In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I’m joined by the always-interesting Levi Earl, who's tuning in all the way from Finland, to nerd out on all things aerobic training, grip strength, and how to make your meathead conditioning actually work for you, not against you. We dive into why strength athletes need better aerobic systems (no, it’s not just for skinny endurance types), how mountain training builds freakish capacity, and why grip training is way more than just farmer’s carries until your soul leaves your body. We also delve into sport-specific gems, such as what wrestlers, hockey players, and other power athletes can glean from these methods to enhance their performance without tiring out. Whether you’re a high-level athlete or want to stop sucking wind between sets, you’ll walk away with some highly usable intel. Give it a listen—grab your notebook, and consider bringing a pulse oximeter if you're feeling particularly curious. Sponsors: Tecton Life Ketone drink! https://tectonlife.com/ DRMIKE to save 20% LMNT electrolyte drink mix: miketnelsonlmnt.com
In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I’m joined by the always-interesting Levi Earl, who's tuning in all the way from Finland, to nerd out on all things aerobic training, grip strength, and how to make your meathead conditioning actually work for you, not against you.
We dive into why strength athletes need better aerobic systems (no, it’s not just for skinny endurance types), how mountain training builds freakish capacity, and why grip training is way more than just farmer’s carries until your soul leaves your body.
We also delve into sport-specific gems, such as what wrestlers, hockey players, and other power athletes can glean from these methods to enhance their performance without tiring out.
Whether you’re a high-level athlete or want to stop sucking wind between sets, you’ll walk away with some highly usable intel.
Give it a listen—grab your notebook, and consider bringing a pulse oximeter if you're feeling particularly curious.
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About Levi:
Levi Earl is an Olympic-level Strength & Performance Coach based in Finland. With over a decade of experience coaching elite athletes in wrestling, hockey, and combat sports, he’s helped produce world champions, Olympians, and national-level talent across Europe. Known for his no-fluff, results-driven coaching style, Levi blends strength training, sports nutrition, and mindset development into a system built for real performance - on and off the field.
Get In Touch with Dr Mike:
Speaker: Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. In this podcast, we talk about all things to increase muscle performance and improve body composition. Do all of it within a flexible framework without destroying your health. Today on the podcast, we've got my buddy Levi Earl, all the way from Finland.
And we have a very wide ranging conversation here. Everything from grip training. So Levi has trained some of the top grip competitors in the world who I actually got to meet those competitors when I was over there in Finland, um, competing at one of Artos grip events in 2019, which was super fun.
And. Crazy to see how big of a deal grip strength is in Finland. Um, it was an awesome experience. Um, for [00:01:00] sure. If you ever get the chance to do it, I'd highly recommend it. Um, we also talk about aerobic training for strength athletes, how to optimize aerobic power and capacity, aerobic based maintenance energy systems and ice hockey for wrestlers.
Some also about altitude effects and working on what they, over there we call mountain training. I guess here it would be like a hybrid of like rucking isolation work. Um, yeah. Hard to describe, but we talk about that in the podcast too. And then also why the aerobic system is so important for athletes.
And again, these are not necessarily athletes who are wanting to be endurance athletes. Which, if that's your cup of tea, then by all means, of course you need to have endurance practice. Just like strength training. You need strength practice. But um, here we're talking about more strength and power athletes, or for people who are just lifting 2, 3, 4 days a week.
Like [00:02:00] why the aerobic system is also extremely important. Um, so make sure to check out all Levi's great stuff. We'll put links to his Instagram, his website, and everything else. Um, awesome work he is doing. Hopefully we'll get the chance to visit him in person whenever we get back to Finland again, which not sure when we'll get over there, but we'd like to get over there again at some point.
If you are interested in aerobic training hop onto the newsletter even if you are a meathead. Go to mikey nelson.com. We'll put the link to the newsletter down below here, um, because starting on August 11th, 2025. We will have the level two to the Flexible Meathead Cardio course. We'll start that week.
We'll do it again as live training for probably four days, over two weeks. You'll get all the recordings, you'll get all the protocols and everything. So on the level two version, this is more on the anaerobic [00:03:00] side. This is shorter, conditioning your sprints, your high intensity interval training super high intensity interval training.
We will talk about the classic Tabata study and everything you need to know about more of the anaerobic, the very short power output focused, um, type training. And of course, we'll touch a little bit on the aerobic system also. Um, the aerobic system was in the level one, and the reason it was in level one is because you need a very well developed aerobic system to pull off a lot of the anaerobic work.
That you're gonna be doing for repeated reps at high quality. One of the biggest mistakes I see a lot of people make is they do too much anaerobic work. So short, high intensity work, which has a ton of value to it, but their output is not able to be sustained over weeks and months, and that's actually because of the lack of their aerobic [00:04:00] system being developed.
So if you're gonna do, say a. 30, 30, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, or maybe 10 rounds on the rower, which I would say, or an echo bike, I'd say that is very advanced. We see that you want to be able to hold that output for most of that in time. There's gonna be some degradation, but it should not be a lot.
What I see is a lot of people have a massive degradation of, sometimes 40, 50% from intervals one and two to interval eight, so you're not training the same thing. And while you might think that looks like it's an anaerobic event, which it totally is, it's actually your aerobic system that is the rate limiter on that.
So anyway, if you're interested, go to the newsletter hop on there and we'll have all the information coming out. Also, if you're interested in electrolytes, check out our friends at Element down below. And if you're interested in the cognitive support under load and fatigue. Check out our friends [00:05:00] Teton for ketone esters down below.
Full disclosure, I do some advisement for them am and an ambassador also. So check them out and enjoy this wide ranging conversation from grip to aerobic to anaerobic conditioning. My good buddy Levi Earl.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Hello,
Levi: Mike mate. How are you doing?
Dr Mike T Nelson: I am good. How are you, sir?
Levi: Everything's well. Everything's well. From my perspective in sport, is it better to have a higher intensity because you can push with a thinner grip. Again, like more weight, let's say. Right? Fat grip.
So is it better to sacrifice the intensity for actually the strength? And I was like that, the grip strength, or the, um, let's say the more, um, what's the words like muscle activation because you're using a thicker implement. So, so I was like, I'm [00:06:00] always in the belief of it's better to train.
Thicker grip implements. And then sometimes when you are wanting to push the intensity of, you can go into a little bit of a, a thinner grip implement or for example, a normal barbell. But especially for sport crossover I much prefer the training, the 80 to 90% of the training done with a thicker implements.
I just see more results of it. So I still, most people don't do grip enough. So
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah it's weird to me like I train a fair amount of obstacle course racers now, and now it's becoming more of a thing is climbers are starting to do more OCR events and that kind of thing.
But back five years ago, I, I just idiot me, I'm like, I just have 'em all, just start doing grip because you're gonna get fatigued and if you miss an implement during it, you're gonna get a time penalty. So these are not super difficult events, but most people I. Didn't train any grip at all, and it was weird to watch videos of people just missing [00:07:00] pretty basic stuff.
And I'm like, oh, well what do you do for grip training? What are you talking about? I. I'm like, but you're hanging from objects, like you're holding them. What do you, it was like, what are you talking about? I'm like, you should train for this. Oh, okay.
Levi: Yeah. For sure. For sure. Plus it also, like I work in wrestling mostly and with oh yeah.
So it's like those guys they train their grip like wrestlers, more specifically train grip, but also it's, you get that same repetitive patterns. So it's mix it up a little bit, do your extensors, which nobody really ever does. And not barely enough. Not barely enough or, they have the bands, but like isometrics, you can do flossing with it.
