0:00

Ready, set,

0:03

go! This is episode 331 with me in

0:06

the hot seat. My

0:09

prior guest, Phil Batterson, interviews

0:11

me about my coaching philosophy,

0:13

sustainable training, and more. Welcome

0:24

to the Strength Running Podcast. I'm

0:26

your host, Coach Jason Fitzgerald, and

0:29

my singular goal is to help

0:31

you improve your running by getting

0:33

stronger, racing faster, preventing more injuries,

0:35

and achieving more of your goals.

0:37

I'm a monthly columnist for Trail

0:39

Runner Magazine, formerly a 239 marathoner

0:42

and creator of the Performance

0:44

Training Journal, now available on

0:47

Amazon. You can learn more about

0:49

me and Strength Running at strengthrunning.com. And

0:52

if you enjoy this show, please support

0:54

our partners who are offering you some

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2:52

Alright, today we have a unique episode

2:54

for you. Like most of my

2:56

episodes, it's more of a conversation than an interview

2:59

and it's actually an episode taken

3:01

from the Critical Oxygen podcast with

3:03

physiologist Phil Batterson and they had

3:05

me as a guest. Phil

3:07

was my guest on this show just

3:10

last week and we had a really

3:12

great conversation about coaching and training, how

3:14

to think more critically about exercise science,

3:17

why and how you should be strength

3:19

training, VO2 max workouts and a lot

3:21

more. And now without

3:23

further delay, please enjoy this conversation

3:26

with Phil Batterson. Phil

3:28

Batterson, welcome to the show. I'm

3:30

excited to be here, man. Thank you.

3:32

Yeah, so we had started the conversation

3:34

and I paused us just to kind

3:38

of give everybody the

3:40

backstory. So Jason Fitzgerald, awesome,

3:43

awesome, awesome social media sort of stuff,

3:45

strength running, all things. And

3:48

he was asking me because I was telling him that

3:51

I live butted

3:53

up to about I don't even know how many

3:55

thousands of acres of national forest land, but he

3:57

was like, Oh, you're probably running 100. miles

4:00

a week and I was like, you know,

4:02

unfortunately I'm not because I have a torn

4:04

labrum in my hip and I just have

4:06

to be really careful with the amount of,

4:08

you know, pounding that I actually do. But

4:12

I do two days a week of

4:15

running and it's

4:18

mostly because we live right on a

4:20

canyon that then goes down to a

4:22

river. So I run up

4:25

and down the canyon. So

4:27

I get 400 feet of

4:29

gain within a mile,

4:31

you know, coming up. So

4:34

I'm like, I'm like, okay, well, I'm not going

4:36

to be training for, you know, like road running

4:38

and stuff like that. If anything, I'm going to

4:40

be, you know, training for like mountain running. Like

4:43

that would be, that would be my thing. Well,

4:45

with where you live, you probably have

4:48

a good training venue for an aspiring

4:50

mountain runner with that kind of elevation

4:52

gain, all that kind of trails and

4:54

off-road surfaces. You're on your way. Yeah.

4:57

No, it's awesome. It's so much fun. And

5:01

back, do you ever, have you ever

5:03

run the incline down in Colorado

5:05

Springs? Yeah. The Manitou incline. Yeah.

5:08

Yeah. Yeah. I've

5:10

broken 30 minutes twice, which is my Colorado Springs

5:12

claim to fame. Yeah. So when

5:14

I was doing my masters down in Colorado Springs

5:17

in, I was like 2017 to 2019, that's like,

5:21

that was my Saturday hangout spot.

5:24

And I eventually got to the point where I'd wear

5:26

a, a rec pack

5:29

that was like between 40 and 60

5:31

pounds depending on the day. And I

5:33

would try to do it, the incline

5:35

plus, whatever the trail is that

5:37

goes down as many times as possible.

5:39

I think it might be. Yeah.

5:42

The bar trail. So I did, I think I did

5:44

that three or four times in the day, one time. Oh

5:46

my God. And that's a solid,

5:49

you know, the 12, 15

5:52

miles total with an extraordinary amount of gain.

5:55

Yeah. So, so, so my PR

5:57

on the incline was like, I think 20.

6:00

for like I like really good man I tape

6:02

I papered for it I you know I did

6:04

I did everything I think right I was like

6:06

okay I'm just gonna go out and I'm just

6:08

gonna crush it and then I was

6:11

talking to somebody on Instagram and he was just like

6:13

oh yeah have you ever seen this I can't

6:15

remember the guy's name is like Remy Remy

6:17

something but one of one of

6:19

the best mountain runners in the world who actually

6:21

has the record on the incline get do you

6:23

know what the record is it's like 16 17 18

6:26

minutes somewhere in that set frame that

6:29

have teen bananas yeah I

6:31

was like I was like I thought I

6:33

crushed it by doing 24 and you know

6:35

that that is that

6:37

is pretty fast like I you're

6:39

I think the second person I've ever met

6:41

who actually has gone under 30 and

6:43

that's just because I don't have a very you

6:45

know wide wide circle of runner friends and stuff

6:47

but everyone else

6:49

was like oh my gosh I'm lucky to you know get

6:52

up in 45 minutes to an hour

6:54

the key is to simply not

6:57

stop moving like yeah you just

6:59

keep going up at a consistent

7:01

clip you'll probably get there in

7:03

about 30 to 40 minutes I

7:06

think any faster than 30 minutes and it's

7:08

like you kind of have to

7:10

either be speed walking or running

7:12

part of it I'm really only

7:14

able to run like five or ten percent

7:16

of the incline and then I'm basically hiking

7:18

up it but it's it's

7:21

really hard and I probably would have gotten an

7:23

extra 30 seconds if I didn't like stop to

7:25

take a picture and you know I

7:27

wasn't really going a hundred percent for time like

7:30

sounds like you're tapering and really treating

7:32

this like a regional track you know

7:34

championship or something yeah no it was

7:36

it was one of those things where

7:38

I was just like I'm gonna because

7:40

because I had I had a head success in

7:42

the past you know like going under going under

7:44

30 and I was like okay you know

7:47

that feels pretty good it's pretty you know pretty fun and

7:49

then I was like okay but I really want to see

7:51

cuz I was I was

7:53

really fit at the end

7:55

of my master's degree just because I had been

7:57

doing tons of lifting and then I was doing

7:59

some cycling stuff and I had access to

8:01

like a physiology lab like within my masters that

8:03

like my masters advisor nobody else

8:05

was using it. So he's like yeah if you want

8:07

to do testing on yourself just make sure you clean

8:10

up afterwards and that's all you got to do. So

8:13

it was just a really cool environment to be

8:15

able to you know experiment with

8:17

that sort of stuff. So you

8:19

see what the limits of my body were

8:21

and at the time too I was

8:23

like oh like you know on a

8:25

whim one day I was like I'm just going to hike to the top

8:28

of Pike's Peak. You know we're just going to do bar trail and we're

8:30

just going to see how it goes. That

8:32

was kind of a catastrophic failure not quite.

8:35

I got to the top and then I was like I'm so

8:37

spent there's no way I'm going back down. So

8:40

I actually had to hitchhike back down.

8:44

But luckily I found I found a group of people who

8:46

you know were about my age at the time and I

8:48

was like look I think I hiked up to the top.

8:50

It was a little bit too much for me to handle.

8:52

Could you guys give me a ride back to Colorado Springs?

8:55

Oh they did. Oh man you

8:57

are writing checks your body can't match. I

8:59

know I know. So

9:01

I think I think that you know it's like

9:03

that all leads into you know you have been

9:07

somebody that I followed for a really really long

9:09

time and that's actually I think how we started

9:11

talking was you know I

9:14

was fortunate enough to be able

9:16

to get onto your podcast but I told

9:18

you that one of the things that I

9:20

watched was like your you

9:22

know hip and you know kind

9:24

of like prehab you know sort of like like

9:26

workout video that you posted I don't even know

9:28

maybe like 10 years ago or something at this

9:30

point. And I was like yeah

9:32

I was following that and that's actually like I was

9:35

able to stay pretty healthy for a long time. So

9:37

if you don't mind giving the listeners just a little

9:39

bit of background of you know like who you are

9:42

what your you know true

9:44

profession is he's a running coach but it's a little bit

9:46

it's more than that and then what your philosophy with training

9:48

is that would be awesome. Yeah

9:50

so you know I've been a runner myself

9:52

for pretty much as long as I can

9:55

remember I was one of those kids

9:57

that went out for the cross country team as a

9:59

freshman. in high school showed

10:01

up in basketball shoes and long

10:03

mesh shorts. I thought cross country would

10:06

like track. So I actually intended to

10:08

be high jumping. And then I

10:10

very quickly realized that, oh no, it's

10:13

just all running in cross country. And

10:16

I was unable to finish a 2.9 mile run my

10:19

first day at practice. And I

10:22

remember that very short, easy run

10:24

made me feel like I had been run

10:26

over by a truck for like a week.

10:29

And for some weird reason, I think it was

10:31

because you know, the coach was funny. The guys

10:33

on the team were really funny. I stuck with

10:35

the sport and I think like

10:38

a lot of runners. I just got obsessed with improvement.

