Paul Laursen (00:00)

there is some research on the cold water immersion that is not necessarily hinting that it's an ideal one for

Paul Warloski (00:01)

Mm-hmm.

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast, where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. How many times have you pushed through a hard week of training, done everything right, got your eight hours of sleep, ate your protein, nailed your carbs and still felt like you were running on empty? Here's the truth. Sleep and nutrition are the foundation, yet they're not the whole house. There's a whole other layer of recovery science that most everyday endurance athletes don't tap into.

And it's not just the fancy toys or the ice bath you saw your favorite pro doing on Instagram. Today, we're breaking down four protocols, well, probably end up being more of protocols for recovery that actually work sleep nutrition, compression and rolling hot and cold therapies and walks in the woods. We're also diving into something that doesn't get enough airtime in the endurance world. Do men and women recover differently?

what does the research actually say? And what does that mean for how you structure your training and recovery? So grab your coffee, your compression socks and whatever recovery ritual you're obsessed with and let's get into it.

All right, so let's talk about cold and heat therapy. For an everyday endurance athlete, not elite, when is cold water immersion actually worth doing? And when do we skip it?

Paul Laursen (01:55)

Nice. So, you know, we had Dr. Peter Reaburn on the podcast not too long ago, just a couple of episodes back. And he was saying, hey, there is some research on the cold water immersion that is not necessarily hinting that it's an ideal one for recovery. you know, keep that in mind. But I think as we always say, context is everything.

Paul Warloski (02:10)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Laursen (02:23)

And I think it's all, everything we're gonna talk about today, it's a tool in your toolbox that you can use for different contexts. We had Dr. Allie Wagner on the podcast recently as well. And we spoke a little bit about this little brain region that we wanted to reset and get balance on. were describing it. It was called the default mode network.

And it's interesting actually that cold water immersion, just think about it. If you're going to be immersing yourself in five degree water, what are you going to do? What are you thinking, right? Can you think about any of the problems that are going on in your mind? Well, I can't very much. I have to focus on being really, really cold. so it's a really, it's a good one from the mental standpoint, I think, Paul, to clear the mind because you can only focus when you have to focus and have intent on one thing.

just experiencing that cold, it blunts the monkey mind, ultimately, it gets you out of that. ⁓ So whether the actual temperature change is conducive to that, I'm not sure. Personally, I love it, and I love mixing it with a sauna. I know I've got my sauna buddy here, MJ, who's like, you

Finish Sauna Master. And I love kind of going back and forth between the cold and the hot, but I think I'd like it almost more for my mental clarity than anything that's going on physical. But as we know, the physical and the mental they're connected. MJ, my Sauna Master, what do you think?

Marjaana Rakai (04:02)

you

I guess it depends on what kind of recovery. Yeah, context. think what Peter Reaburn was saying that he doesn't do cold baths after strength training. But I like to do cold baths.

Paul Laursen (04:09)

Yeah, context.

Marjaana Rakai (04:26)

Like after a really hot run, for example, when I'm just boiling or after an Ironman where your just overall systemic inflammation is just like super high and you can barely walk. I find that the cold water or hot and cold water immersion helps bring the inflammation down and actually improves the range of motion.

Paul Laursen (04:29)

Yeah.

Marjaana Rakai (04:55)

⁓ So yeah, I guess it depends.

Paul Laursen (04:58)

Yeah.

I think it's, mean, and there's a bunch of these sports. So a couple of sports science studies, I can't quote the actual authors and whatnot, but one says that it blunts the PGC1 alpha response, right? for those that aren't aware of this, there's this molecular signal called PGC1 alpha, and it's the master signal that causes for making more mitochondria in your cells, ultimately.