You can do so much, like even the angles of positions of the arm. It's it changes the whole contraction. So it's like. I'm really grateful that I actually got to spend so much time with Harry and all the grip guys back then. 'cause it's, [00:08:00] the crossover I have for sports is, it's phenomenal.
It's, you really see the risk function get better, the elbows get better, the shoulder health gets better because just the way of picking up dumbbells for, let's say it's changes the structure. So, no, I really respect all the good guys and
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah, that was the biggest thing I got from Adam.
And even from, guys like you and other people was, train your hand in an extended position, like a plate curl. Even some like we talked about with the iron mine, the Eagle Loops, and just the, I don't know how many guys I have now, just by a Saxon bar, because the first time you do that, you're like.
What the holy hell, like I can feel soft tissue all the way from my hand all the way up my for, I'm like, what the hell is this?
Levi: So here's a good question for you. 'cause I know we're gonna talk about this topic today, but
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Levi: What, how have you seen the benefits of having a higher, let's say, aerobic system or BO two max? [00:09:00] What have you seen as a benefit for the grip guys?
Dr Mike T Nelson: The biggest benefit I have seen, and I think some people have a pretty big aerobic base already who don't necessarily train it.
Um, but what I've seen is just their ability to recover is just so much better. Um, and obviously like you've got some people who. If you do it long enough, like I've never subscribed to this grip is more taxing. So you can't do it as much frequently. I think if you're new, that's probably true, but you could say that about any, max lift.
Um, but I found over time you can do a lot of volume with it, and the higher my aerobic base is, the more I can come back and do that the next day and the next day. So especially that 24 hour kind of recovery mark, I just find is much better. And my main limitations now are more soft tissue, where I feel like, okay, I can do the output, but you get that soft [00:10:00] tissue soreness that's hard to explain unless you've actually had it.
Um, that at least for me is more my rate limiter currently, if that makes sense. Yeah,
Levi: yeah. Yeah. Do have you seen any correlation with the nervous system to it as well? Like for the max list? Oh yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: HRV is way better. So HRV is typically a lot better resting heart rate down and the drop I'll get an HRV isn't nearly as profound, but if my HRV was lower, it would tend to drop fair amount and then I take the next day off and then I would go again.
It would be fine. So it'd be about 48 hours to get back to baseline. Where I've noticed with doing more aerobic stuff, a lot of times I can shorten that to 24 hours a lot of times. So my baseline is higher and it doesn't drop quite as much. Or if it does, the amount of volume and intensity I can push is a lot higher.
So it would take a much longer, more intense session to get that same drop.
Levi: Gotcha, gotcha. [00:11:00] Do you have many of the group guys doing it or
Dr Mike T Nelson: it's the obstacle course? The crossover people, it's a pretty easy sell. So obstacle course racing, some crossover people, stuff like that where. They do some grip competitions for fun, but it's not like their number one thing.
Um, those people are pretty much bought in. I have a couple other people who, their aerobic base was just so horrible. I just said, Hey, you just, you gotta work on this somewhat. They're bought in now. The, as much as I love Jed, the Jed Johnsons of the world and the Hardcore Grip people I don't even mention it to 'em.
I just don't want to fight that battle to be perfectly honest.
You do you bro. I'm not getting in the mess of there. If you have a question, I'll happily answer your question, but I'm not trying to go out and preach to the unconverted.
Levi: Yeah. Sometimes it's better to just keep your mouth shut. Right. And just let it be.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. It's I know recording this, but the funniest and I love Jed, but the funniest Jed comment was ever my buddy Brad Nelson was [00:12:00] starting to train with the dumbbells and Adam was helping him.
So you had the hundred. I think a 1 35 inch and then a 1 75. Yeah. And he was having him do a lot of the plate mates and the two hand assisted. Right. So he use the other hand to stop the rotation. Obviously the rotation's gonna be the rate limiter of it. Yeah. And um, so he is posting these videos and he made really good progress and, just like about six months.
The funniest comment from Jed when he started was, Hey man, don't you know this is a one hand lift. What are you doing? And Brad's trying to explain to him, he is I'm doing it as a training tool. 'cause I can't quite even pick up the 1 35 yet. But if I stop the rotation and I tilt it, I can get a lift on it.
So it's a progression.
Levi: Yeah. And
Dr Mike T Nelson: Jed's like, why this book? We'll show you how to do it. And so Adam then, or Brad keeps posting lifts and he did really good over six months and Jed kept saying the same thing every single time, even though he added like 30 pounds to that lift in six months, which is hilarious because anyone else would look back and go. [00:13:00] I don't know, man. Looks like you've been making some pretty good progress. Maybe I should look at this weird lift you're doing, even though it's not legit. Because then he did post a one hand list. He did get the 1 35. Um, but I thought, it's funny how some people just get so stuck in just one mindset.
They can't see anything beyond that, which is hilarious.
Levi: Yeah. It's a it's a really interesting sport for sure. And I really like actually the culture of it as well, like everybody. Oh yeah. It's
Dr Mike T Nelson: great.
Levi: It's so super, super polite.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh yeah. Everyone's super nice. Yeah, it
Levi: was like, that was the biggest shock for me.
'cause like you go to these underground gyms of just okay, where you go in this gym? Oh, we have 478 pieces of grip equipment. Yeah. And you're like. Like what, like a rolling thunder? Yeah, we got like this version, this, we made this guy made that.
It's 45 different roll rolling handles. And you're like, okay, interesting. And then everybody's like super polite you need to [00:14:00] lift it like this. We do better like this, your hand structures like this, so maybe this would be better for you. So it's a really cool like little niche sport that not many people actually get to spend the time in.
I, I think it's a very small strength based or strongman based niche, but actually a, I've seen a lot of the strongmen getting into it nowadays as well, which is really cool. At least it popularize the sport. So.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And even like when we were over there 'cause we were there for about 10 days, so, Arto was like, Hey, when you're here, come train with us and train with all the guys.
We're like, okay, great. And so I'm expecting like this, crazy huge gym and it's just this small little community center. And you walk in, there's standard equipment and then they had this little grip corner, which wasn't very big. But then you look on the walls, there's probably three full walls of just grip implements, like whatever you want.
There's eight versions of it in this small little tiny ass gym. You're like, holy shit. This is wild. [00:15:00]
Levi: I remember my first time with the finger killer. Do you remember this one?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh yeah.
Levi: I couldn't feel the tips of my fingers from Oh,
Dr Mike T Nelson: new crazy finish. People are all in like the Finn Ball and this tiny little things you can barely hold onto and shit.
Levi: Well, listen man I'm from the UK so the fins are just crank me all the way through. So,
so they when they showed me all these things, I was like, you guys are nuts. That
Dr Mike T Nelson: fin ball thing is, that was one of the things we had to do in competition. I'm like, this is the stupidest lift ever. But they're like, oh, this is great. I'm like, I don't know. Like it and trying to explain it to someone.
You're like, oh, you mean you added 0.5 pounds to your lift? That's a huge pr. Yeah, what are you doing? This makes no sense.
Levi: Really difficult though.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, it's super hard, ridiculously hard.
Levi: Very humbling.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, yeah. Because you look at it and you're like, I do what? I [00:16:00] jam my thumb under the, and part of it I think is just almost a pain tolerance.
But then you realize when you go to pick the thing up, like your hand doesn't stay in the position you put it in, you're like, oh. So there's some very weird, highly specific strengths to doing these oddball, like little tiny lifts.
Levi: Yeah. Yeah. I actually found one of the, one of the factors that was when we were working with Harry was actually basically how well his nerve roots, like the whole nerve sys nervous system coming from the spine and all that scar tissue that basically gets formed up through the whole length that, that, that was actually what, like you were saying about your soft tissue stuff.
