0:01

The Science of Sports podcast with

0:04

Professor Ross Tucker and sports gymnast

0:06

Mike Finch.

0:21

So last week we started our first

0:23

episode of our season on fatigue

0:26

and we discussed some of the details regarding fatigue

0:29

and how it happens in some of the molecular and

0:31

physiological process that happen for

0:33

fatigue and we kind of broke down what fatigue

0:35

really was and whether it was mind versus

0:38

body etc etc. So if you need to know more about

0:40

that you can go back to that podcast

0:42

which is the one happening before that we put up now. But

0:46

we'll probably go on to some

0:48

of the aspects that we discussed last week in the fatigue podcast.

0:51

Because today we're going to talk a little

0:53

bit about fatigue resistance and whether it is

0:55

a term that is a newfangled

0:57

modern term for fatigue or whether it's something

0:59

that's just been rehashed and has always been around. So

1:02

Ross and I are going to get into that in a few moments.

1:04

But before we get into that fatigue

1:06

main subject, we've got some caught my eyes. And

1:09

for those of you that are new to the podcast,

1:11

we have a Patreon support group,

1:13

our patrons on Patreon. If you

1:15

need to know where to find us, you go to patreon.com

1:18

and look for Science of Sport podcast and

1:20

we have a very active membership of

1:22

our patron groups. And

1:25

it's a chance for people on Patreon to ask us questions,

1:27

to raise things that they've seen

1:29

in the sports science

1:31

realm and then to raise it with Ross

1:34

who often sends an email out, responds

1:36

on Patreon itself. And we get a chance

1:38

to discuss some of them in our podcast.

1:40

We don't get all to them all, unfortunately, because there are a

1:42

lot of them out there and we

1:44

don't get to them as much as we hope. But hopefully

1:47

we'll get to a few more today. So Ross, kick

1:49

us off for some of the ones we've got this week.

1:51

Yeah, actually this week a hat trick from

1:53

Gareth D. who sent in actually over

1:55

the course of the last two weeks. I didn't get to

1:57

this one last week because there were so many, but I've put

1:59

it over and then. two new ones. And

2:02

I must say, like he said, I'm sorry

2:04

for sending so many in. You shouldn't be because it's awesome.

2:06

I would miss literally 90% of these. There's

2:09

one today that I would have picked up, but the

2:11

others that have missed because it's just difficult

2:13

to keep track. But somehow he keeps sending these really

2:16

stimulating articles in. And the

2:18

first one was actually something

2:20

that was released via Zwift. That's

2:22

the software that allows you

2:24

to join a virtual cycling world. I

2:26

think it really took off big time during COVID. And

2:29

this particular article was published at the

2:31

beginning of this month, and it is basically

2:34

a call for research participants in

2:36

a remote cycling study. So it begins here

2:38

saying, fellas, Zwifters, we need your help for

2:40

a research study that may unlock automatic

2:43

FTP detection by only

2:46

wearing a heart rate monitor that records heart rate

2:48

variability. So FTP, functional threshold

2:50

power. It's quite an important metric to

2:53

understand your, your training status and your

2:55

performance capabilities. And what they're

2:57

basically looking for is volunteers who

2:59

will sign up and then share with

3:02

them data, particularly heart rate data

3:05

that is recorded during four exercise

3:07

sessions. There's a four minute time trial, two 20

3:10

minute time trials, and one Zwift race, a

3:12

couple of surveys that need to be done on cycling

3:15

experience and your exercise sessions. And

3:18

then provided you've got a compatible watch,

3:20

they can harvest effectively your

3:22

heart rate variability data from

3:24

those cycling sessions. And then

3:27

very interestingly, they're working on this concept

3:29

that there are fractal properties

3:31

and heart rate variability.

3:33

Explain what fractal is. Have you ever looked at it?

3:35

Have you ever seen those animations of either a snowflake

3:38

or a coastline? And as

3:40

you zoom in, the

3:42

pattern stays the same irrespective

3:44

of how closely you look at it. Have you seen that? Yeah.

3:46

Yeah. That's fractals. Similarly,

3:49

if you look at a tree branch, the branch has

3:51

the same shape as the tree and then the

3:53

branches off the branches, have the same shape as the

3:56

branch, hence the tree. And so it's just these

3:58

repeating patterns and the thing.

3:59

The theory is that these almost

4:02

never ending patterns have

4:04

some physiological significance.

4:07

So the heartbeat, for instance, exhibits

4:09

fractal structures. And so

4:11

they reckon by exploring that, they'll

4:13

have a unique way of evaluating human

4:15

performance. Way better. So

4:18

in other words, what they're saying is, if you wear a heart

4:20

monitor that is compatible and you're part of this test,

4:22

you don't need to do an FTP test for them then

4:25

to tell you what your FTP is. Well, that's what they're going

4:27

to explore, I presume. So that's why... That's

4:29

kind of what Strava does to some extent

4:31

based on the hills

4:33

you up and the speed that you up and the heart rate

4:35

that you just burn your heart on your

4:37

thing. But it's a rough estimate,

4:40

isn't it? Yeah, well, Strava gets FTP from power,

4:42

like it's direct. You've got to measure power to know

4:44

power. What they reckon they'll get is, as

4:46

you say, it's an indirect

4:48

measure using the heart rate variability.

4:50

And so that's why you'll do two 20-minute

4:52

time trials. And that's effectively going to

4:54

give them your literal FTP. You can

4:57

do that on Strava, on Zwift now, anywhere.

4:59

You can go and then do an FTP test. It's

5:01

not the most fun you'll have in 20 minutes on a bike.

5:03

But yeah, you could do that. Well, there's the hour

5:06

one you can do, which is even less fun. One

5:09

third the fun, three times the duration. And

5:12

then as drift rates, so I assume what's going to happen is they'll

5:15

use the heart rate during the race and they'll assess

5:17

the variability

5:18

and then they'll have some predictive

5:20

model algorithm that says, OK, based

5:23

on what we see in your power heart rate here, this is

5:25

your FTP and they'll compare it to your

5:28

actual FTP and then

5:30

be able to say, OK, in future you can get

5:32

an FTP without doing an FTP. So

5:34

in other words, they'll create an algorithm that puts all those

5:36

things together and helps you. In other

5:38

words, you don't have to potentially do the 20-minute

5:41

pain test to find out the FTP. Exactly.

5:44

OK. So it's interesting. And

5:47

also they'll confirm this fractal thing. So I think why

5:49

it's interesting, and this is the point Gareth raised

5:51

when he sent it in is

5:52

that with tech, the opportunities

5:55

and actually this is a theme we will discuss in our

5:57

main feature of this podcast also.

5:59

Technology has created the opportunity to

6:02

get massive volumes of data. I mean, when

6:04

I, like I sound like an old man, when

6:06

I, in my day, this was 20

6:08

years ago, when I was doing studies, we'd have

6:10

to go... You're only 20 then. Yeah, that's true. We'd

6:13

have to get...

6:14

Thanks. We'd have to get 15 participants

6:18

to come into the lab on four occasions and

6:20

then we'd measure stuff and that stuff would live on

6:22

a computer and it was 500 data

6:25

points per guy, if that's a

6:27

big one. You know what I mean? And then you'd

6:29

mine that data and you'd say, now there's opportunities

6:32

to get literally millions of data points.

6:35

Remember after COVID, similar thing happened where people

6:37

were uploading their Fitbit data

6:40

because that's just what they did. And some researchers

6:42

said, here's an opportunity and we'll

6:44

get that Fitbit data and if

6:46

we know that you had COVID, we're going to track how long

6:48

did it take you to get back to your exercise routine,

6:51

your step count per day, your sleep qualities

6:53

and so on. And that was really interesting data,

6:55

just mined that way. I saw the same thing

6:57

happened in using Strava data

7:00

and the New York marathon and shoe type. Remember

7:02

when the... Well, it's still going on. The debates

7:05

about the shoes, they worked out some researchers

7:07

based on

7:08

hundreds of thousands of participants in marathons

7:11

around the world that the shoes were worth X, Y percent.

7:13

I forget the numbers, I don't want to get

7:15

it wrong. But this opportunity exists and

7:17

it's really interesting because I think

7:20

if I was now able to

7:22

go, well,

7:24

if going back in time would be worthless. But

7:26

if I met a 20 year old self today who

7:29

was weighing up what to study, I would

7:31

not go into sports science without learning

7:33

something about big data management

7:36

and IT because... Because a lot of your job

7:38

involves that at World Rugby, doesn't it? Yeah. And

7:41

I'm massively underpowered when it comes to some

7:43

of the data. That's why in fact, in World Rugby now, we're

7:45

working with big data management companies

7:47

to create data lakes that we can

7:50

set up and then mine in future and try and relate

7:53

math code data to

7:54

injury data, to playing time data and so on.

7:56

Because you've got... Like the name of the game now

7:58

is how effectively you can use...

8:01

collect and then analyze

8:03

and find meaning in massive, massive

8:05

datasets. Artificial intelligence

8:07

is taking over a lot of the analysis

8:09

that gets done. So I would not

8:11

want to be a young sports scientist now going

8:14

into the field and only learning about

8:17

physical onsite stuff.

8:19

You have to have the

8:22

capabilities to work with big datasets now.

8:24

So computer science, IT

8:26

data science is I think essential.

8:30

In fact,

8:32

if I had to prioritize it, I'd learn that before physiology.

8:34

Yeah. That's the point it's getting to, I think. It's

8:37

changed a lot since the last few years, isn't it? Oh

8:39

yeah, I feel honestly like a dinosaur sometimes.

8:41

I have to ask data scientists to

8:43

like help with how do you extract

8:45

and set up this and that. It's different.

8:48

Yeah, so that's really interesting. And that's an example.

8:51

If you look this up, by the way, in fact, we'll

8:53

share the link in the show notes and

8:55

you can find this article. Cause maybe you're on Zwift and

8:57

you fancy being part of the study and then maybe

8:59

they're still looking. So that's the first one.

9:02

Then Gareth's second goal in

9:04

his hat trick is something that he shared earlier

9:06

this week. An article from the

9:08

BBC, effectively it's

9:10

the women's Six Nations at the moment. And

9:13

the England coach, Simon Middleton has suggested

9:15

rule change for goal kicking. That's

9:18

based on the observation that so far

9:21

in this tournament, 46% of

9:23

trials have been converted. Whereas in

9:25

the men's tournament at the equivalent time

9:27

point, it was 68%. And that's

9:29

pretty well known. Women's penalty and

9:32

conversion success rates are way

9:34

lower than men's. And a big part

9:36

of that is that to kick accurately,

9:38

you actually need quite a high

9:41

power capacity, strength capacity in your

9:43

leg. Because

9:44

so women's are obviously the same ball as men's

9:46

game. At the moment, the same ball. And

9:48

so what's happening is the relative

9:51

strength difference between the sexes manifest

9:54

in many ways, but one of them in another way. So

9:56

that's why this is quite handy because it's yet another

9:58

example of the difference.

9:59

between male and female and a performance

10:02

outcome is if I'm trying to kick

10:04

a 30 meter kick on the angle

10:07

and my maximum range is 32 meters,

10:10

I'm kicking as hard as I can.

10:12

A men's kicker is kicking at 70%. And

10:14

so of course, his accuracy is slightly

10:17

better. Well, quite a lot better actually. So

10:20

what Middleton has suggested is that if you score

10:22

a try near the corner, they should move

10:24

the conversion in. You know, for

10:26

those in America, it's not like American football where touchdown

10:29

is converted from in front of the post. In

10:31

rugby, you kick it from in line with where

10:33

it was scored. And so he suggested that

10:35

if you score within five meters of the touch line,

10:38

the kicker should have the option to take the kick 10 meters

10:41

inside to try and make it a

10:42

little more,

10:44

a little less complicated and difficult

10:46

to kick it. Yeah. I would suggest that there's

10:48

another solution that should explore and that's

10:50

to change the size of the ball. Excuse

10:53

me. Because at the moment, the ball

10:56

that women use by virtue of the size

10:58

and strength difference is disproportionately large

11:00

and heavy relative to their strength capabilities.

