On this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I’m joined once again by Dr. Phil Batterson to nerd out on one of my favorite topics: anaerobic metabolism. We dig into what’s really happening during high-intensity training, the role of lactate, and why much of the “anaerobic vs. aerobic” discussion you hear is oversimplified (or just plain wrong). We also get into the nuts and bolts of how your bioenergetic systems adapt, why cardio equipment can actually be a powerful training tool, and where metabolic carts fit into the picture. Along the way, Phil drops practical examples you can use to better understand your own performance. If you want a clear, science-backed breakdown of anaerobic training without the fluff, this episode is for you.
On this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I’m joined once again by Dr. Phil Batterson to nerd out on one of my favorite topics: anaerobic metabolism. We dig into what’s really happening during high-intensity training, the role of lactate, and why much of the “anaerobic vs. aerobic” discussion you hear is oversimplified (or just plain wrong).
We also get into the nuts and bolts of how your bioenergetic systems adapt, why cardio equipment can actually be a powerful training tool, and where metabolic carts fit into the picture. Along the way, Phil drops practical examples you can use to better understand your own performance. If you want a clear, science-backed breakdown of anaerobic training without the fluff, this episode is for you.
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. On this podcast, we talk about all things too. Increase performance and also increase muscle, AKA hypertrophy, improve body composition, and do all of it within a flexible framework without destroying your health. Today on the podcast, he is back.
Once again, it's my good buddy, Dr. Phil Batterson, and this time. We're talking all about anaerobic metabolism. We get into all sorts of fun stuff. We geek out a little bit over different types of sensors from moxy to metabolic hearts, such as panoi and primarily here talking about the anaerobic, the high intensity side of training, sometimes referred to as, I guess you could say maybe hybrid athlete, although hybrid tends to be a [00:01:00] blending of more cardiovascular and strength work. But we talk about lactate a fair amount. Why it's not necessarily a bad thing. What are a bunch of the myths around lactate the different bioenergetic systems and adaptations to it?
Definition of anaerobic versus aerobic metabolism. What are the pros and cons? Of that and is there actually a real division of that? How do you do lactate? Testing some practical examples and a whole lot more. So if you enjoy this podcast check out some of our sponsors. If you're looking for tasty electrolytes, check out our friends over at Element.
I'm drinking the Raspberry one today. For ketones we will have more from Teton Ketone. Esters, hoping to have a big announcement from them around the first or second week of October. The short version is they redid all of the [00:02:00] products and they've got some really cool stuff coming out.
They're just working on the final, I guess you could say, more on the deliverability side, trying to make sure they have enough product and everything else. So as soon as I can formally tell you what's going on, we'll have more from them. In this podcast we also talk about cardiovascular equipment to do both aerobic and anaerobic conditioning.
My two favorites for that by far are number one, the concept two rower, and then right behind it I would say is the Echo assault bike. Both of those are great because it's primarily concentric only. But you can do everything from aerobic TI style stuff to high output anaerobic short duration interval work with both.
If you are a meathead listening to this podcast and are not very good at running it's great. You don't have to know how to run to use either one of 'em. And there's low impact with body weight is supported [00:03:00] also. Again, if you are able to run, I do think running can be super useful. But for a lot of people I would rather throw battery acid in my eyes and watch them run.
So having something like a rower or an echo bike is great. So check out our friends over at Rogue. You can pick up the concept two rower, which is my favorite. Rogue does have their own rower. Now I don't have any feedback on it yet, but it looks pretty interesting. And then also check out the Rogue Echo Bike for an assault bike.
It is very well made. Both these pieces of equipment are highly reliable. I've had my own concept to rower now for man, maybe four or five years. And honestly, I haven't done anything really to it other than, a couple basic maintenance stuff, which, and it's been working great. So, it is an affiliate link, so check them out below.
If you're looking for metabolic Hearts, check out my friends over at Panoi. I don't have a formal link for them, but just hit me up and tell 'em Dr. Mike T. Nelson sent you. I'm more than happy to [00:04:00] put you in touch with those guys, answer any questions you have on their device, which I've been using now for, man, I think it's over four years now which is wild.
And then if you want more information from me, check out my newsletter. Go to the link down below. It'll put you directly onto the daily newsletter. All the great. Information. So without further ado, enjoy this podcast here on Anaerobic Metabolism, Dr. Phil Batterson, and then also as a heads up, when you hop onto the newsletter, I will have the Flexible Meathead Cardio course, both the aerobic and the anaerobic portions.
We'll be out again sometime somewhat soon. I don't know the exact dates. If you hop onto the newsletter as soon as they are released, you'll be the very first to know. And we've gotten some really great feedback on that. So thank you so much. Enjoy this episode with Dr. Phil Batterson.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's up? It's Dr. Mike [00:05:00] Nelson here again. This is just a short note to say that we started off have some Uber really geeky stuff that I thought was super interesting, but might be completely over the heads of everyone before we even explained what the hell's going on. So I took the super geeky stuff and we moved it towards the end of the show.
So if you really want to go super far down into the weeds listen towards the end of the show. We moved all the information there, but still wanted to leave it in 'cause I thought it was of course I'm biased, but I thought it was super interesting. So, here you go. Enjoy the show.
nobody: Hello.
Dr Phil: Hey, Mike. How you doing?
Dr MIke T Nelson : Oh, not too bad.
Dr Phil: Yeah. How are you doing? Doing well.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. How's the Marcie stuff going? Because I know you, you work there now, correct?
Dr Phil: Yeah, I've been, I've actually, I've been working with them for seven years. I started during my master's degree.
Oh, okay. Just as just like helping out here and there. And I've, my role now is [00:06:00] really translating the science, being a little bit more of the community manager, so when we work with social or people on social media, big influencers and stuff like that, I'm working with them, getting people up to speed, like Chris.
And then a little bit more of the get people like answering people's questions, like, those sort of things. So I do that three quarters time. And then I also do my endurance coaching, which I'm up to 10 athletes now, which is Oh, cool. Yeah. So, so slowly but surely I was I was telling you on Instagram, I was like, I was going through this business marketing, like course yeah.
Online course. It was super helpful because it helped give me strategies and like systems, to put into place of okay, here's what you need to post, here's the type of post you need to make, like those sort of things. Here's what resonates with people as opposed to, just being like, okay, well what's gonna get the most views and likes in all of that.
So I was doing that and I am, I'm actually, I'm getting married next week and then [00:07:00] doing a honeymoon Oh. For four weeks after that. So I'm taking, it's, everything's gonna be on pause for a little while after that, but it'll be much needed rest. Congrats. Where are you going?
Thanks. So we're gonna get married on the coast of Oregon over here, and then we are gonna just, exact rock. I'm just kidding. What's that?
Dr MIke T Nelson : Like the haystack area or was the big What's the big rock development out there? Oh, there's a lot.
Dr Phil: East side. Yeah. No, we're going down. It's a little bit more south.
Okay. It's a really pretty area. Have you heard of you don't golf or anything like that, do you? No. Well, I, there's a, not anymore. I
Dr MIke T Nelson : used
Dr Phil: to Okay. But I
Dr MIke T Nelson : quit. Yeah.
Dr Phil: Yeah. There's a really famous like golf area out in the Bandon. Okay. Like Bandon. So it's near there. And then we have a camper van.
We're gonna take our three dogs and our cat. We're just gonna go around the Pacific Northwest for a month. Oh, fun. Yeah. Should be good.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah, you can go hang out in the Hood River area, do some wineries, do the little fruit loop area and stuff there. Yeah. And I love Oregon.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Oh it's great. We love it.
And we're [00:08:00] actually, we're planning on going even further north, like up to the Olympic Peninsula. Oh yeah. We're gonna go over to the Orca Islands and stuff and Oh, cool. And Washington, and then hopefully up into British Columbia. And the part of me is I know a lot of people at UBC and I'm like, oh babe, it'd be so much fun to go explore.
Look at all their stuff. She does not, she would not wanna do any of that or
Dr MIke T Nelson : honeymoon, what are you talking about?
Dr Phil: Damn, we're not gonna
Dr MIke T Nelson : go,
Dr Phil: not gonna go look at, like mitochondrial fiz labs and those sort of things. Yeah. But, so, so yeah it'll be a lot of fun. And it's both her and I are entrepreneurs, so, we never get much time off.
So this will be, like a good chunk of time off where, we're actually like getting out, doing stuff we love to do that we haven't gotten to do in a long time.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Nice. And what does she do?
Dr Phil: She's a dog trainer, a professional dog trainer.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Oh, interesting. Oh, that's cool.
Dr Phil: Yeah.
Nice. Yeah, so if you have a dog that you want to have better behavior, you can send it, send 'em out to her.
Dr MIke T Nelson : All right. I can send my sister's dog out there. She's actually quite good, but she's just a little too smart, so she trains [00:09:00] my parents, so, ah, yeah. Yeah. It's not so much the dog's issue.
She is actually really good, but she learned, like, when my parents will come stay with my sister, that my sister will go to bed, so the dog will get a treat, go outside, it'll lay next to my sister for a while, and then my parents are still up. So then after my sister falls asleep, the dog will get up.
Go to my dad. My dad will go to bed. So he gets a treat from him, and then she gets a treat from my mom. And then she just does this little routine every night
Dr Phil: that I don't know if we can Well, so a lot of what she does is she trains, probably trains humans, the humans the most because that's ultimately communicating with the animals what you need to do.
Right. And yeah that's actually really funny. We have Australian Shepherds, so they Oh, try to do the same thing. They're really smart and almost too smart for their own good. So they'll figure that sort of stuff out and they know who they can get away, like not listening to and stuff. And it's mostly me, so, I'm just like, guys, just listen to me. Please don't make me get your mom. And then, of course, the authority comes in. They're like, oh, we'll listen [00:10:00] now. It's yeah. Yeah. That's what I thought guys.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. I think all those little smaller herding breeds are, they're super interesting 'cause it's like they just need a, a task to do and there are sometimes a little, yeah.
Too smart for their own good if they're just left on their own devices.
Dr Phil: Yeah. They'll find a task to do whether you like it or not really. And it can actually, it can result in a lot of anxiety in those types of dogs. Because they just don't have an energy outlet. And it's amazing how many people, are like, oh, those dogs are so cool.
They see like a border collie. Doing sheep herding and stuff. And they're like, then they get one and then they don't go run five miles a day with it. And they're like, why is this dog so crazy? It's 'cause you gotta stimulate it both physically and mentally.
And, it can be really tough for people. So we, it's like discourage people from getting, like shepherds, unless they really. Can handle it. It's like just get a lab, or something like that. Yeah. They're happy. They're pretty, yeah. Yeah. You can go fetch them, they'll be happy.
They're not gonna try to eat [00:11:00] all your drywall. Other things like that. So
Dr MIke T Nelson : yeah, my sister has a Corgi and it's Bella and yeah, she's great, but she's started taking her to what she calls sniffer class. So they would train her on how to find different scents and so she would hide these little scents in the house.
And it's funny, she does a really good job with it. And even just doing that for 20 minutes or so, the dog then just goes, takes a nap and just completely chilled out. Just oh, well she just needs a task and something mentally to do.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Corgi corgis are really interesting 'cause I think they're.
Oh man, I might butcher this, but I think they were actually like bred to be like, they're shepherding dogs as well, so Yeah. They're a herding
Dr MIke T Nelson : dog for cattle, primarily.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Yeah. So for cattle, because the cattle, when they kick out, like corgie are so low. Yeah. They won't get kicked, but it's like it's, people get corgi again 'cause they're like, oh, they're so cute and small, like little potatoes.
And you're like, no they still have a lot of energy and they need to get their energy out.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. They're yeah. The attitude also of a big dog, you just shrunk. Yeah. [00:12:00] Yeah. Cool. Well that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll just do a short pause and you good for about 40 minutes or so?
Is that true?