Once we started working on that for Harry, that was like big keys for his results going up, but that was like consistent maintenance 'cause they're lifting so heavy and so often and usually quite one side dominant. So, but it was a, it was really interesting times for sure.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Were you doing like nerve glides and stuff for that?
Or how do you evaluate it or what do [00:17:00] you do for that?
Levi: No, obviously it's structural balance work. You need to, yep, make
Dr Mike T Nelson: sure
Levi: there's no compression on the nerves. Things like this. Try to do flossing. Then we are doing treatments of the arms soft tissue work, so things along that nature. And I have somewhere, I have some data back then about how strong your extensors need to be compared to some lifts.
Oh, sure. Yeah. That was like, really cool. I need to go look back at that data. It's so specific, it's so specific.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And that's like my, also my pet peeve of people have the little rubber bands to do some extension work. I'm like, yeah, that's a great start if you're probably an office worker.
But if you're, someone like Harry or Adam or these people who are lifting, massive loads of the semi close or semi-open hand, like you're not gonna do dick by just doing a few extensions. Like it might help, it might get some movement, but there's no load to that. And that's when I realized fingertip pushups or like the Eagle [00:18:00] Loops where you're wrapping it around the end, so now you've got this huge amount of tension through this part of your hand that's normally closed.
Just different things like that, Saxon bar plate curls, like you need to load those other positions. I know you've talked about this too, like you can't just do some, a hundred reps or something and expect it to transfer. It's not gonna do much other than just light movement.
Levi: I see it, there's the same premises when people start training in the gym.
It's yeah, you can go and use some rubber bands and do some bicep curls. You'll get some results.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Levi: Fucking haven't never trained before. Of course you're gonna get something. But then there's a difference between are you're strong enough?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, you strong.
Levi: Like you got, like we, we, I actually, we, I sent Harry some designs and we actually made some extensive loading stuff.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, cool. So
Levi: it was, I have them on my wall in the gym here. But it's like that because you gotta load it. It's like you legitimately have to load it. When he [00:19:00] wouldn't, he got that world record with the hub. So we actually created the reverse action for that so we could Oh, nice. Sensors. That was pretty cool.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I always thought if you could get like a ring that's bigger and so to lift it you have to do expansion to pick it up instead of contraction. That's what I made. That's what we made. Okay, cool. Yeah.
Levi: What we made. Yeah. Yeah. It was. But I think he, I think that record still stands 'cause they ended up changing the rules after that.
I think. I think he still has the world record for the previous rules, but if you pick it up, you pick it up, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh yeah. Publicists are one of those things I just never practiced with much. It's on one hand, it's yeah, I'd like to do it with a 45, but on the other hand, oh man, it is, I'm so far away from that.
Like the amount of time and effort I have to put into it. I'm just like, ah, I'll do something different.
Levi: For my God, was it 46 or [00:20:00] 53 or something? He had,
Dr Mike T Nelson: I think it was over 50, if I remember right.
Levi: It was 53 there. It was a while ago.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. It's pretty crazy. Yeah, that's really crazy. Yeah.
Levi: 53 kilos.
It's like really crazy.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, that's, yeah.
Levi: Yeah. Hey, great. Great course by the way that you made. Oh,
Dr Mike T Nelson: thank you. Yeah. Hopefully it was useful. I tried to go all the way back to okay, what are the principles people need to know, like what is useful for people who are lifting? Because what I realized was probably similar to you seen is there's like good aerobic horses, but they're all designed for.
Endurance athletes, I think, and there's some stuff for, metcons and CrossFit and high rocks and that kind of stuff. But there wasn't also
Levi: for sports as well, like
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, the sports, they have, each sport has their own aerobic conditioning. But for just like the general meathead [00:21:00] lifter, I was surprised that there wasn't much out there, which I thought was odd.
Levi: Yeah, the train of thought is obviously quite sporadic, I think in the industry of does it kill your gains? Does it not kill your gains?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Interfering
Levi: with weird, without losing muscle mass. You know what I mean? So I think, and it's like lift weights faster, get better condition, but it's like I see you still see it all over the place.
And when you're talking to people it's there. So it was a really good course, I believe for the for people to get more understanding on the basic premise of what to do. So. I actually, um, I had one very good question for you.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh,
Levi: Yeah. Pull it up. Hold on one second. And
patient, I had this here, so basically it was like, okay, I lost the question. What, where do you see as to get 80% of the results? Where would you see how much you need to [00:22:00] do?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I, so I was gonna depend on the lifter. If you're a power lifter, you probably don't need a ton of cardio. You might need more than what people think.
But what I've found over the years is if you standardize it for VO two max, and that could be from a 2K, a 12 minute Cooper run, it could be a metabolic cart, whatever. In my opinion, if you're mid forties, you're pretty good. So if you're 45 milliliters per kg per minute, that's probably on the high side. I don't think your aerobic system is gonna be a rate limiter.
If you're, the number that I give people who wanna be, I want to get as close to max to it, but I'm not an aerobic athlete. I don't want it to be a rate limiter. I'd say 45 to 50 and 50 is probably high, to be honest. Those are people who usually want more longevity, health benefits, that type of thing, if you're a power lifter, you could probably do okay in the low forties, if you're more of a [00:23:00] CrossFit athlete, probably gonna be somewhere near 50 or even a little bit above. But I think that mid forties, you're probably gonna get most of the benefits from it with the not a ton of effort.
The nice part about. Training the aerobic system is, at least in my experience, I dunno, what you've seen is it just seems to respond more without as much variety. I shouldn't say variety, but I should say variation. Like you definitely have some freaks who, like my buddy Ryan, who doesn't really do any aerobic training at all, went and wrote a 2K the other day just for fun in a competition and got like 6 28.
What the hell? You suck. Like you never need, probably need to do any aerobic training again. You're more than good. Um, but for people who train it, I just find that you can make progress relatively consistently week to week. And if you're AIC system, let's say is a rate limiter. Let's say you're 30, you train it consistently for six [00:24:00] months.
Like you could easily be in the low forties, easily, maybe even mid forties. So you take six months to eight months to really hammer it, put it on maintenance. You're probably pretty close to good for a while. As if max strength is your rate limiter, yeah, you can make progress in six to eight months, but you're usually talking six to eight years if it's a rate limiter.
So the good part is that yes, it takes dedicated training. Yes, you have to know what you're doing, but I think people can easily make it not the rate limiter within a much shorter time than they could with max strength.
Neither: Okay. And what are
Dr Mike T Nelson: your thoughts?
Levi: No, I agree that plus 45, I think if they're also lifters who wanna look after their longevity, they should be over the plus fifties, yeah, I agree with that. Depends on what type of lifters you want to be. Um. I know in this region people do the lift and also take care of the longevity much more than let's say, um, maybe in some types of cultures.
But [00:25:00] I do prefer that plus 50 for the gen pop lifter. Yeah. Just for longevity basis. So, so, um, no I agree. I agree. The, like the, for example, when you're talking like efficiency and practicality, like to override like the textbook periodization for it, it's like by the book first getting 80% of the benefit in 20% of the time.
Like how to get that is what I'm like how to get 80% of the benefit in 20% of the time is like where I'm a little bit going with on this. So I. How much would you say then would need to be done on a frequent basis if we were to go in that sense?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. What, um, what would be like their baseline?
What are you thinking? Like where's their starting point?
Levi: Let's say at 40
Dr Mike T Nelson: 40, in my experience, I would say if you're at 40 [00:26:00] and you're trying to hit, let's say 50, in terms of priorities, the first priority I would do would be some VO two max intervals, right? So hit about a hundred percent of VO two max.
