with Olav Bu
Listen on
TOPICS
Olav Bu breaks down how elite coaches structure triathlon training plans by working backwards from the finish line. Rather than following a one-size-fits-all periodization model, he focuses on identifying where athletes will gain the most return on their training investment, then uses regular assessments to adapt the approach as the athlete evolves.
"What you're really committing to is the process getting to the goal because the goal is just like a minor energy consumption or dot in your calendar compared to all the process that goes from where you are today."
"I don't have a determination of what and how it comes more down to where do we think is the most to be improved compared when we look at the Gap."
"You can't create and you can't destroy energy you can only convert energy from one form to another form and that's why I'm very careful about causing too large deficits over longer periods."
“What you really are buying into or what you really have to have a buy into is the process the process and methods that is required to get there what does it require in terms of commitment to the everyday training the process everything around there to facilitate that in the best possible way.”
“You might have the best Pros or you might maybe have the best technology you might have the best methods or ability to or you have the best data or instruments or whatever but if you don't leverage that data in a way that resonates with the athletes it's much harder.”
“They don't make sacrifices per se because they don't perceive it as a sacrifice but if you start to make big changes to something then you might end up coming into that situation where you're starting to feel that you're sacrificing maybe ways or things that motivates you when you're working and then that's where you can still become good by just by discipline and pushing somebody all the time but I don't think you will become the best that way.”
WANT THIS APPLIED TO YOUR TRAINING?
Not Done Yet coaching builds your plan around these principles.
5 pillars. Personalised TrainingPeaks plan. Weekly calls. $195/month, 7-day free trial.
Apply for Coaching →Olaf welcome to the r man podcast thank you for having me I want to deconstruct what it means to Be an Effective top athlete and the way I was thinking about this I was recently listening to a podcast if you haven't listened to and you're into history podcasts the dictators absolutely brilliant I'm addicted to it but there's an episode about napole and it got me thinking about the similarities between war generals and coaches and there's actually more than you might think you know we obviously have the tactics and that's Napoleon deploying his man and saying okay you're going into this field and you're going to fight hand to hand but that's only really relevant to a specific battle if you zoom out from the tactics you have the strategies and they have broader applicability into different eras different battles and that's kind of the way I've been thinking about this conversation today I want to focus more on the strategies because if if we get too deep into the tactics of you know bloomfeld and Gustaf Eden that's not applicable to almost any other athlete in the world but if we zoom out and we talk strategies I think age group athletes Runners cyclist swimmers you know they kind of weekend have a go Heroes we can all take something from this conversation so to start off that kind of wider teed conversation I'd like to know if you have a a guiding philosophy as a coach that helps guide approach to training athletes I think that in order to reach Peak Human Performance you basically need to have both athletes and coaches or staff staff around that uh all have the same determination the same goal the same determination to reach there otherwise they very easily become an imbalance imbalance in things because like becoming the best it really requires some some priorities that I think I think even at worldclass level is sometimes hard to really understand or grasp what that actually means so for me it is actually Bo down to a little bit of course there I need to be motivated so it's it's also about okay what how what what is the goal there and I I have to say I'm not motivated by by like Metals is for more for let's say that's more for let's say the the confirmation that we did good what motivates me more on a deeper level and makes me uh want to continue and just see how far we can push the barriers is actually more about uh this personal Journey where you are learning more and more and get it deeper into um the understanding of what really is defining PE Human Performance what are the limitations have we found them how far are we from that but I think that to to be able to enable a culture or strategy where this is successful you also need to find people that are likeminded or that buys into that same approach and are willing to dedicate them to the same because if we have a little bit like say different um uh so if you take if you draw it back to the analogy of of War I think that if if if you have people that don't really believe in let's say that that that goal or let's say that battle that are there and you don't think you can win or that the tactic or the strategy that is behind that is the right one I think that people will never go into into war uh with with let's say with um the feeling or con or buying or call it being convinced that they actually can win and that's a part that very often is is is hard to quantify we are very good at quantifying the physiological parts of of of of performance but we are very but we don't have the same tools very often about for for let's say for the psychological part and that's where I believe that you can't give an instruction uh an instruction to an atlete you say do this uh without uh without that you are also educating them uh on the topic so that they really understand what they are going to do and at the same time again back then to uh yeah I I wander off a little bit now but but I to to try to bring it back I think in order to to to have a successful strategy it it is a combination of finding goals finding a goal and goals uh and uh and and and and people that that uh believes in the same strategy or the same approach uh towards that goal and that's why I think that there is like of course we we have these Awards or or recognitions where people say oh yeah you're a brilliant endurance coach and so on yes maybe for some athletes but I don't believe for all athletes because other athletes might have other needs and that might be too far away from let's say what what motivates me in in in a way of coaching and that means that those people would not necessarily be the ones that uh I would be able to succeed with either so I think that you have to build you have to build a team um team and um or you have to find a team and athletes or and staff and so on that basically believes in the same goals and the same way to get there um to to be successful it's interesting because this ties in very closely with how I think about the starting point for an athlete if I'm talking to an athlete at the very beginning of their journey I think there's a couple of things I like to consider I think about their previous experience are they coming from a you know maybe a high level in another Sport and now they're just coming into this new sport like they've been a Olympic rower and now they're just stepping across the triathlon also looking at their starting point what's your current Fitness and when you look at that collectively as we call it point a and you look at where they want to go we'll call this point B so they say I want to win cona depending on the Gap in between to get from A to B is your level of commitment and if you have a mismatch from where they are to where they want to go with their level of commitment like if you have an athlete that comes in with no historic background as a cyclist or triathlete age 35 they're a bad starting point in terms of their Fitness and they say to you they can train eight hours a week but they want to win Kaa inside four years intuitively you just go well that's not going to happen we know that's not going to happen based off data but it gets more nuanced in that Gray Zone in the Middle where you have someone that comes in that's like okay I want to win or podium in an age group national championships and I have 12 hours a week how do you think about that sort of starting point for someone I've it's always helped me to think about it as and GPS analogy in a car when you get into the car the GPS wants to know a couple of data points where are we where do we want to go and then it can plot the journey in between I think that's a very good analogy uh and I I think exactly because uh maybe even more so on an athlete level one is like committing to a goal but it's really not the goal that you are committing to what you're committing to is the process uh getting to the goal because the goal is just like a a minor a minor energy uh consumption or or or or dot in your calendar compared to all the process that goes from where you are today exactly to get to that uh to that goal and that's where that so yeah so so what you really are buying into or what you really have to have a buy into is the process the process and methods uh that is required to get there what does it require in terms of of commitment to the everyday training the process everything around there to facilitate that in in the best possible way and of course if you just aim to go to Kona uh um and you are in a fairly good shape you can probably do quite a bit of uh or you can it doesn't require the same level of of of commit but for for for um to win to win especially at Elite level where which which where there's a lot of people that really are fighting for the same goal then it comes down to in the end prior priorities it comes down to priorities and how um but not only priorities because I think if if those priorities requires a lot of discipline and it's not very motivating to do it I think you'll always have a little bit of a disadvantage to compare to somebody that are able to find joy joy actually and and and uh and a meaning in that process moving forward uh that's really interesting because I was actually speaking to someone about this the other day I still ride my bike maybe 15 hours a week and you know I'm not trying to be Pro I'm I like I run most days I ride the bike most days and someone saying to me like why are you doing split sessions why are you riding the bike so much and I was trying to say the difference between a pull and a push motivation I'm not pushing myself to do this there's something about the sport that actually pulls me in that I have to do it it almost magnetizes me into do it because I can't enjoy other areas of my life as weird as that sounds I don't enjoy sitting down and watching a Netflix movie with my girlfriend in the evening if I haven't trained that day and I think there's definitely I'm not sure where that switch is in athletes but I've seen athletes with push and pull motivations and someone that's trying to push themselves to get out of bed every morning typically they don't last very long in sport I think it sums it very well you you really um but I think also exactly like this this Joy This Joy it's not it maybe to Define maybe that Joy a little bit or that's maybe hard to Define Joy I think we all we know what Joy is when we experience Joy but I think that what I think is fairly Universal is that when we feel there is a match between what we want and the process or