Dr Phil: Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Cool. I'm good. Yeah. I'm just gonna talk more about anaerobic stuff and we'll just move some of the moxie stuff to the end here. So, yeah. Cool, man. All right. I'll do a pause and away we go. Cool. Welcome back to the show, Dr. Phil. How are you? I'm good. Did I call you Dr. Phil? I just find it funny, so Yeah,
Dr Phil: no you totally can.
And for anyone listening out there, I did not twist Dr. Mike's arm, to make me, make him call me Dr. Phil or anything like that. But yeah, I'm doing well. Thanks for having me back on. I really appreciate it.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. Yeah. Today we're talking all about the anaerobic metabolism. I'll link to the other episode where we talked about aerobic metabolism, and I guess the basic question is, I don't know, maybe it's not even basic, but do you think there is such a thing as the aerobic anaerobic split?
I have all sorts of issues with it, but I just, I've tried to get away from it, but I [00:13:00] find myself just like one of those little attractor areas just gravitating back towards it because just start a discussion. It's so hard to. Go so far into the weeds right away that you lose everyone. Right.
And unfortunately, shit, I even created a whole class where I split it between aerobic and anaerobic right now. Yeah. But I don't know. What are your thoughts on that are?
Dr Phil: Yeah, I think, a lot of what I've been finding with social media stuff and just interacting with more athletes here and there is like a lot of the things that we, as, academics and researchers and PhD having individuals argue about is it's syntax versus.
Okay. Application here. Right? Right. So if somebody comes to me and they're like, oh, like I, I need to do some anaerobic work and I need to do some aerobic work, and, that's how I'm gonna develop, myself for whatever team sport it is, strength training, endurance, sport. Like anything [00:14:00] I, I I used to be the type of person that's well actually, well hold on there bucket.
Yeah. Yeah. Actually everything is aerobic and, nothing is truly anaerobic because the connection between here and here and, then their eyes gloss over, they think you're an asshole and, then they don't wanna listen. As opposed to saying oh yeah, I, I really like that approach.
How are you going to approach that? And then guiding them in a way of being like, yeah, if you want to do things that are more anaerobic and, like for those, just listening to the podcast, I'm putting that in air quotes. It's. High intensity, couple reps maybe up to five, 10 seconds, maybe even up to, 30 seconds if you're really cranking on it. And then the rest, it's, everything is just a different shade of, like super high force power output, which I would deem strength all the way to endurance stuff, which is like things that you can do, for your entire life, just walking or something like that.
And so I, that's the way that I like partition it in my brain a little bit more now if that makes any sense at all.
Dr MIke T Nelson : [00:15:00] Yeah. It's even teaching students for years, I always tried to get across to 'em that, the analogy I use all the time, and I don't remember who I even stole it from, is that most things are dimmer switches or mixing knobs and not on and off.
Yeah. Yeah. Rarely do we have anything in physiology that's on or off. Yes, I get it. You have threshold effects and maybe lucine and muscle protein synthesis and stuff like that. So yes, there, there is a real thing, but especially in the world of. Bioenergetics. It's more the analogy I've used is this one bucket fills this other bucket that fills this other bucket that fills the other bucket, right?
And it just depends on which bucket you're looking at and what time domain you're looking at. But you're always thinking of dimmer switches, not on and off like the Yeah. A TP PC system isn't really on or off. It's just how much are you emphasizing that particular system. So if I'm really doing five second intervals Yeah.
A TP pc, whatever name we want to call that system now, it seems like it's got too many names. Yeah. Always. [00:16:00] Yeah. I get it. So super high intensity, great. All the way to, purely aerobic stuff, fasted walks in the morning, et cetera. Yeah. It's just this long continuum of these dimmer switches you're playing with Intensity on.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Yeah. And like the, I, that's why I think thinking about it from more of the, like functional side of things is. A little bit more applicable in a sense. Because you say, okay, well if you wanna get good at sprinting, it is no, I don't have to explain to you that you have to do anaerobic work in order to do it.
To get good at sprinting. You have to do sprinting. Right? Yeah. Gotta go sprint. Yeah, you gotta go sprint. You can't just expect by going and walking two hours a day that you're gonna be really good at sprinting, because those are different activities. So, so from like the, I think actually, I think I saw it from you, but the said principle, right?
Yeah. Specific adaptation to induced demands. Maybe that was, I think that was right. But it's, if you wanna get good at a specific thing, you have to train it. The challenge is, and this is where I [00:17:00] think like the splits start to come in, right? The 80 20 rule, polarized training, like other things like that, you can't really do a ton of sprinting.
Or even high intensity stuff, or you can't you can't expect unless you're on gear or something like that, to lift every day and get better every day. Right? Yeah. So especially
Dr MIke T Nelson : if you're doing the same thing,
Dr Phil: right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So if you're doing the same thing, if you're trying to sprint every day, like eventually you're gonna cap out your ability to adapt with that because you're gonna be creating so much kind of degradation that your body can't recover in between.
And, then it becomes, this like self-defeating thing where, you know, you just can't, you simply just can't do more of it. So on the flip side, you have to go and you have to do easy stuff, right? Easy stuff is generally more aerobic. So it's the balance and then however you mix that up, right?
Whether, if you're trying to do 200 meter sprints and that's about 30 seconds, then. You have to have to practice that. [00:18:00] And then on the easy days, if you wanna maintain some level of health or cardiovascular aerobic benefit, then you have to do the easy stuff in order to recover enough to get back to baseline or better than baseline from the stress that you just put on the system.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. And I think that's, to me is it's the never ending problem and the air quote, simplest problem I use is hey, if you wanna improve your one RM deadlift, right? If we go to the way far end of the strength side. Okay. The said principle would say you should go deadlift every single day or multiple times a day, and all of these would be at, 95, 98, a hundred percent of your one around.
That is the most specific thing. And if you could do that, you probably would get better. But everybody knows that even if your mechanics are good, everything else is good. You're gonna be limited on how often you can do that. Some people can get away with it more. As you get higher level of training, the stress is higher, so you have more adaptations.
Like Andy Bolton, the first guy to pull a thousand pounds. [00:19:00] I don't remember what his peaking phase was, but I think it was very infrequent deadlift. Right. You'll, I think Ed Cohen talked about the same thing, that almost all of his training was 80, 85% or something like that. So even advanced lifters have figured out over time that yeah, this is the goal, the simple goal of lifting the most weight possible, but we can't do that all of the time.
So then we have to talk about what transfers, what is this other thing we could do that we could get away with? And then, do that. And then you even get into I know I've talked to Cal a lot about when we're writing the Triassic two book was, oh wow, I have this super high intense training phase and it's mixed up with this and eccentric and all this other moving parts, but.
Oh crap. None of my new athletes can make it through because their aerobic system sucks so bad they can't get back to baseline. So now I'm actually training an aerobic system for a strength and power athlete to get them to do the specific training.
Which I think is still mind [00:20:00] blowing for a lot of people of how everything is interrelated.
Dr Phil: Yeah. And that's, that's I think that's what makes it so challenging and complicated. And then, we've also by forcing things out, right, saying anaerobic versus aerobic, you you make it a little bit easier to understand in a sense because, you can group things and I think humans, like we as humans like to group things together.
It's oh, well that's definitely an anaerobic sort of development versus aerobic development. But, to, but then, you could zoom in on the anaerobic development and you could say, well, the difference between a one rep max. Five rep max. Those are definitely different.
And the way you're gonna train for those are definitely different. But they're still technically, more on the anaerobic side versus the aerobic side of things. Whereas if you're doing CrossFit or something like that and you're trying to do, 50 deadlifts of 2 25 or something like that's getting more into the aerobic side of things.
'cause you're just, you just keep going and going and going. So you better make sure that you have a well-developed aerobic system, especially under the same, under the same movement to [00:21:00] be able to accomplish that task.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah, I think I agree that our buddy Evan Picon has talked about this too.
I think trying to solve for CrossFit athletes, I think is the hardest problem, right? Because power lifting, we get it long endurance, we get it we've got a fair amount of data in those areas. But then you do CrossFit or high rocks where you're. Mixing them all together. You know it, it's hard because like you have to be relatively strong.
All those athletes at the top level are pretty strong. Are they power lifting strong? Yeah. No, but overall they're really freaking strong. And then you've gotta do multiple competitions. You've got a skill component, you've got body weight stuff. Some stuff is independent of body weight. Now you've got multiple attempts to do it.
You have to breathe under heavy loads and now you're gonna do this over multiple days. You're talking about the games competition and
Audio Only - All Participants: yeah,
Dr MIke T Nelson : it's just a lot of parameters that are all conflicting a little bit with each other at some point.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Yeah. I like to think of, well, I think High Rocks falls a little bit [00:22:00] more you to the endurance side, whereas Yeah,
Dr MIke T Nelson : it's a little bit more developed and there's a lot more running.
Dr Phil: Yeah, exactly. You're, what you're getting into when you're going into a High Rocks competition, it's about an hour to an hour and a half, you're gonna run eight K and then you're gonna do all your stations, on top of that. Yeah. But you still, there is still the requisite that you have to have a certain amount of strength in order to be able to do that.
Yeah. It's the same thing with CrossFit. There's a requisite amount of strength that you need in CrossFit in order to, just be in the picture of things. And then on top of that, now you have to do it under, under fatigue. With, with like multiple competitions in one day, then more fatigue with multiple competitions in a weekend.
And, so, so then it becomes, like the, it's like the, it's strength, it's like a high strength requirement with a big endurance requirement as well. So, it's all the hybrid athletes out there now as if you wanna, if you're really trying to be hybrid, I think CrossFit is like that.
And I'm [00:23:00] probably gonna make so many hybrid athletes so mad when I by saying that, but
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. And even with hybrid athletes, it's just so, so varied, 'cause some people are like, well, I just wanna deadlift a lot and run a short mile. Okay. But then it's well I wanna run a marathon in this time and I want to squat this amount and deadlift this amount.
I'm like, okay, like it, you can do that, but as a higher and higher, you try to push that performance level at some point. Trying to do that simultaneously is gonna become. Impossible. Right, right. We all know, like the top powerlifters are not even running marathons, much less winning them the top, kipchoge's not out there winning like freaking powerlifting meets.
Right? Yeah. So we know at some point there is this divergence that's the middle area. That's fascinating.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Yeah. I talked to oh, Dr. Alyssa Lennick. She's got a pretty big following on Instagram and stuff. And what we kinda came up with, 'cause we talked all about hybrid training in our podcast was, you have like peer strength on one side, peer endurance on the other, and then [00:24:00] we'll say hybrid in the middle.
And then sometimes you have, people who have strength, re requirements, but want enough cardiovascular power to be able to not feel gassed, walking upstairs and stuff like that. And then on the other side, you have like the runner or the cyclist who knows that strength training is important.
Not but they do it for the performance gains. Endurance performance gains, not to deadlift, 500 pounds or whatever it is. So again we're back to spectrums. That's gonna be the, I think, the theme of all of this. But the back to the anaerobic, sort of stuff.
And we can focus on that now. Mike. Yeah. What sort of questions what sort of things do you wanna talk about with that? What do you want, what do you want people to learn? Yeah, just
Dr MIke T Nelson : my first question is if we just look at the. The higher end of the anaerobic side.
So let's just say a TP PC and let's arbitrary put a time domain on it so at least we can talk about it. Yeah. Say zero to 10 ish seconds.
Audio Only - All Participants: Okay.
Dr MIke T Nelson : How trainable do you think that system [00:25:00] is? If we take strength training out of the equation? So we're not talking about strength training to get better. Yeah.
Right. Because we all know that if you get stronger, everything's gonna be a sub max. If you're doing a rowing or you're doing a bike, if if you just have like thighs, like a tree trunk, like for 10 seconds, your power output's probably gonna be pretty good. So we know, yeah. On some level, strength training definitely works.
Yeah. But there's, I guess there's kind of camps of, well, if I really work this ten second energy domain, how much am I gonna be expected to improve in that area? Assuming I'm already doing my strength training. And that's good to go.
Dr Phil: Ooh, that's such a good question. And I actually I don't, I haven't dug into any literature really on that in really long time.