You want to be there for two to eight minutes. If your VO two max is 40 already, you could probably start maybe even at four minutes. Um, do that rest completely. And then each week I would just add another interval and work up to probably four to six intervals, depending upon what you read and believe.
Probably 15 to 20 minutes of total time at that level. Um, obviously you can work up to that, but just by adding more. Once you hit that say, 20 minutes, then I would actually go back and start compressing the rest periods. So just track how long it takes you to do that and now see if you can do that same level of work just in a little bit less time.
Or you can, bump your output again. Um, most people Go ahead.
Levi: I was just gonna say, so in like basic terms there, you're going from like aerobic paddle all [00:27:00] and over time transferring it into aerobic capacity, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Because you want to hit larger. Yep. 'cause you want hit the output first.
And I think that's the biggest mistake people make is they're like, oh, I read the Norwegian four by four method. I have to do, four minutes with four rounds and I'm gonna start here. And I'm like, cool, send me your output. First four minutes, pretty good. Second one, eh, third one, like 50% of the fir, the fourth one, they're basically dead.
Like they don't, I don't even know why you bothered to even monitor it. Yes. So did they do a lot of work? Yes. Was it very hard? Yes. Is are they gonna get the maximum adaptation from it? No, because they're not at the intensity that they need. So I'd much rather have people hit the intensity rest completely, add some more volume over time.
And you're absolutely correct. Like you're looking more at, probably aerobic power to start, but if you can repeat that effort as you do more work because of fatigue, even if you're letting your heart [00:28:00] rate get all the way back down to below 80, you are definitely working more of the aerobic system because you're requesting your body to repeat that amount of effort again.
And once you can do that, I'd say program that at least once a week, you can try doing it twice a week. Some people can get away with that, some people can't. Usually if you're doing that, you'll probably have to sub out a lifting day, in my experience. But that's gonna be like the main thing that's gonna get you the farthest.
The issue you run into though, is at some point you just like lifting, right? If I said, Hey, I wanna increase my deadlift all the time, great, well, you should probably do some lower rep work to train that, but you can't go into the gym and do that every day at the output you want. You can't probably hit plus 90% Monday through Friday.
Right? In theory, that's great. But in practice, most people try. You can try, right? Yeah, most try.
Levi: Most try. They definitely.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. But unless your max deadlift is, 135 pounds you're [00:29:00] probably just not, it is not gonna work so well, right? So then you run into, oh crap.
Well, what else could I do to still make progress without hitting those intensities? Usually with that, I'll go to some type of, what I call cardiac development, which is just simply zone three. It may be as simple as, I like the progressive six minutes, get on the rower or an air bike in the morning.
And at the end of those six minutes, you should be, in an RPE between an eight and a nine, your heart rate should be probably 90% of max. But you're gonna see the curve go up and then flatten out. So what you're doing is maybe two to three minutes of those are probably close to that, maximum intensity from VO two max, but you're not staying there real long and literally you're just doing it once per day.
So I'll have people program that maybe, five days a week, so you're looking at a 30 minutes extra per week. So not a lot of effort. That usually works pretty good. Um, you can do some cardiac development stuff, just even 10 [00:30:00] to 12 minutes a day at a moderate heart rate is pretty good.
Um, I do doing some, if you're using a rower 500 meters to a thousand meters before lifting, this is the assumption, it's probably not a lower body day. And you're broadly, somewhat trained. And then don't go to max on it. Go like to an RP of a seven or an eight. Um, I did a RP of a nine and a half the other, it was like four weeks, three weeks ago now, because you start off and I'm like, oh, I'm doing good.
I'm like, ah, I'm gonna go for it today. And I hadn't done it in, max effort on that in forever. And I'm watching my time, I'm like, Hey, I'm like tied with my PR now. I got this about halfway through. I wanted to die, but I'm like, I kept going. I got within two seconds of my pr Yeah, my lifting session that day was absolute dog shit.
Don't do that. Modify the intensity. An RP of a seven or an eight, you should be recovered within, three to five minutes and it shouldn't affect your lifting performance.
Levi: [00:31:00] Yeah. Just to just go back what you were saying that at the beginning is like in the trenches, like we see.
Consistently that producing that quality and that aerobic power system first. And then developing it over time into more capacity in the aerobic system, it plays so much more benefits.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh yeah. By far
Levi: space it's so much, it's a completely different like game when you do it in that sense. And it's basic periodization actually for coaching.
So, and um, actually I'm gonna jump on another question for you if you don't mind. Yeah. And just fire this one.
So I try to get these questions because I thought these are also like what maybe your listeners might Oh yeah, that's perfect as well. So, um, I believe many of the listeners for you are somehow involved with some sport. So one of the questions I wanted to bring out was if an athlete has built a solid aerobic base in the off [00:32:00] season.
How long can they maintain that level through sport alone? Ooh. Assuming the sport involves lots of repeat sprint activity, but no traditional cardio.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I would say it's gonna vary. It depends, blah, blah, blah, which is a useless answer, but in my experience, if your volume is high enough with that, you don't need really that much work.
Right? So if you look at soccer, soccer, you're gonna have games or football, sorry, for you, international people, you're gonna have games that are relatively frequent, assuming you're playing, you're gonna be doing a lot of, running that type of thing. So if their volume is high enough, I find you don't need a whole lot of work.
If anything, I'll do. Very minimal zone three stuff, maybe a little bit more zone two, which is really just more for active recovery, getting blood [00:33:00] flow, all that kind of stuff. You're not really gonna see a big benefit to it. Um, so I would say my experience probably not a lot, which is usually why you would front end load it to the end of your off season so that as you're coming into your season or you're coming into your heavier training in the off season, your aerobic system is not the limiter on that.
And then as you go into your system and you're, depending on what you're playing, usually the last thing you're gonna do is more speed, that type of thing. And then you're just gonna try to hold as much as you can throughout the season.
Levi: So let's play a, throw a different type of energy systems.
Yeah. Because I, I used to work in football, but the two spots I'm mainly work in right now is ice hockey and wrestling.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, nice. Nice. So let's,
Levi: let's look now at ice. Oof.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So,
Levi: go ahead. If we think about it, 20 it's usually, it's a very short sprint, followed by a glide, followed by a change of direction and repeated for [00:34:00] around about 15 to 45 seconds.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So what I've seen with that is if there are lower level high school, maybe low level college, they're probably mostly lactate based. Um, but I think that's because they're not conditioned as well. I've had a couple guys, at least in the NHL lactate tests, they're professional players and they say their lactate levels are almost zero.
So is the thing they're doing classically a lactate based thing? Yes, but I think they're so well. Condition that they're not spinning out a ton of lactate. So, well,
Levi: from my experience and working in hockey the lactate disperses quite quickly, especially 'cause they're sitting on the bench and then coming back off and it's
Dr Mike T Nelson: right.
It's like I then disappears to nothing real fast.
Levi: Yeah. So, so there isn't that much, but the question would be more towards like from the recovery ability, how [00:35:00] much they did in the, on the summer for the recovery ability on the in season, how much would you say would be needed to be done to like, maintain that or basically have some development for the in season?
Dr Mike T Nelson: I would say in season my bias would be just real basic zone three stuff. Probably not a ton. You may wanna hit like a high heart rate, I would say maybe once a week, depending upon what heart rates they're hitting during the games. Um, just to try to keep that. Ultra high end, they're probably getting hit so much with the 30 to 42nd window.
Like I wouldn't really program anything in there unless they're just not playing that much. Um, and I would do probably mostly zone three, zone two stuff is just recovery. What are your thoughts?
