Latest / Find Your Edge: Training, Nutrition + Longevity for Endurance Athletes / Why Runners Need Strength Training with Dr Alyssa Barber Ep 165

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Why Runners Need Strength Training with Dr Alyssa Barber Ep 165 · Find Your Edge: Training, Nutrition + Longevity for Endurance Athletes

0:38
Coach Carlie: All right, welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast.
0:40
Coach Carlie: I'm your host, Coach Chris Newport, and I have a special guest, Alyssa Barber, Dr.
0:47
Coach Carlie: Alyssa Barber, I should say, who is our newest addition to the Endurance Edge team.
0:53
Coach Carlie: And y'all, I found a fellow nerd.
0:55
Coach Carlie: So I'm super stoked that she is with us.
0:59
Coach Carlie: And so thanks for coming on the show and introducing yourself, Alyssa.
1:03
Coach Carlie: Thank you for having me.
1:04
Coach Carlie: I'm glad to be on here.
1:06
Coach Carlie: Yeah, awesome.
1:07
Coach Carlie: All right.
1:07
Coach Carlie: So I want people to get to know you a little bit of what your background is and uh again, how much of a special nerd you are because you are, and I hope you take you take that in the greatest like compliment.
1:19
Coach Carlie: Okay, good.
1:20
Coach Carlie: Because everybody who's listening is also like a special kind of data nerd.
1:25
Coach Carlie: We love exercise physiology and all things like health and fitness and nutrition and all that kind of stuff.
1:31
Coach Carlie: So um what originally got you into exercise phys?
1:35
SPEAKER_00: How did you start this journey?
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good question.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: I think my original like fascination was it started with just kind of anatomy and just the human body first.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: And in high school, I took a really fun anatomy class.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: And then I was an athlete my whole life, so I was a runner.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: And so then just kind of wanting to know like what's happening inside my body while I'm doing this workout, or how can I get better, you know, physiologically?
2:01
SPEAKER_00: What is the reasoning for X, Y, and Z?
2:04
SPEAKER_00: And so that kind of geared me to major in exercise science for the next 10 years of college.
2:10
Coach Carlie: Isn't that wild?
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
2:13
Coach Carlie: So all three of your degrees are exercises related.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Little slight variations, like different specialties and things like that, but under the general umbrella of exercise science.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so cool.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: And let's talk about your dissertation.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: So I did my PhD at East Tennessee State University.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a really great university because their program is actually sports science.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: And so slight difference between, you know, exercise and sport, right?
2:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, um, exercise is what kind of the general population does.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Sport is actually a different definition, you know.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted, I knew I wanted to work with athletes.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: And so there, every grad student was paired up with a team at the school.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: And so, because of my background in running, I was paired up with the track and field team.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: And so we were their strength coaches.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: And then in return for that, we got to use them as our dummies, not dummies, but our participants, yeah, our participants for our dissertation research.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: And so for mine, I had a great variety of athletes because I had distance runners, sprinters, throwers, you know, I had like the whole gambit, um, as opposed to other people who, you know, kind of just had one type of athlete for that sport.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: And so my dissertation, it was an entire semester of them lifting.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: So I would prescribe them their lifting programs.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: And it was a little bit different, obviously, for distance runners, the throwers, and the sprinters.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: They have different needs.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: But what I did was three times throughout that, we would measure body composition, the same exact thing we do in our lab here.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: We would measure um their kind of their vertical jumps as well.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: And so with our vertical jumps, we had force plates.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we could not only see the height, but also the force that they were producing into the ground during their jumps.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: And then we did something called um an isometric mid-thigh pole.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: So mid-thigh pole just they have a bar and it's stabilized so they can't move it, but they try to pull it up and they're on those force plates and they're pushing force into the ground.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: So those are like measures of strength and power, too.
4:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: And the good thing about that as well is that it's two force plates.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: So we can see asymmetries between the left and the right side.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of the main point of my dissertation was showing that strength training can help to decrease the asymmetries or improve the asymmetries, and that the stronger you are, the less asymmetries you have, and that the less asymmetries you have, the better you perform.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: And so that was kind of my hypothesis.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: And over the four months-ish of the semester, we were able to prove that at the beginning of the semester, they all came from summer break, so they were weak.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: And so we got their baseline measures, and then they continued to do their strength training to do their running training as well.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: And so we measured at the end and saw that the ones who were stronger had less asymmetries, and they were also the faster ones out of the group if we kind of categorize them into weaker, medium, stronger.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: And so this is all kind of developed to kind of nudge the community, specifically the distance community and the distance coaches.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, you still need a strength train.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Strength training is still important for your distance runners because not only is it making them stronger, it's making them have less asymmetries.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of research that you know, being more symmetric helps with your running economy and efficiency, which helps with your overall performance.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: And then one of the bigger ones is it helps prevent injuries.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And we know overuse injuries are really prevalent in the long distance community.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: So just showing that research and kind of connecting those dots that strength training can help with a lot of those big components that drive overall performance and not just sprinters, you know.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Sprinters, we know almost all sprinters lift.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: So this is mostly geared towards the distance community, but I just had the sprinters there because I just wanted more data.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so yeah, for really for the distance community, and it helped with their body composition as well.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: The stronger ones were leaner, but not too lean, obviously.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, so overall, it just it showed that strength training kind of helped improve all those components uh that we consider like under the umbrella of performance.
6:42
Coach Carlie: Cool.
6:42
Coach Carlie: Were you going off of their times from the team, or did you guys do any like VO2 max testing before and afterwards?
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Or no, so we just went, yeah, I wanted to do, you know, straight to the to the performance that the coach would care more about, which was their race times.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Um and so for the men, it was, I believe I picked um four races that they did throughout the cross-country season, um, each person, because they had to have competed at least four times to be included.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: So I had to take people out if they were injured, redshirting, things like that.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, so for the for the men that was 8k, and for the women that was 5k.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, averaged their times for for those.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: So obviously they got better throughout the season.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I got their each person's average for their for their race times.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: So I thought that was what the coach would want to see, you know.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Um we know VO2 Max does predict good performance and endurance running, but it's not, you know, the telltale.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: So their actual race times is what you know the coach is interested in.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: So seeing that the stronger people were the faster people.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: They were the people who weren't injured because they were able to compete at the races and things like that.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then they also had less symmetries during uh the jumpings and the force production movements too.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Um and you had men and women, right?
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, men and women, yep.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: So that was important as well because they do adapt differently.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: So they they and they did adapt differently.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: So men got stronger faster, which happens.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we still did see significant changes in the women as well.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: And so because women are unfortunately, you know, have less muscle mass than men, they were a little bit weaker, but we still saw them get stronger, saw them improve in their asymmetry as well over the four months.
8:31
Coach Carlie: So, what kind like what what did some of their protocols look like?
8:34
Coach Carlie: What were some of the strengths?
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: So not very, not really different actually across like movement-wise.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: They did a lot of similar movements as a sprinter.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: So they did still did power movements.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, I like uh my professor, he was a really like kind of keep it simple, stupid.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: I love it, especially with distance runners.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: I say this with love because I've worked with so many.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, they might not be as coordinated to do, you know, a clean and jerk or to do, you know, stuff like that.
9:05
Coach Carlie: It always fascinates me watching.
9:08
Coach Carlie: So Ed, you know, we're located inside a uh aquatic center.
9:12
Coach Carlie: Yeah.
9:12
Coach Carlie: And when I watch some of the um, well, let's call them kids because they're teenagers that try to do, you know, cleans and stuff, I'm like, that is that's next level for the I mean you did that's a lot of coordination.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
9:26
Coach Carlie: Yeah, it's a very highly technical lift.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of them didn't have a background in lifting either.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: So you have to work with that as well.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so so there's absolutely nothing wrong with just squats, bench press.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, we still do upper body too.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: That's still just as important, you know, RDLs, and even if it's just with dumbbells, some of the freshmen women, right?
9:49
SPEAKER_00: They didn't touch a barbell sometimes because they didn't have proper form that I felt like they should be able to do it.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: But you can still get a lot accomplished with kettlebells and dumbbells and medicine balls.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Those were yeah, those were kind of our three main things for a lot of the the freshmen women, but they still are doing power movements, squat jumps too, even if it's just body weight, they're still doing box jumps, even if it's just kind of to the middle of their shin.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: So the differences with them was you know, the sets and reps and the the resistance, obviously, between the endurance and the sprinters.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Um sprinters can handle a little bit heavier weights, they can handle more complex movements too.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: So they did uh additional plyometrics and things that were event specific for them as well.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: So I had to, you know, with the coaches, in order for the coach to allow me to do this, he had to approve of the plan.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: And so I had to always keep in mind, you know, their success on the track and not just my dissertation.