But I know that, it's like one of the, one of the ways to make that better is by supplementing with creatine, right? Oh yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Supplements, creatine and caffeine will definitely help. Yeah. Yeah. So,
Dr Phil: so, so we'll just get that out the way, it's For sure. It you don't really wanna train it, just totally
Dr MIke T Nelson : valid.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Take your creatine and, it's now I'm seeing [00:26:00] stuff that's upwards of 20 grams, 25 grams of creatine could be useful for, brain health and other things like that. And I have to date, I have some
Dr MIke T Nelson : issues with that. I have a whole long post of that coming out.
But anyway. Oh,
Dr Phil: okay. I'll check that out. 'cause I am interested to get your take on that and then and so, so, your creatine is a five grams a day,
Dr MIke T Nelson : yeah.
Dr Phil: Just the top, the cine
Dr MIke T Nelson : iss great. I love creatine.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Yeah. But it's not gonna be the superfood that, is gonna, stop anti-aging, cancer, other things like that.
Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Performance wise, it's probably one of the most efficacious supplements along with caffeine. Yeah. And even both of those, if you hit the right dose, you're still looking at single digit percentages.
Audio Only - All Participants: Yeah. So obviously
Dr MIke T Nelson : to high level athletes, they'll give their left nut for 2%, the person just crawled off the couch,
Dr Phil: yeah. So, so from that perspective, right, is like those high level athletes, right. They're searching for the marginal gains, whereas the person who just, crawled off the couch, I can guarantee you, if you had somebody do ten second sprints, never done sprints before, they're, it's absolutely gonna be beneficial to them.
Oh, no question. Hundred percent. [00:27:00] And to, to what extent like I, I'm thinking of a study, and this isn't the A TP PCR R system we're talking about, but we did. Seven days of high intensity interval training. So just one minute on, one minute off at trying to target around 90% of max heart rate.
Okay. And across the board, so just after seven sessions, 30 minute, essentially 10 minutes of work a day. Over the course of two weeks, we showed a 30% increase to the MIT to mitochondrial function in general.
Audio Only - All Participants: Nice.
Dr Phil: And, I would surmise that you'd probably see similar, increases to the entire cellular bioenergetic systems going on.
With increased enzymes for both the like phospho, creatine and glycolysis as well as, just like better switching mechanisms like we were talking about offline. Right. The dy the dynamic range and the ability to switch is gonna be a lot faster. So, so, while I don't know the exact number, I would say, it's like if you're [00:28:00] doing like ten second sprints as hard as you possibly can, like on a bike or something like that, there's gonna be benefits to that.
Now, is that going to apply to making you stronger? I don't know. Unless you're getting gassed in 10 seconds. If you're doing something that's like super, super fast, right, and you're getting gassed in 10 seconds, then yes, probably. I think that's such a short time domain that's unless you really wanted to just get your sprint speed up, then I don't know if that's really gonna do it.
I think it, I think for a lot of people it is they're probably already getting a lot of that stimulus. With their strength training, especially if they're getting up into, every once in a while, getting up into the 8, 12, 15 rep range, which would be considered a little bit more like on the endurance side of stuff. So, so yeah, I, but if you do wanna develop then cardiovascular system, I would say, doing more of like the high intensity interval training or like something [00:29:00] along those lines is gonna be more beneficial to you than just like a ten second sprint, for example, because you're already doing that, so it's not gonna be too disparate of a adaptation.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. I'm in the process of trying to figure this out by looking at the literature again, but I, it just seems to me that the athletes who do better on those short time domains and the coaches I know who work with them, it's almost all technique and mechanics based stuff. Yeah. Do they improve? Yes.
Are there drills you can do to increase speed for a sprinter and change direction, all that stuff? A hundred percent yes. But it just seems to me that. Most of what they're doing is high technique, efficiency, output. Based. Or if you said, okay let's only talk about like just the average lifting meathead.
Who's lifting listening to this? I don't have that population. Do a lot of ten second repeats on a rower or a salt bike. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know if there's a huge benefit for that. I will have 'em do, some a hundred meters here and there just to get 'em used [00:30:00] to creating power and to get that system going, the start of a session and maybe work up to do, two, three or four or something like that.
Yeah. I've done that a fair amount, but I just, I don't know. My gut feeling is I don't know how. Trainable that ultra low end is independent of technique,
Dr Phil: yeah. Like it's more of the technique neuromuscular sort of changes versus Oh, is there's an expansion in the, A-T-P-P-C-R pool that's actually resulting in a meaningful change.
Right? Correct. 'cause that's, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I a hundred percent agree with that. That's what we see, right? When people start lifting in general, right? Is you have, more of those neural adaptations. And then the morphological adaptations come a little bit later.
And it would be, so if we just think back to what our bioenergetics are trying to do for us, right? It's trying to allow for enough a TP to be created to maintain the force output that's required. And if our PCR system and the [00:31:00] systems that kind of re-synthesize all of that, we're not.
Adequate. We'd be in pretty big trouble if, back in the days when we were running from tigers and stuff like that, if all of a sudden we were just failed, because be yeah, exactly. Oh, yep. Phospho, creatine ran out in 10 seconds and now you're flat on your face in your life.
Your dad divine food. Yeah, exactly. So, so yeah it's hard for me to believe that, that you, that's probably a robust enough system. What I'm trying to say is that's probably a robust enough system that there's probably not much change that's actually happening from, purely just like the bioenergetic standpoint there.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah, that's kinda my thought. And again, it doesn't mean that people should never train that system. If it's specific to your sport and what you're doing, I think you can still get better at it, but I think that's more of a. Neuromuscular adaptation, strength, efficiency movement. Not so much on a pure bioenergetic standpoint, I guess R
Dr Phil: Right.
And and who knows? Like we, [00:32:00] we do know that the phospho, like phospho creatine is essentially rephosphorylated based on glycolytic system and the mitochondrial, like oxidative phosphorylation. So, so almost in from some perspective it's okay, well how do you make your glycolytic system and your oxidative phosphorylation system strong enough to re phosphorylate that fast enough that you can just continue to, like recycle the the phosphate groups, to back to that.
So then you can get the fast acting energy, that is really what we're trying to target with A-T-P-P-C-R.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. And I think that's more applicable to what most people are after. Yes, you can make an argument that maybe if you're a hundred meter runner. Maybe repeated sprint ability isn't really a big thing, but at the same point, you gotta accumulate enough volume in your training to get the reps to learn the technique, to do everything else.
So even then, even though your race is just a one 100 meter, I think you'd still probably need a decent [00:33:00] aerobic base and glycolytic flux to allow you, again, to do a quality enough training so that you can get the volume in training, even though your race performance may only be air quote, it's like a singular race here and there again.
Dr Phil: Yeah,
Dr MIke T Nelson : I agree. Yeah. So same with the people in the gym you're your replenishment, like even if you're only doing say five to eight reps, like nobody goes into the gym and just does one set of five to eight reps and oh boy, I'm done. I leave now. Yeah, you're probably gonna do multiple sets.
So if you can replete those systems again, and you were talking about, I guess we'll start with how much of that do you think is. Related to the glycolytic system and then also the aerobic system.
Dr Phil: Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson : These are all the things I wonder
Dr Phil: about. That is
Dr MIke T Nelson : why I'm asking. No. And
Dr Phil: I love having these conversations.
There's a really interesting study or just paper that came out. I don't, I think it was like early two thousands at this point, but it was talking about the glycogen shunt model of Yeah. Kind of [00:34:00] phosphorylation and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't really talk about it, within No.
Like I didn't learn that
Dr MIke T Nelson : in school, per se.
Dr Phil: Yeah. And people still aren't really talking about it, but it essentially, the idea is that, all of the bioenergetic systems are linked to each other and. Getting a little bit more like into the weeds, right? We say, oh, well, A TP PCR R is zero to 10 seconds, then 10 to 30 seconds is glycolytic system.
And then, 30 seconds onward is oxidative phosphorylation. Or maybe up to two minutes. Something along those lines. But what they were showing is that, like the response times are actually on the millisecond scale. So you actually have, like your A-T-P-P-C-R, when you start to contract, your muscle goes down, it doesn't totally deplete.
But then in between contractions, when things relax, your glycolytic system and the oxidative phosphorylation system are then acting to re phosphorylate your phospho creatine. So then it goes up and it's this jagged, up and down, and. [00:35:00] If there was something that did talk about, like what percentage comes from where it would have to be in, in that paper, or something along the lines.
Those lines. But I think the higher the intensity, the more you're probably relying on the glycolytic system versus, like a little bit lower intensity. You're relying on the oxidative phosphorylation system then a little bit more, but your body's not gonna be like, oh, we only want the glycolytic system here.
That's it doesn't care where those phosphates are coming from. You just need to, well, there's two things that happen, right? When you're lifting weights, if you're doing, a set of five to eight you either chose a weight that allows you to get to that eight rep mark, or you fail, right?
And failure is fatigue. And fatigue is essentially. Our body's way of protecting us from catastrophic failure within like the cells. And I think it starts, from an inability to [00:36:00] then maintain a TP balance, so then there's all these cascading effects that then cause, fatigue to, to come into play.
And then you don't, you can't generate the same amount of force output. So, yeah, that was a very, like non-specific answer to, I think higher intensity, you're gonna be a little bit more reliant on glycolysis just simply because of how fast you can generate a TP from that system.
And then, if it's a little bit lower in intensity, oxidative phosphorylation, but at the same time, it's like wherever that a TP is coming from is doesn't, your body doesn't discriminate.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. And that's one thing that always bugged me. Even when I was in school, I'm like, okay, 'cause I was classically taught exactly okay, a TP pc and then you've got glycolysis and then you've got your aerobic system and aerobics primarily using fat and it's slow and all that stuff.
And okay, yeah, that's generally true. And then I was like, okay, so if all of that's true, I think the lowest I've ever seen [00:37:00] glycogen levels that they've measured by, just basically jamming a needle into the VMO typically.
30%, maybe 40%. Like you can't drive it to absolute zero. Right.
Right. I've never seen a study where we beat these people up so bad and they do heinous shit to people to, to drop 'em to 40%. Right. It is freaking miserable stuff that they do to these poor bastards. And then they stick needles in 'em after they're done with that. Yeah. And they're only like 30, 40%.
So to me that tells me that baseline system has to. You this intermediate, that if you just wipe that out entirely, like you're effed, like you just threw a huge monkey wrench into the whole business.
Dr Phil: Well, and it's that's not even talking about lactate production.
Right. Which is correct. Also a huge mediator of cell signaling. It's not a fatigue, it's not causing fatigue, but it is a maybe a monitor of, like force production, which then from a whole body signaling perspective, gives you an [00:38:00] idea or your, other areas of your body, an idea of Hey, we're running out here, or we're doing something that's really hard right now, so, so prepare to, like slow things down. Yeah. Yeah, I think, with, without any any one of the bioenergetic systems, we'd be completely screwed. If we didn't have phospho creatine or A-T-P-P-C-R, then we wouldn't like.
We wouldn't be able to, I wouldn't be able to wave my hands around and swing my hands that we would just be in like a state of like rigor almost immediately. Yeah. As we wait for glyco glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation to ramp up. If we didn't have glycolysis, then we wouldn't have, again that like intermediary for, like prolonged like higher force production.
And then if we didn't have oxidative phosphorylation, then. We wouldn't be able to even, I wouldn't be able to stand 'cause we wouldn't be able to generate enough a TP in, like postural muscles or anything like that. We wouldn't be able to do anything for any extended period of time. So, so each one of 'em has their own function, [00:39:00] but they're all like so linked to each other that you can't get rid of one of them.
Right. Even though we are taught that, oh, it's just this system and then it's just this system and then it's just this system. It's no. They're all feeding back on each other and there's signals that are happening, one way or the other. Right. What's one of the, one, one of the old sayings is like fat burns in a carbohydrate flame.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah, I wonder about that. I get what they're trying to say.
