Endurance Planet

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs and we have everything Thorne offers available to you over at our shop page, endurance planet dot com slash shop or link through the show notes. When you shop through us you support the podcast, a win win. Thorne products are shipped around the world and they ensure quality control year-round. Whether you’re looking to heal from issues like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances like low sex hormones or imbalanced stress hormones, or just looking to improve performance, maintain a strong immune system and get that extra edge, Thorne has so many formulas to fit you needs or bundles to cover even more bases. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. If you’re curious on what supplements might be a good fit for you, just ask us! Send us an email to questions at endurance planet dot com telling us about yrouself and where you think you might need to fill in some gaps. Thorne now even offers health testing such as a convenient budget-friendly gut health tests! So starting shopping with the best there is with Thorne—also over on our Shop page—and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! On this episode we welcome professional triathlete Sarah True. Sarah is one of the few endurance athletes to reach the top of her sport at multiple distances—including two Olympic Games, top finishes at ITU WTS, and IRONMAN racing. She now focuses on Iron-distance racing, and she has finished as high as 4th place at the Ironman World Championships in Kona. Sarah is also a newer mom having had a baby boy in 2021. In addition to racing professionally and motherhood, Sarah has been very open over the years about her struggles with depression and is candid about breaking the stigma and sharing behind the scenes. On this episode we talk with her about everything from her approach to pregnancy and postpartum—with great insight and tips for all you mamas out there—to what tools have worked for her in healing from depression, how she’s been able to get herself out of some the darker chapters in her life, and the prevalence of depression in sport especially with professionals. Article mention: The Athlete’s Paradox: Adaptable Depression.    The post Sarah True: On Motherhood, Depression, and Professional Triathlon — Fine-Tuning the Juggling Act With Grit and Grace first appeared on Endurance Planet.

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Fullscript is an online supplement dispensary with professional, high quality top-brand supplements from a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get an exclusive discount off thousands of choice of top-level supplements. Fullscript even carries PerfectAmino essential amino acids by BodyHealth—including the tablet form and powder form. Some other good finds on Fullscript include Vital Protein Collagen Peptides, Thorne products, Nordic Naturals fish oils, and other great, trusted brands such as Pure Encapsulations and Designs For Health. Fullscript has you covered on every aspect of health and wellness. Head over to Fullscript now by clicking the link, and get set up with your own personal account for an exclusive discount off your supplements. When you buy supplements from a trusted source you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Article discussion: Interoception in Athletes We examine new research on interoception in athletes, and an article in Triathlete Magazine that dissects it further. Study: Interoceptive differences in elite sprint and long-distance runners: A multidimensional investigation Article by Alex Hutchinson: The Case Against Listening To Your Body Interoception vs Intuition: “Interoception” – the felt sense; processing of visceral-afferent neural signals by the central nervous system, which results in the conscious perception of bodily processes. Your brain’s perception of your body’s state, transmitted from receptors on internal organs; i.e. cardiovascular system, lungs, gut, etc. Communication between brain and organs. E.g. being able to tell your HR just by feel without taking pulse. “Intuition” – an inner knowing; the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning; a hunch or also gut feeling generated by the unconscious mind (experience and cumulative knowledge aids) Hutchinson quote from the article: “It could be that training and competing actually interfere with interoception. Perhaps repeatedly pushing your body beyond its comfortable limits forces you to ignore all the distress signals bombarding your brain. Over time, ignoring them becomes a habit, and you’re less able to judge how you’re feeling. Or perhaps it’s only modern runners whose interoception is impaired, thanks to their reliance on external sources of feedback like GPS watches and heart rate monitors.” The study: Used world-class (ranked in the top 100) sprint and long-distance athletes, and non-athletes. Two questions were addressed: (1) whether sprinters, distance runners and non-athletes differ in their interoceptive abilities, and (2) whether elite athletes differ from non-elite athletes in their interoceptive abilities. Study 1: 213 subjects – 50 sprinters, 67 distance runners, 96 non-athletes 70 elite, 47 non-elite self-reported interoceptive attentional and regulatory styles via online questionnaire (Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) – 32 questions), included anxiety/depression question. Study 2: 29 athletes: 14 elite (top 100 national rankings), and 15 non-elite (outside top 100 national rankings). There were 17 sprinters (100m, 200m and 400m), 12 distance runners (800–10,000m) and 29 non-athlete controls. Only males? Heart beat counting task and a ‘gold standard’ Heartbeat Detection Task to examine differences in interoceptive accuracy, confidence, and metacog

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs and we have everything Thorne offers available to you over at our shop page, endurance planet dot com slash shop or link through the show notes. When you shop through us you support the podcast, a win win. Thorne products are shipped around the world and they ensure quality control year-round. Whether you’re looking to heal from issues like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances like low sex hormones or imbalanced stress hormones, or just looking to improve performance, maintain a strong immune system and get that extra edge, Thorne has so many formulas to fit you needs or bundles to cover even more bases. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. If you’re curious on what supplements might be a good fit for you, just ask us! Send us an email to questions at endurance planet dot com telling us about yrouself and where you think you might need to fill in some gaps. Thorne now even offers health testing such as a convenient budget-friendly gut health tests! So starting shopping with the best there is with Thorne—also over on our Shop page—and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! On this episode we have The Sock Doc, Dr. Steve Gangemi, joining us. Steve is a natural health care doctor who founded and practices at Systems Health Care, an integrative wellness center in Chapel Hill, NC. Steve is also a longtime endurance athlete and is a wealth of knowledge for athletes looking to optimize wellness. Intro Banter Toxic, Chemical Concerns in Everyday Foods and More Kerrygold bummer Label is found to contain “forever chemicals” PFAS. Our take and butter choices moving forward… Read more here. Salt choices for lowest microplastics and metals, etc. What are the best types of salt to buy as far as those lowest in microplasctics, heavy metals, etc. Celtic Sea Salt, Himalayan Pink salt, etc. Is there really a concern as far as how much of the “bad stuff” is in these salts? Crucial Four is a new brand dense in minerals that Tawnee is trying for her morning adrenal-health drink. Where else are concentrated sources of chemicals in our daily lives–look there! E.g. city water or water source for your home, drinking water, clothing, etc. Any recommendations for a good bathtub water filter? A healthy body should be able to handle low levels of heavy metals, microplastics, etc., and detox that properly. Holistic Hamstrings Hamstring Basics Read Steve’s in-depth article on hamstring injuries here. Quick hamstring 101: hamstrings consists of 3 muscles, the motion they provide, bridge between glutes and calves, etc. Generally, hams are more often injured in running, jumping. Upper hammy are more often injured in endurance athletes/runners than lower (behind knee, which is usually a calf muscle issue). Upper hamstring more often a glute issue, often weak due to pelvic instability–hamstring is doing extra work to make up for glute weakness Steve’s philosophy of “don’t treat the hamstring” when hamstring hurts or is injured. Either coming from a different muscle or the hamstring function is being disrupted by some other muscle imbalance somewhere else in the body. Hamstring might be in spasm–gastroc, soleus (i.e. calves) or glutes are not working well and hamstring is compensating. Upper Hamstring Injuries What is usually go

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Fullscript is an online supplement dispensary with professional, high quality top-brand supplements from a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get an exclusive discount off thousands of choice of top-level supplements. Fullscript even carries PerfectAmino essential amino acids by BodyHealth—including the tablet form and powder form. Some other good finds on Fullscript include Vital Protein Collagen Peptides, Thorne products, Nordic Naturals fish oils, and other great, trusted brands such as Pure Encapsulations and Designs For Health. Fullscript has you covered on every aspect of health and wellness. Head over to Fullscript now by clicking the link, and get set up with your own personal account for an exclusive discount off your supplements. When you buy supplements from a trusted source you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Intro Banter Ragnar SoCal! It’s coming and there’s still time to join the team for the race in Southern CA on April 14-15th, 2023. Email [email protected] for details. Athlete Retirements Cam Brown: He’ll be retiring with his last appearance at IMNZ on March 4, which he’s raced 25 times and won 12 times. Can we just talk about an example of consistency and longevity in this sport, which seems to be increasingly rare?! AMAZING! Jan Frodeno: Speaking of retirement, this year is Jan Frodeno’s last as a professional. IM World Championships Our thoughts on the new race format with rotating locations and moving beyond just Kona. Questions Luke asks: How High is Too High? (HR) Hi I’m 29 big fan of ATC. Recently I did an olympic distance triathlon. It was hot, about 30 degrees Celsius on the run. I took it easy on the first half of the bike and then pushed the 2nd half and was still feeling good going into the run, when I got out of T2 my heart rate was 196 on my Garmin. It’s only the wrist monitor(so could be wrong), but I was still a bit worried. My legs felt fine though so I kept pushing it. At the end of the run I checked my stats and I had 195 bmp average with a max of 204. I was dead by the end but I didn’t think it was possible for me to run 50minutes at that heart rate. In training I barely get up to that HR unless I am doing really hard running intervals. I am kinda fit, the race took me 2h35, and that was better than expected. Should I have slowed down and waited for my HR to go lower how dangerous is it to hold that HR for that long ? Cheers What the coaches say: For quick & direct heart rate reading: Take your pulse for 6 seconds and add a 0 to get an immediate read and you can compare this against your heart rate monitor to gauge accuracy. Feeling your lactate threshold is usually very easy to do, as it is correlated with ventilatory threshold (shift in breath), but feeling “max” efforts or HR over 200 bpm has a different feeling. Couple ways to look at this: 1) Conditions: Heat + humidity–conditions make a difference. Are you a good sweater? If you’re not sweating well or efficiently you can overheat more easily (humidity impacts this because sweat won’t evaporate as well). 2) Heart issues in athletes Podcast mention: Dr. Phil Maffetone 21: Heart Health For Athletes – Identifying Risks, Weeding Out Hype and Why Exercise Is Still Your Best ‘Medicine’ Study: Are Olympic athletes free from cardiovascular diseases? Systematic investigation in 2352

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by LMNT, a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything you need and nothing you don’t. That means lots of salt — with no sugar. LMNT is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and is perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low-carb, or paleo diet. LMNT contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio: 1000 mg sodium, 200mg potassium, 60 mg magnesium. With none of the junk. No sugar. No coloring. No artificial ingredients. No gluten. No fillers. No BS. Click on our link for a free sample pack with any purchase. The sample pack contains one packet of every LMNT flavor so you can find your favorite or share with a friend. And with LMNT’s no questions asked refund policy, there is basically no risk to you. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs and we have everything Thorne offers available to you over at our shop page, endurance planet dot com slash shop or link through the show notes. When you shop through us you support the podcast, a win win. Thorne products are shipped around the world and they ensure quality control year-round. Whether you’re looking to heal from issues like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances like low sex hormones or imbalanced stress hormones, or just looking to improve performance, maintain a strong immune system and get that extra edge, Thorne has so many formulas to fit you needs or bundles to cover even more bases. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. If you’re curious on what supplements might be a good fit for you, just ask us! Send us an email to questions at endurance planet dot com telling us about yrouself and where you think you might need to fill in some gaps. Thorne now even offers health testing such as a convenient budget-friendly gut health tests! So starting shopping with the best there is with Thorne—also over on our Shop page—and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! Welcome to episode 35 of Holistic Performance Nutrition (HPN) featuring Tawnee Gibson, MS, CSCS, CISSN, and Julie McCloskey, CPT, a certified holistic nutrition coach who you can find over at wildandwell.fit. Intro Banter Ragnar SoCal 2023 A spot opened up on our team! The race is April 14-15, 2023 in Southern California. To get more info and join the team email [email protected]. What’s On Our Menu? Julie and Tawnee share some of their latest happenings in their respective kitchens: Julie – a day in the life: AM: coffee with collagen if I have it. Something sweet like biscotti or a graham cracker or a cookie. Breakfast: depends on my workout and time of the workout. Either oatmeal with chia, maple syrup, PB, ¼ tsp MCT oil, creatine, cinnamon OR eggs with salted cucumber and slice of bread Lunch: usually eggs if I didn’t have them for breakfast, or sometimes even IF I had them for breakfast. Dinner leftovers if I have them, but normally don’t. But it’s mostly been oatmeal for breakfast and eggs/toast for lunch. Snacks: bobo bites, EPIC bars, rice crackers with PB, deli meat, oysters, herbal tea on the reg in the afternoon (tulsi, licorice, throat coat if I’ve had a presentation) Dinner: start with an app of chips and salsa and then make a big bowl of veg, protein, and starch with a side of bread! Rotating proteins are chicken, beef, bison, salmon. Usually the sauce is a primal kitchen dressing Dessert: chocolate is eaten throughout the day and also before bed Tawnee – assortment of current favorites: Homemade gluten free bread Using Happy Campers flour mix Cost savings and can make without seed oils! Love this bread for “salmon salad” sammies with Primal kitchen mayo + local spinach Vitamin C gummies with gelatin, tart cherry juice, raw local honey & camu camu About 5-8 mg C per gummy Fun to do with kids Using: Vital Proteins Gelatin Terrasoul Camu Camu powder Raw milk Finally made the switch! Local source. 5 bucks a gallon. Wow. Force of Nature meats Good grassfed/grass-finished meat can be hit or miss at the store Buying this in addition to a local farm source Go the next step for your meat/poultry! Also on oatmeal and finding a healthy balance & approach with a carb-rich breakfast (especially for breastfeeding mamas) Mention: Toxic chocolate? Female Athletes Wanted! New study aims to discover: Should women train with respect to their menstrual cycle? You can participate… Our friend and past guest Paul Laursen is looking for female athletes on new study taking place that he is part of with fellow researchers. This new study includes three novel technologies in an attempt to gather deeper insight to answer an important question for female athletes — should I train to my cycle? Triathlete Meredith Kessler is an ambassador for the study, and we’re collaborating with IOC expert in the area Professor Monica Klungland Torstveit. Their ne

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by LMNT, a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything you need and nothing you don’t. That means plenty of salt and minerals–with no sugar. LMNT is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and is perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low-carb, or paleo diet. LMNT contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio: 1,000 mg sodium, 200mg potassium, 60 mg magnesium. With none of the junk. No sugar. No coloring. No artificial ingredients. No gluten. No fillers. No BS. Click on our link for a free sample pack with any purchase. The sample pack contains one packet of every LMNT flavor so you can find your favorite or share with a friend. And with LMNT’s no questions asked refund policy, there is basically no risk to you. Sponsor: Fullscript is an online supplement dispensary with professional, high quality top-brand supplements from a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get an exclusive discount off thousands of choice of top-level supplements. Fullscript even carries PerfectAmino essential amino acids by BodyHealth—including the tablet form and powder form. Some other good finds on Fullscript include Vital Protein Collagen Peptides, Thorne products, Nordic Naturals fish oils, and other great, trusted brands such as Pure Encapsulations and Designs For Health. Fullscript has you covered on every aspect of health and wellness. Head over to Fullscript now by clicking the link, and get set up with your own personal account for an exclusive discount off your supplements. When you buy supplements from a trusted source you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. On this episode with Tawnee and Lucho: Steven asks: Competitive Master’s Runner – But Slow MAF, What Gives? Started maf training 1 week ago. Was running avg. 7:50 pace which is moderate. I’m 59 and my pace with maf is 11:30. I literally can’t run slower. Problem I and my garmin hate this training. Performance condition is in the toilet every run. My V02 has dropped and training load went from maintaining to recovery to unproductive to retraining. My training load the last 2 days after 5 mile runs was lower than before the run. Garmin says fitness is dropping. I’m a very competitive runner high rankings and state records. Is this normal. I was expecting maybe 9:30 pace. Marco asks: Broken Big Toe Comeback Hi guys, Any tips about dealing with a broken big toe?I broke mine while moving some furniture (nothing to do with running). I’m off from running of course, even walking actually. I’m wondering what I could do when I return to running in 4-6 weeks of time. Apart from going easy and increasing the volume progressively of course.A shoe with a rigid sole maybe? Some exercises to regain strength in the foot? Other tips?I’m an experienced sub-3 marathoner running 5-6 times a week. Also I’m afraid I cannot run like before. I’m qualified for Boston 2023, so I still have some time to prepare when I’m healed (around 11 weeks, a bit short but I have to do with it). Par asks: Snotty Snow Sports & The Energy Toll of Introversion Just been cross country skiing here in Sweden and can’t help wondering why I’m covered in snot. As soon as I start skiing there is a constant outpouring of mucus. Why? Is it the same for you guys while training in the snow/cold? Also, if you’d like to discuss: I’m quite introverted and have very little need for outward social interactions. I’m always very content being the listening one at a gathering or a party and when I make an effort of being more extroverted it always drains me . If a day at work has been full of meetings for example, my poor wife has to deal with me being quiet and introspective. Now, listening to you fulfills my need of social interactions since my need is mostly listening to other interactions and it always recharges my social batteries. So I’d like to thank you for being there and making me a better person so that my social energy can be directed towards my wife. I know that for most people this will sound crazy and otherworldly but it is the world some of us live in. Do you guys have some introvert sides or know people that do? Would love to get your “take” on this topic. Thanks for being my distant friends! The post ATC 349: Humbled by MAF Training, Big Toe Rehab for Runners, Deep Dive on Introversion and Extroversion, and More first appeared on Endurance Planet.

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by LMNT, a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything you need and nothing you don’t. That means lots of salt — with no sugar. LMNT is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and is perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low-carb, or paleo diet. LMNT contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio: 1000 mg sodium, 200mg potassium, 60 mg magnesium. With none of the junk. No sugar. No coloring. No artificial ingredients. No gluten. No fillers. No BS. Click on our link for a free sample pack with any purchase. The sample pack contains one packet of every LMNT flavor so you can find your favorite or share with a friend. And with LMNT’s no questions asked refund policy, there is basically no risk to you. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs and we have everything Thorne offers available to you over at our shop page, endurance planet dot com slash shop or link through the show notes. When you shop through us you support the podcast, a win win. Thorne products are shipped around the world and they ensure quality control year-round. Whether you’re looking to heal from issues like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances like low sex hormones or imbalanced stress hormones, or just looking to improve performance, maintain a strong immune system and get that extra edge, Thorne has so many formulas to fit you needs or bundles to cover even more bases. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. If you’re curious on what supplements might be a good fit for you, just ask us! Send us an email to questions at endurance planet dot com telling us about yrouself and where you think you might need to fill in some gaps. Thorne now even offers health testing such as a convenient budget-friendly gut health tests! So starting shopping with the best there is with Thorne—also over on our Shop page—and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! On this episode we’re joined by Christopher McDougall and Eric Orton, who just recently released their new book, Born To Run 2. Chris is a runner and author including the original born to run book, and Eric, who is a longtime coach of Eric Orton Running Academy. Grab your copy of Born To Run 2 here. Together they have teamed up to create Born To Run 2, a wonderfully informative and entertaining holistic guide to your running or endurance endeavors with similar to concepts often discussed on this podcast. Everything from nutrition considerations, exercises and drills to improve your running form, minimalist shoes and the barefoot approach, training plans, compelling stories, and much more. In this episode we’re going to dive deeper into components presented in the book by Chris and Eric including: Footwear, bare feet and the minimalist shoe debate A friendly discussion: on minimalist vs. “mainstream” shoes. If going minimalist is so much better for us and as quoted in the book, “study after study has shown that running shoes did nothing to prevent injuries or improve running performance,” then how come shoes like the Nike vapor fly and alpha fly fare so well for runners and their performance? Injury prevention starting with back-to-basic type drills Wearing different kinds of shoes from minimalist to more cushiony The Altra story… and shoutouts to Xero, etc. Run-specific and healthy-feet drills to incorporate, including the concept of “Foot Core” The “five minute fix” – what is it, why do it Why you probably need to be running fast more often (and how this complements MAF training) Using music as a specific tool, specifically songs that are at 90 bpm to help with run cadence And also when to use music, when not to, and some personal philosophies tied in with this Chris’ go-to warmup before runs Running in winter condition as a “minimalist runner” with Eric’s experience living in Jackson Hole, Wy. What is the one-mile test and why you need to try it out. Stories of Chris’ running journey and working with Eric as his coach. And much more!    The post Chris McDougall and Eric Orton: On Holistic Training, Healthy Feet, Minimalist Shoes and Why We Need To Be Running Faster in Training first appeared on Endurance Planet.

