we took it down from five to three
03:16
because we found that you didn’t
03:18
necessarily need five minutes to reach
03:20
that steady state and also in terms of
03:22
time domain
03:23
most crossfitters are not going to be
03:24
spending
03:26
50 60 minutes on an assault bike which
03:29
would then be what the test turned out
03:30
to be so uh it makes it a little bit
03:32
shorter a little bit more relevant to
03:34
the time domain of crossfit but we still
03:36
get that kind of steady state aspect of
03:38
it which is what we’re aiming for within
03:39
each work period um but yeah and then we
03:42
throw in afterwards mostly because we’re
03:44
sadistic um a
03:47
30 second sprint test at the end so when
03:50
you reach failure within the three
03:51
minute segments you get a three minutes
03:54
rest and then you’ve got to just sprint
03:56
on the assault bike max calories no
03:58
pacing no holding back for 30 seconds
04:01
and i say it’s because we’re sadistic
04:02
but it’s also just to make sure that in
04:04
terms of oxygen saturation and usage of
04:06
oxygen at the muscle we’ve kind of
04:08
bottomed out there as well
04:10
because you tend you will bottom out
04:12
quicker with a higher intensity so if we
04:13
can do that over the 30 seconds to see
04:15
where we get to compare that to the
04:17
three minutes it’s like oh yeah hang on
04:18
a minute ash did reach his max intensity
04:21
he did bottom out or i know maybe he
04:23
didn’t because he’s managed to get a
04:24
little bit more out there in that 30
04:26
seconds
04:28
brilliant and i think um
04:30
if you haven’t listened to our first
04:31
episode we did on this test when rob and
04:33
i both did it uh scroll back and check
04:36
that one out when we go into a little
04:37
bit more detail on the kit i think the
04:41
the really cool part of this experiment
04:43
for me is the moxie monitor so it’s a
04:46
little
04:47
device you stick on your thigh and it
04:48
basically tells you how much blood is
04:50
arriving at the muscle and also how much
04:52
oxygen is in the blood and that was
04:55
really the key for me to understand what
04:57
was holding back my performance and
05:00
we’ll dig into uh exactly what that
05:02
means i say luke can you tell us a
05:04
little bit more about the data that came
05:06
out of the tests please the test and the
05:09
retest we’re comparing it both um sweet
05:13
so obviously we look for kind of vo2 max
05:16
um and the reason that it’s so much more
05:18
than a vo2 max test is with the moxie
05:21
and the other measurements we’re allowed
05:22
to kind of see the limiters to that vo2
05:25
max as well so
05:27
in terms of thinking about oxygen and
05:28
the way we use it when we excise there’s
05:30
kind of three systems at play you’ve got
05:31
the consumption of oxygen which is that
05:33
lung capacity that
05:35
vo2 max you’ve then got delivery of
05:38
oxygen to the working muscle which we
05:40
can use we can see using the moxie as
05:43
ash has said there so it
05:45
looks at total hemoglobin at the working
05:47
muscle and so if that increases it’s an
05:49
increase in blood flow for whatever
05:51
reason if it decreases decrease in blood
05:53
flow for whatever reason and then we’re
05:55
also able to see
05:56
the oxygen saturation at the muscle
05:59
which is a sign of utilization so we see
06:02
um how much is being used and the supply
06:05
and demand there so
06:06
are we diving straight into the results
06:08
of pre and post uh at the metrics of vo2
06:11
um let’s do let’s
06:13
based on that
06:15
let’s go um chronological so we’ll do
06:17
the first test and then we can talk
06:19
through the interface so why we did what
06:22
we did
06:23
okay so the first test that we did um
06:26
thinking about the context of those
06:28
three limiters first things first we
06:29
found that ash’s vo2 was pretty high it
06:32
was nice it was up for like 56
06:34
50 seconds
06:36
very first time
06:38
yeah yeah so this is to face that we’ve
06:40
done three tests now really um one
06:43
before that was a different and then
06:44
this was the first kind of step test
06:46
that we did and 56.6 milliliters per
06:49
minute per kilogram so um amount of
06:51
oxygen that he’s pulling in per minute
06:53
per kilo body weight which will be
06:55
important later because he’s put on a
06:57
few pounds
06:59
well one
07:00
pound so vo2 nice and high
07:04
we also saw in that first test that his
07:06
blood flow was relatively consistent so
07:09
we look for kind of hemoglobin trends
07:13
and during the work period what we tend
07:16
to see is total hemoglobin drops
07:18
compared to rest just because of the
07:20
compression from the muscle essentially
07:22
just squeezing the blood vessels a
07:24
little bit but that’s normal to see
07:26
that’s not necessarily an issue
07:27
it only kind of is flagged as a bit of
07:30
an issue from a delivery point of view
07:31
if
07:32
whilst in that work period we see
07:34
hemoglobin
07:35
increasing which is a sign of a little
07:38
bit of occlusion so where the tension
07:39
the muscle is so great that it’s
07:40
essentially preventing blood flow away
07:42
from the muscle and it’s just pooling
07:45
there which obviously kind of leads to a
07:47
little bit more buildup of waste
07:48
products that swelling in the legs and
07:51
we didn’t really see that across the
07:52
whole time so ash’s blood flow delivery
07:55
for the first test really really nice
07:57
and steady all the way through so
07:59
looking at that we’re thinking okay
08:00
consumption he’s got a big old lung
08:02
capacity 56.6 happy days
08:05
blood flow looking very nice and
08:07
consistent all the way
08:08
the thing that we found was ultimately
08:11
when ash reached failure on this test
08:14
his oxygen saturation so measure of
08:16
oxygen available at the muscle was 52
08:19
which is huge that basically means
08:22
hemoglobin out the muscle half of the
08:24
hemoglobin hemoglobin molecules there
08:26
still had oxygen attached ready to be
08:29
used and not used um for whatever reason
08:32
and he failed with kind of
08:33
a load there still to be used so from
08:37
that it was pretty simple to see hey ash
08:40
hang on a minute your ability to use
08:42
oxygen at the muscle
08:44
could be could be better could could be
08:47
a little bit better and thus hopefully
08:49
anyway um
08:51
your performance would increase so
08:53
limited being utilization there
08:55
on that first test
08:57
great and i think one of the things
08:59
that’s worth mentioning is that
09:01
my performance was measured as how many
09:04
intervals i could make it through so as
09:06
the
09:07
target power which we used rpm as a
09:10
proxy for um how high could i go and
09:14
still hold the intervals and i basically
09:16
tapped out um i can’t know how many it
09:18
was we did 50 55 60 65 and i just got
09:22
into 70 for maybe a minute and then i
09:25
couldn’t hack it anymore and uh yeah
09:28
tapped out so that will be important
09:30
later on
09:31
there we go
09:33
yeah so um now we know what my limiter
09:35
is
09:36
what did we do about it like let’s start
09:39
nutritionally let’s see okay good
09:41
because that’s my uh that’s my cup of
09:42
tea so
09:43
um yeah from the
09:46
nutrition side of things the first thing
09:47
that i always look at with this is
09:48
ultimately oh okay what needs changing
09:51
at the
09:52
physiological level to improve this
09:54
limiter
09:55
and so when
09:56
the
09:57
usage of oxygen is limited there’s kind
09:59
of two things we want to change
10:01
efficiency of mitochondria using oxygen
10:05
and then also potentially your ability
10:07
to deal with waste because what can
10:09
happen with a build-up of waste products
10:11