Paul Warloski (05:10)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Laursen (05:24)

Okay, so, and there's some studies that are showing, they do muscle biopsies and the like, showing that a cold exposure is actually gonna slow that signal down. Potentially the idea is that you wouldn't make more mitochondria. So that's one context. But then, and then there's another set of studies also showing that if you do just like MJ said, where you finish a run and you're really hot and you have that cold water immersion.

you're blunting potentially the heat adaptations that you might get. So great, okay, so we know all this, but at the end of the day, kind of like what we let off with, context is everything. If you've got a business meeting to go to in person, don't you wanna feel good and perform in that business meeting? Hey, great, you had a awesome run in the heat and you got all the benefits of doing that. ⁓ But yeah, like all of a sudden the context changes and you wanna be

You want to be on top of your game for performing at the other things that you do in your life, being present for your family and doing your work, all these things. So for the everyday athlete, Paul, I think it's just context first and foremost, know the tools that are available. I don't think there's a black and white kind of response that we can kind of say on this. Use the cold water immersion to help.

move and navigate around your own life. And I wouldn't say it's necessarily ⁓ a bad thing or necessarily a good thing. It's just use it for what it can be good for.

Marjaana Rakai (06:59)

And if I can add one more thing that is really good for recovery for everybody is sauna and or the ice bath, because you can't go there with your cell phone with you. So it's off screen time and right. Yeah.

Paul Laursen (07:16)

Yeah, because it'll ruin your cell phone. That's so true. It gets you out of that. Yeah, true.

Paul Warloski (07:23)

So what about heat therapy? Is a sauna or warm water immersion, is that an alternative or something to complement cold water immersion?

Paul Laursen (07:34)

Yep, for sure. At the end of the day, the general premise of the physiology tool that you're trying to leverage is, in fact, hot. what tool do you have at your disposal to get that plasma volume expansion? That's ultimately the physiology that you're trying to change.

And when I say plasma volume expansion, I'm talking about the water component of your bloodstream. And you're trying to make more water in that bloodstream relative to the number of red blood cells. There's a couple of reasons that you want to do that. One, actually, you get a higher stroke volume all of a sudden. each beat that your heart actually beats, there's more water in that, or water and more blood in that area.

that gets delivered to the rest of the body because the stroke volume's higher and the heart rate goes down lower acutely after adaptation. The other one that you get with ⁓ that plasma volume expansion is a, that's why they call it poor man's altitude, is you get an expansion of your red blood cell compartment. So that's kind of cool too. ⁓

What tool do you have at your disposal? Just think about what's available for you. Do you have an infrared sauna that you could leverage? Could you make your room hot? This is what Simon Whitfield, the first Olympian gold medal in 2000 in Sydney. I've visited his house in Victoria and he showed me, he walked through and showed me the jimmy rig that he kind of did. He turned his garden shed,

into a hot room, put his bike in there, because he knew that for Beijing, for example, when he got the silver medal, was going to training in Victoria, British Columbia. It wasn't hot enough kind of thing, and he had to prepare for that. So he totally jimmy rigged that up. That's what he could do at the time. But maybe you have your own sauna. MJ's bought like her own barrel sauna. Perfect. She's got her tool there with her cold water bath. ⁓

Paul Warloski (09:29)

Hmm.

Paul Laursen (09:43)

It's just like everyone has their own context. Maybe you got something at your pool you can use. Just think laterally and know the principle that, yeah, you know what? I want to get hot sometimes because I know getting hot ⁓ is actually a good thing for my body to try to adapt to for a bunch of different reasons. So recovery? Yeah, probably too, right? Imagine if you're more resilient and you have that expanded plasma volume and stroke volume.

⁓ and just potential, you're more robust. So weaving this in and out of your training is a good thing to do.

Marjaana Rakai (10:22)

And also mental flexibility, takes a little bit of like getting uncomfortably hot and uncomfortably cold. I think it's good for us humans. ⁓ We always sit inside in our comfortable AC air conditioned rooms and know, fear of going out, right? Getting cold or hot. So think it's good.

Paul Laursen (10:26)

yeah.

MJ, I mean,

right back to the podcast that we did with Dr. Wagner. This is exactly the thing, right? Like if you're challenging yourself for the X number of time, whether it's like a five minutes cold water bath or a 30 minute sauna and you're getting too hot, you totally, you have to get out of your monkey mind. You have to focus in on the task that you're doing. And if you're suffering that burnout or that lacking recovery,

Marjaana Rakai (10:52)

Mm.

Paul Laursen (11:17)

you're starting with the mental side and you're getting things in order because you're doing a different task. And you're not, as opposed to sitting in the air conditioning, like you're saying on your couch, letting your mind wander and potentially not helping things, then yeah, it's a great one.

