Latest / FitMitTuro Fitness Podcast / Beyond the Finish Line: Endurance Training Essentials with James LeBaigue Part 2

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Beyond the Finish Line: Endurance Training Essentials with James LeBaigue Part 2 · FitMitTuro Fitness Podcast

• 1:12
  Hey, and welcome to fit into a fitness podcast. Today's episode, I have a guest James LeBaigue, who was who is actually part two we did earlier last year in November power from endurance eating, and more about nutrition stuff like episode is called endurance eating, mastering COSPAR calories and recovery. So this is part two, where we are talking with James about training principles about to endurance sports, and in general, maybe we have time to touch a little bit also nutrition part. But mainly it is going to be about training. So welcome to the show. And good to see you again. Same. So if you don't mind a little bit shortly about yourself. Obviously, most of the people who have listened to Episode earlier know about you, but that is the give little introduction, who you are what you're doing.
• 2:10
  Yeah, certainly, and nice to speak to you again, too. I really enjoyed the last one. So I've been looking forward to coming and chatting to you again. So my name is James Le vague, and I'm a registered sports nutritionist, and also work as an advanced clinical practitioner in the NHS. So in family medicine, and within sports nutrition I work with hurry the food up and the head of nutrition there. And I have my own company nutrition triathlon, and I work with amateur and endurance, amateur and professional endurance athletes. So I have a bit of a kind of varied role in terms of what I do. But it's it's a lot of fun.
• 2:48
  Awesome. So let's jump right into the topics what we wanted to cover. And first, what I wanted to talk with you about is introduction to endurance training. So what are the foundational principles of training for runners and endurance athletes?
• 3:10
  I think the first thing that I would say is, it's always important to start your training based on your previous experience. So by that, I mean, if you're an experienced runner, you're also Are you an experienced kind of athlete, whether you're a cyclist, whether you do something different, you, you have to just make sure that you come in at the level that's appropriate for you. Because I think one of the mistakes that I will see with beginner runners is there's often a lot of motivation. And they really want to get involved, they want to run lots and it's this this newest, this cool thing, you have to just make sure that actually, load is the biggest thing. So I know we briefly talked about it last time, but volume is a really big thing. So just making sure that actually you start at the bottom and kind of gradually build up.
• 3:57
  And one of the biggest things that I would say, and this is for people who are beginners or advanced, is prioritize most of your time to easy endurance training, rather than lots of high intensity training. So again, that's something which are very commonly see is people do lots of high intensity training, because they feel that that's the kind of thing that makes everything work that makes them get better at their training, whatever it is that they want to do. So they'll do lots of hard efforts, and often feel really kind of battered and smashed afterwards, where it's actually, we know that probably the more important thing is lots of easy endurance training, where for example, you can breathe fully as you're training as you're running. And that's more important because it gives you a big aerobic base. And that's kind of what everything else is built on. So if you improve that, then everything else can improve as well. So you think of that as kind of the foundations of your training.
• 4:55
  And the rest are the kind of building upwards and it's like the, the icing on the cake, so to speak of, of how to actually improve. So yeah, start, start slow. Start with lower mileage, lower kilometers, and with easy work, and then as you become more experienced, you start building that up, and realistically, you don't see much difference in terms of the professionals in what they do.
• 5:26
  It's just that they're able to do more of it proportionately because they built up to be able to do 20 or 30 hours of training. But actually it's that same sort of split you'll find most of them it's just lots of easy miles. Lots of easy training with smaller amounts of high intensity harder efforts in it.
• 5:45
  Oh, that's and that is that is something what I what I see and and feel also if I think back when I was younger, I was kind of chasing that feeling like that if somebody like if I decided at some point to go for a run. I was like, from my background. I come from ice hockey and it was always like that to be a good workout, it has to feel horrible. You have to feel it in your body. And I think that is something like that. What most people when they start for running or whatever exercise that it has to feel that you have to feel tired after and for most of the people, especially beginners, like you said that it's then that they are it's, they feel it too much. What is preventing them to do it more often? You find also what you have seen working with the people?
• 6:41
  Yeah, for sure. And don't get me wrong, high intensity, exercise and working hard is is really good. We know it's good for you from a cardiovascular metabolic health point of view. But it also feels great, I would be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy those hard workouts, I mean, enjoy the time, maybe not.