so hydrogen ions carbon dioxide is they
10:14
essentially change
10:16
the ability for oxygen to be released
10:18
from hemoglobin so if
10:20
the situation becomes more acidic at the
10:22
muscle hemoglobin will hold tighter to
10:25
oxygen i won’t let it go won’t let it be
10:27
released and so from a nutrition point
10:29
of view we’re thinking okay cool how do
10:31
we slow the acidity how do we delay
10:34
[Music]
10:35
in that build of waste products so that
10:38
theoretically oxygen can be dissociated
10:41
and used a little bit better
10:43
and immediately
10:44
beta
10:46
so beta alanine for those of you that
10:48
don’t know is essentially amino acids
10:50
and the way it works when it combines
10:52
with another amino acid histidine it
10:55
produces a compound called carnosine
10:58
carnosine is a buffer so essentially
11:01
what that means is when
11:03
we train super hard to produce kind of
11:06
lactate and hydrogen ions these hydrogen
11:09
ions are what kind of change the acidity
11:10
of the muscle and create that fatigue
11:13
buffers like carnosine and lactate even
11:16
they basically latch on to the hydrogen
11:19
ions and that basically just takes the
11:20
acidity of the muscle down and so the
11:22
more carnosine that you have the more
11:25
buffering of an effect um and the longer
11:28
kind of it takes to fatigue and
11:30
theoretically the harder you can go so
11:32
with beta alanine what we did is just
11:34
supplemented with um i think i gave the
11:36
range of like three to six grams didn’t
11:38
i per day so what was it five grams per
11:40
day for yourself
11:41
yeah a heat scoop
11:44
five grams per day
11:46
for for about four weeks um and with
11:48
beetroot as well it’s key there to say
11:51
that it’s consistency because you’re
11:52
trying to build up the
11:55
amount of carnosine at the muscle so if
11:57
you take it once you’ll feel the tingles
11:59
and psychologically you’ll think oh yeah
12:01
it’s working definitely but it
12:03
definitely takes that longer period of
12:05
time so four weeks to actually build up
12:07
the carnosine and get those benefits out
12:09
of it it’s something like creatine then
12:11
it’s just that that thing of more
12:12
longevity of taking consistently to
12:14
building up your stores rather than as
12:17
you say just a one-time hit thing and
12:19
expecting the benefit from so
12:22
exactly that
12:24
yeah so uh yeah i did get the face
12:26
tingles and
12:28
um the thing that’s quite nice about
12:29
beethoven is it’s not actually a
12:31
stimulant so days when i forgot to take
12:33
it during the day or before training i
12:35
could literally take it before bed and
12:36
once you’re used to the tingly feeling
12:38
it’s not a big deal at all you just got
12:39
to make sure you get it in i think i
12:41
probably missed one day out of the month
12:44
so
12:45
was pretty diligent um yeah in all
12:48
situations there
12:49
and
12:50
then maybe i’ll go through the training
12:53
intervention so with the consultation
12:56
with luke we came up with a protocol um
13:00
twice a week just because i got other
13:02
things to do than sit on an assault bike
13:04
and
13:05
the first session was the
13:08
worst one and some of the worst training
13:09
of my life
13:10
it was
13:11
uh
13:13
three sets of 30 cals all out and then
13:16
rests
13:17
basically as necessary to be able to
13:20
give it another good effort again
13:22
and the reason it’s 30 calories is we
13:25
needed a duration of time that would
13:28
really
13:28
empty my tank and anything shorter than
13:32
that wouldn’t
13:33
put me in that state so and it the
13:35
reason it needed to be all out is to
13:38
create we’re talking about it before the
13:39
call it’s almost like a downward
13:41
momentum of oxygen so you’re very
13:44
rapidly
13:45
deoxygenating the blood whereas if you
13:48
go at a more sustainable pace you
13:50
actually can hit equilibrium and you’re
13:52
bringing in oxygen as fast as you’re
13:54
using it so it’s important that the
13:55
intensity is really really high and i’d
13:56
say i was doing them at 95
14:00
because you always psychologically hold
14:02
a little bit back when you know you’ve
14:03
got one or two more and uh
14:06
yeah it was absolutely horrendous so
14:07
i’ve got to say that there’s one session
14:09
when i literally couldn’t get back on
14:11
the bike because i had to work
14:12
afterwards and
14:14
it
14:15
it’s uh
14:17
it’s horrific when you
14:19
can’t stand up like my my legs would get
14:22
so full of acid that i literally
14:23
couldn’t be on my feet because my knees
14:25
would buckle and
14:27
i would really need like the first one i
14:30
could probably rest 10 minutes 12
14:32
minutes and get back on and the second
14:34
one won’t be all right but the gap
14:35
between the second and third one
14:36
even in the final week would it was 20
14:39
minutes before i could even
14:41
psych myself up to actually put any
14:43
force into the pedals because if i got
14:45
on any sooner i know i wouldn’t have had
14:48
any um power to to drive the bike but
14:52
that’s the training stimulus that we’re
14:54
trying to elicit so that’s kind of
14:55
what’s necessary for this protocol so
14:57
even though total work would have been
14:59
about three minutes it was yeah a really
15:03
brutal session uh to do even though
15:06
you’re just standing around for long
15:07
periods of time on on that round it’s
15:09
really interesting because i think this
15:12
is the
15:13
uh i think the essential part of that
15:15
necessity you’re training for the
15:18
specific stimulus so that you’re after
15:20
because
15:21
most people
15:23
they’re say most people’s training they
15:25
won’t allow for say essentially what how
15:27
you said what three minutes of what six
15:29
weeks how many minutes what did you just
15:30
say three minutes so three minutes of
15:32
work right in an hour say potentially
15:35
right so if most people would think i’m
15:37
only going to train three three minutes
15:38
they’re like i’ve i’ve gotta do other
15:40
things whereas you had that very
15:42
particular session say right this is all
15:44
i’m going to do and you was okay with
15:46
that i think because you had the
15:49
goal of improving and you had the
15:51
specific like what you needed to do to
15:54
achieve that i think that was key and i
15:56
think
15:57
for for to carry us over to the general
15:59
public is it like
16:01
if you’re if you have a limiter like
16:03
what ash had there to be okay with only
16:06
doing three minutes to work in an hour
16:07
because you know you’re getting better
16:09
if that was your your goal is to get
16:11
better then that’s fine but i think for
16:14
most to do a three minute session in an
16:16
hour it’s it might not be the most
16:18
conducive of their time if you know if
16:21
they can only train a few times a week
16:23
so yeah so there’s a there’s a lot of
16:25
sessions i’ve done that lasted an hour
16:26
long that have been nowhere near as
16:29
tiring so if uh yeah i think it’s
16:32
the quality over the quantity
16:34
and yeah like you say getting that
16:35
stimulus that’s what that’s what sort of
16:37
i had in the back of my mind on the bike
16:39
i have to it has to really suck
16:41
otherwise it’s not actually doing what
16:42
we want it to do there’s no point me
16:44
doing it 80 85 because then i just
16:47
wouldn’t get that oxygen
16:49
as low
16:50
so that was session number one and then
16:53
the second session was
16:55
one influence from luke’s endurance
16:58
training of past
16:59
which was also
17:01
unpleasant but i would say not quite as
17:04
unpleasant where we do
17:06
10 rounds of one minute work one minute
17:08
rest on the assault bike at a
17:11
challenging intensity but the