Levi: Yeah, quite, very similar. Very similar. I mean that we've played around, at least with the juniors, quite heavily about how much they should be doing.
Um, we see that [00:36:00] for maintaining the training volume that they're doing during the weeks and the it maintains it quite high actually. Um, with the mayor the adults, like the highest leak here is fillin. It's got legal. Um, that might be a different circumstance obviously, because age comes into a factor as well.
Sure. So, um, they like it that it's over 60. For the re two max.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, that makes sense.
Levi: So yeah, it's it really is. Obviously there's a time constraint to develop that up there. If guys aren't there, how much should we actually be taking away from other work that needs to be done to even get it up 60?
So there's always that issue. Um, but definitely there should be zone two, zone three during the week. The question is how much time should be spent there as well, so obviously you're dictating training loads through the in-season training regimens. Um, then obviously if guys aren't playing, you're gonna have to do a little bit more.[00:37:00]
So it's managing those things. So then the next part to it then would be for wrestling, 'cause wrestling's a different animal, right? So you, in, in USA, you have folk style. But freestyle mainly is your main sports for the wrestling. With those wrestling bouts, we have three minutes on, 30 seconds rest, three minutes on finish a match.
You gotta be back again in 20 to 30 minutes to wrestle again in a competition zone. What would you say would be the main areas of focus looking at the aerobic system for those guys or girls?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I don't coach a lot of work with a lot of wrestlers, to be honest. But my guess would be because they're basically doing such an inverted high output low rest period, high frequency.
In the off season, I would definitely push up [00:38:00] their aerobic system pretty darn high. And then in season, I'd be looking at again, zoom two for a lot of recovery. Some zone three stuff and maybe hitting some, I would still like to hit at least a couple VO two max intervals per week because they're doing a little bit more intermediate, or I say intermediate.
Where they're on, they're off even during the match, right. You have periods of time where it's super high output, little bit less, super high output. You're not hitting those sustained levels for a period of time. So I would like them to hit a VO O2 max interval or two just to maintain during the week.
Um, but that becomes a tricky issue, I would imagine, of just recovery because a handful of wrestlers I've worked with were lower level and. They were always beat to shit every day.
Levi: I think as you, I think as your parents take you into wrestling on day [00:39:00] one of wrestling, it's welcome to the rest of your life of being beat the shit out of
Dr Mike T Nelson: because Yeah.
And they'll do anything. They're great. Hey Bob, run through that brick wall. All right, here I go.
Levi: How many times,
Dr Mike T Nelson: how many times? Twice, coach.
Levi: Yeah. But for real. But it's a fantastic sport. And the athletes are great in it's really great. So, um, I know that in the college, in, in USA they're doing a heavy amount of matches in a year.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh. A lot. Like huge amount of work.
Levi: Heavy heavy. But they have the college system out there. It's a really good system to develop the athletes, um. They are more freestyle based. But in the Greco style, you've got that isometric connection. It's like always physical contact is, it's consistent.
You don't get like that break that you would in the freestyle. No pause. Yeah. Consistent, isometric, lactate work. So, so that's really interesting to work with.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. We have a lot of peripheral limitations there too, then, because you have those long isometric contractions on top [00:40:00] of everything else.
Levi: And one of the, one of the parts that I was gonna bring up on this was have you had much experience yourself with doing mountain training?
Dr Mike T Nelson: You mean rucking and hiking and that kind of stuff?
Levi: No. Like training athletes in the mountains.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, no, I haven't, I've looked at elevation stuff, but I have never done it in, in, in reality, to be honest.
Levi: Okay. Okay. 'cause one of the the, obviously there's a science to it. I, one key factor that I'm actually talking about quite frequently to a lot of athletes that I work with is mountain training is a little bit like, to be honest it's like free doping nowadays because the distractions that you kill from actually training in the mountains, if you if you go to these old Soviet Union countries, there's nothing, there's legitimately no self reception, no wifi.
The TV is you are just living and eating and training. That's all you're there for. And that's that. I think it's gonna start to come a little [00:41:00] bit more back into just as not from the elevation based stuff, but just from that um, separation from the world that for three weeks we're going like, yes, there's.
Some benefits, yada, yada, yada. But I think the bigger benefit for that type of workup there is gonna be, the separation from that has nothing else to do apart from live, eat, train, sleep, so, um, with your experience in the research of all the elevation based stuff what do you think would be the key factors to look at?
Dr Mike T Nelson: So I have trained some people for bigger hikes. I'm working with a guy who actually has ms, so he's trying to be the first person with MS to complete like the top, I think seven peaks for hiking. Wow. Um, yeah. So we've had a couple other people do, like 14, 15,000 peaks? And so the two things I think of so if you look at the literature on [00:42:00] altitude training it's flipped over the years, as so now the general thing is if you're gonna do it, you're gonna train low and sleep high. 'cause when you're training low, because of partial pressure of oxygen is higher, you can get a much higher quality output. But we still want some of those positive adaptations to elevation, increased EPO, red blood cell mass, et cetera.
So you'll sleep at a higher um, elevation. Within that, the amount of randomized controlled trials on elevation training, even if you're competing at let's say C level, there isn't really that many because it's hard. You would need a chamber that you'd have to pressurize and change to know when it's a placebo versus not placebo condition.
So if you're training at C level, the research on it's pretty split. If you're going to compete at Elevation or you've got a match in Utah or Mexico City or places that are at Elevation, then yeah, 100%. You definitely need to prepare for that because you're gonna be competing in a low partial pressure environment.[00:43:00]
In the US there's actually some data on like the Utah Jazz, Denver Broncos, like teams that play at home at Elevation. And I think it was like a 1.4% increased winning percentage at home, which doesn't sound like a lot, but in elite level sport, like that's a massive competitive advantage because other teams have to come in and play in that environment and they're probably not as prepared.
Levi: People would spend a lot of money for a 1.4%. Oh yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh yeah. They said it ended up being like a how many millions of dollars in advantage, right? Yeah, for
Neither: sure.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Because if you're of an NFL team, like you're probably only playing at elevation once a year, so are you really gonna take a whole bunch of time to acclimate to that?
Probably not. You're just gonna show up and hope you do. Okay. Um, so I think that's some considerations. And then to your thing about the mountain training, I think. A better part of it too is if you look at these [00:44:00] environments that those people are gonna train in, if you have access to elevation, most of the time you don't have a lot of technology.
You're outside, you're in nature, you're doing things you're not used to doing. I just wonder how much of that is an additional benefit. I don't know what it's like there, but in the US I swear to God, like people like take naps on the peck deck of the machine. Like people are on their phone like twenty four seven, like not to change the music.
Like they're literally, I don't know what they're doing between sets, like taking a nap on the bench. It just looks like no one's in main gyms, no one's concentrating on actual training. They're just so distracted. Um, yeah. So just wondering about how much, just removing all of that and just having one focus like makes such a big difference.
Levi: Yeah. I mean that, I would actually like to know also what, how the research has done on the high altitude stuff and where it was done. Because we're talking like, if you think you go to some. Mountains in Bulgaria or arm mania or, the difference is like, [00:45:00] there is no dis there is no distractions.
Like I've been, yeah. There's
Dr Mike T Nelson: nothing there.
Levi: You see a sheep and you're like, finally something moved, but you're in nature, you get to walk up, you get all that, all your rest days but you are training. It's not like messing the up. This is one, it's restless. So that's one factor.
It's hard training. It's not like you go in there for, the Sunday walk. Yeah. It's
Dr Mike T Nelson: not vacation.