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by LMNT, a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything you need and nothing you don’t. That means lots of salt — with no sugar. LMNT is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and is perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low-carb, or paleo diet. LMNT contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio: 1000 mg sodium, 200mg potassium, 60 mg magnesium. With none of the junk. No sugar. No coloring. No artificial ingredients. No gluten. No fillers. No BS. Click on our link for a free sample pack with any purchase. The sample pack contains one packet of every LMNT flavor so you can find your favorite or share with a friend. And with LMNT’s no questions asked refund policy, there is basically no risk to you. Sponsor: Fullscript is an online supplement dispensary with professional, high quality top-brand supplements from a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get an exclusive discount off thousands of choice of top-level supplements. Fullscript even carries PerfectAmino essential amino acids by BodyHealth—including the tablet form and powder form. Some other good finds on Fullscript include Vital Protein Collagen Peptides, Thorne products, Nordic Naturals fish oils, and other great, trusted brands such as Pure Encapsulations and Designs For Health. Fullscript has you covered on every aspect of health and wellness. Head over to Fullscript now by clicking the link, and get set up with your own personal account for an exclusive discount off your supplements. When you buy supplements from a trusted source you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Intro banter: Mentions: Article: When is it too cold to run outside? Winter wear for kids with PFAS/PFC-free materials   Our Top 5 in 2023: Unlearn technology—with the goal being to reconnect with your body, this includes listening to music! Barefoot strength—for ground up results, but don’t just abandon your shoes. More functional strength (transferable) work and true speed work. Adopt a de-stress practice/activity—as simple as a couple minutes of deep breathing (to better balance out sympathetic with parasympathetic); but also be mindful of how you’re breathing and responding to things around you and thoughts that come up. Try something new, pursue fit for life attitude! Don’t get stuck in the same routine with mediocre results. The post ATC 348: Our Top 5 For 2023 – Incorporate These Things For Better Results first appeared on Endurance Planet.

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a “training bundle” to give you an assor. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Body Health’s PerfectAmino® 300-count Tablets are NSF Certified for Sport, so you can trust that they’re clean and free form contaminants and banned substances. What you see is what you get. Please note: at this time it’s just the PerfectAmino® 300 count bottles that are NSF certified but all PerfectAmino® is made under the same roof with the same standards. PerfectAmino helps you fight fatigue, maintain and/or build lean muscle mass, and better sustain your training loads. It literally counts toward protein grams in your diet and vegan friendly. Buying PerfectAmino through us helps support the podcast and ensures that you are getting the highest efficacy and quality care in your supplements rather than risking old, poorly stored, less efficacious supplements bought elsewhere on the internet. On this episode we have The Sock Doc, Dr. Steve Gangemi, joining us. Steve is a natural health care doctor who founded and practices at Systems Health Care, an integrative wellness center in Chapel Hill, NC. Steve is also a longtime endurance athlete and is a wealth of knowledge for athletes looking to optimize wellness. In part 2 of this 3-part series we take a deeper dive into immune system function. If you haven’t yet, listen to part 1 here. Exercise options for optimal immune function Exercise- some is good, too much has negative effect. Thorne article: How Athletes Can Support Their Immune Function (with links to relevant studies) Equation of fitness isomer than just the exercise itself- so many other variables from sleep to work stress to family stress, diet and so on. Endurance athletes have a greater demand since the amount they mush themselves, and if not careful can be more susceptible. Overtraining runs system down (even if you’re not doing high intensity). Immune cytokines- some are inflammatory and other anti-inflammatory, this impacts immune system function and other systems in the body. Too much HIIT can put us into sympathetic overdrive – symptoms manifest in many ways and could include: skin issues like eczema, fungal infections (including toenail issues), you catch every cold going around, allergies and asthma, and so on. How to find our sweet spot with exercise for robust immune function? Trial and error: See how you respond to different exercise modalities and stimuli. Listen to your body. If you have cravings this could be a sign that things are off. If you had done too much long slow aerobic training and switch to HIIT with low volume helps, you may see better sleep, sharper cognitive function, and so on. If craving sugar, this could be a sign you’re burning too much sugar and not a great fat burner. If craving salt, this could be a sign you’re depleted in electrolytes and/or adrenal glads. Sensitivity to bright lights or sensitivity to sounds are a sign of sympathetic overdrive. Are you peeing during seeing hours? This is not a normal thing. What about people who have a lot of stressors that can’t just change everything, such as shift workers or people traveling to different time zones? Quality diet and training have a bigger positive impact than we may even realize- and those are well within all our control. Sleep habits as well. Offseason, training in winter and vitamin D Should we worry about training too much in winter months when we’re not getting an immune boost through the sun? Not necessarily, it depends and shouldn’t negatively affect every single person. Why? You can still supplement with Vitamin D. And also when it comes to illness and things like seasonal affective disorder (SAD), there are typically other issues going on not just a low D thing. The “Vitamin D border” in winter The changing angle of the sun in the winter, and why the latitude in which you live matters. Above the 37th parallel where you won’t get D from the sun in winter months (can get D from the sun above that latitude in summer months). More info: Vitamin D winter by Sock Doc Shadow trick- what is it? D Minder app to monitor your Vitamin D status and more Self assess & healing Blood markers discussed in detail in part 1. The path to healing and building a stronger immune system. So many speciality labs exist these days. But too much information can be overwhelming. Blood is a great way to start cheaply. Past that, measuring immune markers via blood even just basic Vitamin

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a “training bundle” to give you an assor. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. So let’s make sure you’re not running yourself into any deficits—this list is a good place to start: Magnesium Bisglycinate Stress B Complex Vitamin D/K2 drops Multivitamin Elite Prenatal Meriva L-Glutamine BioGeset Go ahead, click on each supplement if you’re curious to learn more about how these supplements may serve you. Maybe one of these or one of Thorne’s targeted bundles for sleep, stress, or performance, will complement your needs and round out your diet this season. Thorne is always available to you on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast!   On this episode we have The Sock Doc, Dr. Steve Gangemi, joining us. Steve is a natural health care doctor who founded and practices at Systems Health Care, an integrative wellness center in Chapel Hill, NC. Steve is also a longtime endurance athlete and is a wealth of knowledge for athletes looking to optimize wellness. In part 1 of this multi-part series we take a deeper dive into immune system function.   Immune system 101 We’re in an era where research on the immune system is exploding, and ever-evolving Components of the immune system include Gut Spleen Thymus Lymph system Skin Point is, it’s not just one specific area Every organ may affect the immune system in one way, and vice versa The idea of practicing hygiene but also not trying to be overly sterile and germ-free. There’s a symbiotic relationship between The role of the gut in immune system- it matters, but so do other things Steve is seeing a strong need for other players too, and they’ve been minimized by our love for the gut. For example, he’s seeing a need to help spleen and thymus aide. Signs to looks for: If you’re constantly fatigued, get sick and have a really hard time kicking it (weeks+), or you have some ongoing subtle health issues Chronically high cortisol suppress thymus, therefore impairing If you’re stressed out very easily this cold indicate spleen or thymus issues. Blood labs analysis CBC w/ Differential can direct or guide you on what is going on inside if you’re a bit unsure. Do not just rely on conventional ranges on these tests. Here’s a helpful guide of functional ranges (for optima health) to keep around and help you understand your results: WBC 5,500-10,500 (5.5-10.5 mcL) Some normal ranges go down to 3.5 but, anything below 5 is a sign of being run down Neutrophils (eg Segs) 50-60% If these are high over 60% that could indicate bacteria infection or some cases could be a virus Also increase in a bad accident, etc. When these drop below <40% and lymphocytes go up >40%, this indicates folate or B12 deficiency or malabsorption type problem If MCV is also high, eg red blood cell is larger than it should be, this could also point to folate/B12 deficiency or malabsorption. FIGLU test- only accurate way to test for folate deficiency. Folate breaks down FIGLU, and this breaks down histadine. If don’t have 5MTHF you’ll have high FIGLU in your urine, and this indicates inadequate folate levels in the body. Lymphocytes 25-40% Viruses increase these Monocytes 3-8% These get high when there’s a viral infection such as Epstein Barr, Hepatitis—but usually they are high after infection not necessarily in the acute illness phase Heavy metals can also cause monocytes to go high Eosinophils 1-2% If these are over 2-3% this can indicate allergies or systemic infection (2-9%) If they go high and stay high (>10%) it could indicate a parasitic infection Esophogitis and how these drive up eosinophils Basophils 0-1% Too high indicate allergies Individual immune systems- why does it vary so much? Why are some people more robust, whereas others have weaker immune systems, and why is it that our own immune systems can change over a lifetime (eg developing autoimmune) Genetics play a role to some degree, whereas others are born with a compromised immune system and that carries forward with them through life. Is it healthy to get sick? If you catch everything that goes around and are often sick, that’s not great and indicates a problem. But if you’re always well and never get sick, that doesn’t mean you

Sponsor: Fullscript is an online supplement dispensary with professional, high quality top-brand supplements from a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get an exclusive discount off thousands of choice of top-level supplements. Fullscript even carries PerfectAmino essential amino acids by BodyHealth—including the tablet form and powder form. Some other good finds on Fullscript include Vital Protein Collagen Peptides, Thorne products, Nordic Naturals fish oils, and other great, trusted brands such as Pure Encapsulations and Designs For Health. Fullscript has you covered on every aspect of health and wellness. Head over to Fullscript now by clicking the link, and get set up with your own personal account for an exclusive discount off your supplements. When you buy supplements from a trusted source you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. So let’s make sure you’re not running yourself into any deficits—this list is a good place to start: Magnesium Bisglycinate Stress B Complex Vitamin D/K2 drops Multivitamin Elite Prenatal Meriva L-Glutamine BioGeset Go ahead, click on each supplement if you’re curious to learn more about how these supplements may serve you. Maybe one of these or one of Thorne’s targeted bundles for sleep, stress, or performance, will complement your needs and round out your diet this season. Thorne is always available to you on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! Announcements Endurance Planet is making a return to Ragnar SoCal in April 2023 and we had one spot open up, are you the runner who needs to be on our team?! f you’re interested in joining the Endurance Planet Ragnar Team, and hanging out with Lucho, Tawnee, Julie and the rest of the crew you can email us at [email protected]. Send your questions to Tawnee, Lucho and the gang to [email protected]. Jeff asks: Chronically low cadence Hey guys! Besides the obvious of “pedal faster” what’s the best way to increase one’s cadence while mountain biking (and on the trainer)? I always seem to fall into a 55-65 rpm range, and it seems like the better place to be is about 75-85 rpms, but when I work on this my heart rate is more like tempo in the beginning and steadily creeps up if I continue to hold that cadence range. This is the case both on the MTB and the trainer, but heart rate even higher on the MTB. Is it ok to be a slow cadence guy or is this something I really should try to improve? What drills will help? How long until I see drills pay off by sustaining those rpms at a more Z2 effort? A little about me: I’m 39 and mainly mountain bike plus I use the indoor trainer as supplementary training, mostly when I can’t be outside or tight on time. Riding about 3-6 hours a week. Race when it interests me but not a main focus; I mostly train and do all this for the personal enjoyment, time in nature and health benefits… Also, is there any strength training that can help with this? Hanna asks: Next steps in running career + social media monetization I am wondering on how to take the next step with my running career. I consider myself with limited talent (I started after 6 years of soccer relatively late with 16 years) and did not break 5:20 in the mile (1500m: 5:00) and 18:30min in a track 5 k until I was over 18 years. However, through really awesome coaches and personal development (overcoming orthorexia, learning to live an athlete’s lifestyle, competing for Grand Valley State University, a top Division II program in the US from 2017-start of Corona Pandemic), I was able to improve steadily and quite a lot until now, this all while studying/working in quite advanced programs (Biomedicine B.sc., Master’s degree and now PhD). I am now placing in the Top 10 and even earning medals at German Championships and would be one of the top 5 distance runners in Switzerland if I was Swiss (I am training with the 2 best (and professional) Swiss runners right now in my group, Chiara Scherrer and Fabienne Schlumpf). I have just moved up to running about 60 miles a week (+ 2-4h of crosstraining on the bike/ swimming, plus core/strength work) and even with some frustrating injuries, I dropped my PBs in the last 4 years to 9:36 min (3000m), 16:25 (5000m), 34:33min (10k), 1:14,26h ( half- marathon and 3rdplace at German championships 2021) and have been selected for the German mountain running team to represent them for the first time in a major world championship. I am a quite versatile athlete I think and love everything from cross country, roads, mountains and usually, the longer the better

Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs and we have everything Thorne offers available to you over at our shop page, endurance planet dot com slash shop or link through the show notes. When you shop through us you support the podcast, a win win. Thorne products are shipped around the world and they ensure quality control year-round. Whether you’re looking to heal from issues like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances like low sex hormones or imbalanced stress hormones, or just looking to improve performance, maintain a strong immune system and get that extra edge, Thorne has so many formulas to fit you needs or bundles to cover even more bases. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. If you’re curious on what supplements might be a good fit for you, just ask us! Send us an email to questions at endurance planet dot com telling us about yrouself and where you think you might need to fill in some gaps. Thorne now even offers health testing such as a convenient budget-friendly gut health tests! So starting shopping with the best there is with Thorne—also over on our Shop page—and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! Sponsor: Be sure to open Amazon via enduranceplanet.com—it’s just one extra click to link to Amazon through the ads on the sidebar banner or the Amazon search bar (to the right of the page); or click the Amazon links in the show notes. Thanks for supporting the show! Announcements Endurance Planet is making a return to Ragnar SoCal in April 2023 and we had one spot open up, are you the runner who needs to be on our team?! f you’re interested in joining the Endurance Planet Ragnar Team, and hanging out with Lucho, Tawnee, Julie and the rest of the crew you can email us at [email protected]. Send your questions to Tawnee, Lucho and the gang to [email protected]. On This Episode: Tawnee and Lucho record for the first time since Tawnee gave birth to their daughter, Emoree Sol, on Oct. 8, 2022. Listen in for a fun, friendly chat featuring the story of Tawnee’s birth experience, Lucho’s latest training updates, 2023 training/racing plans, and more! Mentioned on this show: Thorne Take 5 on sleep deprivation The post ATC 346: Catching Up With Tawnee and Lucho – Baby News, Race Plans and More first appeared on Endurance Planet.

Sponsor: Fullscript is an online supplement dispensary with professional, high quality top-brand supplements from a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get an exclusive discount off thousands of choice of top-level supplements. Fullscript even carries PerfectAmino essential amino acids by BodyHealth—including the tablet form and powder form. Some other good finds on Fullscript include Vital Protein Collagen Peptides, Thorne products, Nordic Naturals fish oils, and other great, trusted brands such as Pure Encapsulations and Designs For Health. Fullscript has you covered on every aspect of health and wellness. Head over to Fullscript now by clicking the link, and get set up with your own personal account for an exclusive discount off your supplements. When you buy supplements from a trusted source you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Sponsor: Be sure to open Amazon via enduranceplanet.com—it’s just one extra click to link to Amazon through the sidebar banner (to the right) or click the Amazon links in the show notes. Thanks for supporting the show. Dr. Steve Gangemi, The Sock Doc, is a natural health care doctor who founded and practices at Systems Health Care, an integrative wellness center in Chapel Hill, NC. Steve is also a longtime endurance athlete and is a wealth of knowledge for athletes looking to optimize wellness. Vagus Nerve 101 What is the vagus nerve? What purpose does it serve? Longest cranial nerve in body, 10th. Parasympathetic activation; rest and digest. Helps to balance us from a nervous system perspective. We use this to look at someone’s overall parasympathetic tone Vagus in latin = wandering, goes to many parts of body: Pancreas, liver, gallbladder, spleen, heart, gut, etc. Where doesn’t if affect? Connects organs below neck to the brain. Transmit system. 80% afferent – gives brain signals back from organs. 15% efferent – brain responding back down to organs (crosstalk). 5% – 3-4% to vocal chords (exercises like gargling to stimulate); 1% a little bit of the outer skin part of ear (devices that can stimulate) When and how do we correlate a health issue we’re having (eg gut health) with a vagus nerve dysfunction? Stress and Vagal Tone Chronic or acute stress can affect vagal tone. How vagal tone affects HRV. Breath in vs breath out to discern parasympathetic tone. Improve with breathing exercises. Mindful practices we can do to help vagal tone: Gratitude, appreciation and memorable events These three things and the thoughts and feelings we get form them, and feel in the heart, can positively influence HRV / vagal tone When we work on vagal stimulation, we influence diaphragm, affect stomach function (e.g. hydrochloric acid function and improved digestion), etc. Gut transit time can be an indirect measure of vagal tone—the longer it is, the worse our vagal tone. Chicken or the egg? Look at it as a system dysfunction (breathing, gut, cardio) sends feedback to vagus nerve and can cause diminished vagal tone We can’t hum or gargle our way through the day and expect that to work magic if we have a poor diet, poor breathing and other dysfunctional issues taking place (poor breathing), etc… Vagus nerve releases acetylcholine (which lowers HR). Poor focus, poor concentration, reading comprehension, trouble following directions, neuromuscular fatigue—all signs of low acetylcholine. Overtraining/chronic cardio uses up a lot of acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is the main neurotransmitter of the vagus nerve. If low diminishing function of vagus nerve, but if vagus nerve is always overstimulated then you can use up acetylcholine levels. Acetylcholine is made from choline, which we get from diet, mostly animal-based foods (pasture raised egg yolks, grassfed meats); hard to get from vegan diets (nuts?). Choline can cross blood brain barrier. Higher protein/fat diet helps us get and maintain sufficient levels of choline for improved vagal nerve functioning. If acetylcholine levels low, can contribute to uncontrolled inflammation. Enteric nervous system tie in. Inflammation Chronic uncontrolled inflammation, dependent on a healthy functioning vagus nerve That 15% coming back down helps put the brakes on the inflammatory storm (the brain needs to tell the body to calm down the inflammation response, strong vagal tone needed for this to occur) If we then are inputting excess stress whether diet, over-exercise, life stress, etc… things can spiral. What about exercise? how do we monitor the level of exercise we’re doing to make sure we’re in a sweet spot for healthy vagal tone: Does inflammatory response of exercise (repeatedly) hinder vagus nerve function? Or, can chronic inflammation block the vagus nerve from doing its job? No special formula here. If you’re training too hard you’ll influence everything we just discussed above; never in isolation. Eventually tha

Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs and we have everything Thorne offers available to you over at our shop page, endurance planet dot com slash shop or link through the show notes. When you shop through us you support the podcast, a win win. Thorne products are shipped around the world and they ensure quality control year-round. Whether you’re looking to heal from issues like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances like low sex hormones or imbalanced stress hormones, or just looking to improve performance, maintain a strong immune system and get that extra edge, Thorne has so many formulas to fit you needs or bundles to cover even more bases. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. If you’re curious on what supplements might be a good fit for you, just ask us! Send us an email to questions at endurance planet dot com telling us about yrouself and where you think you might need to fill in some gaps. Thorne now even offers health testing such as a convenient budget-friendly gut health tests! So starting shopping with the best there is with Thorne—also over on our Shop page—and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Intro Banter Tawnee shares about how dancing has been therapeutic for her during this season of pregnancy, and also really helpful for her body from a movement perspective, opening up hips, etc. Julie’s Rut 50k Race Reflections After a great summer, the air quality (AQI) was really bad the day of The Rut 50k, adding another difficult element to outdoor endurance events. The day before–Julie was supporting her partner in her race the day before her own and the toll that took on Julie, as she shares, but why she wouldn’t change a thing. Motivation: On not being excited when she signed up for this race back in January. Her motivation was to learn from past mistakes and improve on her execution and results… but she learned that was not meaningful enough to keep her excited all year for the training. Even so, she stuck with it and had a really strong race, ran faster, climbed the rankings and had an overall much better experience (fitness-wise etc) than last year. In particular she was very strong in the second half of the race, which was new for her. This had her questioning whether she went hard enough and if she left anything out there? Perhaps this is just a sign maturing as an athlete and not going out there to just wreck herself. The biggest post-race struggle for Julie was not soreness or fatigue, but a mental hangup: She was more proud of herself last year than this year. We dissect that. On nasal breathing while racing and the benefits. Drinking coke and healing the disordered eating mindset: This year she was much less stressed about the food/drinks she was wiling to have on course, in particular being more open to coke and drinking it this year whereas last year she wouldn’t even allow herself to drink it. Holistic Winter Prep Light Therapy and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) Different types of light can influence immune function, inflammatory response (can benefit), mood/depression and circadian rhythm. In winter, those up north especially but in general we lose a lot of natural light exposure and this affects us to varying degrees. Different wavelengths have different benefits. Sunlight exposure = helps serotonin production. More traditional SAD light boxes have blue light and/or full-

Sponsor: Fullscript is an online supplement dispensary with professional, high quality top-brand supplements from a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get an exclusive discount off thousands of choice of top-level supplements. Fullscript even carries PerfectAmino essential amino acids by BodyHealth—including the tablet form and powder form. Some other good finds on Fullscript include Vital Protein Collagen Peptides, Thorne products, Nordic Naturals fish oils, and other great, trusted brands such as Pure Encapsulations and Designs For Health. Fullscript has you covered on every aspect of health and wellness. Head over to Fullscript now by clicking the link, and get set up with your own personal account for an exclusive discount off your supplements. When you buy supplements from a trusted source you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. On this episode of Ask the Coaches with Lucho: Nathan asks: Overcoming Overtraining – Steps To Get Back To It Hi Endurance Planet team, Long-time listener but my first question. I have a question about getting over overtraining and how best to learn about this. I am recently coming off of a trail running cycle that I knew was time limited (training for a peak race in September really started in earnest in July because I was traveling all of June). After my tune up races in July / early August I had classic overtraining symptoms (wired and tired at night, generally on edge, workouts always feeling okay but not great), and tried to reset it by taking a few days off cardio and moving my easy runs towards zone 1 rather than zone 2. My last race was the Pike’s Peak Ascent a couple days ago, and I could tell I didn’t really have good legs. I had spend almost two weeks at altitude to “adjust” and “taper”, but I feel like that may have backfired given my recovery. I also had COVID in late August so it was a bit of a mess. The questions I was wondering about are: 1. What do you recommend for resetting overtraining mid training cycle? How do you know when you’re past it? 2. How does this compare to recovering when you don’t have a race coming soon? What the coaches say: Check out ATC 345 with an in-depth convo on overtraining syndrome (OTS) and looking at current research. Very subjective, is it really overtraining syndrome (OTS)? Or just overreaching? (Plus with covid recovery combined…) how long had this been building? If it was just a month or so might just be a period of overreaching and taking it too far with too much stress. True OTS can take months to years to recover from. Also, true OTS is actually hard to achieve–innate safety mechanism that can be protective. There are also usually other symptoms associated; e.g. he got COVID and maybe that was the sign to put on the brakes before it went too far. Either way you can treat it as OTS, and what works for recovery? Sleep! Focus on sleep hygiene. Integrate more rest. Yes, from training but also resting more from life in general. Stress management. Eat more. Eat smart. Avoid low carb–this can cause a surge or excess stress; meanwhile avoid junk food and excess carbs… finding a sweet spot e.g 100-200g/cho day? No diets. Nourish don’t deplete. Monitor HR data If you see resting HR 5-10 bpm higher than normal is a negative sign. Measure HRV regularly. Track training HR–it could be abnormally his or low, can go either way. If hormonal disruption suspected

Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs and we have everything Thorne offers available to you over at our shop page, endurance planet dot com slash shop or link through the show notes. When you shop through us you support the podcast, a win win. Thorne products are shipped around the world and they ensure quality control year-round. Whether you’re looking to heal from issues like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances like low sex hormones or imbalanced stress hormones, or just looking to improve performance, maintain a strong immune system and get that extra edge, Thorne has so many formulas to fit you needs or bundles to cover even more bases. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. If you’re curious on what supplements might be a good fit for you, just ask us! Send us an email to questions at endurance planet dot com telling us about yrouself and where you think you might need to fill in some gaps. Thorne now even offers health testing such as a convenient budget-friendly gut health tests! So starting shopping with the best there is with Thorne—also over on our Shop page—and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. On this episode we welcome Greg Wingo, race director of the Great Alabama 650, the longest annual paddle race in the world. This year’s event takes place Oct 1-11, 2022. This epic endurance event takes participants 650 miles down the Alabama Scenic River Trail, the longest river trail in a single state. In this episode we dive into the details of this paddle race, and much more. See below for links to live tracking and social media accounts to view more and follow along this October: www.AL650.com Live tracking Instagram Facebook Greg Wingo, race director of the Great Alabama 650, and ultrarunner What we cover: The basics of the event: Participants have 10 days to complete 650 miles down the Alabama Scenic River Trail Route. Fastest completed is in ~4 days. Mainly canoes, kayaks… does anyone actually do this on a SUP!? Greg’s ultra background. The history of this race and how it came to be. About the participants in this race—their experience, their abilities/what times are they doing (eg 100+ mile days), etc… Qualification criteria. What the full course is like, the race experience, and why it can get so intense (and also epically fun). A small race with epic race crew support and more. The dynamics of the river and how the scenery and vibe change so dramatically over the 650 miles. Finish line location is at the beach, Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay. Alligators? Water Moccasins? And other “obstacles.” The post Greg Wingo and The Great Alabama 650 — The World’s Longest Paddle Race first appeared on Endurance Planet.

Sponsor: Fullscript is an online supplement dispensary with professional, high quality top-brand supplements from a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get an exclusive discount off thousands of choice of top-level supplements. Fullscript even carries PerfectAmino essential amino acids by BodyHealth—including the tablet form and powder form. Some other good finds on Fullscript include Vital Protein Collagen Peptides, Thorne products, Nordic Naturals fish oils, and other great, trusted brands such as Pure Encapsulations and Designs For Health. Fullscript has you covered on every aspect of health and wellness. Head over to Fullscript now by clicking the link, and get set up with your own personal account for an exclusive discount off your supplements. When you buy supplements from a trusted source you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. On this episode of Ask the Coaches with Lucho: Questions: Planning Your 2023 Season What variables and factors should one consider in their training/fitness journey to decide on the # of races to do in any given calendar year? Or as your athlete asked, with triathlon being a lifestyle and training going on basically everyday, how much racing can benefit and enhance fitness v. detracting from overall goals. What the coaches say: Things to consider in race planning: Race distance matters e.g. Doing Ironman Kona or something big/epic/championship? No more than 2-3 IMs a year, one in early summer + later season A race. This is for when you’re focused on a high-end pointy performance at end of the year. On the other hand, just having fun? Can race more…. but you always run the risk of racing too much. Cost of race Know: what’s your budget? Can you afford it? Family considerations, etc. Proximity of race to where you live Expectations Think you can race 10 times and win/perform perfectly? Chances are that’s a no. Have realistic expectations especially when you race more often. A, B, C priority races come into play here. Can’t race them all in top condition. The more often you race, the more often you race tired Every race requires some degree or rest/taper going in and some rest/recovery coming out, which can detract from training consistency for other, bigger key events. Racing twice a month? Not for everyone. What about athletes like in ITU? They are full-time athletes, fully funded. And even they have “off” days. Jamie asks: Marathon Key Long Runs Lucho has said multiple times he loves it when an athlete can get to 20 x 20 mile long runs before a key race, which is incredible and a lofty goal to consider. On the other hand, what are some of your guys’ top long run workouts you’d like an athlete to check the box on in a training cycle for a marathon… and/or I’d love to hear a discussion on some of the key runs that some of the best coaches have proven successful for athletes (Daniels, Lydiard, Pfizer, MAF, etc). Additionally, how do you know you’re ready to add various types of speed, pace work, tempo, etc to your long run vs. just sticking to LSD/get the miles in aerobically? What the coaches say: Clarifying the 20×20 concept by Lucho. It’s definitely not for everyone (e.g. most athletes), it’s an outlier, and more arbitrary and not something he gives out often. Physically it’s not necessary. No magic to it. If you do do it, start it ~40 week

Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs and we have everything Thorne offers available to you over at our shop page, endurance planet dot com slash shop or link through the show notes. When you shop through us you support the podcast, a win win. Thorne products are shipped around the world and they ensure quality control year-round. Whether you’re looking to heal from issues like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances like low sex hormones or imbalanced stress hormones, or just looking to improve performance, maintain a strong immune system and get that extra edge, Thorne has so many formulas to fit you needs or bundles to cover even more bases. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. If you’re curious on what supplements might be a good fit for you, just ask us! Send us an email to questions at endurance planet dot com telling us about yrouself and where you think you might need to fill in some gaps. Thorne now even offers health testing such as a convenient budget-friendly gut health tests! So starting shopping with the best there is with Thorne—also over on our Shop page—and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. On this episode we welcome Lindsay Tuttle. Lindsay is a mom to three boys, family nurse practitioner, homesteader, and holistic living advocate residing in northern Idaho. She spent many years of her life as an avid runner and battled a decades-long eating disorder, as well as other health ailments which she candidly shares on this episode. But she went on to heal and redefine her approach to life–her self-healing journey is truly an inspiration! In this episode we discuss her need to run followed by a need to step away from it, how she overcame her ED, illnesses from Lyme and mold, finding a new pace of life, limbic system retaining, motherhood, postpartum health and so much more. You can find out more about Lindsey, her business, what she offers as well as her life and wellness blog at www.lindsaytuttlenp.com. Lindsay also runs a business with Young Living in which she combined her medical background, holistic living and more to help her clients. She is also very active on social media: check out her page, @lindseytuttlenp, on IG and give her a follow for holistic living tips, health resources and so much more. On this show: Developing an easting disorder at the tender age of 9. In and out of hospitals for an ED. Introduction to running in college and what that did for her mental health. Control issues with exercise–in addition to running and racing, lots of cardio and an obsession with the gym, food and body image. Amenorrhea and birth control. Getting married and getting off the pill. Regaining a period. Vitex i.e. chaste tree berry for hormonal support (available on fullscript for an exclusive discount). Conditioning from our western culture around menstruation, etc. Nursing school and pushing herself to extremes in school, exercise, etc. TDAP shot and an adverse reaction. Pain, insomnia, lost period again, immune health severely compromised. Mold exposure and illness, as well as Lyme disease. Likely correlated with vaccine reaction; Lyme reactivated? Hard to say for sure. A miracle: getting pregnant for the first time amidst a tough time in her health journey. Postpartum: back to a “toxic lifestyle” until ultimately changing her ways and approach to life and wellness&#823

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Fullscript is an online supplement dispensary with professional, high quality top-brand supplements from a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get an exclusive discount off thousands off your supplements. Fullscript even carries PerfectAmino essential amino acids by BodyHealth—including the tablet form and powder form. Some other good finds on Fullscript include Vital Protein Collagen Peptides, Thorne products, Nordic Naturals fish oils, and other great, trusted brands such as Pure Encapsulations and Designs For Health. Fullscript has you covered on every aspect of health and wellness. Head over to Fullscript now by clicking the link, and get set up with your own personal account for an exclusive discount off your supplements. When you buy supplements from a trusted source you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. On this episode of Ask The Coaches with Lucho and Tawnee: Intro: Endurance Planet is making a return to Ragnar SoCal in April 2023!!! Our first team is full and a second ultra team has one spot open but we are happy to convert that to second regular 12 person team if there is interest. If you’re interested in joining the Endurance Planet Ragnar Team, and hanging out with Lucho, Tawnee, Julie and the rest of the crew you can email us at [email protected].   Denay asks: Embracing a Swimming Mindset (as a once non-swimmer) Help with a swimming mindset….most specifically when a triathlete has no significant adolescent swim background. Swimming is hard and progress can be slow or non-linear or perhaps even out of focus for the athlete. Some ideas on how to put your current progress into perspective to keep showing up to the pool with a smile What the Coaches say: Pay attention to your thoughts, don’t just blindly “follow” and allow them. You are not your thoughts. Self-talk: There’s often a lot of negative surrounding the pool and swimming, observe this, are you feeding yourself the negativity? Consider how you’re dealing with anxiety and how you process that. If feeling anxious often this shows a fixed mindset, e.g. putting too much pressure on yourself to perform and losing sight of development, growth and evolution. Don’t fight against yourself or try to “defend” your image (e.g. silly words we feed ourselves that don’t serve us such as “I do triathlon therefore I need to be a good swimmer or I’m a fraud.”) Know your “why” and stay true to your goals; if you set a big goal that’s currently out of reach that’s fine but don’t get frustrated if the timeline isn’t as speedy as you wish. Realistic expectations–most of us aren’t elite swimmers and don’t train as such. Swimming is a great skill and even if you’re not super fast it’s a great thing to work on and to be able to revisit with ease, reflect on fondly in the triathlon journey. Act like a swimmer–don’t talk down in yourself and lack of experience. Appreciate your work toward being a well-rounded athlete and not just choosing to o single sport /focus on your strength. It’s ok that you’re not a natural or have adolescent experience—focus on your work ethic now and a growth mindset. Avoid a fixed mindset e.g. “I didn’t swim when I was young so I’ll never be as good” / don’t view your talent (at any level) as static—this hold true for very talented athletes too who are so focused on performing that they lose sight in continual d

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Thorne Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs and we have everything Thorne offers available to you over at our shop page, endurance planet dot com slash shop or link through the show notes. When you shop through us you support the podcast, a win win. Whether you’re looking to heal from issues like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances like low sex hormones or imbalanced stress hormones, or just looking to improve performance, maintain a strong immune system and get that extra edge, Thorne has so many formulas to fit you needs or bundles to cover even more bases. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. If you’re curious on what supplements might be a good fit for you, just ask us! Send us an email to questions at endurance planet dot com telling us about yrouself and where you think you might need to fill in some gaps. Thorne now even offers health testing such as a convenient budget-friendly gut health tests! So starting shopping with the best there is, you can find Thorne over on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! On this episode: Intro Hormonal balance Julie’s seeing while up’ing her training for endurance (50k trail race) Cycle length more normal. Cramps have been less severe and mood more balanced. Revised supplement protocol: Thorne B6 complex 1x/day B6 is important for neurotransmitter regulation, and that’s a big gut thing Could also consider Thorne’s “regular” B complex with added P5P for a more bioavailable form of B6. Magnesium Bisglycinate 1x/day Omegas with COQ10 2x/day Chaste Tree Berry 1x day Shatavari 1x day Diet: even more flexibility and allowances Study Discussions Beetroot juice: a well-known performance enhancer BUT does it help the recovery process (after marathons)? And how does this compare with tart cherry juice? Research articles mentioned: Beetroot juice — a suitable post-marathon metabolic recovery supplement? Minimal muscle damage after a marathon and no influence of beetroot juice on inflammation and recovery Influence of tart cherry juice on indices of recovery following marathon running Effect of Tart Cherry Concentrate on Endurance Exercise Performance: A Meta-analysis Tart Cherry Juice in Athletes: A Literature Review and Commentary “Precovery” versus recovery: Understanding the role of cherry juice in exercise recovery Effects of Beetroot Juice Supplementation on Cardiorespiratory Endurance in Athletes. A Systematic Review – PMC CHO periodization: can you make performance gains by restricting carbs for certain training sessions only (vs chronic low carb)? Research articles mentioned: Performance effects of periodized carbohydrate restriction in endurance trained athletes – a systematic review and meta-analysis The post HPN 33: Beetroot vs. Tart Cherry Juice For Recovery, Latest Research on Carb Periodization (And Is It Worth It To ‘Go Low’ Sometimes?), Plus More first appeared on Endurance Planet.

