Nutritioninterview

BEDTIME PROTEIN FOR CYCLING RECOVERY | ROADMAN CYCLING PODCAST

46:42·11 October 2025

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Dr Michael Ormsbee, professor of nutrition and integrative physiology at Florida State University, has spent two decades studying what happens when you eat protein before bed. The answer breaks something most cyclists have been told since they started racing.

Key Takeaways

Ormsby's lab tested this directly. Thirty to forty grams of protein, two hours after dinner and within thirty minutes of bed, added 150-200 calories to total daily intake. Body fat didn't move. What did move was resting metabolic rate the next morning and muscle protein synthesis overnight. A 12-week resistance training study showed the pre-bed protein group came out with larger muscle cross-sectional area, better one-rep max strength, and increased lean mass compared to the group who had nothing. If you trained in the evening, 80-85% of studies showed even better outcomes when you paired that with bedtime protein. The mechanism isn't magic. Your gut digests and absorbs amino acids while you sleep. Ormsby's team confirmed this in the early 2010s, alongside Luc van Loon's lab, when almost nobody else was doing this work.

The cycling culture piece is worth naming here because it's specific and it's wrong. I've had this conversation with NDY members more times than I can count. Riders obsessing over race weight, coaches telling athletes to fast overnight, the idea that anything eaten after 8pm is going straight to fat. I raced for a French team where the directeurs treated evening eating like a moral failing. That fear comes from a world where lighter always means faster, which isn't always true, and definitely isn't true when you're under-recovered and losing muscle you need to hold power. Ormsby is clear that total daily protein is the primary lever. Pre-bed timing is secondary. But if you've been skipping a protein hit before sleep because you're worried about body composition, that's the habit worth revisiting. Keep carbohydrates under 10-15 grams in the shake. Don't make it a full mixed meal. And if it disrupts your sleep, stop, because sleep is where all of this actually works.

Dr Michael Ormsbee, Professor of Nutrition and Physiology at Florida State University, has conducted research over two decades on pre-sleep protein feeding. His work, alongside researcher Luc van Loon, established that 30-40 grams of protein consumed within 30 minutes of bed (approximately 2 hours after dinner) does not increase body fat despite adding 150-200 calories to total daily intake. A 12-week resistance training study showed pre-bed protein consumption produced greater muscle cross-sectional area, improved one-repetition maximum strength, and increased lean mass compared to control. Ormsby's lab also recorded elevated resting metabolic rate the following morning in the protein group. A review of timing studies found that 80-85% of papers showed superior outcomes when evening exercise was combined with pre-bed protein feeding, compared to morning exercise with pre-bed protein. Protein overfeeding studies using up to 4.4 grams per kilogram bodyweight showed no increase in body fat, attributed to increased thermic effect of food. The recommended shake contains a maximum of 10-15 grams of carbohydrates alongside the protein dose.

If you want the fuller picture on protein and body composition for cyclists, the episode on five fixable reasons you can't lose weight covers the common patterns I see across NDY members. And if you're still not sure whether dropping weight actually makes you faster, go listen to the episode on whether losing weight is making you slower.

KEY QUOTES

“What we found in two decades of this work is that if we have a protein centric small meal we're talking 30 40 grams of protein in a pre-sleep feeding that it has several interesting things. The first one is it's not going to make you fat and we've tested this a number of different ways.”
Dr Michael Ormsbee — Professor of nutrition and integrative physiology at Florida State University

“Most cases if you did your hard exercise anytime in the morning and then had a pre-sleep drink, it wasn't quite as effective. But if you exercised in the evening, let's say you ride after work, then that pre-sleep feeding was more effective. And like I said, that was probably 80% 85% of the papers that had timing of exercise at night and pre-sleep protein had the best outcome.”
Dr Michael Ormsbee — Professor of nutrition and integrative physiology at Florida State University

“Those who had the pre-sleep drink had a little bit bigger muscle. So cross-sectional area, the muscle was larger. They had better one repetition maximum strength outcomes in terms of the training adaptation to that period. And then their body composition, lean mass was also in the positive direction meaning increased.”
Dr Michael Ormsbee — Professor of nutrition and integrative physiology at Florida State University