11:03

And that wouldn't affect- So even passing is affected because

11:06

a lot of men's players are literally taking it with one

11:08

hand able to throw it. Exactly. So I'm

11:10

going into a tackle, my ability to hold the ball

11:12

securely with one

11:14

hand and get an offload with a free arm is

11:16

severely compromised in women because they can't

11:18

get the fingers around the ball. The hand size is different.

11:21

So yes, in fact, that's probably

11:23

the metric of interest is what is the circumference

11:25

of the ball relative to typical hand diameter,

11:28

if you wish. Tiptorist, right? It's

11:31

way larger for women than it is for men. And

11:34

so men can do things with the ball. The

11:36

passing speed, for instance, would be

11:38

affected by it. The passing accuracy might

11:40

be affected. And then of course kicks. And

11:42

that's true of kicks from the

11:44

ground and kicks from hand. You'd get

11:46

longer hang time if you could kick a smaller,

11:48

I think smaller ball accuracy

11:50

may go up. So we- One of the

11:52

questions I have around that is that, why

11:55

does it matter that

11:57

women's sports and the women's rugby

11:59

is different? from the men's game because you're not

12:01

trying to have a men's versus a women's game.

12:03

It's not a competition. Exactly. Therefore, the women's game

12:06

has slightly different stats, a slightly different

12:08

gameplay. Therefore,

12:11

why not just keep it like that? Why does it have to have the same

12:14

conversion rate as the men's game? That's just the

12:16

way it is. I suppose you could argue it that way. You could also

12:18

argue that

12:21

you want the product to be as

12:23

attractive as possible. Okay, kicking

12:25

maybe

12:26

undermines that.

12:28

But certainly the ability to pass in contact,

12:30

all floods, fewer knock-ons, faster passing.

12:33

If you could faster passing means the ball moves faster

12:35

than the players, you'll find more space as a consequence.

12:37

So there are game aesthetic

12:40

and appeal,

12:41

commercialization reasons, where

12:43

you might want the two games to look

12:46

as similar as possible. When

12:48

we, and we've actually tried to have this conversation

12:51

with women around, reducing the ball size

12:53

by half, size five to

12:55

four and a half,

12:57

many of them rejected saying, no, we

12:59

want to play the same game as the men with

13:01

the same equipment. The consequence of

13:03

that is that the game doesn't look the same. We

13:06

did a podcast a while back

13:08

where we discussed a paper out of Norway

13:11

on football, soccer for Americans,

13:14

where they were arguing that if

13:16

the size of the ball used by men was relatively

13:19

the same as for women, it would be a basketball

13:21

in men's football. It would be heavier,

13:24

slower, it would have major implications

13:26

on the game. The goalkeepers would make

13:28

far more errors. And so there

13:30

isn't, I think there's an argument to say that actually

13:33

you create equality

13:35

by giving them different equipment. So

13:37

that happens all the time in track and field. The discus

13:40

does not weigh the same because if it did, the

13:42

woman would throw at 50 meters, not 70, probably

13:46

even less. The shot put event would be vastly

13:48

different if the men used 4.2 or 4

13:51

kilogram weight or the woman had to use the men 7.3, I think

13:54

it is. So there

13:56

are other sports where this happens. I would like to see

13:58

a trial that at the very least in...

13:59

in women's rugby to see if it changes the

14:02

way the game is played. But you're right, maybe you can-

14:04

It's tricky because then you have to basically build

14:06

another ball. The size

14:08

four and a half exists. Does it? Yeah, it exists.

14:11

In fact, before COVID, we'd

14:14

explored opportunities to trial it and we

14:16

had a whole bunch of these things sent us from Gilbert

14:18

and they're sitting there waiting, orphaned,

14:20

waiting to be used. So this

14:22

trial could be done. Makes sense. You can also get

14:24

it down to the Juniors game as well. That's

14:27

why they exist in smaller sizes.

14:29

Kids play

14:29

with a four. So anyway, I

14:32

saw Middleton saying this. Well, Gareth

14:34

saw Middleton saying this and shared it with me. And

14:36

I just think,

14:37

A, it's another cool

14:39

illustration of how sex difference

14:41

is manifest in performance. And it

14:44

does, I think, offer opportunities to make

14:47

logical changes that will benefit

14:49

the game. But I hear what you're saying

14:51

and I hear what they were saying. They want the same ball,

14:53

but then they must understand the game looks different or

14:56

you have to accept that the game will look different.

14:59

But I do think, and Gareth

15:01

made the point in the same message,

15:03

is that the Women's game is growing really

15:05

rapidly because it's actually a lot of fun to watch.

15:07

The skill level, I think

15:10

a lot of men say, Oh, I've watched the

15:12

Six Nations.

15:13

I don't care. No, I'm not going to watch the Women. It's

15:15

a substandard product. And

15:18

I would hope they, like Gareth said, some

15:20

of his mates have given it a chance. And they actually

15:22

say, this is actually a lot more entertaining

15:25

sometimes than the men's game because it is

15:27

still evolving and growing. So I think it's

15:29

quite an exciting space, but I

15:31

can see that you could actually accelerate that even

15:34

more by giving them equipment that

15:36

that overcome some of the challenges that they

15:38

have because of the sex differences. Is there any difference

15:40

in soccer in terms of the ball size? I honestly

15:43

don't, I

15:43

think not at the elite level, because otherwise

15:46

that article from Norway wouldn't exist. Yeah.

15:48

And then that the whole, the premise of that article

15:50

is that you've got to make a smaller field and

15:52

a smaller ball because of the

15:55

sex defenses, which currently aren't accounted

15:57

for or catered for. So I suspect

15:59

not.

15:59

Basketball, I think it's smaller. And

16:02

then as we've discussed in

16:06

track and field differences. And then tennis,

16:09

tennis. Remember there was a controversy we spoke

16:11

about last year where the woman played with a different ball

16:13

to the men at one of the tournaments. Yes, I vaguely remember

16:15

that. And so that does sometimes happen. I don't

16:17

think it happens, for instance, at the upcoming Grand

16:19

Slams, French and Haldan. So it

16:22

seems a little bit arbitrary as to when sports

16:25

governance decides to make changes or not.

16:27

But I think there's a logical, rational reason why

16:31

you would. And so for me, instead of tinkering with the law

16:33

and moving the kick in and so forth, I

16:35

would rather explore

16:36

a

16:37

change that has other potential benefits

16:39

and just use that. Yeah, interesting

16:41

one. Anyway, then Gareth's third and

16:43

final goal in his hat trick. And again,

16:45

thanks so much. I've really enjoyed reading these pieces.

16:48

And this is another one that I will no

16:51

doubt have more to report on, is

16:53

that the NFL has just approved a helmet designed

16:55

to reduce concussion in quarterbacks specifically.

16:59

And so,

16:59

and just by

17:02

way of context, we, when

17:04

I say we world drag, we meet the NFL annually.

17:07

Because as contact sports, we share many of the same

17:09

problems, legal, player welfare, and so forth. And

17:12

in fact, in one month's time, I will be in

17:14

New York for a meeting with them. And

17:16

I'm certainly gonna bring this one up. Excuse

17:20

me.

17:21

The NFL have invested

17:23

heavily in helmets as their primary

17:26

method of reducing concussion risk in the game. They've

17:28

changed certain laws as well, based

17:30

on where they knew concussion was most likely to happen.

17:33

But helmets has been massively central

17:36

to their concussion reduction campaign.

17:38

And this is the latest initiative. And what Gareth was

17:40

saying is, why only one position?

17:43

And is there any scope for such a

17:45

technology in rugby to reduce

17:47

its concussion burden? Yeah. So

17:50

why such a position? I think in this particular instance,

17:52

and again, I'm gonna ask them, you're gonna hear this

17:54

from the horse's mouth. Well, but

17:56

for me, as reporting...

18:00

on the horse's mouth. As I'll translate

18:02

the horse in a month or so. The

18:06

quarterbacks have got a risk of concussion that's a little

18:08

bit different because oftentimes they get tackled and as

18:10

they fall backwards, they hit their head on the ground. And

18:13

the article that Gareth linked us to says

18:15

that about half of all quarterback concussions

18:17

happen that way. So what they've done is

18:20

they've probably reinforced the padding around

18:22

the back of the head to try and reduce that specific

18:25

risk. That's why it's position specific. Because the controversy

18:27

there is that the brain bounces

18:29

around on the skull with you wearing helmets or not.

18:32

Correct. So there's issues

18:34

there, isn't there? And that's relevant to Gareth's next

18:36

question, which was why does this

18:38

not look,

18:39

why is rugby not explored this? Is the evidence

18:42

around scrum caps? And there is

18:44

some, these are very difficult

18:46

studies to do. You think it's simple,

18:48

just look how many concussions happen in

18:50

players wearing helmets or scrum caps and

18:52

how many don't and there you go. But

18:55

you don't know. Is there a difference? Well, no. So

18:58

far the risk per thousand tackles

19:00

or per thousand hours of playing rugby is

19:03

unaffected by whether you wear a scrum cap

19:05

or not. The best and the biggest study to date

19:08

in rugby came

19:09

out 2021 by a guy called Keith Stokes. I'll

19:11

put that in the show notes. And it found no

19:14

evidence that the risk was down. There's

19:16

all kinds of things going on there. So for instance,

19:18

it might be that the players wearing scrum

19:20

caps are the players in positions more likely

19:23

to be concussed. So it might be that

19:25

your scrum cap actually is a flag

19:27

for risk in the first place. And then even

19:29

if it works, it doesn't look like it works because the risk's

19:32

the same. Well, because you essentially, because you

19:34

were wearing a scrum cap, you would go into

19:36

a contact situation with a little bit more

19:38

bravado than you would do

19:39

if you did. That's the second part. So the first

19:41

part is

19:42

if I'm playing in a flank or hooker position,

19:45

and that's most of the guys wearing scrum caps are playing

19:47

in those positions. That's the position is gonna

19:49

make the most tackles, the most carries and stick their

19:51

head in the most drug. So their exposure to risk

19:53

events is probably higher. So

19:56

I can't simply compare scrum cap to no

19:58

scrum cap without adjusting.

19:59

for exposure to risk. That makes

20:02

sense. Then the second thing which you've picked

20:04

up on is it's called the superman effect in

20:06

late terms or risk compensation

20:09

in the academic world. Where once

20:11

you've got something that might reduce your risk,

20:13

you take risks that you wouldn't otherwise have taken.

20:16

Classic example is people who wear sunscreen

20:18

are more likely to get sunburned. Because

20:21

they think, especially if you get the wrong sunscreen

20:23

and you go in there with a factor 20 and

20:25

you say, I'm protected and I spent five

20:27

hours on the sun instead of one. I'm actually

20:30

worse off. Now the same with

20:32

scrum caps, as you've just pointed out, I

20:34

might not take risks putting my head

20:37

in places and going faster

20:39

into contact than I would have done because of a false

20:42

sense of security that ends up canceling

20:44

out any possible benefit that I would have gotten

20:46

from it. So that's possibility number two.

20:49

And nobody knows that. So you'd have to

20:51

track over many years a player

20:53

and somehow assess his risk taking,

20:55

his risk inclination, and then

20:58

try and assess whether it's very difficult

20:59

to do. I suppose the only way you'd notice that

21:01

is if actually the incidences of

21:03

concussion actually increased with

21:06

things like scrum caps. And there is some evidence

21:08

that it does. The guy presented in Amsterdam

21:10

at last year's concussion conference, it was one of

21:12

the oral presentations, an Irish

21:14

researcher who's now based out of Canada. And

21:17

he was saying that there's a suggestion that it might go

21:19

up. And

21:22

I've seen some data- Which would then support that theory

21:24

that there is this provider element. Or

21:26

that the guys wearing scrum caps are wearing them because

21:29

they had previous concussions. So I had

21:31

a concussion six months ago, two months

21:33

ago, now I put a scrum cap on, and we

21:35

know that one concussion likely increases

21:37

the risk of another one.

21:39

And so maybe you're

21:40

wearing the scrum cap because you had a greater

21:42

risk of concussion. And so you pick up that.

21:45

See, it's a simple question, complicated

21:47

answer. So yeah,

21:49

I've seen other studies where cyclists with helmets

21:52

are far less likely to have accidents. Yes.