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Fullscript is an online supplement dispensary with professional, high quality top-brand supplements from a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get 10% off thousands off your supplements. Fullscript even carries PerfectAmino essential amino acids by BodyHealth—including the tablet form and powder form. Some other good finds on Fullscript include Vital Protein Collagen Peptides, Thorne products, Nordic Naturals fish oils, and other great, trusted brands such as Pure Encapsulations and Designs For Health. Fullscript has you covered on every aspect of health and wellness. Head over to Fullscript now by clicking the link, and get set up with your own personal account for 10% off your supplements. When you buy supplements from a trusted source you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. On this episode of Ask The Coaches with Lucho and Tawnee: Intro: Endurance Planet is making a return to Ragnar SoCal in April 2023!!! Our team is nearly full and we’re open to building a second a team (maybe an ultra team). If you’re interested in joining the Endurance Planet Ragnar Team, and hanging out with Lucho, Tawnee and the rest of the crew you can email us at [email protected]. Update on Lucho’s burnout post-Ironman and how he’s doing a couple months after IM St. George. On coaching youth: the importance of instilling knowledge on the fundamental concept of perceived exertion (RPE), and correlated data (HR, etc) and more.   Swim Erg (Vasa) Training: Real-life Results in Racing? A little anecdotal evidence on a couple of Tawnee’s athletes who almost exclusively used the vasa swim erg trainer for swim training for an ironman-distance race (2.4-mile swim). They started swimming in a pool once a week several months prior to the race, otherwise exclusively used the erg for more than a year. Their swim times were 1:20 & 1:14. We discussed swim erg training in detail on ATC 337, so this is a fun piece of evidence to add in favor of erg training (and stretch cords as Lucho swears by!).   Taylor asks: Knee Pain During Slower MAF Runs? Hey all, thanks for being such a great resource. Just started the MAF method to help train for my first 70.3 four months from now. Committed to being patient with it, even at 12+ minute miles. But I am finding that running that slow causes discomfort in my knees after my run is over. It feels like I’m just trudging along and there is more pressure on my knees and quads while running. Thoughts on how to reduce this discomfort? Or will this go away as I build aerobic base and can run at a faster pace again? What the coaches say: Possible that the knee pain is actually stemming from a poor bike fit. If seat too low, you’ll feel pain under the patella in the front of the knee. If seat is too high, you’ll feel pain/add stress on the backside of the knee. Get a proper, professional bike fit!! Worth it!! Make sure it’s not runner’s knee / excessive quad dominance. One way to help quad/anterior dominance would be more posterior-focused strength training e.g. deadlifts. Cadence during MAF runs matters, it shouldn’t be too slow. Still needs to be 85+. Anything under 80 is trending low. Shorten stride length a bit to help this. Allow heart rate (HR) flexibility! You don’t need to stick to just strict MAF HR running to help pace to quicken and run more efficiently,

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN Company, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash, keeping your blood sugar steady. It’s the perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete. Whether you’re racing fast short-course events or grueling Ironmans and ultra runs, UCAN products have grown so much over the years, as well, to fit your needs, with everything from drink mixes to their popular EDGE gels. Athletes from all types of sports and levels are using UCAN these days, with top-level and pro triathletes, runners and even Crossfit athletes are using UCAN to fuel their best performances. But, UCAN is also a fantastic product for non-athletes and/or outside of training too. Many UCAN products are offered in both plant-based and whey protein options, all with SuperStarch, including plant-based bar flavors cherry berry almond, salted peanut butter and chocolate almond butter, as well as a variety of energy + protein powders—great for those of you athletes looking to gain or maintain strength. Best of all: EP fans get 15% off everything UCAN offers, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs and we have everything Thorne offers available to you over at our shop page, endurance planet dot com slash shop or link through the show notes. When you shop through us you support the podcast, a win win. Thorne products are shipped around the world and they ensure quality control over summer months when it’s super hot outside: Before they launch a new product, they subject it to accelerated stability testing and the product formula must demonstrate stability. If the formula fails, then the product is reformulated and the accelerated stability testing is conducted on the new formula. Whether you’re looking to heal from issues like gut dysbiosis, hormonal imbalances like low sex hormones or imbalanced stress hormones, or just looking to improve performance, maintain a strong immune system and get that extra edge, Thorne has so many formulas to fit you needs or bundles to cover even more bases. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. If you’re curious on what supplements might be a good fit for you, just ask us! Send us an email to questions at endurance planet dot com telling us about yrouself and where you think you might need to fill in some gaps. Thorne now even offers health testing such as a convenient budget-friendly gut health tests! So starting shopping with the best there is, you can find Thorne over on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! On this episode we welcome Andrew Hall, 36, an elite triathlete from Salt Lake City, UT. Andrew joins us to candidly share his journey from the health and hormonal issues he faced during his early years in triathlon to adopting a new approach and pursuing a level of healing that’s not only allowed him to fix the issues that ailed him, but also has led him to performing as a top amateur triathlete at the Ironman distance. Follow along with Andrew’s triathlon journey at @andrewtrihall. Getting into sport, stepping up to 70.3s, being self-coached, slightly obsessed, probably taking the wrong approach to training and racing and noticing things were off by end of 2016. What Andrew thinks he did that ultimately led to health issues, namely low testosterone and hormonal imbalances, dangerously low body mass, and more. Signs and symptoms, how he became more aware of what exactly was going on, and what actions he took. Working with sports med doctors at first, but then being coached by triathlete Matt Bach for a more holistic approach. His approach toward healing and rebuilding what he’d lost, under Matt’s guidance. Healing took about two years of work and trial and error. For a while, cut training by 2/3… meanwhile a heightened focus on sleep, strength training, etc. What did he learn about himself during that time of intense healing? The rebuild back into specific training, utilizing MAF, and then the pandemic and how that played a role. With everything he’s learned, Matt shares his approach to balancing performance and health. Tackling the Ironman distance with immense success at IM CdA 2021, as well as IM StG 2022. And as promised in the interview, here is a breakdown of Andrew’s sports nutrition plan he uses for Ironman: Ironman sports nutrition plan: Breakfast: 2 serving of UCAN Lemon 1 serving of vanilla whey protein Blueberries Mixed in almond milk Scratch lab hyper hydration mix 2

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN now offers a Superstarch-powered energy gel called Edge! This is not just any sugar-loaded ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge is a hit among triathletes and runners looking for easy, healthy, clean-burning fuel. Get at ucan.co. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: We are excited to have partnered with Fullscript, an online dispensary with professional, high-quality supplements delivered to you by a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get 10% off thousands off supplements from hundreds to the top brand names like Nordic Naturals, Pure Encapsulations, Designs for Health, Seeking Health, Vital Proteins and so many more. When you buy supplements from a trusted source like Fullscript you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Intro: Further followup on Lucho’s recovery, physical and emotional, post-Ironman. We talked about Lucho’s full IM experience on ATC 340. Doing fun things after a huge race, including activities with your kids. Going into a race, especially after finishing one big race recently, making sure you’re in the right head space and mind and body are not at war. Chris Dierker asks: Moving to elevation & adapting Hello, Hoping you can provide some input and guidance. We moved from 500′ above sea level (Illinois) to the high desert In Reno, NV in January and am struggling with adapting to 5,000′. I’m a 67 year old ultra runner. Have not been able to find any info on how to acclimate after moving, tips and training to expedite adaptation. Can you provide any guidance? Thanks, What the coaches say: Not always just elevation, consider the weather conditions, in this case moving to a much drier climate. Breathing in dry air vs. humid air and the dehydrating effects of exercise in dry conditions. Hydration is key with electrolytes. Lucho drinks 4L a day at his home at 8,000 ft. Expediting adaption? Not really possible, but you can mitigate the negative effects taking place while adapting, eg more carbs, diligent hydration, etc. Higher elevation puts us more in fight or flight mode and more hypoxic state for a while. Bottom line is that we just don’t exercise as well at altitude as we do at sea level. That’s why “live high train low” is so popular in exercise physiology. Research studies mentioned by Lucho: Bassett, D.R. Jr., C.R. Kyle, L. Passfield, J.P. Broker, and E.R. Burke. Comparing cycling world hour records, 1967-1996: modeling with empirical data. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 31:1665-76, 1999. Peronnet, F., G. Thibault, and D.L. Cousineau. A theoretical analysis of the effect of altitude on running performance. Journal of Applied Physiology 70(1):399-404, 1991. You lose 1.1% of your aerobic capacity/O2 carrying capability just at 1,000ft alone. At 2000ft a loss of 2.2% At 5000ft loss of 5.6% 5,000ft elevation is not that extreme, best we can do is just work to get fitter than we were before to make up the deficit. Age plays a role here. Gets harder as we get older. Work on strength: Definitely incorporate strength training and VO2max workouts, as well as muscular endurance sessions. For Vo2max workouts: drop duration and increase rest. At least a 1:1 work:rest ratio, not less, but more if needed. (Don’t want to start the next interval still being hypoxic.) Holistic health check as well: In need of new labs? Start with a basic CBC, Iron panel, etc. Study mention: “Pre-Altitude Serum Ferritin Levels and Daily Oral Iron Supplement Dose Mediate Iron Parameter and Hemoglobin Mass Responses to Altitude Exposure.“ Conclusion: Oral iron supplementation during 2–4 weeks of moderate altitude exposure may enhance hemoglobin mass production and assist the maintenance of iron balance in some athletes with low pre-altitude iron stores. Sarah asks: New mom MAF problems Hi! My son is 20 months old and I’ve made a gradual return to training after an initial break from giving birth. Before pregnancy I was an avid triathlete and runner, not super competitive, but enjoyed everything from sprint & Olympi

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a “training bundle” to give you an assortment of their products for testing. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: We are excited to have partnered with Fullscript, an online dispensary with professional, high-quality supplements delivered to you by a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get 10% off thousands off supplements from hundreds to the top brand names like Nordic Naturals, Pure Encapsulations, Designs for Health, Seeking Health, Vital Proteins and so many more. When you buy supplements from a trusted source like Fullscript you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Enjoy this special re-release of a show that aired during the lead up to the 2016 Ironman World Championships! Paul Laursen, PhD, is back already to discuss how to race well in the heat and avoid detrimental heat stress especially at a race like the Ironman World Championships in Kona. Paul is an adjunct professor at Auckland University, reseracher and has published more than 100 refereed manuscripts in moderate-to-high impact exercise and sports science journals, and his work has been cited more than 3,000 times. He’s very involved in helping athletes have success at races like Kona, with some pros using his strategies this year. Heat paralysis in racing and Jonny Brownlee in Cozumel Normally we think of this happening mostly in events like IM, but at the recent WTS GF in Cozumel we saw that this is not always the case: Jonny Brownlee What went wrong for Jonny from a physiological standpoint? Heat paralysis Intensity is the greatest source of heat (not hydration status) Afferent heat feedback Is this the world’s best example of overcoming central governor? On Alistar carrying him to finish Preparing for Hot Events Heat shock proteins Preparation in training helps to mitigate heat stress on race day – get hot! What to do before the race in training, the week of, etc. How much “heat training” is appropriate, i.e. overdressing or working out in a hot room, before it reaches point of diminishing return Using the sauna, and should you drink while in the sauna or avoid rehydrating for further beneficial adaptations? Enhanced sweat response when trained for hot conditions Hydration During Hot Events Is it really safe to recommend we drink to thirst and assume we’ll execute correctly? Diluting sodium concentrations by #1 over-drinking + #2 loss of sodium in sweat to varying degree may lead to hyponatremia. Overdrinking (not sodium loss) is the most likely cause. How about those who lose lots of sodium and do a race like Kona, increased risk? Max rate of fluid absorption is 400-800 ml per hour, best not to exceed this Drinking 1L per hour is overhydrating and risky! Tim Noakes’ Waterlogged Drink to thirst makes sense, but does that work for all? What about when our brains are “mush” during a race? Mention of Alan Couzens blog on hyponatremia Practice “drinking to thirst” in training, so you know how to stick to it and know your needs in racing Is knowing sweat rate “overrated”? Turns out, some dehydration ain’t so bad, i.e. 2-3% may be perfectly safe and ok We don’t need to keep the system in perfect balance when we’re racing! Can we adapt to mild dehydration? What qualifies as under-drinking to a point where hypohydrated state is a risk? i.e. at what point does it put us at risk for heat illness? On Fluid Temperature Why this is arguably more important than hydration, the research that shows how fluid temp matters, etc. Floe Bottle – a way to have an ice slushy, which is better at cooling than ice water. use for pre-cooling and during. Some pros will be using in Kona Research shows: 500 ml of an ice slushy 30min prior to exercise leads to performance benefits up to 20% increase Other Heat Topics Why cramping is not about fluids and electrolytes, and what it IS about Cramping due to sodium loss is a myth Cramp Killers podcast mention What makes Kona unique & how to handle these conditions, such as crazy winds on bike and higher energy cost Other factors affecting endurance performance in the heat Are there supplements we can take or avoid to alleviate heat stress? (Thinking more so as a way to “calm” gut) Glutamine, arginine, BCAAs NO NSAIDS (why to avoid)

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN now offers a Superstarch-powered energy gel called Edge! This is not just any sugar-loaded ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge is a hit among triathletes and runners looking for easy, healthy, clean-burning fuel. Get at ucan.co. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—salted peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. So let’s make sure you’re not running yourself into any deficits—this list is a good place to start: Magnesium Bisglycinate Stress B Complex Vitamin D/K2 drops Multivitamin Elite Prenatal Meriva L-Glutamine BioGeset Go ahead, click on each supplement if you’re curious to learn more about how these supplements may serve you. Maybe one of these or one of Thorne’s targeted bundles for sleep, stress, or performance, will complement your needs and round out your diet this season. Thorne is always available to you on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast!   On this episode of Ask the Coaches #340, we go into detail about Lucho’s day at Ironman St. George, the 2021 Ironman World Championships including a recap of his training leading up, race day and much more! On this show: Training recap–weekly volume per sport and totals, including stretch cords as a sub for pool swimming. Did the same swim set consisting of 5 x 100 + 500 pull, always; lots of use of pull buoy. Swam a 1:05. Biking minimal until December 2021. But hated indoor riding so didn’t do too much of it. Snow tires on cyclocross. Only biked more than 5hrs twice. Training on the bike was tough and lacked, not the proper specificity for IM. FTP differences between outdoor bike vs indoor trainer, so he focused on HR instead. Race day he averaged 126 bpm on the bike–he went too easy out of fear of blowing up. But also what helped was that he spent all his time training at altitude much higher than StG. Plus he was rested and intentionally went easy, yet still had a solid bike split. Sold run training, which maybe had some transfer to the bike (eg many 20-milers). Article that says 1 in 5 dropped out of IM StG in May 2022. How to redeem yourself if you had a bad day at StG this year. The shocking thing was all the difficult climbs that weren’t the main two climbs near the end… constant up and down. Most important: don’t avoid hills, climb all the hills! What messed him up the most on the bike was neck and trap pain. The mental vs. physical… Mentally on the bike: this is where it got really tough for him. His family surprised him by showing up on the bike course when he didn’t expect it… and it all changed from there, he lost the urge to keep pushing hard, mentally he wasn’t in it, he was questioning why (while thinking his family was the only thing that mattered), and it was not just about finishing it and enjoying it. Compared to the past Lucho who was a pro with laser focus on competing and finishing at the top, this made IM StG a very unique race experience where he just cruised and didn’t worry about performance. the last time he raced an IM (as a pro) was about 15 years ago when his first son was only 6 months old. Ironman is the kind of journey that will teach you what really matters. For Lucho, it became so much about family… so what it means to “do your best” has changed from then vs now. Started the run solely focused on seeing his family again. Very difficult run course, just up and down and very little flat. Deceiving, exposed and hot. Started the run fast with low HR. Felt tight, hot, and realized that pushing it was more than he was willing to do and a place he just didn’t want to go, from both a health and mental perspective… he thought, why wreck himself? Been there, done that. No desire to do it on this day. So instead he took, yet again, the approach of enjoying it, chatting with fellow athletes and spectators, smiling, and more. And yet it was still very hard, hot and difficult. Because that’s Ironman… and

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a “training bundle” to give you an assortment of their products for testing. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: We are excited to have partnered with Fullscript, an online dispensary with professional, high-quality supplements delivered to you by a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get 10% off thousands off supplements from hundreds to the top brand names like Nordic Naturals, Pure Encapsulations, Designs for Health, Seeking Health, Vital Proteins and so many more. When you buy supplements from a trusted source like Fullscript you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Welcome to episode 32 of Holistic Performance Nutrition (HPN) featuring Tawnee Gibson, MS, CSCS, CISSN, and Julie McCloskey, a certified holistic nutrition coach who you can find over at wildandwell.fit. On this episode: Homemade sourdough & more Tawnee talks sourdough with Julie; her husband John is baking it at their home now and it’s been a process to get it up to par but once it did, what a treat it’s been, even with a history of having to avoid most gluten. Talking long-fermentation sourdough and how the gluten content might be decreased in this form and easier to digest for those otherwise sensitive to gluten (Celiac is a different story though and GF is still recommended). Safety for patients with celiac disease of baked goods made of wheat flour hydrolyzed during food processing This study shows effects of sourdough that was fermented so that part of the gluten was degraded, or sourdough that contained only 8 ppm of residual gluten. Long ferment is usually around 30 hours; important to note that not all sourdoughs are baked this way or the same way, many are not long-ferment and more like regular bread. Julie shares about her food freedom and the occasional treat such as a hot-crossed bun on Easter that she had, but how those things are not. Ari asks: How “careful” should you be at restaurants? Hi guys! Love the show. I am all on board with clean eating: eliminating seed oils, buying organic, grassfed, wild, etc., gluten free, and don’t do a ton of grains. My question is: How do you navigate eating out at restaurants? Namely, the oils they use to cook, whether organic or grassfed meat is used, that kind of stuff. Do you avoid certain foods if they don’t fit these criteria? Some proponents of healthy fats and oils recommend avoiding seed oils at all costs, but this feels like it could be a slipper slope. I don’t eat out much, maybe 1-2x a week, and I never really thought about it but now I find it constantly on my mind at restaurants. What the coaches say: It depends, frequency matters. If you’re eating out a ton all week long, every week, then it may have a greater negative impact. But just a couple times a week or less may be insignificant to cause any problems. Reading ingredient labels is important but giving yourself permission to eat it anyway is ok sometimes, especially as athletes who should not be over-restricting 24/7. Eating out is something to be enjoyed not feared and has a lot of positives despite the occasional exposure to seed oils, etc. “Good enough” is often ok (not every single thing always has to be organic and grassfed). Social aspect of dining out together and letting go of the fear that would otherwise hold us back from those experiences. Go out and be with your community, don’t let fear rule you. We can’t control everything, and that’s ok. For many of us loosening the reigns is just what we need rather than over-obsessing and nit-picking every aspect of food and meals, especially those you aren’t preparing yourself. When is it time to be more strict with these things? If you’re suffering from chronic inflammation, obesity or another health ailment which may benefit and improve with a better quality diet then mostly eliminating things like seed oils, etc., may be in your best interest. People have made incredible health transformations in changing their diet to largely avoid these foods. Many of us, however, may be more prone to orthorexia and fear of foods. Most restaurants are not using olive oil, coconut oil, butter, etc., as their main oils, and are using vegetable and seed oils. But does that mean we live in fear and avoid going out? No. Awareness is helpful, but obsession is not healthy. How this ties into raisin

Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. So let’s make sure you’re not running yourself into any deficits—this list is a good place to start: Magnesium Bisglycinate Stress B Complex Vitamin D/K2 drops Multivitamin Elite Prenatal Meriva L-Glutamine Go ahead, click on each supplement if you’re curious to learn more about how these supplements may serve you. Maybe one of these or one of Thorne’s targeted bundles for sleep, stress, or performance, will complement your needs and round out your diet this season. Thorne is always available to you on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN has done it again and come out with Edge, a Superstarch-powered energy gel! But this is not just any ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge gels are selling so fast, so be sure to hop on their website at ucan.co right away and get yours. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—salted peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Dr. Steve Gangemi, The Sock Doc, is a natural health care doctor who founded and practices at Systems Health Care, an integrative wellness center in Chapel Hill, NC. Steve is also a longtime endurance athlete and is a wealth of knowledge for athletes looking to optimize wellness. On this episode: Introducing Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) and other chronic viruses There are thousands of types of herpes viruses, about eight affect us as humans. With EBV, which causes mononucleosis, up to 90-95% of the adult population has this and not everyone will have even known they got it? Mono is not just caught from kissing, they can be caught more easily just with interacting with someone infected, and we may not even realize it. Also often a lot of misdiagnoses where mono is missed and treated as something else. Either way, the virus doesn’t leave our body after the initial infection. Why are some people horribly affected by EBV and having many flares, where others don’t even have any issues with it? Acute symptom would be: sore throat, fever, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, etc. Chronic cases: chronic fatigue type syndrome, sore joints, feeling feverish and run down; it can vary person to person but for each person their pattern tends to repeat and be consistent. The thing we want to know is what provoked it to flare? And what can we do to get it to calm down quickly? What things provoke it? It varies… Epigenetics, lifestyle, diet, general health, immune function, overtraining. A lot of people simply aren’t giving their body what it needs to improve and that is when epigenetic comes into play more. The thing to note is we CAN have a huge impact on these viruses and stop the vicious cycle of flares and feeling the persistence fatigue. But for many athletes, we’re constantly pushing ourselves and more worn down. Steve says during his time in school + training for Ironman World Championships he was more prone to cold sores than he is now with a more balanced, healthy lifestyle, diet and approach. Viruses are much more opportunistic than many bacterial infections. But there’s not always a direct treatment for viruses as compared to certain bacterial infections. It has to due with state of immune system, antioxidant issues and are you over-oxidized, inflammation and overall state of health all can affect the outcomes of a certain intervention treatment. So it’s more about getting health in order so body can more effectively deal with certain viruses. What can be confusing is that you can have high antibodies and high titers for EBV yet EBV may not be the cause or reason why you are feeling horribly. There’s no direct relationship 100% of the time. Partly because there’s no definitive to the bloodwork and a yes/no point; questionable cutoffs. You could also have hormonal imbalances, gut issues, another virus or infection and that can cause the EBV to flare up more–so it’s about finding what else might be going on. A lot of conditions, autoimmune and Lyme included, there’s no clearcut test, it requi