Paul Warloski (11:31)

We should be clear that before we talk about any of these protocols that sleep and nutrition are the two key elements for recovery that you're eating enough that you're eating the right food that you're getting enough sleep that you're getting good sleep those two are the kind of the key that cold and heat therapy are two protocols that that do work for some people but it is a contextual thing and they are a tool in our toolbox. ⁓

Paul Laursen (11:58)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Paul, if I could just springboard of that real quickly, let's remember, Athletica ambassador investor, Alistair Brownlee is he said this on the training science podcast, one of the first podcasts that we did, I asked him that exact same question. And from a two time gold medalist, said, actually, Paul, for me, recovery was 90 was 90 % sleep, 9 % nutrition and 1 % everything else.

So that came from the two-time gold medalist. That's what he said and that's what he experienced. So keep that in mind for yourself to nail your sleep first, like Paul said, and then nutrition second. And then sometimes we can also use some of these other tools that we're talking about now, these adjuncts, to fine tune it for us.

Paul Warloski (12:45)

Next tool, compression and massage tools. Yay or nay? Are compression garments worth the investment for recovery between hard training days? What do you think?

Marjaana Rakai (12:59)

I have been struggling with plantar fasciitis on and off for a few years and I do like my compressive sock for my plantar fasciitis, but other than that, I don't use any.

Paul Laursen (13:15)

Yeah, so for me, Paul, and again, this is not a big rock for me. They're kind of like MJ is saying, there's gonna be certain contexts where the compression socks are maybe good. And I'll say the one place that I do use them is when I'm traveling. So if I'm gonna do long haul, I've got some awesome two times U compression socks that I use, airplane ones.

And they're fantastic. I know if I don't use them, I'm going to arrive with big legs that are totally swollen. I'm not going to be able to hit the ground running if I'm flipping the clock and I'm going from Canada to Europe or wherever. That makes a big difference. That's a game changer for me. But on a day-to-day basis with my training, it's just like it's one extra step.

that it's not gonna, it's kinda not gonna be helping me. For me as an everyday athlete, ⁓ I'm doing other things and it's, yeah, it's not a big rock for me. But there will be others that probably disagree with me. They swear by them and that's great.

Paul Warloski (14:25)

Yeah, I've noticed that I will wear them after a hard weekend of racing and or like a double weekend of cross racing, you know, on Sunday night and then Monday and I will wear them in, you know, again, placebo perhaps, but it does feel like there is some difference and I feel a little less sore on Monday morning.

Paul Laursen (14:46)

Nice. And don't forget Peter Reaburn He mentioned it as well, right? It's a minor one for him too, right? So he mentioned it too as something that he uses and recommends. So I think you've heard this variety of kind of a balanced assessment on this one. Certain context possibly. Certain context, maybe it's in the too hard.

hard basket.

Paul Warloski (15:15)

Yep. Percussion massage guns. What do we think about those? Legitimate recovery tool or placebo? we got a big thumbs up from Marjaana

Marjaana Rakai (15:25)

Yeah. ⁓

Paul Laursen (15:26)

OK.

Yeah.

Paul Warloski (15:28)

I have

not used one before. How do you feel like they work? Is it similar to getting a massage or?

Marjaana Rakai (15:34)

No, but yeah, I like to torture myself regularly. Yeah, I enjoy.

Paul Warloski (15:39)

Hmm.

Paul Laursen (15:44)

Yeah, I think it's context again. You've got like a little bit of a tight, tight muscle that needs needs releasing. I certainly got these in my hips and but I also use like a rolling ball and and a roller that also kind of helps with me for me. But maybe there's a there's a condition where you'd rather be a little bit more passive and you're sitting on the couch to kind of kind of get these things. I think there's yeah, my my my

Paul Warloski (15:59)

Mm-hmm.

Marjaana Rakai (16:10)

Yeah, I think it's.

Paul Laursen (16:12)

My preference are the balls and the rollers.

Marjaana Rakai (16:15)

Yeah.

Yeah. I think it comes down to like the whole idea of taking care of your muscles and, and, ligaments, you're, you're actually dedicating some time to try to release tight muscles and whether it's a foam roller or a ball or a, massage gun. ⁓ it's definitely helpful.