Or or or or let's say the tactics I I think that then it's much easier exactly to be pulled out of that bed every morning because there's something that that resonates with you when when there is this push this is where there there is not no I said there just only a goal like very far in the future and you don't necessarily have that goal every day there there's there is maybe not that tactic or let's say that goal for that day the purpose of that single day that resonates with you and that means also that the quality of the execution that day both in training and outside training will probably already not give provide the same result as if you had that poll that came out and you were fully dedicated to that day and doing your best that day making the best of the situation and and and then and and uh enjoying the process enjoying the journey so when you're traveling from A to B uh in in your car um one thing is is the goal in for but it's that that trip goes so fast from A to B you even lose track of time if you are really enjoying that Journey H music's up windows down so that's so that's so that's why I I think having this kind of buying is super important and I think that will that will always you can you you might have the best Pros or you might maybe have the best technology you might have the best methods or ability to to to uh or you have the best data or instruments or whatever but if you don't leverage that data in a way that resonates with the athletes it's it's much harder exactly then it becomes like this push config that you are that that you use as an as a metaphor are supposed to if there's something and you know yeah there is something in the data here I really this really makes sense to me today I'm when I'm on the bike I'm going to focus exactly on these kind of tasks there and hopefully that will turn out also that I actually also get a positive reinforcement seeing that the data actually aligns with there and you see that you actually are getting closer and closer and closer towards that that goal or or basically bridging up that Gap uh that you have identified as as needed in order to to to win in Kona so how do you think about the starting point defining what that is is it a physiological assessment is it a battery of physiological assessments and just even before you jump into answer that I'm defining starting point as a new athlete who you're working with at the first for the first time so you want to get a snapshot of where they they're at or else even the likes of Christian and Gustaf who come back after one season take a little bit of a break and now they transitioning into the next season uh so uh when so I here there would be of course be a difference whether you are working with an athlete over a longer time so you basically you define let's say a starting point of a season but you also have done a lot of of history for that athlete and then let's say the end point of that season versus the start point of that season or let's say the end point of last season versus the start point of the new season very often is only maybe a couple of weeks away apart as well so there's not something like very new information that that comes up there but let's say for for an athlete if if there would be an athlete uh that uh so if I were to start with to work with a new athlete or a coach for that sake that's maybe more my sit sitation than than necessarily working with an athlete but if I work with a let's say U business leader or I work with an elite coach I would typically very often sit down first and understand a little bit where they are so it's a part both let's say okay what what what how are they working so as's I call it that the physiological or hard part of it and then you have the the soft part or more the psychological part of it and that is basically what are their motivation because it doesn't help if I come in as a mentor and I just have a very strong opinion on the process and these kind of things and what they should do unless again it doesn't resonate with their motivation so I think the the starting point for me is always what one of course I have an I I might have an idea in my head what is required to to reach the end goal based on past experience but I need to understand a little bit where are they and how do they think and what and and how do they see the process getting to to the end goal there and I think that for for succcessful uh uh coaches and and and and business owners very often very often they have done a lot right to get where they are and that's also where one have to be humble that there are many ways to the end goal uh surely the more the more we are reaching towards Peak Human Performance or Peak business or whatever it is the more the more narrow let's say the less possibilities there are to do things like very radically diff different there um uh because you need to become more efficient but for me the starting point would always be with understanding maybe more the psychological part of where they are what are their motivations what what yeah what motivates them and so on and then I rather have to see then I have to understand more okay in order now to bridge that gap between there because the reason why am I am now into that role as a mentor or as a coach um is exactly then to to to have that overview let's say that helicopter perspective and see okay these are the things that they are doing and then rather identifying where can we raise the quality more so not necessarily revolutionizing or changing making big changes in these kind of things it's more about making let's say the let's say the small steps in uh small steps in those places that maybe feels most rewarding rewarding in the beginning and that is very often about raising the quality not changing a lot of things but raising the quality rather uh of uh of certain aspects of what they do and then as they actually maybe also then feels that okay this actually makes a change that creates again Joy excitement and then it's much easier to have a new buying into let's say the next task and the next task and so on because if you just come in and you're going to revolutionize things most people will then back off a little bit or they don't even tell you they they just sit there and they just nod their head and said yes this sounds very logical and everything like this but you don't get the buying and you and and in order to win a war win win or win that gold medal win in in business life you really need people to be extremely determined and and and and and and they're just investing everything they can into what towards that goal there or that process to getting towards that goal there uh and that's where they also find their Joy they're not making a sacrifice they are making priorities but they don't make sacrifices per se because they they don't perceive it as a sacrifice but if you start to make big changes to something then you might end up coming into that situation where you're starting to feel that you're sacrificing um maybe ways or things that motivates you when you're are working or in the way you're working and and then that's where you can still become good uh by just by discipline and and pushing somebody or pushing somebody all the time but I don't think you will become the best uh that way uh and that's heard that approach to it that's it's it's brilliant so before you even taking the athlete track before you even start to look to compile data on physiologically where this person is at you want to get in and understand them psychographically figure out what makes them tick and in that way then if we move to the next step of where you've collected some physiological data you've collected your psychographic data does the results of both of those do they determine the structure of a macro training plan or is that a training plan that's kind of you know you have a philosophy whether it's reverse periodization or otherwise and then every athlete goes through this sort of macro training block or is it unique for each athlete no it's it's I would say it's let's say the the strategy would the strategy or let's say the the method uh on a high level would would of course be pretty much uh pretty much the same and and by that I mean um uh uh by that I mean that um when you are um um by by that I mean that I or to give an example I would very very often how I like to work is more like you need to identify that Gap so of course that is already a method you need to find a gap and that you have to and the way to find that is by defining okay this is the goal or the end point this is the starting point and then you need to understand what get an idea of what is needed there and I very often like to do that by saying okay this is the we know or we have a pretty clear understanding of that this is this is the the requirement to get or to let's say to use a very concrete example business is very often a little bit more gray or more difficult because there are some there are many more facets uh to that because like how do you so how do you define because it defines or it's more about how do you define what is the business goal and that can be much more that you have more flexibility in in in in determining that than you have to for winning Kaa winning Kaa is by being the fast fastest atlet from A to B so it's it is extremely measurable uh as opposed to for example if if you want to be successful in business if you can maybe said okay it's about earning the
Having the best um uh or largest turnover most income uh growing the business x amount of percents uh and so on so but there it comes more down to let's say that goal that is there and understanding that Gap there in Sports this is already predefined what the goal is if you want to win is is basically this time it takes to cover the distance from A to B um but then to use the atlete example here to to simplify it um that means that uh we know what time is required to win in Kona and that we can look at statistics we can just look at what are the numbers over the last five 10 years for example because of course there are factors influencing the the the time it will take to cover from A to B like weather conditions and so on but when you already have the ID you have the statistics there you can already start to factor that into your training you know that you need this much room or let's say they on the fastest day possible which you use that as a benchmark you just say okay we have to be able to go this fast um and then um when you have defined that you have to you have you can start to look at how fast are you today and now you have a percentage difference there and then I would say okay in order for us to have a believable or or really believe that we are where we are we can't we can't test test whether we are good enough on race day we should already know weeks months before that we are that yes we are already already there preferably so that we we basically start we can just really build confidence uh and everything around around uh going into that race day uh but then when I already have that defined then it's more about the Gap and then it's more like okay how do we get there and that comes then where I start to do more like physiological profiling other types of profiling more or less to understand let's say where are where are we getting the largest returns of investment um because again like exercising is an investment you're investing time into something that should improve you and this is universal whether you're an elite athlete or whether you are a a a uh newbie even so even if you train three hours a week it's not like okay you're only training three hours a week yeah well then then it doesn't matter of course it matters the reason why you train three hours a week is because you want to improve and you want to have maximum wrests for those three hours you invest the main difference between an elite athlete and a and and an amateur and even like say just people that likes to train for wellness uh is mainly just the requirement to Precision in what you do because what happens is that as you scale up a program and the volume in the program gets larger the requirement Precision grows exponentially that is that is the reason why when you come up to you can probably 10 up to 10 hours a week ah you can probably do quite a lot of strange things and you still have good improvements for a while um uh before you really have to start to become more precise to get out the last percentages of those 10 hours you invest 20 hours then now things can go bad if you start to be sloppy with your intensity control and these kind of things over a week you end up uh not getting consistency in your training because you get too exhausted and other things you start to lack Improvement and at 30 hours you basically don't have any room for errors really because that also injuries uh burnouts and other things can also be very soon a reality if you basically dig yourself because people that train 30 hours a week those people are extremely determined they are very ambitious to be able also to put in those 30 hours a week of training and that means also that those people won't stop necessarily