• 7:01
  But there is a sense of satisfaction with it. And it's almost that if you're doing the easy training, it almost feels too easy. And actually, like you're not doing any work. So it's actually quite a hard thing to talk to people about and say, No, you're still going to be getting a lot of benefit from this. And it's really good for you, as a bit of a mindset shift. But once Usually, once people understand that, it's fine. And realistically, it's a different kind of enjoyment. So you get the enjoyment of high intensity exercise and working hard. But actually, you can have enjoyment with easy running you out for 60 minutes easy. And when you've built up to that, I can promise it feels absolutely wonderful to go out running, explore the countryside or something else around you maybe that you don't normally go to but you can run you don't feel exhausted. And by the end of it, you get home, and you feel amazing. And so it's just like a different kind of thing. And for me, the biggest thing with anything, whether it's you're looking for performance, whether you're looking at weight loss, or just staying healthy, is doing it consistently over time.
• 8:11
  And what you generally find, especially with beginners is if you don't have those foundational principles and actually build up to it, you're way more likely to get injured, or you follow to stricter diet, and you're more likely to stop it because it's too hard. So it's actually just working out what's going to be better for consistently training consistently staying active over time. So in light, basically that consistency beats that perfection kind of what everybody's talking about. And this is it's exactly the same principle for running.
• 8:47
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 8:49
  So what is then what are like typical mistakes like what do you how to know like when that intensities getting too much? Or if you are like completely beginner? Like what is what are kind of signs what you like? If you think like that, what is that? Between the training, intensity and volume? Like, what is what is the optimal for that?
• 9:12
  And what kind of like, if you are under award want to become you start to want to start running more? And what kind of science, your body's telling that when it's getting too much.
• 9:24
  Because those things I feel often they are really hard to recognize by yourself. Yeah, absolutely, they are. So what I would say, if I'm working with someone, before we actually kind of start getting into things properly. And I would urge anyone to do this themselves when they're coming up with a running goal or triathlon or whatever it is they want to do.
• 9:48
  Work out why they want to do it.
• 9:54
  And with workout, what is going to make it fun. The reason I say this is we think about discipline, we think about motivation and staying consistent. And all of that is fine. But if things are too hard, either you are going too hard, too frequently, you don't enjoy it, you're not prioritizing things like sleep, what happens is motivation, willpower discipline, become, I guess, more important, but also, you're less likely to stick to it because you're relying on those things. So what I suggest, first of all, is finding fun with your exercise. So pick something which you on the most part, can enjoy and actually look forward to doing. Because then not only does that mean you're more likely to stay consistent over the long term because you're you're enjoying your exercise, which actually is going to then reduce the need for motivation for discipline for willpower because actually, it's not really a struggle. It's something that you can look forward to. And then you can use that fun and enjoyment as a metric for how hard your exercises or how you doing.
• 11:07
  Because if you have that goal of actually, when I started, it was really fun. And then you get a couple of weeks in or you get two months in and you find fun isn't there, then that's a really good way of saying, Okay, what changed? What's wrong? So is it then I'm going too hard, is it that I'm not eating enough sleeping enough? Those sorts of things, which actually might, well, I would use it as a prompt to review your training, review your running, and see where you're at. So that's a really nice way, I think. Then you're looking at other metrics. Now, lots of people nowadays have fitness apps that they track things onto, they track things like their heart rate, they track things like their sleep, their heart rate variability, those sorts of things, they can give a good indication. So if you find, for example, that your sleep starts going off that you're not able to sleep as much, and you're getting this decline in your sleep, that might be a really good warning sign. If people track their heart rate variability, and that starts going off, again, that's just something to prompt you to say, hey, things might need changing might need looking at.
• 12:17
  And then things like general recovery. So are you actually feeling well recovered and ready for your next session? Do you feel like you've always got dumbs so muscle soreness, or that you've got you're picking up aches niggles pains that don't seem to be settling down?
• 12:32
  Basically, it's, there's, you're absolutely right. And it is really difficult, because there is not one thing that you can reliably say this, this is something that you need to watch out for, it's more trying to understand that overall, holistic way of seeing your training your exercise, and kind of setting some some markers.
• 12:55
  And another really useful thing, if people are interested, is using an app. And there's a variety of ones out there that ask you a daily questionnaire in the morning. So then it would, you can do things like track your heart rate variability, so you get an objective measurement, but then it will ask you subjective questions as well. So it will be like a score out of 10. How motivated Do you feel to train today? How well recovered Do you feel? How much energy do you have? And it's those sorts of questions and and then again, what you get is a trend. And then you can see, actually, over time as my trend starting to go down, I'm routinely not as motivated, I don't want to do it. And that that's basically your guide is using all of this data, because we have so much data nowadays.