Levi: Yeah. Obviously one of the experiences that, that we know is obviously the first basically five days, it's nothing.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh yeah. You're gonna see, because the
Levi: training intensity that you do on a general is so high that you can't do anything basically the first five days.
So, and that's even from the weightlifting perspective, it's really trying to get your body used to being in that environment up there. And then it's trying to mitigate or trying to adjust the volume that you should be doing so that there's enough recovery between the sessions.
[00:46:00] But I, we've seen benefits with athletes going up there. That's Sure. But how much of it is also placebo coming out of that? And then how much is it just like the lack of distractions that you're actually getting a better training output? Um,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah. And you're probably going to bed.
You're not out at the bars, you're not, you don't have other responsibilities. You're there just to sleep, eat, train, repeat. Yes.
Levi: Yeah. So, so. But it's definitely something which I think, to be honest, I think in today's world, we should be doing a little bit more is trying to get that separation from the technology world.
Yeah. Trying more athletes. So, yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I'm even old school, like I still have my, I think I probably even have it here, like I still write stuff down in like a training notebook because I wanna track stuff, but I don't want to be on my phone the whole time. So in a perfect world, I'll just have a playlist already, put my phone in offline and, not look at it again.
Because I think [00:47:00] just that constant task switching is, I don't know, I just think it's a negative and maybe if you're really advanced, you can get around, you can probably do it. But I think for most people, I just think that's a detriment. So the more you can concentrate on one thing is just gonna be a benefit.
Neither: Yeah. Yeah.
Yes.
Levi: So let me see if I've got another question for you here. Yeah.
Here's one crossover for you then. So in a sport like hockey where shift is short and explosive, do you think altitude training actually benefits repeat sprint stability? Ooh. Or are we just saying like an over hyped aerobic crossover from like endurance sports?
Dr Mike T Nelson: I don't know would be the actual answer if I were to, yeah, if you said, Hey, you're in charge of NHL training, we'll do whatever you want.
Your budget's unlimited. I definitely [00:48:00] would test it to see if there's an effect. Like the research would say, the effect once you come back to sea level will only stay for about two weeks because you just don't have that constant stimulus unless you're sleeping in a weird, tent or something like that at night.
My guess is I, if I were to guessed, I would say probably not going to increase it, but I do wonder about some of the mental benefits of having to train in a low oxygen environment is just very difficult. So maybe that would transfer to better training just from mindset and things like that, but I don't know.
What are your thoughts? My guess is I don't think that it would transfer if I had to bet.
Levi: Well, I don't know. That's, yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Levi: It's a good question. Never experienced it. It's never experienced it. So you never really, I haven't really had that feedback. I know a lot of athletes now because of the, what I've done in wrestling and stuff, are interested from the hockey wheel to actually go open to test it [00:49:00] out.
Um, I think the mental side of it would be massive.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Levi: One, they're just not used to it, so it'd be like a whole big culture shock, of oh, really, there is nothing to do, yeah. And it's see you in three weeks, we're gonna be there.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Goodbye.
Levi: But it would be good to test, obviously, you, yes.
The benefits would be, let's say, reduced over time because you don't have that consistent stimulus and it's a long season ahead, but, um. Yeah, it would. It would be interesting to see how much you could actually raise it up and then keep it up after that. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So yeah. Yeah. Or something like that. Like even if you're designing a trial, like my first question is does the thing work?
Like who cares about having a placebo group or anything else? Like of course that would be great. We would love to have that. But even if you just had one group you send to the mountains for three weeks, they do [00:50:00] whatever training there. You try to match the same training at their gym, so volume is equated or whatever.
Just see if the other group gets better. My gut feeling is the other group would get better significantly, and at least you would know that the intervention you did is works positive.
Levi: Yeah, one, one reason why I asked that was actually because I was up in the mountains in Georgia where Lasher trains.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, okay.
Levi: And I was like, fuck, this is pretty fucking hard. Walking up the stairs, I'm like, Jesus Christ, he's moving some way up here, and it just started to get me thinking like, well, what about that repeat sprint ability? Like obviously he's not competing at that level.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Right.
Levi: So how would that crossover be for other sports in that short term intensity?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. It's interesting. I don't, we definitely know that there's positive adaptations due to altitude. There's no question on that. That's been extremely well documented. [00:51:00] The issue is do those positive adaptations transfer to C-level performance, and again, it's probably gonna be variable depending upon what's the rate limiter of the athlete.
Right? If they're peripherally, occluding real fast, probably not a big thing. If the red blood cell mass is low and their cardiac system is the rate limiter, so they're more air quotes, cardiac limited, maybe it is more beneficial. Maybe you would see more of a benefit to that. Yeah, I don't know.
My guess is it's probably per individual, depending upon what the rate limiter is. Yeah,
Levi: interesting.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Which makes it even more hard to figure out.
Levi: Yes. Yeah. Because I know that it used to be very popular.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, there used to be a ton of people doing it all the time. And that's what I always look at too. I think you're on it anecdotal like you used to see. One-offs, at least in the strength world of people, going to altitude and doing all this [00:52:00] stuff.
And then it disappeared. Although, at least in the US it's coming back again. I know a guy in California is trying to make training areas in gyms that are pressurized to low levels of oxygen to try to increase the amount of effort and these other things. Again, this is more for general population, not necessarily athletes.
You've got a lot of, the tents, things like that. And you've got the other extreme now you've got a lot of, hyperbaric oxygen treatment and things on the high oxygen pressure area too. So it's becoming its own thing again, it seems like.
Levi: Yeah. Oh maybe it starts to turn around again.
Old school is the best school still.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And another thing that you find interesting too is I was talking to Cal Dietz about this and I. So from the data I've looked at for hypoxic training at C level, it's mixed. Like it just looks like it just drops your performance. Um, but he has a system called the live O2, where you can go from very hypoxic [00:53:00] to high levels of oxygen, like very fast.
And he sent me some old Russian literature that said that the hypoxic training at C level didn't really work all that well, just because your training output got to be so low you were actually missing out on positive adaptations. And he said that the training they were doing was actually switching.
So they would have people on a system where they would become hypoxic, so they would drop the oxygen amount, not necessarily pressure, would do some exercise, and then the machine, you can hit a button and then it would go hyperoxic. So it would give you high amounts of oxygen. Immediately after you did the hypoxic.
So you would do like these intervals of switching back and forth. And he said with his athletes, his advanced athletes, these are not his, these were her pros and he did see some pretty big improvements with that. And there is some old Russian literature showing that you have to preload someone in a hypoxic condition first before the hypoxic condition is [00:54:00] beneficial.
And it's the switching back and forth between those two is where you get most of the benefit.
Neither: Interesting. Very interesting.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I haven't played around with that much yet.
Levi: Yeah. If you have find have you ever speak to Kyle, try to find me that link for that literature. That would be nice to look at.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. He sent it to me and I had it open once and I literally tried to find it again the other day and I said, Hey, can you send me that link again? He just sends me a link to his entire library, which trying to search through that thing is like literally impossible. So I'll have to, I'll have to send them another link and ask him again, but if anyone's listening, who wants to send me a $6,000 device to test this out, I will gladly test it in my garage once I'm home.
Levi: Likewise. Yeah. Yeah. Lemme see. I,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah.
Levi: Dave, you're working with do you have much work with weight cutting?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yes. [00:55:00] Some, not a ton, but some for weight class sports and even for physique stuff.
Levi: Okay. Lemme see if this one, if you're working with weight cutting, let's say weighting a wrestler or MMA fighter who also wants to have some aerobic adaptations, um, how would you manage actually like altitude?