10:41

You know, I was a basketball player

10:43

before I started running and there's just

10:45

a lot of subjective things that go

10:47

on in team sports. You know, oh

10:49

we lost the game because my

10:52

teammate didn't pass me the ball or my coach

10:54

didn't put in our best player or all these

10:56

things that are outside of your control. And

10:58

what I loved about running was that

11:00

most things are in your control. You

11:03

choose how much you train, how

11:05

well you execute that training. So I

11:08

pretty quickly into my first season of cross

11:10

country just fell in love with the sport

11:13

and ran cross country indoor track,

11:15

outdoor track all four years of

11:18

my high school career. Then I

11:20

went and ran at Connecticut College and

11:22

did the same thing. It was just

11:24

totally obsessed with getting faster and you

11:27

know, getting involved in the track

11:29

community at Connecticut College. And

11:31

you know, when I graduated

11:34

most of my running friends sort of

11:36

stopped running and they started pursuing their

11:38

careers and things like that. But I

11:40

just couldn't stop training and really

11:43

got into some other races that I hadn't

11:45

run before. You know, I started running triathlons,

11:48

duathlons, some

11:50

longer cross country races and then some of

11:53

those longer road races like a lot of

11:55

us get into like the half marathon and

11:57

the marathon. And after

11:59

my. first marathon is really like an

12:01

important hinge point in my running career,

12:04

because I got hurt in

12:06

my comeback to running after the 2008 New

12:08

York City marathon, you know, and it's gone

12:11

okay for me, I think I ran 244.

12:13

But I was hoping to run a lot

12:17

faster. And, you know, as a lot

12:19

of college, you know, track guys, I

12:21

was like, Oh, six minute pace is

12:23

so slow, I'm going to be negative

12:25

splitting, you know, this marathon and running

12:27

530 pace through Central Park

12:29

to finish up the New York City course.

12:32

And that didn't happen at all. There were senior

12:34

citizens blowing by me in the race. And it

12:37

was a very humbling experience. Yeah. And I think

12:39

it's important to have a humbling experience at a

12:41

marathon every once in a while. He

12:43

brings it back to earth a little bit. And

12:45

it was at that point when I was I got injured, I had

12:48

this IT band syndrome injury that just wouldn't

12:50

quit. And I didn't run for six months.

12:53

Well, I saw four physical therapists, I spend

12:55

most of the time just sitting on the

12:57

couch watching reruns of house and eating sleeves

12:59

of Oreos. It was very depressing time for

13:01

me. But I realized if

13:04

I wanted to continue to do what I

13:06

loved, I really needed to

13:08

get my training,

13:10

right, figure out this chronic cycle

13:12

of injuries that had been plaguing

13:14

me for years. Because I

13:16

was very inconsistent, I just kept getting hurt. And

13:19

it was at that moment that I, you

13:21

know, learned from all these PTs that I was

13:23

seeing, I started being a much better student of

13:25

the sport. And that's when I just sort of

13:27

got into reading every single running book that I

13:30

could get my hands on. And

13:32

strength running was really born out of

13:34

that time period where I started

13:37

getting a lot more consistent with strength training,

13:39

I started being more

13:41

strategic with my own running, because I was

13:43

like, Look, I'm getting hurt all the time.

13:45

I think there's something

13:47

wrong with my training. Let's make

13:49

some modifications so that I'm really

13:51

prioritizing injury resilience. And

13:53

I started running really well, you know, I

13:56

was able to run more miles per week,

13:58

I ended up running a new marathon PR

14:01

and it really opened my eyes to the fact that we

14:04

don't have to just keep banging our head against the wall

14:06

and Getting these poor results

14:09

and these chronic injuries so

14:11

strength running was really born out of

14:13

my own frustrations with my failings in

14:15

the sport and My entire

14:17

goal right now is to get runners to

14:20

think more strategically about their training To

14:22

avoid some of these big common mistakes

14:25

to get strong to focus on

14:27

best practices Let's not chase

14:29

any fads or shiny red balls

14:31

that you know are really exciting

14:34

But ultimately, you know, I think my

14:37

training philosophy is is really

14:39

a big focus on the fundamentals

14:41

on hard work on Consistency

14:44

and I'm not taking any shortcuts, you know,

14:46

I think we're in a very fortunate time

14:48

period right now where I Think

14:51

we pretty much know how to train distance

14:53

runners I don't really

14:55

think we are gonna have any dramatic

14:58

Breakthroughs in training science in the next 20

15:00

years, you know, cuz if you go back

15:02

to the 50s The

15:05

era of Roger Bannister everyone was

15:07

doing extremely low mileage very high

15:10

intensity Well, we learned that that

15:13

isn't quite as comprehensive as we thought and

15:15

then there was the era of the 70s

15:17

and 80s and you know You Know

15:20

marathon Billy was winning the Boston

15:22

Marathon and and that was an

15:24

area of very high mileage but

15:27

relatively low intensity and You

15:30

know that we sort of flailed around a little

15:32

bit in the 90s and now there's been a

15:34

pretty good resurgence of American distance running especially on

15:36

the women's side and I think a

15:38

lot of that has to do with the fact that

15:41

We kind of know how to train runners And so

15:43

my training philosophy is pretty much the

15:45

fundamentals and best practices with

15:48

an emphasis on building

15:50

the aerobic metabolism with an emphasis

15:52

on getting strong and Staying

15:55

healthy so that we can run consistently. Mm-hmm.

15:57

No, I I love that. I I I

16:01

was telling my fiance this morning is like my

16:04

framework for developing any

16:06

endurance athlete is consistency,

16:08

specificity, and progression. I

16:13

think it's especially hard to keep

16:15

that consistency and running because what

16:17

was the stat like 72% of

16:19

runners or something along those lines

16:21

will get injured per year or

16:23

something crazy along

16:25

those lines. That's

16:31

why I only run two days a week

16:33

because I'm able to progress in my running

16:35

and my hill running by

16:37

doing a lot of cycling work

16:39

because that's hardly any eccentric loading.

16:42

Then I go and I also have fun

16:44

just running up and down hills. It's one of

16:47

those things where it's kind of punishing but it's

16:49

also pretty freeing to be able to run as

16:51

fast as you can up and down the hills.

16:54

Yesterday I was running right next to the

16:56

river and then the canyon 500 feet up is right on

17:00

this side. It's just like it's one of those things

17:02

where you just don't get that with

17:04

cycling indoors. I was just like from

17:07

a flow state, I was feeling it.

17:10

It was awesome. Yeah, I had to

17:12

really take a step back and be like,

17:14

okay, well, what's going to keep me consistent in

17:17

terms of running? It really has been reducing

17:19

to right now

17:21

two days a week but

17:23

it's tough. That

17:25

reminds me of something that I've

17:28

been thinking a lot about in

17:30

my coaching practice which is the

17:32

risk of injury as it relates

17:34

to your training intensity. There's

17:37

an exponential injury risk increase

17:40

when you start running a lot faster.

17:43

Speed is a huge driver of

17:45

running injuries. One

17:48

of the things that I've changed in my own training is

17:50

I don't run the brutally hard workouts that

17:53

I used to run. I

17:55

much more err on the side

17:57

of more aerobic base training. And

18:00

it's funny that you mentioned your

18:02

bike because I just got a

18:05

wahoo Kickr core indoor trainer. Heck

18:08

yeah. I'm going to be setting up my road bike on

18:10

the trainer, especially now in the

18:12

winter time it's just usually a little bit

18:14

more difficult to get in as much running

18:16

as I normally do. I'm not getting into

18:18

the beautiful front range here in Colorado like

18:21

I normally do and have

18:23

all those amazing trails for me to run

18:25

on. Can't do that in the winter. So

18:27

I'm planning on just adding hours and hours

18:30

of indoor cycling to my training just to

18:32

build that aerobic metabolism just to layer on

18:34

hours of zone two work so that when

18:36

I do go running I can maybe focus

18:39

a little bit more on quality. And

18:42

that's just one way that I've

18:44

subtly changed how I approach training

18:47

to prioritize injury resilience while at

18:49

the same time focusing on what

18:51

actually is going to make you

18:53

a better runner which is not

18:55

all these brutally hard workouts but

18:57

it's volume and consistency over time.

18:59

Yeah and that's one thing that

19:01

we do see is and

19:04

I've been doing a deep dive into the literature

19:06

of what is really

19:08

the most effective way

19:11

to approach training and you touched on

19:13

this right in the Roger Bannister era

19:15

they were just doing interval training all the

19:17

time. So that's just like if you think

19:19

about a high intensity training. So they were

19:21

just doing high intensity training and then you have

19:24

this shift right the pendulum shift to massive

19:26

amounts of volume and

19:28

now we're kind of I think

19:30

writing the ship and getting right like kind

19:32

of more into the middle of it and

19:34

it's like you know it makes sense with almost

19:37

anything you have to have we have

19:39

to have high intensity you have to have

19:42

low intensity but the big key is that

19:44

that low intensity has to be low enough

19:46

in order for you to absorb the mileage

19:49

that you're doing and not induce more

19:51

fatigue than it's actually worth because I

19:53

think that's where people do especially in

19:55

running this is where people do their

19:58

easy days too hard. And

20:00

then it just gets to a point where

20:02

you have those overuse injuries and other things

20:04

like that because you're not

20:06

allowing that easy work to actually

20:08

allow you to accumulate volume, allow

20:10

you to stave off fatigue and

20:12

recover. You're just digging yourself into

20:14

a deeper and deeper hole. And I think you

20:17

did you post recently, you know, like kind of

20:19

like how much fatigue to adaptation

20:22

you get per different

20:24

intensity that you're doing?