21:55

Because have you heard that theory? There

21:57

are some people who believe that wearing a helmet is actually

21:59

a negative.

21:59

rather than a positive in cycling. Based

22:03

on my experience this morning in the traffic, I would not

22:06

get on a bike in some roads without

22:08

a helmet on because even if I'm doing the safest

22:10

thing in the world, every car is not. So

22:13

I wouldn't say my risk of a head injury

22:16

is all on me. No. That's the

22:18

problem. And so a helmet

22:20

can't prevent a concussion. So

22:23

I suppose now the next question is, why does a Scrum Cap

22:25

and Rugby, those soft shell ones, not work? And

22:27

as you pointed out, the mechanism of concussion,

22:29

it's almost like an internal injury caused

22:32

by the movement of the brain inside the skull. So

22:35

as the head accelerates either rotational

22:37

or linear, the brain moves inside

22:40

and it hits the inside. It's like best

22:42

example I can think of is a

22:44

filler glass of water

22:45

halfway, put a table tennis ball, ping

22:47

pong ball in there and then shake the glass around.

22:50

The glass, the ping pong ball is being damaged

22:52

by hitting the inside of the glass. The

22:55

injury is not coming from outside. Does it make sense?

22:57

Yeah. Quite how the

22:59

NFL have managed to get helmets that reduce

23:02

concussion risk. And they really do believe this

23:04

because they've now got a

23:06

list of approved helmets that they've graded

23:08

as A plus A, B, C,

23:11

D. I don't know.

23:14

Maybe you can have a soft

23:15

shell around the head and

23:17

then a helmet and the combination

23:19

almost creates like a torque

23:23

dampening system that reduces the

23:25

acceleration of the brain because

23:27

it transfers the energy in the

23:29

helmet. Whereas a soft scrum

23:31

cap can't do that because it's literally

23:34

one layer. So maybe

23:36

future technology and scrum caps will unlock

23:38

a way for them to work, but at the moment it doesn't.

23:40

Whereas it does seem to work in the NFL. And I

23:43

literally off to go sent this, sent

23:45

an email to our chief medical officer saying,

23:47

when we meet them, please can we put this on the agenda?

23:50

Cause I wanna understand a bit better like why

23:52

they

23:53

get it right and soft scrum don't.

23:55

Yeah. Yeah. So very

23:58

interesting. I suppose the question from the,

23:59

then it kind of crops up and I don't know whether it's even possible

24:02

to answer this. But there's always

24:04

a comparison between the injury

24:06

risk in rugby versus American

24:08

football. But they are very different games

24:11

in the fact that in American football they are

24:13

hitting you hard and the

24:16

laws around hitting a player and tackling

24:18

a player are a little bit, you know, you can do

24:20

more of that than you can in rugby. There's more laws revolving

24:22

around it. What is a great tackle in

24:24

American football is a collision in rugby and

24:27

would probably be red card at a lot of the time.

24:29

And in fact,

24:29

the evolution of the

24:32

two laws was in part enabled

24:34

by helmets because you couldn't make

24:36

some of the tackles they make without a helmet because

24:39

you'd actually like your skull would be in danger.

24:41

And they've banned things like leading with a helmet

24:44

now. You get like the worst penalty you can

24:46

concede and potential what they call

24:48

ejection from the game, red card, you know.

24:52

Yeah, so you're not allowed in our strike with

24:54

the top of the helmet, the crown of the helmet, they call

24:56

it. But if they played without

24:58

helmets, the whole, the way they tackle would have

25:00

to change quite significantly. So

25:02

there's an argument to be made that for them to reduce

25:05

the risk would be no helmets. But like

25:07

I said, football is not a soft version of rugby.

25:09

Let's put it that way. There's always that the relief

25:12

aficionados will say, oh, it's rugby. It's

25:14

just some of that. It's just a harder version of American

25:16

football. It's not at all. Some of the collisions in American

25:19

football are two players like without any

25:21

restraint. The thing about rugby is

25:23

you have to mind the biggest hits in American

25:25

football. You get likes get spun like it's

25:27

like a cartoon picture of a guy getting

25:30

literally spun in sixty degrees.

25:32

That's the entertainment value, isn't it? That's what they love. So

25:35

I

25:35

think in rugby, you know, the

25:38

necessity of having to bind in the tackle

25:40

or the rack causes some degree

25:42

of moderation control

25:45

to be introduced that doesn't always exist in that

25:48

sport. So it is it's incredibly brutal.

25:50

Yeah, very interesting. Both are both

25:52

have in fact, when you

25:54

when you compare the concussion rates using the same

25:56

metrics, they're pretty similar. And

26:00

so both that's why we meet that's why we have so

26:02

much in common. So yeah, I'm going

26:05

as I say We've got a meeting with them in New York. You

26:07

can put back on that actually because there's been good stuff

26:09

coming out of there Oh, definitely will be really interesting.

26:12

Yeah, and then the last one

26:13

comes to us via Troy Squires Aha

26:16

who I should actually introduce to you

26:18

You may have noticed those of you follow us

26:20

on the socials IG and the Twitter

26:23

We've upped our Instagram and Twitter game

26:26

in the last month or two and that's not us. We've

26:28

raised the bar He's raised the bar for

26:30

us. So you can find him at Troy Malloy.

26:33

That's his Instagram handle Troy Malloy. He's

26:35

a mate He's a keen cyclist Triathlete

26:38

long distance runner does some crazy things

26:40

on bikes and mountains and

26:42

he's into marketing

26:43

and so he's taken on the Social

26:46

media side for us and I think it's even changed

26:48

our logo a little bit change that is Given

26:51

us design skills. We wouldn't otherwise have

26:53

maybe you would if I'd I certainly don't I'm not

26:55

gonna pretend to be anything He does what

26:57

we don't necessarily have time for sir and

26:59

in my skills for So

27:02

yeah, that's that's Troy at Troy Malloy.

27:04

So if you're looking for someone to do a little bit

27:06

of social support He's got a extensive

27:08

marketing background. He's in marketing now He's

27:10

done and he knows sport really

27:12

well, so give him

27:13

a shot. Anyway, aside from

27:15

doing marketing He sent me a link yesterday

27:18

saying the Boston Marathon, which is

27:20

on Monday. I'm not sure when you'll be listening to this Either

27:23

is going to or will have awarded its first

27:26

ever title to a non-binary runner Mm-hmm,

27:29

and when I saw it I thought of you because I know Did

27:31

you loved you loved it when New York did

27:33

the same thing? Yes, and this

27:35

is so $5,000 the New York winner

27:38

wasn't it? Yeah, sarcastic font in full

27:40

force your facts If you're not aware the

27:42

the nation anyway, you tell me

27:44

what you think about. Yeah, I mean it's one of

27:46

those Subjects and I was trying

27:48

to find out and need some of the stories that we read

27:51

around the New York marathon We're I remember

27:53

reading

27:53

something about the fact that the first one it was

27:55

then Rounded down to the next winner

27:57

as people then identified themselves as

28:00

non-binary and of course this $5,000

28:03

prize money was significant because

28:05

as you would expect and as let's run.com

28:08

quoted, guess what biological

28:10

sex the winner was, of course it's male. Exactly.

28:13

So again, it raises that subject around

28:17

why? I don't get it. I

28:19

understand workness and all that stuff

28:21

and being politically correct, but I don't understand

28:24

why there is a different division because we know

28:26

who's going to win it. I think you'll find the elf say you

28:28

don't. Oh yes. But I

28:30

totally get what you say. It's how you identify. I'll

28:33

put it this way. If everyone in the race identified

28:35

as non-binary when they entered, 100% chance that prize is

28:40

won by a male. Yeah, of course. If half

28:42

the race identified, then it's a 99%

28:45

chance depending which half identify. I think 27

28:46

have identified as non-binary

28:49

for Boston. So for Boston, a couple of things that I

28:51

gather won't happen is I assume

28:53

that they'll say that unless you've already

28:55

registered, you can't now after the fact claim

28:58

to be non-binary.

29:00

Whereas in New York, it felt like they were

29:02

entertaining applications

29:04

or changes in class after the fact.

29:07

I wish I could find that story that I read about it, but I can't.

29:09

Or disqualifying people who'd entered, but clearly

29:11

won't. But how do you know that? That's

29:14

the whole weird circular

29:17

argument that they've created is you can't challenge

29:19

identity. So if someone comes and says, I am,

29:21

then they are, right? How do you... It's

29:23

the same as the power lifter. That's

29:26

why it's so absurd. Well, I'll be honest with you. I've got

29:28

to go to the press conference for the two actions marathon

29:31

today. And I'm very tempted to ask the

29:33

question of the organizers,

29:34

where they're going to have a non-binary section

29:36

as New York marathon. And Boston marathon

29:38

done. Just to cause a little

29:40

bit of an interest in the very dull press

29:42

conferences that they have. But then

29:44

you're going to be the catalyst for it next year. And

29:47

then when that catches my eye next year, I'm

29:49

going to say that you're the root of this particular...

29:52

I'll tell you what I'm going to do. If I do answer this

29:54

at the press conference, I'm going to record it just because

29:56

I wanted to see what they say. You

29:59

can pretend you're...

29:59

from an appear or something. Exactly. That's

30:02

an inside joke folks. So

30:05

why is it a problem? It's a problem because

30:08

equality in sport has been a real challenge

30:11

for female participants. Like even now,

30:14

there are many, many sports, cycling for instance, with

30:16

the prize money for men, dwarfs women.

30:18

Remember when the first Paris-Roubaix for

30:20

women was held and like they were making

30:22

for riding their race like

30:25

a tiny, tiny proportion of what men

30:27

were making. And I'm sure that that still exists in many races.

30:30

In tennis, it's only relatively recently

30:32

that the grand slams have offered equal prize

30:35

money. In women's soccer, it was big

30:37

news recently when women from the US

30:40

were finally given the

30:42

same salaries as

30:44

men were, the same contract values. So

30:48

this is not even a historical argument that women

30:50

are fighting for equality. What these non-binary

30:52

categories do, and okay, for the

30:54

sake of disclosure, Boston won't have prize

30:56

money for this non-binary. So in that

30:59

regard, it's a little different from New York. So it's really

31:01

just the prestige. But they do award first, second and third

31:03

in each category.

31:04

Yeah. And so there's a medal and

31:07

there's a prize for it effectively, not money.

31:09

But the point is that women fight for

31:11

equality in prizes. And then here is a category

31:14

that is guaranteed to diminish equality

31:16

between males and females. That's why it's a problem. It doesn't

31:18

necessarily take away from the women's category there,

31:21

does it? No, it doesn't take away from the women's category.

31:23

It's not allowing a transgender athlete to participate

31:25

in the women's category. Yeah. I mean,

31:27

I don't know, they probably would. I don't know

31:29

what Boston's policy on that would be. I suppose

31:31

now that World Athletics has made a call on

31:33

it, they have to comply

31:34

with that because they would need to be- They'd

31:37

be under that auspices, yeah. So at least there's that. But

31:39

that's why it's a problem. It's just a reflection

31:42

of a social push that actually undermines

31:45

everything that women have had to fight for in

31:47

terms of equality. Because there is

31:49

no doubt that it would be incredibly

31:51

unusual. It would require one

31:54

of the best females in the world to declare

31:56

non-binary and none of the top 20% males.

31:59

That's what it would take. You'd have

32:02

to be a top 1 to 2%

32:04

female entering that category and

32:06

hope that no one in the top 15% of males did it. I

32:09

think the one of the New York Marathon binary section

32:11

was just over 3 hours, 3 hours 5

32:14

or something like that. But faster.

32:16

But again, the point is... It wasn't high end, but

32:18

it was quick. And

32:21

there would have been hundreds if not thousands

32:23

of women faster than that.

32:25

As worthy, except for the fact that they

32:27

don't identify. And again, the point

32:29

is what does identity have to do with sport? By

32:32

all means, live your life the way you wish to. But

32:34

in a sporting context, I just... Anyway, so

32:37

that's why it's not as overt

32:39

an

32:41

encroachment into women's spaces

32:44

as trans women would be. But

32:46

I do think that it's something, you know, and it's

32:48

just a reminder of some of the

32:50

issues. And on that note, actually, in

32:53

the last week, there's a trans woman

32:55

by the name of Dylan Mulvaney. I don't know whether

32:57

you've seen this.