• 13:47
  But actually, if you don't use it correctly, it's not really worth using.
• 13:51
  Would you mind like this is I find it personally I love my sport tracker and woods in like kind of recovery like i There are obviously there are different kinds of brands, but if you see your your heart rate variability, like Go Go study something like that, what if you have a sport watch, you might have that in your phone? Or in your you'll see that statistic, but most of the people have no idea what it means. Would you mind explaining little bit like how it affects and and what kind of values are what you are looking for that how to live if you try to drag those these kinds of metrics that what is there to pay attention? Yeah, sure. Okay, so heart rate variability to explain it. So your heart beats, let's say, on average, 60 times a minute.
• 14:43
  Although when you look at it, most people will have a regular rhythm. So it beats maybe every second or every second and a half. Within that there's variability to it might be every 1.3 seconds, and then every 1.7 seconds. So you have that changed. Now, that change or that variability is good. And it's normal, because you have two system or two areas of your nervous system called your sympathetic and your parasympathetic nervous system.
• 15:13
  And that's if you've ever heard a flight fight or flight, those are your your systems. Now, when you're in a good, rested state.
• 15:22
  So by rested, I just mean you're not overstressed. You're not overworked, your parasympathetic nervous system is kind of in control or has more control.
• 15:37
  That means you have a greater heart rate variability. So it has this ability to fluctuate in terms of how fast it beats, and that's good. And we want that because it means that your body is able to adapt and change.
• 15:47
  When your sympathetic nervous system starts to take over. You are it's a sign essentially that you are more stressed now, stressed. I mean that in a physiological sense, so your body is just under more stress, you have more stress hormones going on. And there might be loads of different reasons for that. So that might be stressing the thought that in the way that most people think about it. So, daily job stress, work, stress, financial, whatever it is, that adds in. And then you have training stress. So you're training, putting your body under load, and it's having to recover. Or it might be things like you're not sleeping as well, all of that adds to this physiological stress, as your body and your sympathetic system takes over and has, is kind of more active than your parasympathetic, you find that your heart rate variability goes down. And so we see that in someone's heart rate variability, now, everyone's heart rate variability is completely different. So most people will get something like an overnight Heart Rate Variability score, and then they get an average. There's different research into how useful it is. And probably so I caveat with all of this, that I'm not an expert in heart rate variability, if you want to look at some some of the people on Twitter, the chap who created heart rate for training, which is a really, really good tool, I'm not sponsored or affiliated, but it's very good. He has lots of useful info about this. But everyone's heart rate variability is different. And what you're trying to look out for is trends. Because you can get sudden changes in your heart rate variability, and it might not be significant at all. So there's some really good research that suggests that actually, short term changes in heart rate variability, so for example, on the day doesn't correlate with performance, you can still perform very well. But again, it's one of these tools that you can use as a trend, and a guide. So if you use something like a heart rate variability, Tracker, you track it every morning, and you notice over a couple of weeks of hard training, it's going down, there's an element that that's kind of expected. But if alongside that your subjective measures like you're finding your motivation is down, you're not feeling as recovered. That then gives you more of an understanding and more pieces of data to actually say I need to address this in my training, or I need to address something in my life maybe I'm training too much maybe my work stress is too high. It's basically a way of kind of measuring that stress. I hope that makes sense. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. And this is like what I find what I find that in these kinds of Lycos i i love to look those kinds of things and and like you said that it's it's more important these Legos many people you know like if they for example many people if they bake your bake themselves in the morning you looked at Holy shit I came to eight or or if you look your for example it's same thing if you look Heart Rate Variability like and one day you didn't sleep well and it's it's a low and now if that is that most of the people tend to park I can't wait so I have to restrict myself I won't eat anything or I will punish myself with a workout or it same thing with the with the heart rate variability that that I feel like that you you have to like you said that learn to recognize those strengths and one at day doesn't mean that it's not worth of working out.
• 19:22
  But if you see like if I look now my my sport record I see like that my I don't know what those exactly those numbers mean, I understand that higher number I have better recovered I am I looked at my numbers are like from average from past 28 days, what my watch is giving is 69 and last night I had 78 So I feel like I'm today I know I slept well. I feel full, I was just I before we started this podcast, I was working out and I felt like really, really good, good good about it. And I know that on the other days, if I if I didn't for some reason sleep so well. Obviously my workouts, they are not going to be the best best ones, but it's still I still do them even I might not be able to use as heavy beats or to boost myself really as hard as I would if I if my recovery and sleep have been better. But that this is basically test to understanding like those principles and and trends where they are going and if what is actually happening in a life and and not to like think those single values to testify for something that you probably already know and but it's it's a like you said it's very very well explained. So, if you I know you are not expert in this but is there like you said is there some kind of values what is what you consider are like normal values or good values or do you have knowledge about it like what what it should be or is it just so individual that you basically you need only look better look where you are and trying to kind of improved that.
