Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #95: Gill1918 Presents Sports Physiologist Shannon Grady "Unlocking Speed with Lactate Data" Powered By Coach O

Transcript

#95: Gill1918 Presents Sports Physiologist Shannon Grady "Unlocking Speed with Lactate Data" Powered By Coach O · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
• 0:03
  coaches for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
• 0:05
  Think of it as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
• 0:08
  Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
• 0:11
  you grow as a coach. This episode is part of the
• 0:13
  Youth and Beginner Series, brought to you by Coach O.
• 0:16
  In this series, we focus on topics relating to coaching
• 0:19
  youth athletes, coaching beginner athletes of any age,
• 0:21
  and supporting brand new coaches as they find their way.
• 0:24
  With that in mind, let's grow. Want to get faster?
• 0:29
  Unlock that elite speed, or simply gain back the speed you
• 0:33
  once had. Let me tell you how.
• 0:36
  This is Shannon Grady, sports physiologist, CEO and founder of
• 0:40
  the Mybaya app and author of The Lactate Revolution.
• 0:44
  Today I'm going to talk about using lactate data to unlock
• 0:47
  speed. What?
• 0:49
  Yep, you heard that right. We're going to use lactate data
• 0:53
  to unlock speed. But I thought all this lactate
• 0:55
  testing was just for distance runners.
• 0:57
  Au contraire, Mon Frere, just wait till I tell you the story
• 1:03
  of how I came to understand energy priming, which pretty
• 1:06
  much took me 4 to five years. Thousands of athlete tests
• 1:10
  trying to make adaptations to energy that was simply not
• 1:14
  there. I did it all wrong.
• 1:17
  I mean, naturally you think if I want to run faster, you got to
• 1:20
  run fast. Train harder, right?
• 1:23
  Makes sense. And run fast, train fast.
• 1:27
  It's how it works. Well, wrong.
• 1:31
  Energy priming pretty much goes against what most would
• 1:34
  intuitively think they need to do to get faster or unlock their
• 1:38
  speed. While running fast may seem like
• 1:42
  the obvious solution to most to, you know, get faster, doing more
• 1:47
  speed or anaerobic training when an athlete's anaerobic system is
• 1:51
  unavailable will only drive their anaerobic energy further
• 1:55
  into a hole and yield slower times.
• 1:59
  I simply realized sometimes you need to slow down to speed up.
• 2:05
  And in my, my testing and analysis, I, I, I discovered
• 2:11
  that energy actually only adapts when it is available.
• 2:16
  There's a biochemical spectrum of lactate.
• 2:19
  And what I realized is that you cannot jump systems, as I, as I
• 2:24
  have termed it, the, the spectrum of the, of the lactate
• 2:28
  or you know, kind of hack the body.
• 2:31
  It just simply does not work. I compared to building a house.
• 2:36
  You can't build a house and go from the basement to the roof
• 2:40
  without the middle floors. It simply will not stay
• 2:43
  standing. This is how lactate works.
• 2:46
  You can't go from a low end energy system to a high end
• 2:51
  energy system without addressing the parts in between.
• 2:54
  It simply doesn't work. So after thousands of tests,
• 3:00
  4:00 to 5:00, maybe six years of trial and error, I finally
• 3:04
  figured it out and I I was able to produce repeatable and
• 3:11
  predictable results for energy priming across the entire
• 3:15
  lactate spectrum. I love to use the story of 2024
• 3:21
  Team USA 800 meter Olympian Allie Wilson.
• 3:24
  Allie went from 2:12 in the 800 meters to 202 while at Monmouth
• 3:29
  University by unlocking her elite level speed with the use
• 3:33
  of lactate data. I would perform physiological
• 3:37
  profile testing on Allie about every three to four months while
• 3:41
  she was in college and in concert with her coaches, we use
• 3:46
  this physiological data to guide her daily training.
• 3:50
  And for those who run or coach 408 hundred meter athletes, they
• 3:54
  understand that it's always a balance between do I do more
• 3:57
  aerobic work or do I need to do more anaerobic work.
• 4:01
  Well, using physiological data and understanding that training
• 4:08
  and assessing the anaerobic system for maximum speed
• 4:12
  requires A delicate balance of speed work and recovery.