32:59

And Dylan Mulvaney is now endorsed by

33:01

a couple of big companies. I think BUD or

33:03

KUES, I think it's BUD and Nike to

33:06

advertise women's sports prize as

33:08

trans women. And there's a video

33:10

that's been doing their own. And I'm not even going to link to it because

33:12

I find it like incredibly distasteful

33:15

of this Dylan Mulvaney doing what I think

33:17

is supposed to pass as women's exercise. Like

33:20

prancing about doing... And what

33:23

I can only charitably describe

33:25

is if you asked an immature

33:27

15-year-old

33:28

boy to mock girls

33:30

doing exercise, that's what it would look like. It

33:32

honestly is deeply offensive. And

33:35

Dylan Mulvaney is now a Nike ambassador for doing

33:37

that stuff. It's actually like... And it

33:40

wouldn't even register. I wouldn't care about this person

33:42

if it wasn't for Nike throwing a sponsorship

33:44

at them. Now it's a sports issue and I care. But

33:47

that's the kind of thing we've gotten to. It's like where

33:50

these...

33:51

Like this is... To me it's misogyny.

33:54

The first ever

33:56

post that Dylan Mulvaney made on what's

33:58

called day one of being a girl.

33:59

Right? Is, I've already

34:02

cried three times, written a scathing email

34:04

I didn't send, ordered dresses online that I couldn't

34:06

afford. And when someone asked me how I was, I said, I'm fine,

34:09

but I wasn't fine. How did I do ladies? How

34:13

can anyone not find that deeply offensive?

34:15

It's incredibly... And I mean, we all do

34:17

it. We've done it on this podcast where something

34:20

slips out and you realize you're just

34:22

drifting into casual sexism. You know,

34:24

it's like, it's hard to resist because it's societal.

34:27

But this is,

34:28

Nike is rubber stamping that. And it's actually

34:31

awful. It's awful, awful, awful.

34:33

Just for the record, Jacob Caswell did

34:37

win the non-brony section of New York in 245. So

34:40

that was much quicker than I thought. Yeah, I thought

34:42

it was a little bit quicker. Yeah, I think the initial one was 310, but

34:44

yeah, 245 was quick. But remember we

34:46

spoke about our athlete who was, I think just

34:49

outside the top 10. And I assume

34:51

that's not in prize money,

34:53

running 226 or something. So

34:57

there you go. Like here's 5,000 for being genuinely

35:00

mediocre relative to the best

35:02

females in the world. And that's the problem. Like it's

35:05

just, it doesn't sit well

35:07

with me. But anyway, that's not a fun topic,

35:09

particularly the social,

35:12

anyway, the small vein thing, I think is like

35:14

genuinely distasteful. Yeah. Find

35:17

that video and you tell me if you think it's

35:19

something anyone should approve of.

35:21

It's a good discussion point, but it also

35:24

something that I, yeah, maybe we

35:26

talk about it too much sometimes, I think. Yeah, perhaps,

35:28

perhaps. But again, I mean, you remember

35:30

a couple weeks ago. I think we both feel very strongly about it. Maybe

35:32

that's what it is. Yeah, let's try not

35:34

to. Yeah, the science. We know the status

35:36

now. We know the science. We know the status. Like maybe

35:39

we park it and we get onto it. Like actually we

35:41

can talk about actual women's sports performances

35:43

instead of this nonsense. Exactly. Yeah,

35:46

that would

35:47

be great. Right, so let's get on

35:49

to our subject of the day.

35:52

From the gas pump to the grocery

35:55

store. Inflation is everywhere.

35:58

Seriously, make it stop. Thankfully,

36:00

there's one company out there that's giving you a

36:03

much-needed break. It's Mint

36:05

Mobile, as the first company to sell

36:07

premium wireless service online only. Mint

36:10

Mobile lets you order from home and save a ton,

36:12

with phone plans starting at just $15 a

36:15

month. All plans come with unlimited

36:17

talking texts plus high-speed data

36:19

delivered on the nation's largest 5G network.

36:21

To get your new wireless plan for just $15

36:24

a month and get the plan shipped to your door for

36:26

free,

36:27

go to mintmobile.com slash switch. That's

36:30

mintmobile.com slash switch.

36:36

So last week we discussed some of

36:38

the basics around fatigue, and particularly

36:40

around sport fatigue. Obviously that's our area

36:42

of focus and we focused on the physiology

36:44

of it. So if you need to get a bit of a deep dive into that

36:47

aspect of it, we'll touch on some of the things

36:49

we touched on last week, but this week we're going to get into

36:51

something a little bit more detailed and that's the

36:53

concept of fatigue resistance. So I

36:56

read a lot about fatigue resistance because

36:58

it's kind of doing the rounds. And the reason

37:00

why it's doing the rounds is because of people like Tade

37:02

Pagacha, who people are claiming

37:04

has more fatigue resistance

37:06

than most. That's why he is performing and

37:08

putting things like Flanders. And

37:11

there is stories about how the Kenyans have this

37:13

fatigue resistance that nobody else has. And

37:16

I guess my first question Ross is,

37:18

is fatigue resistance a new

37:22

discovery or is it just a

37:24

new term for an old theory?

37:27

The latter. And it's in fact,

37:29

even like an option C would be there's a new

37:31

term that's been given to fatigue resistance.

37:35

I think largely driven by like some exciting data

37:37

we spoke earlier about the emergence of big

37:39

data sets and one of them comes from cycling. So

37:41

in the last two years since 2021 ish,

37:45

I've seen a number of papers that call

37:47

talk about a concept called durability, which

37:50

when you talk about fatigue resistance, I think is

37:53

one manifestation of durability, this physiological

37:55

durability, and then this performance durability. And

37:58

that's where the performance.

37:59

fatigue resistance manifests

38:01

as a performance outcome. So

38:04

it's certainly not a

38:06

new concept and I think it's actually

38:08

quite an intuitive and obvious one but

38:11

I think what's happened is that power meters in cycling

38:13

in particular have allowed people

38:15

to gather data such enormously

38:18

in-depth broad datasets

38:21

that have allowed us to quantify in

38:23

a way that was never possible before exactly what

38:26

fatigue does to performance and that's where durability

38:28

then gains traction. And so durability

38:31

becomes the name of the game. Since 2021, a paper comes out in

38:35

a journal called Sports

38:36

Medicine and in this

38:38

paper there's a guy called Ed Maunders

38:40

who's the main author on it. Again, we'll share the link

38:42

with you, Maunders, sorry, not Maunders. And

38:45

they introduced this concept of durability

38:48

in which they say durability is defined as

38:50

the time of onset and

38:52

magnitude of deterioration

38:54

in physiological profiling characteristics

38:57

over time. So, okay, lots

38:59

of syllables.

39:02

So it's the time of onsets and it's how

39:04

long does it take and the magnitude

39:06

of deterioration, how much does it drop, what's

39:09

it, is changes in what you

39:11

can profile physiologically. So it could be heart rate,

39:13

could be energy expenditure, it could be ventilation,

39:17

or in the case of the durability in cycling

39:19

debate, it's actually power output, performance

39:21

capabilities, right? Now, if

39:24

you watched the Olympics

39:25

when Mark Spitz was swimming, guarantee

39:28

you you would have heard- Yeah, it's like 70s. You would

39:30

have heard concepts around this. If you

39:32

watch any marathon from the last 20 years and

39:34

there's two athletes coming to the finish line and

39:38

one of them used to be a really good track runner and

39:40

one of them didn't have track pedigree, you will hear commentators

39:42

say something like,

39:44

Kip Chogy, okay, let's talk Boston, Helena

39:47

Berry's running. So let's say Helena Berry's in, she's

39:49

a great track runner. She had, I think, sub

39:52

four minute 1500, one of the fastest ever,

39:54

unbelievable track, 5,000, 10,000 speed. Helena

39:58

Berry is speed. Let's say the world-

39:59

with her at that moment, where it maybe

40:02

doesn't have that track background. And

40:05

I bet maybe you've even said this in commentary yourself

40:07

is that the track run is they're just sitting,

40:10

waiting to unleash a kick. And now

40:12

she's the favorite because she's got the speed

40:14

over the final 800

40:15

meters. I always think of Alana Mayer and Gerata

40:17

Tulu in the 92 Olympics. Where

40:20

Gerata Tulu was the

40:22

one with the finishing kick and Alana Mayer was the

40:24

one who was the first and

40:26

just trying to basically hurt

40:29

her legs and she couldn't go to the top. Correct.

40:31

So even before you knew about theories of durability

40:33

and fatigue resistance, you knew that one of those

40:35

athletes had to do something to try

40:38

and blunt the other one.

40:39

Nice. You just know it. You

40:42

watch a swimming event, woman's 400 meter freestyle.

40:44

One of them's coming down from 800. One of them's coming

40:47

up from 200. The 800 swimmer

40:49

has an obligation to make it hard so

40:51

that the 200 swimmer can't access that

40:54

specialty at the finish, right? Makes

40:56

sense. Al Garouge, when he was running on the

40:58

track, he was a 1500 meter world record holder, went

41:01

up to 5000. If you let

41:03

the pace drift in a 5000, he was 100% of

41:05

the time beating you because

41:07

in the last two laps, he was just

41:09

the best

41:09

ever at 1500 and you've effectively

41:12

teed him up. So everyone knew

41:14

that they had to go hard from six, seven laps

41:16

out. They often didn't. Easier said

41:18

than done. And the whole premise there

41:21

is that someone can have unbelievable speed

41:24

over one minute, 400 meters, five

41:27

minutes, two kilometers, whatever it is,

41:30

when they are fresh. But

41:32

how well they can access that when they are

41:34

fatigued is the concept of durability.

41:37

Okay. So that help with understanding

41:39

what it means. Yeah. I'll let you finish because

41:41

I've got a couple of questions. Okay, so I'll finish in

41:43

two seconds. So when we talk about cycling,

41:46

for instance, because we'll give data from power output,

41:49

there are cyclists whose ability to produce

41:51

power for one minute is top 5%

41:53

in the world. They

41:55

are the sprinters

41:57

of the peloton. after

42:00

four hours of riding on a tough course,

42:02

they can only access 95% of

42:05

that capacity, which would allow

42:07

someone who's normally at 96% of them, but

42:10

who can access all of it to beat them in a sprint.

42:13

Make sense? Yes. So

42:15

the one sprint, the one cyclist has higher

42:17

durability because no matter how fatigued

42:20

they are, they are closer to their fresh baseline.