• 21:08
  Yeah, absolutely. So with heart rate variability, it's just so individual, it's not worth comparing, like, you can look at the data and see averages where you are compared to the rest of the population. But it means nothing. It's your individual, individual physiologic physiology, you tend to find that more athletic people. And the fitter someone is, the higher their heart rate variability, but it's still individual to them. And as we age, our heart rate variability drops as well. So you have to just be careful because you could be a really fit healthy, 60 year old. And if you compare that to an unfit, 30 year old, they might still have a higher heart rate variability, one because they're younger, but to just they're in different individual physiology. Now, that's where it's just quite dangerous with having all of these tools and all of these metrics, but not necessarily knowing how to deal with them.
• 22:03
  And I think there's two things.
• 22:07
  One is that you end up just doing the wrong thing. So the example you gave away is a really good one. So someone sees that their weight has gone up that day. And instead of sticking to their plan, because we know it's more about the trend, they start to try to restrict food. And actually, that's a really negative mindset and causes problems. But it's exactly the same with something like heart rate variability, but also, I think it has the ability to really get into your head.
• 22:36
  And as a personal example to this, I actually don't wear my Garmin watch anymore at night, because mine gave me a report every morning. And I'm quite a mental person. And I like numbers and data. But I can also get quite fixated on it. And if I woke up in the morning, and my Garmin told me I'd had a bad night's sleep, sometimes. And this is where there's also it's really interesting because the overnight trends aren't necessarily as helpful. It's more likely to be useful for as soon as you wake up to do a minute tracking at that point when you wake up, so that the overnight one might not even be that helpful. But for me, I find that actually really distracting. And kind of dangerous, because then I'm like, am I am well, what, what's wrong with this today. And I was even getting to the point that at night, I would wake up in the night and go for a pee or I'd roll over in bed and think Oh no, my Garmin is going to be tracking this, it knows that I woke up and it knows that I didn't sleep that well. And it's going to affect my heart rate variability score. And that is so stupid. But it's just the way my brain works. And I know from speaking to other people and athletes I've worked with that, that can be a problem for them as well. And if it's not an actually you're fine with it, then then great. And it's kind of more evidence or more data that you can use. But I think we've got to be really careful.
• 24:02
  And it's one of those things as well like with social media that you compare yourself or you start looking into things too much and it has the potential to just really negatively impact you when it shouldn't.
• 24:14
  Yeah, no, absolutely. This is it's so interesting that sleep is something like what I learned so much from Dr. Shelby HARRIS I just recently read posted that podcast episode so when you if you're listening to this I think it's two episodes before this episode was about sleep and as he mentioned exactly the same thing. So like you mentioned there that many people if you find yourself that you know you it brings you more stress with this all kinds of trackers and everything. Don't use them like it's it's but they are because they are first of all, they are not very accurate. Like it's all sport trackers, they obviously in their marketing, they are telling that they are the most accurate and whatever. But if you look for example, calorie burn, they are overestimating so much like I think studies so like 26 to 97 Prozent about amount of calories so you feel better about yourself. You might it might motivate for someone to do more sports but if you on the other side if you use it as a reason that now I have burned this amount of calories I can eat this much and then you might not be actually seeing results what you thought you should be seeing because your sport tracker wasn't very accurate and it's the same thing with the sleep it's it they are not 100% accurate. So basically the only thing to be really accurate is to go put yourself in like a hole mask and everything in a wooded day in your heart monitor but that is something like that you might want to do for a couple of days or maybe for a week but not using in a in a daily life. So be careful with all these tracking tools and if they are like, distracting you, it's better not to use it and it's it's a good example is from my Viber my work like I when I work as to swing the coach for hockey, Italian hockey team and, and I know I'm from Finland, in Finland, the top ice hockey team, they have there was an interview and they said that during the tournament, like when you play for our world championships for a week or two, most people that they don't even want to play yours tracking their sleep or recovery because it's when it's so sort it's useful tool if you use it, like, let's say in your when you are working out. But if you have like some kind of competition, like icebergs have been seeps home for a week, it doesn't bring you any value to know, like, if players know if somebody is telling that, like you said that now I am not recovered. I didn't sleep well.