• 4:17
  And the lactate profile data will simply allow coaches and
• 4:21
  athletes to know, not guess, if more speed work is the answer to
• 4:25
  faster running. With Ali, there was never a
• 4:29
  question as to whether she needed more speed or more
• 4:32
  endurance work. We always knew what areas of her
• 4:35
  Physiology needed attention. This made their coach's job very
• 4:39
  simple. For today's episode on unlocking
• 4:43
  speed with lactate data, I will overview two of the most complex
• 4:48
  events to train the 400 meters and the 800 meters, which also
• 4:52
  includes the 400 meter hurdles. Being an elite in these events
• 4:56
  required superior athletic talent, which simply is
• 5:01
  genetics. To be superior or elite in the
• 5:05
  404 hundred hurdles and the 800 meters, you need to actually
• 5:09
  have two strong systems. You need a strong aerobic system
• 5:13
  and a strong anaerobic system. Now, if you're, if you're lucky
• 5:18
  enough to come across one of these types of athletes, you
• 5:22
  think, hey, I got this huge talent, my coaching, my
• 5:25
  coaching, it's going to make my coaching job easy.
• 5:28
  Well, wrong. The the battle of the body
• 5:33
  occurs quite often in these type of athletes because you've got 2
• 5:38
  strong dominant energy systems always battling each other and
• 5:44
  training them. Training these events is, is the
• 5:47
  most complex Physiology you're going to encounter in in the
• 5:52
  area of applied Physiology and dynamic Physiology.
• 5:56
  So one of the ways you know and, and the the events in which I've
• 6:01
  had the most success throughout my 20 some years of use of
• 6:05
  lactate data happens to be in these middle distance, the 800,
• 6:09
  the 800 meters, the most complex we've had the most success
• 6:14
  simply because we have a CHEAT SHEET.
• 6:17
  Understanding your current lactate or physiological profile
• 6:21
  is actually the key to unlocking speed, especially when it
• 6:25
  counts. Achieving optimal speed over 400
• 6:29
  meters and 800 meters requires an athlete to have a strong
• 6:33
  contribution from both the anaerobic and aerobic energy
• 6:37
  systems. Now traditionally coaches and
• 6:40
  athletes rely on a combination of speed and endurance work,
• 6:44
  typically based on the athletes perceived exertion or goal pace.
• 6:48
  Lactate profile testing offers detailed insights to the exact
• 6:53
  level of contribution of aerobic and anaerobic energy that each
• 6:57
  athlete has available and at what level it's operating,
• 7:00
  allowing a coach to fine tune training based on real time
• 7:05
  physiological data. As I mentioned earlier, one of
• 7:09
  the one of the things about understanding energy, if energy
• 7:13
  is not available, you can't train it.
• 7:16
  And if you're trying to train energy that's not available,
• 7:19
  you're going to push yourself further in a hole.
• 7:22
  And this, this the understanding the anaerobic system.
• 7:27
  Now a lot of Sprint coaches are shocked when I tell them that
• 7:31
  use of lactate data is actually more valuable in the Sprint
• 7:37
  events than the distance events. Because it when you get further
• 7:41
  along in in the the event and there's more aerobic
• 7:45
  contribution, the Physiology becomes less and less complex.
• 7:50
  And the less contribution of the anaerobic system that comes into
• 7:53
  play when you're training, the less chance you have of that
• 7:57
  anaerobic system. Simply shutting off the
• 8:00
  anaerobic system is the, is the genetic basically the, the, the
• 8:06
  deal breaker. That's what makes those athletes
• 8:09
  superior is that they have a genetic differentiator that
• 8:14
  others don't have. And that's going to be their
• 8:18
  biggest asset. But it can also be their biggest
• 8:21
  downfall because if you're trying to train the anaerobic
• 8:25
  system when it's simply not available, you're going to, like
• 8:29
  I said, intuitively, you think I'm slowing down, I need to do
• 8:33
  more speed, I better get my butt working.
• 8:35
  I'm not working harder hard enough.
• 8:37
  Well, like I said, most often in these cases where the anaerobic
• 8:43
  system has simply shut down, you've got to slow down before
• 8:47
  you can speed back up. And it's really about
• 8:51
  understanding that Physiology is dynamic, not static.