Dr Phil: Yeah. And, well, so, so the idea is right, is that if you didn't have a glycolytic system Yeah. Then you wouldn't be able to convert the, that pyruvate intox acetate and if you don't have
Dr MIke T Nelson : intermediates in your yeah,
Dr Phil: exactly. Exactly.
So it's so, so I, and I'm sure, if you have, amino acids and stuff like that, they could probably be used, in order to Synthes synthesize, they just get
Dr MIke T Nelson : carbons from somewhere else. Yeah, exactly.
Dr Phil: Exactly. That's what ultimately what it is just this massive, just swapping of carbons here and there.
But yeah, it's. Even, so even from that [00:40:00] perspective, if we do believe that's true, then fat metabolism wouldn't happen without carbohydrate metabolism also occurring at the same time. So it's everything is so interconnected that I think like us trying, if we try to pluck one thing out or if we just try to isolate one thing, it's not actually isolating one thing.
That's why when we do sprint interval training, if it was truly isolated, we would expect the phospho, creatine system and maybe a little bit of the glycolytic system to be, to get better, but. We've seen time and time again from like the Martin Gal and Stu Phillips. Yeah. And them you do sprint interval training and you get massive improvements to your mitochondria.
Oh yeah. It's wait a minute. I thought, 10 to 30 seconds was only glycolytic and it was totally anaerobic. It's no, it's not. Because after, it's a oxygen's U being used at all times. But B, the oxidative phosphorylation system is then what's being used to then replenish, both of those systems afterwards.
Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson : So the epoch, [00:41:00]
Dr Phil: yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Dr MIke T Nelson : And then if you look at Cardinal's disease, which I find fascinating, so like they're genetic and there's different types of it, but they're genetically missing the enzyme to break down stor glycogen. And then you're like, okay, so you only really have, blood glucose floating around, which is not very much, it's extremely tightly controlled.
Most of the, carbons for. The glucose side would be from stored glycogen. And what's super fascinating about them is that they are incredibly exercise intolerant. Right. If you read the studies like way more intolerant of intensity than you would imagine if glycolysis was only for high intensity stuff.
Dr Phil: Right, right. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's it's a rabbit hole for sure. Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson : So back to the gval studies, like if you have somebody that's new, and I've gone back and forth on this too, if I remember right, some of the early studies he did was in pretty untrained people and had 'em do some [00:42:00] pretty brutal, I dunno if it was like 32nd wing gates, I think he was having 'em do for repeats and showed some pretty impressive adaptations in them.
And I don't think their VO two max was extraordinarily high. And I believe he said that the people in the study liked it so much that I think their lab. A group of 'em just coming in to, to exercise as a follow up, which was shocking to me because I thought, oh my God, like an untrained population.
You're brutalizing these poor bastards. They're gonna hate life and hate you. And he is no, they actually enjoyed it. So that's almost like an argument for starting with anaerobic training maybe in an undertrained population.
Dr Phil: Y yeah, I, there's being myself being an endurance coach and stuff, I get people telling me all the time, oh, you have to start with an aerobic base.
Yeah. Which means that, I've always said
Dr MIke T Nelson : that a lot myself.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Yeah. And I still say it and I, like there, there is a lot of literature to support. [00:43:00] Having a large aerobic base is very important. For health, longevity, performance, we see it across the board. However, with the ability for your body to adapt, if you're not doing anything, doing something is going to lead to an adaptation.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Oh yeah. Something's a better, nothing, no question.
Dr Phil: But you will get way more bang for your buck if you do high intensity stuff. Which is then my argument is, I work with primarily time limited individuals.
Sure. Who, I'm like, okay, well if someone's training three days a week, you can't tell them just to do zone two stuff because they're not gonna get better. They're just gonna, it's just gonna be the same. 'cause when you're, when we're existing around, you know that it's like you do, if you did zone two stuff and then you just did nothing for the next day, and then zone two stuff, and then nothing, you're not getting much of a spike in stress.
Right. Yeah. So so for a lot of those people, I'm like, okay, well. We can start with [00:44:00] one high intensity training session. And I actually, I did this with with a couple of my PT friends down, down in Bend, and we, I was having them do one vo two max session per week. And then of course they would do like other stuff, throughout the week.
But over the course of six weeks, one of the guys just because he hadn't been training very much, his VO two max increased by 15%. Oh, damn. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. And, so, so it's and I don't think it would've been to the same extent if he was just doing easy stuff all the time, which is the, like kind of the recommendation.
So it's okay, well you have, it always comes back to you have to have a mixture of all of it, so, but people who aren't do if you're training three days a week, the other four days are essentially off days for you. Yeah. So you can probably get away with at least one, if not two.
Maybe three. I wouldn't do, I would start with one and then, max out, like the adaptations. But then you could definitely do [00:45:00] two, like pretty hard, 30 seconds on, four minutes off. And you would get massive benefits, across. 'cause the bottom line is your body's only going to adapt to the stress that you place upon it.
And running easy walking, like those sort of things. Yes, they're great for metabolic flux and, like just a lot of other things but
Dr MIke T Nelson : not bumping your VO two max?
Dr Phil: No. So don't get it twisted. Like you're not gonna, you're not gonna get a massive VO two max, like a, like a Tour de France cyclist by doing two zone two training sessions for 45 minutes, per week.
Yeah. It's just not gonna happen. However, you could get a higher VO two max if you did. Two 30 minute sessions of either sprint interval training or high intensity interval training. More along that anaerobic side like we're talking about. Which is really interesting because then it targets the aerobic side.
So
Dr MIke T Nelson : yeah, that's kinda the sneaky thing I did with the, I just call it a six minute progressive. So get up in the morning or whenever you wanna do it, get on a rower, obviously, make sure you don't have any mechanical [00:46:00] limitations or whatever. And you basically just, you're trying to get a curve that looks like this and then right about halfway or two thirds of the way it flattens out and your max is, I don't know, I'd have to look up the numbers.
I ended up getting at maybe 85, 90% of max. You're getting close to it, but just for that very last little bump. And if you look at it, what ends up happening is you get almost about three minutes, two minutes of a vo two max interval. Right. And then I have people do that up to six days a week.
These are people who are normally, relatively fit already lifting, that type of thing.
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Dr MIke T Nelson : And. I came up with it myself just because I needed something to not watch my VO two max drop. But my schedule was crazy, right? And I still wanted to live, I didn't really want to do endurance stuff, but I knew if I did f all nothing, I would just go to crap anyway.
And so I started adding that in the morning. This happened during COVID actually, and I realized, I'm like, oh, and I played around with different time domains and did too much, did too little, whatever. And the other part I found is that the six [00:47:00] minutes, even if you go balls out because you didn't really do a warmup, there's still gonna be this slow kind of increase up to the max.
And because it's short enough, like you just limit whatever damage you would've done. You know what I mean? Right. Like you can't, even if you just go balls out and mis time it, like you can't really do too much damage with that. Yeah. And so it was a sort of a sneaky way of, can I get a little bit of these kind of VO two max intervals programmed in over time?
And, it I know tends to work pretty good.
Dr Phil: Yeah. No and that's, there was, i, that's like another thing, like we had initially talked about, but if you're doing such such a small amount, 'cause that's three minutes of vo, two max per day. Yeah. Yeah. You're accumulating if you did it for six, six days a week, if you did it seven days a week, you get 21 minutes.
Yeah, exactly. Of vo two max development, per week, which is, and then it's then the question is well as long as the stimulus is high enough to elicit, some sort of stress, and then the [00:48:00] rest of your day you can recover from that and you can come back the next day and do a little bit better.
It's yeah, there's a lot of different ways you don't have to do the Norwegian four by four, oh, that's my hip pet peeve. Oh my gosh. That's also like the worst workout to develop your VO O2 max in terms of just how shitty it would feel.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Oh, it's horrible to do.
It's really hard.
Dr Phil: It's awful. It's so awful. So it's no there's 30 thirties, there's one minute on, one minute off, there's two minutes on, two minutes off. There's every iteration in between that and, or the six minute, progressive sessions that you're talking about. There's a lot of different ways, the sprint intervals that we're talking about too is there's a lot of different ways to improve your cardiovascular system.
And it doesn't have to just be purely, having to like, down three pre-workouts, psych yourself up and still throw up afterwards, like feeling, with with that. So I'm just like, but that was the, those were the types of workouts we did as like kids.
We never called it the Norwegian four by four method. It was mile [00:49:00] repeats. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, no, dude. This isn't like some new thing that's all of a sudden been shown eight shown meter repeats. Yeah. Do eight hundreds, do 12 hundreds, do 16 hundreds.
Like all of that with equal rest. Like it's, and that, that's where I've been in trying to explain, like zoning and stuff and like how it what it targets and first of all, like wherever you're working out, you're gonna get some sort of bleed over to, other adaptations.
Right. That's why you can do a 32nd sprint and it can make your VO two max better. You're not actually doing VO two max work per se, but because it's pretty close to your VO two max, it's going to also raise the VO two max. And, like this is where I then use the science to explain this, is well, we've looked at all these different iterations over the course of history where it's you have like a.
A one to, to four work rests ratio, three minutes on, two minutes off, or maybe a one to eight, or 30 seconds on, [00:50:00] excuse me, four, four minutes off. Yep. And that's like your typical sprint. That's of course going to help with your sprint ability. And then to some extent, your VO two max, if we slowly move to a one-to-one work rests ratio, that's going to more specifically target your VO two max.
But it's also, depending on how trained you are, going to have a little bit of bleed over to maybe your sprint ability and a little bit of bleed over to maybe your second threshold. Then if we keep moving and we go two to one and then we go four to one, and then all the way up to 20 to one or 30 to one, then we're targeting, your second threshold and then anything past that you shouldn't really be doing.
You shouldn't really have to do intervals after 30 to one or something like that. Then you're targeting that like zone two sort of stuff. So it's like all those iterations are, it's well, where do they fall on the spectrum? And then. What is the primary adaptation going to be and how is that then going to help me be more functional with whatever sport I'm doing?
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. And my biggest pet peeve is like in the region four by four. [00:51:00] Most people who try to do that, I don't think they realize in grounded four minutes is a little bit longer. It's not 30 seconds or 60 seconds, but you have to be pretty trained to pull that off without seeing a massive output. Yeah.
Between interval one and four. Like the people I see posting their actual outputs, I'm like, wow, you get like bonus points from me for GNA fortitude. But between number one and number four, like I've seen like 50% decrements. Yeah. And then so what are you really training at that point, other than just pouting your dick in the ground?
Right,
Dr Phil: right. Yeah. You're just a masochist at that point, right? Yeah. No, and that's what I tell people is like the pace or the power output, whatever it is that you should be targeting is if I had to do the it should be equal across the board. Yes. Pretty close. So I would close rather have somebody start, say for example, like start at 300 watts, if you're on a bike for four minutes, and if that's too easy, okay, bump it up to three [00:52:00] 15.
Yeah. But don't go four 50. Yep. And then be at two 50 at the end, because then at that point you're probably not even, getting like the bioenergetic, adaptations, you're just already exhausted and you're just, like you said, pounding your dick into the ground at that point.
Like it's just it's, you're spinning your wheels. It's not worth it at that point.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. And that's what I unfortunately see, especially on the anaerobic side. You'll read something that'll say, oh, 30, 30. So one of the little markers I have is if you're on the rower and you're, let's just say an average athlete, this is not elite standards.
I'm still playing with the actual wattage. But if I took any athlete and I just threw a dart at the board and I said, okay, if you can hit a 30, 30, so 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off for 10 rounds and only have about a 5% decrement from round one to round 10, and you can average 300 watts. Which I think is doable for people, that to me, that's pretty badass.
And yeah, it doesn't look that bad on paper to you start doing it and [00:53:00] hit round three and you're like. Oh, son of a bitch. This is way harder than I thought. Yeah,
Dr Phil: it's, well, and that's like with the endurance in the endurance world, we have the stationary bikes, the ERGs that can actually control the power.