20:28

Yeah, there was a quick and easy

20:30

graphic on relative

20:32

recovery from different effort zones. So zone

20:34

one, you're going to be fully recovered

20:37

the next day. Zone two, you're also

20:39

going to be recovered by the next

20:41

day. But things start getting more and

20:43

more extended if you get into zone

20:46

three, zone four, zone five. And,

20:48

you know, I think the current focus

20:51

on zone two is a good

20:53

focus because I think it's slowing

20:55

enough runners down so that they

20:57

can do more volume while reducing

21:00

their injury risk and then also

21:02

create an environment in which they're

21:04

actually absorbing all of the adaptations

21:06

that they should be absorbing from

21:08

all that volume. And

21:10

then also, like, it just allows you to

21:13

actually do a hard workout where if you're

21:15

running in zone three, five days a week,

21:17

and then you go to run a track

21:19

workout, it's going to be just really challenging.

21:22

Your legs are going to be, you know,

21:24

heavy, fatigued, a little bit lethargic. So I

21:26

think there's a lot of reasons to slow

21:28

running down. And, you know, thinking back to

21:31

my college track days where, you know, we

21:33

tried to run every single distance run at

21:35

seven minute mile pace, no matter if it

21:37

was the day after a really hard workout

21:40

or a long run the day after a

21:42

race and us going to a party

21:44

the night before where maybe we had one

21:47

or more bud lights. Phil,

21:50

you probably didn't have more than two in college. Yeah,

21:52

yeah, never more than two. But

21:55

you know, when you're in those situations,

21:57

you've got to just be

21:59

realistic. about what your physiology

22:01

can handle. And I

22:04

think one of the big mistakes that we made was

22:06

like, look, we've got a chip on our shoulder. We're

22:08

these college track runners. We are good. We can

22:10

run seven minute pace. This is

22:12

not hard for us. Our race

22:14

paces are substantially faster than this.

22:17

But we weren't really taking a

22:19

physiological approach to our training on

22:21

easy runs. We were taking a

22:24

boneheaded college bro. The

22:27

ego approach, right? So

22:32

I was fortunate enough, I think I talked

22:34

to this on your podcast, but I was

22:37

fortunate enough to actually be able to go back and

22:39

run at the junior college level when I was like

22:41

24 or something like that. And

22:43

I think that really helped me

22:45

not get caught into some

22:48

of that ego training like we're

22:50

talking about. Because what I noticed

22:52

is that the best guys on the team, there

22:54

are some guys who are those anomalies,

22:57

those genetic freaks who they

22:59

could do their training at seven minute miles

23:01

and still crush everybody. But

23:04

the guys that were the most effective were

23:06

actually normally the ones that would run

23:09

like recovery runs the slowest. And

23:12

it would be like laughably

23:14

slow. They'd just be shuffling. But

23:16

they were always able to get up for

23:18

the races, get up for

23:21

the interval works that way we

23:23

would do. And there

23:25

is something to be said about almost,

23:30

you know, like the zone two is good. But

23:32

I think what people still overlook is the

23:35

fact that you're just accumulating so much damage,

23:37

especially if you're running on pavement, that

23:40

it might even be better to just like

23:42

reduce it even more. Do

23:45

you ever have like if you if you're an

23:47

athlete came to you, have you ever recommended them

23:49

to just like, do walk runs? If like, for

23:51

example, I have people come to me all the

23:53

time, they're like, Yeah, my zone two is 170

23:55

beats per minute. I'm

23:57

like, No, it's not like it's

24:00

It's definitely not. So let's actually figure

24:02

it out. And then they're like, well, I can't

24:04

maintain 130, 135 beats per minute by running. What

24:09

do I do? So how would

24:11

you respond to somebody in that sort of situation?

24:14

In that situation, I think a walking

24:16

protocol is a good one because we obviously

24:19

can't be running at a heart rate of

24:21

170 beats per minute every day. That

24:24

is, you know, for most people,

24:26

that's a zone four, zone five effort.

24:29

And that's going to lead you to

24:31

get hurt or over trained or simply

24:33

burned out psychologically from your training that

24:35

you just don't really have the drive

24:37

to continue moving forward with it. So,

24:41

you know, I started coaching a runner

24:43

a long time ago, who was

24:45

only a couple months into her running journey. She

24:47

had just started she had never done

24:49

sports before she was sedentary and a

24:51

daily smoker. And the

24:54

funny thing was, she had a

24:56

lot of talent. It's almost just like she started

24:58

running. It's like, Oh, actually, you're a talented athlete.

25:01

You've just never done any athletics before. But

25:04

we need to sort of wake up

25:06

your aerobic system. You

25:08

haven't really done any exercise for

25:10

decades. You've been smoking every day

25:12

for decades. And what I

25:14

found was, on the one hand, yes,

25:16

you need to take some walk breaks, we need to

25:18

get that heart rate down a little bit. But

25:21

on the other hand, there are some runners who simply

25:23

need a lot of

25:26

exposure to exercise. And

25:28

then their heart rate sort of just levels out a little

25:30

bit. I think this

25:32

is often called aerobic deficiency syndrome, where

25:35

with very little aerobic development, you

25:39

know, your aerobic system doesn't really know

25:41

how to be in a zone one,

25:43

zone two effort level, you're just constantly

25:45

getting into that high zone for zone

25:48

five effort. This can be pretty common

25:50

in a lot of power or

25:52

team sport athletes who don't really do

25:54

much aerobic exercise, but they're doing a

25:56

lot of high intensity work, they might

25:59

be doing of power and strength work.

26:01

So the anaerobic system is very highly

26:04

developed, but their aerobic system is not.

26:07

And so the key is just a

26:09

lot of aerobic exercise. And so,

26:11

you know, for this particular runner, I tolerated

26:15

heart rate zones for her that

26:17

were higher than I normally would

26:19

have liked. But I realized

26:21

at the time, like, look, we just, we

26:23

need to sort of get you consistent for

26:25

two months. And if I was

26:27

really adamant about keeping your heart rate under

26:29

140 beats per minute, you'd

26:33

literally never be running. So there's a little bit

26:35

of a balance here. Like of course you can't

26:37

be running in zone three all the time. And

26:41

of course you need to be doing some running.

26:43

So we've got to split the difference often. But

26:45

for the most part, try to stay in

26:48

the right zones, even like you were saying low

26:50

zone two or maybe even high zone one. I

26:53

just did a really fun podcast

26:55

with Matt Daniels. He's an ultra marathoner,

26:57

but you know, previously he was a

26:59

359 miler. So

27:01

certainly have some, has some speed. And

27:04

he loves zone one running. He's like, Oh yeah,

27:07

I'm running like 11 minute mile pace. And

27:09

I'm like, wow, for a 359 miler,

27:11

that is an absolute shuffle.

27:13

But he realizes and

27:16

recognizes the compounding benefit of

27:18

all that low intensity training

27:21

that even for someone who's

27:23

that talented, if he's doing

27:25

it, well, that should tell all

27:28

of us mere mortals that there is still

27:30

benefit in doing it. And we should try

27:32

to be as consistent as possible with it. Yeah,

27:35

that's something that on this

27:37

podcast has kind of been an uphill

27:40

battle because within the

27:42

research community, right, we're always looking

27:44

for what is the optimal way

27:46

to improve X, right?