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT10 SECTIONS

Bedtime Protein: Myth vs Reality

Okay, let's face it. Late night snacking has a really bad reputation and maybe deservedly so, but maybe not. Today, I'm going to talk to you about a study that shows that bedtime protein shakes could actually boost fat loss, increase muscle growth, help recovery, and speed up your metabolism the next morning. But do it the wrong way and you'll wipe out all those benefits. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Mike Ormsby, professor of nutrition and physiology, and we'll break down exactly how to do it the right way. Mike, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Anthony. Glad to be here. It's a pleasure. I spend a lot of my time chatting with coaches and physiologists, and we talk about training, what types of training sessions to do. And it maybe only in recent years that I've started to understand the purpose of training is to get faster. And we get faster by creating an adaptation to training. And adaptation isn't training alone. Adaptation is the training stimulus plus recovery from the training. And that gives us the adaptation. So the recovery part is what I want to focus on today because digging through some of your your both your academic work and some of your previous podcast appearances. I think you hold a lot of the answers that will maybe unlock next level performance for a lot of athletes. And where I want to start with this is the idea of eating around bedtime because most of us grew up with the idea of oh well if you eat going to bed that's going to make you fat. Especially I raced for a French team and this was like drilled into me from French directors like you don't want to eat going to bed because it lies in your system all night and it's going to make you fat. Where's the truth around I suppose fueling going to bed? Yeah man, this is such a popular topic and let me give you a little nuance with it because I think it's appropriate for this particular conversation. Um, it seems to me like everyone's mostly confused around uh just that. Will it make me fat or is it a way to recover and get ready for the next day of training? So, the nuance is this. Um, well, let me start with a story. So I was sitting around as an early researcher 20 years ago and looking around that the people who are the leanest and the most athletic that I could imagine and I was at the time playing college ice hockey and then it carried on to even when I was getting into um you know amateur triathlon and the people were very very lean and they were hungry and they were training all the time and so I was thinking is there really a reason we should be cutting off food at any particular time un unless you're purposely trying to like restrict calories. um and and what would be the purpose of that? And so we began some experiments early on with different types of populations. So some were really fit uh probably more like the cyclists and people listening to your podcast. Um but also we had regular people, people who were just off the you know work study. they were maybe getting out of a chair all day long and we started then this process and man um what we found in two decades of this work is that if we have a protein centric small uh meal we're talking 30 40 grams of protein in in a a pre-le feeding um that it has several interesting things. The first one is it's not going to make you fat and we've tested this a number of different ways. One of them is we actually put a small probe into your belly fat uh or into your glutial fat and then we see how much fat's coming out of your fat cell as a result of whatever environment you're in. This could be sleeping as we're talking about here, but other cases we do it with exercise and stimulate it or give give certain drugs to stimulate it or inhibit it. Um and in every study we've done in that there's no difference between having absolutely nothing or a small dose of a protein centric protein shake essentially uh before bed. And so um we are not seeing it. And even in the long term and in this space the longest study to date that I'm aware of was only 12 weeks. So keep take that as you wish. Yeah. Um even in that they're having benefits and and that's in people who are training and they had benefits for like muscle quality. they had benefits for um muscle protein synthesis and the ability to sort of keep muscle if you're in a a place where you might be losing uh mass. It could be an advantage to do that. And so the short answer is it's not going to make you fat. And but we need to look at what it is. If you're having like even just to jump in there and to to clarify on that. So if we talk about the protocol for the study that you examined. So if you take somebody, we're not talking about redistribution of macros across the day. We're talking about additional calories. So if somebody's on 2500 calories a day and then they go 2500 calories a day, but add an extra 50 200 Yeah.

Why Overfeeding Protein Doesn't Add Fat

For Yeah. for 40 grams of protein. There's no difference in body weight for those extra calories. No, there's not. And so, and it's even in other studies where it's not this isn't the design, but they do um way they kind of like give way too much protein. So, these protein overfeeding studies and in those studies they give so much protein, like more than you would ever need. They're up up to about 4.4 grams per kilo, which is very hard. That's even hard that's hard to eat. Yeah, it's very hard to eat. It's not sustainable, but they did it just as a proof of concept to see what would happen. And in those cases, they're they're not gaining body fat. And so, the thought is, well, what what's happening to it? You can't deny the laws of thermodynamics, but it turns out that it's um mostly being led down the lane of it's increasing the thermic effect of food. Um sort of revving up your engine even while you're asleep, you're able to actually digest it and absorb it. We weren't even sure if you could do that at first because there weren't many good studies at that point. Uh this is, you know, back 2010 around that time frame. It was really just my lab and Luke Vanlon's lab uh carrying out this work in protein synthesis and recovery specifically. But um Anthony, one one of the coolest studies we did is we were looking at Ultra Man triathletes. Are you familiar with Ultram Man like these? It's imposs. It is. It's Well, this particular race is specific. It's a three-day triathlon. And so it's a a Friday is a very long swim and a bike. uh Saturday's a very long bike and then Sunday you'd run a double marathon and you you just crush yourself. But the the thought you're training, you're racing all day long. And so in that case, the the nuance is really important. If you're going to race again tomorrow and you haven't eaten much all day on your bike, you better eat because you have to wake up at uh 5:30 in the morning and be ready to race uh shortly after that. And so it it's really way too uh simplistic to say do it or don't do it based on um body fat. Like if you need to actually compete tomorrow, you should be doing it. Um and and in every study in my lab or in others are kind of exploding in this research now. Nothing's showing a negative. And so it's either neutral or a positive depending on the design of the study from pre-le feeding of a protein dominant food. And does the timing matter? So if you know you go out for a long ride, you come back in, you've emptied yourself or you've partially emptied yourself of glycogen, you come back in the old school theory was we have this glycogen reabsorption window which is a little bit time sensitive. So you want to get those carbohydrates with maybe a small bit of protein in a 4 to 51 ratio back into yourself. And people took this very strictly back in the day to, you know, setting stopwatches when you come in the door to say, "Hey, I've got 15 minutes to get this recovery drink in." I think modern interpretations aren't as strict as that, but from my latest reading of it, there is still sort of some timebound element. Are we seeing the same with protein intake if we take it 2 hours before bed versus 60 minutes versus 15 minutes? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, the short answer is no, but the there's some sort of nuance around that as well, of course. So, I think we should define really when we're talking about this pre-le feeding. So the one thing to consider is the way we're doing it is 2 hours after dinner. Okay. And and and within 30 minutes of getting into bed. Okay. All right. So that's sort of the structure. So it's not we're not talking about a late meal. In fact, there are there are studies that show a very big mixed macronutrient meal late at night could be problematic. So that's not what we're talking about. So sort of lay that out on the table. The other thing is is it a protein shake really? because there it's a zero carbohydrate meal. You can have a little bit of carbohydrates, but most of the studies have done just a protein shake. There are some that have given um uh maybe at at max maybe 10 to 15 grams of carbohydrates in like a cottage cheese or something like that. That's very low carb. And we've done that like we went to the store, we pulled a cottage cheese off the shelf and then I h I sent it to a company that manufactured it as a powder and then I gave either the cottage cheese or the powder or a placebo and we wanted to see did the consistency of the food like semiolid versus liquid um actually make a difference in anything and it didn't in that study. It didn't. So, you know, the the timing of it or the consistency of it in that study didn't matter. But the timing of it also um it might matter in terms of when you it's the timing of the exercise that I think that matters more than the timing of that pre-le food.