17:14
kicker here is that in the first 30
17:17
seconds of rest off the bike
17:20
i would sit in the bottom of a squat to
17:22
basically trap the acid in my legs so my
17:25
body was forced to learn to deal with
17:28
the um the waste products that have
17:30
built up during the interval
17:32
and the first time i did this session i
17:34
paced it completely wrong went out way
17:36
too hard and i had that exact same
17:39
feeling but my legs just couldn’t put
17:41
out any power so i actually had to tap
17:43
out
17:44
i think i did three then missed an
17:45
interval two the mister didn’t talk
17:47
about that
17:48
i remember yeah
17:49
i remember seeing it
17:54
it was yeah but then once i sort of
17:55
found my pace um
17:58
i knew what my uh what sort of rpms i
18:00
could hold for each interval and the
18:03
next three weeks i steadily added um a
18:07
little bit to each one and actually in
18:09
the final week
18:11
obviously i’ve practiced it three times
18:13
previously
18:15
but also
18:16
i in my head i’m thinking the beta
18:18
alanine’s had this effect i had my best
18:20
performance in the last week and my legs
18:22
actually felt the least
18:25
burn
18:26
and i could yeah i almost i wish i’d
18:29
pushed harder because i added five
18:31
calories to the total calories for the
18:33
session
18:34
and felt like i have probably had five
18:36
or ten percent more in me compared to
18:39
even just the week prior
18:41
so it was really cool to just see
18:43
my performance increase quite um
18:45
significantly as well as the
18:48
subjective feeling of the workout um
18:50
over quite short periods with only well
18:52
if you think about it 13 minutes of work
18:54
on the bike per week and um i felt quite
18:57
a significant improvement
18:59
did you uh so what was your rpm just to
19:02
give our listeners a bit of an idea
19:03
because obviously it’s relative and yeah
19:05
obviously it’s a big difference but
19:08
what was the rpm you failed at in the
19:10
first week and then where did you find
19:12
you got to in the second week that you
19:14
thought okay this is it and start to
19:15
increase and where did you finish
19:16
thinking you could have gave more
19:18
so the first week i
19:20
came out the gates at about 85 rpm
19:27
which then dropped off quite quickly um
19:30
over the subsequent intervals oh yeah
19:33
within the interval um in the second
19:36
week
19:37
i did
19:40
six about 68 i’d say so i basically went
19:42
68 70
19:44
72 73 in those three weeks
19:47
and yeah the
19:49
fourth week when i did 72-ish
19:52
i felt like i could have done a bit more
19:54
actually
19:55
because i finished that one
19:57
sat in the squat got out of it and
20:00
was like recovered in a few minutes
20:02
whereas the week prior doing 70 rpm
20:06
the last three or four intervals i was
20:08
really having to
20:10
dig to actually complete them at that
20:12
speed
20:13
so it’s fascinating because like when i
20:15
think back to like emoms and stuff like
20:17
that i know if you’ve got a 15 calorie
20:19
e-mom to hit in in a minute you
20:21
essentially go out the gate hard and
20:22
then settle in to around say 71 that
20:25
will kind of get you to 15k 1545 seconds
20:28
so did you for that four minutes of work
20:31
did you go out hard and then settle in
20:32
or did you kind of ramp up 275 and then
20:35
settle in
20:36
no i’d get the bike going as quick as i
20:39
could when the minute started so i’d
20:41
give it a little you know two or three
20:43
strong pumps on the handles and then
20:46
yeah settle in and uh
20:48
yeah that’s so
20:50
i am
20:51
well i don’t want to jump ahead but one
20:53
of the factors that we need to consider
20:55
is that i just got better at using the
20:57
assault bike through the month because
20:59
it’s not something i do a lot of in my
21:01
normal training so the skill component
21:03
and the practice side of things will
21:05
have improved my performance to a small
21:07
degree as well
21:09
people don’t think there’s skill in this
21:10
old bike but there actually is oh
21:12
massively people don’t understand the
21:13
pull factor just using your arms more
21:15
and that’s the thing especially which is
21:17
why i think it’s such a beautiful bit
21:18
kit as luke said at the start to use for
21:20
crossfit because a lot of crossfit is so
21:23
total body that this is a bit of kit
21:26
that just ends you because it’s so
21:28
across the board hard for everyone
21:30
because everyone can push effort and
21:32
it’s an effort-based machine and that’s
21:34
what’s so good about it so so what was
21:37
um what was one of the hardest things
21:39
you found in those four weeks to
21:42
be consistent with because obviously you
21:43
said it’s hard to hard to train so you
21:45
know you that first session is always
21:47
that dread but you always made sure and
21:48
you were really consistent with the
21:51
beta alanine is there anything else in
21:53
that that month that you found
21:55
got affected or like maybe your capacity
21:59
to work as you said you know was
22:00
affected after one of the sessions not
22:01
necessarily that session was bad but did
22:03
you find any other struggles or any
22:05
other benefits in that month
22:07
yeah it was just the um
22:10
recovery post session that first session
22:12
i would need like half an hour just to
22:14
come back down to earth and some sugar
22:16
like quite quickly just to feel like i
22:18
could
22:19
um yeah be a normal human again
22:22
um but other than that
22:24
i think i’m i’m
22:26
was reasonably disciplined in that i got
22:28
both sessions done every week
22:30
and
22:32
yeah did you feel those dramas really
22:34
yeah i definitely felt fitter on the
22:36
bike although
22:38
i probably did less other cardio in that
22:41
month than i was doing before that which
22:43
is another interesting thing
22:45
um that feeds into the results but yeah
22:48
i mean like that that last workout in
22:50
the 10 on a 10 times one on one off i
22:53
felt much fitter than i had done in the
22:55
previous weeks great
22:58
so for the retest
22:59
yeah
23:00
tell us about the re-test results
23:03
okay cool so um starting off with the
23:05
one that everyone cares about uh
23:07
ultimately everyone should probably not
23:09
care about too much vo2 max so
23:12
interestingly on this one and obviously
23:14
we’re going to contextualize it in the
23:15
first test you hit a vo2 max of 56.6
23:19
milliliters per minute per kilo in this
23:21
test um you hit vo2 max of 53.9
23:25
milliliters per minute per kilo
23:30
all that work for a drop in your vo2 max
23:33
in terms of contextualizing that
23:34
obviously vo2 max is measured per kilo
23:37
body weight and as we said before ash
23:40
was sitting a little bit heavier this
23:42
time in so that has kind of um changed
23:45
the figures there but what we’ve done to
23:47
kind of account for that is also attack
23:49
just an absolute vo2 number so
23:52
taken his body weight when we did the
23:54
test before times it by the vo2 max
23:57
there to give an absolute number and
23:58
then the same for this test here um and
24:01
so absolute vo2 just the amount of
24:03
oxygen he could consume the maximum
24:04
amount
24:05
4.69 liters in the first test 4.53
24:09
liters in this test so 160 milliliters
24:13
less this time
24:16
which
24:16
in the grand scheme of things
24:18
is not a huge amount negligible really
24:21
so it’s one of those where um
24:23
i would personally say that that’s
24:24
likely no real change in um aerobic
24:27
capacity and oxygen consumption there
24:30
but
24:31
what are your guys thoughts
24:33
yeah i think
24:35
well 160 mils is less than half a can of
24:37
coke in terms of volume to visualize
24:40
which is a nice way to to frame it um