if they have a bad feeling a day they will just continue and just almost like some of the AES I work with it's more like okay uh okay it feels a little bit bad today probably I just run faster and I run that I run that pain off uh so so the yeah that's of course putting it a little bit rough but uh but back to back to uh to to to the profiling uh and understanding this and what kind of method or what kind of approach to sum that up I would say that um I would say that for me the way I would I normally work is more like I work from a reversed uh not reversed extrapolation to bring in it because that's that's that's for me more a tactic something you believe in you believe in a reversed explanation I don't believe necessarily in a that there is one one single periodization it depends on the athlete it depends on on several factors uh and the way to identify what would be the best approach to bring an athlete from let's say that starting point towards that that goal uh or let's say that win in Kona um that boils down to for me an let's say a series of Assessments or observation to understand the athlet understand what we can measure and then seeing where do we have the most uh uh where where where would we gain most of investing our time now moving forward uh and uh that will then change that's why it's regular that's why it's important also to do regular checkups in the same way you do accounting for a business you wouldn't there's a reason why we release quarterly reports and that's because if you basically said I don't care about accounting you start your business January 1st and at December you're going to look into accounts if you have kept a track of anything in your accounts at all H how can you know how to optimize your business where are money just leaking out and are you earning any money at all are are you certainly in a big depth so I think I think I think for me for me I'm much more uh my tactics are very flexible and there I like to have a large repto that's more for me the the learning where you learn when you meet other people coaches you uh we advance research in these kind of things you get a more richer and richer toolbox uh where you can employ different tactics uh to to to to to to to fulfill that strategy and for me the strategy is more where you where is more exactly where you how or which tactic do you decide to employ in order to to to to maximize the likelihood for that you will be able to reach your goal if if that makes sense so how do you approach gaps if you identify a gap do you approach it by addressing the weakness or do you approach it by doubling down on the strength I think this is where cycling specific training and triatlon may be diverge because with cyclists you identify a weakness okay I'm not very good at climbing and a strength I'm a super fast finisher so you double down you put all your chips into the I'm a fast finisher bucket and now you become an out andout Sprinter but if the terrain doesn't suit for today you just write that race off and you go okay well I'm not going to win that race I sit up and I finish in the group petto for today that's not quite the same for Shan I think um I would say it is uh it is I wouldn't say there any difference because I think this comes down more to view uh to the view or let's say how flexible you also think that physi physiology is as well um uh for me I would say that what I would be focusing on whether that strength or weakness comes down rather more to where we think there is the most to be gained uh in because again we are investing time we're investing hours we are investing resources into improve and for example if I DED that that investing um the same amount of time into improving that weakness versus trying to improve a strength and I and we think that actually there are much more likelihood that we will improve here by working on that uh weakness there I would rather focus on that weakness and then and then improve that first and then again it becomes a new assessment what are now the gaps because you I I I don't think that you can do like a gap analysis like once a year you need to all these tools you need to keep them updated it's like accounting of a business you need to keep track of what is changing how is the response uh business to the market in sports how do you respond to the training stimulus uh to see basically that you always are investing your time and resources uh where you're getting the most out of it um because I think that it's if you just double down on on on on uh for example just maintaining or trying to improve a strength for example uh you'll lose you potentially lose out on quite a lot of improvements in the same way that if you just focus on a weakness improving a weakness and you don't understand whether that is really the best place to to invest your your time and resources you might also yes you might improve a little bit but you would be better off focusing on something completely different so again this is where I I I have a more holistic approach more holistic approach about it and it's more about where do we see the largest return of investment it is really uh uh as simple as that how say philosophically speaking or let's say strategically speaking but of course the the difficul is understanding how to improve what tactics do you use what tools do you use uh in order to improve that that's where you start to get more into the integr details and you really have to be precise on what you do so I I I have I have a more I personally I prefer much more having a holistic approach and I I don't have a determination of what what and how it comes more down to where where do we think is the most to be improved compared when we look at the Gap and then it's more about figuring out how do we
Improve that uh yeah and sometimes yeah so sometimes you have past experience with addressing it all the times you just see that here there are potential a big gain to be made and the this is where you just have to learn new skills this is the but that's the goal of a of a coach anyway or a mentor anyway is that we are the ones that are supporting the the the person that is executing so that that person can have full focus on executing while we look at okay how can we improve the execution What A Catch R man you know how serious I take my goal setting and I know how serious you take it too so whether you're chasing Fitness or lifestyle goals and you're looking for a powerful alloy to support you on this journey look no further than heu heu has become my secret weapon for when I don't have time to repare a balanced meal it means I get the nutrition I need without sacrificing time or taste plus it stops me from reaching for the takeaway menu I always throw a bottle of this banana into my backpack when I'm heading into the City and it stops me eating junk convenience foods that don't support my training goals it's handy it's nutritious it's 22 g of protein it's perfect for athletes that don't have time to cook or prepare food before a training session it's convenient nutritious fuel at your fingertips ensuring you hit your daily fueling needs fuel ready to drink has over 26 essential vitamins and minerals in every bottle making sure you get 175 health benefits plus it's made from amazing natural ingredients like sunflower seed coconut and more and the best part eight melt water watering flavors my favorite's the banana that's what's in my backpack at the moment you can get hu direct to your home by going to hu.com roadman that's hu huel.com roadman so let's zoom into a micro block now we talked kind of broad Strokes about the micro block into the micro block a lot of cyclists in World Horland reverse periodization has got quite popular at the moment where the off seon is looking like a four Monon block where there's 10 testing at the beginning of block one and block one focuses on sprinting and then there's retesting of sprinting in the decompression week at the end of the fourth week then it moves on to V2 Max with the same formula testing at the start and testing at the end for four weeks then into threshold and then into endurance which is the opposite of how we worked for a long long time but I chatted to the kid who won Barcelona and New York this year Yuri kulin and Yuri doesn't seem to follow any structure like this he kind of stays on all year round but it was interesting to me how he structured his week where he has full V2 Max days so we'll have a Tuesday where his swim his bike and his run are all V2 Max sessions that day and for me that was just horrific sound that I couldn't get my head around how you get out of bed that morning knowing you've three V2 Max sessions to do that day what's your philosophy on that micro structure how do you approach it again uh I I so there there's one philosophical part of it and then there of course is the let's say the the more the the Practical part of it the the philosophical part of it is more what you think is needed what do you think is needed for a micr structure to be as uh to or to achieve as high as possible quality in that uh micr structure and by quality I'm not talking about intensity I'm talking about purely like progress whether that is uh low intensity medium intensity high intensity uh because for for me like quality and intensity are two two two different things because you want to have the maximum quality both in your low intensity sessions your medium intensity session and your high intensity sessions put it a little bit bluntly like is is your is your low intensity ride a low quality ride does it what are you're doing and like are you mindless about your or actually are you mindful about what you also do on your your your your low intensity sessions but when it comes to micr structure like I think that there is a lot of Val in for example repeating patterns simply because if you have a mindful athlete at least is that if you are when you are in a session you will very quickly identify okay what are my what are my uh or how am I executing on the purpose of this ride or or this session today and when you know that you have another session coming up let's say uh at a repeating pattern for example that allows you then to to uh if if if the mindset is exactly that there's no failure like if you said okay you're gonna hit this power Target today and if you if you don't hit that then then then then you have failed uh again of course I don't believe many people do that way but it's more like to just exaggerate a little bit then of course that's not very motivating but if every Mo every session is about making um making or let's say advancing and advancing is not only about advancing intensity uh or or or certain power but it's also about efficiency is about how like the improving different qu skill sets I think that there is always learning you can even like like a bad session you can learn quite a lot from if you are mindful about okay what did I execute why why didn't why why weren't I able to execute here as as planned and then you actually take that learning and you take that and you use that as a way of improving on that next session there and that's much easier if you know there's a structure there's a structure and there's a repeating pattern I think that is important important secondly when it comes to intensity I think that it's very sometimes easy to forget that we are all subjects to uh some fundamental laws of nature and one of them is that we for example you can't create and you can't destroy energy you can only convert energy from one form to another form and that's why I'm also very how say careful about causing too large depths uh or energy depths or deficits uh over longer period and that means also even in a micro cycle yes there can be some micro Cycles where we where we where we are let's say creating a larger depth but you at least have to have also that a very clear strategy on how you're going to pay back that that debt afterwards just to jump in on this because I think there's a lot of confusion about this because this is something we're seeing in the last few years where we used to talk about you know chronic training load and acute training load or even normalized power over it specific duration and the vocabul changed a little bit more to talking around kilog now can you anchor this for us and maybe explain why this vocabulary has emerged and kind of simplify it so