42:23

The other cyclist has worse durability because

42:25

they drop off more as they accumulate

42:27

fatigue over time. So there's a tactical

42:29

outcome that then would have to be

42:32

almost respected here. Like you've got to

42:34

expose. If you believe

42:37

that a rival has a lack of durability, you

42:39

know exactly how to expose it. So that's

42:41

what durability means. So do we know, and

42:44

again, this is an open-ended question,

42:47

that there are obviously athletes that don't have

42:49

a kick, and there are athletes that can maintain

42:52

a high speed. And sometimes

42:54

that,

42:55

do we know that athletes that have a relatively

42:57

high finishing kick don't necessarily

43:00

have the speed that somebody

43:02

who doesn't have a finishing kick goes from that? And

43:04

does that apply to endurance

43:06

sports in general? In other words,

43:08

does the long throw,

43:10

the long

43:12

dice, if

43:14

done well enough, always beat the

43:17

sprinter? Or does the sprinter always have a chance

43:19

of maintaining? No, the sprinter's always got a

43:21

chance, especially in the elites, because, okay, and

43:23

this is where we'll go with this, is that the very best cyclists

43:25

have unbelievably good durability. They

43:28

drop off very little, no

43:30

matter how much fatigue they accumulate. So if you look

43:32

at them fresh, and you look at them after,

43:34

say, 4,000 kilojoules worth of work,

43:36

which is a ton, we'll get to exactly

43:39

how you measure that in a moment, their

43:41

performance relative

43:42

to their own fresh

43:44

maximum is really, really good. For

43:46

example, and let's talk studies, in 2022,

43:48

a study came out, Matteo March,

43:51

who's one of the Spanish physiologists working with Spanish

43:53

cycling. So they get access to their Spanish

43:55

pro teams, found, for instance,

43:58

that a world to a cyclist

43:59

can maintain the same

44:02

one and five minute power outputs even

44:05

after 45 kilojoules per kilogrammes

44:07

worth of work. And that, to

44:09

get to that level, you're talking four

44:12

hours of pretty hard racing

44:14

and then a one minute sprint at the end, they

44:16

can access the same power then as

44:19

they do when they're at the start of the day. I

44:21

mean, it's remarkable. Is it not just different

44:23

muscles? Yeah,

44:26

well, not between the,

44:27

not between the pro cyclist who can do

44:29

that, whereas when you look at a pro tour

44:31

cyclist, remember that's sort of tier two, you get world

44:34

tours, now they're top of the pops. And then

44:36

your pro tour guys, the data from

44:38

Atemar shows that after

44:40

45 kilojoules per kilogramme, and again, park

44:42

that, I'll tell you how we work this out in a moment, they

44:45

drop by two and a half percent after

44:47

that in their one minute effort. Their five minute

44:50

effort drops by 1.3%. Their 60

44:52

minute effort is almost 3% lower after

44:55

accumulating significant fatigue. Whereas

44:57

the world tour guys only 1% lower. So

45:00

everyone's vulnerable to fatigue, but what

45:03

this data is coming out shows us is

45:05

that the very best of the best, the category

45:08

one guy, even, excuse

45:11

me,

45:11

long COVID, even within,

45:15

only half jerking, even within the

45:17

world tour, you get the guys who are your

45:19

category A, the top performing

45:21

guys, they drop off less than the guys

45:23

who are category B, if you wish, the ones

45:26

who earn fewer points on

45:28

the pro tour. So what it's saying is that the distinguishing

45:30

feature sometimes, and this is what's really interesting

45:33

is when you assess

45:34

world tour and pro tour, category A and

45:37

B, climbers or sprinters in

45:39

a fresh state, they don't look different. That's

45:42

what's really interesting. So the best guys,

45:44

Vinaigor, Pargacha,

45:46

Evanapu and Roglic, let's say they're the top

45:48

four at the moment, GC guys,

45:51

right? Grand tour guys. In

45:53

a fresh state, they don't look really all

45:55

that much different to what a lot of

45:58

second tier guys. Look.

45:59

the difference is after the fourth hour

46:02

of cycling, their ability to reproduce

46:04

the same as near max performances, over

46:07

one minute, five minutes, 20 minutes, that's what makes

46:09

the difference. Okay. So that's the key

46:11

thing. So some of it is muscle. So

46:13

why is, why is for Napoel and for

46:15

Art, the sprinter guys at the end of a cobbled

46:18

classic, and Pagaccia knows

46:20

he can't bring them to the finish? It's because they've

46:22

got fast-twitch muscle fibers and biochemistry

46:24

and neurological systems that allow

46:27

them to just generate more power over 30 seconds

46:29

than

46:29

he ever can. But he also

46:32

understands that if he makes it so hard

46:34

that he drags them to the finish, that's

46:36

where his best chances is because even

46:38

though his normal 30 second power might

46:40

be a hundred watts less, he can

46:42

make them pay 105 watts and he

46:45

only pays one and

46:46

then he beats them. Does that make sense? Yeah,

46:49

it makes sense. It's the same thing in the Boston

46:51

Marathon. Like if you know you've got a really

46:53

fast 10k athlete, you can't let the

46:55

pace drift because what you really have to do is

46:58

hurt that person. The problem is

47:00

you hurt yourself too. So

47:02

it's interesting. I did an interview with Anemic from

47:04

Flies and of course the Olympic champion and the world champion

47:07

and probably in fact at the moment, number one

47:09

ranked cyclist, woman cyclist in the world

47:11

at the moment. And one of the things I asked

47:14

is that she was very, you know, she's

47:16

famous for

47:16

doing a lot of mileage. I think she did 32,000 kilometers in

47:20

training in 2022. And

47:22

she said, well, that's true because

47:25

as she's got older, she's had to do more

47:27

training to stimulate the body to build

47:29

and react. And she said for her

47:32

that a hard race is better,

47:34

is easier for her to win. So the

47:36

more the endurance levels and a little bit of stage races

47:38

and hard single day races

47:41

are definitely suited better because she has what

47:43

she believes is the ability to be

47:46

able to have more fatigue resistance. Whereas

47:48

a more tactical race and single day

47:50

races that are not hard, she finds it harder

47:53

because she doesn't have that absolute sprint that the younger

47:55

athletes have. So she's a prime example of

47:57

somebody that is developed into a

47:59

rider.

47:59

where fatigue resistance is almost a skill

48:02

and actually part of her armory. Yeah. And that

48:05

might be based on the fact that she is 40 years

48:07

of age. And maybe she just got

48:09

so much shiny behind her. So

48:12

this is in terms of like quantifying

48:14

it once you've quantified it, because

48:16

as I say, the concept is fairly

48:18

intuitive and coaches and commentators

48:20

and athletes themselves would have understood, you know,

48:23

like I've got to do something to load

48:25

fatigue on because fatigue is going to cost them

48:27

more than me. That's how I beat the first athlete. So

48:29

now the power data is what

48:32

I think is a lot quantification. And

48:34

because you can quantify it, there's like new

48:36

questions. And one of those questions is what

48:38

determines durability. So just

48:41

to take a step back, if durability

48:43

is defined as your ability to reproduce

48:47

the same or similar power puts in a fatigued

48:49

state as a fresh state, then

48:51

van Fluyten has recognized that her

48:53

durability is one of her key competitive advantages.

48:56

Correct. And so it's funny because like

48:58

she would almost say,

48:59

you know, some people would say fatigue is the great equalizer.

49:02

You know, you can't judge at the end of a marathon

49:04

who's going to win that sprint. But

49:06

for some people, fatigue isn't the equalizer. It's the

49:08

thing that blows it out. So she's

49:10

one of those who actually wants to use fatigue to

49:12

open the gap. And someone

49:15

like maybe a Capecchi or Demi Vollering

49:17

wants to use fatigue, wants to

49:19

minimize fatigue, to minimize that gap, knowing

49:21

they can beat her

49:22

at the end of a short stage where they've set

49:25

in the wheels for the day. Makes sense, right?

49:27

Yeah, absolutely. So now the question is, well, why do

49:29

some people have durability that others don't? And

49:32

there's no doubt the training load must

49:34

be one of the factors. Interesting study

49:36

came out of a group actually with some South

49:38

African connections during swats on the paper,

49:40

a guy called James Sprague. And what they

49:42

did was they had a

49:44

squad of cyclists that they monitored over competitive

49:46

season, they were under 23 professionals. So

49:48

young guys, 23 under 23. And

49:51

they looked at their durability early

49:53

to mid to late season. Maybe worth

49:56

pausing to just explain what the data

49:59

looks like. When you have a cyclist,

50:01

a pro cyclist, who's doing six or

50:03

seven races every couple months and training

50:05

sessions, seven, 800K a week

50:08

in a normal week,

50:10

you can measure what's the highest power output

50:12

you saw for five seconds, for 30 seconds, for

50:15

one minute, for two minutes. And that's basically

50:17

your record power output profile

50:20

or your maximum power

50:22

outputs and so forth.

50:25

What you can then do is you can say, alright, when this person

50:27

had done

50:28

less than a thousand kilojoules of work, this

50:31

is what their curve looked like. If

50:33

you guys aren't Strava or you use Garmin

50:36

or Wahoo, whichever, you'll have

50:38

a power curve that you would have seen in

50:40

your software. You've seen yours, yeah? Yes. Yeah,

50:43

that's the power curve that we're talking about here. So

50:45

for instance, just out of interest, to

50:48

give you some, this is a really cool study

50:50

by Valenzuela et al, where they

50:52

had access to hundreds of cyclists

50:54

and literally hundreds of thousands of training sessions.

50:57

To be in the top 10%

50:58

in the professional peloton,

51:01

you need to produce about 14 watts

51:03

per kilogram for 10 seconds. That's

51:05

the peak power for 10 seconds. For

51:07

five minutes, it's six and a half watts a kilo. So

51:11

you work out, I mean, what is that? 600 odd watts

51:13

for you for five minutes? Yes. That's

51:15

a, I mean, it's like scary numbers. For 20

51:18

minutes, it's five and a half watts, puts you in the top 10%.

51:21

Six watts puts you in the top 2%. Then you're

51:23

on Pagachas and Rogliches and Vinegos

51:25

Wheel, right? 60 minutes

51:27

is 4.7 watts. To be in

51:30

the peloton in the last 10%, like

51:32

for instance, your five minute power needs to be

51:36

7.6 watts per kilogram.

51:39

Sorry, that's the other, sorry, what I've just given you

51:41

now is the bottom 10%. To be in

51:43

the top 10%, 7.6 watts per kilogram. That's

51:46

the 90th percentile.

51:48

So you can see like, so the bottom 5%, 10%, six

51:52

and a half watts a kilo, the top 10%, 7.6 watts

51:54

a kilo. Sure. What

51:57

they're doing- That's a significant difference, isn't it? Yeah,

51:59

I mean, that's the-

51:59

difference between that's on

52:02

flash of a lawn on Wednesday. That's the difference

52:04

being

52:05

coming around that last bend in the first five versus

52:07

being the guy shelled off at the bottom of

52:09

the climb. So yeah, and then 20

52:11

minute watts is 6.6 Watts a kilo for

52:14

the top 10% and 5.5 for the bottom 10. Over 60

52:18

minutes, it's 4.7 at the back and 5.8 at

52:20

the front. So I mean, it's huge

52:23

numbers, just enormous numbers. So basically

52:25

the top 10%

52:26

of the professional peloton

52:28

are doing

52:29

for 60 minutes, what the bottom 10% are

52:32

doing for about 15 minutes. So

52:34

you see how it's... That's why you got teams. Exactly.

52:37

Exactly. So you want one guy to say,

52:39

okay, you can do five minutes at 6.5

52:42

Watts a kilo. That's

52:44

you, you got it. And then someone else will take

52:46

over who can do it for 10 minutes. And then eventually

52:48

I'll take over and finish the job. So

52:50

what they've done is they've made these power curves, but then

52:53

they've said, all right, well, let's do a new power curve

52:55

that's only relevant after 2000 kilojoules

52:57

worth of work. Now,

53:00

in terms of this work, if

53:03

you cycle the 250 Watts, you

53:05

do 900 kilojoules in one hour.

53:08

Because remember, Watts is a joule

53:10

per second. So 250 Watts

53:12

equals 250 joules every second, which

53:15

means 0.25 joules every second, kilojoules

53:18

every second, times that by 60

53:20

times that by 60, 900. Right.

53:23

So that'll say for instance... I'll assume you're right on that. No,

53:26

it's verified. So 3000

53:31

kilojoules would be the equivalent of riding for

53:33

three and a half hours at 250 Watts. Then

53:36

let's see what you can do for one minute, for five

53:38

minutes, for 20 minutes, for one hour. And that's what's

53:40

happened here. They've done these analyses. So

53:42

in this particular study by Sprague et al,

53:45

they looked at that early

53:47

season, mid season, late season. What they found was

53:50

that you're... Can I try and predict it? Yeah.

53:54

I would suggest that the fatigue resistance gets

53:56

better the more, the later in the season,

53:58

purely because they are...

53:59

fitter and more miles than

54:02

them. So I'm gonna project it that way.

54:04

And you would be wrong. It's the other way around.

54:08

So this is where it's interesting, right? So what they found

54:10

is that the power outputs

54:12

at any duration are lower later

54:15

in the season than they were in the beginning. So the durability,

54:17

the drop from a fresh to fatigued during

54:20

a 12-minute maximal test. So they

54:22

used a 12-minute test in this one. So

54:25

fresh, you produce let's say 350 watts

54:27

fatigue 340. End of the

54:30

season it drops more. So

54:32

the drop from fresh to fatigue was

54:35

higher late than early season. And

54:37

the reason for that they reckon in the paper is

54:40

because your training states,

54:43

the nature of your load changes

54:45

over the course of the season. So it's

54:47

that you move away from doing slower

54:50

longer rides and you do more high-intensity

54:52

stuff. So the argument that they made in

54:54

this paper called the relationship between training

54:56

characteristics and durability and professional

54:59

cyclists is that

55:00

low-intensity training probably helps

55:03

with durability more than the high-intensity

55:05

work does. Okay. Remember we discussed

55:08

a while back

55:09

the concept of polarized training. The

55:12

more polarized your training got in this particular

55:14

study, the better your durability appeared.