Yes. So you don't go in and you're not freewheeling it like on a C two biker or like a rower or an assault bike or something like that. And it makes it actually a little bit easier to do the workout because, as long as you've done some sort of physiological testing or something like that, you'll have kind of a starting point.
You just take whatever your last minute was, and then you just start there and you just see if you can do it. But when people hear the four by four, the 30 thirties or whatever it is, it's oh, I'm supposed to go all out. It's yes, but All Out has a different, is different if you're doing 10 seconds as hard as you can, or if you're repeating 30 seconds, 10 times in a row.
Right. It's yes, it's still all out. Like when I run a two mile race, I'm trying [00:54:00] to run as hard as I can across that two mile race. That's all out for me. Yep. But that looks a lot different when I'm doing 200 meters all out. Yes. Right. So that's and people I think it's just hard to wrap your mind around it, especially with 30 seconds.
Like those 30 thirties are very, like some people the reason why they love 'em is because it's enough to be hard and then you can recover really fast. So some people can recover really fast from 'em and just keep doing 'em all day. But there is a time where you eventually, your heart rate's, like 180, it's up there and you're not getting much change, with 30 seconds, it's like 180, 1 75, and then you're automatically like right back up to 180.
That's when you start to be like, oh boy, this is bad. So. Just just be careful, with your implementation of those sort of things. Like I said, I like to start lower and then build up from there.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. And in my brain there's two ways you can go about [00:55:00] it.
What I like is have your output, which will take you a little while to figure out if you don't have testing or whatever just play with it. There's no, I don't think magical number. You can use the Kurt Jensen profile, a percentage off a 2K, and there's other stuff you can use to figure it out.
So start there. And then I just have people do open-ended rest, so I'd rather have 'em started like a high output that could do a biometric method. Okay. Way till your heart rate gets below a hundred. Okay. Now you do your next one. Yeah. So the goal there is I'm trying to get as much volume as I can because I'm protracting the time.
I'm not stuck on this one-to-one ratio. And if you've already rested for three to five minutes and you can't hit close to that same power output again. You're done. It wasn't a rest issue. Yeah. Like you've maxed out, in my opinion the adaptations you could get for that day come back again and then once you make it through 10 rounds, 12 rounds, whatever number now you can either bump up the output or you can try to shorten the density.
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Dr MIke T Nelson : usually I find people just like doing a little bit better output if they have [00:56:00] time. Yeah. But if they're super limited on time, I'll be like, great, that whole thing took you whatever, 27 minutes I'm making up numbers now if you did the whole thing in 25 minutes, great. That's an improvement over time.
Right. But I don't let them cut the output. The inverse, which my buddy Kenneth J has done too, is you can start with a 30 30 and you're gonna hit 10 rounds, but by definition the first ones have to be sub max, otherwise you will not make it all the way through. Right, right.
Dr Phil: Well it also, which is, yeah. And it also depends on how you're measuring things as well.
Because there are some people. And I totally disagree with this, who are like, well, we don't start the timer until your heart rate gets into 90% of your max. Yeah. That doesn't make any damn
Dr MIke T Nelson : sense
Dr Phil: to me. I'm like no. That doesn't matter because from a force output perspective, if you're at 90% of your max, then you're there.
Your body is just taking some time to catch up. Like your heart [00:57:00] takes time to, to actually respond to that. Yeah, so I don't, that's just that's just making it so it's, that's so bad. That's just stupid. Yeah. 'cause you're like, oh, you have to accumulate 15 minutes of work, at 90% or above, and it doesn't start until you get above.
Above that. I'm like, no, because sometimes my heart rate. Say, for example, like I, I was doing a lot of biking like in the off season. Like when I was doing trail running and stuff like that and I was doing vo two max bike work and like I would do three or, I would do 30 30 and other things like that.
My heart rate did not get into the 90% until, I don't know, like halfway through 75% of the way through. And then it's now I can start, now I can start actually accumulating. It's no that's not how it works. IWI with all of the higher intensity stuff like sprints and like, one-to-one [00:58:00] WordPress ratio and probably above and maybe two to one to some extent use power output or, some mechanical.
Output, like speed or wattage or, whatever you wanna do. 'Cause heart rate is such a laing variable, it's not a good indicator of actually what your muscles are experiencing at in that moment.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. To me, heart rate is good to track as a metric of cost and efficiency. Right. So all things being equal, if you could complete 30, 30 to 10 rounds at, let's say 300 watts, and let's say your average heart rate was 1 65 versus athlete B, who's 1 77, which athlete do you want to play on your team? I want the one with the lower heart rate. 'cause that's telling me at least by some marker, they both did the same output.
So I would hedge that, or if you compare those to yourself and you did it at the same work output, but you did it at an average of 10 beats per minute, less so I've got some data on this from doing like the six minute stuff Right. To me. [00:59:00] That's a better adaptation because you've automatically gotten more efficient and your output was the same.
Yeah. 'cause your performance is getting better. 90%. You're just gonna penalize yourself when you're more fatigued.
Dr Phil: Right? Yeah, exactly. And, and then it's also, there's something to say that's, it's also harder to get your heart rate up when you're tired. Yes. It's also harder to get your power output up when you're tired.
And most likely force production is probably driving those changes to cardiovascular system and muscular. That would be my guess, and all that be so, so yeah it's, I don't like that way, like I said of thinking, about oh yeah, we don't start until this heart rate especially with those higher ends.
But that's the importance of okay, well, it's like at the beginning of your block, if you can handle, 10 by 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off at 300 watts. Yeah. Measure your heart rate. Yeah. Get a data point, and then do that workout for six weeks and then do it again.
And your average heart rate's actually probably gonna be lower. [01:00:00] Yep. So, so that, and then that's an indicator that you're getting more fit.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I like that. To get closer to the end here, tell us about lactate. Why does lactate seems to be like this horrible, evil thing that everyone, how many years later is George Brooks?
How many decades has he been talking about this? And it, he's, it still seems like people still hate lactate.
Dr Phil: Oh yeah. Yeah. I, and again, this is it is one of those things where, people are like, oh, like the actic acid burn and stuff. And you go, well actually, it's actually, it's not actually the lactate that's happening, that's causing the burn in your legs.
It could be, mis misdirection of, sodium potassium pumps, like it could be interference with like protons. It could be other things like that. It's a big can of worms. But the bottom line is we were talking about anaerobic metabolism here, and within glycolysis, which is the breakdown of glucose, you have an end product.
You have a six carbon glucose that gets broken into [01:01:00] two, three carbon byproducts. So whether you wanna say it's pyruvate or lactate that's still up, up the air for debate. Yeah. Yeah. But where that pyruvate can go is dependent on what's happening in the mitochondria.
So if your mitochondria have adequate oxygen and the force output is enough or the force output is low enough that it can continue to oxidize that pyruvate, then you're not gonna get very much lactate being, being formed, at least from the perspective of getting into your blood.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. You're more on the air quote aerobic side,
Dr Phil: right? Yes. But when you start to transition to the anaerobic side, you start to use more, you start to break down more of that glucose and the end product, that pyruvate actually starts to get converted into lactate. That lactate. What can happen with it is it can go out to other muscle cells.
Be taken up by the mitochondria and used for aerobic metabolism, [01:02:00] or it can then be shipped into the blood and then it circulates around and it can make it to the heart, it can make it to the liver for some processes, it can make it to the brain and be used there. But what happened was, I think this is in like the 18 hundreds, right?
They were taking blood samples from like these stags that were being hunted that were obviously running away from us. And then they would go kill them and then they would notice that there was a lot of lactate in the blood and like the only time that the stag is going to actually be within range of being shot is when it gets tired.
So, so there was this like idea that lactate was the cause of that fatigue because it was related to it. The correlation of it, yeah. Associated. Yes. Yeah, so, so there's an association between lactate and fatigue. And now what we're understanding is that, that lactate is a signaling molecule.
It's really important for aerobic metabolism to continue [01:03:00] especially under more anaerobic conditions in a sense. And the reason why the lactate is being made is because of a higher reliance on glycolysis. But where, but what's actually happening, where that fatigue, where those, like, where that acidosis is actually coming from is from the breakdown of a TP at the muscle.
And it's the handling of those hydrogen ions, those protons that actually shifts and then can interfere with contractile elements and other things like that. So that's a, that's an in, that's a completely different sort of can of worms, fatigue mechanisms and other things like that.
But essentially and correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how I think about it, is at low exercise intensities, when you're pretty aerobic, essentially most of those protons are going to be sequestered into the mitochondria. They're gonna be buffered by carnitine and other things like [01:04:00] that.
And, but as you start to exercise harder and harder, more protons are gonna be created from the breakdown of a TP. And at the same time, we're still gonna be making more lactate just because we're breaking down more glucose, but the hydrogens eventually start to slip out into the blood. And, then when there's an accumulation within the muscle, you get, changes to enzyme functionality, like I said, hindrances to, the contractile elements act, acting and myosin.
And then that's where we start to see, that that fatigue starting to arise and more lactate makes it into the blood. But it's really the hydrogens that are, making it into the blood and being buffered that are really the cause of the issue.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. How I, that's I agree.
Like how I explain to people is like when you run glycolysis really hard and at the end of the day you produce a lot of lactate and you produce about the same amount of hydrogens, it's probably not exactly the same, but they're like a one for one sort of at the end of the day.
And so the lactate is just this proxy we [01:05:00] use for actually hydrogen ions, which unfortunately gets made even worse by lactate testing because everybody knows lactate testing is usually pretty brutal. It feels horrible. And so I think that un unfortunately, further perpetuates this thing of, and we wanna stay below our lactate threshold 'cause lactate's this evil thing.
And look, we just measured it here in the lab and we know when you get too much of it, like performance breaks down and all that is true, but it's like guilt by association. Right. It just so happens it's easier to measure lactate than to measure the pesky, hydrogen ions that are floating around screwing shit up.
Dr Phil: It's easier to measure lactate than it is to measure the CO2 that's being produced. Right. That too. Yeah, because that's another one. You would have to have a portable CO2 device, which we still really don't have. There, there's other devices now right. That we were talking about offline with the Moxy and Yep.
Other New Year's devices and stuff that they give you a good indication of what's actually happening in the muscle. And they measure oxygen consumption, so when oxygen consumption rates [01:06:00] change, that's, like a way of monitoring where bioenergetic systems are shifting and stuff like that.
But those, but, commercially available devices for those, I've only been out for the last, I don't know, 14 years, 10. 10 to 14 years. And so, so the first thing that people did is they were like, oh, well we know that there's a correlation between lactate and fatigue, and if we can measure it, then we can get an idea of when you're going to fatigue.
Right. And unfortunately it requires you to draw blood and do other things like that. And I've never I got asked during my master's to go give a lecture on how to do lactate testing to some nutrition students. And I hadn't really done much lactate stuff, ever.
'cause I was, more on the near side of things. I was like, oh sure, yeah. I was like, oh, why would I need lactate testing when I have a device? That kind of tells me where all the break points are just light rather than blood. So I went down in the lab and I got a lancet. And I was just like sitting there just like freaking poking my finger.
I was like, God, son of a gun. Like my fingers just hurt. Were so tendered to the touch for the next like week. [01:07:00] And I couldn't get good data anyways because, I was like, I wasn't wiping it properly and then I was squeezing my finger and I was doing all this other stuff and like it was saying my lactate was like seven, at like rest.
And I was like, I'm pretty sure that's not true. I'm not, like I'm a fairly fit, indivi fit healthy individual. I was like, I'm pretty sure I'm not, don't have some sort of ketoacidosis or something going on or some liver failure. I don't know. But it's a lot Yeah.
Guild by association and I think it's just a lot more hassle than it's really worth in a sense.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. And it's difficult. Like I remember we, we taught this at one of the Care Institute courses, so, so my buddy Freddy is in, Kenneth, J and I are sitting around the table the night before we got all of our lactate testing and we're like.
We've done it before, but we're, I don't know if Freddy has had, but we're like, we should probably test this now just to make sure everything works good. 'cause it's the hallmark whenever you do a big presentation, like stuff you've used before, this shit won't work. Yeah. So I've learned enough to like at least test it the night before.