• 26:53
  So it means that I'm tired. And then you know, you start thinking even more, and even, you might not actually feel tired. But when Watts is telling that, oh, like I'm not, I'm not fully recovered, I must be tired. And then more you kind of start to think about these things. More insert starts to affect. So it's, it's really, with all these tools, they are great, but depending how you are using using them, and not to give like kind of too much value on everything.
• 27:26
  Yeah, it is why I like the subjective ones as well, the ones which are so that will ask you questions, because then you kind of can pit it against how you genuinely feel. And I think then you get a good balance of data objective and subjective data.
• 27:42
  Absolutely. So when it comes now, this is a good bridge to go over about very recess. Like what kind of role like, if you've made this says it could be for for example, for up like that, okay, you have been probably doing too much, or just in general, even everything is going perfectly you are recovered? Well, like what kind of role like the periodization play in endurance training?
• 28:12
  Okay, I'd start by saying there is very mixed opinions on this.
• 28:18
  And actually mixed evidence in terms of how useful periodization is. Now, my opinion on it is that periodization is good in the sense of having a split between good between high intensity and low intensity. So I mentioned it earlier. But I like to think of something like a 90 to 10% split or an 8020, you'll see those sorts of numbers around so 80 90% of your training is easy, 10 or 20% of your training is hard. And that gives you a good balance of doing all of the easy endurance work, which works on your aerobic system, your fat metabolism, and essentially sets the base for all your training, and then you do the hard stuff, which kind of adds adds that final extra bit, then there's a kind of bigger periodization question there. And certainly in endurance sports like triathlon, there's the periodization over the year. So we've got periodization on a micro scale of like your daily workouts or your weekly workout. And then we've got a macro scale, thinking about our workouts over a couple of months, what you typically see is, in the winter period, people focus even more on bass easy training. So over the winter months, you'll find they do lots more easy exercise.
• 29:46
  And this is in general, lots of easy exercise, lots of long training as well, just focusing on that, that easy stuff. Then as the season progresses, and you start getting closer to race season, start to add in more high intensity, and more tough work around what we call race pace. And then once you're into specifically the race season, you do far more around race specific stuff. So you made sure at that point that whatever point you've got to your targeting that in your training.
• 30:22
  So you for example, with cycling, and we have watts, or with running, you have pace, but you're trying to train out what you expect to be doing your races at so for an Ironman, you know that you might be trying to cycle it 200 watts or 240 Watts, you would do intervals in your race, see specific sessions, which mirror that to get your body used to it. So your muscles adapt to that you mentally know how tough it feels. But then also you practice things like your nutrition because you have to make sure that you're practicing at race pace with your nutrition to see whether you can tolerate it okay whether you need to change it or whether you can appears. So that those are the kinds of periodization themes. Now, some people will will think that, actually you just do the same thing over the whole year, pretty much in that you do that 8020 split over the whole year. And yes, you might change that kind of the like that with the high intensity exercises, you might change the focus of them. I know we briefly briefly touched upon this last time when we spoke, but you have different areas of your fitness to target. So you have your VO two Max, which is your essentially your top end. And then you have something called your aerobic and your anaerobic threshold. So people might be best working at different parts of those were some other people and other coaches will think that very much. For example, if you get to race season, you might do far more work at the high intensity range and the harder range and a lot less at the lower, easy end. And quite honestly, from my experience, my preference is to do that sort of 8020 mix over the whole year and maybe target different areas that you're weaker at. And I think that probably leads to better results and is less likely to cause burnout, and fatigue. And not necessarily kind of increasing with the high intensity work that someone does.
• 32:33
  So this is we talked about this last time, but just the briefly like if someone is really beginner and doesn't understand what it like, if you are talking about 8020 principle, or 9010.
• 32:47
  But then they're like that, what the hell I should be doing, like I have, I tried to go to run three times a week, I have one hour time, that's my goal to run three hours per week. So what it what this principle would mean in that kind of for that kind of person, like let's say that you are, you have three hours time, and you want to follow this 8020 principle, because what I see that most people when they start to run, and their goal is to run, let's say three times a week for an hour a day to school, always same road with same speed that they feel tired after, and then that's their running workout.