27:49

Like whether that's VO2 max training,

27:51

whether that's what sort of training

27:54

intensity distribution should we have, all

27:57

of these different sort of things. And I think. sometimes

28:01

those ideas get a little bit,

28:07

there's too much importance say you know like on

28:09

a specific threshold or on a

28:11

specific adaptation that we're trying

28:13

to target. And

28:15

you know for example you'll hear people

28:18

talking well you have to exercise right

28:20

at that borderline of zone 2 where

28:22

your lactate is you know this millimole

28:25

or whatever it is. Because

28:28

if you don't then you're not going

28:30

to maximize the benefits to your mitochondria,

28:32

your mitochondrial function right. You know

28:35

and while that's probably true especially

28:39

in running and I'll keep saying this

28:41

is running is a different beast than

28:43

you know something like like rowing or

28:45

I mean we'll say cycling or cross-country

28:47

skiing or other things like that which

28:49

are primarily concentric contractions. Running

28:52

is a combination of both so you're going

28:54

to be getting a lot of damage. If

28:57

you're running at your zone 2 versus

29:00

running you know like zone 1 like

29:02

the ultra marathoner that you're talking about

29:05

like you're going to be getting the

29:07

majority of those adaptations. And

29:10

you know yes while you might be

29:12

leaving a few adaptations on the table

29:15

I can almost guarantee you that that person who runs slower compared

29:17

to the person who runs faster is probably going to have

29:19

more time. Probably going to have

29:21

more consistency and more longevity in the sport and

29:25

that's really what we see is people who

29:27

are consistent. Paula

29:29

Radcliffe was getting better her entire career right

29:32

and you know her VO2 max was going down but

29:34

her efficiency was going up. So

29:36

it's that consistency over time that's really

29:38

going to result in you

29:40

know you actually realizing your full potential. I

29:44

mean it's almost

29:47

yes there are limitations when you do get you know

29:49

start to get really like a lot older and other

29:52

things like that. But I

29:54

think for most of us we don't truly

29:56

realize our full potential because we are unable

29:58

to stay consistent for years. years and years

30:00

and years. And that's why Elliot Kipchoge has

30:02

been so good and so consistent or

30:04

is because he's been so consistent. So that's

30:07

kind of my philosophy on it. Yeah,

30:09

I think it's a really good one because,

30:11

you know, this very much reminds me of

30:13

blending the art and

30:15

science of running into one approach

30:17

where, you know, and forgive me,

30:19

I'll poke the researchers a

30:22

little bit and all the physiologist,

30:24

the physiologist podcast, my god, I

30:26

am bold. But you

30:28

can't just be a scientist as

30:31

a coach because you're going to

30:33

fall into that trap of saying,

30:35

well, we're not maximizing the mitochondrial

30:37

adaptations. Well, for your average

30:39

45 year old recreational

30:42

runner, the goal isn't to

30:44

maximize mitochondrial adaptations. We are

30:47

so much getting lost in the weeds here. This

30:50

person is probably only running 30 miles

30:52

a week and is inconsistent. So

30:54

we need to really go after the

30:56

low hanging fruit first and think a

30:58

little bit more holistically of, well,

31:02

maybe this person is okay

31:04

if they're not maximizing mitochondrial efficiency

31:06

because we are

31:08

maximizing longevity. We are

31:10

maximizing consistency in the sport.

31:13

And I might say those are more

31:15

important, especially for pretty much any runner

31:17

is that consistency in the

31:19

sport. You know, I don't think there are any

31:22

magic workouts or secrets to success in

31:25

the sport of running. But with that

31:27

said, if there is a

31:29

secret, it's consistency. That's the secret

31:31

sauce because you're even if

31:33

you have the perfect training program, if you can

31:35

only do it for a month or two at a

31:38

time before you have to take time off because

31:40

you're hurt or you're over trained, or

31:42

you're just psychologically burned out from your

31:44

training, or it just requires you to

31:46

be on every single day that you

31:48

know, you're just like enough of this,

31:50

I just can't do it anymore. Well,

31:52

you're never going to be consistent. So

31:54

you know, I like to say I'd

31:56

rather you be 10% under trained and

32:00

you know, quote unquote under-optimized,

32:02

but healthy and excited about the

32:04

sport standing on the starting line.

32:07

Yeah. No, I 100% agree. And

32:10

I think, again, that's where that

32:12

is where the translation from the

32:16

science to like truly coaching

32:18

is really important because when

32:21

we look at the research, you

32:23

know, it's, oh, what's the

32:26

optimal way to improve VO2 max? Well, we

32:28

took individuals through two to three training set,

32:30

you know, VO2 max workouts every

32:33

single week for six weeks and their VO2 max

32:35

improved, you know, 8%, whatever we want

32:37

to call it. But

32:39

if you try to keep somebody on

32:41

a training program like that, good luck.

32:43

Your adherence would be essentially

32:45

zero. You know, you'd have people getting injured,

32:47

especially if it's running. You'd

32:50

have people not wanting to do it or they would start

32:52

to, you know, just refuse

32:54

to actually do it. I did a

32:56

high-intensity interval training study when I was doing my

32:58

PhD. And you'd be

33:00

– I don't think you'd be surprised, but I

33:03

took sedentary individuals through seven

33:05

high-intensity interval training sessions. So what we would

33:07

do is we would do one

33:09

minute on, one minute off. And the one minute was

33:11

like really hard and then it was like, you

33:13

know, as much rest as you needed. And

33:15

we'd repeat that every other day for 14 days. And

33:21

just within that, towards the end, like

33:23

you could – like seven sessions, people were

33:25

still being like, I don't know, like –

33:28

and this is only a 30-minute workout too.

33:31

So this is like – this is like short

33:33

periods of time and it's not something that's really

33:35

ever talked about is,

33:37

you know, it's like that – that

33:39

is maybe optimal for improving VO2

33:41

max, but it is not optimal

33:43

for a long-term enjoyment

33:46

and other

33:48

things. I saw something the other

33:50

day that was – maybe it

33:52

was, you know, Huberman Lab, you

33:54

know, podcast episode where they're talking about

33:57

how there is this

33:59

study that was – done. It was done in mice,

34:01

mice or rats, and they

34:03

would give one group of

34:05

animals the ability to freely train and

34:07

run whenever they wanted. Mice and

34:10

rats love to run. So

34:12

they could do it whenever they wanted,

34:14

but then the other group, when one

34:16

mouse was running or one rat was

34:18

running, were forced to run during the

34:21

time. And the ones

34:23

that chose to run or chose

34:25

to exercise had benefits in their

34:28

metabolic markers, their physiological markers, and

34:35

it's like you can't ask a rat if they feel

34:37

better or something like that. But the

34:39

other group didn't have any benefits really to the

34:42

exercise because they were being forced. So it's

34:45

one of those things where it's like just

34:49

the choice or just the importance of like,

34:51

I want to be here doing this workout

34:53

today, you know, might

34:55

actually be one of the reasons

34:57

why you would improve or

35:00

not improve based on whatever the training

35:02

is. So you have to you have

35:04

to as a coach, make

35:06

things enjoyable for the athlete as well,

35:08

or else they're not going to adhere

35:10

to it. So yeah, it's this it's

35:13

this it's this balance. And this is

35:15

what I love about talking to, you

35:17

know, coaches like yourself is is you

35:19

recognize that, you know, yeah,

35:21

like the science does say one thing. But

35:24

how are we how can we

35:26

actually translate that into helping our

35:28

athletes stay consistent,

35:31

want to do something like this? And I joke

35:33

around as like, you know, if if somebody came

35:35

out with a study that was like, oh, the single

35:37

best thing you could do for health and longevity would

35:40

be to swim at 5 a.m.

35:42

in a dark pool at 60 degrees

35:46

every single morning for 30 to 60 minutes.

35:50

I wouldn't I would probably have negative

35:52

that would not be optimal for me because I

35:54

hate swimming in pools. And

35:56

you know, and you know, so so those

35:58

outcomes wouldn't actually be optimal for

36:00

me. It would be optimal for whoever does study

36:03

with that on. But for me

36:05

personally, I don't like swimming. It

36:07

wouldn't be optimal for me. So that's

36:09

like we do talk about like reading articles

36:12

and then making sure that they translate to

36:14

who you are and that

36:17

you respond appropriately to them. And that's it's

36:19

the it's this idea of like

36:22

taking the science for

36:25

what it is and truly reading it

36:27

at a deeper level. Not

36:30

to mention the fact that this VO2 max

36:32

study to me is kind of funny because

36:34

on the one hand, VO2

36:36

max isn't as tightly correlated with your

36:38

actual race performance as we would

36:40

like to think it is. Everyone's

36:42

like, I want to improve my

36:44

VO2 max. And I'm like, why?

36:47

I want to improve my race performance. And

36:49

that is a very critical distinction. One is

36:52

just a physiological marker

36:54

that I don't know,

36:56

you really only know about if you get

36:59

into a lab and have it tested. The

37:01

other is the thing the entire sport

37:03

revolves around, which is your finish time.

37:05

Right. And so when I see studies

37:07

like that, I'm like, okay, that's like

37:09

kind of cool. But on the one

37:11

hand, my goal as

37:13

a coach isn't just to improve

37:15

your VO2 max, right? And to

37:17

VO2 max workouts a week for

37:19

eight weeks, seems to me

37:22

like a just a

37:24

training schedule that is much too difficult

37:26

for most runners. You know, when I

37:28

look back at maybe, you know,

37:31

my college track program, and what

37:33

I was running in track, maybe

37:35

for the last eight weeks of a

37:38

track season, we're running to VO2 max

37:40

workouts a week. But at

37:42

the same time, we are 20 year

37:44

old college athletes who are

37:47

somewhat competitive, and can

37:49

handle all that, you know, we're not 40, 45, 50 years old,

37:51

we don't have jobs, you

37:56

know, we are drunk on testosterone, which is

37:58

the place to be if you're training really

38:00

hard. And so you've really got

38:02

to take some of these things into consideration when

38:04

you're designing training. Because if you're a new coach

38:07

and you see this study and you're like, oh

38:09

man, this is great. Let me implement this in

38:11

my training today. And it's like, well, hold on

38:13

a second, hold on. You got to

38:15

take everything with a grain of salt. And

38:17

I feel like I'm one of these coaches that like believes

38:20

in everything and nothing at the

38:23

same time. I am the ultimate

38:25

it depends guy, because I think

38:29

the O2 max is important, but

38:31

I also don't really think it's too important. You know what

38:33

I mean? It's is it

38:35

in the proper context? Is it important

38:37

for what we're actually training to achieve?