[01:08:00] And the lancets they gave us, 'cause someone else ordered 'em, were horrible and you're just sitting around all trying to poke your own finger and not enough blood would come out and then too much. And then, you had to make sure the device was cowled and then I freaking hate needles so I'm sweating profusely and so I'm getting sweat in the droplet and I having to wipe it off and then you, oh crap, I just screwed up one of these testing strips.
At the time it was like $4 or something. Oh shit. Yeah. So
nobody: that's nuts.
Dr Phil: It is not worth it. But if you do get it done, it's not, the lactate is an indicator of what's going on in your muscles and how your muscles are dealing with the exercise and stuff like that. It's not what's causing, your legs to burn and feel fatigue and other things like that.
It's just, like you said, I like that. Guilty by association. And yeah. And
Dr MIke T Nelson : is it's the old exercise fizz thing of, well, we did this because we could measure it. Right. Right. Why do we, even now we have a lot more data on string training, but that's all probably relatively recent, especially compared to aerobic training.
And it's because, oh, [01:09:00] we could put a treadmill in the lab and measure stuff aerobically, like trying to do anaerobic stuff with, hoses with the, big old metabolic hearts and all this other stuff is just not that conducive. So a lot of what we know is limited by the technology of what we could use to even investigate certain things.
Which has, obviously gotten a lot better over the years. Yeah. There was someone, as we wrap up, if someone is. Doing say the 30, 30 protocols or 60 seconds on and then some time off. How much of their improvement in that over time do you think is from an intrinsic increase in the buffering system like intramuscular, carnasine, et cetera, versus other adaptations going on?
Huh.
Dr Phil: Another really good question. And it's like we, we know that, people can take things, right? Yeah. So
Dr MIke T Nelson : betaine will be combined with histamine to form intramuscular [01:10:00] carnasine, which is helpful as a buffer agent.
Dr Phil: Yeah. So, so I don't know, I don't know what the specific adaptations are, but I imagine, especially in the beginning it's probably, there's probably time courses, right?
Sure. Because one, one of the things that I looked at during my PhD was like you know how like muscle, not like specific. Enzyme protein synthesis rates and those sort of things. And it was all over the board in terms of, like how long it would take one to, reach significance and then, how long it went away and like other things.
But I do think that, because
I'm trying to think of the I think in the very beginning it's just this like sledgehammer effect of like I like to think of the movie inside Out, if you've ever seen that where Yeah, like the first time something bad happens, the red lights are going, yeah.
Everything's burning in the background. That's your body when you exercise for the first time in a really long time is just
Audio Only - All Participants: oh shit.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Everything is burning to the ground. [01:11:00] And as long as you recover enough from it, then you know your house is then gonna be bigger. And, so, so it's really hard to say, oh, well, is it because of the buffering capacity or is it because of increases to mitochondrial function?
There's probably something to say, that there's probably a stimulus for capillary expansion, but that takes a little bit longer. Yeah. So, and then, then there's also like changes to, to lactate shuttling and all of those sort of things. So like the time course is hard to say, but I think to some extent, you're definitely gonna get better buffering capacity.
You're definitely gonna get better. Communication between the different systems. So one of the reasons. Why having larger mitochondria is good is because then if you have an energetic stress down here, now you can react down here if you have larger mitochondria because you just communicate it all the way down, the system.
So you're gonna get bigger, you're gonna get larger mitochondria. You're like, but [01:12:00] there's also a time course of those adaptations. And I think it comes down to, well, what's the easiest way to, to get adaptations to begin with? Like, when we do like heat training and other things like that, we see, plasma volume expansion is almost always the first one.
Yep. Because it's easy for your body to hold on more liquid
Dr MIke T Nelson : efficiency. Yeah. Yeah. It's the most efficient way to adapt to the stimulus.
Dr Phil: Right. And then from a cellular perspective and I'll talk to mitochondria because that's what I know a little bit more, it seems it's easier to fold the inner membranes of the mitochondria first. So make more crysta, or actually, I, and I don't know which one comes first here, but fold the mitochondria. Crysta actually get all your mitochondrial enzymes and put 'em together into like super complexes and stuff. So it's it's easier to bring stuff together that's already there.
Right. As opposed to making more membranes. Right. Right. But then the next step is, okay, well, now that we folded everything and we've gotten past that adaptation phase, well now we gotta [01:13:00] start making new and, making more of them. And, depending on how big, how large of a structure that is, it's oh, well maybe the enzymes start to be made first and then the lipid membrane structure, then gets made second and that, so, so there's definitely a time course to all of this and, that was a long-winded way of basically saying that I would imagine like Carine and buffering and other things like that is probably on the early to mid sort when they start to make, when you start to make, more of those enzymes and proteins and if you're providing enough if you're providing beta-alanine and those sort of things, and it's probably a little bit faster.
But yeah yeah, you're definitely getting better at buffering whether it's buffering in the mitochondria to sequester more protons or, more carine being created for intracellular buffering or more sodium bicarbonate buffering within the blood. All of those things are it'd be a fascinating, [01:14:00] thing to look at, right?
Is what is the time course of all of this. Just have somebody do your six minute workout every single day. I can't do a muscle biopsy every single day. That'd be pretty miserable. Yeah. Something along those lines pretty good. You could do like a micro biopsy, I'm pretty sure. Like you could get, you wouldn't the challenge is that you, did you get enough though?
Yeah, that's the problem is you probably wouldn't unless you did some some crazy omics, techniques, which don't need a ton. Yeah. But you still need to start with a decent amount of, like of cell in the beginning. And then you can slowly, sift out like the mitochondria and other things like that.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. The only way I thought around of it, I dunno if you've seen, I think Cal's talked about this, Caldiss has talked about this, or maybe Jim Snyder did, the theory of a lactate trap. So you would do high output Wingate stuff. And let's say if you're trying to get more of a local adaptation in your legs, you basically put the athlete in a position where they're contracting the legs almost in an isometric after doing high lactate stuff.
The theory is you're [01:15:00] trying to stop or sequester venous return or outflow. Yeah. Just like a temporary blood flow restriction. So I wondered if you could have one group do that, one group that doesn't, and then could you, the group doing the lactate trap, could you do a local lactate level instead of doing the finger or the ear or something like that?
But again, you're back to me. We're assuming lactate is approximate for hydrogen ions. Hydrogen ions are actually doing the buffering. I've tried it. It's freaking miserable to do. So I'm thinking, man, this better be one hell of an adaptation. Yeah. Yeah.
nobody: Or did I just
Dr MIke T Nelson : make my life hell for no reason?
Dr Phil: Right. And I think, like you've talked about in the past, like with with like cold exposure for example. Yeah. It's like you probably don't need to even think about doing something like that until you've done some sprint interval training just on its own. Oh yeah. Go
Dr MIke T Nelson : God for god's sakes, train first.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Phil: You don't need to, you don't need to get the BFR bands and the, and then, oh my gosh, this would be awful. So [01:16:00] you, what you would do is you would do a 32nd sprint on the bike. Yeah. You'd have your BFR bands on tie bands on. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. So you'd have those on.
Yeah. Do your sprint, then get into an isometric. Yep. Then release 'em and then you'd probably throw up. Yeah. It's just it's just battle of who can feel the worst after a workout, because that's what's gonna be the big change. But no, and
Dr MIke T Nelson : it's just the nutrition contest.
It's like back to the Bulgarian system.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Yeah. As long is whoever can survive is gonna be the strongest out of all this. And it's just no, there's a better way. That's why we have science. That's why we have other things like that. And the answer to all of that is, it's start with the sprint stuff.
I think if you're not doing anything, do something, whether it's like the six minute ramp up that you're talking about, if you don't have much time, some 30 thirties, you could even do 30 seconds on, four minutes off if you're trying to do a little bit more of that anaerobic sort of development and stuff like that.
But for people who are lifting, and who don't do cardiovascular stuff, do it [01:17:00] because, if it may not help you directly with your ability to move heavy weight, but it'll definitely help your recovery ability, your ability to get more volume in and those sort of things as well.
So, it's like you, you can't have a totally atrophied heart and expect it to and expect to be able to recover from, like tons and tons of volume and strength training.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. Contrary to what one guy keeps setting me up on Instagram all the time is. Yes, there is such a thing as cardiac development.
No, it's not only muscular development. Yes, VO two max is a test, but it is still useful. So there's appears to be some people still out there. 'cause I've gotten more than one email about that of, but you're just training the muscular system. It's only muscular adaptations. I'm like, of course you're still training the muscular system, but just like a deadlift is gonna emphasize different muscles than a bench press.
Like we can emphasize stress into different areas into the system by changing [01:18:00] these wide, variety of parameters that we do, so. Yeah. Last anaerobic words of wisdom,
Dr Phil: nothing. Nothing is purely anaerobic and nothing is purely aerobic. It's always a, it's a combination in a gray zone transition area of everything. But that, that was me, that was the PhD. Well actually, but in all actuality it's like train for, like what you're trying to develop and if you don't train one thing and you neglect one thing quite a bit, then you probably stand to make a lot of adaptations in that one thing with fairly minimal work as well.
So, like if you're scared or just hesitant to do, like aerobic work, even though you're more consider yourself more of an anaerobic athlete, you probably don't have to actually do that much in order to get good adaptations from it.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah, and that's the beautiful part.
What I tell people too is and I've talked to Kenneth Jay about this, you even mentioned on our last podcast, I think. If you just wanted to stay even on aerobic stuff and probably even improve for some people, I dunno what you've seen, but [01:19:00] I've seen three sessions of 20 minutes a week. You're probably pretty damn good, assuming there's some intensity applied to it.
I don't think you're gonna destroy your VO two max numbers doing that. I think there's probably better ways of doing it, but if you only just did that I've seen a lot of people make good progress and 100% maintain a lot of stuff with literally about an hour a week, which I don't think is crazy.
Dr Phil: No.
And that the caveat there is like with some intensity, if you're, yes, a hundred percent if you're just doing easy stuff. You can't do zone two there. Yeah, exactly. You can't do 20 minutes of zone two, three times a week and expect to, really maintain, like higher end.
But that, yeah, that's actually really a really good point because there is there's studies that look at, the maintenance of VO two max and stuff after like training blocks. And you can maintain VO two max on 50% of the work that you did. Yeah. For six to eight to, even 10 weeks or something like that.
Long time. [01:20:00] So a long time. And, and if you're just looking to get enough, like the minimal effective dose here isn't very high, especially if you're willing to add a little bit of that high intensity. Like, I said, one of my studies that I did during my PhD was, well, we wanted to see like how much mitochondrial function we could induce by just doing.
So it's essentially 20 minutes every other day. 'cause it was one minute on, one minute off and, 30% increase in mitochondrial function, from sedentary individuals. And we know that results in a, higher VO two max. So, 20, 30 minutes a day every other day is a very effective, can be a very effective workout.
You might actually improve too, if you haven't done it very much.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. Awesome. So where can people find you? I know you've got a lot of great stuff on Instagram. You work with athletes, especially endurance athletes. You do some, I think in-person stuff on an organ. Correct?
Dr Phil: Yep.
Yeah, so I'm in the central [01:21:00] Oregon area. I have a mobile physiology lab, so if you're in the central Oregon area, hit me up and we can coordinate, testing for either your athletes, your gym your, I was even thinking about, doing employees and other things like that.
Yeah. I think that would be a really cool thing to offer for people. Yes. If you are, just wanting to see what I'm all about Instagram is my hub of operation, so it's at Dr. Phil Batterson and you can, if you are an endurance athlete or just somebody who's trying to overcome, like over training, had issues with injuries in the past, like those sort of things.
I take a very individualized, holistic approach. So it's not just training, it's training, nutrition, sleep recovery, those sort of things. With all the athletes that I work with. So drop me a line over on Instagram and then I do have a podcast with almost a hundred episodes. I'm not really, yeah, I haven't been really making a ton of episodes lately, but Dr.