24:43
the thing that’s important to note it’s
24:45
the the peak is it the peak or is it the
24:47
average of
24:49
how high i got in terms of
24:51
in is the peak yeah so that means in the
24:54
first test at a point in time i was
24:56
bringing in that volume of oxygen and in
24:59
the second test at a point in time i was
25:00
bringing that oxygen that
25:03
doesn’t necessarily mean
25:05
that’s actually because it wasn’t my the
25:07
thing that made me fail
25:08
then potentially there’s more there am i
25:11
just uh
25:14
trying to salvage something from this
25:16
is that my is my interpretation correct
25:18
there yeah potentially it’s an
25:19
interesting one um so yeah it’s
25:21
important to there like you said um
25:23
just clarify a couple of terms so i i’ve
25:26
used them in poorly so far so vo2 peak
25:28
is kind of what we’re going off here so
25:30
vo2 peak is just that absolute maximum
25:33
value and then you’ve got measures of
25:34
kind of vo2 max as well which is more
25:36
sustained um value here and and in this
25:39
they’re very very similar um so i think
25:43
the vo2 max is always going to be
25:44
slightly lower but they were very
25:46
similar across both there
25:48
and with vo2p like it will change
25:51
dependent on the bit of kit as well like
25:54
you’ll see some people that can get a
25:55
higher vo2 peak on a treadmill than on
25:58
an assault bike for whatever reason
26:00
could be because of opening up of the
26:02
diaphragm more used to kind of breathing
26:04
whilst doing that motion as well um
26:07
yeah there’s a lot of factors that could
26:09
have fed into that um but because it is
26:11
such a small difference across both with
26:14
an extra kind of little bit of weight as
26:15
well uh
26:17
it’s likely no change as i say that’s my
26:19
my thought anyway is you’ve
26:21
definitely not improved on your vo2
26:25
but you’ve probably not got worse either
26:28
can we can we just state the amount of
26:30
weight you put on was 600 grams so this
26:33
is less than a bag of sugar so just it
26:35
does make a difference i appreciate that
26:37
but i’m sorry i thought it was a joke
26:38
when i saw this in the notes right so
26:40
because 600 grams for me it’s like
26:42
that’s me waking up and not going to
26:44
toilet time you know like 600 grams i’m
26:46
like that’s not really weight so but
26:49
yeah yeah but again like isn’t it no it
26:51
doesn’t matter
26:53
if i mean yeah but but even if we um did
26:56
this test at a different time of the day
26:58
where ash weighed a little bit less as
27:00
well that’s going to change the vo2 peak
27:02
per kilo so that’s why it’s nice to have
27:03
the absolute measurements yeah um to
27:06
compare between as well definitely yeah
27:08
yeah one thing that’s probably relevant
27:10
for this and also the other points is
27:12
that i
27:15
well let’s do the performance so in
27:17
terms of performance if you remember
27:18
from the first test i tapped out after
27:21
one minute of the three minutes at 70
27:23
rpm in this test i completed the whole
27:26
three minutes and then tapped out during
27:28
the rest
27:30
and
27:32
i’m sorry what you tapped out in the
27:33
ring
27:35
so there’s a couple of uh
27:36
talking points around this in that um
27:40
one i thought i had
27:42
smashed my previous score so i was happy
27:45
and luke asked me the question which is
27:48
i’m not blaming you whatsoever this is
27:49
entirely on me
27:50
but giving me the option of like do you
27:53
want to do you want to try the next one
27:56
no was the answer i didn’t want to try
27:57
the next one but i probably could have
27:59
done a bit of work i’m not saying i
28:01
would have completed all three minutes
28:02
of it but in terms of going to absolute
28:04
failure i should have restarted the
28:06
second interval of 70 and gone until i
28:08
actually couldn’t hold the wattage that
28:10
would have been the right way for me to
28:13
to go through the test which also
28:14
potentially explains why i didn’t
28:16
stretch that vo2
28:18
to absolute absolute failure the other
28:21
point to note is that in the first test
28:23
i threw up afterwards in the second test
28:25
i didn’t so
28:27
that suggested disappear though
28:29
yeah i thought about it i went
28:31
to make a content plan
28:35
but yeah nothing uh nothing there was no
28:38
purge so it was interesting though so
28:40
just on that the fact that you chose not
28:41
to go because i’m not going to say
28:43
there’s a pattern because on the very
28:44
first one you did you played yeah as
28:46
well because you said luke said
28:48
something and you thought oh i’m done
28:49
now and then you tapped out exactly
28:52
it is a pattern yeah now it’s funny that
28:54
you because in the middle one so the
28:56
first one at the start this obviously
28:58
you didn’t get that option so you just
29:00
knew you had to go in so it just shows
29:02
that
29:03
it’s not always about performance it is
29:05
just that it’s the influence and this
29:07
and that’s not there nothing against
29:09
luke or anything
29:10
this shows there’s so many factors to
29:12
achieving a number beyond just what you
29:15
can do because if you know if there’s
29:17
any if there was someone else next to
29:18
you doing the same test you’re going to
29:20
have that little bit more urge to push
29:21
or hold in that little bit longer and
29:23
stuff and that’s why like in competition
29:26
it’s amazing that next level you can go
29:28
to because you you can lift that extra
29:31
bit of weight or hold on to it for a
29:32
little bit more so it’s a very
29:33
fascinating um study that you chose to
29:36
pull out in the rest
29:38
yeah i think it’s a really important
29:39
point actually because the psychology of
29:42
pushing to failure
29:43
it’s it is really tough it is really
29:45
uncomfortable and
29:48
the common theme between the first and
29:50
the third test where i thought i had
29:53
succeeded so
29:54
my target for the first test was to get
29:55
over 50 and luke called out 50 because i
29:58
hit that as my peak but i didn’t hold it
30:00
long enough for it to actually be my
30:01
score so i thought i’d done it and i was
30:03
like right i’m happy with this now i can
30:05
leave it and in this test i knew i’d
30:08
smash the
30:09
the power output and performance side of
30:11
things because i know i did the whole
30:12
interval at 70. so i thought i was well
30:14
ahead and luke’s a super encouraging
30:17
coach when you’re doing something like
30:18
this there’s loads of positive chat so i
30:20
was i was thinking oh absolutely nailed
30:22
this like the data must be amazing based
30:24
on what he’s saying and then when i was
30:26
offered the option of ending in the
30:28
interval i was like yeah i feel like
30:30
i’ve pushed myself hard i think i’ve
30:32
already succeeded so knowing that i’ve
30:35
got this 30 cal max effort 30 seconds
30:37
max effort to come
30:39
my my psychology was that i’d rather
30:41
save a bit yeah exactly whereas had that
30:45
not been on the table i probably
30:46
wouldn’t have uh done it and um that’s
30:50
yeah no criticism of luke in any sense
30:52
well but it’s amazing i think i need to
30:55
explain why that option was on the table
30:57
in the first year please do
31:00
self-defense right
31:02
yeah it’s one of those things where like
31:04
i i have the luxury of um in front of me
31:07
seeing the data right seeing the trends
31:09
in uh blood flow seeing the trends in
31:11
oxygen desaturation seeing the trends in
31:13
vo2 as well
31:14
and ultimately in that last
31:16
uh interval you
31:18
peaked your vo2 peaked about halfway
31:21
through it in that three minutes that
31:22
you got through and then it just sort of
31:24