Paul Warloski (16:15)

Hmm.

Marjaana Rakai (16:42)

maybe you even, you know, like stretch a little bit or whatever while you're at it. So I think it's so super positive in like, in the context of you're taking, you're taking the steps to take care of yourself. And you know, like, let's face it, massage costs like a hundred bucks. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna spend it. So.

Paul Laursen (16:59)

Yeah,

for sure. If you've got the resource, it's on your healthcare or whatever, massages are fantastic. And I think there's also the intangible, it's hard to kind quantify the human touch, but I think even in the podcast we did with Dr. Wagner, the importance of other people around is a really important.

Marjaana Rakai (17:09)

Hmm.

Paul Laursen (17:25)

means of relieving that chronic stress. And I think even if you've got a good massage therapist, potentially one even that you have a relationship with, there's really something there that can be quite soothing to your being. ⁓ MJ, MJ's no?

Marjaana Rakai (17:40)

Yeah, cannot.

Yeah, cannot replace a good massage therapist. No way. Yeah. No, no, no chance. Yeah. AI can't replace a good therapist.

Paul Laursen (17:47)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, mean, exactly right. Like the gun is not gonna replace the therapist, is it? No, no chance. I think we all agree. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Warloski (17:47)

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Paul Laursen (17:59)

No, no. And the other thing

I'll just add on this, we're kind of ⁓ moving around it, right? When we talked about the balls and the rolling and the gun and the massage therapist is, and I think this is, really starting to talk about this now and understand it more. if you've taken, if you've got the latest book from Marius Bakken, The Norwegian Method Applied,

He's really talking in there. This is about the importance of muscle tone. And this kind of goes back to our HIIT science. We talk about the neuromuscular variable, right? Or the pop factor for running. And Marius was really just emphasizing that the importance of muscle tone and just how it's almost been so forgotten. it's something he's realized from his own 20 years of experimenting.

that's a really important thing for all of us to preserve. If you don't have pop factor, if you feel heaviness in your legs, ⁓ you gotta do something about it. And, you know, we've just given these various different means. Rest is one of the big ones that you will get to it. But a lot of us athletes, we are go, go, go. We think more is better. But, if you haven't preserved that muscle tone,

This is where recovery is probably the bigger hammer that you can nail as opposed to going and training more on tired muscles.

Paul Warloski (19:21)

All right, this next one I thought was absolutely fascinating. And it's the forest bathing research that shows immunity and mood benefits. The research compared walking in a city versus walking in the woods. And the walk in the woods had a dramatic difference in terms of mood, in terms of all the markers that showed that you were feeling calm.

And it was a dramatic difference.

Paul Laursen (19:52)

I shouldn't be surprised, but it's cool that the research can prove that. That's what surprised me. Do you know what markers, Paul? They were... ⁓

Paul Warloski (19:59)

Yeah.

No,

⁓ but I did, we can include the study in the show notes. I can pull them up.

Paul Laursen (20:08)

Great, great.

Yeah, well, I mean, I'll just springboard off of that, because I had an incredible podcast with Lawrence Van Lingen, and we talked about the experience of Athletica ambassador, Andy Buescher who won Ironman Lanzarote when I was coaching him, but, you I give so much credit to the work that he did with Lawrence.

And one of the key prescriptions that Lawrence gave him was more walking in the woods, exactly what you're saying, Paul. And again, I'm on the training peaks at that point in time and I'm going back and forth with Andy and he's talking to me and he's going back and forth on just how he really feels like he's getting something out of this regular walking, 45 minutes to an hour on top of all the training that he's doing, right?

And he's, yeah, and it's just like for some reason, it's helping him absorb the heavy training loads that enabled him the adaptation that helped him win the Ironman in Lanzarote. It's close to the world record. So, kind of cool.

Marjaana Rakai (21:19)

It's the nervous system recovery, it?

Paul Warloski (21:20)

Very.

Yeah.

Paul Laursen (21:24)

That's what Lawrence said. what we were optimizing in Andy was vagal tone. Vagal tone is your HRV that you measure in Athletica. You want to actually quantify that, but it's like it's the other side of the central nervous system, the parasympathetic system. And it is what is allowing you to absorb, recover from that training.