• 8:56
  Genetics is static. Just because your anaerobic
• 9:00
  system is not available right now doesn't mean you can't get
• 9:03
  it back. So your your genetic potential
• 9:06
  is still there, but your Physiology can be very dynamic
• 9:12
  and your anaerobic system can shut down really in a week.
• 9:17
  And. And you wonder why, hey, I ran
• 9:20
  so well last week, but now all of a sudden I, I can't run fast
• 9:23
  to save my life. So understanding that the use of
• 9:28
  the physiological profile data is going to be a, a huge factor
• 9:35
  in unlocking speed when it counts.
• 9:38
  Understanding, having the, having the, the insight and the
• 9:42
  what I like to call the CHEAT SHEET for coaches to know, hey,
• 9:46
  are my athletes performances being being inhibited by not
• 9:52
  enough speed work or too much speed work?
• 9:55
  So lactate again, it's awfully often mistaken and labeled as a
• 10:02
  waste product or the culprit for fatigue.
• 10:04
  When in fact, as I said numerous times, it's the human energy
• 10:09
  currency. It's an energy source.
• 10:11
  And if you don't have high end lactate available, you're never
• 10:15
  going to run fast. Success in the 400 and 800 is
• 10:19
  achieved by maximizing training responses to both aerobic and
• 10:24
  anaerobic energy across the entire lactate spectrum.
• 10:28
  And one of the biggest determining factors in why an
• 10:30
  athlete runs faster or slower in the 400 and 800 and pretty much
• 10:37
  any, any event that requires anaerobic, pretty much 800
• 10:40
  meters and down is if that anaerobic system is actually
• 10:44
  available or not. Now, if it's not available, you
• 10:48
  can still run fast, you can still run, you can still run 100
• 10:52
  meters, but you might be doing it aerobically.
• 10:55
  Shocker. The the, the actual energy usage
• 10:59
  and the assumed energy uses in most events, even many Sprint
• 11:05
  events, you assume, hey, I'm running 102 hundred 400, I'm
• 11:09
  using primarily anaerobic energy, right?
• 11:12
  Wrong again. Actual energy can be highly
• 11:16
  volatile. You you could still run a 400,
• 11:19
  but you might be using a lot of aerobic energy at at a certain
• 11:24
  point in in your in your training or racing simply
• 11:28
  because you're anaerobic system shut down and you didn't even
• 11:31
  know it. When an athlete's anaerobic
• 11:35
  system becomes unavailable to perform work, that's when
• 11:39
  performances suffer the most. When an athlete or coach
• 11:42
  continues to train the anaerobic system when it's not available,
• 11:45
  it becomes suppressed, and it will become further suppressed
• 11:48
  if the athlete continues to train it more.
• 11:52
  They're just going to get slower and slower, and the body is just
• 11:55
  going to keep adapting to inferior, slower fuel sources,
• 11:59
  lower lactate sources. One of the most common mistakes
• 12:06
  again I see if an athlete's speed is reduced over 400 and
• 12:11
  800 meters. The most common response by
• 12:14
  coaches and athletes. I need more speed, and it's most
• 12:17
  often the wrong approach again, unlocking speed sometimes takes
• 12:25
  slowing down before we can speed up.
• 12:27
  Simply put, the use of lactate data transforms guesswork into
• 12:32
  precision, helping track athletes of all levels excel and
• 12:37
  unlock that elite speed. With the My BIA app, any coach
• 12:41
  or athlete can turn complex science into easy, actionable
• 12:45
  daily training plans for peak performance for athletes of all
• 12:48
  levels, especially for beginners just stepping onto the track or
• 12:52
  coaches just learning how to work with athletes of all levels
• 12:58
  and across many events. For more information, you can
• 13:02
  check out my website www.mybaya.com.
• 13:06
  You can download the Mybaya app or purchase a copy of my book,
• 13:09
  The Lactate Revolution. Let's Revolutionize training.
• 13:14
  Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Thanks for joining us for this
• 13:16
  episode in the Youth and beginner series Powered by Coach
• 13:19
  O Powered by Coach O is more than a platform.
• 13:22
  It's a movement to benefit track and field by supporting coaches,
• 13:25
  athletes, parents, officials and event directors in countless
• 13:29
  ways. Find out more and get yourself
• 13:31
  plugged in to the Powered by Coach O by visiting coacho.com
• 13:35
  today.