Mike has been on, a number of times and we've had some really good conversations over there. So that would be the Critical Oxygen podcast on Spotify and on Apple, if you guys [01:22:00] wanna check it out.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Awesome. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I would highly encourage anyone, especially if they're in the area, if you can ever do in-person testing and everything like that.
It is super, super useful. So. Awesome. Thank you so much, buddy. I really appreciate it.
Dr Phil: Yeah, thanks Mike for having me.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Thank you. Awesome, man. I know you ran over, but thank you so much for all your time. Yeah. I really appreciate it. And yeah, that was great. That was super info. I appreciate it.
That was good.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Thanks. Every time we talk I'm like, oh man, I hope I'm giving him the stuff that he wants. No, I just like asking
Dr MIke T Nelson : all the hard questions I don't have answers to.
Dr Phil: Yeah. And then I'm over here just oh shit. I don't know actually because I'm
Dr MIke T Nelson : like, I don't know, it's shit, I wonder about it.
I'm like, oh
Dr Phil: yeah,
Dr MIke T Nelson : no. And I can't find anything to say either way.
Dr Phil: Right. But it's fun to have those conversations. So I always appreciate, talking to you about this sort of stuff. And I also appreciate all the words of wisdom and stuff with the email stuff and the business and the marketing and all that.
Again, it's like for me, I have to be very compartmentalized with what I focus on in order. It's so I was focusing on like the Instagram stuff and [01:23:00] all of that, and now I'm like, okay, I think I'm slowly getting to the point where I'm like, I really wanna start working with more local athletes, so I'm gonna just like continuously reach out to, like businesses in the area. And I was sitting at PT today and I was like, man, I need to get in with like PT clinics like doctors clinics. There's a bunch of functional medicine clinics around where I'm at. Oh yeah. And have a contract with them where they pay me, say $2,000 a month.
And then I just come down and offer testing, for people. Yep. VO two max testing and like those recommendations. 'cause like those companies as a whole, if they're preaching better health and optimization and other stuff like that is okay, well probably it just start with you guys then, offer these benefits to your your employees and, so, so that's just an idea.
I'm floating around and I think it would be pretty cool to, to be able to do that. 'cause then it's yep. Every. Every Friday I go, or it's like one [01:24:00] Friday a month, I go to these guys do testing one Friday a month, I go to these guys do testing and it's all in one place. And, I'm not trying to find a bunch of different people or anything like that.
And then, hopefully then that would result in then more, clients and stuff. Because I don't know, how do you like the, this is probably a huge can of worms, but the way that I think about VO two max testing isn't just oh, you get your numbers and then you're good to go Is, it's okay, well what, where's your VO two max in relation to your second threshold in relation to your first threshold?
And then from there we can actually target, what the, do you focus on VO two max or second threshold? And then is your aerobic base high enough? And that's actually how I can implement, my training, especially for these endurance athletes that I work with. And that's something that I hadn't really seen or just heard discussed because a lot of it's just well, what's your VO two max?
Okay, it's too low, you gotta get it better. And you're like, well, it depends on, the relationship of, like where you're at in the season. Like other [01:25:00] things like that. And that's what, but that's what people take away from people talking about VO two max is that, oh, a VO two max test, that's all you get.
So,
Dr MIke T Nelson : yeah, that's my pet peeve. Like I, I've had so many discussions with other people 'cause they'll ask me like, oh, well what protocol do you use for your VO two max? I'm like, who am I testing? What do they wanna know? What is their, because I, yes, I will probably generally use a ramp test, but I've done just a straight up 2K on a rower.
For someone who is more interested in their 2K time and pacing, that's gonna be more specific to them. No, I'm not gonna get low end fat oxidation and a crossover point and all that stuff. But it's not relevant to them. That wasn't their question. Right. So I usually, if it's a RAM test and it's appropriate, I actually am just so stupid.
I, I actually put everything in Excel and I graph stuff out. And I'm looking for the area where you suck. Yeah. And a lot of times you'll see a change in our er, you'll see a spike in respir respiratory rate. You'll, it won't be smooth, like you'll see these [01:26:00] discontinuities. Okay. And then I'll be like, okay, let me guess you don't do any zone two stuff and you do no threshold work.
Oh my God, how did you know? How did, yeah. Yeah. Because everything in that area sucks.
Dr Phil: Yeah. That's like when I test CrossFitters and it's oh, well your V two max and your second threshold are actually really high, but then your first threshold is at a hundred watts.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. It's ridiculously stupid.
Dr Phil: I'm like, okay. Yeah. So we're actually we do the same thing in a sense, Okay. That. I like that. I'm gonna,
Dr MIke T Nelson : because the, to me, the point of the test is yes, I'm gonna drive. And to me, if you go back, okay, what is the definition of VO two max? Probably two minutes at steady state where oxygen levels have plateau, right?
To me, if you hit that and we didn't induce a shit ton of fatigue before, it's still a VO O2 max. Oh, yeah. Now, may it be different in different testing, different protocols. I agree. But most people are looking for just that baseline of like, where are they at? Right? So I'll still give 'em a VO two max, but the next question they're gonna ask is, what do I do with this?
Yeah. If you only have a VO [01:27:00] two max, unless it sucks horribly and they need a bigger one, if it's 30 and you want to be an endurance athlete, well yeah you need to up your VO two max. But if it's somewhat reasonable, then it's okay, but you didn't design the test to answer the question that they really have.
So what good was the test? Right. '
Dr Phil: cause now you just have VO two max and then you don't have any of the other information. Right. Yeah. And that's so, so I have an athlete down in San Diego. He's a High Rocks guy, and he, we wanna get some testing done. So I've been like emailing people and I'm just like, well, what sort of protocol do you guys use?
Like, how do you do it? What sort of inter interpretations can I get all the data? Because I wanna be able to interpret it. What sort of devices do you use? And the one of 'em I've gotten, they've had good answers. They're like, well, it depends on I don't really understand the difference between if you're doing like a, like lactate threshold testing, you typically the stages must have to be longer, right?
In order to get like some steady state lactate.
Dr MIke T Nelson : In my opinion, yes. But [01:28:00] that's even debatable. I think it's the total. Time of what you're doing. So to me, if I'm doing real lactate testing, 30 seconds on the low end is probably too short. Yeah. You can get some there, but I would look at 60 seconds and I even do 180 second one.
Dr Phil: Okay. Yeah. 'cause I, it also
Dr MIke T Nelson : depends, are you testing during or only after if they're like on a rower or a skier what the fuck am I gonna do? Stop it in the middle and start poking them.
Dr Phil: Yeah. But but that's one of the challenges that like, it's well do you pause between Correct.
And, then it's so, so that, that's what they were saying. They were like, well we do, first and second threshold and then we ramp it up and I'm just like. Part of me is just okay, this is why another reason why lactate threshold testing is dumb. It's well, if you're measuring, like just gimme the VO two max test with CO2 and O2 and I'll be able to just like decipher, like where that's what
Dr MIke T Nelson : I do and stick max versus the second threshold.
I have all the data that I need other than I can't talk to you in terms of lactate.
Dr Phil: [01:29:00] Right? Yeah. That is the, that is literally the only thing, but, and it's so frustrating because especially in the running world, it's so inundated with, oh, I know with lactate talk that it's just so basically I just call it break 0.1 and break 0.2 or your first and second floor and then we can talk about it, right?
'cause. So, okay. Yeah, that's, I just wanted to pick your brain on that real quick. 'cause that is something that I wanna do moving forward and, I think that is a very useful way of actually using physiological assessment rather than just being like, yep, here's your VO two max. That's really all they care about.
'cause that's what people get frustrated over when they go into a lab and then they just get first threshold, second threshold and VO two max and that's it. And then not, and then it's well, what do I do with it? That's the big question.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. And even then there's arguments as, do you use the DM max method in order to measure it?
Or what system, or do you use to even measure the freaking things that you're looking at? 2 million or 4 million MO is the popular
Dr Phil: one. Get outta here. I, oh, I had a woman approach me [01:30:00] on Instagram. She was like, yeah, I did a lactate test and they said I didn't have a second lactate threshold.
I was like, what? How did you go to failure? On the test? And she was like, oh, yeah. Like I, I couldn't run any faster. So they stopped the test and stuff, but my lactate never went over three milli mo. What? But, and then I was like, okay that's interesting. So what happened?
And, or, so I asked her about her nutrition and stuff. So first of all, she was like on a ketogenic diet. Oh. She was in a, she was in a caloric deficit and, so, so I was just like, yeah, no shit. Yeah. Yeah. And these guys are trying to tell her that she didn't have, like a second threshold.
I was just like, yeah. They don't know what they're talking about. 'cause if you failed, you absolutely were above second threshold.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Oh, yeah. Yeah. And even then I just go back to simple terms, right? If the graph is doing this, and it starts to become exponential no matter what thing we're looking at.
Okay. Right at that break point where it becomes exponential, we should stay below that.
How about that? Yeah. Easy as [01:31:00] that. But then people get mad and they're like, but you don't know what you're doing. You're not using this. You didn't use the Bruce ramp protocol from the A CSM text in 1997.
Dr Phil: Well, that's one of the things that does also frustrate me is people are like, pride themselves on, I use the exact same protocol for every single person, so then I can compare each person to each other. And I'm just like, that matters way less than comparing somebody to themselves.
Right? So make a test that you can repeat and, it's so, so for me that's and make sure the test is between seven and 15 minutes long, based on like the recommendations that we have, like all this other stuff. And it's and that, that's where I am still encouraged because it's gotten more popular, like the VO two max testing, but people still have no idea what the hell they're doing.
So, no,
Dr MIke T Nelson : that's my first question I asked now Hey, I did VO two max. Cool. How long was your test?
Dr Phil: Yeah, five minutes. About six minutes.
Dr MIke T Nelson : It's probably a shitty test. Sorry. Yeah. Hate to piss on your leg and tell you it's raining, but Yeah. [01:32:00]
Dr Phil: Yeah. You probably shouldn't have gone to them.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. Or
Dr Phil: you're really detrained.
Yeah. Well, but even then it's like even if they were really, even if they're prolonged and set to where your
Dr MIke T Nelson : ability is.
Dr Phil: Yeah, exactly. Exactly that. So that's what I've, yeah, that's what I try to tell people, but then they're like, yep, we gotta get as many VO two max test done a day. I'm like, all right, you're screwing yourself over because these just aren't high quality tests.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. And the last thing I ask for people is ask the person there to give you a spreadsheet of all the raw data. Yes. Because more than once, like one guy came back, he's my VO two max is 63. I was like, what? The last time you were tested you were 46 and that was eight weeks ago and you weren't doing VO two max stuff?
Audio Only - All Participants: Yeah,
Dr MIke T Nelson : and he is no lab told me. I'm like, okay, get us a copy of all the Robin. So we get all the thing and we look at just the O2 line and there was one number of 63, but one number, I don't know what average thing they were using, but basically the machine belched and stuck out a number of 63. Yeah, he was actually at [01:33:00] 49.
If you actually graph it out, when you graph it and average it, the algorithm looked for only one single data point and was written to see what is the max point in this column and just randomly threw out that number. So did it happen? Yes, but what I would not say that is VO two max.
Audio Only - All Participants: No.
Dr MIke T Nelson : No. Not sustainable.
No. Well man, well thank you so much. I will let you know once this is out. All the best, buddy. Yeah.
Dr Phil: Yeah, let me know tag me, if you do any promotions and stuff like that. Sure. Yeah. Like on Instagram and I'll share it. And yeah, other than that, if you ever want me to come back on and talk, I'm always willing to talk and talk shop with you.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah, will do. And then enjoy the big wedding and enjoy your time away.
Dr Phil: Yeah. Thanks. I appreciate it.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Awesome. See you buddy.
Dr Phil: Yeah. See you, Mike.