stayed it plateaued essentially and so
31:26
if that was still rising all the way
31:28
through those three minutes there’s no
31:30
way i’d have given you the option to tap
31:32
out because it was still going up so it
31:34
was one of those where it’s like hey
31:35
there’s probably more in the tank let’s
31:36
see if we can take a little bit higher
31:38
in the next one but the fact that it
31:40
kind of plateaued breathing frequency
31:42
had spiked as well so it was almost kind
31:44
of like a hyperventilation you read the
31:46
signs you saw you already knew what was
31:49
coming because obviously ash was in the
31:50
thick
31:51
because i think this is as you say that
31:53
this is a really important point because
31:54
i remember in when from coaching and
31:56
stuff or even with clients and when
31:59
they’re going up in weight so i had the
32:00
prime example the other day with my
32:01
client uh he was bench pressing and so
32:04
he wanted to hit a certain number and
32:06
say he was at 97 kilos and grinded it
32:08
out right and he wanted to hit say he
32:11
said if i hit 100 for the day i’ll be
32:13
happy right but he goes 97 kills in he
32:15
grinded it at night so in my head i know
32:17
he’s not going to get much more than 97
32:19
because once a bar pass starts to slow
32:20
down so you just know and he goes right
32:23
i’ll go 102. and i was like
32:25
okay so then it’s already he’s gone
32:27
above he’s a hundred and they said i
32:29
want one or two so i was like so i said
32:31
okay cool so i took the weight so i’ve
32:33
started to put a hundred on i said
32:35
you want 102 yeah and he goes yeah yeah
32:37
how’s that okay so as well because i
32:40
knew i was there put it on and again
32:42
it’s that thing off gave him the option
32:43
but i saw the signs i already knew he
32:46
wasn’t gonna hit it and if he did
32:48
and he blew my mind but he didn’t and
32:51
that was a thing and but this is exactly
32:53
that so that’s from strength training
32:55
today as you said i can read the results
32:57
as they’re coming because i’m not the
32:59
one in the thick of it and with ash
33:01
being in the thick of that is that and
33:03
having the option he’s like i probably
33:05
can’t get much more out uh yeah [ __ ] it
33:07
i’m not gonna do it and then because
33:08
i’ve got the 30 seconds to still do at
33:10
the end so
33:12
he’s interesting so the difference
33:12
between rob and luke is that rob will
33:14
let you
33:17
as long as you don’t hurt yourself
33:20
yeah
33:20
okay
33:22
great so we’ve got um
33:24
vo2 is slightly worse
33:27
performance is significantly better
33:30
and what are the other
33:32
aspects of the results please leak yeah
33:34
so let’s go straight on to the main one
33:36
shall we the big one that we were aiming
33:38
to improve so obviously the first test
33:41
the muscle oxygen saturation bottomed
33:43
out at 52 so
33:45
plenty of oxygen still to be used this
33:47
test
33:48
you manage to desaturate the muscles to
33:53
26
33:54
muscle oxygen saturation so
33:57
literally 26
33:59
improvement on last time to end up at 26
34:02
right so
34:03
essentially um your ability to use
34:06
oxygen improved definitely so if we
34:08
think about it through those systems the
34:10
trends in blood flow did change slightly
34:12
at the end which we’ll get to but um
34:14
thinking about vo2 as about the same or
34:17
maybe a little bit worse you’re
34:20
still bringing it in but you’re using
34:21
more of what you’re bringing in now
34:23
which
34:24
is likely what led to obviously the
34:27
increase in performance there too so
34:30
a success i would say because that was
34:31
what we were targeting it was a very
34:34
targeted approach as well um
34:37
like in a larger training program with
34:40
more kind of things factored in it’s
34:41
likely that you can improve everything
34:43
as you go
34:44
however i think it was such a big
34:46
limiter before
34:48
that it’s good that we’ve done this now
34:50
and brought that kind of up your ability
34:52
to use it so that everything is round
34:54
and about at a similar level now when
34:56
you think about your consumption your
34:57
delivery and your utilization there’s no
34:59
stand out like oh that could be better
35:02
it’s all like okay sweet now we can just
35:04
take everything
35:05
up
35:06
so with ash’s um obviously the amount
35:09
that he’s got left in his muscle what
35:11
would be the reality of getting it down
35:13
to what’s the furthest because obviously
35:14
you’re not going to go down to zero so
35:16
what kind of number would to be for ash
35:18
to be super
35:20
specifically fit at this particular
35:22
utilization what would you say if he
35:24
done like another four to eight weeks of
35:26
this for not doing another
35:30
but the reason why i asked is because
35:31
i’ll be so curious if you did another
35:33
four weeks and what kind of improvement
35:35
it would be because you’ve now got the
35:37
improved skill of the assault bike you
35:38
have a better understanding of yourself
35:41
so the next four weeks would be
35:44
how how much would he improve again
35:47
not by 26 percent but where would you
35:49
predict and what maybe you should do
35:52
do you know what no it’s i’m genuine
35:54
i’m i’m looking at this and this i’m i’m
35:56
thinking about it because it’s i love
35:59
just after doing the little bit of the
36:00
competition you have there in the saw
36:02
back it it brought back the fire of that
36:04
pain of the assault bike that i love and
36:06
i was just like i do wonder
36:09
because i’m now moved to more
36:10
powerlifting for the time being it’s
36:11
like i love that intent i want part of
36:14
my training to be that high-end stuff so
36:16
you having 26 what would be a good place
36:19
to go to after that that he’d probably
36:20
get to
36:22
so it’s all uh context dependent right
36:25
um and
36:27
the
36:28
beauty and kind of annoying thing about
36:30
it as well is when we’re looking at
36:31
muscle oxygen saturation there’s no
36:33
standardized values across different
36:35
sports
36:36
we can apply kind of logic to it so an
36:39
endurance athlete we wouldn’t want to
36:41
desaturate by a huge amount because we
36:43
want a consistent kind of flow of oxygen
36:45
through there uh in my experience
36:47
testing kind of high level crossfit
36:49
athletes i’m able to kind of draw
36:52
comparisons between how good they are at
36:54
crossfit and what they do and where they
36:56
sort of bottom out um and the kind of
36:58
thresholds that
37:00
i’ve put on it and this is as i say a
37:02
threshold that i’ve put on it it’s not a
37:04
standardized kind of threshold for
37:06
different sports or anything like that
37:07
it’s just based on um what i’ve seen and
37:09
how that reflects in performance in the
37:10
sport
37:12
sub 20
37:13
tends to be sort of where these guys are
37:15
at um
37:17
anything kind of below there obviously
37:19
as you say you don’t want to go all the
37:20
way down to zero because there’s always
37:22
going to be oxygen pulling in right you
37:24
don’t want to have no oxygen at the
37:25
muscle um but that kind of sub 20
37:28
seems to be a good um
37:31
almost a balance like we think about
37:33
crossfit in terms of um
37:35
good at everything and that balance
37:37
across it and
37:38
being able to desaturate 20 maybe not
37:41
all the way obviously while still
37:43
obviously having solid blood flow all
37:44
the way through and a good solid vo2 max
37:48
and vo2 base tends to kind of be where
37:50
where i’d aim for so with bash it’s like
37:54
is he going to the games
37:56
probably not so 26 i think we can be
37:58
happy with that and uh no need to really
38:01
target it anymore or or not target it as
38:04