10:48
unknown: Yeah.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: And so I still had to, you know, make sure that I was setting them up for success, success on the track as well.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, the um the high jumpers did something a little bit different than, you know, just the regular sprinters and stuff like that.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: But I tried to keep the basic, like I said, the core movements very similar so that the actual strength gains were kind of comparable.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And then the accessory movements were more, you know, event specific for them that they that they needed.
11:16
Coach Carlie: Yeah.
11:17
Coach Carlie: This is really cool.
11:18
Coach Carlie: This is truly like, because I find so much research, and you know, there's nothing wrong with it, but so much research is almost like in like a little petri dish.
11:26
Coach Carlie: And then how do we pull it over into the real world?
11:29
Coach Carlie: And you're literally bridging that gap and working directly with the coach to say, can I please do this?
11:37
Coach Carlie: Yes, yes.
11:38
Coach Carlie: I'm gonna track you guys and then actually see what's the result in terms of real world application.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: So it's hard to find.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you know, all of our nerds out there reading research studies, it's it's very hard to find things like this out there, uh, which was why Especially with per with human performance, because it's so human performance and nutrition, I find are two of the hardest things to study.
12:00
Coach Carlie: I mean, it's just it's just hard.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and there's so many other factors that can affect them as well, especially with nutrition.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, recording bias.
12:12
Coach Carlie: Oh, less, yes, there's so many different things.
12:15
Coach Carlie: And now that we are able to look deeper into like genetics, you know, uh there's that piece too of who's getting stronger faster, and obviously men, yes, but where's the genetic component to that?
12:31
Coach Carlie: Yeah, and you know, so interesting.
12:34
Coach Carlie: Cool.
12:35
Coach Carlie: Okay, so it sounds like a lot of jumping plyometric types of movements.
12:39
Coach Carlie: Was there any other, I don't know, like core movements or things that you did that were more, I don't know, like knee extensions on the machine or things that maybe we think of with more standard lifting lifting?
12:53
Coach Carlie: Good question.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: Um we would do, I'm trying to think, like I should have re-readerized.
13:04
Coach Carlie: I feel like once you finish it, you're like never again.
13:07
Coach Carlie: I don't open it.
13:09
Coach Carlie: I am so done with this.
13:10
Coach Carlie: Yeah.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: One one emphasis that we did that I think gets overlooked is a lot of single leg activities because unilateral running, yeah, is yeah, is unilateral.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And so some people I think tend to forget that, you know, which is a basic squat.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: You're you know, so we did do a lot of unilateral exercises as well, like rear foot elevated squats, even if it's just body squats, because those are hard for an 18-year-old female who's never lifted in her life.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, so a lot of single leg activities as well, just because yeah, when you're running, you're producing force on one side at a time.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: And so you have to kind of be able to get used to that.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: And you're producing a lot of force when you're running, like almost depending on the person, but three times your body weight.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: And so that was an emphasis that I don't think a lot of people look at either when you know you're lifting for for running, um, is to make sure to get uh at least one day where you incorporate unilateral exercises.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, they don't have to be heavy, you don't have to have a barbell and do single leg squats, you can just pick your foot up behind you and do some bodyweight squats.
14:21
Coach Carlie: Yeah.
14:22
Coach Carlie: And they are not easy.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: No, yeah, and even lunges are a good opportunity to do that.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: So just walking lunges, even step-ups onto a box are a good opportunity to do that.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Anything that's just one leg producing force at a time is gonna be really helpful to kind of graduate into progressively getting a little bit heavier.
14:43
Coach Carlie: Yeah, so cool.
14:45
Coach Carlie: Um, so it sounds like at the end of the day, uh, it worked.
14:48
Coach Carlie: It worked.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: And again, it worked for this specific team, but there is a lot of other research that shows it it does work and it is helpful.
14:57
Coach Carlie: Yeah.
14:58
Coach Carlie: What I mean, you know, you had such an interesting lens of looking at, you know, sprinters versus uh, you know, 5k, 10k, whatever um distances of yeah, I mean, it almost seems to me as you're describing some of the unilateral work that maybe sprinters have more, I don't necessarily want to say like kinesthetic awareness, but it's just a different sport within a sport, you know.