38:40

And is it important for you as

38:42

an individual? Because sometimes, you know, it's

38:46

just not something we should focus on at

38:48

this stage of your running career. So yeah,

38:50

I mean, I, on the

38:52

one hand, I love studies, but on the other hand, I'm

38:54

like, you know, let's

38:56

really, you know, take this

38:59

with a big grain of salt. And

39:01

that's the challenging thing because on social media, right,

39:03

you know, like I want

39:05

to help people get better. I

39:08

want to help, like my whole tagline

39:10

is, you know, help

39:12

people optimize their physiology to maximize

39:14

their endurance potential. But the challenge

39:16

is, is that requires you almost

39:18

to have these like click

39:20

baity titles or these, you know, like,

39:22

like, like, larger

39:25

than life, you know, explanations or

39:27

whatever it is. And you said

39:31

it like a true academic, like you're

39:34

closer related to the researchers than I

39:36

think you know is when

39:38

you meet somebody who truly is like

39:40

a good scientist, if you

39:42

ask them a question, they'll be like, well, it depends.

39:45

And the number one

39:48

way of detecting if someone's kind of bullshitting

39:50

you or not, is if they know all

39:52

the answers right away, or

39:54

if they say, okay, well, it depends. Let's get

39:56

more of the context behind all of

39:58

this. And this is something I think. I talk to

40:00

another coach who comes on the podcast

40:02

regularly, Aaron Geyser. He

40:05

said, yeah, it's context

40:07

first and then content second. So

40:11

you have to figure out who the athlete is that is

40:13

sitting in front of you and what

40:17

they want to do with their race, how stressed

40:19

they are on a daily basis, what they have

40:21

going on in their family life, all this sort

40:23

of stuff because once you understand the context, then

40:25

you can start to shape the content in the

40:27

training plan that you're actually giving to somebody and

40:29

that has been

40:32

something that is just like, you know, kind

40:34

of light bulb moment, you know, went off

40:36

for me when he started to explain that

40:38

and you know, you're explaining the exact same

40:40

thing. And I think then

40:44

the challenge becomes is like, okay, well,

40:48

you know, is VO2 max really important

40:50

because if you're running an ultra marathon,

40:53

most likely VO2 max is not very

40:55

important for your performance, right? You know,

40:57

you're not going to be exercising at

40:59

VO2 max, but if you've never

41:02

done VO2 max work before, then maybe

41:04

VO2 max might be good for you

41:06

because you stand to make

41:08

a lot of improvements there. And

41:11

it's funny you mentioned that because during my master's

41:13

degree, my master's degree was

41:15

based on predictors of endurance performance. And

41:19

the three that have been postulated to be

41:21

like the best predictors of performance

41:23

are VO2 max, where

41:25

your second threshold is occurring and then

41:27

your economy or efficiency. Putting

41:31

those together should

41:33

get a pretty good idea of what

41:35

your performance is. So I

41:38

did a whole study that was like we

41:40

measured, you know, all of those variables and

41:42

then we correlated those with cycling endurance performance.

41:44

It was a 40 kilometer

41:46

time trial on a bike. And

41:50

indeed when you put them all together, those

41:53

are all highly, or you know, together those

41:55

are highly predictive of performance, but alone they're

41:58

not very predictive of performance. especially

42:00

when you have groups of individuals

42:02

who are very similar to each other in

42:04

terms of like VO2 max. I

42:07

think Phil, having you say I talk

42:10

about running like a scientist, hearing that from

42:12

a physiologist might be one of the best

42:14

compliments that I have ever gotten.

42:16

So thank you very much. Yeah, I think that

42:19

comes from almost a different

42:21

perspective. I almost

42:23

think a little bit like

42:25

a lawyer. I just want

42:27

everything I say to be defensible because

42:30

I think starting

42:32

this entire job of what I do,

42:34

all of my work on the internet,

42:37

I realize my work is all public.

42:40

And because of that, it is widely open

42:42

to criticism. And I want to make sure

42:44

that everything I say is as

42:46

accurate as I can make it. And

42:49

I have reasons for saying what I say.

42:51

And so I don't I

42:53

want to be as clear as possible. And

42:55

so I'm almost thinking that every piece of

42:57

communication I put out on the internet is

42:59

like a contract. I want the language to

43:01

be a little dialed in. And

43:04

I'm very aware of the fact that most

43:07

things exist on a spectrum. And

43:09

to have a binary way of thinking

43:11

is usually a dead end

43:13

way of thinking, especially when it comes to

43:16

exercise science. So thanks very much for that

43:18

compliment. I

43:20

would love to ask you like, if

43:23

we're going to talk about the things that

43:25

we should be doing in training to make

43:27

us better runners after we've said VO two

43:29

max is kind of non porn, but it

43:31

is and you know, we're being a little

43:33

wishy washy on everything. What's

43:35

actually important? Like what should we focus on

43:37

in our training? Like what are the actionable,

43:40

you know, workouts, principles,

43:44

you know, big ideas that are

43:46

important for endurance runners? Yeah,

43:50

I mean, my first thing is like, you got

43:52

to say it depends. But

43:55

but I think, yes, I think

43:57

the I think I think let's start

43:59

with principles. And this is like, this is again

44:01

where I always start at

44:04

first is the

44:06

consistency aspect of things. If you

44:09

really almost no matter what you want to

44:11

get good at, you have to be consistent

44:13

if you're going to get good at something.

44:16

If you're doing something once

44:18

every two weeks, you're

44:20

not going to ingrain those habits and

44:22

the adaptations that are

44:25

necessary to actually get good at whatever it

44:27

is you're doing. So from

44:29

that perspective, if you want to become a

44:31

good runner, you have to consistently be doing

44:33

something that is going to make you better

44:35

as a runner. That doesn't mean you have

44:37

to run every day, but

44:39

then the

44:41

second principle is specificity. The

44:44

more specificity you get in a certain task, the

44:46

better off you're going to be as well. So

44:49

the individuals generally speaking – and there's exceptions

44:51

to all rules, but generally speaking, the individuals

44:53

who run more are generally the individuals who

44:56

are better. Generally, the individuals who are better

44:58

off are better runners. The

45:00

challenge again with running

45:02

is that you

45:06

– it's

45:09

again, it's really damaging. So you really have

45:11

to be careful with the amount of running

45:13

you're truly doing. So this

45:15

is where the cross-training stuff comes in, right? The

45:18

cycling. What's

45:21

crazy about cycling is that I can

45:23

go and do low

45:26

to mid to high zone two

45:29

and maybe even into that zone three and then

45:31

bounce back from it the next day and do

45:33

a really hard VO2 max workout and then bounce

45:35

back from that the next day and do another

45:39

moderately challenging long zone two workout. I

45:42

wouldn't be able to do that in running. It

45:45

would have to be like zone one really easy,

45:48

maybe a threshold workout, and then another

45:50

really, really easy zone one sort of

45:52

workout. But the thing is

45:54

that if you use cycling as cross-training, training

46:01

then you can start to say, okay

46:03

well maybe because my body can't handle

46:05

that high intensity stuff right now in

46:07

terms of running, maybe I'll do a

46:09

lot of easy running you know to

46:11

gain volume and those sort of things

46:13

but then I'll do some higher intensity

46:15

stuff on you know

46:17

different days when I want to get that higher

46:19

intensity stimulus. So that's another, so that might be

46:21

a principle. I'm not 100% sure if I want

46:24

to add it to the principles yet but I

46:26

think that you need to do easy stuff and

46:28

you need to do hard stuff. I

46:31

think that is just a

46:33

principle of life but from

46:36

an endurance perspective and this doesn't, I'm

46:38

not saying go out and do

46:40

polarized training, I'm just saying you

46:42

need to do easy stuff and you need to do hard

46:45

stuff. We've just

46:47

talked about this, if you're only doing

46:49

hard stuff, you're not going to optimize

46:51

your potential. If you're only

46:53

doing easy stuff, you're still going to leave

46:55

you know performance on the table so you

46:57

have to do easy stuff and hard stuff.

47:02

That's three, I guess that's kind of in

47:04

the end of the specificity sort of side

47:06

of things. So that's 2A

47:09

and then along with the specificity,

47:12

if you're racing for example

47:14

a marathon, you should

47:17

in the beginning

47:19

of you know say like your training year,

47:21

you can be very general about like what

47:23

you're doing. You could be doing more cycling,

47:26

a little bit less running, just a general

47:28

aerobic development but as you get closer to

47:30

whatever race, it has to become more and

47:33

more specific to that race. So

47:35

I've made the mistake in the past and this is

47:37

when you know I was a researcher looking at

47:39

the studies and being like oh, high

47:41

intensity interval stuff seems to be pretty good for

47:44

performance. I was doing some

47:46

trail races like 18, like 10 to

47:48

20 mile trail races but I would

47:50

only do high intensity sprint work on

47:52

the treadmill really and then I'd go

47:54

and I'd do like the incline you

47:56

know as my like long workout and

47:58

I… think I had

48:00

six consecutive races

48:03

where I had to stop because

48:06

I cramped up so bad during

48:08

the races and it wasn't because I was

48:10

not hydrated enough or other things like that.