intently as we have done like it can
38:05
still be something that’s built into a
38:07
more complete well-rounded training
38:09
program there um yeah definitely so yeah
38:12
it’s not that classic
38:14
right is that
38:15
80 20 just you what you want to get down
38:17
to around that twenty percent so that’s
38:18
good mate 2016 is a great place to get
38:21
to well i was just going to say it at
38:23
the rate i improved this month i would
38:24
i’m improving by 26 percent a month so i
38:27
would be a zero if i didn’t
38:30
you should probably
38:36
great so uh
38:38
there’s one more point was there luke
38:40
you said about
38:41
the blood flow or no yes yes yeah blood
38:44
flow so interesting so like i was kind
38:47
of saying them before in the first test
38:49
with ash’s blood flow in the work
38:50
periods we saw really steady kind of
38:53
hemoglobin trends which is just a sign
38:55
of consistent blood flow which is good
38:57
when you’re supplying oxygen there um
38:59
what we saw in the later
39:01
later intervals in this test was in that
39:04
work period blood flow started to kind
39:06
of climb up and that can be due to a
39:09
couple of things it could be because of
39:10
kind of increased co2
39:13
which is a vasodilator which could just
39:15
result in like systemic increase of
39:17
blood flow but it’s more likely because
39:19
of kind of how
39:20
acute it was
39:22
to be a case of a little bit of venous
39:24
occlusion occurring so their tension
39:26
formative muscles causing a little bit
39:29
of restriction and causing blood to pull
39:30
out the muscle in those work periods uh
39:33
and it could potentially be i’m saying
39:35
could i’m always gonna say kids because
39:37
you’re able now to apply more power
39:41
ultimately more engage more muscle
39:43
tension and so that increased muscle
39:45
tension is creating that occlusion
39:49
which is what’s leading to that pulling
39:50
but obviously that increased muscle
39:52
tension is also creating more power
39:55
output and the ability to kind of keep
39:57
going and achieve higher so quite an
39:59
interesting one there uh again it’s it’s
40:02
expected to you expected to see some
40:05
form of collusion towards the higher end
40:07
because it shows that yeah you are going
40:10
hard there’s a lot of muscle tension
40:12
there um what we sometimes see and i say
40:14
sometimes it what we saw in me anyway
40:17
was like even in the first steps we saw
40:19
like occlusion and it was my blood flow
40:21
was not good uh just too much muscle
40:24
mass on my legs basically
40:26
inhibiting that blood flow so
40:28
which as i say at the lower end becomes
40:31
an issue because you’re much more likely
40:33
to get waste product build up earlier
40:34
and fail earlier because of that but at
40:37
the higher intensities where that
40:39
tension’s going to be higher where that
40:40
power output is going to be higher it’s
40:42
almost expected
40:44
but it’s interesting to see that change
40:46
and if
40:47
we kept going for four weeks would we
40:49
see
40:51
that start even further back and would
40:53
that then become a limiter um and
40:56
disrupt performance and negate it almost
40:58
if i remember rightly wasn’t that my
41:00
issue my issue was similar with yours
41:02
wasn’t it it was like is that swelling
41:04
essentially and i saw i never got to get
41:06
tattooed because i couldn’t deal with
41:08
that pump essentially whereas ash had a
41:10
better utilization so it was because i
41:13
was able to recover quicker wasn’t there
41:15
was i can’t remember my exact things but
41:16
i remember i was opposite to ash
41:18
basically so yeah it was one of those
41:21
where like the attention from yours um
41:23
just blood would pull at the muscle and
41:26
so as soon as it was released in the
41:27
rest period sweet flushed all the way
41:29
fantastic can go again um but yeah
41:32
whilst under that that swelling that
41:35
pump
41:36
that reduce the power there so
41:38
that’s really cool it’s like a mechanism
41:40
to explain the
41:42
the trade-off basically between power
41:44
and efficiency so if you
41:46
put out too much power too soon you’re
41:49
actually hurting your ability to endure
41:52
what have you seen in endurance athletes
41:55
on this front luke have you done many
41:57
people
41:58
who do long yeah yes and it’s one of
42:01
those where with an endurance athlete
42:02
it’ll always be a test carried out on
42:04
their preferred modality right so if
42:07
it’s a runner it’s going to be on a
42:08
treadmill if they’re a cyclist it’s
42:10
probably going to be a bike if they’re a
42:11
triathlete we’ll try and do everything
42:13
but obviously you can’t wear a mask in a
42:15
swimming pool um but for that it has
42:18
been
42:20
consumption is fantastic delivery is
42:22
really good and they look pretty similar
42:23
i guess to yourself in the first test
42:25
when we first tested you where there’s
42:28
always plenty of oxygen at the muscle
42:30
which makes a lot of sense when we think
42:32
about a the needs for endurance training
42:35
and be the type of training what that
42:36
brings because obviously if you’re
42:38
doing a lot of long low and slow zone 2
42:40
work you increase in your capillary
42:42
density as well so more blood can flow
42:45
through the muscle more oxygenated blood
42:47
there
42:48
and stroke volume of the heart so that
42:49
delivery is always going to be nice and
42:51
solid so it makes sense and it’s one of
42:54
those where it’s like
42:55
if if that is where they’re at if their
42:58
oxygen saturation stays relatively high
43:00
we don’t want to change that because
43:03
if you’re in a race and your muscles are
43:04
struggling for oxygen
43:06
that’s not a good place to be
43:08
but if we did see that they for whatever
43:11
reason at the higher intensities did
43:12
desaturate if we saw those occlusion
43:14
trends it would be a case of trying to
43:16
um improve on that and increase kind of
43:18
blood flow and delivery all the way
43:20
through there
43:22
amazing
43:23
and what sort of
43:25
sessions or nutrition would you put in
43:27
place to do something like that
43:30
so nutrition is an interesting one uh
43:32
it’s always going to be a case of
43:34
matching the type of training so um for
43:37
that as i said kind of low and slow zone
43:39
two
43:40
work can obviously improve that and from
43:42
a nutrition point of view um there’s
43:45
some techniques that you can employ to
43:47
almost amplify those adaptations so
43:49
training low has been shown to kind of
43:52
amplify the adaptations from low and
43:54
slow training and thinking about kind of
43:56
fat oxidation and improving improving
43:59
that aspect as well and improving
44:02
capillary density mitochondrial
44:03
biogenesis
44:04
all of that good stuff right
44:07
nutrition wise as well for acute
44:09
interventions
44:11
potentially nitrates can be beneficial
44:14
there so from kind of two points of view
44:16
number one a vasodilator so
44:18
if they can
44:20
increase that area of the blood vessels
44:22
and increase that blood flow then happy
44:23
days that’s going to help but also
44:26
nitrates have been shown to reduce the
44:27
oxygen cost so it almost becomes less of
44:30
an issue because you will need less
44:33
oxygen so if that supply is a little
44:35
worse then you can almost get over it
44:37
but again that’s one where you’re not
44:39
necessarily
44:40
fixing the limiter you’re compensating
44:42
for it in a way
44:44
but the vasodilation might help with
44:46
that too
44:48
awesome great so
44:51
quick summary of the results basically
44:53
the amount of air i was actually
44:55
bringing in was
44:56
slightly less than before but my
44:59
performance on the bike was better