people can understand what we're actually talking about here so ultimately of course it's covering a distance but the problem a little bit with that is that it's very hard to Anchor that in ultimately calories because in the again I'm going to exaggerate uh to to just make a point and that is that if there's no velocity without power there's no without calories simple as that yes the body is a battery so it means basically that you can you can go out and you can do a certain run and you can even do a good run but it's just a matter of matter of time for how many times you can do that because before your batter is empty unless you actually start to feed in properly also in the other end of it and that also ties back into uh that I this I think that today talking about relative values like power per kilogram and and and and or watts per kilogram or or or V2 Max as a milliliters per per minute per kilogram for example the the you're Shifting the focus on when when you are stagnating a little bit instead of looking at where can I now improve you rather think okay I have to reduce my weight and the the flaw with starting to reduce your weight is that we are organic creatures and in order for anything organic to grow you need food in you you need in energy there but the problem is that we are also very like what's the English word or English term but um it's called when for example like a dog if a dog do something right you give him a treat straight afterwards if you a dog do something right and that treat comes an hour later the dog has no clue about what that treat is for and we are also even though we like to think that we are Advanced creatures we are not that advanced when it comes to these kind of things we are very very much inclined towards having like an immediate reward of something and the problem there is that it's very easy to see that yes if you're inducing if you're reducing your kilograms yes potentially then the wats per kilograms goes up or or your V2 Max or measured as or V2 measured as Mill Mill per minute per kilogram also goes up but the thing is that if you measure this as wats per kilogram yes it will look like this but you have already started a down spiral because you are now starting to inhibit that growth or that that that is so important for for for the continued growth because in instead of trying to be smart about how you do the training you start to overly focus on we are stagnated our program must be perfect so it can only be done now by reducing the weight no most likely is about looking at what can you do with the stimulus what can you do smarter in your program and still make sure that there is a a calorie calorie at least balance or preferably a slight Surplus even to to to promote to continue to promote uh uh uh growth and uh and that so so but how do we then quantify this how do we keep how do we know this the thing is that also when I've done when we've done several tests I don't know now over a decade more or less is that we
We also have seen that when you are red so yes you can improve your wats per kilogram but the interesting finding that we almost find every time as well is that actually actually that relative V2 goes down at the same time so it's easy to think well if what per kilogram goes up most likely also your V your V2 Max uh meure relatively speaking so basically o milliliters per kilogram also goes up but that's not the case we very often see the opposite uh and that is is that it goes down and it actually goes even F faster down so your absolute V to Max comes down but your relative relative one uh it doesn't actually go up so you can you can imagine okay fine maybe it's we we can sacrifice a little bit on an absolute view to Max but as long as weight comes comes down more that will give you a higher relative view to Max but that's not not the case and of course this is something that is limited to those teams teams or or or or individuals that have access or the resources to do either this kind of testing in a proper way or they even buy this equipment of course now it's being democratized so companies like V2 master and so on are making this technology more available to the masses but uh but I think uh back to how we are looking at like loading and these kind of things the problem with distance is that distance in a pool is very controllable so there you can if you measure view to Max there a couple of time or you measure oxygen consumption a couple of times you can have a fair you there won't be big dis big difference between that your oxygen consumption basically than calorie consumption when you're swimming a certain velocity so if you have measure V2 a certain different velocities you have a you can basically use it as for a for a fairly good period and from that you can plan okay this is the distance we're going to swim this is the velocity we're going to swim at that basically means that that's going to have this kind of calorie demand and then we're not talking about because there is also something we call exercise or post exercise oxygen consumption as well but let's look away from that to make it not too complicated uh because you can imagine after you done with a training there is a recovery Pro process taking place and that also requires an elevated calorie consumption compared to just basil basil metabolic rates so distance in in swimming there there's a there is a very good correlation between uh because you're swimming in a pool back and forth uh and condition conditions are extremely stable when it comes to running then things starts to get a little bit more complicated because you can have wind other environmental factors that will have an influence but not that much but of course starting to run uphill downhill and these kind of things now distance is not as easy anymore because distance is measured normally flat so even if you say so if you did a run today that was 10K and tomorrow also or let's say in two days time you do another 10K there's a huge difference between running 10K flat and 10K uphill uh OB obviously and those will have two very different energy demands as well cycling uh would be even worse than than than than running but the benefit we have in running but also starting to have now in power or in running as well is we are getting power meters and then we are starting to get one step or let's say a a fairly close step uh into uh being able to have a pretty good understanding of the energy demand I would advise that not using uh kilo as as as a kilo calorie because that's not right there there are there are bigger differences but but the correlation there stays whether you are cycling uphill now whether you're running uphill flat in these kind of things there's no tighter correlation still the energy demand will be different doing th000 KJ uphill where doing potentially 1,000 KJ flat because you're engaging maybe a little bit different muscle groups you are working a little bit differently but the the differences are now getting smaller as opposed to comparing 10K uphill versus 10K flat so the whole Go the whole goal of course with kilojoules is to try to make something a little bit more like universally applicable now independently of conditions so that we have a better understanding of what is the energy demand here what do we need to fuel for and to make sure that we are in balance for and of course again if you can use portable metabolic analysis then you are as close as you can get to the whole Grail and that is understanding exactly what is the calorie demand uh randomly measured over a week at different intensities and sessions and during rest and you can be extremely accurate on that to make sure exactly that you promote optimal fueling for optimal growth and then to adapt to that stimulus uh that you're providing to to your body but does efficiency levels matter because I think we've all had that experience where we start started out cycling or running and we went out for 2 hours and we needed to replace almost every kilog Joe we burned during the session just to get through the session but then you fast forward a number of years and you can go out with seemingly no food and feel perfect all the way through it how does that efficiency and economy play into Gils so this is where I would differentiate between uh substate substrate utilization and efficiency because efficiency of course is very well defined in in in in physics um as where you are you are improving the ratio between the input and output but of course as humans we we we we we can say that okay to use more um let's say general terms anerobic and aerobic we can say that we very often say that utilization if you you can increase your utilization of fats for example by improving improving for example your your um anerobic thresold as a function of your V2 Max that means of course that one you can now go at a higher power uh higher power uh for longer time while while tapping predominantly into your your fats uh fats or using fats as a as a substrate you will still use glycogen but it will be marginal marginal as opposed to when you're untrained and you go out and almost like there there's you don't have very much room before you are already starting to come around that threshold and that means you already now starting to use a lot of carbohydrates and we know that carbohydrates are are much more um much more limited resources or resource in the human body than than than fats are um but it's the most efficient one as well it's a super efficient fuel source but there are some some reasons why the body doesn't store as much carbs as as fats um but that means that exactly as you're getting more trained you're getting more efficient that two things happening surely you're just getting more you're getting stronger so you can bike you can bike uh faster or or with with a higher power output for for for longer periods but the second part is also that exactly that your for for at least for Endurance Sports what will happen versus from an untrained to a trained athlete is that you are increasing also now the subsid utilization favoring burning more fats also up at a higher percentage relative percentage of your maximum yeah yeah Power outputs there this is actually the interesting thing because if you train as a sprinter I'm not talking now about the T def fr Sprinter because a two def front Sprinter is really not a sprinter he's still an extreme endurance athlete it's just more like a call it a a domain specific term we have to try to classify the differences the small differences that are between the time chart list and the Sprinter in two the FR but all of them are extreme endurance athletes a sprinter like for example uh uh 100 meter Runners 100 meter swimmers um uh track cyclist 1K track cyclist and so on uh they're actually what happens there is that there you'll actually end up with a lower lower threshold so for example if you went out with the fastest sprinters for example in running in the world they would actually have a they wouldn't necessarily be more call it efficient but this is where you can't say it efficient because movement efficiency is extremely high with them so they're extremely efficient in turning turning those uh those um calories into forward propulsion but their their uh their substit utilization is heavily skewed towards the anerobic resources meaning that the basically their treasure speed starts to come become quite low so even for even even for a h an age grouper uh could probably go out and beat a like a true Sprinter or track cyclist on a threshold session just because they they they are trained to basically like pour in as much resources independently of where that comes from uh uh to to to be able to turn around uh as high as possible power outputs per time that means basically that you're you're not only using you're always using all resources but the difference is that they want to have as much of all resources at the same time in order to be able to do as much work per time in order to move as fast as possible per time and that's of course not very um call it uh substrates uh or or or or carb or let's say anob big yeah that it's it's not very call it endurance friendly yeah yeah so when we used to use a training stress score to quantify a weekly train a daily training load but then maybe also have training stress score weekly tallies that we shooting after is there still a role for training stress score or are you moving to like a kilog target for individual sessions and weekly targets actually I've never used uh training stress score or TSS or if or normalist power because again I come more from I come from more from an engineering background in physics and when we have the Holy Grail so the holy grail for for any physics system is to measure the real input and output and then understanding the efficiency in between there and i' I've I've always worked that way uh uh where I I want to have the RW metric I don't want modeled modeled data because at the