• 33:31
  Okay, so if we first of all, I'd go back to what we spoke about at the start, which is, I think that most people need to understand why they are training and for example, for fun. So all of these things I'm talking about are kind of trying to optimize your training and for example you're running, if someone in their goal is just to run three times a week, you have to look at where they are in their training. And if they're a beginner, because this sort of thing might actually be too much for a beginner. Because actually what would be far more important is they just get out and run three times a week, they get out there and they enjoy it, whatever it is they do whether they go slow, whether they go fast, reduce that barrier, get them out the door, and then work on optimizing getting an 8020 split. But let's say for argument's sake, they want to optimize. And you know, ideally, I would say it is worth it because it reduces the risk of injury and illness. At 20, literally do it as a percent. So your three hour example. So they're running for 180 minutes.
• 34:43
  So 20% of that would be 36 minutes. That's your high intensity period. So you're essentially trying to accumulate 36 minutes of high intensity work. And then we'll maths 44 minutes of low intensity work.
• 35:05
  So if you want to kind of really break it down. That's, that's how you do it. And it doesn't have to be exact, like we're not aiming for absolute perfection.
• 35:12
  It's just it gives you a good rule of thumb to say, Okay, well, look, I did my high intensity workout earlier in the week. These ones can just be easy. And I'm focusing on that easier. easy part.
• 35:25
  Yeah, no, this is I love this like but what is what is if I would put it even more simple, like, like we talked about sewn training, like if you again, if you have a sport woods, or something like that. Let's say no, I put it little bit like if let's say 30 minutes from three hours would be high intensity work two and a half hours would be its own to training. So basically tone to training is something if you have a sport, what it's on stone to what feels relatively easy. It feels for most people that it's to less to be effective, if they think like what their mind is telling but that It's something that you are, if you don't know, if you don't have sport record or anything, it's something that you are able to talk. But kind of you don't want to be talking all the time. But you are able to make, let's say, 12 to 15 versions without taking a breath. And this is kind of that two and half hours. And then that 30 minutes is something like what is really hard, like interval training, or something.
• 36:27
  And this is this is like a lot more effective, like you said, instead of just test going three times a week for running like kind of what most people do like kind of Chaudhry that they feel tired after they might get sore.
• 36:43
  And often it leads that you at some point, you lose motivation.
• 36:49
  You don't want to be doing it more often even some people still enjoy it. But that that is that is I think, I don't know, do you agree like this kind of I tried to put things as simple as I can. So yeah, no, I think that's good.
• 37:03
  And actually, because a lot of people do actually track their heart rate. And know that anything, you said two things, which are really important one, it's often so easy, that it doesn't really feel like work, that's, you know, you're probably in the right zone, or you can breathe properly and actually have a conversation if you need to, you're not kind of panting, I like to think of it being able to breathe in fully through your nose, that tells you you're in roughly the right zone. And in terms of heart rate, again, so individual, but probably under about 65 70% should be that zone to easy sort of work, then from about 70 to 80 85% is a bit of a middle ground might be useful for certain scenarios, and we talked about race specific pace, that might be where that falls in.
• 37:50
  But anything above kind of 80 85% of your maximum heart rate, I would class as high intensity training. So I have some friends who still only think that high intensity training is if they go to like 95% of their maximum heart rate or above. And anything below that is still easy training. So there'll be that exact issue of their running at 85% of their maximum heart rate. And it feels pretty hard, but they aren't totally exhausted afterwards.
• 38:23
  But they just they just as much as they might read or listen or hear. They just don't really understand that difference.
• 38:32
  Yeah, no one said that said that. It don't have to be that hard. Like most like some people, not most, but some people are trying to kind of chew push them selves too hard.
• 38:44
  And like you said that this is just an example. And for, for most people like that kind of interval training, like you said that this was now from three hour example. 30 minutes would be 20%. And even if you get the temperature like 15 minutes in that is still that is still pretty, pretty good for especially for beginners or something. But just some kind of it could be combination like 32nd, sprints, or 45. Second, Sprint's and repeating for, let's say, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. And that is actually what makes huge, huge difference for someone, especially in the beginning, if you have never done it before.
• 39:26
  Yeah, and also linking it back to earlier what we're doing about heart rate variability. So that is there's a good kind of parallel here with those those times where you're just running and you're kind of running kind of hard, but not necessarily full out for like, you know, going as hard as you could, but you're not going easy. Those are the sorts of people that will find that their heart rate variability will just drop over time, because they're constantly stressing their body, they're not going really hard. But they're not going really easy.
• 39:58
  And they're just constantly adding that pit of stress and not giving yourself time to recover. And those are the people you typically see they don't actually improve anywhere near as much as they want to.