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN has done it again and come out with Edge, a Superstarch-powered energy gel! But this is not just any ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge gels are selling so fast, so be sure to hop on their website at ucan.co right away and get yours. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—salted peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. So let’s make sure you’re not running yourself into any deficits—this list is a good place to start: Magnesium Bisglycinate Stress B Complex Vitamin D/K2 drops Multivitamin Elite Prenatal Meriva L-Glutamine BioGeset Go ahead, click on each supplement if you’re curious to learn more about how these supplements may serve you. Maybe one of these or one of Thorne’s targeted bundles for sleep, stress, or performance, will complement your needs and round out your diet this season. Thorne is always available to you on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast!   Making Use of TSS & CTL: Pros and Cons Lucho is using these metrics on himself for the first time ever; there’s a difference between coaching them and feeling them CTL Stands for chronic training load. The accumulation of 6 weeks stress/42 days. Don’t aim for a certain CTL number because that will drive you to avoid rest. Rest weeks cause a drop in CTL. Ramp rate: how fast you want to bring CTL up. Is it not factoring rest enough? Doesn’t look at performance, per se; can’t guarantee results. It is useful to gauge the past 42 days and be mindful of the ramp rate. You can reach the end result in different ways, some ways more sustainable than others. Lucho isn’t going over 120 CTL for his Ironman training. TSS Crossover between using TSS as you would mileage TSS was developed for cycling, using wattage But there’s an art to adapting run TSS and swim TSS to the plan. Running is load bearing, and just different than biking in the stimulus provides. Good to use TSS to gauge trends, whether the end of the week or over more time, and can compare with total volume. Lucho is using TSS to push him that extra bit but not too much. TSS lacks the context of a workout’s structure; it doesn’t tell you how you got to X TSS. TSS isn’t that great for just looking at individual days, using it for trends over time is more useful. Also, use TSS as caps! Always always make sure you take into consideration other variables. With TSS, fatigue accumulation may make back-to-back subsequent workouts feel harder yet this is not reflected in TSS–there’s a correlation but not one that is official or measured. So use your holistic measures to gauge, this is the art of coaching and tracking athletes. Michael asks: Progressing Run Fitness with MAF, Using the Right Heart Rates and Methodology? My age is just about 60. I have been an endurance athlete for over 20 years. Using 180-60 and adding 5 more beats, I am trying to target a 115-125 heart rate. However, my normal easy “all day” runs without looking at my watch are about 115 bpm. If I increase my pace so that I approach 120 or even 125 bpm, my actual running pace would enter tempo pace. I have the opposite situation that I’ve read from most people using MAF. I need to speed up to hit my HR target, not slow down. Any advice? What the coaches say: MAF test looks great, he is fit, starting off in a great place. Very little drop off in pace in a 7-mile MAF test, which is good. Consider longer MAF tests to see when drop-off takes place (same goes for the bike). Don’t increase heart rate for MAF but add some intensity; do a more polarized approach on the run but not the bike. Run is the one discipline that has the most injury risk so no need to risk it for Ironman. Come at this more from a triathlete’s perspective not a marathoner’s perspective. Goal pace for the Ironman marathon matters in how you approach volume. Heart rate on the bike isn’t always the same- generally, the bike is about 5-10 bpm lower on the bike than the

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN has done it again and come out with Edge, a Superstarch-powered energy gel! But this is not just any ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge gels are selling so fast, so be sure to hop on their website at ucan.co right away and get yours. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—salted peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount.   Intro Lucho updates us on his Ironman St. George training, now just about 8 weeks from race day. You’ll hear: How’s his motivation especially since training hard through a cold, snowy winter season? What is his training focus at 8 weeks out? What does he think about the 7500ft elevation gain on the bike? And more. Tawnee shares some shoe insight she learned over this past winter, for any minimalist footwear lovers out there be sure to check out the Xero Alpine Snow Boots and Vivobarefoot Tracker II Fg for some warm and robust yet minimalist boots to wear in winter and beyond (no affiliation, just a fan). Questions Anonymous asks: Dealing with online trolls Hi, How do you or would you guys deal with hateful comments and trolls on social media (or maybe your podcast)? I am a female runner in my 30s and I enjoy posting about my journey training for marathons and other events. Usually it’s all good, and I don’t have loads of followers but most who do follow are supportive and kind. However, every now and then I get a troll who is just mean for no reason—I had one guy say I look nothing like an athlete, and I’m chubby and slow for how much I “train” and I should find another hobby. Someone else commented on my nutrition choices saying “what a joke.” Someone else told me all I care about is how I look in photos but I fail to hide “the ugly.” There have been more of these one-off type comments, but these are a few examples—I immediately block the trolls. I know I should let things like this roll off me, this is just how bullies are, but I can’t. It sticks with me, and makes me want to quit social sometimes and question my self worth. It’s like, I could have 100 nice comments and 1 mean one, and that one is the one that bothers me endlessly. Even the idea of a mean or judgey comment before posting something gets me anxious sometimes. How can I better deal with this stuff and still get joy from social media—so I connect with the community and good people— and not let it be constantly triggering for me? What the coaches say: It’s often not about you the subject of the mean comments, but rather, it’s the person leaving the mean comments who is in turmoil. These “trolls” are suffering and in a weird way we can find a place to hold sympathy for that. If you must, it’s ok to take a break from social to work on yourself to the point where mean comments can roll off you and not affect your emotional state. Some of us are extra sensitive to hateful comments, that’s ok. Often, these things sting really bad at first but their impact fades with time. Using a negative comment to fuel you to post more, and use social media even more for the purpose you intended. Don’t engage: Blocking the troll and not responding to the comment(s) are key to getting past this! Even if you want to say something and defend yourself, it won’t change the person’s mind and their intention to hurt. You’re not alone, a lot of us deal with hateful trolls. The thing is, they don’t know you, the context, or anything about it… the people who do know you and support you, those are the ones to focus on; those are the people who matter! Put yourself first! Find a place of self-love, where you share your story authentically and without shame. Get to a place where you let the troll motivate you to just be you regardless of the jerks out there. Don’t forget, social media will always be a “highlight reel” of sorts. Don’t let the trolls harden you. As athletes we want to be accepted, let’s face it, and let’s evaluate our relationship with how important performance, time and our body image is. Athletes come in all shapes and sizes, and different speeds. Matt asks: Ironman: MAF and/or intervals Hey! This question is mostly in regard to the hike but feel free to tie in thoughts

Sponsor: This holiday season give the gift of health, wellness and elevated performance–whether to yourself or to a loved one. Just head to enduranceplanet.com/shop for a bunch of cool products and services we’ve come to love, use and endorse. Everything we offer is centered around helping you achieve the ultimate in health and performance. Also when you shop through endurance planet you directly help support the podcast so we can continue to provide you with great content always for free… The new year and new season is coming, why not give the gift of health and performance optimization! Sponsor: Be sure to open Amazon via enduranceplanet.com—it’s just one extra click to link to Amazon through the sidebar banner (to the right) or click the Amazon links in the show notes. Thanks for supporting the show. We’re rereleasing this classic episode. Enjoy! Dr. Phil Maffetone is back for an instant classic on how you can maximize your fitness gains and longterm health simultaneously: MAF Method refresher: It’s not just about the 180 Formula when you pursue MAF, it’s a holistic method for overall improved health, wellness and fitness. There are 8 steps to mastering MAF, which we discuss in detail: Carb intolerance Inflammation Vitamin D Folate Build the Aerobic System Manage Stress Build a Better Brain Healthy Aging More: https://philmaffetone.com/method/   Study: Physically active white men at high risk for plaque buildup in arteries A recent study showed that white men who exercise are at a higher risk for plaque buildup in the arteries, and news has spread. View the article here. We get Phil’s take and what is missing: Calcification is clearly a dangerous sign, but a downstream problem. Two common causes are: Increased fat (especially pericardial) Low vitamin D Pericardial fat risks: When abdomen gets fat, the fat around heart also probably excessive – affects cardiac output, stroke volume and the athlete’s training and racing HR goes up, having a negative effect on performance and health. The importance of your waist-to-height ratio. Your waist should be no more than 1/2 your height. Study mention: American runners have never been slower   Phil’s new study on the overfat population (click link for full text!), and what they found: An increase prevalence of exercise among adults (up to 52%) But also a paralleled increase of overfat people (91% of American adults, and 69% of kids in the US). WHY is there this trend (i.e. more exercise but getting fatter)? How was being “overfat” assessed? Conclusion: you can’t outrun a bad diet.   What is a healthy body fat range to be in according to research and Phil? Normal ranges of body fat percentages–abnormally low, healthy, abnormally high: BF ranges Dangerously low <14% women (but even ~17% +/- could pose risks) <8% men Dangerously high >31.6% women >17.6% men Source: Lohman and Colleagues Phil says don’t exceed these following ranges; it’s where things start to go wrong: 29.8% for women 15.3% for men The post Rerelease: Dr. Phil Maffetone 22: The Eight Steps To Mastering MAF, Healthy Body Fat Ranges, and How Athletes Can Decrease Health Risks first appeared on Endurance Planet.

Sponsor: Be sure to open Amazon via enduranceplanet.com—it’s just one extra click to link to Amazon through the ads on the sidebar banner or the Amazon search bar (to the right of the page); or click the Amazon links in the show notes. Thanks for supporting the show! Sponsor: Body Health’s PerfectAmino® 300-count Tablets are NSF Certified for Sport, so you can trust that they’re clean and free form contaminants and banned substances. What you see is what you get. Please note: at this time it’s just the PerfectAmino® 300 count bottles that are NSF certified but all PerfectAmino® is made under the same roof with the same standards. PerfectAmino helps you fight fatigue, maintain and/or build lean muscle mass, and better sustain your training loads. It literally counts toward protein grams in your diet and vegan friendly. Buying PerfectAmino through us helps support the podcast and ensures that you are getting the highest efficacy and quality care in your supplements rather than risking old, poorly stored, less efficacious supplements bought elsewhere on the internet. Welcome to episode 29 of Holistic Performance Nutrition (HPN) featuring Tawnee Gibson, MS, CSCS, CISSN, and Julie McCloskey, a certified holistic nutrition coach who you can find over at wildandwell.fit. On this episode: Maryam asks: Food Intolerance Testing & Healing for Intuitive Eating I’m a fairly new listener & have been thoroughly enjoying binging on the endurance planet podcast! I don’t think this question has been asked & think it’s most appropriate for HPN but feel free to direct to another episode if warranted. I am a 33 year old female dealing with amenorrhea since coming off of the IUD 2 years ago. My question pertains to intolerances; testing, reintroduction, & symptom assessment. 4 years ago, I was experiencing significant digestive issues, most notably acne (cystic looking), bloating, constipation, and bloody stools. I was advised by a friend to have an IGG test done which indicated intolerances to egg whites, wheat, gluten, brewers yeast, mustard seed, dairy, and potatoes to name a few. For years prior, And following, I can now see that I was significantly overtraining with two workout days consisting of CrossFit, spin classes, etc and underfueling. I know now many of these symptoms to be attributed to hormonal dysfunction but at that time, I was on the IUD & blamed everything on food. Prior to this testing I had been eating mainly paleo-ish from Monday to Friday, was counting calories, & had eliminated processed sugar for fear of addiction & binging. Following this test, I eliminated all of the “high” foods, of course leading to more restriction. I’ve tried to add these foods in randomly following the elimination diet but would at least think that I had symptoms such as cystic acne. I can remember having an ice cream cone and having a headache & becoming irritable, blaming it in the sugar. I also remember having lactose free ice cream and whey protein which was noted as being okay, and experiencing acne symptoms days following. I felt okay with keeping these foods out and that it wasn’t worth the potential symptoms, so just opted to keep all of the foods out. After the last two years of amenorrhea, I’ve become more aware of the impact of hormones and question the symptoms that these foods supposedly caused. So my question, how do you know the difference in symptoms between an actual intolerance and just due to re introducing a food group you haven’t had in years? I know the advice is to add in one food at a time for 3 days and look for symptoms but is there reason to believe there may be symptoms that occur without knowing? Such as low grade inflammation in the gut or acne that pops up a few days later? What would you recommend for this protocol & how would you suggest one become more of an intuitive eater after having been reliant on the same foods & calorie tracker for so long? I appreciate you both tackling this question! The restrictive diet has had a significant impact on my life and I’m trying to eat more intuitively & fuel for performance, with the tips and guidance provided on your platforms Again, thank you so much! What the coaches say: IGG Food intolerance testing & reliability Science and peer reviewed research on IGG testing is insufficient and not conclusive or determined to be reliable at this point. More about getting to the root cause rather than chronically eliminating foods. Results with IGG food modifications, must consider placebo effect + how sustainable this will be? If your gut is a mess you will react to many foods. And you CAN fix this (great news)! The majority of reactions are likely more tied into gut dysbiosis so consider instead investing in a high-quality GI test, which may be more beneficial in the long run for total healing. Some immune system reactivity is considered normal. A detectable immune response does not directly imply pathology. Study menti

Sponsor: We are excited to have partnered with Fullscript, an online dispensary with professional, high-quality supplements delivered to you by a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get 10% off thousands off supplements from hundreds to the top brand names like Nordic Naturals, Pure Encapsulations, Designs for Health, Seeking Health, Vital Proteins and so many more. When you buy supplements from a trusted source like Fullscript you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. So let’s make sure you’re not running yourself into any deficits—this list is a good place to start: Magnesium Bisglycinate Stress B Complex Vitamin D/K2 drops Multivitamin Elite Prenatal Meriva L-Glutamine BioGeset Go ahead, click on each supplement if you’re curious to learn more about how these supplements may serve you. Maybe one of these or one of Thorne’s targeted bundles for sleep, stress, or performance, will complement your needs and round out your diet this season. Thorne is always available to you on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! Study Mention: The Effects of Resistance Training Cessation on Cycling Performance in Well-Trained Cyclists “Supplementary (i.e., concurrent) resistance training can enhance cycling performance among competitive cyclists. However, a lack of knowledge exists about the retention (decay profile) in mechanical muscle function and cycling performance after concurrent resistance and endurance training. The present exploratory intervention study investigated the effect of 6 weeks of resistance training cessation when preceded by 8 weeks of concurrent resistance and endurance training on mechanical muscle function and cycling performance in 9 male well-trained competitive cyclists (V[Combining Dot Above]O2max = 66 ± 7 ml·min−1·kg−1). Cyclists performed periodized resistance training targeting leg and core muscles for 8 weeks as a supplement to their normal endurance (cycling) training. This was followed by 6 weeks of endurance training only (retention period) leading up to the start of the competitive season. Maximal leg extensor power, isometric leg extensor strength (maximal voluntary contraction [MVC]), rate of force development (RFD), and long-term cycling performance (2-hour submaximal cycling at 55% of Wmax), followed by 5-minute max cycling were evaluated. After 8 weeks of concurrent resistance and endurance training, leg extensor power, MVC, and RFD increased by 12, 15, and 17%, respectively while mean power output (W) during 5-minute max cycling increased by 7% (p < 0.05). Training-induced gains in Maximal Voluntary Contraction and 5-minute max cycling power were retained after 6-week cessation of resistance training (p < 0.05). These findings indicate that competitive cyclists can focus on cycling training alone for at least 6 weeks leading up to competition without losing attained gains in maximal muscle strength and cycling performance achieved by preceding periods of concurrent resistance training.” The question that athletes and coaches might have is “How long should I strength train during my training cycle, and/or when should I stop ST and focus on sport specificity?” This gives some valuable insight… What the coaches say: What this study investigated and found: Subjects were 9 competitive Danish male well-trainer sub-elite cyclists. Note: small sample size and no control “Although most research generally reports positive effects of concurrent resistance and endurance training on both short-term and long-term cycling performances, limited knowledge exists about the retention of mechanical muscle function and cycling performance when concurrent resistance training is removed from the training schedule.” What they did: 8 week strength training intervention. 6 week no strength (but maintaining cycle training). Strength sessions of 60 minutes including squat, abdominal crunch with olympic weight bar, unilateral leg press, back extension with handheld weight(s), and planks. “A rest time of 3 minutes between successive sets was used for squat and unilateral leg press exercises to emphasize the improvement of maximal strength and RFD because moderate to long rest intervals should demand heavier loads and faster concentric phases than using shorter rest intervals (11,20). By contrast, 1 1/2-min rest periods were used for the less strenuous exercises (abdominal crunches, back extension, and plank).” The volume and intensity of the endurance (cycling) training were kept stable throughout the study period. Results: They gained and retained a boost in 5-min

Sponsor: Be sure to open Amazon via enduranceplanet.com—it’s just one extra click to link to Amazon through the ads on the sidebar banner or the Amazon search bar (to the right of the page); or click the Amazon links in the show notes. Thanks for supporting the show! Sponsor: Body Health’s PerfectAmino® 300-count Tablets are NSF Certified for Sport, so you can trust that they’re clean and free form contaminants and banned substances. What you see is what you get. Please note: at this time it’s just the PerfectAmino® 300 count bottles that are NSF certified but all PerfectAmino® is made under the same roof with the same standards. PerfectAmino helps you fight fatigue, maintain and/or build lean muscle mass, and better sustain your training loads. It literally counts toward protein grams in your diet and vegan friendly. Buying PerfectAmino through us helps support the podcast and ensures that you are getting the highest efficacy and quality care in your supplements rather than risking old, poorly stored, less efficacious supplements bought elsewhere on the internet. Dr. Steve Gangemi, The Sock Doc, is a natural health care doctor who founded and practices at Systems Health Care, an integrative wellness center in Chapel Hill, NC. Steve is also a longtime endurance athlete and is a wealth of knowledge for athletes looking to optimize wellness. This is Part 3 of our 3-part series on the immune system and how you can get healthier and stronger immune function. If you’ haven’t yet go back and listen to Part 1 & Part 2 first. On this episode we tie it all together and cover mental stress, neurotransmitters, nutritional protocols to support your immune system in general and before/after vaccines, the question of vaccines/boosters and individual responses and approaches, athletes who seem prone to getting sick and more… Part 1 Role of mental stress on immune function How tangible is the effect of mental stress on immune function? How can we better check and monitor or stress levels? Triangle of health: Structural, chemical, mental/emotional, e.g. this shows how mental stress can be just as detrimental as other types of stress. Gut-brain connection: Nearly all serotonin made in your gut and this affects how we feel. Up to 55% of dopamine is made in the gut as well and this affects our emotions and how we feel. When we’re injured or sick for a long time there’s a lot going on- we can get angry etc and this can be tied into HPA axis, cortisol, etc., and affect mood and emotions. Chinese medicine meridians Meridians affected by emotions and vice versa. Emotional turmoil can affect organs. Liver is affected by or contribute to anger and frustration, lung correlated with grief, kidney/ low back pain with fear. The journey of healing is never over, what better time to address our mental and emotional health? Neurotransmitters and their role Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that transmit signal from one nerve cell to another, or muscle or a gland. Eg histamine, to some degree, it’s a neurotransmitter Most people think of serotonin as the thing that “gets you to the race”, whereas dopamine “gets you to win the race.” Neurotransmitter levels can go both ways: If you’re someone who’s always in a funk for no specific reason, you could actually create a serotonin imbalance which could then affect gut health (motility, etc)- it’s not always about something else outside or a gut issue in itself that is causing deficits and imbalances in neurotransmitters. If you’re anemic or having hormonal issues (sex hormones, stress hormones), or even blood sugar regulation—these issues could influence neurotransmitter dysfunction. An ongoing cycle: WBC are thought to tag neurotransmitters as they’re being made and there’s a memory that’s created. If you’re overwhelmed with an infection and neurotransmitters are imbalanced, your body can get an imprint of that and tag WBCs. This can impact how immune system then affects emotions even after the infection! Eg if serotonin levels are not functioning properly, the immune system gets an imprint and then after the infection is cleared, you can kind of get stuck in a similar pattern as when you were sick/imbalanced- i.e. serotonin symptoms of depression. Receptors aren’t being activated properly due to the imbalance. How to fix neurotransmitters or get out of a rut/cycle as mentioned above? Starts with diet. Check exercise, stress, breathing, cortisol levels (are they through the roof? this matters). Check gut health- are you making them, and enough? SSRIs: they can help but they don’t help your body make more neurotransmitters; instead, they help what you do have stay active; i.e. they can help but not fixing root cause. So a lot of people aren’t making sufficient amounts- goes back to methylation (and folate, B12, et- methylated nutrients), iron/anemia, gut health. Women end up on meds more than men, tied into hormonal issues and even more incidence of

Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. So let’s make sure you’re not running yourself into any deficits—this list is a good place to start: Magnesium Bisglycinate Stress B Complex Vitamin D/K2 drops Multivitamin Elite Prenatal Meriva L-Glutamine BioGeset Go ahead, click on each supplement if you’re curious to learn more about how these supplements may serve you. Maybe one of these or one of Thorne’s targeted bundles for sleep, stress, or performance, will complement your needs and round out your diet this season. Thorne is always available to you on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! Sponsor: We are excited to have partnered with Fullscript, an online dispensary with professional, high-quality supplements delivered to you by a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get 10% off thousands off supplements from hundreds to the top brand names like Nordic Naturals, Pure Encapsulations, Designs for Health, Seeking Health, Vital Proteins and so many more. When you buy supplements from a trusted source like Fullscript you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Greg asks: Sweet spot training: How much and how far out for Ironman? Hey guys! I am curious to hear Lucho talk more about sweet spot training on the bike for Ironman. I am 42 with a cycling background and have done some triathlons but starting training for my first full Ironman in 2022 and feel like sweet spot training makes sense for me on the bike, but I can’t find much information on this approach and just wanted to hear more from you guys. When you should start this in the training cycle? How much time spent in this sweet spot zone per week? What other bike workouts complement this type of training? Are there times it should be avoided? Thanks so much for any input! What the coaches say: Sweet spot on the bike is applicable to athletes who need lower volume training. e.g. 8hr/wk or less on the bike; or if you’re training for Olympic distances races It’s not for everyone- it does add a strong stimulus and added risk for some! Look at TP TSS- if you’ve 1hr to bike, is Z2 going to stimulate you if you’re already pretty bike fit? Sweet spot is Mid Z3 and higher, don’t go over Z4. It is 84-97% of FTP If you’re doing Z3/Z4 sweet spot- must realize the stress is higher than usual Z2 training. It’s like tempo-plus, higher stimulation of muscle tendon than pure tempo. Meanwhile not much muscle stress at Z2- so volume matters to get the stimulus, i.e. 3hr minimum if doing Z2 but less with sweet spot. Can implement sweet spot in the base period. Weekday rides could be: 45-60min high Z2/low Z3 into sweet spot but not over Z4; weekends 4-6hr Z2 ride. Sweet spot is supplementing Z2 work, it’s slightly harder effort but still aerobic. Don’t fear tempo/sweet spot; it is not true intensity nor will it mess up your fat burning or base training. When should you start this in training cycle? Immediately if coming in fit…. But if not that fit, you can tweak it and still achieve the goal: Can be as simple as 10 x 1 min /1 min off at sweet spot watts (a lower risk workout). Watch TSS- only bumping it a little bit not crushing yourself. So, do sweet spot in base, not mid-season build, and it is for time-crunched athlete Caveat: sweet spot not good for run training or runners. Running too hard is the biggest mistake we make (however, tempo ok!) How much time spent in sweet spot? You can try to predict it but we’re not some machine so there’s an intuitive nature to it. When getting into a sweet spot workout: you can be a bit tired and its still ok, but adjust intervals, if you don’t feel good back it off. Don’t get locked into trying to hit a data point if it’s not the day! With sweet spot, train to fatigue- i.e. do as much as you can… For example of a 3-day block of descending intensity: Get on the bike and do as much as you can, hold watts till “it sucks” then back off, and repeat intervals. Next day, that feels too hard? stick to Z3/tempo but not as hard as sweet spot. 3rd day now just do Z2- and this is more quality because you’re tired now. You can use fatigue to complement the next workout. How much time per week at this zone? As much as you can handle without it screwing up the rest of your training! Word of caution: Sweet spot the day before a run can screw up a run. Complementary bike workouts: Z2 rides, sweet spot will increase FTP- don’t mix sweet spot with FTP, Z5,Z6. However if you want to raise FTP to raise sweet spot wattage, this is not a complement to your current sweet spot training. Sweet spot WILL increase FTP in itself, so don’t overdo it by doing quality more than this. When

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a “training bundle” to give you an assor. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Body Health’s PerfectAmino® 300-count Tablets are NSF Certified for Sport, so you can trust that they’re clean and free form contaminants and banned substances. What you see is what you get. Please note: at this time it’s just the PerfectAmino® 300 count bottles that are NSF certified but all PerfectAmino® is made under the same roof with the same standards. PerfectAmino helps you fight fatigue, maintain and/or build lean muscle mass, and better sustain your training loads. It literally counts toward protein grams in your diet and vegan friendly. Buying PerfectAmino through us helps support the podcast and ensures that you are getting the highest efficacy and quality care in your supplements rather than risking old, poorly stored, less efficacious supplements bought elsewhere on the internet. On this episode we have The Sock Doc, Dr. Steve Gangemi, joining us. Steve is a natural health care doctor who founded and practices at Systems Health Care, an integrative wellness center in Chapel Hill, NC. Steve is also a longtime endurance athlete and is a wealth of knowledge for athletes looking to optimize wellness. In part 2 of this 3-part series we take a deeper dive into immune system function. If you haven’t yet, listen to part 1 here. Exercise options for optimal immune function Exercise- some is good, too much has negative effect. Thorne article: How Athletes Can Support Their Immune Function (with links to relevant studies) Equation of fitness isomer than just the exercise itself- so many other variables from sleep to work stress to family stress, diet and so on. Endurance athletes have a greater demand since the amount they mush themselves, and if not careful can be more susceptible. Overtraining runs system down (even if you’re not doing high intensity). Immune cytokines- some are inflammatory and other anti-inflammatory, this impacts immune system function and other systems in the body. Too much HIIT can put us into sympathetic overdrive – symptoms manifest in many ways and could include: skin issues like eczema, fungal infections (including toenail issues), you catch every cold going around, allergies and asthma, and so on. How to find our sweet spot with exercise for robust immune function? Trial and error: See how you respond to different exercise modalities and stimuli. Listen to your body. If you have cravings this could be a sign that things are off. If you had done too much long slow aerobic training and switch to HIIT with low volume helps, you may see better sleep, sharper cognitive function, and so on. If craving sugar, this could be a sign you’re burning too much sugar and not a great fat burner. If craving salt, this could be a sign you’re depleted in electrolytes and/or adrenal glads. Sensitivity to bright lights or sensitivity to sounds are a sign of sympathetic overdrive. Are you peeing during seeing hours? This is not a normal thing. What about people who have a lot of stressors that can’t just change everything, such as shift workers or people traveling to different time zones? Quality diet and training have a bigger positive impact than we may even realize- and those are well within all our control. Sleep habits as well. Offseason, training in winter and vitamin D Should we worry about training too much in winter months when we’re not getting an immune boost through the sun? Not necessarily, it depends and shouldn’t negatively affect every single person. Why? You can still supplement with Vitamin D. And also when it comes to illness and things like seasonal affective disorder (SAD), there are typically other issues going on not just a low D thing. The “Vitamin D border” in winter The changing angle of the sun in the winter, and why the latitude in which you live matters. Above the 37th parallel where you won’t get D from the sun in winter months (can get D from the sun above that latitude in summer months). More info: Vitamin D winter by Sock Doc Shadow trick- what is it? D Minder app to monitor your Vitamin D status and more Self assess & healing Blood markers discussed in detail in part 1. The path to healing and building a stronger immune system. So many speciality labs exist these days. But too much information can be overwhelming. Blood is a great way to start cheaply. Past that, measuring immune markers via blood even just basic Vitamin

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN has done it again and come out with Edge, a Superstarch-powered energy gel! But this is not just any ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge gels are selling so fast, so be sure to hop on their website at ucan.co right away and get yours. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—salted peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: We are excited to have partnered with Fullscript, an online dispensary with professional, high-quality supplements delivered to you by a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get 10% off thousands off supplements from hundreds to the top brand names like Nordic Naturals, Pure Encapsulations, Designs for Health, Seeking Health, Vital Proteins and so many more. When you buy supplements from a trusted source like Fullscript you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. On this episode of Ask the Coaches with Tawnee and Lucho: Intro Lucho updates us on Ironman St. George training and making the effort to get out the pool, making it a multi-tasking outing. Tawnee and Lucho give some quick followup thoughts from the last show, ATC 334, on transitioning from endurance to a heavier strength training phase. Tawnee says once she backed off endurance training/heavier run volume, and increased strength training and power workouts (eg kettlebells, rowing machines), that she got significant results with low volume, minimal equipment and without having to use very heavy weights. Maybe the challenge for many of us is in the shift in training itself (i.e. from running to strength training focus) and how that affects us mentally. It doesn’t have to be about adopting the most extreme training plan. Lucho’s Instagram account, follow along: @runnerlucho. Andy asks: Ultrarunner tackling Ironman & making the mental shift to a new way of training My name is Andy. I signed up for my first triathlons this coming summer 2022. I am an ultra runner and I am struggling with changing my mental outlook towards training. I have been absorbing as much info on triathlon training as I can. I understand that I need to train totally different than I have been but find myself wanting to train for the swim and bike like I would train for an ultra. I usually would run around 50-60 miles a week in a normal training block heading into a shorter ultra like a 50k and increase that amount if I was training for a 50 miler or 100k. I find myself wanting to swim and bike at least the amount of miles the race will be a week. Like Lucho I always feel better if I destroy myself in a workout and have to work hard mentally to put in the easy miles for recovery. I know that I need to approach the marathon differently focusing on building speed with intervals and fartleks and don’t need to have the long runs I would normally do. Training for ultras I would do back to back long runs and usually run race distance a few times before the race. I was wondering if I swim much further than 2.4 miles in training a few times or ride over the 112 miles a couple times is that going to negatively effect my training. Or is it ok to push myself and get some long rides and swims in in order to make the race distance feel easier. Currently I am swimming 3 times a week and running and cycling 5 times a week. I have been doing high intensity intervals on the bike and swimming mixed with long rides and swims. Same thing with running. And doing brick workouts. I run after every bike session and ride after every run using the latter as a cool down. What the coaches say: Don’t change who you are. Don’t change your mental outlook, this is part of who you are and what drives you to Make the training work for your mental outlook. Follow your gut intuition and what makes you feel good and confident. Ease off on the run a bit. The run training for ultra has added a massive amount of durability. Durability is everything to avoid injury and setback. Your ability to absorb load will be greater due to previous run training; don’t shy away from cycling volume (way less stress on the body You could totally do the race distance(s) each week. Doing 112 mile rides is totally reasonabl

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a “training bundle” to give you an assor. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. So let’s make sure you’re not running yourself into any deficits—this list is a good place to start: Magnesium Bisglycinate Stress B Complex Vitamin D/K2 drops Multivitamin Elite Prenatal Meriva L-Glutamine BioGeset Go ahead, click on each supplement if you’re curious to learn more about how these supplements may serve you. Maybe one of these or one of Thorne’s targeted bundles for sleep, stress, or performance, will complement your needs and round out your diet this season. Thorne is always available to you on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast!   On this episode we have The Sock Doc, Dr. Steve Gangemi, joining us. Steve is a natural health care doctor who founded and practices at Systems Health Care, an integrative wellness center in Chapel Hill, NC. Steve is also a longtime endurance athlete and is a wealth of knowledge for athletes looking to optimize wellness. In part 1 of this multi-part series we take a deeper dive into immune system function.   Immune system 101 We’re in an era where research on the immune system is exploding, and ever-evolving Components of the immune system include Gut Spleen Thymus Lymph system Skin Point is, it’s not just one specific area Every organ may affect the immune system in one way, and vice versa The idea of practicing hygiene but also not trying to be overly sterile and germ-free. There’s a symbiotic relationship between The role of the gut in immune system- it matters, but so do other things Steve is seeing a strong need for other players too, and they’ve been minimized by our love for the gut. For example, he’s seeing a need to help spleen and thymus aide. Signs to looks for: If you’re constantly fatigued, get sick and have a really hard time kicking it (weeks+), or you have some ongoing subtle health issues Chronically high cortisol suppress thymus, therefore impairing If you’re stressed out very easily this cold indicate spleen or thymus issues. Blood labs analysis CBC w/ Differential can direct or guide you on what is going on inside if you’re a bit unsure. Do not just rely on conventional ranges on these tests. Here’s a helpful guide of functional ranges (for optima health) to keep around and help you understand your results: WBC 5,500-10,500 (5.5-10.5 mcL) Some normal ranges go down to 3.5 but, anything below 5 is a sign of being run down Neutrophils (eg Segs) 50-60% If these are high over 60% that could indicate bacteria infection or some cases could be a virus Also increase in a bad accident, etc. When these drop below <40% and lymphocytes go up >40%, this indicates folate or B12 deficiency or malabsorption type problem If MCV is also high, eg red blood cell is larger than it should be, this could also point to folate/B12 deficiency or malabsorption. FIGLU test- only accurate way to test for folate deficiency. Folate breaks down FIGLU, and this breaks down histadine. If don’t have 5MTHF you’ll have high FIGLU in your urine, and this indicates inadequate folate levels in the body. Lymphocytes 25-40% Viruses increase these Monocytes 3-8% These get high when there’s a viral infection such as Epstein Barr, Hepatitis—but usually they are high after infection not necessarily in the acute illness phase Heavy metals can also cause monocytes to go high Eosinophils 1-2% If these are over 2-3% this can indicate allergies or systemic infection (2-9%) If they go high and stay high (>10%) it could indicate a parasitic infection Esophogitis and how these drive up eosinophils Basophils 0-1% Too high indicate allergies Individual immune systems- why does it vary so much? Why are some people more robust, whereas others have weaker immune systems, and why is it that our own immune systems can change over a lifetime (eg developing autoimmune) Genetics play a role to some degree, whereas others are born with a compromised immune system and that carries forward with them through life. Is it healthy to get sick? If you catch everything that goes around and are often sick, that’s not great and indicates a problem. But if you’re always well and never get sick, that doesn’t mean you

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN has done it again and come out with Edge, a Superstarch-powered energy gel! But this is not just any ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge gels are selling so fast, so be sure to hop on their website at ucan.co right away and get yours. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—salted peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: PerfectAmino by BodyHealth is an athlete’s secret weapon, featuring eight essential amino acids in the exact ratios needed to ensure proper protein synthesis in the body. PerfectAmino has been tested and approved for in-competition athletes and professional sports; and all of us over at EP have used in in our athletic careers. BodyHealth also offers Perfect Calm, a new well-formulated magnesium powder supplement to round out an athlete’s needs in particular getting good sleep and stress management. And did you know that BodyHealth also offers well-formulated natural vitamins and supplements to meet your other needs including their Body Detox, Healthy Sleep Ultra, Intestinal Cleanse, weight loss aids, and more. Plus, PerfectAmino now comes in a sugar-free powder form that’s great for those who don’t like pills and/or want something tasty to mix in your workout drink!   Richard L. asks: How many times per week should I incorporate strides into the end of my MAF runs? From a neurotyping perspective, I’ve loved MAF and not loved speed work. However recently I’ve discovered that when I’m fully warmed up (40-60 minutes of MAF), I crave strides. The other day I was listening to EDM and timed some intense strides with the beat drop of the songs after an hour of MAF and it felt incredible. I want more of this but don’t want to overdo it. I’ve also noticed that I tend to take a much longer time than others to warm up, 20-50 minutes before I can shift gears and enjoy pushing hard. Is that normal? In my half marathon I had to drop behind the starting pack for the first half an hour but then spent the rest of the race chasing down the person in front of me. Is this normal? What the coaches say: Neurotyping background: The Neuro Type Workouts Use neurotyping not to lock into one way, but rather to better understand where you’re at and how you’ll excel. Particularly useful for coaches to help guide an athlete in a way they’ll prefer and what hormones are dominantly driving their personality type. For example: Type 3 has high adrenaline and are highly stimulated, so they need to chill. While a Type 1 is going to go hard and listen to hard music. But it doesn’t have to be all or nothing with your neurotype. You may shift and change based on your goals, and goals evolve. Longer warmups are normal but more so in those who are overly tired (whether from training, life or both) Switch up your warmups to something that will include more muscle activation—jogging, then walking lunges, air squats, hopping, 7-way hips, plyo-type jumps, followed by more jogging then strides. This will help prevent the long, slow warmup slog or those times when it feels like forever before you’re ready to go. How many strides per week? it depends. Strides are not a workout in itself, they are not meant to push you into fatigue. Even 20 second strides is a bit long, but this is ok if you are gradually building into each effort. Stride sets differ depending on whether you’re doing them for warmups vs neuromuscular development/running economy. Strides for economy development: 10 x 20 second strides with the first 5 being warmup, more relaxed, as body loosens up push the speed… by the 5th or 6th build to top end speed and hold it for the rest. But if you’re tired, then DO NOT do them for increasing fitness and run economy, skip them on the days you’re very tired. Strides at the end of the workout or toward the end of a heavy week shift in what they are achieving, and they become more about muscular endurance. You can’t really do them incorrectly unless you go too long… or if they hurt you in some way, but everyone is different here though in how they’ll respond. Strides are unlikely to have a negative effect especially in a MAF program and when done in a non-fatiguing way. Don’t force strides, let them hap