Moment you start to take raw raw metric or raw data and you're putting into like these kind of like weighted metrics like or or TSS you are dumping down the data and you're actually making it less useful than what it really is in some sense when you're start just starting to learn a sport or you're starting to learn something then it's fine to have sometimes you just need some easy easy goals or easy U tools for communicating something and and and they can maybe have a role but I still think then it's far better to to establish that in in in in real physics instead uh and and rather than build the understanding on top of that or the nuances on top of that so uh for me uh I rather like to work with uh yeah distance per time work per time and and energy per time I talked with Dr Dan PL on the podcast and we spoke about this three week on one we decompression model and his view was that if you need a one week total decompression you've totally got the first three weeks wrong that you've overreached in the first three weeks so he Advocates a rolling heart rate variability assessment so he's using HRV and using a running total of HRV to determine what day hard session should be done what day easier endurance aerobic session should be done and what day Total Recovery days should be applied are you using anything like this uh no uh uh I we I we measure HRV uh and uh but for me that is something that I would place in a layer so of course I I I don't want to say that that doesn't work or that is that is wrong uh proof is in the pudding and if it works for them that's that's good that's fine uh then they found their way of communicating communicating um uh say their plans and schedules and and being able to see progress but again I would say that ultimately ultimately what we all are measured on in the end is distance per time simple as that nobody can avoid that whether you're using HRV or whether you're using calories or whatever it still boils down ultimately to distance per time um but uh H like how I work on more is like I have my performance model or like what I call a perform performance model and that is of course I have distance per time work per time and energy per time much in the same way that I would approach on Formula One car or sailboat whatever that is that there's some there's an energy input and there is an how and there is some distance that you want to cover that's that's how we you raise on a track and there's a certain kilometers you need to cover and that has a certain cost so that's how I like to put it and then basically below that layer there you can break that down to let's say know some sub components because in order sometime to improve for example work per time so if if you think about power power is a function or is is a function of of course force and velocity or you basically can say cadence and torque and then you then you have already broken into two components so for example if we want to see okay how can we increase the power output for this ATL it one first is just that you're looking at okay like a really good program that promotes uh progress into that program and measure then as increased power for a certain for for for a given duration for example uh or same power for a longer duration for example that would be like a very simple way to quantify progress for an atlete and you can basically see when an atlete start to stall or maybe even if they start to backtrack a little bit like again and this would then require you to understand better why why is this happening now but then at some point you maybe even want to optimize on how you deliver that power or that work as well and that is could be then where you're looking at Cadence and torque so now you're looking at what you you're building a Cadence torque profile or a force velocity profile in order now to to to see okay you you have some athletes that are that like they they are more efficient at let's say higher higher high higher Cadence some are more efficient that littleit lower cadences for example this is not static either because this is when I present it like this then it's a one dimensional view because this will also change over a course of of of a race for example as well because of fatigue and other things as well but then you have some Ates that have a very pointy for example force velocity curve some that that have a more broader range that they can play over and all these plays into let's say then different kind of string then you can break down for example Force into subcomponents as well you can break Cadence into or or Cadence also into sub components and for me heart rate is something that sits for example on the on the energy side because there we measuring something physiologically that happening in the body uh that is that is that is uh a part of let's say how the heart is operating and it's and the Heart Is again we have to remember heart rate heart rate a certain heart rate you can say is a function of a required oxygen you need a certain amount of oxygen or calories and in order to convert calories into work you need to combust that and we know that from the fire triangle that in order to that to happen you need temperature you need something that can you can combust and in this case then the substrates cars and and fats and then you need oxygen uh and uh and again from physics we have something called stomry and there we know how much oxygen is needed in order to for say to to to release energy from uh from fats or or carbohydrates and so on but then we can say okay there's a certain oxygen demand and this sits so close exactly to to calories that we we can use this as a very good proxy exactly of how much calories that we're turning around per per per time or how much energy we're turning around per time but then in order to deliver that amount of oxygen in order to to combust those calories then you need then you need a certain you need to deliver oxygen out to the muscles and in order to deliver oxygen to the muscles we have cardiac outputs the card is how much how much blood is basically now being pumped out or it through out your body and that's so you can always say you have V2 then you have cardic output that sits below there and then below cardic output we can split cardic output into basically uh into stroke volume and uh ejection fraction and and heart ratees and then below heart rate again then you have HRV so you're already now very far away very far away or into a very deep layer of a subcomponent where basically also that the way that you deliver just to put it this way the way that actually you deliver a certain oxygen per time you can break that also into let's say three main components and that is basically how much oxygen do you extract per breath or per minute from the air that you're getting in so how much are you taking out oxygen there and then you have tidal volume and you have breathing frequency and title volume is basically how much how much you're using your lungs per time and then you have the breathing frequency and these you can manipulate around in the same way as you have force velocity profile or Cadence and torque you can play around with it if you go out and you think it it and say to somebody that are not used to say I want you now to go out and go as hard as possible for 5 seconds most people fall into the category where they just shift into a very big gear and thinking that it's torquing it around like pushing like big gears and these kind of things but the problem is that they don't get up into very high power because you how say you are not able there's a certain limit to how much fibers you have and how much force production you are capable of doing and that at some point in order now to get a higher power you need to find find that higher Cadence where you're able to have an effective coordination of your muscles as well to put out that high power that's the same thing with our calories as well with V2 and that with oxygen consumption if you start to hyperventilate that's not very good yes you might might have a good ventilation but it's not a very good way to you you'll see that actually the ability to extract oxygen per uh from the total uh volume of air that you're bringing into your lungs is not very efficient so this is where this is where you need to find an Optimum between that but the further you go down into this chain the more variables will have an influence and the body is extremely good at at at at adapting it's very good at adapting and and and compensating for the lack in one domain it will basically improve in another domain and so on to to find the simplest way to deliver a calorie and HRV for me sits so far down into the chain there that it's yes it is a measure it is a it is a variable that we measure but it's something I would only use as an indicators so when I'm trying to understand something or getting deeper into let's say the potential reason or the cause for something I could look into HRV to see if there is some information there that can lead to better intervention that basically promotes in the end better uh let's say uh Energy Delivery uh for the body so if we think about the the function training is to get faster so we have a stimulus plus a response and that gives us the adaptation so if a week of seven days of training someone could get a totally different response out of that training and a different adaptation out of that training depending on their Readiness to train each specific day like if I'm super tired but yet I'm forced to do a speed session the adaptation is going to be different
Than if I'm super rested and I do the same speed session so there may be strategic times where we want someone to do a speed session on very tired legs but when you approach athlete Readiness and how do you look to determine what days are best to do what sessions I've seen some coaches and I've read some papers where they talk about giving athletes not a prescription to do on each single day but a weekly prescription and say okay here's the work you need to get through in seven days now you self determine which days you're going to do the sessions on because the athlete will wake up and say okay I feel like I should go fast today I feel like I should go long today and often experienced athletes are quite in tune with you know matching the right session with right feeling do you use data to do this do you trust the athletes to do this or is it more of like a collaborative process to figure out what to do when uh that is a collaborative process and the reason for why it's a collaborative process is that what thing we also have to measure I just of course how I probably already went pretty say let's say into into let's say this different metrics in a way that most people are maybe not familiar with and then it's easy to get scared uh a little bit like oh [ __ ] I am not Med measuring all these kind of things am I losing out or okay suddenly everything become much more complicated than than it was was before yes Elites at least are very but I think the keyword there is often I think that's the the keyword often and that's where like relying on a single parameter or a couple of parameter or even all parameters that you can quantify there are more data that we still can't quantify than what we can quantify because there is also a psychological aspect of this this too and I think that sometimes you just have to go out as well and yeah I maybe I don't feel ready today and then it's very easy to to to you don't go out but sometimes you actually learn that when you go out a day suddenly you're putting out your best numbers and you're starting to think what okay so maybe that feeling that I have there I have normally always perceived that that maybe okay I'm a little bit fatigued or anything like