Or hypoxic work without trying to add like unnecessary stress, which would basically kill the output. Because obviously in the wake it's in more extreme circumstance. Right. So what,
what would you do or how would you do it?
Dr Mike T Nelson: My first question would be what experience do they have not doing it? So we have a baseline. If anything, I would have them sleep at a lower level of oxygen, see if we can get enough adaptations from that. I'd probably do a blood draw [00:56:00] before, just to look at, red blood cell mass hematic, red, that kind of stuff.
And then I would look at their heart rate variability each morning also, and then some other output measures in their training. Because my, so what you're trying to balance is they're already on the razor's edge, they're probably doing too much and they've got a weight cut and they've got the stress of the thing.
So a weight cut usually means they got a performance thing coming up. So then they're more worried about that. I'd be worried that the, and you're doing this too big of a stressor. Say again.
Levi: And they're at altitude, right? So,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah. And they're at altitude. So. Yeah, I don't know. If they're staying in altitude, so would they be staying in altitude?
A hundred percent. And their competition is in altitude?
Levi: Yeah. So basically what usually happens is what I see quite a lot, 'cause last five years I've been traveling a lot with wrestling. And usually they have this pre-competition camps. Some nations, let's say go to [00:57:00] mountains. Sure. And those nations obviously I know I haven't had experience with them, but I'm watching them, I'm studying how each nation is doing certain things.
It's not exactly the easiest thing to go and ask them.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Levi: Especially if you don't have Russian as your second language. So Yeah. But, um, so anyway, yeah. My question would be like, how would you maintain those like oh hits, keep up some aerobic adaptations. 'cause I see these wrestlers cutting weight.
They're at high altitude. They're still doing practice. They're still doing, they're still doing. And you're like, okay. I know the risk would be like, it's astronomical. I know it is. And that's why many athletes get injured before.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. So in that event, I, you'd have to talk to the other, so I'd definitely be doing some measure of costs.
I'd probably do an HRV some measurement of that to get some leverage to be like, Hey you're just, going down real fast, [00:58:00] right? You're, here's, you're, you're going off the ski slope. So I would probably then have to switch some lifting for, I would probably try to do at least some high output aerobic things, some VO two max intervals, even if I can only get one or two in a week.
I want something at that high output, that intensity first, and then whatever volume I can get, that's what I would target first, because that's gonna be the biggest stimulus to try to hold as much of those pure aerobic adaptations as you can. And that situation, your reality is you're probably gonna have to barter with the strength coach to try to get some lifting time dedicated to doing that because you can't just probably add it on top of it with everything else.
And that sometimes is a very difficult conversation we'll say. So I'd want some leverage of testing pre and post and some measure of cost to be like, Hey, we did this surrogate test for VO two max when we came here. [00:59:00] It's four weeks into this thing. Like you went from, 55 to 48, right? I'm making up numbers, right?
So we're going down, we're having a high cost associated with all this stuff. So what are the key attributes you want to maintain? I'd argue aerobic is part of 'em to try to get them to agree to that and if they do agree to it, okay, can we get part of the training dedicated to this so that we're not losing all these adaptations right away?
Neither: Yeah. And what are
Levi: your thoughts view just thinking as an implementation point of view. Obviously if you're working with those type of those certain type of nations, they don't even have a strength coach. It's the wrestling coaches. So it's usually just gonna be tracking yourself, the h hrv and then trying to put somehow that into the session and not having extra sessions, I think would be the key.
So less, yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And what I found with those situations is if I don't have any data at all in my personal experience, [01:00:00] it's like talking to a wall. It's ah, I'll just do more. I'll be fine. I was like, do you feel well? How do you feel? I feel great. Coach, you look like shit. What do you tell me?
Like what? How do you like truly feel? Oh, I'm good. No, don't gimme the answer. I want to hear like, how do you actually, 'cause again, it's like I'll just run through walls. Let's just try harder. Let's solve everything. And at least if I have some data to say, Hey, here's an actual physiologic cost, whether it's HRVA, mega wave output, vertical jump, I don't care.
Gimme something. So that I can show them that you're not a bad person. I understand you're trying hard, doesn't mean you're a lesser athlete, you're not a bad human. It's just that there is only so much stress you can tolerate. And this is per everyone. And here's your data and it's actually going down.
So before all the wheels come off and you have a catastrophic injury and you're out for God knows how long or maybe the rest of your career, let's try to do something now. Show them that it's based on their actual data. So trying to [01:01:00] remove all their psyche as much as possible out of it, which not always easy
Levi: also, then you put it into circumstance.
If they're doing away cut, they're probably not even speaking to you anyway. You're the one that put the diet in place.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh yeah. Then they hate you more if you're the one in charge of the weight cut. They're like, screw you.
Yeah. Yeah. But, and I would get that data before they do the weight cut too, because everything's just gonna, it's gonna go off a cliff during a weight cut.
Levi: For sure. For sure. That, that's it for questions for me, mate. Is there anyone, anything you wanna ask me or anything you wanna
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, like when you're thinking of aerobic training and like how, what is the framework you look at for just athletes in general?
So if you have a wrestler, you have a hockey player. What are you do you put in like their strength work first? Do you do an assessment? Do you do so much? What is your just thought process at a high level for [01:02:00] it?
Levi: We take obviously the assessments that's a base. Um, we take a snapshot of where they are today.
Usually they're coming off a break. It's quite frequently. It's not as if like they're in season all the time. It's, they're coming off a break. We take an assessment, we analyze the data we see. I think for me it's also it's not the be all and end all for performance.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Sure.
Levi: And that's what I try to think as a coach is that there are certain factors you need as an athlete and there are also certain factors which you are missing like greatly.
And if it's it's kinda which one do you need the most? If this is already up high. Yes. That has probably also got you to where you need to be at that level. Is it that we need it even more or we bring it back down, we need to take something even higher. So it's a little bit like a puzzle.
Um, and I think with the, in general, [01:03:00] I look over not just the short term basis as well. I look over year to year development.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Levi: I'm quite, let's say, well, grateful that I have athletes for long term. It's not just come in for six weeks, I never see you again or 12 weeks. The athletes usually when I work with me year round, so.
Because of that I'm always playing that game of, well, how much do we take it up with also developing some other factors during the same process because, well, sport, we're not just running on a track in circles. Yeah. Especially in, like for a sport, for example, if you're looking at hockey, you got the battles in the corners you need to prepare for.
You've got the turner speed, you've got the short distance, you got, there's so many factors that we need to also develop and think about where is it as you, as a human, how can we make a better human performance for your skillset and your angles and biomechanics? So I play a lot like that. And that's something [01:04:00] which I've had great results with.
And I,
I think that's the way coaching should be done. Not always just looked on the small spectrum. So, but with the aerobic system.
It is obviously clearly very important in sport. It's not just for the longevity. We need it, we need the recovery ability. We need to be able to actually, um, recover from producing force outputs and recover quick. Because it might be like, for example, we just had one guy there in wrestling.
He took bronze at European championships, first time medaled in five years. And the thing that we worked on was his base. Like he is wrestling legitimately all the time. And we literally, I said, no, we need to walk
like we, we legitimate. I was like, you pro, we need to walk mate. We need to put that heavy um, rook on you and we're gonna walk. Yeah. Yeah. He's what the fuck? No, we can do. I'm like, listen, the key now [01:05:00] is that you need to rook. And we did that. And in his last performance he was he was like, by far in the last 90 seconds of the match was in better shape than the other guys.
Nice. So it's looking at key points, I think and then trying to think a little bit outside the box of what we should be doing as well. So, and then obviously how can we integrate maybe two things at the same time? So actually I was like, okay, he is got weak VMO, we need to strengthen the quadricep.