15:27
Coach Carlie: And I don't know, you are welcome to say, yes, perhaps they do have more kinetic.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: It is true.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: And so that that also goes into their strength.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: So there's also my my friends and colleagues, right?
15:39
SPEAKER_00: When I was doing my dissertation, they were working with lots of other different sports, and we'd help each other collect the data and things like that.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: Golfers, actually, the stronger they were, the better, not just at driving, right?
15:51
SPEAKER_00: Which takes pure force, but also at putting too.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: So the stronger you are, the better your like fine motor skills are as well.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: The better you are at like kind of firing those neurons and being able to like use your motor control a little bit more efficiently, too.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: To like, you know, it takes it takes less than a you know a split second to do it, but to plan movements and plan your like motor patterns, which has to do with coordination and yeah, being able to do a hang clean and like those complicated movements.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: So the studies have shown that the stronger you are, you're you're able to do that even better.
16:29
Coach Carlie: Wow.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, sprinters are typically stronger, so they and they have more practice, right?
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Doing those movements.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: They're like even just like doing A skips and B skips and stuff, those little like plyometrics are gonna help them like be a little bit more coordinated.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: So I had my darts runners doing A skips and B skips, and did they it looked great by the end?
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, they did.
16:51
Coach Carlie: Okay.
16:52
Coach Carlie: That you see a video of it, and I'm like, eh, it doesn't look that bad.
16:55
Coach Carlie: And then you try to do it and you're like, oh, this is different.
16:59
Coach Carlie: We'll have to, we'll have to maybe uh you and I are meeting on Friday.
17:03
Coach Carlie: Not that anybody not that that matters to anyone who's listening because these come out on Thursdays.
17:08
Coach Carlie: Um maybe we'll take some videos.
17:10
Coach Carlie: Uh I hope you do a skips and B Skips well, because I don't particularly do that.
17:16
Coach Carlie: We'll link it.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm great.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: I still make sure I know how to do them.
17:19
Coach Carlie: Okay, good.
17:20
Coach Carlie: Yeah.
17:21
Coach Carlie: Because um uh yeah, I mean, we I feel like our folks who come into the lab or just generally are um, you know, obviously collegiate runners is very different than a more recreational endurance athlete.
17:37
Coach Carlie: Um, but it's there tends to be a lot like well, I find that we have a lot of shufflers.
17:42
Coach Carlie: They're just kind of, you know, maybe they're picking up their feet, maybe they're not.
17:47
Coach Carlie: Of course, I want to get everybody on the trail and they're like, oh, I fall all the time.
17:50
Coach Carlie: I'm like, because you're not picking up your feet.
17:52
Coach Carlie: You know, so like those types of things are yeah, good to help them pick up their feet, which speaking of longevity, whether you're in your sport or not, you gotta pick your feet up as we're like, and that goes back to the the motor planning.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: So, so you know, longevity, yes, you want to have a high VO2 max, but also lifting is gonna help maintain that muscle and also helps maintain that brain connection to your muscles to plan like, oh no, I'm falling, let me try to brace and catch myself, or oh no, I'm off balance, let me put this foot out here to catch myself.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: And so the stronger you are, the more muscle you have.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Also, your brain works a little bit faster to tell your limbs what to do as you start to age as well.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: And so, not just like focusing on heart health, but also focusing on your muscles because that's gonna help prevent falls, prevent injuries, and things like that.
18:46
Coach Carlie: Yeah, definitely.
18:47
Coach Carlie: So, with these variations in sprinters versus you know longer distance athletes, could you tell any degree of like enjoyment or because I'm sure the sprinters are bought in.
19:01
Coach Carlie: Like they're like, I know if I do this, this will make me better.
19:05
Coach Carlie: So, like did you notice some sort of a like, oh, I have to do this straight training thing?
19:12
Coach Carlie: Good question, right?
19:14
Coach Carlie: Like we probably didn't research that, but maybe just observation.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: No, just observation.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: So I um the sprinters, yeah, they they understand they've been doing it in high school, they understand the importance of it.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: They were at 6 a.m.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: So there's a difference between we lifted at 6 a.m.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: But they were like, whatever.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: The distance runners, the females were a little not that they didn't enjoy it, but a little um more cautious because they haven't been in a weight room before.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Am I doing this right?