that but maybe that's not a bad feeling at all and maybe you'll change your view on that feeling as well uh on that feeling as well when you go out and one day and you actually start to really surprise yourself which again is of course a very positive positive reinforcement and these kind of things so for me I I I wouldn't drive a program based on on on fixed metrics or a couple of metrics and these kind of things this is a collaborative process where we would rather uh where we would try to to to to have a healthy routine I wouldn't I would probably yes some athletes I'm probably will will benefit from like having this full flexibility you just say okay these are the key session you have to you try to deliver as best as possible of them and then you just let them organize that a little bit where they want to during the week but then again uh you might also end up in a situation that when you don't have it you start to push it a little bit a little bit to when you should do it towards the end of the week worst case for example or when it's not necessarily optimal because you decide to prioritize things that maybe you find more more maybe you don't like the key session just you just know that you have to do the key sessions and and you're you yeah you push it away a little bit like with most tasks that are sometimes demanding for Humanity uh we like to to sometimes push push it forward but or into the future but I think that H you have to look at this a little bit based on athlete and find a structure that really works for you and that athlete uh so I think to avoid making this too difficult or or like say like too call it too complicated I think exactly that the most valuable thing you have is of course starting to learn yourself but don't accept a bad feeling for for for for an excuse to don't do a workout go out and challenge yourself sometimes and and actually be open to learn something new that maybe you actually didn't learn before because you you you decided to push it into the future or to keep it easy um and you can say that the F the longer away you are from a competition races you can experiment a little bit more uh on these kind of things when you're getting let's say into a more let's say central part of let's say your training and things have to go a little bit more where you need things to go a little bit more on Rails then I think take that learning with you in there and then uh employ best practice what your coach would think and yourself as an athlete based your emotions and then when you get close into race this is when you can't have excuses anymore this is the time like when a race you can't decide on race day whether you are going to feel the like on top of the world or whether you actually wake up and you feel like a little bit like you have a shitty day and many people have woke up on race and felt they had a shitty day and still they want the races so you have to you have to uh you have to this is also part of the learning and this is where I would say that I I I if if a coach wants to use use HRV or they are using some other metrics and these kind of things for me this is a little bit more like the language the language or terminology or whatever and we can all discuss whether the terminology is right or wrong but I don't think that matters what matters is it when you are developing let's say this sense you you're developing some senses some intuition for what works and and don't and then I would say that a collaborative process of of of of course trying to get a more Quantified uh or getting a better uh vocabulary or terminology or understanding of what should you do today you're feeling this way today should we go out today and do this and then because you have challenged yourself you have of course some past say yes I know I actually can deliver these kind of days and sometimes I even surprise myself maybe even go better I I think that I think to summarize this it's not it's not very easy it's not very easy and I think it comes very much more down to what works works for you and don't be because I think that if you just look at the best in the world you have to remember even if I even if you write a book or even if you talk in a podcast about okay how we are doing it it's very easy to think oh that that sounds brilliant I want to adopt that kind of system there but but we also have to remember that what goes into writing of a book there are 10 times 100 times more thousand times more that actually doesn't go into that book that actually was vital to that let's say what resulted in that book there and I think that's exactly where you just have to accept that there is a journey yes get inspired try to to learn new things and and these kind of things that you can bring in and you make your own understanding of but in the end I think it is much more important to find exactly what pulls you out of the bed in the morning and that you get excited about that you want to get out and do and if that is for example using a new metric well that's good if that pulls you out of the bed but don't Lo lose focus on what the important things uh moving forward that's the goal and the excitement or Joy uh that makes you want to get uh out in your running shoes or in the pool or biking but you're so right because we've all had those days where we feel unexplainably good or unexplainably bad despite the data and despite even our subjective feelings like I've woken up and I still have this kind of process of going through like on a score one to five how motivated do I feel to train today how well do I feel I slept today and I kind of go through this little 10 questions that I ask myself before I check any of my wearable data sometimes they won't line up but sometimes they'll all line up perfect and I'll say look I feel horrible feel horrible feel horrible and then I'll go out and I'll have a better race than I've ever had and it's unexplainable because we there's less data that we know that we don't know than we do know exactly I think that we are getting we we we of course we are working on on of course we are using AIS and we are developing AIS uh now onto a very deep level to to support us in in in in both measured and non-measured or call it infered data but and I I have to say that ultimately I think that actually in the end we are actually just we are just a bunch of atoms we are sounds maybe a little bit harsh but in the end we are atoms there are basically just atoms or even quarks or we can say prons but basically let's say atoms that is what is so there are just molecules and atoms that are in the body and there are chemical reactions as a function of that and I think that ultimately we will be able to describe this mathematically but it's it's still a long time in the future but I think it is useful of course to try to quantify as much as possible with metrics to better be able to describe accurately a certain feeling or emotion and these kind of things but exactly like you say there are more things that we don't measure than what we measure so we have to be humble about that data at the moment yes we are getting closer and closer to
Be able to describe more and more different feelings and emotions and and and and and be able to quantify that and and uh together with performance or and so on but again if you go completely blind on that you lose out on on on on so much valuable uh that again this is a collaborative process something I know that you're measuring that I know that I'm not measuring is core body temperature yeah talk to me about this how does it work should I be doing it should listeners be doing it and why are you guys doing it so uh I would say that uh there are many ways to to to of course today they are starting to get different tools in the market and this kind of thing that you can use to measure uh core body temperature I think it's no secret that we have a very close C collaboration with greench and or and or core uh in Switzerland they they are making the white uh White sensor that are very often attached to Heart people's heart rate sensors or the to the France riders or TR leetes um and uh yes you should definitely measure this the main motivation for me actually to because we have used I don't know I probably spent 10 15,000 EUR on temperature pills for Christian and Gustav and Kenji uh and some other athletes but we we we did so much measurements leading into Tokyo over the let's say between 2017 and 2021 um leading into Tokyo Olympics to really refine or heat protocols how to understand how the body responds and these kind of things but what really caught my and I like to measure something as as as let's say as as close to the source as possible so if you yeah but the the flaw or not not not the flaw the core body temperature we have to remember is a wrest of something and that is work and what most people don't think about is that for every calorie that you are actually burning in order to produce uh certain power on your bike for Elites that is around 20% not 25 it's closer to 20% for Elites actually that and that that means actually for every calorie only 0.2 calorie is basically used for forward propulsion on your bike and you're thinking what what on Earth where where is the other 0.8 where's the other 80% going it's heat and that heat that you do are basically showing up in two ways one is exactly increased core body temperature because you have muscles are internally in your body and there is how say a lot of a lot of fluids running around in your body your blood is being and then means basically that when the blood comes down into the muscles it will be basically also come back up again in your body or let's say up into your torso or so basically it is distributed around in in in the body and the body is of course is an extremely Advanced plumbing plumbing system uh a dynamic or organic Plumping system or it basically it's not a static like a tube in your house which just is it would even how say it it will contract and it will basically expand and uh yeah so many things to this and also it will regulate this difference where it basic the blood vessels get how say contracted and where it basic expands and so on depending on whe it actually also get needs to get rid with more heat or actually if it needs to preserve heat in your body that's why for example if you're out in the cold we very often get first very cold on extremities because the body starts a sense that it's getting cold and it wants to protect you and then will it will basically start shutting down delivery of blood to the extremities because one you are losing more heat there but also it's not a vital part of your body so core interesting I didn't know that that's a little bit of a segue but so to stay to get warmer hands I could just wear a better bass layer so the thing so the thing is actually yeah exactly so the thing is actually that uh the thing is actually that uh that uh what the core what really caught my eye with core and it was actually a very good friend of mine Don laang that actually uh pointed me in the direction of them and to the CEO of of of of of green tag and core uh wolf gluts and um he's a physicist uh actually so they actually don't come from a place where they do they decide oh we're going to make some new brilliant Sports de they actually come from the from the industry and we are talking about where they deliver to to to to to Aerospace and and and Laser industry and so on but they saw hey we have a brilliant technology here this can be used for other applications like for example measure core body temperature as well and the way it does it is it is not like you you know you can go to the pharmacy or to the shop and you buy this thermometer that not you use for for rectal measurement but you basically just scan your forehead for example the problem with them is that they basically just they take your your exactly your your your skin temperature at a certain point and then they apply a offset to that because we know the skin temperature is lower than your core body temperature but statistically speaking we know that ah the offset is this much and you just apply that you just apply that to there but there will be differences between humans obviously so now how core dust this is is very different they measure also the skin temperature but in order now to to say something about core temperature they actually