• 40:06
  And that's just because they're not having this sort of polarization. They're not giving themselves time to recover. And then also what you find there is they don't go hard enough when they're meant to be. And that's because they're tired, they're sore, they're not recovered, which means when they come to do their high intensity session, or what they class then is that high intensity session, they're already tired. So they just don't get that variation. Yeah, well, that's, that's so we'll we'll set like how to use actually that kind of matrix in into shape because it's really hard. Like, if you don't know about this and because this is like if you just kind of listen to your body or it's almost always like that your body might be telling totally different which is very hard to actually understand and then your mind is telling that I need to do it like if you are thinking like that, you know you need to have a lot of discipline. You are pushing yourself even harder, and your body is telling already for long that now it's time to take it They're a bit easier.
• 41:07
  And, and this is, it's a good example of what you just said.
• 41:11
  So for next I wanted to talk a little bit about strength training and, and for that for endurance sports was I see that this is something what most endurance athletes are missing, or they don't do a lot. So why is, first of all, why strength training is crucial for runners and endurance athletes?
• 41:37
  I think a good place to start is, as you say, a lot of people don't do it. But there's, again, it's slightly kind of, I guess, irritating, because we probably want a clear black and white answer, but it's not necessarily beneficial. Now, I think it is.
• 41:54
  And I would generally encourage people to do it. But you do see examples of very, very, very good runners and triathletes who don't do any strength training.
• 42:03
  And, of course, the question there is, could they be better if they do strength training, and unfortunately, we just don't really know, because we can't, you know, it'd be great if we had a, an alternative world where that person was strength training, and we could see, but that there's probably a benefit to it in that it helps to develop muscle. And it helps to develop strength, stability, and certainly with running, that's really important to make sure that we've got muscles and stability in our knees or in our, our glutes in our bum. So I think it is beneficial. But I think it's, it's fair to say that there's probably again, an individual element to it, where some people will likely get far more benefit than others with it. Because you and you will just see this, that there's a real change. But I think in the most part, it's probably useful, and it's more useful for beginners, certainly, if you've never, if you've always been someone who's athletic, and you've kind of always used your body, and perhaps you're a club swimmer, you that's always been something you do, then it's likely you probably have a strong core, you probably actually are doing pretty well.
• 43:21
  And perhaps the benefit is less compared to someone if you pick up sport in your middle age, and you've never had much of a history of it, it's probably far more beneficial there because you will start to develop and use muscles, which you never have. And so the bum and the glute muscles is a really good one. So the one of those contributes to your knee stability. And if you're someone who said entry, you've never really done that, then actually you might be much more prone to getting knee injuries. Because when you run because you've just never develop those muscles. So there's that individual element.
• 44:00
  But it certainly it can help.
• 44:00
  Yeah, no, it was this is something like obviously, I'm not, I'm not working with endurance athletes like you do by day to see return like kind of normal people who even their goal is to improve improve their endurance and cardio, adding some kind of like, at least one strength training, I'm not telling that some whose goal is to improve cardio, or heart health should be strength training, like three to four times per week, but just kind of thinking it like that, at least one session per week.
• 44:40
  like kind of like even for those that would like you said that it's so beneficial because even you necessarily won't you are you are doing okay, even you don't do it, let's put it this way. But how much more you are able to see like what kind of results could because you are still using those muscles. And and if you think like running or cycling or whatever, like endurance sport, it's, it's often it's very repetitive movement, it's similar movement every single time. And it's it's if you don't do anything if you do only that one thing, it's, it's it's very hard for your body and for also for your muscles. So if you like it's, you might get injured like you mentioned, if you don't do some kind of stability work for your knees and and in the end you need obviously goal is not to become a bodybuilder because that too much muscle mass is not necessarily beneficial. But if you do that one session per week, it's it's not that we that you are not going to you're basically going to maintain it and maybe in the beginning you might see some kind of difference. But you are going to maintain your muscle mass and work with all muscles and things like doing nice then about exercise selection for runners you know Do some lunches or walking Lance's or carrying some weights or doing some basic movements, that are strengthening those muscles what you need because endurance training, it's not necessarily when you use those muscles. It's not, it's not you're not getting a lot stronger, actually by doing it. So and this is something like what I what I what I hear from people who like normal people, if they go, we have here a lot of mountains, they go for a hike or some hilly Hill. And, and they are earlier, they were so tired of doing now, just with the strength training, even they haven't worked really their endurance that much. But they feel so much stronger when they can actually go for walk to the Hill, when they have actually they've been they have stronger body and stronger legs.