48:12

It's because I was asking my body to

48:14

do something that it was not familiar enough

48:16

with. So then it started cramping

48:18

as a protective mechanism for me not to get

48:20

injured. I was so strong, you know, during those

48:23

sort of things but I was

48:25

only doing, you know, the

48:27

treadmill work. So from a

48:29

specificity standpoint, I wasn't doing what I should

48:31

have been doing which is more of that

48:33

threshold, you know, sort of style work

48:36

more maybe like half marathon, marathon race pace

48:38

sort of work. So

48:41

that comes into the specificity and then you have to

48:43

progress. So you know, it

48:46

in this progression, there's

48:49

not a best

48:52

rule for it. But

48:54

I definitely think with running, it's

48:57

maybe 1% to 3% in terms

49:00

of the training load. So both

49:02

volume and intensity that you're undertaking

49:05

and this could be maybe even every two weeks or

49:07

so depending on who you are, where you're at. So

49:10

does that kind of answer your question? I think it's

49:14

the three principles that I almost always

49:16

exclusively look at and then from

49:19

there, you know, you can start to get a

49:22

little tweaky fancy with it, right, in terms

49:25

of the specificity. So you say, okay, well,

49:28

I noticed that maybe my – like

49:30

I went and I got some physiology testing

49:32

because I was at that point in my

49:35

training where I was like, okay, it warrants

49:37

some physiology testing. My VO2

49:39

max was actually pretty low and

49:41

my second threshold was butted up right

49:43

against that. Like there's nothing

49:46

wrong with that but if your VO2

49:48

max is limiting your second threshold, then

49:50

maybe you need to do some VO2

49:52

max work to actually bump that up.

49:54

So again, specificity, that's a specificity of

49:56

physiological adaptation, not a specificity for racing.

49:58

But I think – you know, that it

50:01

all kind of plays into it. I

50:03

love it. That was great. Yeah, I

50:05

think it very much tracks my training

50:07

philosophy. You know, I love

50:10

your point of you need to do things that

50:12

are hard and you need to do things that

50:14

are easy. And that sounds like super simple, but

50:17

you know, the way I think about that and kind

50:20

of implement that in my coaching

50:22

philosophy is, you know,

50:24

I think of intensity existing on this spectrum,

50:26

right? On the other side,

50:28

you have maximum velocity, 100%

50:31

effort sprints. On the other

50:33

side, you've got your super easy zone

50:35

one shuffle. I think

50:37

most runners should spend most of

50:39

their time on both ends of

50:42

that spectrum. Let's do strides, hill

50:44

strides, hill sprints, you know, what

50:46

Jack Daniels might call an R

50:49

or repetition workout, very short reps,

50:51

but very fast. And then

50:53

we're also doing a lot of

50:55

easy running, you know, high volume. We're

50:58

always building that aerobic metabolism. And then

51:00

the workouts, you know, can be like

51:03

those short reps, it can be a lot

51:05

of threshold work, half marathon pace. And

51:08

in the middle is where I get the most

51:11

cautious. This is when you're doing 800

51:13

meter, thousand mile

51:15

repetitions at 5k pace or

51:17

some VO2 max effort, long

51:21

reps at a VO2 max effort.

51:24

And that's where you can get the

51:26

really high injury risks. That's

51:29

where, you know, you really just get burned out

51:31

more from your training. And so when I see,

51:33

you know, for example, that study, eight weeks of

51:36

two VO2 max workouts a week, I'm

51:38

like, oh man, that is either gonna leave runners

51:40

injured, burned out, or they might have

51:42

like a week where they can like run a

51:45

PR and, you know, they're feeling great, but then

51:47

they sort of fizzle out afterward. And,

51:49

you know, this concept is sort of gets

51:51

down to, I don't know if

51:53

you've ever read that book, Training for the Uphill

51:56

Athletes. I think it's really fantastic. You should check

51:58

it out. Okay. And they talked about. capacity

52:00

versus utilization. And so this

52:03

really changed how I think

52:05

about workouts and really, you

52:08

know, if you were to simplify what

52:10

you get from certain running workouts, you

52:13

know, capacity workouts are basically lactate

52:16

threshold and slower. They're aerobic.

52:18

They build your capacity for

52:21

more training. You're getting more

52:23

mitochondrial development. You're improving your

52:26

body's ability to both use

52:28

and shuttle lactate. It's

52:31

essentially just improving your body's ability

52:33

to run more and do harder

52:35

training in the future. And

52:38

then there's utilization workouts, which are like,

52:40

you know, those VO2 max workouts.

52:42

And those help you get more

52:44

efficient with the fitness you already

52:46

have, where the capacity builds your

52:48

fitness. And you need both,

52:51

obviously, but I think if we're gonna focus

52:53

on one or the other, most of the

52:55

time we should be focusing on building our

52:57

capacity and just being a little bit more

53:00

cautious with a lot of those utilization workouts.

53:03

So I think ultimately I'm a

53:05

little bit more of like a developmental

53:07

coach. I like to develop

53:09

athletes rather than getting

53:11

super specific all the time. You know, like

53:13

I have the runners be like, why am

53:16

I doing a threshold workout? I'm running a

53:18

5K. And I'm like, well, because

53:21

threshold workouts make you into a

53:23

better runner. That's why we're gonna

53:25

do them. You know, they're improving

53:27

so many physiological aspects of

53:29

your body and your ability. We shouldn't ignore

53:32

that so that we can only do 5K

53:34

pace workouts. Right, right.

53:37

I know it's, I

53:39

like that capacity versus utilization.

53:41

And I, as we're

53:43

speaking, I released a podcast today

53:46

where the guest was talking about,

53:48

you know, capacity, or I can't

53:51

remember, I think he calls it

53:53

capacity utilization. So like a certain

53:55

percentage of whatever capacity you actually

53:57

have and how it's different based

53:59

on. on different athletes. For example,

54:01

elite level athletes, like

54:03

a borderline

54:06

sub-2 marathoner, can run at

54:08

their second threshold, at 96% of their

54:10

second threshold, for two hours. Whereas

54:14

mere mortals, we might be

54:16

like an hour, or something like that.

54:18

So he was talking, I think, to

54:20

the same sort of idea, is that

54:23

developing your capacity by doing

54:25

more of that threshold work, pushing that

54:27

threshold higher, doing other things like that,

54:31

you're going to accumulate a lot less

54:33

fatigue, especially in running,

54:36

compared to going out and

54:38

pounding on the track, and doing the

54:40

traditional five

54:43

minutes on, five minutes off, mile

54:46

repeats. And this is what we see. I

54:49

was actually, I was fortunate enough, I was

54:52

coached, I coached an

54:54

athlete who is in high school right

54:56

now for cross-country, over the

54:58

summer, and then she trained with her

55:00

coach the rest of

55:02

the fall, but she qualified for the Nike

55:04

Nationals. And one

55:07

of the things we were really, really worried about, or

55:09

at least I was worried about, was her

55:13

over-racing and over-implementation

55:15

of VO2MAX training throughout the

55:17

season. Because what you see

55:19

is that, pretty much at

55:21

the very beginning of the season, what a

55:23

lot of coaches like to do is like,

55:25

okay, we're gonna start doing some more VO2MAX

55:27

work. And they try to fit in two

55:30

workouts, maybe like a week, whereas like VO2MAX,

55:32

and then a really hard 5K race or

55:34

something like that. And those, I would both

55:37

say, are probably a little bit more on

55:39

the utilization side of

55:42

things. And for her, I was

55:44

like, okay, well, we only need her to

55:46

maximize her performance for

55:49

states, because we wanted to

55:51

win states. And then the Nike

55:53

Regional, and there was one more

55:55

race during the season where she wanted to do

55:58

really, really well. I

56:01

kind of like as opposed to saying oh This

56:28

very much reminds me of my own cross

56:30

country seasons both when I was in high

56:32

school and in college because you

56:35

know I think in hindsight I

56:37

had really good coaches and they knew that

56:40

our teams were pretty good and that

56:42

we were going to be in the

56:44

postseason and we needed

56:46

to really save our best performances

56:48

for November instead of early or

56:51

mid September. And so a lot

56:53

of our early season races were

56:55

like okay you've got a 5k

56:58

we are going to run the first two miles kind

57:01

of a threshold you know in

57:04

dual meets we would often run with the

57:06

with the first runner on the other team

57:08

because we were we were a fairly dominant

57:11

team and then you know at the two

57:13

mile mark would be like alright buddy we got to go we're

57:15

going to start racing now and then we would make the last

57:17

mile hard or similar

57:19

things in college during 8k cross country we

57:21

might take the first three miles easy and

57:23

then really race the last two it was

57:25

just a way to make

57:27

the races a little bit easier

57:30

I think both physically and psychologically

57:32

you know and that's probably a

57:34

whole other conversation is like you can't

57:37

race to your maximum

57:39

ability week after week

57:41

for like three months solid it

57:43

is it is psychologically draining and

57:46

that's one of the things that good coaches are going

57:48

to do is they're going to save your your mindset

57:50

for when it really matters too because it's not just

57:53

about you know not doing VO

57:55

two max work too much too soon in the

57:57

beating of the season it's also not. putting

58:00

yourself in a position where you need

58:02

to get as much out

58:04

of your body as possible in every

58:06

single race. That is

58:09

very fatiguing psychologically. But

58:12

yeah, those early races, but they're also

58:14

so much fun. It takes

58:16

all this pressure off of yourself. I'm not

58:19

racing this race. I'm sort of just doing

58:21

it as a workout. And

58:23

I think that saves you physically, mentally, and

58:25

it's a lot more fun. Yeah,

58:28

that's actually with my training, and I've been

58:30

having some good success with this, is

58:33

I only do

58:36

one really hard, specific

58:38

workout a week. And that's

58:40

right now, I'm kind of in a

58:42

VO2 max development phase, just because it's

58:45

kind of off-season, other things like that.