55:17

So the... Because you were focusing on those

55:19

long slow rides. Yeah. Which is kind of what

55:21

enemy from Fayette and does a lot of. Yeah a little bit

55:23

right. So I'll read to you that the fatigued

55:26

power profile varies throughout a competitive season.

55:29

The difference between fresh and fatigued is not fixed.

55:32

The tendency towards polarized training and

55:34

intensity distribution is associated

55:36

with an improvement in fatigued

55:38

power profile. So the more you polarize

55:41

it, so you keep doing your high-intensity

55:43

stuff like let's simplify, three zones. High

55:45

intensity, moderate to low.

55:47

If you start middle loading

55:49

it's that you do more middle stuff,

55:51

your durability might come down. And

55:54

so they were arguing in this paper that

55:56

that seems to be one of the things associated with

55:58

it. So that's... That's one

56:00

theory for us. So one theory is that more

56:03

base miles improves

56:05

fatigue resistance, which I suppose, so then

56:07

you could argue that people like Pagacha

56:09

are

56:11

maybe doing more base miles

56:13

than most, if that theory is correct.

56:15

There's going to be a massive genetic component

56:17

to it as well. I'm reaching here. There are some

56:19

people who just have it,

56:21

maybe, you know, that's the other thing. So

56:24

just in terms of the finding, a significant relationship

56:26

was found between training time below the

56:29

first ventilatory threshold. Now we covered all

56:31

these thresholds in a previous part. I don't want to rehash

56:33

that, but basically think about that as your

56:35

lower intensity training zone. So

56:38

the more time you spend below

56:40

that first threshold, i.e. in low intensity,

56:43

the greater your improvements in

56:46

power output over two minutes and then shift

56:48

towards polarized intensity distribution

56:51

and improvements in absolute and relative 12

56:53

minute maximal power.

56:55

More training, low intensity.

56:57

So later in the season when your training

57:00

time is compromised by race participation,

57:03

races force you into higher intensity

57:05

periods more often, your durability

57:07

actually goes down. So that's

57:09

why, in fact, that's why it's probably not

57:11

possible to maintain a level of performance

57:13

from the first race of the season to the end of the season.

57:16

That's why no one's going to be competitive

57:18

in three

57:20

grand tours. And in fact,

57:22

even two consecutive ones, no one's winning a Giro

57:24

and a Tour. Or

57:26

Tourne of Oalta may be a little bit more

57:28

possible. But anyway, there's models

57:30

now that explain this. What's interesting about

57:32

that is a lot of riders will tell

57:34

you, and I think there's

57:36

a lot of it to cycling, haven't heard about it in

57:38

running before. But in cycling they talk about

57:40

like racing to get fit and

57:43

how cyclists will go into a season

57:46

a little bit under trained and use the race weekends

57:48

to get fit. But there's kind of flies in the

57:50

face of that. That's saying that the way that you can actually

57:52

improve your fitness is to reduce that intensity

57:55

and for a pro rider,

57:57

there's a little gap between the

57:59

races.

57:59

probably be better for them to do low intensity

58:02

work than it would be to do high intensity work purely

58:04

because that's gonna give them the

58:07

physiological benefit across pretty much

58:09

everything, not only fatigue resistant, but also

58:11

absolute power. Yeah, and remember we discussed

58:13

that when we spoke about polarized training is

58:16

that there's a tendency to wanna like expose

58:18

yourself to the demand and you actually

58:20

don't have to. You might get better

58:23

by staying below the race demand.

58:25

You say, okay, I wanna be really good

58:27

at five minute efforts. You don't have to go out and

58:29

do five

58:29

minute efforts all the time. Because remember

58:32

the low intensity training is stimulating the

58:34

same

58:35

physiological, metabolic biochemical

58:37

adaptations. What you still need the

58:39

high intensity training for, I think are those neurological

58:42

adaptations and for some of the biochemistry

58:45

at the top end when I'm trying to go, you know,

58:47

seven, eight watts a kilogram for those

58:49

five to seven minute efforts.

58:52

Yeah. The attacking and like

58:54

the shifts in pace that are required on a climb.

58:56

You still have to practice the neurological exposure,

58:59

but you don't need much of that. What you do

59:01

need a lot of is just volume and low

59:03

intensity. So, and we've done, we've done podcasts

59:05

on this where we've talked to everything from the

59:08

experts talking about the 80-20 rule, 80% easy and 20% hard. And

59:12

then there's obviously a school of thought that goes 90-10

59:15

now. And again,

59:17

that supports that idea, which is

59:19

often something we've talked about a lot in the podcast, but

59:21

very difficult for people necessary to understand

59:24

when they're training. And I often say the difference between

59:27

professionals and amateurs is the ability

59:29

to be able to train at the right

59:31

zones

59:33

when, because we know that we go out on a Saturday

59:35

morning to ride with friends, we're not going to ride

59:37

zone to the whole way because there's some ego involved.

59:39

There's a climb we go up, but the professionals actually

59:42

do do that. They go out there and they ride easy for

59:44

five hours because that's what they're designed to do. And when

59:46

they're riding easy, they're still going 20-2k an hour up

59:49

a 4% grade. And

59:51

it's fun because we like to push

59:53

because we want to go faster. So

59:55

that helps. If the engine's faster, you

59:57

can idle it at faster speeds. Engine's bigger.

59:59

So is

1:00:02

it a step then

1:00:03

to kind of say that fatigue

1:00:06

resistance is a function

1:00:08

of

1:00:10

low intensity exercise?

1:00:12

A little bit because you see there's a catch. There's

1:00:15

always a catch with us. There's always a catch. The study

1:00:17

came out, let me just get the date, early

1:00:19

this year, 16th of February, so a couple months

1:00:21

back, right? It's published by Finnish

1:00:24

researchers.

1:00:25

Pekka Matamaki is the main author. A

1:00:27

couple of them are from the Parva Nomi Center and

1:00:30

Unit for Health and Physical Activity in Finland. Sounds

1:00:32

like they know what they're talking about. And the title is, the

1:00:34

title is Durability is Improved by Both Low

1:00:36

and High Intensity Endurance Training. So now,

1:00:39

okay. Just

1:00:41

when I had it all formulated in my head. You never

1:00:43

have it all formulated. That's the problem. So,

1:00:45

so what they did in this study was, and this is maybe

1:00:48

the main thing, right? And you'll be sensitive

1:00:50

to this, I think, and why. In the

1:00:52

methods, sedentary and recreationally

1:00:54

active men and women completed either

1:00:56

low intensity training or high

1:00:58

intensity training for six weeks, for 10 weeks,

1:01:01

sorry. Now, they defined

1:01:03

durability in this study a little bit differently. It's

1:01:05

physiological, not performance. So they

1:01:07

look, for instance, in this study, at

1:01:10

the degree of drift in energy expenditure.

1:01:12

So in the first minute, first five, 10 minutes,

1:01:14

your heart rate is X, your energy expenditure

1:01:17

is Y, your ventilation is Z. Over

1:01:20

time,

1:01:21

they go up at the same power output. You've

1:01:23

all experienced that. If

1:01:25

you only trained to heart rate,

1:01:28

you would get slower and slower over the course of a ride. Yes.

1:01:32

Because it goes up. Correct.

1:01:35

That's cardiac drift. And it happens for a few reasons.

1:01:37

One is the loss of plasma volume. Another one is your body temperature

1:01:39

goes up and that directly stimulates heart

1:01:41

rate. Others are that you might become

1:01:43

metabolically less efficient over time.

1:01:46

You start recruiting faster, which muscle fibers,

1:01:48

which need to have a little bit more metabolic demand.

1:01:51

And then fatigue. And then

1:01:53

fatigue. Well, that's actually, that's

1:01:55

what fatigue is, kind of. It's all

1:01:57

those contributing. But there is a muscle to get tired.

1:01:59

So your heart rate rises in response.

1:02:03

So in this particular study, they measured durability

1:02:05

at the start and then 10 weeks

1:02:07

of training later, they did it again. And

1:02:09

what they found was that whether you did low

1:02:11

intensity or high intensity training, your

1:02:14

durability improves by

1:02:16

the same amount. So for instance, I just

1:02:18

wanna find the figures for you and then zoom in on

1:02:20

these here so I can read them. Energy

1:02:22

expenditure before is your

1:02:25

energy expenditure goes up 6.4%

1:02:27

over the course of a three hour

1:02:29

constant exercise ride. By

1:02:32

the time you finish 10 weeks of training, it only goes up by

1:02:34

four. So you've dropped the

1:02:36

increased cost by 2.4 percentage points

1:02:40

and the high intensity group, it grows from 6.5 to

1:02:42

three, same statistically same change.

1:02:45

Cardiac drift, it changes by 2.4% beats

1:02:47

per minute, sorry, before

1:02:51

and then afterwards it changes by less. So

1:02:54

all the physiological, let's call them perturbations,

1:02:57

disruptions,

1:02:59

are smaller as

1:03:01

a consequence of 10 weeks training. And in this

1:03:03

particular study, it didn't make a difference whether you did

1:03:05

it at low intensity or high intensity. The

1:03:08

high intensity one was like these blocks of four

1:03:11

to seven minute intervals,

1:03:13

making up 30 minutes. So

1:03:15

what's going on here is, I suspect when

1:03:18

you are an elite cyclist, you are already

1:03:20

so close to the capacity of

1:03:23

physiology

1:03:24

that

1:03:26

you are far more sensitive

1:03:29

to a specific type of training. And what you really

1:03:31

are looking to do is maintain that

1:03:34

maximal physiological potential. And

1:03:36

that's best done by high volume, low

1:03:38

intensity work and not over training.

1:03:41

Because anytime you encroach on training

1:03:44

quality and you overdo it, you probably cost

1:03:46

yourself more than you gain. Whereas what's

1:03:48

happening in this finished study, I think, is

1:03:50

that they are recreational sedentary

1:03:53

active folk, sorry, sedentary or recreationally

1:03:56

active.

1:03:56

They're us. Maybe even less-

1:03:59

They're not top of the line. end. And when you're

1:04:01

not top end, anything helps. You

1:04:03

know what I mean? Like just do something.

1:04:05

Something will work. Whereas we're at the top

1:04:08

end, maybe your margin for error, not

1:04:10

error, but your margin to see benefit is smaller

1:04:13

because you're already doing so much that

1:04:16

it's easy to tip off that peak, but

1:04:18

it's not as easy to stay there. Whereas when

1:04:20

you're only at 50% of that peak, pretty

1:04:22

much anything you do is going to lift you. Does

1:04:24

that make sense? So that's

1:04:27

where I think... Obviously the study that needs to be done is using

1:04:29

the same protocol, but only leads and seeing

1:04:31

if there is that... Right. But what do you do in an elite

1:04:33

athlete to load the training on in a

1:04:35

way that stimulates anything? Because they're already,

1:04:38

you know, they're already doing so much. There

1:04:40

is some stats there because you just mentioned that in

1:04:42

that season study, that numbers

1:04:44

go down over the season for elites. So

1:04:47

high intensity suggests

1:04:49

that in elites, high intensity is actually

1:04:52

proportionally bad for them. Whereas

1:04:54

for recreational and

1:04:58

unfit athletes, any type of exercise is

1:05:00

going to be beneficial. So a couple of questions that arise

1:05:02

out of that and I agree is, is the high intensity

1:05:05

in the race season, the later season, the accumulation

1:05:07

of high intensity, is that what's bad? Or is it

1:05:10

that those minutes at high intensity could have

1:05:12

rather been spent low? And so it's the

1:05:14

drop in low rather than

1:05:16

the addition of high that's bad.