So I was like, okay, we're gonna walk, but you're gonna walk up backwards. Yeah. Yeah. We actually had him rucking up the steep pots backwards. So it's kinda like side, yeah. Just trying to hit two birds with one stone. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: That's great.
Levi: I love it. I have time in the week to train, so.
So that's. Hopefully asked your question. I got a little bit lost my own train of thought but yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: No, that's great. And then the last question is, my bias is, [01:06:00] I think the aerobic system is also super beneficial for cognition. So if you can play your sport at a lower heart rate, you'll just, by definition make better decisions.
That's, do you think of that and what do you look at for that?
Levi: Solidly agree for that? Yeah. We see it's a little bit like you can cross reference it to sleep. You can be like, lack of your like, aerobic system. Poor choices, poor decision making, like lack of recovery.
It's like the same references of sleep. I see it as that if you don't sleep the night before a game or if you don't have a good like aerobic. Level output, then you're gonna make worse choices in that game.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Levi: So, yeah I completely, 100% agree with you on that. And in, in high level sports like Olympics in professionally, high paid sports, you can't be sacrificing two, 3%, [01:07:00] 5%.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh no, you're done.
Levi: Yeah. It's two bad moves and you're out the team, you don't have a contract or it's in wrestling it's really brutal. It's one mistake and you're out the whole thing.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Levi: So, yeah I definitely think the cognition for having a high level aerobic status definitely improves the cognition in the actual i, in the most fragile moments of the game, that's where it's gonna show.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And that was always my argument too, is that it's gonna, it's gonna occur at the time you need it to occur at whether that's the end of the season, end of the game, end of the quarter. And if you can show that you're just not as affected by fatigue as the other team, whether that's a mental thing of them watching you, also the cognition and the performance.
And then this reminds me, I was doing race Across America. I was a volunteer for that. [01:08:00] So you start with four people riding a bike start in San Diego in the US they ride for seven days, 24 hours a day. End up in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This was years ago. Oscars race,
Levi: your ass was in bits.
Dr Mike T Nelson: It was horrible.
Like I was a support person. I wasn't riding, but it was just insane. And so we're in the middle of Nebraska somewhere and one of our riders we're in the car behind him and he is, there's no drafting. So there's a guy, I think it was from Austrian front. And he's bored. He is been riding for three days.
He's yeah, I'm gonna just ride up on this guy and pretend to pass him. And then not just to fuck with him. We're like, okay, sure. Well, whatever. And so he would ride up on him like he was going try to pass him and he would see the other guy like try to beat him 'cause he doesn't want to get passed.
And then he would back off and this goes on for 10 minutes and we're like, Hey, you should just pass him next time. He's okay. And so we're in the car passing him. He's passing the other rider and you can see the rider he is passing look over and see that he [01:09:00] just does not want to get passed.
And you see him just trying as hard as he can and he just got smoked. And then as we rode past him and as our guy rode past him, the look of just utter disappointment on the other rider's face was hilarious. Like his whole posture changed. Everything changed. He was. Just looked absolutely demoralized that our rider rode past him smiling and was like beating this other guy.
And I always think they took his soul. Yeah. Literally. I can't imagine if you're at the end of a game and you're competing against another team and you're both fatigued and you look across the line or wrestling or hockey or whatever, and that the other team doesn't look like they're fatigued.
Just the mental onslaught of having to process that I think is Yeah. Highly undervalued.
Levi: Yeah, for sure. For sure. For sure. And then in those games, mental side of it is obviously massive,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah.
Levi: So, yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Awesome. [01:10:00] Well, thank you so much for all your time. Where can people find out more about you?
Levi: Yeah, so, you can find more about me. I have my website. It's leviearl.com. And if you want to check out the company website, it's PHIO y.com. You can follow me on Instagram. On LinkedIn, add me on Facebook. Feel free to ask me any questions, anybody extensive background in sports and in this industry.
So feel free to reach out. It's fine for me. And Mike, again, thank you for your time. It's been a pleasure. Always is. Yeah. Thank
Dr Mike T Nelson: you so much. Yeah, thank you so much for all the feedback and everything. It was always good to see you and chat again too. It's it's been the last time I saw you in person was Texas.
Was that a couple years ago
Levi: now? Oh, it was five pre Rona. It was pre, yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So it's gotta be at least six or seven now.
Levi: Yeah, we was, we were speaking over, it was a genesis. Yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah.
Levi: Good fun. Good fun, Texas. Yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: that was fun. Cool man. Awesome. Well thank you so much. [01:11:00] Really appreciate it.
Levi: Okay, thank you mate. Alright, take care.
Dr Mike T Nelson: You too. See.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Huge thanks to my buddy. Levi, thank you so much for all the wonderful conversation and just all the support over the years sharing all your great knowledge you've accumulated with athletes of all types, from several Olympic athletes to grip athletes and many more.
So I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you want more information, make sure to check out all Levi's great stuff. We'll put a link to his website and to his Instagram. If you are ever over near his area, which is us outside of Helsinki, Finland highly recommend you check him out in person. That'd be amazing.
And if you're interested in aerobic training and especially the more anaerobic side, you've got the flexible meathead cardio. Level two, the anaerobic conditioning portion goes live August [01:12:00] 11th, and you'll be able to hop on that via the newsletter because I don't have a sales letter for it yet. But newsletter will be the best place to get all the information on that.
We have a link to it down below. It's free to join. We also give you a cool free gift. So if you're looking for how to do high intensity interval training the correct way, I would highly recommend this course. Of course, I'm biased because. I'm the one creating it. Um, but I've used a lot of these methods for man going on probably 15, 20 years now.
Um, we found that they have been extremely effective and we'll explain the theory. We'll give you the protocols and make sure you are all good to go. Again, this is primarily designed if you are some type of lifting meathead athlete, you may be competing in hockey, American football, rugby, et cetera. Or you might just be a gym goer who's, lifting three to four days a week and realizes that they need more anaerobic conditioning, which I think is a good thing for everybody.
Hop on in the newsletter. We'll get you all the [01:13:00] information there. If you're looking for elements or I should say electrolytes by element check them out down below. I'm drinking the Raspberry today. And then also our friends over at Teton Ketone Esters. So for the power of ketones, these are ketone esters.
It tastes pretty darn good. You need a ketone ester more so than a ketone salt to increase blood levels of ketones for better performance, and especially in my opinion, um, cognition. I like using them later in the day. If I have a bunch of work I still need to get done, but I don't want anything that is more stimulating to mess with my sleep.
I've even tested out. Drinking two cans, which is a 20 gram dose immediately before going to bed. And yeah, if anything, my sleep might have been a little bit better. So for something that doesn't affect your sleep later in the day highly recommend them. Some people use 'em pre-training. I, um, I also do that usually about 20 to 25 grams is what I found is [01:14:00] an effective dose.
So a little bit higher on that. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We really appreciate it. If you could do us a favor by hitting the old. Like button and subscribe and download. If you could do us a huge favor, if you're on the old YouTubes please subscribe to the Flex Diet Channel. We're trying to get our number of subscribers up over there in time, even though I know most of you're listening to this podcast via audio.
From what I can tell from our stats, probably 95% is audio. But if you could just wander over there and hit a subscribe, we'd really appreciate it. Thank you so much and we'll talk to all of you next week.
Speaker 3: You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. Why you old fool? What? I'm not your son. And my name's not shine. He calls me an old fool.
Speaker 5: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The podcast is not intended as a [01:15:00] substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should not use the information on the podcast for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing any medication or other treatment.
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