45:02
because the air that i was bringing in i
45:04
could make much greater use i was using
45:06
74
45:08
of it you could think of it one way
45:10
versus 48
45:12
in the first test so
45:14
the fuel tank wasn’t bigger i was just
45:16
making better use of what i’ve actually
45:18
had which is quite cool because it’s
45:20
exactly the intervention that we
45:22
um or the adaptation that we sought to
45:26
achieve over the month so yeah
45:29
on first glance i was a bit gutted that
45:31
my vo2 didn’t go up but then actually
45:33
when we went through the granular detail
45:35
and the fact that my performance went up
45:37
um is really what matters and i think
45:39
that’s probably the key
45:41
one of the key takeaways that we want
45:44
for the listeners is to focus on the
45:46
metric that matters ultimately no one
45:49
wins any competitions or any medals for
45:52
their vo2 max they win for their
45:54
performance and vo2 max is just one
45:56
metric that feeds into how we can
45:59
explain somebody’s performance
46:01
so
46:02
if we get over obsessed with vo2 max we
46:05
kind of don’t see the wood for the trees
46:06
and
46:07
focusing on the performance and
46:10
what
46:10
aspect of your physiology is holding
46:12
back your performance i think is a
46:14
really important mindset to have as an
46:16
athlete and a coach
46:18
to get the most out of your training and
46:20
nutrition
46:22
so ash what over this month do you think
46:25
you’ve
46:26
was you do you think you gave it
46:27
everything to get the best result or do
46:29
you think there was maybe there was any
46:31
like limitations do this month that have
46:33
hindered your results shall we say just
46:35
so we can give the listeners a really
46:37
transparent understanding of
46:39
why your vo2 may not also because yes
46:41
your saturation did but yeah i see what
46:43
you’re getting at me you’re testing my
46:45
scientific rigor and uh i think it’s
46:48
important that we
46:49
um describe all the potential
46:52
explanatory variables and
46:54
for me august was quite a a boozy month
46:57
i basically had some big so you dream
47:01
every now and then they i have uh one or
47:03
two
47:04
so i um yeah but every weekend in august
47:07
basically i had something going on so on
47:10
that front that was atypical especially
47:12
compared to covert times
47:15
um
47:16
because i was doing the assault bike
47:17
stuff and i was very busy work wise i
47:19
actually did less other cardio so i
47:21
would normally do a little bit more
47:22
running and i didn’t have a single
47:24
squash match which is another form of
47:27
cardio that i would do semi-regularly
47:30
and less training overall
47:32
i would say
47:34
and
47:35
other than that
47:36
i think yeah just generally a little bit
47:38
less healthy than i normally would be um
47:41
there is one thing i didn’t disclose to
47:43
luke i
47:44
managed to
47:46
secure some
47:47
peds from america from the
47:50
the new york bagel company and
47:54
i was smashing a couple of extra bagels
47:56
um just because i fancied them and
48:00
yeah that might be the real reason that
48:02
like drinking alcohol and having extra
48:04
bagels is really what improved my
48:05
performance but we can’t be sure
48:08
and i think what’s funny is because it’s
48:10
like
48:11
even though these are maybe
48:13
not ideals for a test month
48:16
it’s just reality and this is i think a
48:18
lot of time that unless you’re an elite
48:20
athlete
48:21
you’re it’s very unlucky you’re going to
48:23
have a perfect month and say and but
48:26
it’s not allowing those like dodgy
48:28
weekends that then affect the rest of
48:30
your week’s training or the rest of your
48:31
weeks eating because i know even from
48:34
personal experience i have a bit of a
48:35
heavy say friday or saturday or both
48:38
sunday’s a bit crap and then monday i
48:40
feel a little bit laggy and it might
48:41
impact then just go through to the end
48:43
of the week and then next thing you know
48:44
you’re at the next weekend and it’s like
48:46
i think this is what’s so important is
48:48
even with those variables in your month
48:51
you were still able to bring it back and
48:53
still have the goal in mind and and the
48:55
focus of achieving your sessions doing
48:57
your getting your beta alanine in and
48:59
you know and overall i guess recovering
49:01
recovery right to give yourself the best
49:03
chance so yeah yeah i think um
49:06
the reality of the situation like you
49:08
say is that we can’t be
49:10
super scientific like if we were to get
49:13
really pedantic about running an
49:15
experiment
49:16
we probably would have done one variable
49:18
at a time whereas in this there are
49:20
really three
49:21
interventions at play there’s the beta
49:23
alanine there’s the desaturation session
49:26
and then there’s the lactate retention
49:27
session and we can’t be 100 sure which
49:30
one of the three is most responsible for
49:33
the improvement but because we have
49:36
a hypothesis around the mechanisms and
49:39
the fact that they all play into the
49:40
same overall story we have
49:43
learned something really significant
49:45
because we’ve achieved the effect that
49:46
we set out to
49:48
um
49:49
there’s yeah you can always go down the
49:50
correlation versus causation um
49:53
line of discussion but with a good
49:56
hypothesis and
49:58
testing and retesting to
50:01
see if what we think
50:03
was going to happen happened
50:05
we can be reasonably sure and i’m you
50:08
know this isn’t something that’s going
50:10
to get peer reviewed and published
50:12
but anecdotally i’ve learned a lot about
50:14
my own body and my performance has
50:16
improved which is ultimately what we
50:17
care about
50:22
so ash
50:24
do you want to do another four weeks
50:25
would you do this again
50:27
if the price is right
50:31
i’m in no rush to spend
50:33
13 minutes a week again on the assault
50:35
bike i think it’s uh it did take away
50:37
from other training slightly just
50:39
because it is so draining um i did
50:41
really enjoy it to be fair and
50:43
um i’m glad i did it but
50:46
i think my energy
50:48
could be better spent um if there’s no
50:50
nothing to learn once once you’ve learnt
50:52
it then i’m happy to move on
50:54
yeah well we’ve learned and we’ve taken
50:56
it up as well right so um you’d get less
50:59
bang for your buck out of it as well
51:00
right
51:01
exactly that’s true exactly
51:04
so i think um to sort of wrap it up
51:08
some of the key takeaways we want out of
51:10
this episode um one under quite a
51:12
specific point
51:14
cardiovascular
51:16
exercise is multifaceted so
51:20
if you are interested in your cardio
51:22
performance whether it’s for crossfit or
51:24
for a pure endurance sport
51:26
it’s not as simple as just doing
51:29
that thing the more granular you can get
51:31
in discovering your limiter the more
51:34
effective your training can be
51:36
so
51:37
the classic
51:38
like training programs try to cover all
51:40
bases but i think
51:42
the one of the learning points from this
51:44
experiment is that if you target your
51:46
limiter with actually quite a small
51:48
amount of targeted effort you can make a
51:50
significant improvement in your overall
51:52
performance because
51:54
like for me if i’d spent
51:56
this month working on my
51:58
low and slow improving my oxygen in that
52:01
might not necessarily have improved my
52:03
performance as much because that wasn’t
52:05
actually holding back
52:07
how much i put out on the bike sure if i
52:08
had a bigger tank and i still used um 48
52:12
of it in my performance you’d expect to
52:14
go up but actually with the really
52:16
targeted work to make use of what i was
52:19