1:05:18

It's a slightly different thing, right? Is

1:05:20

it, no, is the high intensity training directly

1:05:23

affecting durability or is it the fact that it replaces

1:05:25

low that compromises durability? That's, that's

1:05:28

something to explore. And one other

1:05:30

point to remember with all this stuff, right? And that's why

1:05:32

these observational studies where

1:05:34

they do power profiles and hundreds of cyclists

1:05:36

are cool, but they don't necessarily

1:05:39

give you causal capabilities. Now,

1:05:42

think about two

1:05:44

teammates. One is Jonas Vinaigour

1:05:46

and another one's Votefonaut in the Tour de France.

1:05:49

Votefonaut's job

1:05:51

is to get Vinaigour to the bottom,

1:05:53

maybe a third of the way up the last climb

1:05:56

and then to

1:05:57

soft pedal in.

1:05:59

vinegar's job is to do as little as possible

1:06:02

for the first 90% of the stage and

1:06:04

then take over and finish as hard as he can.

1:06:07

So they actually have quite different race tactical

1:06:09

demands. If I now measure Votefin

1:06:12

Art's

1:06:12

power profiles and his 20-minute efforts

1:06:15

after he's accumulated 3000-4000

1:06:18

kilojoules, I'm measuring him at

1:06:20

a time that he's actually not working as hard as he

1:06:22

could because he's actually sat up and

1:06:24

he's now soft pedaling to the line as easy

1:06:26

as he can, right? Whereas vinegar,

1:06:29

if I measured him in a fresher state, is

1:06:32

probably not going as hard as he

1:06:34

could because for the first

1:06:36

180k of a 190k stage,

1:06:39

vinegar is trying to save energy. So

1:06:42

I'm only seeing vinegar at a 10 out

1:06:44

of 10

1:06:45

when he's fatigued and I'm only seeing Votefin

1:06:47

Art at a 10 out of 10 when he's fresh and

1:06:50

vice versa. Does that make sense? Yeah. So it's

1:06:52

possible that

1:06:53

I don't think that that

1:06:55

undermines the concept of durability

1:06:57

as it's been reported in these observational studies,

1:07:00

but I think it probably exaggerates the scale

1:07:02

because I suspect that vinegar

1:07:05

probably has a slightly higher fresh

1:07:08

performance capability than he's shown because

1:07:10

he's never had to show it because they never

1:07:12

go 20-minute max except

1:07:14

for after three hours of riding. Whereas

1:07:17

Votefin Art, his hardest

1:07:19

efforts of the whole stage are often in the first hour

1:07:22

because he's trying to get into the brake to get

1:07:24

ahead up on the road or it's the first climb that he's

1:07:26

going to be pulling the pellet on. So for Nott's

1:07:29

maximum efforts are fresh,

1:07:32

vinegar's maximum efforts are fatigued, and

1:07:34

so within fresh versus fatigued, vinegar

1:07:37

is loading his fatigue more, so

1:07:39

maybe he looks more equal. For Nott's loading

1:07:41

is fresh relatively subjectively

1:07:44

perceptually higher. Does that make sense?

1:07:46

Yes, kind of, but I mean

1:07:48

quite simply vinegar is able to use more

1:07:50

of his absolute power because he's less

1:07:52

fatigued than ROT would be because he's protected.

1:07:55

Yes, that's sort of, but what I'm saying is remember

1:07:57

what the research has shown is that your best guy

1:07:59

is in the GC.

1:07:59

for instance, the climbers have

1:08:02

a lower drop from fresh to fatigued. Right.

1:08:04

That might be an artifact of the fact that they never

1:08:06

really climb as hard as they could when they're fresh.

1:08:09

They only really give it their all when they are fatigued.

1:08:12

And so let's say, let's give some numbers. That

1:08:14

fatigue is relative because for a guy

1:08:16

like vinegar, he's not absolutely, he's

1:08:19

been hiding in the bench for a long time.

1:08:21

Right. So his relative work to a white

1:08:23

fanart is much lower.

1:08:25

Correct. So fresh maybe vinegar,

1:08:28

let's say fatigue, we know vinegar fatigued is

1:08:30

six watts a kilo. Yeah.

1:08:32

When he's been, when you look at his power output when he's

1:08:34

fresh, it's also six watts a kilo. But

1:08:37

he's never really had to go hard when he was fresh

1:08:39

because he's in the belliton and he's sheltered and so forth.

1:08:42

If he had to go maximally, like if you said,

1:08:44

here's a 20k

1:08:46

stage of the Tour de France instead of 200, maybe

1:08:49

he could do 6.4 for that first, for

1:08:51

the 20 minutes. It makes sense, but he never needed to. Whereas

1:08:54

fanart is often not going

1:08:56

as hard as he could at the end of the stage because his

1:08:58

job description doesn't require it. His

1:09:01

job is to go. So when you look at fanart's

1:09:03

fatigue performance, it's lower, not

1:09:05

only because of fatigue, but also because of tactics.

1:09:08

That's what I'm getting at is that it might be part

1:09:10

of the magnitude that we see

1:09:12

might be an artifact of

1:09:15

whether you are required to go hard

1:09:17

fresh versus fatigued or free fatigued versus

1:09:19

fresh. So that's something

1:09:22

to just bear in mind. And I guess what makes Pagaccia

1:09:24

interesting is that we see him

1:09:27

often in not only monuments

1:09:29

and single day races, but in Tour de France making

1:09:32

repeated attacks. So there's always this

1:09:34

question that he has the ability to attack,

1:09:37

recover, attack, recover more

1:09:39

than most. So visually, he

1:09:42

looks like he has the ability to recover

1:09:44

from harder efforts than anybody

1:09:46

else. Yeah. And certainly

1:09:49

that's what they've said is the difference between him

1:09:51

and the other guys. In San Milan, Inigo

1:09:53

San Milan published that piece about some

1:09:55

fancy mitochondria that I didn't really pay much

1:09:58

attention to. But that's...

1:09:59

That's the Pagaccia's coach. But that, but

1:10:02

okay, so there's a couple things in play there.

1:10:06

At an acute level,

1:10:07

as in now I'm on the Poggio or I'm in the Tour

1:10:10

of Flanders and every 5K I'm basically

1:10:12

doing a cobbled climb and I'm gonna hit the peloton

1:10:14

hard every time. So I'm riding for

1:10:16

seven minutes and then I'm going hard for one minute and

1:10:18

I'm basically doing an interval session. Maybe

1:10:20

that's an acute issue. So what

1:10:22

that tells us is that Pagaccia can go above

1:10:25

his critical power

1:10:27

by a lot, because it's, I mean, those

1:10:30

efforts up the Koppenberg and the Queramon must

1:10:32

be enormous. I mean, that's gotta be huge watts,

1:10:34

right? Way, way higher than his critical

1:10:36

power that he could do for an hour. But

1:10:38

then in the period in between those efforts he does,

1:10:41

he obviously recovers really well. Otherwise you have

1:10:43

two efforts and you're not six. And

1:10:45

other guys maybe have one or two. It's matches to

1:10:47

burn, you know, that's the analogy that we're- He seems to have more matches

1:10:50

to burn. That's what it seems like. But remember that's

1:10:52

an acute level. What this

1:10:54

durability concept is saying is that his ability

1:10:56

to do that after the 215th kilometer

1:10:59

of a Flanders race is basically

1:11:01

the same as he would have had you started that Flanders race

1:11:03

right there.

1:11:04

That's the durability question. So

1:11:06

that's almost like a chronic fatigue recovery

1:11:09

ability. Whereas the ability that you see

1:11:11

on a short climb hitting

1:11:14

the peloton four times within five minutes,

1:11:16

that's an acute issue, which is probably

1:11:18

related to, and possibly this

1:11:20

is the mechanism is when you go

1:11:22

above critical power, remember now you start to

1:11:25

get that metabolite accumulation, you get the

1:11:27

glycolysis and the formation

1:11:31

of lactate, hydrogen, phosphates, depletion

1:11:33

of your glycogen

1:11:34

stores, et cetera.

1:11:36

The ability to recover and restore

1:11:38

that, let's call it balance, homeostasis,

1:11:41

is probably what makes the difference between the best

1:11:43

five cyclists in the world and everyone else. And I

1:11:45

think that probably, I think Venegal probably has

1:11:47

the same kind of capacity and so

1:11:50

did Armstrong. So did

1:11:52

whoever was winning the Mercs and so forth. So

1:11:55

that clearly is a requirement of being the top

1:11:57

cyclist is that ability to very.

1:12:00

rapidly reverse the damage,

1:12:02

quotes unquote, the high intensity exercise

1:12:04

does. You know, it's W prime. How much

1:12:06

of it can you access? And how quickly do

1:12:08

you recover it? That's your battery. You know, it's like,

1:12:11

I'm tapping into my battery. So you're saying there's actually an

1:12:13

equation. Yeah, you can work it out. Like

1:12:15

you're- You can work out what that means. For every second

1:12:17

you spend above your critical power, you're

1:12:19

depleting your W prime battery. Yeah.

1:12:22

And at some point when you deplete that W prime battery

1:12:25

entirely,

1:12:26

you pull off to the side of the road. That's what the domestics

1:12:28

are doing. Yes, they- Remember that scene when he

1:12:31

dragged vinegar away from a Pagach

1:12:33

on the garter cam. And then he

1:12:35

kind of like traded water.

1:12:38

It was like a computer program restarting.

1:12:40

And by the time Pagach caught up, he was on his wheel

1:12:42

off he went. Yeah. That's a

1:12:45

guy who's gone above critical power

1:12:48

to the point of near depletion of the

1:12:50

battery.

1:12:51

Then he stops for a minute, the battery's restored

1:12:54

off he goes. So do you think,

1:12:56

I mean, based on all the discussions we're having

1:12:58

now, it seems to me

1:13:01

the concept of fatigue

1:13:03

resistance is really the critical difference

1:13:05

between a good and a bad performance in

1:13:08

every respect, in any endurance sport, whether you're triathlete

1:13:10

doing the Ironman, whatever. So absolute

1:13:13

power, the ability to ride for

1:13:15

long periods of time with low intensity, that means nothing.

1:13:18

The ability to be able to produce

1:13:20

similar, as close to your maximum

1:13:23

power in a fatigue state is the difference

1:13:25

between a good and a bad performance in endurance

1:13:27

sport. It's kind

1:13:29

of like new goods. I'm new goods on

1:13:31

the start line and this is my performance ability.

1:13:34

Now I'm damaged goods by virtue of

1:13:36

riding 120K or 250K, whatever,

1:13:40

how damaged am I? That's

1:13:42

what it boils down to. And all the evidence

1:13:44

from this power profiling, and again, with

1:13:46

that fine print that when

1:13:48

you do these observational studies, it doesn't always necessarily

1:13:50

account for the tactical demands of your

1:13:53

job description, but they all seem to

1:13:55

suggest that the difference between the very

1:13:57

best and the good and the...

1:13:59

world tour and the pro tour and

1:14:02

the elite of the elite and the winners versus,

1:14:04

I'm not going to call them losers because they're

1:14:07

still, that seems to come down to your,

1:14:10

your relative

1:14:12

ability to defend against

1:14:15

physiological damage. Let's call it that, right?

1:14:18

And it's interesting just going back to Bugacio, that stage,

1:14:21

remember when Roglic and Venogor last

1:14:23

year took turns hitting him on the Gallibier and

1:14:25

then he counter attacked and they threw in

1:14:28

a dozen attacks, accelerations

1:14:30

on the lower slopes of the colder

1:14:32

Gallibier. That plus the

1:14:34

hard effort that he then set pacing up the

1:14:36

Gallibier

1:14:38

is probably what eventually undid him because

1:14:41

that was finally where someone

1:14:44

found where this guy

1:14:46

starts to pay in durability terms.

1:14:48

That effort would have been so hard. Plus, remember

1:14:50

he apparently had a Haribo emergency of not

1:14:52

getting enough sugar in.