Does Training Time Change Protein Timing?

And what I mean is this. When I went back through all the literature on this, it's not every case, but most cases if you did your hard exercise anytime in the morning and then had a pre-le drink, it wasn't quite as effective um in in whatever the outcome was. But if you exercised in the evening, let's say you ride after work, um then that pre-le feeding was was more effective. And like I said, that was probably 80% 85% of the papers that had timing of exercise at night and pre-le protein had the best outcome. And they've we've seen that now in like professional rugby, professional soccer, um some elite level athletes that if they're training in the evening and having that um that's where you have the benefit. And so does it matter? It's probably secondary t the total daily protein intake will be number one and secondarily will be the timing of it close to your exercise and for me yeah that was kind of that was kind of my next question is like did you see a difference if or did the study go down this direction where you split into two groups one group that's hitting or surpassing their daily protein targets the other group that's undershooting their daily protein targets and you know is it a case of maybe a false positive because the late night protein's is actually just bringing me closer to my recommended allowance. Uh so it's it probably yes um we could cons we could look at it that way but that's not really how they were designed. So the group who had protein in some of the most beneficial studies did get more protein in the total day. Yeah. So so in that sense but if we look at it from an applied perspective who I don't care it's you're at home and you have one more chance to feed and it could help you with recovery and performance. not negative and it's not negative. It's not going to hurt you and it might help you. And that's really how it how it works across every single one of the studies we've done so far. And but we have to also look at what are the outcomes. So we've we've probably looked at like resting metabolic rate, um fat metabolism, body comp, strength, those types of things, recovery, and we even looked at different True M&M. That's interesting. Yeah. So in in those spaces that the biggest takehome was that if you ate something versus having nothing, your morning resting metabolic rate was a little bit higher than if you had nothing. And so take that as you will. Is that good? Is that bad? It depends on what your scenario is. If you're looking to to lose weight and you're burning a little more calories, maybe that's a good thing. If you're a hard charging athlete and you need to be efficient in some way, then maybe that's not great. Um, so you have to really look at the nuance of it with with for the majority of listeners who are like a little bit time crunched. The battle is rarely, hey, I'm too lean. I'm struggling to fuel, the battle is normally, oh, I could do with shedding two, three kilograms before race season. Yeah. And and in that case, I would 100% add more to the diet, more protein to the diet. And the pre-le strategy is just a very easy one because typically you're at home and so you've got access to protein dominant foods or snacks. So that's a very simple time and place to sort of strategize it. Say you missed a a protein feeding earlier. You didn't get enough in the day. All right. Well, now you have an option. You've got something to eat before bed. So you check that box. Uh you're not going to be hungry when you're going to bed. That might help you sleep better. Yeah, I was just about to say that there's also like a definitely a society part to this because you know a lot of working people that I see that are busy fall into some routine of the last hour before bed 90 minutes at some point there's a chill out time or they're sitting down watching Netflix and when I chat to most of these people this is the time that their willpower seems to be at the lowest point for being their life being infiltrated by that little sneaky stealth snack like Oh, that malt teasers in the fridge are kind of calling out to me more than they are at lunchtime. So, knowing that you have a protein shake coming just before bed, it really helps that hungry feeling when you're trying to fall asleep. Yeah. So, so let's talk about sleep for sure because that's sort of where the new outcomes are in this space. Um, I think that's important. But before that, I want to tell you one other story about a study that was looking at, and it wasn't a only a protein, it was actually a cereal. And what they did is they gave individuals um a a regular meal at dinner. Um but it was ad libs. They could eat whatever they wanted. And then one of the groups they told before bed you're going to be able to have a small bowl of cereal.