58:48

And it is hard

58:50

to mentally get up for that. And

58:53

the day afterwards, I definitely noticed my mental

58:56

capacity was a little bit depleted as well.

58:58

And what I've told some of my athletes

59:00

in the past is like, and I don't

59:02

know, this might come from like Steve Magnus,

59:05

but there's workouts that

59:08

are controlled, and there's races

59:10

that are controlled, and then there's workouts that are

59:12

go see God. Yeah, I think that

59:14

might be a Steve Magnus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So

59:16

I'm not stealing it from him, but it's something

59:18

I love, because it's like, OK, I want you

59:21

seeing the shiny light coming down, trying to pick

59:23

you up after this workout. But you only have

59:26

maybe a handful of those per year,

59:29

if not less than that. So that's

59:31

why it's important, right, to really

59:34

understand your athlete and say, OK,

59:36

well, when is it appropriate to

59:38

push them to that mental limit?

59:40

Because again, if you're doing

59:42

it week in and week out, and then

59:44

you're not following that up with adequate rest,

59:46

then it's really, really hard to maintain that.

59:48

So I love the fact that you touch

59:50

on not only the physical side, but the

59:53

mental side of things, because it's

59:56

something I think we're getting better as

59:58

a society of talking about. is

1:00:00

especially in training or like my

1:00:02

PhD for example, was really

1:00:06

mentally draining because there was no reprieve. I

1:00:08

tell people it was like sprinting a marathon

1:00:11

for four years. And

1:00:13

it was one of those things where if you don't

1:00:16

get good at taking the easy days easy and the

1:00:18

hard days hard, then you

1:00:20

lose track of that and you're

1:00:22

essentially, if like

1:00:24

in this is an application to work, you're

1:00:26

essentially working in zone three

1:00:28

every single day. It's kind of mentally draining,

1:00:31

it's kind of physically fatiguing, but you're never

1:00:33

getting enough recovery. And then when you go

1:00:35

to try to do other things where it's

1:00:37

hard, you can't, your body

1:00:40

won't let you get up for it. So

1:00:42

I think that is something that is, this

1:00:46

is why I love sport and I love

1:00:49

endurance training and stuff because there's so many

1:00:51

connections to real world

1:00:53

and how you go about approaching

1:00:56

your day or approaching different tasks within

1:00:58

your day. Because if you're learning correctly

1:01:00

how to implement endurance training, you can

1:01:02

then take it and you can apply

1:01:05

it to your life and you actually have much

1:01:07

better outcomes. I've ever since my

1:01:09

PhD got over, I've been really, really trying

1:01:11

to be like, okay, if I'm

1:01:13

gonna have marathon recording days for podcasts

1:01:15

and stuff, I have to follow that

1:01:18

up with days of less

1:01:22

stress in terms of, like

1:01:24

wanting to impress people on the podcast, making

1:01:27

sure you're prepped for the podcast, other things

1:01:29

like that. So yeah, what

1:01:31

are your thoughts on that? I

1:01:33

think you're 100% right. And if I

1:01:35

wasn't a runner, I don't think I

1:01:38

would be as successful in other areas

1:01:40

of my life because it taught me,

1:01:42

yeah, that value of hard,

1:01:45

easy days. If you have a hard day,

1:01:47

you're gonna need an easy day the next

1:01:49

day. And that's true professionally as it is

1:01:51

athletically. And you're absolutely right. If I

1:01:54

have a day where I'm gonna batch

1:01:56

record a couple of videos and go

1:01:58

on a podcast and... I'm putting

1:02:00

the finishing touches on a monthly

1:02:03

column for Trail Runner magazine, and I've

1:02:05

got two coaching calls. I

1:02:07

might need to go for a long trail run

1:02:10

the next day and clear my head because that's

1:02:12

just been a really difficult day for me. And

1:02:15

I think the

1:02:17

number of people who have come

1:02:19

from sport and used their lessons

1:02:21

to go coach executives

1:02:23

at Fortune 500 companies is

1:02:27

just very indicative of the fact that

1:02:29

if you get good at a sport,

1:02:31

you are learning lessons that are then

1:02:34

applicable to almost every area of your

1:02:36

life. And it was funny when

1:02:38

you were talking about getting your PhD and

1:02:40

making sure that every day wasn't super hard

1:02:42

and giving yourself rest days because I'm like,

1:02:44

are you describing parenting right now? Yeah, yeah,

1:02:46

no. And that's that

1:02:51

that is something that I'm just trying to

1:02:53

learn and teach myself is like, and it's

1:02:55

really hard for I mean, you can you

1:02:57

can speak to as an entrepreneur as well,

1:02:59

right? You're always, there's

1:03:01

always a list that is longer than what you

1:03:04

actually can do in a given day. So you

1:03:06

have to learn how to prioritize, you

1:03:09

have to learn how to, you

1:03:11

know, choose what

1:03:13

is going to move the needle forward

1:03:16

as much as possible while also allowing

1:03:18

me to maintain my sanity. And that's

1:03:20

like, I do a hybrid of things

1:03:22

now where it's like I train every day. But you

1:03:25

know, sometimes it's easier. For example, today, it was

1:03:27

like I got on the bike and it

1:03:29

was laughably easy. Like I had, you know,

1:03:31

I had a conversation like this with my

1:03:33

fiance. And, you know, it was

1:03:35

it's great because it got the blood moving. I

1:03:38

was able to enjoy it. I was coming off

1:03:40

of a couple hard days. And,

1:03:42

you know, but I also knew that I was

1:03:45

going, you know, I wanted to perform well for

1:03:47

like the two podcast episodes that I

1:03:49

was going to be recording to. So yeah,

1:03:52

it is amazing all the parallels.

1:03:54

And it's really cool.

1:03:56

So I want to switch gears just

1:03:58

a second because you're the name. of your

1:04:00

company is strength running. And we have not

1:04:02

talked about strength training other than the one

1:04:05

video that I talked about watching. So

1:04:07

with the last little bit of time,

1:04:10

how do you approach strength

1:04:12

training and has that change based

1:04:15

on research that has come out

1:04:17

saying, oh, well, maybe heavy lifting,

1:04:19

plyometrics, other things like that is

1:04:22

more beneficial for performance

1:04:25

variable changes? Yeah,

1:04:28

my thoughts on strength training have certainly

1:04:30

evolved substantially, even from, you

1:04:32

know, 10 years ago. I

1:04:35

used to think that runners didn't need to

1:04:37

do any strength training, especially for their legs

1:04:39

because, hey, we're exercising our legs every day

1:04:41

when we go running. But

1:04:43

that is the silliest perspective to

1:04:46

have. I think the science is

1:04:48

pretty clear that weightlifting is very

1:04:50

beneficial for endurance runners. I

1:04:52

would say that when I first started strength running in 2010, I

1:04:54

was much more focused on body

1:04:58

weight strength routines and really pulling

1:05:00

from the world of physical therapy

1:05:03

to do a lot of that

1:05:05

work as prehab. So early

1:05:07

on, my philosophy was let's do

1:05:09

a ton of this body weight

1:05:11

strength work as prehab so that

1:05:13

we can stay healthy. Again, we

1:05:15

want to drive that consistency as

1:05:18

much as we can. And

1:05:20

layering on that kind of strength

1:05:23

work onto an already well-designed running

1:05:25

program is probably one of

1:05:27

the best ways that you can stay healthy. You

1:05:29

know, like, number one, let's get your training right.

1:05:31

And then number two, let's start strength training. But

1:05:35

I would say maybe five or six years ago,

1:05:37

I really started recognizing

1:05:39

the power of

1:05:41

heavier weightlifting, plyometrics,

1:05:44

more power-based movements.

1:05:46

And this really, you know, I was reading more

1:05:48

about forces and like force

1:05:51

development. And if you want to be fast,

1:05:53

you need to be able to impart a

1:05:55

lot of force into the ground. And so

1:05:57

what does that actually mean? a

1:06:00

function of power and power is really

1:06:02

strength times speed. And if

1:06:05

you don't have strength, you know,

1:06:07

you can't really do much with your speed, you're probably

1:06:09

going to get hurt. So now

1:06:12

I very much have a strength training philosophy

1:06:14

that is a bit of a hybrid of

1:06:16

both, like we are going to get in

1:06:18

the gym, we are going to do some

1:06:20

heavier weightlifting, we are going to add in

1:06:22

plyometrics in a very methodical way,

1:06:24

you know, as someone who likes

1:06:27

plyometrics and recognizes that they can be really

1:06:29

good at getting you to use your body

1:06:31

more economically. I also recognize that

1:06:34

the injury risk with plyos is much higher than

1:06:36

say your, you know, easy zone to running. So

1:06:38

we've got to be kind of careful with that.