1:14:56

And incidentally, one of the, one

1:14:58

of the physiological mechanisms for the durability

1:15:00

thing, particularly after 3000, 4000 kilojoules,

1:15:04

which is again is four to five hours

1:15:06

of hard work is glycogen and

1:15:08

glucose depletion, liver glycogen

1:15:10

and muscle glycogen. So it's

1:15:12

from pass, not necessarily dictated to by

1:15:15

those things. Is it? Well, if you're

1:15:17

Mark Cavendish and you're into the final kilometer

1:15:20

of a stage, does it matter how much glycogen

1:15:22

is in your muscle at that point? Yeah, it could do because

1:15:24

there's a central signal. Remember,

1:15:26

there's a central signal. And as

1:15:28

we deplete glycogen and

1:15:30

particularly liver glucose that is

1:15:33

responsible for getting the energy to the brain,

1:15:35

that central drive is done. And so your ability

1:15:38

to access power for one

1:15:40

minute and particularly for that 15 seconds

1:15:42

that really makes or breaks your sprint success might

1:15:45

be a compromised by central factors, not

1:15:47

just peripherals. Remember, that's going

1:15:49

back to last week. So if you need to refresh,

1:15:52

listen to last week, there's a central component

1:15:54

as in how much is my brain

1:15:56

able to put out to my muscles to

1:15:58

activate them. And the

1:15:59

peripheral component happening at the level of the muscle.

1:16:02

So you're right, the muscle doesn't

1:16:04

need liver glycogen and glucose

1:16:06

for that 15 seconds, but it sure needed

1:16:08

it to get there. And if you get there,

1:16:11

even 5% centrally compromised,

1:16:14

that's the difference, right? And so, yeah, so

1:16:17

all those things are making a difference. So in the case

1:16:19

of Pagacha, I think they exposed,

1:16:22

because when he did that last climb on, called

1:16:25

the Glandon, I think it was. And I dare say

1:16:27

the same thing happened on Hartakam, except

1:16:29

without the fireworks before, it was just

1:16:31

a hard day at the end of a hard tour. He's

1:16:34

riding at 5.6 watts a kilo. That's

1:16:37

well below what he normally would be capable

1:16:39

of. And so they've exposed a durability

1:16:42

failure effectively through that

1:16:44

teamwork. And so that's why it's interesting to see

1:16:47

what he does this year. Does he learn to, because

1:16:50

he might've spent 5,500 kilojoules getting

1:16:55

to that point where he's dropped by vinegar. Next

1:16:57

year, if he spends 4,500, he's not dropped

1:16:59

this year. You know what I mean? So manage

1:17:02

yourself for the first four hours in order

1:17:04

to be

1:17:05

ready to go. And it's always an

1:17:07

interesting concept to compare

1:17:09

the sprinters of a stage race, like the Cavendish

1:17:12

and the Kittles of this world, and that

1:17:14

sort of guys, and compare them

1:17:16

to the track cyclists, and say, well, these

1:17:21

Tour de France sprinters are really, really fast.

1:17:23

Well, compared to the sprinters on the track,

1:17:25

they're absolutely nowhere in terms of

1:17:27

the power they produce, but they're very good. They have to have some

1:17:29

element of durability to get to the sprinter.

1:17:32

But they wouldn't

1:17:33

beat a track sprinter in a track

1:17:35

sprinter because they are not necessarily

1:17:37

designed for that. Exactly, and if they ever found themselves

1:17:40

in a race with a track sprinter, you know what they're gonna

1:17:42

do. Although Cavendish has done both. Yeah,

1:17:44

and then some of them do it. I mean, like they do. There's

1:17:47

quite a good crossover. It wasn't Greipel, a

1:17:49

really good tracker as well. They're all quadzilla.

1:17:52

So for example, again, referring back to that study,

1:17:55

the top 10% of cyclists in the world

1:17:57

tour can produce over 20 watts a

1:17:59

kilogram. for five seconds and 19 for 10

1:18:02

seconds and 14 for 30

1:18:05

seconds. To get into

1:18:07

the peloton you need 11 for 20 seconds

1:18:10

per kilogram. So that's for me that's

1:18:12

a thousand for 30 seconds. Not happening ever.

1:18:17

Now the point is that an elite track

1:18:19

cyclist is at fresh state

1:18:21

better than that.

1:18:23

But they're doing it at the end of a

1:18:25

Milan-San Remo or a 200k stage

1:18:27

in the Tour de France, okay the Champs-Élysées

1:18:30

stage is pretty soft pedaling until

1:18:32

the last 48k. But you're right, that's

1:18:35

the difference. And it's

1:18:37

not just durability in that instance

1:18:39

because for Cavendish to respond

1:18:42

to the attacks, to get over some of the smaller

1:18:44

climbs, means that he must also have

1:18:47

a pretty good 10, 20, 30 minute

1:18:49

power output capabilities. That's what the track

1:18:51

cyclist doesn't have. So again it's

1:18:53

acute, it's what I do in that

1:18:55

moment like with Pagaccia and the repeated

1:18:57

attacks. And it's the

1:18:59

chronic which we'll use

1:19:01

to refer to the durability like can

1:19:03

I access this in hour number six as much

1:19:05

as I did in minute number six. That's the key

1:19:08

for any performance. And that's why

1:19:10

you can go out and measure this yourself. Like there's two ways

1:19:13

to do this. One is like that finish

1:19:15

paper.

1:19:16

Garden measure.

1:19:18

You'd have to find a relatively flat route that's

1:19:20

not confounded by this

1:19:23

hill, that hill, long downhills where you sit

1:19:25

up and you don't pedal, then a steep uphill you

1:19:28

do 380 watts instead of your 200, whatever. You

1:19:30

want a 2% rise. Something

1:19:33

like that. Yeah, so you'd want it to be an

1:19:35

effort that you can manage and you can say, right, I'm going to route 150

1:19:38

watts for two hours and I'm going to see how much does

1:19:40

my heart rate lift today, now

1:19:42

at the end. Where is it now compared

1:19:44

to the beginning? That's a physiological drift,

1:19:47

which is a marker of your durability.

1:19:48

Over time as you get fitter

1:19:50

that comes down. That's what we've

1:19:53

discovered training will do. The other

1:19:55

way to do it is to try and look at your performance.

1:19:57

Go and find

1:19:59

I think the best distance is between 10 and 15

1:20:02

minutes, you know, so that's a 5k climb,

1:20:05

steady 5k and hammer it,

1:20:07

give it a good go and that's going to be your 12 minute

1:20:09

max power. Then go and do that

1:20:11

climb at the back end of a 200, two hour

1:20:14

ride, let's say, an

1:20:16

elite guy needs longer, you know, they're so

1:20:18

conditioned that to induce durability

1:20:23

declines or let's call them physiological

1:20:25

damage, we used that term a few minutes back, they

1:20:27

need three hours fairly hard. But

1:20:30

then go and repeat the same climb in a fatigued state

1:20:32

compared to not fatigued and see what you look like, you know,

1:20:35

maybe you do 300 watts for those 12 minutes

1:20:37

and then when you fatigue you

1:20:39

do 250 watts, that's 50 on 300,

1:20:42

that's your drop, that's your percentage decline. The

1:20:45

goal should be to

1:20:47

make that as small as possible so you can

1:20:49

apply this stuff quite easily. There's a paper by the way, Peter

1:20:51

Lear, he's one of the researchers who's done a lot of this,

1:20:55

I've never heard of this journal, it's called the German

1:20:57

Journal of Exercise and Sport Research and what

1:21:00

they did is basically

1:21:01

a 12 minute test either

1:21:04

fresh or after 150 minutes, a

1:21:07

two and a half hours of fatiguing exercise. One

1:21:09

of those fatigue bots was a constant intensity,

1:21:13

150 minutes, two and a half hours at steady pace. The

1:21:16

other one after the fatiguing part of

1:21:18

the test, that is the fatigue. So it's

1:21:20

a 12 minute test fresh, that's

1:21:22

your baseline, that's my 12 minute max

1:21:25

capacity, that's my ceiling.

1:21:27

Now remember the durability question is how

1:21:29

far below the ceiling am I going to be after fatigue?

1:21:32

Two fatigue protocols, one of them is

1:21:35

two and a half hours of pretty constant intensity

1:21:38

riding and then do the 12 minutes

1:21:40

again. The other one is two

1:21:42

and a half hours of intermittent riding

1:21:45

designed to simulate what it would be like in a

1:21:47

breakaway. So there are periods of

1:21:49

a few minutes at like 350 watts, there are periods of a few

1:21:53

minutes at 120 watts. So far

1:21:55

slow, far slow for like two and a half hours.

1:21:57

Want to guess? Well

1:21:58

I guess that the

1:21:59

The the second protocol

1:22:02

is going to make the rider more fatigued and therefore their numbers

1:22:04

are going to be lower This time you nailed it. So

1:22:06

in this one the fresh the fresh performance

1:22:10

377 watts

1:22:11

drops to Small

1:22:14

I mean that's not that big. Yeah. No, that's like maybe

1:22:16

these are well conditioned guys. That's 9 watts There's

1:22:19

a consequence of constant workload

1:22:22

turn off hours and the other one fresh 382

1:22:24

drops to 330 That's 52

1:22:27

watts. Wow.

1:22:28

So that's the difference between

1:22:31

between a Race

1:22:33

similar so again if you want to go try this Maybe

1:22:36

don't go and do your five minutes your 5k

1:22:38

or your 15 minute hill whatever it is

1:22:41

Don't go out and do two hours of easy riding garden

1:22:43

do two hours of fast low fast

1:22:45

low attack right with your mates and intensity

1:22:48

Hurts. Yeah that intense the even energy and

1:22:50

in this instance the turn off hours high intensity Overal

1:22:53

was a bit more work and it involves a bit more

1:22:55

time in high parts. Obviously, it's gonna compromise

1:22:57

you more So again, it might be that this

1:22:59

is an exaggerated finding But

1:23:02

I do think

1:23:03

any time you spend above your critical

1:23:05

power The costly exercise intensities

1:23:08

is gonna be pay it back later And that's

1:23:11

basically the other durability analogy

1:23:13

is it's it's like finance, you know It's taking

1:23:15

out loans and you pay

1:23:17

them back and the elite athletes just don't seem to

1:23:19

do it as much Maybe because they don't need the loans

1:23:21

in the first place

1:23:23

You know because if you're Pagacha riding

1:23:25

at six watts a kilo is not hurting you anything

1:23:27

like it's hurting I was

1:23:29

gonna say go do but he's actually pretty good, but but

1:23:32

it's like it's hurting your domestic. Yeah, they're

1:23:34

paying big time For what you're

1:23:37

I wouldn't say comfortable at but confident at yeah

1:23:39

So you don't need the loan

1:23:42

and then later on as large a loan and

1:23:44

then later on when it's time to pay back the loan The

1:23:46

interest payments on so high That's the

1:23:48

best that's the point right? So yeah,

1:23:51

that's what durability is is you

1:23:52

elite the best cyclists have zero

1:23:55

interest loans Yeah, the

1:23:57

average guys and the inferior ones they pay

1:23:59

heavily for their loan

1:23:59

Yeah, absolutely. I know what

1:24:02

it feels like. Professor Ostaka, thanks

1:24:04

very much for your insights. Fascinating

1:24:06

just to discuss some of the practicalities of that

1:24:08

and we hope that you've enjoyed our little two-part

1:24:10

series on fatigue and

1:24:12

not only finding it interesting but maybe applying

1:24:15

it to the training that you're doing if you're out there

1:24:17

doing endurance sport of any kind. But

1:24:20

our next subject coming up in these couple of weeks,

1:24:22

we're going to let you know about that a bit

1:24:24

closer to the time but we'll be back next week

1:24:26

but for now it's goodbye.

1:24:29

Thank

1:24:29

you for listening to the Science of Sport

1:24:31

podcast. Follow us on Twitter at

1:24:34

Sports iPod and on Instagram

1:24:36

at Science of Sport podcast.

1:24:53

Surgeons keep our hearts beating.

1:24:56

They do the amazing. Help save lives

1:24:59

and so can you. Your CSL Plasma

1:25:01

donation can help create 24 critical

1:25:03

life-saving medicines that can give grandpa

1:25:05

the chance for his heart to swell when he meets

1:25:07

his new grandson or give a bride the

1:25:10

chance for her heart to skip a beat on her

1:25:12

wedding day. Every Plasma donation

1:25:14

helps more than you know. Do the amazing.

1:25:17

Help save lives. Donate today

1:25:19

at your local CSL Plasma Center and

1:25:21

be rewarded for your

1:25:22

generosity.