The Psychology of a Last Meal

They came out to less than 200 calories. In the other group, they said, "This is your last feeding." And so when they did this over the weeks of the study, the group who was told they could eat again later ate less total calories because they didn't have as much at dinner. They didn't go back for seconds and thirds. Yeah. And so psychologically perhaps it was where you say, "All right, I can stop now because I know later on I can have a small snack and I'm going to be fine." As opposed to I'm done until tomorrow. Let me go have a whole second helping here, which actually got them more total calories at the end of that. There is something about that though like when you know even people have experienced this on the bike even I recently finished this crazy race across the desert in Granada. It was like 818 km it's non-stop but a big challenge in it is refilling your water cuz you're going for you know there could be 7 8 hours before you can find a fountain and knowing you have water versus needing to drink water or two different things. If I have half a bottle of water, I may not feel that urge to drink, but when the water is gone, that urge to drink is definitely stronger than the knowing you have no water coming. It psychologically it messes with you. And I found that's exact same when I was chilling out afterwards. I was writing reflections in the diary. I explained this as like the exact same as the sensation I feel if I'm locked in on my diet and I'm counting calories and I know dinner is my last meal of the day. It's a very different feeling than if I know, oh well, I can just have a snack at any time if I get hungry. I eat way less at dinner time. Yeah. Yeah. That's what happened in this particular study. And that's crazy, man. That race sounds. It's almost as good as the Have you heard of the Skydive 100? No. What's that? So, you start an airplane and you jump out to the start line, then you run a 100 miles. Any race that starts on an airplane, I'm down for that. So, you start you skydive to the start line, clock starts, and you go. And I was talking to an athlete had who was actually doing Ultram Man, had just finished that race. And when he and when I talked to him, he had finished that race like two weeks before. And I said, "How fast were your first couple of kilometers when you were running?" He goes, "Way too fast." Was pumping. Yeah. And he said the first Sue he was like a minute or two minutes faster for what he had planned for the 100k. We need a bike version of that where they throw a bike out the airplane with you as well. Maybe they exist. I haven't seen them though. Uh so we're talking about the benefits of that protein. So it's that increased metabolism the next morning. Is there effect on body composition as well? Was that measurable? Yeah. So let's walk through that. So the what we initially started was was just that the metabolic side. We also measured um just like with a visual analog scale, a questionnaire, how hungry are you? How satiated are you in those early studies? And so it tended that if you ate as would make sense, you were a little bit more satiated in the morning. So, um, we didn't actually put food out and see how much you ate, but you told me you felt a little less, uh, desire to eat at in the morning if you had the pre-le meal. So, that coincided with it. Take that again as you wish. Do you want to have that outcome or not? U, and sometimes it doesn't matter. Even if you see that, you could still eat plenty of food if it's presented in front of you. Um although about 10 years later someone did present food and they actually saw no change in what they actually ate despite saying they were a little bit um less hungry in the morning. So interesting outcomes there. Um so that started it. The the other group was looking at muscle protein synthesis and these poor guys initially had a nasogastric tube that was feeding them protein while they were asleep and so they literally just put it in their gut um while they were sleeping. And so they that study just was again showing that while you're sleeping you can digest and absorb amino acids and proteins at that point. Then they started feeding them actual me like shakes and so that again coincided with it you can still digest it, absorb it and and use those proteins because muscle protein synthesis was elevated if you had protein before bed. So there was sort of another win. Um, and then that group stretched out a 12-week, it was actually a resistance training study and they had people resistance training three days a week with the pre-le feeding um or not. And at the end of that period of time, those who had the pre-le drink had a little bit uh bigger muscle. So cross-sectional area, the muscle was larger. They had better uh one repetition maximum strength outcomes in terms of the training adaptation to that period.

Sleep vs Recovery Modalities

Um and then their body composition, lean mass was also uh in the positive direction um meaning increased. And so all of those things put together had a pretty good story u in terms of what was happening with pre-le protein um and then we started having caveats like what types of protein, how much protein, um what about sleep? Sleep was a major factor and every time I talk about this stuff somebody will say but it wrecks my sleep before bed. And my answer for that person is if you know it wrecks your sleep, don't do it. It's just a tool in your toolbox. Cuz interestingly, I was speaking to Olaf Buu on the podcast a few months back and he's a coach to maybe two of the greatest triathletes ever, Bloomfeld and Gustaf Eden. You know, you probably heard a lot about this Norwegian method and they're just they're dominating in long course triathlon at the moment. But we were talking about different recovery modalities. And his theory on this is that he'll often suggest on training camps to his athletes to forgo massage, to forgo foam roll and compression and go to bed 1 hour earlier. Go to bed 90 minutes earlier because sleep is so much more powerful than using that extra time to get massage. I was like, whoa. That was the first time it really hit home to me just how powerful a performance enhancer sleep is. Yeah, for sure. Sleep is like the X factor and we all take it for granted until you lose it. I tell you if you lose it for any reason for any period of time. You know it quickly. You're miserable. You're irritable. You're just, you know, anxiety goes up. Your food habits can change. Your whole demeanor can change. But that's really interesting. So like obviously if it's working, it's working. Um, I would probably choose to do do the modalities and extend sleep on the other end if you can because then you get everything. I guess they're just like so many training hours that it's like between eating training they're this isn't going to be the the case for amateur athletes but for those guys they're getting through so much volume at training camp of both food and training there's just not errors left in the day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean if you I in this particular case I think we're talking about nutrition and the recovery bit and so I there's probably a mode and a place for everything in a tool like I I think a lot about training and recovery from a longevity perspective and overall health span perspective not just elite performance like you're talking about here and from my angle um some of those tools just for soft tissue work and the ability to stay in the game as we start as we continue to age is a really important factor. Yeah. And I I think the caveat to that is I don't think he was recommending this as a a 365 strategy. I think it was more of a training camp they were on. I'm not sure what you know recommendations he's making the other Yeah. you know 50 weeks of the year. Well, speaking of training camps, there are some um data actually is with feeding uh carbohydrate and protein leucine dominant um drinks in a camp scenario too. And they actually found when the group who was consuming the pre-la protein and it had carbohydrates as well um had better power output on the daily measures that they were looking at in that training camp. So rewinding to the sleep one like what does perfect look like if you were trying to go into a pro alete hires you to go and work with them to optimize their sleep system, their sleep strategy, whatever you want to call it. What does perfect look like in that scenario? Yeah, that's really a tough question, but I would start with figuring out what um what they think is normal and what their restrictions are. So, are they alone or they have a bed partner? Are they in a house with children? Are they in a house with pets? Uh what is their situation? And if it's a case where you're alone and you can do whatever you need to do to optimize sleep, which may be where you're going with this, then I would look at the sleep environment. I would make sure that we have protocols in place so that you're actually sleepy at a certain time. Try to get a handle on what's their circadium rhythm for uh are they typically a night person or a morning p person. I'll tell you with some of the athletes that we have here at Florida State University, um there's a big move to get away from morning practice because in these collegiate athletes, when you're getting them up at 5 in the morning, 4, 5:30, 6 a.m. practice, you are messing with their sleep. And so, they've actually done away with that and then fit their training into other periods of the day to purposefully allow more sleep. But in this optimal That's really interesting. Yeah. It's like when are you going to train? And sometimes you don't have a choice. Like for amateur folks, like if I'm going to be able to get up and train early, it's because I got a full day at work.