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a “training bundle” to give you an assor. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: We are excited to have partnered with Fullscript, an online dispensary with professional, high-quality supplements delivered to you by a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get 10% off thousands off supplements from hundreds to the top brand names like Nordic Naturals, Pure Encapsulations, Designs for Health, Seeking Health, Vital Proteins and so many more. When you buy supplements from a trusted source like Fullscript you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Welcome to episode 29 of Holistic Performance Nutrition (HPN) featuring Tawnee Gibson, MS, CSCS, CISSN, and Julie McCloskey, a certified holistic nutrition coach who you can find over at wildandwell.fit. On this episode: More on Cold Thermogenesis (CT) Male and female differences We did a deep dive on CT in HPN 29 with caution against those who may want to steer clear of CT. This episode we mention of more research on male vs. female differences: One study on gender-specific cold responses found crucial differences between male and female participants: Women’s peripheral temperatures were colder than the men’s, though internal temps were the same for both. Metabolic heat production and shivering were greater in men. This implies that the male body is better at warming itself up and, in so do, increases metabolism and fat-burning. Women just get (and stay) cold! Men also exhibited larger changes in neuroendocrine and immune responses. So again, this implies that men (not women) experience improved adrenal function and immunity in response to cold exposure. More research on CT Metabolism. 2009 Apr;58(4):552-9. doi: 10.1016/j.metabol.2008.11.017. Ross Fiziol Zh Im I M Sechenova. 2015 Feb;101(2):145-62. J Appl Physiol (1985). 1999 Aug;87(2):699-710. Obes Rev. 2011 Mar;12(3):167-88. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-789X.2010.00756.x. Free Radic Biol Med. 1994 Mar;16(3):299-305. Cryobiology. 2014 Aug;69(1):26-33. doi: 10.1016/j.cryobiol.2014.04.015. Epub 2014 May 6. Cryo Letters. 2015 Mar-Apr;36(2):120-7. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2012 Apr;97(4):E584-90. doi: 10.1210/jc.2011-2246. Epub 2012 Jan Low(ish) Carb Lovin’ New research discussing low(er) carb, high(er) fat diets with our take-home messages for our audience, as this info gains more mainstream attention Effects of a low-carbohydrate diet on insulin-resistant dyslipoproteinemia—a randomized controlled feeding trial “A low-carbohydrate diet, high in saturated fat, improved insulin-resistant dyslipoproteinemia and lipoprotein(a), without adverse effect on LDL cholesterol.” “Carbohydrate restriction might lower CVD risk independently of body weight, a possibility that warrants study in major multicentered trials powered on hard outcomes.” NYT article on the above study And more new research, related: Alternative Dietary Patterns for Americans: Low-Carbohydrate Diets Dietary Saturated Fats and Health: Are the U.S. Guidelines Evidence-Based? Analysis of paper here Takeaway messages Moderate/low carb can be effective in reducing the markers in type 2 diabetes, obesity and CVD. We don’t have to worry about consuming saturated fat like we were once told. Obesity prevalence was 42.4% in 2018. 34 million Americans have diabetes, 90-95% of them with type 2; that’s 1 in 10 people. We need to work on getting healthier vis diet, exercise, etc, and how we can help those around us who may benefit even if our own body is dialed in. Insulin resistance 101 Quick overview of how we end up with chronically high blood sugar. If you know someone who is obese, has type 2 diabetes, and/or is at risk for CVD then a low-carb diet is a really effective way to manage and reverse it. It doesn’t have to be extremely low carb or keto. Start with something as simple as tracking and slowly eliminating junk food and replacing with healthier options in a way that will be sustainable. Carbs & saturated fat: time for updated recommendations? We don’t have to fear fat, particularly saturated fat, and US guidelines may be outdated. We now are seeing that saturated fat isn’t the demon we once thought, so be sure to include these solid fats but also eat other types! Nature doesn’t make bad fats. Switch up the types of food you eat and you’ll nail it. A balanced plate. Not dem

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN has done it again and come out with Edge, a Superstarch-powered energy gel! But this is not just any ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge gels are selling so fast, so be sure to hop on their website at ucan.co right away and get yours. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—salted peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. So let’s make sure you’re not running yourself into any deficits—this list is a good place to start: Magnesium Bisglycinate Stress B Complex Vitamin D/K2 drops Multivitamin Elite Prenatal Meriva L-Glutamine BioGeset Go ahead, click on each supplement if you’re curious to learn more about how these supplements may serve you. Maybe one of these or one of Thorne’s targeted bundles for sleep, stress, or performance, will complement your needs and round out your diet this season. Thorne is always available to you on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! On this episode of Ask The Coaches with Tawnee and Lucho: Intro: Tawnee shares a few cute mis-pronunciations that Cora is saying these days. Lucho shares some innovative ideas and tweaks he’s making to his Ironman training. Sweet spot—how and why it’s useful, works and is ok for seasoned athletes but also making sure you don’t get into trouble with it. What he’s doing: Sweet spot on the bike MAF/polarized on the run Kara asks: Lucho’s Doing the Ironman World Championships, Say What?! You guys, I’m pretty sure this is the most important question ever: Did Lucho have some sort of insider info where he knew that his Ironman comeback would end up being the freaking Ironman world championships?! Seriously, what the heck!? Haha. (And in all seriousness, how do you guys see this mix of races unfolding? Lucho how does this change things for you if at all?) What the coaches say: We discuss the recent news that Kona 2021 is postponed again and how the Ironman World Championships will unfold in 2022 with two world championship events—the first in May at Ironman St. George and the second in October in Hawaii. How the May IMWC race in St. George impacts racers. Thoughts on racing in Hawaii these days and what must go into it, i.e. cost! Our thoughts on this decision. James asks: Pass the Salt? I’d love for Tawnee and Lucho to elaborate more on eating salt, which was mentioned in the last episode–where Lucho said he doesn’t salt his food and Tawnee was a bit shocked by it, from what it sounded like and told him to have some sort of other “salt and mineral cocktail”. I know this isn’t a sports nutrition show, but love your guys’ take on things and some good banter Basically: Does lower sodium intake result in better health? Or is that idea outdated? How much is too much? How little is too little? What the coaches say: We draw our answer off this new open access review article, which you can read too: Sodium Intake and Health: What Should We Recommend Based on the Current Evidence? Below are quotes pulled from this scientific review article: Sodium and Cardiovascular Events: Randomized trials to specifically determine the effect of low sodium intake (i.e., below 2.3 g/day) compared to moderate intake on clinical outcomes are still not available. Sodium Intake and Blood Pressure: The impact of sodium intake on BP has been evaluated in numerous clinical trials. Most were short-term trials (95% with less than 6 months duration) with relatively few participants [22,23]. Several health organizations recommend low sodium intake (<2.3 g/day, ~1 teaspoon of salt) for the entire population [1,2,3], a level that has not been achieved by any modern population in the world. Fewer than 5–10% consume below 2.3 g/day. Most people (95%) around the world consume a moderate range of dietary sodium of 3 to 6g/day. Globally looking at 187 countries: the mean intake of sodium was estimated at 3.95 g/day [7]. In the United States, mean sodium intakes for the eight population samples

Sponsor: When you do what you love you want to do it for life. InsideTracker can help toward reaching your performance goals and living a longer, healthier life. Using their patented algorithm, InsideTracker analyzes your body’s data to provide you with a clear picture of what’s going on inside you and to offer you science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. For a limited time, Endurance Planet listeners can get 25% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just visit insidetracker.com and enter offer code ENDURANCEPLANETPRO25 for 25% off your package of choice at the InsideTracker store. Also: If you’re a coach, trainer, registered dietitian, or other health and wellness practitioner, your gateway to offering your clients InsideTracker is InsideTracker Pro. In addition to helping your clients perform better than ever, with InsideTracker Pro, you’ll also get discounts and earn revenue. Plus, you’ll get free access to the InsideTracker Pro Resource Center and a free Personal Coach Dashboard for secure access to your clients’ InsideTracker results and recommendations. Earn revenue, enjoy discounts, and help your clients perform better than ever with InsideTracker Pro. Visit InsideTracker.com/EndurancePlanet to get started. Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a “training bundle” to give you an assor. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount. Welcome to episode 29 of Holistic Performance Nutrition (HPN) featuring Tawnee Gibson, MS, CSCS, CISSN, and Julie McCloskey, a certified holistic nutrition coach who you can find over at wildandwell.fit. On this episode: Julie’s 50k Debrief Training: Kept her menstrual cycle normal through 5 months of intense training! Ate more overall especially post workout. Took 2 full non-running days per week. Prioritized sleep. Self-care: chiro/acu/massage for nervous system support. Sports nutrition and hydration: Went from not eating much to eating every hour, and not using many electrolytes during my run to having a bottle of Skratch and preloading with Precision Hydration the night before and morning of a long run. Also was way better at eating ASAP after runs and not starting a run hungry. Strength work and specificity training: Julie’s legs were MVP. Not even sore the following week?? They carried me through without a peep while my entire upper half was screaming in discomfort. Mentally speaking Julie shares that these changes were super positive for her wellbeing but they were difficult to do. Racing: Race feels and nutrition: Got nauseous fairly early in. Mile 13 started to feel sick, swollen, difficulty breathing, and off. Appetite disappeared. This was new, didn’t happen in training. Stuck to her plan until she literally couldn’t anymore. Goal was 200-250cals/hour and of that it consisted of 60g/CHO/hr. Mindset/attitude: Difficult day, accepted it, and did her best to manage her condition. Had to keep a quiet and calm mind because even too much internal chatter made her want to puke. Stayed calm and responded in both a disciplined and compassionate way. Crisis management and problem solving came into play—practiced a lot of mindset training prior to race and that helped. Was only 15min from goal time despite adversity. An example of knowing one’s self and following that self-awareness to guide forward. Areas to improve upon in the future: Body’s oxygen transport system Altitude was a crusher. Mix of intensity, smoke, heat, and altitude—pain! Couldn’t eat or drink for the last 5 hours of the race. Tried nasal breathing, keeping calm, and basically just focusing on the breath. Possibly went out too fast, but it wasn’t anywhere near blazing.   Cold Thermogenesis: Who should avoid this practice? What is it? Thermogenesis is the process by which your body produces heat. So cold thermogenesis is the process by which our body generates heat to keep us alive when expose to cold. Body will pull out all the stops to stay “normal” at 98.6 degrees. When it’s exposed to cold it accelerates various metabolic processes such as muscle activity, fat burning and energy production to keep us warm. 3 mechanisms that protect us from the cold: Vasoconstriction Shivering Non-shivering cold thermogenesis – activation of brown fat to keep us warm Pros of CT Increase immune function Increase in muscle recovery/improve performance Reduce inflammation Increase activity of antioxidant enzymes Increase in mood

Sponsor: When you do what you love you want to do it for life. InsideTracker can help toward reaching your performance goals and living a longer, healthier life. Using their patented algorithm, InsideTracker analyzes your body’s data to provide you with a clear picture of what’s going on inside you and to offer you science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. For a limited time, Endurance Planet listeners can get 25% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just visit insidetracker.com and enter offer code ENDURANCEPLANETPRO25 for 25% off your package of choice at the InsideTracker store. Also: If you’re a coach, trainer, registered dietitian, or other health and wellness practitioner, your gateway to offering your clients InsideTracker is InsideTracker Pro. In addition to helping your clients perform better than ever, with InsideTracker Pro, you’ll also get discounts and earn revenue. Plus, you’ll get free access to the InsideTracker Pro Resource Center and a free Personal Coach Dashboard for secure access to your clients’ InsideTracker results and recommendations. Earn revenue, enjoy discounts, and help your clients perform better than ever with InsideTracker Pro. Visit InsideTracker.com/EndurancePlanet to get started. Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN has done it again and come out with Edge, a Superstarch-powered energy gel! But this is not just any ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge gels are selling so fast, so be sure to hop on their website at ucan.co right away and get yours. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—salted peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount.   Links and resources mentioned: Current Scientific Evidence for a Polarized Cardiovascular Endurance Training Model Fast Talk Labs podcast VDOT calculator Book – “Saddle, Sore: Ride Comfortably, Ride Happy” by Molly Huddle Trace Minerals on Amazon Study – Women’s bike seats: a pressing matter for competitive female cyclists Hand Numbness While Biking: What to Do Fullscript – sign up for our online supplement dispensary to purchase ConcenTrace Trace Minerals by Trace Minerals Research at a discount. Sock Doc 13: Thyroid Health, Part 2 – Hidden Risks, Nutrient Needs, Training Ideas, Self-Care and More Intro: Polarized Training Chat What it is and isn’t: Polarized training model: a 3-zone model focusing on Z1/aerobic work below aerobic threshold (85-90%) and Z3/high intensity (Z3 in this case is more like the traditional Z4-Z6; 10-15% of total volume). Little “p” polarized training – nonlinear undulating training Zone 1 in polarized is about MAF or easier. Current Scientific Evidence for a Polarized Cardiovascular Endurance Training Model Setting & following the zones: Stephen Seiler says basing zones of LT is less accurate than using a data point like max HR. Many LT tests are inaccurate to that actual threshold value. Seiler uses a protocol to test max HR. Polarized coaches like Seiler also recommend just getting “close enough” with HR zones. Many percentages used in training, so just get close. Often as athletes we feel very obligated to stick to strict HR zones, and maybe we don’t need to be so precise. So- start with precise and then branch out. Wide HR ranges allow for you to then go with the flow of how you feel on that day. Feel great? Go to the top of the range; feel like junk, keep HR a bit more conservative. Working with a coach can serve as stress relief when you don’t know if the HRs you’re using are “right” on a given day. More: Don’t be a slave to overly specific structure in workouts. Get close. Enjoy. Build intuition! Polarized can be healthy for those athletes overcoming slumps or in more of a healing phase. Then, branching off from polarized training, there may be a time and place for tempo workouts especially based on training distance. Beware of your ego pushing you too hard if you do adopt a polarized training model. Lucho’s rough HR data collection: He saw a max HR of 185. Multiply 185 by x .77 (high end of polarized Z1) = 142 HR, whereas he’s using 130-140bpm for MAF. This shows how the two can line up! Learn more and geek out at the Fast Talk Labs podcast (check shows with Stephen Seiler, Hunter Allen, Andrew Cogga

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a Training Bundle set to give you an assortment of UCAN products—including their hot new new EDGE energy gel and other top-selling products—and help you dial in your sports nutrition and metabolic efficiency needs. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. So let’s make sure you’re not running yourself into any deficits—this list is a good place to start: Magnesium Bisglycinate Stress B Complex Vitamin D/K2 drops Multivitamin Elite Prenatal Meriva L-Glutamine BioGeset Go ahead, click on each supplement if you’re curious to learn more about how these supplements may serve you. Maybe one of these or one of Thorne’s targeted bundles for sleep, stress, or performance, will complement your needs and round out your diet this season. Thorne is always available to you on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast! On this episode we have The Sock Doc, Dr. Steve Gangemi, joining us. Steve is a natural health care doctor who founded and practices at Systems Health Care, an integrative wellness center in Chapel Hill, NC. Steve is also a longtime endurance athlete and is a wealth of knowledge for athletes looking to optimize wellness. In part 2 of this 2-part series we take a deeper dive into thyroid health. If you haven’t already, Click here to listen to Sock Doc 12: Thyroid Health, Part 1. Thyroid Recovery Outside the Box Putting aside medications since we talked about that last episode, from a more holistic and natural perspective what are areas we can look at to help promote healthy thyroid function and/or things to avoid in your environment that have an association with thyroid hormone disruption: Study mention: Environmental Exposures and Autoimmune Thyroid Disease Water quality Safety, water testing and water filtration starting in our homes Water can be a “slow poison” that doesn’t show harmful effects for decades Everywhere on earth you can now find polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs)—even places you may not expect like newborns and breastmilk. Comes from Teflon. The halogens: chlorine, fluorine and bromine compete with iodine and displace it; iodine won’t be available to make thyroid hormones T4 and T3. Drinking clean water is vital but testing isn’t always straight forward. You can find companies that check for pesticides, metals, bacteria, hardness, pH, iron, silica, nickel, etc… and these run about $200-$300. But PFASs tests that run 13+ substances isn’t as cheap usually. Steve used Babcock labs and these tests can be a bit more tricky for personal home testing. Why Steve chose to test the well water at his home right away upon moving in. Not all filters are created equal and won’t filter out everything; different filters work on different substances. So testing is key and find out what you’re dealing with before choosing what kind of filtration system you need. How to troubleshoot if you find out you’ve been drinking, using, consuming poor-quality water that has some kind of contaminant or so. If drinking “contaminated” water, it depends on how it’s manifested in your body and health (what are your symptoms?). Look to improve immune function, liver detox and in-depth health tests. When evaluating home health, look to what would be the biggest offenders first like water and other things like personal-care and hygiene products. In other words, in this case BIG and then taper down to the small things. Eg) start with water, cookware, personal care/hygiene then down the line look to cleaning products, home materials, and so on… Fluoride in water and dental products Study mention: Impact of Drinking Water Fluoride on Human Thyroid Hormones: A Case- Control Study Discussing fluoride’s effects on thyroid, and a correlation between higher fluoride and higher levels of TSH. Fluoride is byproduct of certain types of industrial work and mining, and can be a major contaminant. And worse, this source of fluoride is also sold and used… but it’s not the same as naturally occurring fluoride that you will find in some foods and naturally in water. Personal care products Stinky body odors is mineral deficiency or liver detox issue Beware of: Aluminum, parabens, phthalates, sulfates, etc. Also be weary of antibacte

Sponsor: When you do what you love you want to do it for life. InsideTracker can help toward reaching your performance goals and living a longer, healthier life. Using their patented algorithm, InsideTracker analyzes your body’s data to provide you with a clear picture of what’s going on inside you and to offer you science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. For a limited time, Endurance Planet listeners can get 25% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just visit insidetracker.com and enter offer code ENDURANCEPLANETPRO25 for 25% off your package of choice at the InsideTracker store. Also: If you’re a coach, trainer, registered dietitian, or other health and wellness practitioner, your gateway to offering your clients InsideTracker is InsideTracker Pro. In addition to helping your clients perform better than ever, with InsideTracker Pro, you’ll also get discounts and earn revenue. Plus, you’ll get free access to the InsideTracker Pro Resource Center and a free Personal Coach Dashboard for secure access to your clients’ InsideTracker results and recommendations. Earn revenue, enjoy discounts, and help your clients perform better than ever with InsideTracker Pro. Visit InsideTracker.com/EndurancePlanet to get started. Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a “training bundle” to give you an assor. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount. Intro Banter Tawnee and Lucho catch up on their current training—Lucho is in the thick of pursuing his Ironman training with 20 hrs a week of training, still including plenty of strength training, and transitioning out of base training already. Meanwhile Tawnee has cut back to low volume and is switching it up to more focusing on fitness for health and workouts that complement busy momlife. Richard asks: Help for middle-aged male with low-T, high-E woes Hi, I am a 47-year-old male endurance athlete and I recently confirmed what I thought to be true—I have low T, estrogen dominance and high cortisol. My doctor hasn’t been able to help me for these issues in the past (because here I am with the same problems!), so I’m seeking your advice for a couple reasons: What kind of practitioner or coach should I hire for this? I know you guys can’t give me personal medical advice but could you point me in the right direction? I’m nearing 50 and I’m sure that makes fixing this more difficult but not impossible, so, what lifestyle, exercise and diet/supplement tips do you have for me? (I know Tawnee is good with holistic health and nutrition advice, whereas Lucho is a master of all and can speak from experience as a dude around the same age—how does he do it?!) Fasting or no fasting? Keto or no keto? I’ve tried both these techniques before—like, I went all in—but, again, here I am in the same mess. I do want to note that I’ve cut back on my endurance training and racing over the past year, and am doing more HIIT type exercise these days + lifting, but is the damage done and is it too late? Also, I am almost always super tired and flat feeling (sometimes wired usually before bed), and have excess body fat in all the wrong places, despite my best efforts. I have a demanding, stressful, on-my-feet job and can’t just sit around meditating, sleeping in or relaxing like a probably need to be. Thanks! What the coaches say: Lucho’s T experience Lucho shares experience in how he’s maintained normal T levels as an endurance athlete male approaching 50. He has no symptoms of low T despite. Personality type helps Lucho build and maintain healthy T. Gravitates towards hard, heavy, painful workouts and he tends to shy away from chronic aerobic exercise these days. He has been incredibly consistent over time, and knows his baseline to keep a good homeostasis. May slip up here and there but can return to the baseline where he thrives. But (and a big but) Lucho also has a work-from-home job with major flexibility! Lifestyle and T With T, context matters! Multiple profiles of men with low T, it varies a lot so know who you’re dealing with before making recommendations. First address the lifestyle and underlying root causes. HIIT and heavy strength help, but can’t just go all in and do too much if body is already very worn down and struggling with immense stressors. Recent ep with Brock had good recommendations of training in pursuit of health with exercise for health recommendations. What type and amount of exercise will help all depends on the person’s pre