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Is this, you know, um, not gonna say scared, but yeah, more cautious about if they should go heavier.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: So I that specific group was me watching them.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you can add a little bit more weight to that.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: So that was, you know, the distance boys, they loved it.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh yes, I get to use the weight room.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: Like awesome, love it.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Like the weight room originally was just for, you know, the strength power athletes, and now we get to use it, love it.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: So they they I think they enjoyed the lifting because it was a change in environment for them, a change in pace as well, you know, as opposed to running long miles.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: So you get to kind of do something a little, a little bit more exciting, a little bit more sexy.
20:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay, all right.
20:25
Coach Carlie: And then maybe it's um, did you notice that there was a social aspect at all?
20:30
Coach Carlie: Like, did they kind of enjoy hanging out or like cut up with each other?
20:34
Coach Carlie: Or because you know, when you're running, especially if I see a group of collegiate athletes at like Umstead or something, like they're on a mission.
20:44
Coach Carlie: Like they their eyes forward, like we are doing things.
20:49
Coach Carlie: It's not like, hey, we're just gonna chat about the weather today, you know.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that's yeah, like I think that was a little bit of a um part of the enjoyment with them too, is like I'm getting a workout in, but I can still sit here and talk like while waiting for our next set and still catch up and stuff like that.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: So like they thought of it not as an easy practice, or it's kind of a fun, yeah, fun part of their practice was yeah, coming in and getting lift in and not having to run 12 miles.
21:19
Coach Carlie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: And not being able to talk at the end of that 12 miles.
21:24
Coach Carlie: Right, exactly.
21:25
Coach Carlie: How did which speaking of how many times did you have them in the weight room?
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Was it a couple of times a week or the distance team was two, they're both actually two days per week.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so like y'all, that's not that much.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: And it's like five-minute warm-up, 35 to 40 minute workout, five-minute cool down.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: We had to we had one hour total in the weight room because we had to share with all the other teams.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: So we had to be in and out, like including the warm-up, including the cooldown.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: So it's not not a long time.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:59
Coach Carlie: Yeah.
21:59
Coach Carlie: Get in, get out, yeah, get on with your day.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: And that's how my workouts are still too.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: Seriously.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:05
Coach Carlie: Sometimes I'm like, what are you guys doing for two hours?
22:11
SPEAKER_02: You don't need to.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
22:13
Coach Carlie: Yeah.
22:14
Coach Carlie: Um any was there anything else specific that you did with them in terms of, I don't know, did you have more like circuits or supersets or um, because it sounds like you were pretty efficient, so probably not a ton of breaks.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we had to be efficient, especially the amount of people.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: It was a very tiny weight room.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: There was just three squat racks.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And good amount of dumbbells and things like that.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we had to be very efficient with our time.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we had to some, you know, some people were were buddies and things like that, but I would actually group them up based on like their strength levels.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: So so that you have wouldn't have to keep changing the weight on the bars and things like that.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: And so I'd be like, okay, nope, you guys are over here, you're over here, you're over here, because these are the you know, you're matched up with people of your own strength level.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: And so that that was yeah, a time efficiency thing.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, not yeah, not a lot of supersets because it was such a small space.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we would get like the first two big movements out of the way.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: So like the squats, get those out of the way first.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Then we can kind of break up and do everything else out of order, if you please, or just like a circuit style since there wasn't a lot of equipment and there was a lot of people.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: But I'd like to get like the first two big movements that are gonna cost the more energy out of the way first, and like they're kind of like the most important ones of the day, and then do all the accessories afterwards, and they can do kind of change it up and do them in circuits.
23:45
Coach Carlie: So it sounds like probably doing more like a like a squat first, and then maybe like a single leg RDL and or some of your Bulgarian split squats or things like that.
23:58
Coach Carlie: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:59
Coach Carlie: People you know people want specific, so it's uh I know I shouldn't look it up.
24:03
Coach Carlie: Write my workout.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: We can we can post it.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: We can post it.
24:06
Coach Carlie: Oh, okay.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I'll go back and look it up.
24:09
Coach Carlie: Oh, we're we're making you look at your dissertation again.