• 47:03
  Definitely. And you actually mentioned that a few really good points, which I think it'd be good to expand on. So one of them was about the benefits of strength training. And actually, it's probably really important to say in the coming back to the kind of why do people exercise most of us aren't going to be professional athletes, we might have a goal, we might want to improve, we might want to get better. But actually, we also want to just stay healthy, and especially stay healthy later on in life. So if we're looking at pure performance, I think there are question marks as to how whether how useful strength training is for endurance athletes, it might be depending on that individual, because actually, they might benefit from putting on some muscle, and then actually being able to convert that in various forms to performance. But most of us, performance is kind of secondary, so to speak. So we want to stay healthy, and having muscle and having muscle mass is definitely really important for that it affects our heart health affects our ability to use sugar. And we know it's really useful. But also if we're thinking as we getting on in life as well, it's harder to maintain or grow muscle. And actually, if we start that process earlier on in life, and we continue that, that's really important. And, you know, nowadays we're living longer, but quality of life doesn't necessarily always correlate with that yet muscle and having muscle is one of the biggest things for longevity staying independent. So we have something called sarcopenia, which is age related muscle wasting or muscle shrinking. We want to reduce that as much as possible. So actually, when you kind of weigh it out, strength training is probably really useful for for those people, and all of us to just stay healthy as we get later on in life as well.
• 49:02
  Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's, it is. Like, I can I can delete enough. Like it's, it's most of us, we think we have our own beliefs. Like what we think that this is the right way, I have never done it, I don't need it, why should I be doing it, but the best way how we're going to address it that just try it, try what kind of difference it makes I you know, you can I could give studies, you can give studies, we can talk as long as we want to try to kind of tell someone to do it, but if you never try it yourself, it says to try for a month and see what kind of difference makes like or maybe you need a bit longer goes first month to be honest. If you start strength training, first workout, you just need to look weights or look to do some kind of exercises and you might be sore as you have never done it.
• 49:58
  Second time it's it's going to be a bit easier, you still feel some soreness, but from from usually what I have seen is from third time you your body's getting used to it you start to adapt that and then things are getting easier. So so just give it a shot and see what kind of treatments that is making and and having some kind of for example full body workout for once in a week even for endurance athletes, even because this is something like if if line of periodization what we talk like, like for athletes, it's not only about athletes, I talk now about general population who don't have like, they don't maybe they want to even run for a marathon or improve kind of everything. It's it's Do not try to do everything or at the same time like you can still you can always walk you can do something but but building that kind of feeling it like it makes a lot more fun it first of all, if you do it like let's say for two months or three months, you focus on improving your endurance. Then next two, three months So you put focus on strength training, the next month, you can focus on something else, but just kind of focusing on different things, and not necessarily to try to do everything at the same time.
• 51:17
  Because then it feels personal, it feels overwhelming. And most people, they think that they should be doing so many things, but they can't. And then also your body like, we think what your body is seeing, like it's so different signals what you are telling to your body. So focusing on one thing at a time and, and putting even even like, when focus is on endurance training, put it that kind of that string for maintenance, and even one session per week is more than enough to maintain everything. And then it's on the opposite side, if you focus on on building strength, putting the cardio kind of maintenance and focusing, for example, simply just walking what is relatively easy and still, does the you have all the benefits.
• 52:07
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 52:11
  Good, James, how that went so fast. Our hours full, we didn't have time to. I wanted to talk a little bit about nutrition. But it's I think we covered that everything on our last episode.
• 52:26
  So make sure you listen to that.
• 52:26
  And now if someone is interested, or obviously I hope you are because you should definitely check things out amazing articles for about nutrition, and also about training. So tell us where people can find you how to connect with you.
• 52:49
  Sure, so I'm on Hurry the food up and hurry the food up.com For sofa or social handles. And there's a vegetarian website we have lots of different recipes, meal plans for fitness and for weight loss. So go check us out there. And then also nutrition triathlon, and again on all handles and nutrition triathlon.com. And I have a YouTube channel with lots of free nutrition videos to help you with things like marathons, half marathons, that sort of thing. So yeah, come check us out.
• 53:20
  Awesome. I will put all links to show notes. So make sure you check those so notes for all links and and be sure to share some love, we would love to hear from you. So tag us on Instagram Thor story, or if you haven't leave any five star review, we would really appreciate it. So those are really, really helpful. We don't have any support. I don't have any sponsors for this. So but those five star reviews are helping a lot and to get some feedback.
• 53:49
  What do you thought, what were your biggest takeaway? Let us know in Instagram and we'd love to hear from you. So thank you for listening and talk to you soon.