Dialing In Your Sleep Routine

I got, you know, children, all the things. But for an elite individual who may not have those um boundaries to what they're working with, then I think you can really optimize on either side. But if I told you, Anthony, like, do you like to go to bed at 8:00? What would you tell me? It's like the kids are still playing out in the roads. Like it's it's still middle of the day for me at 8:00 p.m. It's like I'm just getting started with work there. Yeah. So, it's like you got to figure out what's effective for you. What are you used to? And then really just inch it out. Like I I would never like with training, nutrition, or with sleep. I wouldn't all all of a sudden take you from six to eight hours. I don't think it's going to be effective for you. I would inch it out little by little. Um, and then one of the biggest strategies that's worked for me personally is just having a lockedin wake time and a and a set time with or within about 30 minutes of each other on either way in 99% of the time um with a rare uh you know disruption to that. Let's let's break it down a little bit. You mentioned sleep partners. What's the data saying on sleeping on your own versus having, you know, a boyfriend or girlfriend you're sleeping with versus letting a pet sleep in the bed with you? So, this is a huge problem in the research right now. There there is very little to describe that or papers that have actually asked that question. And so, when we started diving into the sleep world because first we were just all metabolic with this pre-leep feeding and now we're looking a lot at actual sleep. Um, we have to ask that question. Then you have to make the decision. Anthony, am I am I going to test you in a new environment or your regular environment? If I say bed size has got to matter as well. Sure. And if you've had that experience of staying with your wife or partner in a hotel in a small bed like like it's so multifaceted, isn't it? Because if you're staying in a small bed and there's no air con in the room and it's slightly warm outside, it's like yeah, this is a setup for a miserable night's sleep here. Well, that's what I was talking about with the sleep environment. So like how dark is it? How cool is it? Um, have you taken steps to have a windown routine? Have you eliminated, you know, the phone lights and the blue lights and things that are um inundating us? And so, like just taking a strategy in that to have a typical routine um something where you're trying to hit a a close to within about a 30-minute range of a time you normally go to sleep and you sort of wind down um with that routine. It's really really helpful to get entrained into that type of a cycle. I can remember vividly a December training spin. I was on the back roads. There was fog, wet leaves, potholes everywhere. I was riding on a descent, one-handed, trying to stab this tiny little mode button and praying the battery would last until the final climb of the day. You know that anxiety, the is it going to die anxiety. It totally ruins your ride. And the truth is, for years that was normal. Every season I got into this repetitive cycle. I'd end up buying a new set of lights in the winter. Normally plastic lights, plastic brackets which would invariably snap, charging ports which would fail, and batteries that would fade. Most lights feel very disposable. They're shiny for the winter and then straight into the bin at the end of the winter. And we repeat again the following winter. That all changed when I got my first set of exposure lights. Suddenly, this wasn't a consumable anymore. This was a piece of kit built to last a lifetime. That's why I'm absolutely buzzing about the fully updated exposure range. Reflex 2.0 automatically adjusts the brightness of your light. It dials it down when you're going at slower speeds on the climbs and then unleashes the full power of the lumens on the descent so your hands stay where they need to be on the bars so you don't actually crash. There's another really cool feature. It's called reserve mode and it kicks in when run time hits zero. It drops to a low beam and you get another 30 minutes to get you out of trouble and get you home. USBC charging is a total gamecher to my mind. It means you can get now 70% faster charging. But importantly for me, you can top up your lights from a power bank mid-ride. So if you're doing an ultra, a bike packing trip or you're going on an event like me at Badlands, just plug it into the power bank and away you go. No need to worry about batteries failing. Exposure isn't just another set of lights. This is the last set of lights you're ever going to need to buy. Go to exposure lights.com to check out their full range. And when you talk about blue light, how effective is blue light blocking glasses versus just putting screens away?