24:12
Coach Carlie: So for that.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: But yes, a lot.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: So like just the most commons were like um squats, bench press, push press or overhead, you know, shoulder press, and then yeah, the single leg, either RDLs or split squats, those are like big, big movements, um, especially for the distance runners.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: For the sprinters, same thing, and then like hang cleans, um, more like moving the bar a little bit quickly for them as well.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Um and then we typically avoided deadlifts at this age, or not age, but this kind of level that they were and how much experience they had had with lifting.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: I didn't think it was, I thought the risk reward wasn't there because if they were to throw out their back, then they're out for a season.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's that's bad on me.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: So we would typically avoid kind of those more riskier movements that I didn't think were worth it and where I could felt like I could get some benefits and strength from other movements to kind of compensate for that.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, cool.
25:19
Coach Carlie: And then any core type of.
25:21
Coach Carlie: I mean, obviously, you're using a lot of core in the movements that you're describing, but there were there more specific core.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we always did two core activities at the end.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, you're always using core throughout all of this as well, but always two specific core activities at the end.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: I usually like had a list of five or six, and I let them choose if they kept choosing the same one over and over.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if they kept choosing the same one over and over, I'd be like, now my turn to choose.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: But we would do a lot, we wouldn't do like the basic crunches and things like that.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: We would do a lot of actual like rotational core um because that helps kind of stabilize the trunk and helps with like running posture as well.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: So you're not like yeah, I can't see me, but dropping the shoulders and things like that, like running.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: So, like we did a lot of rotational stuff where you had to work on your posture as well.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: So, actually, medicine ball throws, rotational.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: They love those because you can partner at each other and we would go outside.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: So they they kind of like doing that, and then um, yeah, like with resistance bands, so like pow off press and things like that.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, so a lot more upright, not so much like on the ground doing crunches and things like that, more upright and making sure that our posture is also accounted for while we're doing the the core exercises.
26:38
Coach Carlie: Yeah, that's um especially in our population, more of though you're not collegiate athletes.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, posture is important for everybody.
26:46
Coach Carlie: Posture is important for everybody, absolutely.
26:48
Coach Carlie: But you know, if you're sitting at a desk all day and um I do find that it's important to either videotape yourself or do it with a coach, because that is uh, you know, I'll catch our athletes who are just like I'm doing a Russian twist.
27:05
Coach Carlie: Is this right?
27:06
Coach Carlie: Like, you know, again, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see that my shoulders are all rounded, but but they don't necessarily feel it.
27:14
Coach Carlie: Yeah, to be reminded.
27:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:16
Coach Carlie: Yeah, okay, yeah, pull your shoulder blades down, put you out, like open up your chest rather than being all slouched and collapsed and be like, but I did 20 reps.
27:28
Coach Carlie: I'm like, but they were not quality reps at all.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then like a lot of hip flexors too, because that's kind of attached as well.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: So we would do like like leaning up against the wall and doing like walking bridges and like faster kind of quick feet, we call them too, um, to help with with the hip flexors as well, like overhead med ball stuff.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: It's just standing there and like marching, it's like core posture and hip flexors, too.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Just giving you ideas for all your uh your I know.
28:01
Coach Carlie: So good.
28:01
Coach Carlie: It's so good.
28:02
Coach Carlie: Okay, love this.
28:03
Coach Carlie: All right, cool.
28:05
Coach Carlie: So now let's transition to what you're doing with us here at the Endurance Edge.
28:09
Coach Carlie: How has that transition been?
28:11
Coach Carlie: And tell us about it.
28:13
Coach Carlie: Like, like, how's it all been?
28:15
Coach Carlie: It's been great.
28:16
Coach Carlie: Yeah, cool.
28:17
Coach Carlie: So yeah, I I'm me fishing for a compliment.
28:21
Coach Carlie: That's not what that was, but no, but it is you guys like Dr.