measure how much heat is being produced or basically radiated from the body or the other way around for example but mostly basically radiated from the body so think of it this way you have a if you have a cooking stove if you put this uh sensor of course I wouldn't do it with a core because this is wrapped of course in plastic in order to be more a little bit more friendly on the bodies I would I wouldn't advise you put it on on on the stove top uh but this technology you can actually put this if you had it of course now packing in or let say in metal instead you could put this on top of your stove tops I'm simplifying it now but you can put it on the stove tops if you put your stove top now on two kilowatts let's say 2,000 Watts so we already talk about Watts when we are biking but if you now put it your stove your on two k two Kil or 2,000 Watts for example and you put this sensor on top there before you put it on it will just measure the surface temperature of the so instead of skin temperature it measures the surface temperature of of of of your cooking stove so let's say it's 20° in the room it will measure 20° there but when you start now to put on the Power put on the Power of your cook of your stove temperature will of course start to go up because this will start to now transfer or give away a lot of heat uh a lot of heat so it converting electrical energy into heat or thermal energy instead and what this one then will basically measure is basically measuring that now there's actually coming off 2,000 watts of air in in heat so it measures it measures the heat uh uh heat normalized for a certain area so let's say Square centimeter or square meter normally normally we normalize this a square meter so then you now can imagine to take this now one step further and that is that if you take this sensor and you attach it let's say inside a house there's 20° you have a window and outside the window if you put your hand on that window now it will probably not be as cold as the environment around it will maybe have a little bit higher and the reason for that is because there's leaking heat from the inside of the room out towards the the window to the to the environment and this is of course why we want to have windows with a very high insulation value but if you now basically say that I know the insulation value of this window then basically when you put this sensor on there you know okay the surface temperature of this window now on the outside here is is a certain temperature but also because you're measuring how much power is being radiated to the environment and you know the the the the insulation value of the window you can actually say what the temperature is inside of that build inside of that room there and that is actually one of the application that technology is originally used to it is to quantify the efficiency of for example insulation in in in houses or Energy Efficiency of houses so now what they did was they started to train this system on uh on uh on humans to understand the insulation value of a human and they use the same technology now to say what is the core temperature of the body uh but what we have to be like of course what we have to be of course or know at the same time as well if you take a temperature pill and you say that this is the gold standard or temperature probe if you take the temper temperature probe and you put it up rectally or you put it into the mouth you will measure different temperatures so if you take even the pill and you insert a pill rectally and what you swallow one at the same time as well they will also measure differently and the temperature slopes as well as a function of the work you do will also be differently because they will have different distances from where maybe the the work is being done so if you're cycling the the rectal pill will be closer to your to your uh to your uh uh to your working muscles while the pill that sits now in your in your in in your in your stomach will be further away and it will also be encapsulated in fluids and other things like this too and that means also when you are doing work now what we have to remember 80% of the work we do is now being being dissipated into one body which increasing the core temperature temp and to to
The environment and of course the longer we measure or further we are away from this with that pill or with any or with a core sensor of course it can be different offsets and it can be different slopes there so with I guess that's the hell but I suppose what I'm trying to get my head around is nearly the why like how would how would no my core temperature impact my performance or change my training prescriptions or my pacing on race day yeah so so so that's where I'm getting and that that is that basically what we now me we know with this technology that we can also measure now for example like how much heat you are dissipating heat you're dissipating but also now the core temperature of your body and we know that of course there's a limit to how much energy or how much heat your body is capable of storing so again 80% of that calorie that you are using to propel yourself or let's say of of of of the 100% of a calorie that you're using to to propel you forward uh uh yeah well 20% go into forward propulsion 80% go goes into heat and there's a certain amount to how much heat the body can tolerate before you will start to break down cognitively you won't be able to work very efficiently anymore and this is again where I can't necessarily tell you if I just look at you saying that okay you're I can't say what your your what what power you should be at that day for example in the same way that I can't say necessarily what temperature you you should go at that day you basically have to test so you you have the sensor so and you have a power meter that will already give you a good indication don't even have to do a test if you go out one day you do a good ride you'll start to sense when you are fatiguing and then you know already there you have a pretty good understanding of whether this is a sustainable power output for a rise or not but that is also a function of how much heat you are producing as well or how much what your core temperature also very interesting so when you have this sensor on there you do the same you start to see that you're approaching a certain core temperature and you see okay in these kind of situations here I know that I have to be careful when I'm starting to approach this and maybe dial it off or be more cautious or be or remind yourself about I have to be now good with my fueling strategy my cooling strategies and these kind of things otherwise it doesn't matter what kind of powerp you think that you can output because you will be limited also about how much heat the body can can store before it starts to basically fatigue or break down and does have an API that you can look at this as a data screen on your Garmin or your wahoo or Hammerhead or whatever boy computer you're using yeah so so this they they uh the core sensor so core now is basically on your vaho on your uh on your Garmin on your your watch whatever uh you can basically now actually have you you could have that in real time you'll see in real time next to you for example your your power power meter you'll actually see your core temperature and you can start to see what is happening here with the I'm Soul I'm getting this yeah yeah it's it's for for me I can say that we are actually go now we so now I'm in Atlas Mountains in two weeks time we are back into the lab uh Laboratories in Bergen again doing a repeated test now to see what have changed when we've been up in in in the Atlas mountain how have they responded of course we do a lot of measurements here they're using the technology but then the guys actually the the the guys uh from from uh from core is actually coming to Norway so they are actually with us there because we are continuously advancing our understanding the technology to to to to to be able to do even more uh with it so for me you can think of it this way power on your power meet is a little brother what the core sensor measures is actually the the Big Brother of the calories that are being outputed and that's why it is so uh so important and why it also is is something that I'm I'm constantly trying to understand better because we also see the different strategies in even how you are executing your training on days when are you putting the easy session when you're putting the hard session how do you stack them how far away we even see that this the technologies that sits behind the core helps us actually understanding even better also human efficient as well I'm going to make the data screen 80% bigger for core temperature have you seen a company called Kitman Labs you know who they are uh no maybe but I don't but I'm I'm very bad with names I'd be interested to see if you guys are using something similar to this in triatlon so Kitman lab started as an our startup company and now they're gone into the NFL NBA Premier League so what they look at is athletes they've hundreds of cameras around the training pitch and say we'll take a soccer team analogy because I know Real Madrid and stuff are using it now so they have hundreds of cameras placed around the training pitch and they will look at a player see you take Cristiano Ronaldo the cameras will take baselines of Cristiano Ronaldo what time does it take him to accelerate from zero to 20 kilometers an hour what's his median height jump and it takes hundreds of data points and now in every match on every training session it looks for deviations from those Baseline points to predict when Cristiano Ronaldo's about to get injured but they're predicting injury with shocking accuracy so they can get like an extra 10 game days per year out of top player I'm pulling that statistic out of the air but they can get x amount of extra minutes and extra x amount of extra games per season using this kind of injury prevention technology is this something you think could have an application in triatlon or is it already there um it's already there I would say because uh actually your power meter what most people don't actually understand or realize is that most or some of the power meters that are on the market today actually capture quite good biomechanical data so they will already give you an output uh of uh how you are producing a certain power so not only Cadence and torque but you can even go down into to see how you produce that torque for example throughout the pedaling Revolution and uh when you start and then you can break that even further down so there you already can start to look at movement pattern uh quite accurately in cycling and we do see a very strong correlation between that and for example when things are starting a there if there's something so say for example an athlete have traveled and they didn't set up their bike bike correctly after they traveled so they some people are more sensitive and you can almost like I would see the datas I would just ask my athlete have you cated your power meter that would be my first question of course and if they have done that then it's like where I would say okay there is something here we can see here in the data have you adjusted your seat and this is of course when you can then you would just say oh no sh I he didn't for example so that's that's to give one simple example the same thing is actually now in running we the running power meters now we are able to uh we sample with extremely high frequency so we even see the full three-dimensional foot path of an athlete and we can see what is changing there and that means for example if you again to use a simple example let's say that you were starting to get uh an Achilles injury for example or or something that start you you need to start to to be cautious about you might might see that they they are collapsing so for example now in the movement pattern they're starting to coll collapse uh easier so they don't have the same call it springiness or efficiency for example and you start to see their imbalances for example so there definitely uh technology is starting to become um on close to or on par with with cycling um and then in swimming of course this is a place where still we are more uh technology is needs more development but there we for example one thing that we we have been uh working uh like cycling and running you have you have a you have a watch or you have a computer swimming you don't have this and of course these tools are brilliant to have to use as a feedback to pce yourself to to understand how you're executing have you how are you on Cadence to just use a simple metric but that has been lacking actually in swimming uh and then we started working with a company called form uh this must have been now one and a half year ago or something something like that and they made a goggle uh where there is a Tracker so there's plenty of trackers on the market so it's not a problem to get a Tracker that can that will that will promise you to track like different metrics different metrics when you're swimming like for example your distance per stroke your stroke rate it will even start to go deeper into the metrics like saying intracyclic variations you will basically see how you're accelerating and de accelerating between The Strokes basically how you rotating for example so we also starting actually to get pretty good actually technology there that actually is sits on the athlet to provide direct feedback or or on there we also use camera system uh we use uh from some other suppliers uh that actually is invented in the nordics too where we have external camera systems and where we actually do sometimes when we want to go we want to have additional or redundant metrics then we start to put on dots on the atlas and we are starting to to to to to use that as well to look at but then that is not so much to use for injury pre prevention then is purely