Trusting Data vs Personal Response

That's a good question. Um, I actually don't know. I've looked at the data on it early on and people were sort of going after those. cuz I know that like sort of the biohacking community really digs into those glasses. Um I guess I'm old school enough that I would just put it away and and not try to mess with it. Um but in our athletes and things, we just try to have it put away and in our studies, our research studies, we have it put away. There's some stuff that I've never seen data on it, but I just know from and I'm a big believer the more I chat with, you know, some of the best physiologists and scientists in the cycling game. I'm more a believer of like like the peerreviewed data is brilliant, but in a lot of ways it doesn't matter to me what a 500 person double blind placebo study says. All I really care about is how this affects me. I I don't care. I'm not a scientist. I just care about how I feel. So, I've never seen any data on if you walk in a wooded environment like a forest 90 minutes, 2 hours before bed that you sleep better. But I know if I walk the dog in the park just as the sun's coming down, I'm coming home and I'm yawning and when I hit the bed, I'm like boom, out cold. Well, you have you have it right on. Like, we can't disregard the research. It gets us to a point to make good decisions. Yeah. But even like I said before, if you know that eating before bed, like right before bed, gives you heartburn and you're not going to be able to sleep well, then just don't do it. Like you have to pay attention to how you respond. And remember, all the data that we that I'm talking about is mean data over large groups, small or large groups of people. And you might be the outlier. And so sometimes in the per in the research game, we look for means. And in the in the performance game, we look for outliers. And that's where you need to identify sort of where you fall on that line. But you're you're spot on. Like if that works for you, Anthony, you do it. And like that's what's going to be your routine. Have you seen any and you know, maybe I've thrown this at you and you probably haven't fully thought this through. Like I love this idea of upstream versus downstream decisions. Like one bad upstream decision can cascade into multiple downstream decisions. So the example in physiology I'd use of this is if you take a bad data point to measure zones like you aren't properly trained to measure lactate and you take a bad lactate reading now all of a sudden you're misjudging training intensity you're misjudging fatigue levels you're misjudging adaptation there's a lot of negative downstream effects to just one bad data point but I like to think about the inverse of that is there an upstream positive lever I can pull that has a cascading effect of positive habits downstream. So for me, that example of walking the dog outside 90 minutes before bed, it gets me off screens. It stops me eating, which up to this conversation, I thought was a good thing. It stops me eating. It gets me some fresh air. It helps my mind stop thinking about work. So I looked at that as, okay, well, this is a positive upstream decision that cascades into four or five really good downstream situations for me. Is there anything you can think like that one le lever that listeners should be pulling in that last 90 minutes to two hours before bed? Yeah. Um I think you kind of hit it with your specific routine, but like in my own experiences, it is all about that routine and if that can stay like that's your routine like and mine is slightly different, but it's a way to relax with the family. uh get the children to bed and then you have a little bit of time. And so if you can just match that each day, yeah, that will that will get it going and then psychologically you're like, "Okay, I just did this so I'm probably going to sleep well." Guess what? Then you're probably going to sleep well. And then those things just definitely snowball forward. And I can see it in the nutrition space, too. So if you can just simply lock in, in this case, your protein for the day, well, okay, that's going to cascade. So now each meal is locked in at what you need. you're less likely to overeat because the protein is going to be a little bit of satiating for you. And if you're dialed in with with that number, the other things become easier to manage and you just manipulate the carbohydrates around your training intensity for the day. And it it becomes far easier once you have a a base, something to sort of lean on. I think protein is a great example of that upstream because you have that natural displacement then of the junk calories, the extra society levels that comes with it. Absolutely. Everyone seems to be wearing trackers or a ring. Whoop. Yeah, even eight sleep I think has HRV.