Speaker 3: Okay. So as promised here is some of the super geeky stuff that we moved towards the end. 'cause I thought it was still relevant, but wanted to give you all background so everyone can understand what the hell we're actually talking about here. So if you [01:34:00] enjoy this topic and really geeky stuff you will enjoy this last section here.
Thank you so much.
Dr Phil: I just talked to, is the guy's name Chris Lockwood? Is that name? Ring a bell. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson : I love Chris. Yeah, I just sent him a message today.
Dr Phil: That's awesome. Yeah, he, him and I met up because I he, they just purchased some Moxie's for some studies that they're doing and yeah, I sent him over
Dr MIke T Nelson : to Roger.
Yeah. And I was down there. Yeah.
Dr Phil: He was like, yeah, it was like yeah, Mike Nelson sent us over to our, I was like, oh, that's a crazy small world. 'cause I'm about to talk to Mike tomorrow. Oh, that's wild. Yeah. So, so yeah, I was excited to talk to him and see what he, those guys got going on.
Does he? Is Nutrabolt the overarching company for Seor and C four and all of them? Yep. Okay. I was trying to make the connection and I couldn't figure it out.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah, they're, yeah, so he is been there for a while now and last time we went through Austin we got to stop in and [01:35:00] see the new facility and got a tour and I think I'm okay to put up the pictures now and stuff because I think it's public knowledge now.
Oh yeah. But yeah, it is a freaking amazing facility. It's so cool. And he's got his own little lab in there with the bio decks and Dexa and I was talking to about it. I'm like, Hey, you ever looked at SMO too? He is eh, he is like someone else just mentioned that the other day. I said, oh, well go talk to Roger.
He'll hook you up and
Dr Phil: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it'll be cool, it'll be interesting to see if they can actually detect changes because that, yeah. I recommended for them doing more, looking more at like THB and THB response. 'cause if they're looking at like vasodilation, which is what they're looking for.
Yeah. Do you think
Dr MIke T Nelson : that's pretty reliable on Moxie? I think, or is it relative? Think
Dr Phil: I, it's de it's definitely relative and yeah. That's my interpretation too. Yeah. It's the Rod Roger said he, he kinda kicks himself for labeling it, like milligrams per deci or whatever the, it's a weird
Dr MIke T Nelson : unit too.
Dr Phil: Yeah. But it's the [01:36:00] same as if you were to go get a blood test. Total hemoglobin and stuff like that. Oh,
Dr MIke T Nelson : okay. Gotcha. So,
Dr Phil: so some people take that and they're like, oh, does this mean that's what I have like in my blood? He's no. It's like blood volume underneath the sensor and you can interpret, like decreases meaning that blood volume is going down, increases as blood volume going up.
And that's like we, we generally steer people away from using THB too much just because you're opening a big can of worms when you start to get into that sort of stuff.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah, I remember talking to James Sebe?
Dr Phil: I don't think so.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. I remember talking to him quite a bit about it in the past.
And if you talk to and I'm sure this has happened to you too, like the ultra hardcore n nears researchers, they're like, ah, it's all bullshit. I, all the calculations and I'm like, in my experience, like it is a relative per session, per individual. Like I look at it like exactly what you said, is it going up?
Is it [01:37:00] staying level or is it going down? Like that to me has been relatively reliable. And that's my, I don't know, my sort of interpretation, but I could be wrong on that.
Dr Phil: No, and I think SM O2 I would say is much more like from a scientific perspective back to as being more reliable.
Yes. It's the THB is still, yeah. It's use the trends. And that's the same thing with ESMO too. Like when people try to compare, like they can try, they try to compare like individuals to each other with SO two, and they're like, oh, it's such a high variation. It's yeah.
Because everyone's got different regulation going on. That's Yeah. And it'll change on
Dr MIke T Nelson : day by day basis too, I've noticed. Yeah. Yeah. No, it'll, but
Dr Phil: it
Dr MIke T Nelson : will,
Dr Phil: yeah, it'll change day by day. And there's, we have some hypothesis in-house that's that could be related to fatigue, hydration levels.
Yep. Like other things like that. Slight changes in the positioning because Moxie is more robust in terms of its sensitivity to those things. Can lead to, 5%, 10% changes, like in, [01:38:00] in the numbers. So, but as long as you're getting close, then you can generally rule out that the placement is the issue.
And then, yeah, I what I've been using it for is I do a lot of warmup tracking. So I'll do, something that's like really easy, five, 10 minutes like everybody tells you to do, and then I do some accelerations. And with those accelerations I track. SO two and performance, so like power output.
And it's really quite interesting how and RPE, how my RPE relates to my ability to decrease my SO two. And then, as SO two kind of gets gets closer and closer to itself, the top and the bottom, that's like when I know I'm actually like pretty tired. And it's just a nice metric to have to be like, yep, my muscles are saying I'm tired.
My power output's saying I'm tired. My RP is also saying I'm tired. So everything across the board is actually like confirming that.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. Would you, I've done this, but actually I probably never asked anyone about it. So I have this thing I call like HDR Human Dynamic [01:39:00] range. And the bigger range you can have.
In pretty much most scenarios I've thought of is better. So if I have faster heart rate recovery, I could hit a peak and I can come back down. HRV, if I can, probably hammer someone with a high stimulus, I probably want them to go a little bit sympathetic, but I want them to come back to baseline.
Ideally the next day. SO two, if I can get on there and warm up and do whatever to see what my absolute max is, say it's 85%. And then I really hammer it like 32nd Wingate or something like that, that I know is gonna drop. I exactly what you said. I look at my RPE, how many Watts average was I able to hit?
And then on good days, RP is, the same or, okay, watts are higher and it seems like I can desaturate harder.
Or other days where I'm just. I don't know, today kind of blows, like I, I can't quite get that top number as high, but it seems like I just can't desaturate as [01:40:00] low as what I can on a good day.
Is that what you guys have seen?
Dr Phil: Yeah that's exactly what I've been testing with like the warmup stuff. And yeah, that the, I love that, like the dynamic range is really what we're looking at, overall, right? Is the high going up? Is the low going down?
And I was talking, are you familiar with Brett Kirby over at Nike?
Dr MIke T Nelson : I know who he is. That's it. Yeah. I've
Dr Phil: never met him. He, so they use Moxie quite often and I've had some conversations with him and he said that he, there, he doesn't have any testing or like specific testing or publications with this, but the individuals he works with, the bigger their dynamic range, the better their performance generally is.
Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson : That's what I've seen too. And it, yeah. It seems like people who are not as trained, and maybe it's just an effort thing, maybe it's an efficiency thing. Who knows? Like they're top in. I haven't noticed a huge difference across the board. Like it'll be different, but I've noticed a big difference on they, they just can't drive and desaturated.
Super hard.
Dr Phil: Yeah. [01:41:00] Yeah. That's generally, we see that with sedentary individuals. And then you also really, interestingly, there's a subset of endurance athletes, like more along the lines of like ultra distance runners. Just some ultra distance runners, some Ironman athletes, and they're typically female who their SM O2 will go up to 80 and then no matter how hard they hit it, it'll go down to 75.
And we've measured, post tissue thickness. Yeah. What it's like they, it's like almost like their cardiovascular system can provide so much blood. That their mitochondria just never can just strip outstrip it. Wow. I thought seeing
Dr MIke T Nelson : people couldn't get to 50 was bad.
Dr Phil: Yeah. No, it's, it is wild.
And then we've also, like with that, you're like, oh, adipose tissue thickness is always the first thing you think of. Yeah. And fine. You move it around to different areas and they still can't do it. Oh, and the ones that I've tested who have been like the least, di like in terms of dynamic range, [01:42:00] they're the ones that do a lot of zone two training.
Yes. They were swimmers growing up, which is really interesting. Oh. And I don't know if I'm just reading into it a little bit more. Yeah. But all of that put together is and I haven't had an athlete personally that I've worked with that I can test this hypothesis on. But my. What I would do if I was, like actually coaching them is I would have them do sprint interval training, so that they could really stimulate, the desaturation.
'cause I think I, I think a lot of it is, probably driven by an over overdeveloped cardiovascular system and then, and and underdeveloped mitochondria, they're still obviously there and they're still obviously highly functional. They just need to be pushed a little bit more probably 'cause they don't do hardly any sprinting.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. What about this thought? I've only had one person and I kinda lost track from 'em, to be honest. So I haven't been able to test this out much. But my thought is I would actually put them on [01:43:00] like a leg extension or something where I knew I'm gonna get some type of semi occlusion and then I would RPR the crap out of it.
'cause I've noticed in some people. The muscle contraction, like their rec fem and muscles in that area will test weaker again, manual muscle test, take it for what it's worth. Right. But once we get that going, that seems to help. And then I would actually start doing blood flow restriction. 'cause my brain goes to, I was thinking that I'm just gonna hammer anything again to get that thing to start desaturating and to get a higher level of muscle contraction.
What are your thoughts on that? No I think that's,
Dr Phil: yeah. That like it, 'cause it also could be a strength issue recruitment issue. Right. Things. That's what I was think
Dr MIke T Nelson : too. Yeah.
Dr Phil: Which is so, which is why it's so interesting, it's like I always approach things, from like the bioenergetic side of things.
But it's also, you have to remember the exactly like what you're saying is, it's also contraction strength, so we might just need to get 'em stronger. Yeah. [01:44:00] But those might be the individuals that we don't necessarily wanna get super, super strong because. If what they're doing doesn't require a, an insane amount of force output, we wouldn't wanna have like artificial or, like we wouldn't wanna have them strong enough or so strong that they're occluding and then essentially, accelerating the oxygen use there.
Yeah.
Dr MIke T Nelson : So would you then, so my thought with that is I would monitor like SM O2 on a zone two or zone three on a bike or something that is very typical of their sport or even running, just to make sure, I, like you said, I'm not crushing their efficiency and now they're becoming like the, I know Evan PI's talked a lot about this too, like the CrossFitters who have maybe the most muscle hypertrophy, maybe they can track the muscles so hard that they get so much occlusion Right.
That's good for the max strength events, but really sucks when you do long metcons. Yeah,
Dr Phil: exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Dr MIke T Nelson : Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 4: [01:45:00] Huge thanks Dr. Phil Paterson for coming back onto the podcast here. We'll link to his previous show, massive thanks to him for all the great information here. Make sure to check out all the great stuff he is got on the old Instagram and everywhere else. And if you are anywhere near him in Bend, Oregon, I would highly recommend you seek him out, get some in personal testing whenever you can get that stuff done.
It is. Extremely beneficial to have your own data. Again, if you're in the Minnesota area or interested in flying in here, I also do metabolic heart assessments. Moxie work, Knox, what you know, pretty much whatever you need. But drop me an email, make sure I'm home and around, et cetera. And I just do that on a as needed basis.
And we've got sponsors from this show. Check out our friends over at Rogue. If you're interested in picking up a Concept two Rower or the Rogue Echo Bike, those are my two favorite pieces of equipment for old school [01:46:00] cardiovascular training. If you're interested in metabolic arts, check out my friend z Panoi.
Just drop me a note, I'll put you in touch with them or tell 'em Dr. Mike Tulson sent you. And as I mentioned earlier, we will have the Flexible Meathead Cardio course. The level one, which is aerobic level two, which is anaerobic will be open. Again, I don't have the exact dates yet. Because we do have the physiologic flexibility cert, which will open up October 13th.
But yeah, so hop onto the newsletter. Once I get all that sorted out, the physical exert is up next and you'll be the first to know on the cardiovascular courses. Also has had some really good feedback. So thank you as always for listening to the podcast. Really appreciate it. Big thanks to Dr.
Phil again for all the great information. Check out all of his. Stuff. Give us a, like the download buttons, subscribe button, whatever all the great buttons are. You've got a few seconds to give us a review. Goes a massive way to [01:47:00] helping us with better distribution of the podcast. If someone you think may enjoy this one, please kick it over to them.
Thank you so much for listening. Talk to all of you next week.
Speaker 5: There's something wrong with his hearing aid. Yeah. What's wrong? I can't hear with it. Oh, no wonder. It's too far away.
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