To understand a technological component that we think that by being smart about it we can increase the efficiency um or or the work economy of the athletes interesting to finish up on to Circle right back to the start we talked a lot about kiles on the bike how do you go about planning an athletes nutrition off the bike is there a macro breakdown you're looking to distribute across the day do you have rdas you're looking for them to hit one gram of protein for every kilogram of body weight how tightly assessed is this are you giving the athletes guidelines and letting them kind of self-determine nutrition I again I think here it's important there are of course many views and philosophies around around this and and uh we we have again Christian and Gustav the Olympic Champions world champions and all across all distances world record holders and uh we have a very simple approach to this and that is basically that the most important thing is calories in or let's say calorie uptake and how much calories you you you put out and then making sure that we are a little bit in a surplus so that's why you also see you you'll see that they have a very healthy healthy uh weight they they are not they are by far not the skinniest athletes uh yeah it it strikes me initially like when I see them straight away but if you have always a calorie Surplus is weight not just going to be creeping up creeping up creeping up no the problem is that actually the guys when you train 30 hours a week you you you are not able to be in a calorie Surplus and because the mass or let's say the volume of food that you actually have to eat because again we are eating something and it comes down into our stomach so we have to we we can always talk about mass of food but but that really doesn't matter because if the volume of that mass is is is huge you're only able to eat a little bit of it uh because you don't have place in your stomach so limitation actually that I see with at is when they are this level is actually the the share volume of food that you actually have to get into your body so most athletes at the lead level will be very often in a caloric deficit you won't be a surplus but you again you can't be in prolonged period in a caloric deficit if you want to promote growth you have to make sure that you are in the balance and then also in a surplus in order to promote growth so for me first and foremost is the most important thing is to ensure that they at least get in enough calories and if they need to eat uh candy in order to be able to tolerate the volume of food that they then do that and but then of course secondly we of course wanting to have a healthy healthy macro distribution across carbohydrates fats and proteins and uh for these atlet we are probably closer to I would say I have now it's a little we do this at random in we do more tracking of this but I would say if I'm not mistaken we are probably closer to 80% carbohydrates 70 to 80% carbohydrates and then a fairly even split between proteins and and and fats um uh but yes uh you can energy is energy and there needs to come energy in so you can but then again there are people saying that calorie is not a calorie and yeah sure I agree to that as well because you have to also remember and be humble about that if you eat two two different foods that are rated rated that's the important part there rated statistically with the same calorie amount because of your microbiome in your body or the microbiota in your body and so on you you will take up calories from some food more calories or let's say the bioavailability of the calories are higher in one food than another food with the same rated amount of calories and this is not Universal this is different different from Human to human because it has to do with what food have you been eating and all this kind of thing and we know that of course like athletes Elite at least they very often have a more diverse um diverse uh bacteria Flora in their in their stomach and intestines purely because maybe they are eating much more food and of course they since they aren't deficit the body also have to become more efficient on taking up calories as well from the food that you basically ingest uh so this is of course then where a little bit like we we going back to the performance model to add one more component to that one because there's actually it's not only about calories in and calories out uh or input uh because the input really starts with calories it starts really with calories in but there is actually an efficiency part here as well and is how much of those calories in are you able actually to take up in your body and this I have Professor Tim Spectre on the podcast talking about this he'd actually be an interesting guy for you to chat with his expertise and PhD is around go microbiome yeah so he studies he's as he will say he's a [ __ ] doctor he studies thesis and he's the world's largest collection of [ __ ] where he just is looking at microbiome all day long and it was a fascinating insight for me because for a long time I held that belief that you know a calorie is a calorie yeah no no I I to put it I I that's exactly I so so uh he is probably one of the more fascinating guys I know about because of his approach but uh but that's the same thing I also have to do uh for my at least if you really want when you want to push the limit of peak Human Performance you also when you know that volume or calories that you are able to get in to make sure that you promote this growth as well you need to understand that even better and that means that you can't necessarily just go and do a sampling of the micro uh of the microbiome or or the or the yeah the B the bacterias in in a feal sample uh because that will only be an indicator what you actually have to do you have to go Brute Force about it unfortun unfortunately still and that means that you need to burn you need to make a let's say a true copy of the food that you're eating and then you need to burn the sample of that to see how much calories are in there and then basically afterwards and then of course you have already you know the rate calories but now when you burn it and you know how how much calories are really like in it as well that doesn't mean that all is available to the body but then also what you have to do is that you have you can't just collect feal samples you have to collect all the feces for the athletes whether they have a diarrhea or whether they have H uh whether they wake up in the night or where it's out on the ride or whatever you have to collect absolutely all fees from them over a certain period and you have to burn that as well and then you have to compare how much calories went in and how much calories went out because this is basically your calorie up there how much of the calories were you able to take up as well so it it really starts there and then of course it ends as distance per time so if anyone wants to take your job coaching Christian and gustaff they're literally going to have to see true or [ __ ] why you're tell well it's something that is not very viable it's not very feasible or viable to do uh like like continuously you it is so invasive invasive into the life that it is something you can only do at random times maybe over a couple of years to to see whether there is some changes and these kind of things and then of course you know that even that is not statistically because in two months time three months time because there are other things that also influencing that this can also be a little bit different but it's not huge differences we are talking about there but this is something yes of course back to how say what what what motivates us or what what is the culture or the strategy for me it's about like continuously advancing and advancing and understanding Peak Human Performance what is the limitations these kind of things and this is also what the Ates have brought into because they they we we we all have seen where this has brought us and this is what also motivates us to continue this journey because it is about this journey this process of learning and always becoming better we we I don't like to look at who was the fastest we need to beat that guy much more fascinating for me is just to look at how fast can we actually go can we go even faster can we go five one 1% faster five 10% faster where is the limit to how fast Humanity really can be in whatever modality they do Olaf it's a fascinating look into Peak Human Performance and you've been super generous over your time thank you very much for joining me on the podcast thank so much for having me
Weekly insights from the podcast. The stuff that actually makes you faster.
The written companion to this episode.
Ironman Bike Training Plan: 16-Week Build for Age-Groupers
Sixteen weeks, three phases, one goal: arrive at T2 with legs that can still run a marathon. A week-by-week Ironman bike plan for age-groupe…
Cycling Coach vs Triathlon Coach: Which Do You Actually Need?
Triathlon coach, cycling coach, or both? Here's the framework for deciding, based on where your time is leaking in race-day splits.
Brick Workouts for Ironman: 10 Sessions That Actually Work
Brick workouts are where bike training meets run reality. Ten sessions, organised by phase, that teach your legs what race-day actually feel…
More episodes you might enjoy
Today, we're incredibly excited to host a powerhouse in the world of triathlon, Josh Amberger. A master in the water, renowned as one of the best swimmers in triathlon, we explore why that is. Nature or nurture. How can triathletes in their 30's & 40's excel in the sport?
with Josh Amberger
Joe Friel says most cyclists are doing the hard work at the wrong time of year. He wrote The Cyclist's Training Bible. He brought periodisation into mainstream cycling. This episode is him laying out exactly how to structure a season, week by week, from the first base ride in November to the two-week
Anthony welcomes Dylan Johnson back to the podcast for a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of endurance training.
Today, we're incredibly excited to host a powerhouse in the world of triathlon, Josh Amberger. A master in the water, renowned as one of the best swimmers in triathlon, we explore why that is. Nature or nurture. How can triathletes in their 30's & 40's excel in the sport?
with Josh Amberger
Brick workouts are where bike training meets run reality. Ten sessions, organised by phase, that teach your legs what race-day actually feels like.
Triathlon coach, cycling coach, or both? Here's the framework for deciding, based on where your time is leaking in race-day splits.
The Not Done Yet coaching community is 1:1 personalised coaching — training, nutrition, strength, recovery, and accountability. $195/month. 7-day free trial.