28:25
Coach Carlie: Barber is freaking brilliant, and you guys need to come see her because come see me, not only as you can see, she's very personable, and no offense to the exercise fizz world, but sometimes it's a little bland, you know, like it can't they can be more on the nerdy side than even than us.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: And I have beloved colleagues that are more on the the data science side and the numbers, and they just look at computers and they love it and they're good at it.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I I love this job.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: This is like when I graduated, I became a professor.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: So I was a professor for a few years working at small colleges, and I loved it.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: It was fun.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, I still worked with athletes and things like that.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: But then a job opportunity came up to work at a lab in Boston, and then like so I I had that job and I oversaw it, and it was amazing.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: It was very similar to this job.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: And so I was in Boston, and then I had a baby, and we moved down here to be closer to family.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: So I took like a year hiatus, and then I saw this, and I was like, oh, this is the this is the dream job.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I love being able to combine my love for exercise science and all things nerdy and helping athletes because I was an athlete.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: I guess I still am trying to be.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I uh I was an athlete.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I love combining those two loves.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: I when when we were in in college, we called ourselves the jockey nerds because we were all very athletic.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: We all love sports.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: We and that's why we wanted to learn more about our bodies because we, you know, we wanted to help others in their sport and help ourselves train for our sports, and but we were super nerdy because we, you know, learned all this stuff.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: So we're we're jockey nerds.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Um and so then combining like I love teaching and so explaining these principles to people and helping them learn about themselves and their bodies, um, because it's not common knowledge.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: Everybody listening here has done their own research, and you know, you didn't just learn this and your basic gen ed courses.
30:30
Coach Carlie: So everybody here long since forgotten it, and you know, like I talk about ATP sometimes in my sessions in the Krebs cycle, and people look at me like they're like, please, for the love of all things holy, don't make me remember that biology class.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, I just love explaining, you know, on like a broad general umbrella, like this is what's happening in your body right now.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: And some people really love it and they want to learn more, and I'll sit there and nerd out with them.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Some people are like, all right, cool, and that's it, and that's fine.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: But I just yeah, I love answering questions and helping them learn and also encouraging them, you know, on how to get better and improve and and things like that.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: And so being able to combine like all of those into this like one is a dream job, it really is.
31:16
Coach Carlie: So good, and that's really why I created it is an opportunity to not just because yeah, you can get your VO2 max tested, yeah, you can get your lactate tested, but what does it all mean?
31:27
Coach Carlie: Right, right.
31:27
Coach Carlie: And there's so many general things out there and um generic recommendations that people I find, and you probably have already found this, is that people are like, well, I want to know what my zone two is because I keep hearing that zone two training is you know the bee's knees.
31:41
Coach Carlie: I'm like, I mean it's part, it's yeah, but also it's not the whole thing.
31:45
Coach Carlie: And you don't have the answers until you actually do the testing to see where are you at and what principles do you need to apply now to improve in what you need for your body or what's what what are your overall goals?
32:01
Coach Carlie: And it might be to do an Iron Man or it might be to like play with your grandkids.
32:05
Coach Carlie: I mean, and good on you.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, whatever that is.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: I love the variety of people that I get to see too, as well.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Um I had a I mean I told you a few weeks ago, he was 80-something years old.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: Wow, and I was like, this is great, like this is amazing.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: And he just wanted to know where he was, like VO2 Max wise, and he just wanted to make sure that he was on the right track because he wants to live much longer.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, great, this is amazing.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: And then you get super elite athletes who just want to find that 1% right to get even better, and so the conversations are different and the the vibe is different, and I just like that um the variety as well, and then everybody else in between is fun too.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: And so it's never the same person every day, obviously, but it's never the same conversation either.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: And never the same like topics that you're talking about either.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: We weren't talking about race strategy with him, we were talking about longevity and health span.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: And then with the, you know, the people who are racing, we're talking about threshold paces and things like that.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: So being able to talk about everything just in the span of one day is fun.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it cool?
33:16
Coach Carlie: Oh, yeah.
33:17
Coach Carlie: I I think it's so great for people to get those very specific answers and have those specific conversations that are not um computer generated or you know, um AI.
33:31
Coach Carlie: Yeah.
33:31
Coach Carlie: AI AI generated, yeah.
33:33
Coach Carlie: Like, hey, we're real people and we're here to help you do great things in whatever shape that looks like for you.
33:39
Coach Carlie: Yes.
33:40
Coach Carlie: So cool.
33:42
Coach Carlie: All right.
33:42
Coach Carlie: Well, I think everybody's uh oh, we did we need to do some like rapid fire um like get to know you questions.
33:48
Coach Carlie: Okay.
33:49
Coach Carlie: Um uh okay, so you already mentioned that you have a one-year-old, so we know that about you.
33:55
Coach Carlie: And let's see, favorite food.