1:06:43

But the heavier weightlifting is something that is,

1:06:45

I think, while

1:06:49

at the same time, it's extraordinarily beneficial for runners, it's

1:06:51

also not something that we have to do super

1:06:53

regularly. I think, you know, modeling

1:06:55

our strength training in the gym after

1:06:58

what bodybuilders do is not the right

1:07:00

approach. You know, we really can get

1:07:02

most of the benefits of weightlifting with

1:07:04

two sessions a week. I

1:07:07

think two sessions a week is plenty,

1:07:09

especially if you're training for a race,

1:07:11

you're not really going to be able

1:07:13

to do three hard weightlifting workouts a

1:07:15

week that's probably going to cut into

1:07:18

your ability to run and train well,

1:07:20

from a running perspective. But

1:07:22

twice a week, 45, 60 minutes

1:07:24

of focus on the fundamentals, you

1:07:26

know, I love exercises like squats

1:07:29

and deadlifts and, you know, presses.

1:07:32

And of course, all those exercises have

1:07:34

a lot of variations among them. So

1:07:38

if you're getting in the gym twice a week, what

1:07:40

I like to see the other days of the week,

1:07:42

let's let's just say you run seven days a week,

1:07:45

twice a week, you're going to be doing

1:07:47

weightlifting in the gym, the other

1:07:50

five days a week, I want to see

1:07:52

you sandwich your runs in between a dynamic

1:07:54

warm up and a 10 to

1:07:57

20 minute body weight strength routine.

1:08:00

It doesn't have to be very hard. You're

1:08:02

probably just doing bodyweight exercises. Maybe

1:08:04

you're using something like an exercise

1:08:07

band, maybe an exercise, a

1:08:09

medicine ball, but you're otherwise

1:08:12

not doing very challenging strength workouts. Those

1:08:14

are reserved for the gym. Those are

1:08:16

sort of like your speed workouts for

1:08:18

the week, your harder workouts, but your

1:08:21

zone two for strength is these bodyweight

1:08:23

workouts. And you know, this is

1:08:25

where we're pulling from the world of

1:08:27

physical therapy just to do a lot of things that, you

1:08:30

know, if you've ever been to a

1:08:32

PT's office, you're probably very familiar with

1:08:34

doing a lot of lateral leg raises

1:08:36

and clam shells and glute bridges and

1:08:38

plank and side planks. A lot of

1:08:40

these exercises, you know, you can

1:08:44

read studies that say, you know, if

1:08:47

you want strong abs, you should squat

1:08:49

because the ab activation is

1:08:51

so much higher in a heavy squat.

1:08:54

And then again, I kind of put on my coach's

1:08:56

hat and I'm like, yes, that's true, but we're going

1:08:58

to do both because we can't squat heavy every single

1:09:00

day. And I think some of

1:09:02

the postural benefits that we get from

1:09:04

a lot of the bodyweight exercises, because

1:09:07

some of them are like isometric

1:09:09

exercises, you're really just holding

1:09:12

a position. And

1:09:14

a lot of the times when we're running, we're

1:09:16

holding certain positions, like when we're in the stance

1:09:18

phase of the gait cycle, we need

1:09:20

to be able to hold that position at speed,

1:09:24

while our body is undergoing all these

1:09:26

different forces, rotational forces, we really need

1:09:28

to make sure you know, I'll borrow

1:09:30

a phrase from a prior podcast guest,

1:09:32

we need to be able to steer

1:09:34

our ship. If we are

1:09:36

accurately steering our ship, despite all

1:09:38

these forces, we're doing a good job. And

1:09:40

that does require a lot of strength. So

1:09:43

that's basically my strength training philosophy in

1:09:45

a nutshell. Let's lift heavy weights twice

1:09:48

a week. Let's sandwich our runs.

1:09:50

We got a dynamic warm up. That's

1:09:52

really not strength training, although some strength

1:09:54

exercises are included. And then

1:09:56

we're going to do about a 15 minute

1:09:58

bodyweight strength workout. out after each one

1:10:00

of our runs. Not only is

1:10:03

that going to improve our strength, but it

1:10:05

also acts as a nice cool down after

1:10:07

running and it's just a lot easier than

1:10:09

going from, say, workout to sitting

1:10:11

in your office desk chair. Again,

1:10:13

anyone who's done that has gotten up after

1:10:15

an hour and realized that their body just

1:10:18

feels terrible. They're nice and

1:10:20

tight and their legs feel

1:10:22

super heavy. The

1:10:24

strength workouts give us a lot more than

1:10:27

simply strength. I

1:10:29

100% agree in going back to

1:10:31

that easy and hard and you

1:10:33

have to do both. That's exactly what

1:10:35

it is. No,

1:10:38

I'm not going to say anything else about

1:10:40

it because I think you did a perfect

1:10:42

job of summing that up. Do

1:10:46

you have any ... I'm sure you have a bunch of YouTube

1:10:48

videos on it. Do you have any YouTube

1:10:50

videos that could give listeners who are

1:10:52

interested maybe a basic

1:10:55

strength training guide and then

1:10:57

a prehab sort of thing?

1:11:00

I can link. I

1:11:02

think I have the same video. If

1:11:04

we had those two for people, I think that would

1:11:06

be really valuable and I'll just put those in the

1:11:09

show notes down below for anyone who's interested. Yeah,

1:11:12

I'll put together some resources for

1:11:14

you because I certainly have both

1:11:16

videos and more in-depth articles that

1:11:19

might provide a little bit extra

1:11:21

context and flavor around how

1:11:24

to think about your strength training as an

1:11:26

endurance runner because I think there's

1:11:28

so many aspects to it that we have

1:11:30

not even gone over like running economy. There's

1:11:34

the whole longevity aspect of it. Last

1:11:37

month, I turned 40 and I

1:11:40

need to be strength training more regularly now that I'm

1:11:42

a master's runner because as soon

1:11:44

as guys hit 40, their muscle loss

1:11:46

really starts to accelerate. There's a lot

1:11:49

of things that we need to think

1:11:51

about as runners, particularly aging runners. Let

1:11:55

me send you some good resources for that. Awesome. Yeah,

1:11:58

I would appreciate that and I'm sure a lot of the

1:12:00

listeners. would appreciate it too. I will,

1:12:03

Jason, this has been an awesome conversation. I really

1:12:05

appreciate you coming on the podcast and I

1:12:08

appreciate your support because I'm a little podcast.

1:12:12

You're a big podcast with a

1:12:14

big following and everything like that and you've

1:12:16

allowed me to come onto your platform and

1:12:18

you've came onto this platform as well. So

1:12:20

I really, really appreciate it. And I'm

1:12:22

hoping that this is a start of

1:12:25

a long working relationship that we can

1:12:27

have because you share a

1:12:30

lot of amazing information

1:12:32

and I hope that with my physiology

1:12:34

background, I can kind of fill in

1:12:36

some of the, maybe the gaps

1:12:38

where people are like, oh, well I wanna know more

1:12:40

of the why. So I

1:12:42

really appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming

1:12:44

on. Oh, thanks, Bill. It was

1:12:47

super fun conversation and likewise. I mean, I

1:12:49

think one of the

1:12:51

things that I love because I'm

1:12:53

such a running nerd is that

1:12:55

I just love surrounding myself with

1:12:57

all the people that might be

1:12:59

sitting around the table helping the

1:13:01

best runner in the world optimize

1:13:04

their training. So, you've got your

1:13:06

exercise physiologist and your strength coach

1:13:08

and your sports psychologist and physical

1:13:10

therapist and all these people who

1:13:12

are advising the athlete on how

1:13:14

to maximize their potential. I

1:13:16

just love being around those kinds

1:13:18

of people and having those conversations.

1:13:21

And you just do such an

1:13:24

amazing job of making some of

1:13:26

these physiological, physiology concepts digestible

1:13:28

for the average runner because look, I'm

1:13:31

not running a physiology lab over here.

1:13:33

I am coaching runners, I am communicating

1:13:35

and educating runners on different topics. So

1:13:38

I certainly rely on folks like you

1:13:40

to fill in those gaps, like you

1:13:42

said, and help me with the

1:13:44

science so that I can map it onto

1:13:47

the day-to-day training that my

1:13:49

runners are doing. So thanks for what

1:13:51

you do. And yeah, I

1:13:53

hope folks have enjoyed this conversation. No,

1:13:55

I'm sure they will. If you guys

1:13:57

have any questions, if you're on YouTube. leave

1:14:00

a comment down below and we can

1:14:02

actually tag Jason because he has his

1:14:04

own YouTube channel. So if it is

1:14:06

directed at him, what's your YouTube channel

1:14:08

name actually? I think it's just

1:14:11

strength running. Yep. So do an

1:14:13

at strength running. I'll put again, I'll put that in

1:14:15

the show notes and then you can find Jason

1:14:18

on Instagram, probably any other social

1:14:20

media at... It's Jason

1:14:22

Fitzgerald, but I think most of them are

1:14:25

at strength running. Yeah. Actually,

1:14:27

my Twitter and Instagram

1:14:29

are JasonFits1. Okay. And

1:14:32

then the podcast is the strength running

1:14:34

podcast. I think strengthrunning.com

1:14:37

and then the YouTube channel is

1:14:39

just strength running. Awesome. Yeah.

1:14:42

I'll have that all sorted out for the show notes as well. And

1:14:45

that's our show. Thank you for listening. If

1:14:48

you're a fan of my work here on

1:14:50

the podcast in this conversation, please consider leaving

1:14:52

a review or supporting our sponsors. Use

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