already bringing in um we saw yeah a
52:22
good improvement in performance from not
52:25
actually very much training overall
52:27
um
52:28
i think the other point that we touched
52:30
on earlier was making sure that you pick
52:32
the metrics that matter so
52:35
performance on the assault bike is
52:36
actually the real world output that
52:39
we’re worried about so
52:41
vo2 max and desaturation and blood flow
52:44
all just play into the narrative around
52:47
how we explain that performance and how
52:49
we might
52:50
look to improve it
52:52
and
52:54
yeah
52:55
the scientific rigor of assessing and
52:58
then re-testing at periodic points along
53:01
the way to check that whatever
53:02
intervention or training plan you’ve got
53:04
in places working
53:05
is
53:06
a key way to approach
53:07
everything if you’re looking to make
53:09
improvements in performance whether it’s
53:11
cardio strength or otherwise having some
53:14
sort of
53:17
evaluation of progress at regular points
53:20
along the way is
53:21
key i think what’s going to be really
53:23
interesting is because obviously you’re
53:24
not someone who necessarily uses your
53:26
sort by it’s not really your thing per
53:28
se week in week out really but i wonder
53:31
now
53:32
how this improves your football how it
53:35
improves your squash just the fact that
53:37
you can take your
53:39
muscles down to a lower level so you
53:41
essentially can work harder for longer
53:43
so
53:44
um it’d be really interesting to now see
53:46
over the next month your your newbie
53:49
gains that’s how you can use this
53:52
and then if you feel like you you feel
53:54
this limiter then maybe you could bring
53:56
in that salt back session again that 30
53:58
cows one and just just once a week
54:01
because then you’re thinking okay by
54:02
just doing this
54:04
or maybe the other one the one minute on
54:06
one minute off one is in doing that
54:08
because you know that’s going to help
54:09
with your outside the gym performances
54:11
which is what you really care about
54:13
really so it’s it’s i think what’s been
54:16
really fascinating about this is you’ve
54:18
you’ve found a bit of kit to give you
54:20
the stimulus needed
54:22
even though that big isn’t
54:25
what you necessarily need to get better
54:27
at you’re just you’ve just used the tool
54:29
to achieve that so then i’ll be really
54:32
intrigued and maybe aft just over the
54:33
next month while you’re maybe still got
54:35
these newbie gains to see hopefully if
54:37
you get some more squash in or if you
54:39
get some football how you feel
54:41
i’ve had a couple of squash matches this
54:42
week actually and um there we go it’s
54:45
fitness
54:46
fitness definitely wasn’t my limiter
54:47
yeah i felt fit and um
54:50
i was actually playing against two
54:52
sort of middle-aged guys who were
54:55
very wildly inexperienced so i think
54:58
they
54:58
recognized my fitness advantage and were
55:01
pulling out all the tricks like long
55:03
breaks between points between games just
55:05
like dropping their racket at points
55:07
like that or like instead of picking up
55:09
the ball they’ll flick it accident
55:11
accidentally to the other end of the
55:12
court to just slow the game down so
55:15
like they managed to
55:18
neutralize the fitness advantage to some
55:20
extent but i felt great i felt really
55:22
fit and
55:23
it didn’t take much out like
55:25
one of them was a five-setter and
55:28
compared to i think how i would have
55:29
felt before
55:30
i felt like it didn’t really
55:32
deplete me as much as it might do
55:34
normally and at no point with my legs
55:36
burning uh even in the long rallies so i
55:39
definitely feel fit at the moment
55:41
um
55:42
subjectively yeah so luke just thank you
55:44
mate not only obviously for putting ash
55:46
through this torture and for us to now
55:48
be able to discuss it and understand it
55:49
but also thank you for the episodes
55:51
you’ve also come on so far to discuss
55:53
all these different topics and you know
55:57
can you tell us a bit more whether maybe
55:58
the listeners might be able to find out
56:00
more and maybe get their own one done
56:01
and then book in their retest and so
56:03
forth
56:05
of course yeah well thanks for having me
56:07
first of all it’s always a pleasure to
56:08
talk to you guys but yeah for any any
56:10
more information on this side of thing
56:12
the ph nutrition website is the place to
56:15
go for that so that’s where you can book
56:16
in a test there’s a couple of blogs on
56:18
there as well about um previous test
56:20
case studies and then obviously the
56:22
nutrition side of things so a ton of
56:24
things on there including my very own
56:26
engine nutrition program
56:27
which has been designed basically across
56:30
two phases to attack kind of everything
56:32
that we talked about really in terms of
56:34
taking up your capacity and tailoring it
56:36
to the right situation and the right
56:37
intervention there too
56:39
and then also if you want to reach out
56:41
to me and get in touch
56:42
terrible terrible name on instagram at
56:45
hall mighty one which is a pun that
56:47
followed me from high school um but yeah
56:49
at all mighty one and then the ph
56:51
nutrition instagram and ph nutrition
56:52
website as well
56:54
beautiful mate luke the all the links
56:56
will be in the bio description down
56:58
below but have you not thought about
57:00
changing that instant or you just you
57:01
really do like it deep down
57:03
yeah it’s one of those where i thought
57:05
it was so funny when i was younger that
57:07
i may as well just keep it and uh
57:09
someone even said to me the other day
57:11
but that is now how you are associated
57:13
with people you can’t change it
57:18
so cheers mate thank you very much for
57:19
your time and uh we’ll speak to you soon
57:22
i mean what an episode that was right
57:23
ash i loved it it’s really interesting
57:25
to hear that not only are you human like
57:27
most of us but you know to also get some
57:29
insight into what targeted training and
57:32
how the improvements aren’t always as
57:34
obvious
57:36
as initially thought so
57:38
really really fascinating to dig deep
57:39
into that i really hope you got some
57:40
stuff out of it and as luke mentioned
57:43
there at the end if you do want to know
57:44
more all in the description box will be
57:46
all his contact details so you can find
57:48
out more either about him or about the
57:50
service that ph nutrition offer
57:53
but as always thank you very much for
57:55
listening we really do appreciate your
57:57
ears and we appreciate your eyes if you
58:00
are over on youtube
58:02
if you want to support the podcast we
58:04
will love it if you just head over to
58:06
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58:08
subscription base obviously that is
58:10
going to help us not only grow but also
58:12
then hopefully eventually start
58:14
monetizing this
58:16
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58:18
it’s quite expensive thing to do as a
58:20
hobby but yeah if you could if you do
58:22
want to support us it’s a nice free
58:23
thing head over to youtube press
58:25
subscribe and uh get some more eyes on
58:28
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58:30
want to also
58:31
support a little bit more you could
58:32
leave us a review on apple podcast that
58:35
really does help us there as well and
58:37
we’re trying to get into the top 200
58:39
fitness podcasts might be a while but
58:41
unless we’re on we’re on the journey
58:43
don’t know where we are because i can’t
58:44
actually see outside 200. but
58:46
thank you very much for your time and we
58:48
will see you next week
58:51
thanks guys