33:56
Coach Carlie: What's your favorite food?
33:57
Coach Carlie: Favorite food, rapid fire, mac and cheese.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Mac and cheese.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, favorite running shoes.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Running shoes.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, I've always been a Hoka girl, Hoka Clifton.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay, like I started that right when they came out a long time ago, and I just like I always go back to them.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: You're you're stuck, you're attached.
34:17
Coach Carlie: Okay, favorite sports-related food.
34:21
Coach Carlie: Sports hot dog.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: Good old baseball hot dog.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: That's like my husband and I he went to the canes game the other day and he's like, I had three hot dogs.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: We're but only at sporting events, you can't make them up.
34:38
Coach Carlie: Otherwise, not so much.
34:40
Coach Carlie: Yeah, okay, good.
34:42
Coach Carlie: Um, what is your favorite current activity to do?
34:46
SPEAKER_00: Current activity, I've really gotten back into lifting.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, we're gonna talk about my swim run later in a different episode.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: So I did a lot of that, but I've gotten back in more lifting focused right now, which I I really enjoy because of all the reasons we said.
35:00
unknown: Yeah.
35:01
Coach Carlie: And how different do you think fitness is now um that you have a one-year-old versus pre-one-year-old?
35:09
unknown: So different.
35:09
Coach Carlie: So different.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: My body, yeah, that's another episode too.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, time management, body goals, and the reason that you're lifting and and things, especially a former athlete versus lifting now.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: There's different, you know, goals I have to do.
35:25
Coach Carlie: What sports did you play?
35:27
SPEAKER_00: I was a hurdler in college, so I ran the 400 meter hurdles.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: I was not a distance runner, I was a sprinter.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I still have this love for lifting and power and things like that.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: But obviously, I don't have to sprint 400 meter hurdles anymore.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: So you know, I'm doing more functional movements so I can pick up my baby and and things like that.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah.
35:47
Coach Carlie: Love it.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: So cool.
35:49
Coach Carlie: All right, if you could send people away with two tips based on what we've talked about today, what would be your two tips for them?
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Two tips lift because it's important for everybody, like we talked about, not just athletes, but longevity.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, and the second part is it's I guess it's like a 2A, but the best exercise to do is the one that you'll actually do.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: I think um I would always say that to people.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: I can I can prescribe you a really complicated exercise program, but if you're not gonna do it, then that's it's a waste of time.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: And so making sure that if you're writing your own workouts, or you're even working with a coach and you're reading the thing and you're not into those movements, tell them because then it's you're just wasting time.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: So, like the best exercise is the one that you're gonna do.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: So make sure that you want to do it and you know how to do it, and you'll actually do it.
36:45
Coach Carlie: Love it.
36:46
Coach Carlie: It's so good.
36:47
Coach Carlie: Dr.
36:47
Coach Carlie: Eliza Barber, thank you for introducing yourself to the world, to the community, and sharing your gifts of your love and ability to translate complex exercise physiology terms into actionable items that we can take.
37:04
Coach Carlie: So if you guys want to hang out with Alyssa, yep.
37:08
Coach Carlie: So head over to a website, theundersed.com, and you can find under services, metabolic and sweat testing, and choose that.
37:15
Coach Carlie: We even just created a little quiz of like what are the things that you're looking for, because we do have a lot of testing options.
37:21
Coach Carlie: So to make that simpler, we created a little quiz.
37:24
Coach Carlie: It's like two to three questions, and you say, What are your main goals?
37:27
Coach Carlie: And then it'll directly exactly what what you need.
37:31
Coach Carlie: And uh, you even have testing on the weekends.
37:35
Coach Carlie: Yeah.
37:36
Coach Carlie: Nice to meet people where they're no excuses.
37:38
Coach Carlie: That's right.
37:39
Coach Carlie: That's right.
37:40
Coach Carlie: Let's go do the things.
37:41
Coach Carlie: Cool.
37:42
Coach Carlie: All right, Alyssa, thank you so much for being on the Find Your Edge podcast.
37:45
Coach Carlie: And we are gonna have you back.
37:47
Coach Carlie: This is gonna be a more regular nerd out time that you and I are gonna have to share with the rest of the world.
37:53
Coach Carlie: So I'm looking forward to that and hope everybody else is too.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you so much.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.