Wearables, Mattresses, and Data Overload

Yeah, actually this is a good direction because I'm curious about this. Eight sleep now has HRV built into the mattress I believe. I'd be kind of old school and thinking I don't know if I want to sleep on a battery. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So technology certainly they're all over the place. um in 2020 we got into this COVID era and so the only way for us to keep doing research was to flip to wearable uh technologies and so in that point we got a a grant with Whoop and we actually were able to get Whoop bands on female athletes at five different universities around our country. Um and so we were able to track them over the whole COVID season and through the Whoop uh app they were they were getting questionnaires and we had access to their data on the back side and so that's where we really got heavily into it. Um but we've also looked at uh continual glucose monitors like um CGMs on athletes. We've looked at CGMs and non-athletes and diabetics in different spaces. Um the mattress technology is interesting. We've actually used that a competitor um to the eight sleep that you mentioned um chili beds at the time chili pads were what we were using and yeah there's a downfall to some of these companies that say they can test everything and I would be worried about a mattress measuring my HRV. Yeah, I I'd be a little bit curious to know the effect. I had a guest on who was an expert in EMFs, electromagnetic fields, and he was working with some top athletes like some some of the guys who were playing in the Ryder Cup at the weekend. He was confidentially telling he couldn't name them, but they were struggling from strange wrist injuries that were basically unexplained. And he was able to bring it back to let's maybe just stop using the wearable for a while and see what happens. And the injuries mysteriously cleared up. See, there's two different schools of thought on that because I feel like you're right. Like you can get data overload. Everyone knows that. Um, and there's some scenarios where where I've been speaking with professional like uh football here in American football and we where they were using all this technology, but then the athlete would say wake up, see that they're in the red zone, which would mean basically not to train that day. Yeah. And even if it was a false reading, they'd be like, I don't feel good. And do you want an athlete feeling like that on game day? Like what if you have a race and then you wake up and it says you're not rested, but you actually feel fine, but that thing's telling you you don't feel fine and now all of a sudden you're in a place where you're like, what do I do with that? So a lot of teams are blinding it now where the data comes to a coach but not to the athlete. So they can't actually It's a good idea. I've heard that as well. And like I often wonder like there's no you hardly you rarely take a decision without externality. And by externality, I mean like a side effect of that. So if you're using like the, you know, I'm not picking an eight sleep because I've never used them, but assuming you do sleep a little bit better in a climate controlled mattress, but maybe it's less than ideal to be exposing yourself to EMFs. Yes. 8, nine hours a night that you don't need to. It's like, am I getting more benefit by being cool or am I hindering myself here with the EMFs? Like it's hard to know where Sure. line on this. the EMS are outside of my lane, but I'll tell you what's really interesting is it's more your personal preference. So, I thought based on the literature that everybody So, we did a study on this with our uh with our women's soccer team years ago and we we had them sleep on uh the Chili Pad or not. And then we looked at all types of outcomes from it. And what was interesting from that, we're still trying to publish that paper now because it had a a bunch of issues because it was very applied in nature. Um uh but what we found was it wasn't everybody at a low temperature, it was at what temperature do you prefer to sleep at? Yeah. So some of them went up and so they slept way better at a warmer temperature, but it was their choice. So we had to say self- selected temperature rather than what I thought was that everyone was just going to make it cooler and that just didn't it just didn't turn out that way. We started this conversation around training adaptations and I'm fully bought into your arguments on sleep and how important it is. But can we quantify how bad it is for us in terms of training adaptations from say a week or two of messy sleep? Have we seen studies on that? Yeah. Um sort of. So the studies that exist in that space tend to be not as long because you can't really restrict sleep without massive problems showing up. So you'll see the longer term ones in like military studies where they're allowed to have these soldiers have total sleep restriction or very limited sleep for longer periods of time.

Sleep Deprivation and Nomio Sponsor

Um and so in those studies, yeah, things go really bad really quick. um and just a couple of nights of that you have a problem. You carry that on even longer and you've got um physiological outcomes that are not wanted. And in cycling or any of it, even just in life, like if you're just trying to compete your best in your job, like like you wouldn't want to show up underslept unless you're a surgeon and then it's celebrated. Gosh, that's a whole different argument. So bizarre. When I chat to some of my friends and they be like, "Oh, like I'll give you a call tomorrow. I'm on the tail end of a 48 hour shift and I'm just going in to do a appendix operation and you're like poor be that patient. Yeah. You have to ask now what uh when's when's their first shift or is it the end of the the shift? Yeah. What do your datalia stage slayer Mads Patterson and half the professional pelaton have in common? Well, they're all turning to Nomio, the natural performance enhancer proven to reduce lactate buildup during intense efforts. In the 2025 Jiratalia, Person's form was undeniable. The Danish star surged to four stage victories. This was a major leap in form from his previous season. And a key part of this preparation and performance was Nomio. Developed by the same researchers who discovered the performance power of dietary nitrate. You know those beetroot shots that half the pelaton were using. Nomio is clinically proven to lower lactate levels, reduce oxidative stress, improve training adaptations, and deliver a noticeable boost from the very first time you take it. Riders are reporting bigger threshold power, fresher legs midra, and quicker recovery. All from a formula made with just three natural ingredients: broccoli sprouts, lemon, and sugar. Whether you're racing at the front or you're smashing local segments, Nomio helps you get more out of every ride. Take it before key sessions or races for an immediate edge or take your training to the next level and get more out of your hard work. Go to drinknomio.com that's n o m io and check out this gamechanging supplement. Details are in the episode show notes or description down below. It's bad. If you were designing a perfect recovery day, so I've had a six days out of the seven training and you have a athlete with very little commitments, no family commitments, wife and kids are away, he's off work for the day, you're basically dealing with a pro alete here. What would you look to include in the perfect recovery day? Are you looking at, you know, playing around with unlimited modalities here? You can throw in cold, heat, massage, whatever you need. Yeah. So, that's a great question. Um, and I don't know the right answer because again, personal preference shifts people in different ways, but in general, it's more like Yeah. Objectively, is there one? Yeah. Cristiano Ronaldo day. Yeah. from from like the data, I think the first thing would be uh making sure you're catching up on any kind of nutrient deficit that you've had from those six days because if that's not the goal of weight loss, you got to make sure you're fueled up and ready, have your tissues recovering. It's not just about muscle either, you've also got disruptions to gut and hormone levels and other things. So, making sure that the eating is dialed in. Um, having enough fuel to match or to get to whatever my goal is for that day and I've slept appropriately the night before the full day of recovery. I'd probably put a nap in that recovery day because that's quite helpful as long as you can then sleep again that evening. Um, and so with the nutrition and the sleep, those would be my primary ones. And then I enjoy a recovery day and and planning a recovery day that is um uh just still has activity in it. So, not just sitting around um which is the case sometimes we see uh but some mild activity making sure blood flow. I like to see like normal tech boots and these things um working like anecdotally maybe not so much in the research but anecdotally I've seen them um quite effective and then the contrast baths. So, I don't think I do just cold or just hot. I think I would do both contrast baths um and try to use that strategically. I'm a fan of massage as well. So I would probably throw that in for soft is there just even before we jump onto the massage and the contrast stuff is there a line between because obviously heat is a stressor is there a line where we say okay today is technically tagged as a recovery day how much is too much stress to be taken on in terms of the heat. That's a great question and I don't think we know specific number or a line or or timeline because some of that data just is newer and we don't know like you like we're describing this optimal scenario. So that's also going to be um N of one, you know, playing with Yeah. how does that affect you? But what's interesting about science in the field of sports science and nutrition is that it keeps evolving. And so what I recommended five years ago could probably change and I've even changed it in the classes I teach here um in terms of like some things that are coming out.