Sponsor: When you do what you love you want to do it for life. InsideTracker can help toward reaching your performance goals and living a longer, healthier life. Using their patented algorithm, InsideTracker analyzes your body’s data to provide you with a clear picture of what’s going on inside you and to offer you science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. For a limited time, Endurance Planet listeners can get 25% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just visit insidetracker.com and enter offer code ENDURANCEPLANETPRO25 for 25% off your package of choice at the InsideTracker store. Also: If you’re a coach, trainer, registered dietitian, or other health and wellness practitioner, your gateway to offering your clients InsideTracker is InsideTracker Pro. In addition to helping your clients perform better than ever, with InsideTracker Pro, you’ll also get discounts and earn revenue. Plus, you’ll get free access to the InsideTracker Pro Resource Center and a free Personal Coach Dashboard for secure access to your clients’ InsideTracker results and recommendations. Earn revenue, enjoy discounts, and help your clients perform better than ever with InsideTracker Pro. Visit InsideTracker.com/EndurancePlanet to get started. Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a “training bundle” to give you an assor. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount.   On this episode we welcome MaryBeth Gangemi, who is an expert in holistic health, breathwork, strength training and natural movement. She promotes practical, real world applications of fitness and health for all levels and abilities. MaryBeth lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina, where she and her husband, Steve Gangemi (aka The Sock Doc, who you may recognize from our show) have raised their family. Some of her certifications include: Certified Buteyko Breathing Method Instructor StrongFirst school of strength level II certified kettlebell instructor Certified level 2 MovNat instructor Original Strength level II certified coach MaryBeth is available through computer sessions as well as in-person at her North Carolina studio. If you are inspired to learn more about movement snacks and natural movements that you can integrate into your day, and/or learn more individualized breathing exercises, you can contact MaryBeth at: Email: [email protected] Website: www.Kairosstrong.com In this show we discuss: MaryBeth’s story A mom to 3 kids, and has homeschooled all of them (oldest is now 19). Background in social work for kids with special needs. Approached it as play therapy and took a holistic approach to helping kids involving family and more. Expert on human develop and therapeutic interventions. On homeschooling: it was a natural transition to take this approach for she and her family, and her approach to educating her children. In the next chapter of her career she got really into natural movement and fitness as a form of self-care and stress relief, tying in her background of learning and application of different modalities. Got into training, involved the family, made it about playing in dynamic ways in nature. Became certified and slowly evolved it into a business rather than just a hobby or family activity. Her philosophy involved finding creative ways to start and stick with training, for all people and all athletes and all goals. Buteyko & Oxygen Advantage breathing concepts On the Buteyko philosophy and Dr. Buteyko from Russia who brought his training concepts around the world Value of switching from habitual mouth breathing to nose breathing Accessing the diaphragm Holistic lifestyle that even involves nutrition and how we eat Buteyko is a series of exercises to retrain your breathing Dysfunctional breathing patterns What other dysfunctional breathing patterns do people exhibit, other than mouth breathing: Does breathing feel calm, subtle and relaxed? You will have a feeling if it does not. If you notice a lot of chest movement, this is a sign. Is breathing more vertical (huff and puff) or horizontal? Excessive yawning, signing, congestion (even when not sick). Issues like asthma, stress, anxiety, snoring, sleep disturbance—all signs of possible breathing dysfunction. Congestion can actually be caused by poor breathing itself. (There are breathing exercises to decongest the nose.) Waking up congested—theoretically this can be tied into how you’re breathing at night during sleep, e.g. mouth breathing. Anxiety can be ca

Sponsor: When you do what you love—like running, like racing, like enjoying the great outdoors—you want to do it for life. InsideTracker can help. InsideTracker was founded in 2009 by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics. Using their patented algorithm, InsideTracker analyzes your body’s data to provide you with a clear picture of what’s going on inside you and to offer you science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. Then InsideTracker tracks your progress every day, every step of the way toward reaching your performance goals and living a longer, healthier life. For a limited time, Endurance Planet listeners can get 25% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just visit insidetracker.com and enter offer code ENDURANCEPLANETPRO25 for 25% off your package of choice at the InsideTracker store.   Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN has done it again and come out with Edge, a Superstarch-powered energy gel! But this is not just any ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge gels are selling so fast, so be sure to hop on their website at ucan.co right away and get yours. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—salted peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount.   On this episode of Ask the Coaches with Lucho and Tawnee: Joel asks: Down on CarboPRO? Hi guys. Been listening to the podcast for years so thanks for continuing to produce it! I got the impression from the discussion during ATC 328 that you are down on Carbopro. I have no affiliation with the brand but do use it. Is there something I should be concerned about? I don’t like Stevia products or sugary drinks. Carbopro has worked for me but I’m just curious if there is a reason not to use it. What the coaches say: Important points on sports drinks: Blood flow diverted away from gut during exercise, making digestion more difficult. This is why it’s so important to train your gut to tolerate fluids and calories, and find a good hydration/nutrition match not just wing it. Most sports drinks are designed to make you want to drink more, even if you don’t need or shouldn’t be. All the sports drink science matters but what also matters is YOUR UNIQUE NEEDS & N=1 trial and error! If a product has worked for you, truly, then carry on. But if not or if you’re at all questioning your approach to hydration in training and racing then go deep to find your right mix… Also, many sports drinks use a combo of different kinds of sugars to help optimize absorption. Check ingredient labels (more below). Carb solution of common drinks/osmolality: Gatorade 6% (this means 6 grams CHO per 100ml or 60g per 1L) (360mosm/L) First Endurance EFS 8% Cytomax 6-7% Perpetuum 6-8% Accelerade 7-8% Skratch 4% (160mosm/L) Osmo 3.2% (260mosm/L) Osmolality Osmolality is how many particles are in a solution. If your sports drink has too high an osmolality, especially from sugar(s), your body will likely dehydrate to some degree because these particles need to be transported by water- body draws from its other sources to pull more water into the gut to digest your drink, not a good thing. Depending on one’s hydration state, blood osmolality can range anywhere from 275 to 295 milliosmols (mOsmol) per kg of water. Too high osmolality in your drink can cause bloating, sloshing, gut rot and an inability to rehydrate properly. (Typical sports drink is 300-360 milliosmoles, including Gatorade; Powerade is 350-390!) Keeping the drink concentration lower than the osmolality of the blood helps better get fluids to blood and the muscles (this is known as optimize intestinal fluid exchange). Fluid absorption largely in the small intestine (95%). Gels, highly concentrated sports drinks, etc, will sit in SI = increase pressure = body responds by pulling more water into gut. Many people who have GI issues may feel extra worse especially in those with very common GI dysbiosis conditions like SIBO. Breakdown of common sports drinks: Carbopro 1 serving/scoop = 100 calories with 25g CHO. Ingredients: “glucose polymer extracted from identity preserved GMO free corn.” According to their website: “You need at least 200 calories (50g) per hour = 2 scoops mixed in 12 to 16 oz of water… It is low in osmolality even up

Sponsor: We are excited to have partnered with Fullscript, an online dispensary with professional, high-quality supplements delivered to you by a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get 10% off thousands off supplements from hundreds to the top brand names like Nordic Naturals, Pure Encapsulations, Designs for Health, Seeking Health, Vital Proteins and so many more. When you buy supplements from a trusted source like Fullscript you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary with a discount.. Sponsor: Body Health’s PerfectAmino® 300-count Tablets are NSF Certified for Sport, so you can trust that they’re clean and free form contaminants and banned substances. What you see is what you get. Please note: at this time it’s just the PerfectAmino® 300 count bottles that are NSF certified but all PerfectAmino® is made under the same roof with the same standards. PerfectAmino helps you fight fatigue, maintain and/or build lean muscle mass, and better sustain your training loads. It literally counts toward protein grams in your diet and vegan friendly. Buying PerfectAmino through us helps support the podcast and ensures that you are getting the highest efficacy and quality care in your supplements rather than risking old, poorly stored, less efficacious supplements bought elsewhere on the internet.   Welcome to episode 28 of Holistic Performance Nutrition (HPN) featuring Tawnee Gibson, MS, CSCS, CISSN, and Julie McCloskey, a certified holistic nutrition coach who you can find over at wildandwell.fit. On this episode: Intro All things summer & healthy balance Julie and Tawnee life updates, with Julie’s approach to healthy 50k training (more sleep, more food!) Responding to criticism In the spirit of transparency, Julie and Tawnee share some feedback they got after the last episode (HPN 27) including some criticism. We are open to and appreciate all comments and critiques sent with love, as we continue to strive to do better for our community.   More on birth control & female athletes New study looking more into oral contraceptive effects in women The study: Oral Contraceptive Use Impairs Muscle Gains in Young Women by Riechman, Steven E.; Lee, Chang Woock Shortly after our last episode discussing “coming off the pill and supporting your natural cycle for female athletes” a new study was published so in this episode we do a followup discussion sharing the findings in this new research and what it means for female athletes. Important points and stats “To the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the few, and to date the largest, to directly examine the effect of OCs on lean mass gains in response to a standardized RET program designed to promote skeletal muscle hypertrophy in young healthy recreationally active women.” “According to recent and historic reports, approximately 14 million women between the ages 15 and 49 use OCs in the United States, which are the leading contraceptive method in the younger, athletic (14–28) population (13,26).” “In addition, 82 percent of sexually active women in the United States had used OCs at least once (26), and OCs are commonly used for nonbirth control purposes, such as management of menstrual cycle, alleviation of premenstrual syndrome, and treatment of acne (13,19,26).” What they did Examined the effects of OCs on muscle responses to a standardized resistance exercise training (RET) program. Two groups of young healthy women (18–29 years old, non-OC: n=38, OC: n =34) underwent 10 weeks of whole-body RET (3 days·wk, 3 sets, 6–10 repetitions, at 75% of maximum strength, 13 exercises). Measured DHEA), DHEA sulfate (DHEAS), IGF-1, and cortisol levels. What they found OC impairs muscle gains but no differences in strength gains. Non-OC gained 3.5% lean mass vs. OC gained 2.1% lean mass. Plasma concentrations of DHEA, DHEAS, and IGF-1 were significantly lower, and cortisol levels were higher in the OC group before and after training. Unintended consequences? Many women with amenorrhea or hormonal irregularities have cortisol dysregulation (e.g. HPA axis dysfunction), particularly too high cortisol. And this study shows that the OC use was correlated with increased levels of cortisol within the body. Meanwhile anabolic hormones were lower in OC users—not a desirable outcome for most female athletes. Takeaway: trying to fix something but creating a problem elsewhere. Why did absolute strength remain the same between groups? “A possible explanation for this result would be that the absolute magnitude of the difference in muscle mass gains was not sufficient to induce strength differences. Muscular strength gains in a short-term training program involving untrained individuals are predominantly affected by neurological adaptations rather than changes in lean mass. Thus, it is suggested that these energy efficient neurological adaptations early in

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by UCAN, the fat-burning fuel of choice for endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN products are powered by SuperStarch, a unique, low glycemic complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy with no spikes and no crash and keeps your blood sugar steady. The perfect complement for the healthy metabolically efficient athlete… UCAN is offering a Training Bundle set to give you an assortment of UCAN products—including their hot new new EDGE energy gel and other top-selling products—and help you dial in your sports nutrition and metabolic efficiency needs. EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.com for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Thorne supplements help athletes meet their unique needs. And many of Thorne’s supplements are NSF certified. So let’s make sure you’re not running yourself into any deficits—this list is a good place to start: Magnesium Bisglycinate Stress B Complex Vitamin D/K2 drops Multivitamin Elite Prenatal Meriva L-Glutamine BioGeset Go ahead, click on each supplement if you’re curious to learn more about how these supplements may serve you. Maybe one of these or one of Thorne’s targeted bundles for sleep, stress, or performance, will complement your needs and round out your diet this season. Thorne is always available to you on our Shop page, and like we say about all supplements: when you buy from the source you ensure higher efficacy and proper handling of your supplements plus you support the podcast!   Intro: On this special episode of Ask the Coaches, Tawnee and Lucho are joined by former EP editor and co-host, Brock Armstrong. Brock shares about his new podcast and wellness program, and helps the crew answer this week’s questions. The crew also chats about mental health and motivation, asking Lucho some questions about his recent return to Ironman training and working on his mindset. For more information on Brock & his services offered: Brock’s Website The Change Academy Podcast The Weighless program Book mention: How To Do The Work by Dr. Nicole LePera Questions: Kasey asks: From a health perspective: MAF or HIIT? Hi guys, I am at a crossroads and think this question is fitting for your show. I realized over the past year of not racing triathlon that I don’t miss it so I’m going to take my fitness a different direction. I am open minded to what this will look like. I am 39, and the type of person who always likes to have a fitness routine and goals to work toward, but it doesn’t have to be anything insane. Background: high school sports, then about a decade of endurance training (running, triathlon, some bike races) and strength training mostly supplementary to the endurance but as a female also found this good for bone health and hormonal balance, etc. Lately I am considering an even deeper dive into more health-based fitness goals. (I think Tawnee has mentioned something similar in her own journey recently.) So I wanted to hear your take on which is superior for overall health and longevity: a low-volume program that incorporates strength, some HIIT and some shorter runs only (like 3miles) OR a more moderate volume MAF running program(like 20-30minles a week?)+ a little bit of strength training worked in. It seems like those who are in each camp claim their way is superior, so it’s hard to weed through opinions over facts…. if there are even any facts on this? Maybe it depends What the coaches say: Top Takeaways: Not an either or; do both! Not too much, not too little! Listen to your body! (Not about “no pain no gain”) Prioritize rest! (Focus on sleep and recovery) Nutrition can’t be ignored! MAF: Good for fat burning, increase mitochondria density and function, and metabolic health. Chronic endurance is a “slow burn” to health issues. HIIT: can improve glucose and fat oxidation, body comp, good “bang for your buck.” It doesn’t have to be as much as you think. Something like 5 x 30” sprints on 4’ rest. HIIT overtraining = more quickly see problems when doing too much, e.g. cortisol dysregulation, HPA axis issues. Phi Maffetone says: “Adaptation to oxidative stress improves health and fitness because it helps activate our natural internal antioxidant mechanism, an important part of our immune system. To encourage the body to better regulate this stress, we require good aerobic function and consumption of healthy foods. Too much or too little exercise, or eating junk food, reduces our ability to adapt to oxidative stress with dire consequences.” Exercise stimulates oxidative stress > increases antioxidant/immune activity > speeds recovery > improves wellness. Key – not too much, not too little. Primal Blueprint crew says: “Former endurance junkies;” from them we can learn how much endura

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN has done it again and come out with Edge, a Superstarch-powered energy gel! But this is not just any ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge gels are selling so fast, so be sure to hop on their website at ucan.co right away and get yours. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—salted peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: Body Health’s PerfectAmino® 300-count Tablets are NSF Certified for Sport, so you can trust that they’re clean and free form contaminants and banned substances. What you see is what you get. Please note: at this time it’s just the PerfectAmino® 300 count bottles that are NSF certified but all PerfectAmino® is made under the same roof with the same standards. PerfectAmino helps you fight fatigue, maintain and/or build lean muscle mass, and better sustain your training loads. It literally counts toward protein grams in your diet and vegan friendly. Buying PerfectAmino through us helps support the podcast and ensures that you are getting the highest efficacy and quality care in your supplements rather than risking old, poorly stored, less efficacious supplements bought elsewhere on the internet. On this episode we have The Sock Doc, Dr. Steve Gangemi, joining us. Steve is a natural health care doctor who founded and practices at Systems Health Care, an integrative wellness center in Chapel Hill, NC. Steve is also a longtime endurance athlete and is a wealth of knowledge for athletes looking to optimize wellness. In this 2-part series we take a deeper dive into thyroid health and it’s such a big topic that it deserves two parts. In this first we cover: Thyroid dysfunction basics: What’s going on? How common? Thyroid issues are often confused or misdiagnosed ailments, especially when subclinical. Thyroid often is over-medicated leading to a hyperthyroid state. But also the opposite may occur, with hypothyroid symptoms that aren’t being well treated (can have side issues like sluggish liver and kidney function) Steve says up to 20% of his patients have a thyroid issue, and 50% of those taking medication for thyroid; he works jointly with MDs to adjust thyroid meds to best fit the clinical presentations Thyroid issues and endurance athletes: are endurance athletes more susceptible? It seems to be that the LSD type training (i.e. long aerobic endurance training) in which you really tax the aerobic system tends to wear out thyroid as opposed to high intensity/ HIIT type stuff which tends to burnout adrenals, sex hormones. In other words, too much aerobic work over time can deplete thyroid. Some hypothyroid symptoms: Leanness turns into puffiness, sluggishness, fatigue, short term memory issues, loss of sharpness (could that be something else? The thing is- all systems are affected it’s just about which is being most negatively affected). Overtraining and LSD can run down thyroid. This is not an unhealthy body image issue, this is just physiology and understanding the changes in your body. Why are thyroid problems often missed by mainstream medicine? Also What is typically checked by docs vs. what ideally should be checked? Tawnee shares a story of visiting a new OB and the OB only wanted to test TSH, Tawnee had to ask for more and also ask for antibodies, considering she has a history of hypothyroid and wants to be sure things are still going well. Free levels are most important – that’s what circulating in blood and active in tissues and what body’s paying attention to (T3, T4). TSH is “thyroid stimulating hormone” and it is a pituitary hormone. TSH alone shouldn’t diagnose a thyroid issue, nor dictate medication and dosage. Many doctors only test TSH even when the patient requests more, and with this thyroid issues are often missed or mistreated. TSH high – this means the pituitary is trying to thyroid to make more T4, which is classic hypothyroid, and a person might need more meds to help boost thyroid hormones. TSH low – this means the body is trying to lower feedback loop to thyroid, i.e. thyroid making too much hormones, classic hyperthyroid, and we would want to lower medication. You can also have normal TSH, or abnormal or high or low TSH, without the typical presentation so you have to dig deeper on

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the UCAN, the only sports fuel of its kind and a fuel that helps you thrive via stable blood sugar, metabolic efficiency and more. UCAN is powered by SuperStarch, the fat-burning fuel of choice for metabolically efficient endurance athletes and health enthusiasts. UCAN has done it again and come out with Edge, a Superstarch-powered energy gel! But this is not just any ordinary gel. It has 70 calories, 0 grams of sugar and 15g of Superstarch equating to 19g of carbs; Edge gels are selling so fast, so be sure to hop on their website at ucan.co right away and get yours. UCAN also has delicious flavors of energy bars for you to try—salted peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and cherry almond—and equally yummy energy powders enhanced with your choice of plant-based pea protein or whey protein, each option packing 20g protein per serving! EP fans get 15% off UCAN, click to activate your discount and shop now. You can also use the code ENDURANCEPLANET2021 if you’re shopping at ucan.co for that same 15% discount. Sponsor: One of the newest additions to our Shop page is Fullscript, an online dispensary with professional, high-quality supplements from a verified distributor. When you sign up for Fullscript through EP you can get 10% off thousands off supplements from hundreds to the top brand names like Nordic Naturals, Pure Encapsulations, and Designs for Health. When you buy supplements from a trusted source like Fullscript you ensure higher efficacy and proper storage and handling. So check out Fullscript, your go-to online dispensary..   On this special edition of Ask the Coaches we hear all about Lucho’s decision to sign up for Ironman St. George in 2022, his first full Ironman-distance race in over a decade! Tawnee in Lucho go into great detail about how Lucho plans to train with being mindful of a healthier approach than he says he did in the past—and what that means specifically—as well as details about his overall idea on how he’ll periodize his training for 140.6 miles of swim bike run, his race goals (Kona!), thoughts on recovery, nutrition, and much more. Lucho has made it no secret: He wants to qualify for the Hawaii Ironman World Championships at 50 years old—making a grand return to Kona—and this episode outlines the plan to do his best to make that happen!The post ATC 328: The One Where Lucho Returns To Ironman Racing first appeared on Endurance Planet.