This week on @lunge.lift @robstubbspt and @ashgrossmann.coach are joined on the pod by @steveyf22, the co-founder of @jst_compete. We get all up in our feels about obsessing over training and competition, what that can mean and how it impacts a person (elite or not). Ste came and delivered on the food for thought front for sure.
We get into: ⬇️
👨🏫 Lessons we can all learn from a CrossFit Games athlete
🌱 Reap what you sow; the rewards of repetition
🏆 How much of your mental health would you sacrifice for glory…
👨👩👦 Raising an athlete; if and when, do you push them to specialise?
🏋🏽♂️ Does CrossFit deserve a place in the Olympics?
And plenty 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