Sleep Cocktails and Late-Night Training

So I like it in that way that it keeps evolving, but it also makes it really hard. And so we have to start somewhere. Even if I'm giving you a diet plan, I need to start somewhere based off of a couple of assumptions. And then I let have to let that play out and see if how you felt with it. What weight changes were happening, what body comp changes were happening. And so even with the best tools, I've got all of them at my fingertips here. Um it's still trial and error at the end of the day. You get as close as you can with the data and then it's a bit of trial and error. Yeah. No, I love that. I love that. And I think for me my takeaway is I'm definitely going to start experimenting with the the protein shake before bed. So I will be reporting back to you on that one. Yeah. So that's what's really cool and just because I think it's interesting the thing that's changing now is it's it's being looked at for not only just a protein but other sleep ingredients. And so there are several um basically sleep cocktails that are coming out now that have different micronutrients, different vitamins or minerals that are in there. So like thine, magnesium, zinc, those are some popular ones in the sleep um shakes or powders almost like preworkouts ended up having this whole cocktail of things. Yeah. Um pre-le protein. A lot of the companies that now sell products are adding other things to it to assist with sleep or just with anxiety or calming down a little bit. So we should I think we're going to see a emergence of new products on the market now because there's interesting if you talk to athletes who train late at night like if you take a typical cyclist who works and has a family they'll get their long endurance rides on a Saturday and Sunday and then you'll try maybe get two to three but two really working key sessions which you'd normally split them maybe Tuesday and Thursday. But if you're a busy dude with a family and you're working a long stressful job, it could be 8:00 in the evening before you start your session. So you're like 60 to 90 minutes. You're finishing at half 9. You're pretty worried cuz you just finished a V2 max session at 9:30. It almost feels like we need a supplement to take us back down through the gears to bring adrenaline down and simultaneously recover. So, I don't know if it's a, you know, glycogen reuptake, hitting our protein, but also mixing in some sort of, I don't know, CBD or something to take the edge off to bring us back down. Yeah. And that's what we're looking at now. There are three of those uh products on the market already um that are really interesting. And so we're going to be testing you recommends um the two that we've tried so far and there's no relationship. No, I'm not financially connected to any of them, but one company called Sleep Protein that I've worked with. Um they sent me some samples and that was anecdotally really nice. We haven't tested it yet in a laboratory setting. U and then the other one's called Sleep Builder which is from a company called Spoken Nutrition. And so I've been kind of playing around with um their different cocktails and I'm in a cool situation where um a lot of people will send me product to try. So uh I get access to things and to to try them out. Now again those don't have data yet. What they're doing is they're pulling on data from individual ingredients and they put them all together into one cocktail. But so far the the feedback that I've give on those are both really nice and the sleep protein actually has protein built into it which is a nice addition and the other one does not. It has really calming sort of settling feeling and it's um been a nice addition to one my nightly routine. Nice. Nice. It comes with some soft music as well. When you buy it, it's like have Anthony Walsh talking in your ear whispering sweet nothing. H Mike, thanks for chatting. I really appreciate it. And we'll we'll catch up again for another chat in the coming months hopefully. All right. Appreciate it. Have a good one.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

does eating protein before bed make you fat+

According to Dr Michael Ormsbee's two decades of research at Florida State University, consuming 30-40g of protein before bed does not increase body fat, even when added as surplus calories on top of a normal diet. The protein raises the thermic effect of food during sleep, meaning the body burns more energy processing it overnight. The evidence consistently shows that pre-sleep protein supports muscle protein synthesis rather than fat storage.

how much protein should cyclists eat before bed for recovery+

Dr Michael Ormsbee recommends 30-40g of protein consumed roughly 30 minutes before sleep. This amount is sufficient to stimulate overnight muscle protein synthesis and support recovery from a hard training day or race. A protein shake is a practical way to hit this target without a large meal close to bedtime.

does pre-sleep protein improve muscle recovery for cyclists+

Yes. Dr Michael Ormsbee's research shows that pre-sleep protein directly supports overnight muscle protein synthesis, which is critical for cyclists training or racing on consecutive days. Skipping pre-sleep protein represents a greater risk to next-day performance than consuming the extra calories. The protocol also improves muscle quality over time as a training adaptation.

what is the best time to take protein for cycling recovery+

Around 30 minutes before bed is the most underused and effective window for cyclists, based on the research of Dr Michael Ormsbee at Florida State University. Most cyclists focus exclusively on post-ride protein timing and overlook the overnight period, during which significant muscle repair and adaptation occurs. Adding a 30-40g protein shake to a normal daily diet fills this gap without compromising body composition.

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