Marjaana Rakai (21:32)

Mm.

Paul Laursen (21:54)

Training equals workout plus recovery. We always forget the recovery, it's not, we always just focus in on the one thing, the load, the training. We always forget about the balance, the other side. And Lawrence came in and he emphasized the vagal tone, the recovery. Yes, MJ, absolutely.

Marjaana Rakai (22:15)

Yeah, I don't have any studies to prove it, but I've lived in so many massive cities where it's a constant noise level is high. Like Dubai, it's just like constant and no forest. I'm from North Finland.

You know, there's nothing but woods and forest and nature. And just like, feel like so mis-displaced in the world, in these big cities that I can't relate to, based from where I was, born and raised. But every time I go into the forest, like forest, like a natural forest, not like planted what we have in the suburban areas.

natural beauty and then the leaves, the wind in the leaves and the noise that that makes, it's just so soothing for my nervous system and I never felt so happy than in nature. Whether it's winter, we could go on and on about this, but that's where I feel the recovery just set in, in my nervous system. And when I'm

Back in the city, my nervous system is just like overloaded, burned out, like over trained the whole time. So.

Paul Laursen (23:44)

Yeah.

So MJ, question for you. What would you recommend for someone that's listening here and they happen to live in a big city? Is there anything, what did you do when you were living in Dubai? How would you navigate that if you really needed to seek out some, know, vagal tone help?

Marjaana Rakai (23:55)

You

Well, you taught me floating. That was really helpful. So sensory deprivation tank. It was pretty incredible. ⁓

Paul Laursen (24:19)

What about the beach? Would the beach help down there? Like we'll walk on the sand and the water? Not really.

Marjaana Rakai (24:25)

Well, yes and no, depends where it was. was the best nature experience in Dubai. the bike track around the desert. Sunsets, sunrises, incredible. I feel like I need the forest.

Paul Laursen (24:31)

Okay, I don't know the area, so yeah. And it was pretty hot, right?

Marjaana Rakai (24:55)

I need the greenery. And I think the forest bathing goes in the different shades of greens and the biological matter that the trees can provide. So if you're in a concrete sand environment, that's a little bit harder to find.

Paul Warloski (25:13)

I think that's why I like gravel racing and riding as much as I do is that you do get out into the middle of nowhere and it's just communing with the with the farm animals and and and the trees and in the middle of you know it's beautiful out there ⁓ you know even when I'm struggling on the bike you know it's like I'm just gonna look around and just you know

Marjaana Rakai (25:17)

Mmm.

Mm.

Paul Warloski (25:38)

pulling the sights and it's a remarkable feeling. what about athletes who have got high stress lives and maybe don't have access to the woods? You know, what are some other non-physical recovery interventions that we could, you know, offer?

Paul Laursen (25:53)

I would encourage individuals to consider floating if they're super stressed and they need to ⁓ really look for something that's helped MJ and myself, the sensory deprivation tanks. That's one means in big cities, and a lot of them have those, and that's probably...

you know, from a business model, that's why they have them because they know people need that relief from the stress. but yeah, I mean, other ones are, we've already sort of spoke about them, you know, so even like swimming at a swimming pool, that would give you something. And then sauna, cold water, like moving around these various different, temperature differences, different floating differences, different

sensations of grounding yourself. These are all probably good practices, good nutrition as best you can do. And then back to, you know, how can we optimize our most important ones around sleep? yeah, so that's probably the big ones, Paul.

Paul Warloski (26:57)

⁓

I'd also include yoga as, one of those things as well and just, you know, really, yeah.

Paul Laursen (27:05)

Yeah, yeah, but back to massage too, right? So yeah,

lots of massage therapists are gonna be in these cities too. So that's a good one that you could leverage as well. That human to human touch, very important.

Paul Warloski (27:22)

So if we moved on to gender differences, there was a study that suggested that in terms of, was sex differences in self-reported causes by a Guto Ortega et all. And one of the things that it reported was that female athletes were more likely to report psychological symptoms associated with underperformance while males,

we're more often attributing underperformance to training errors. So is there a difference in terms of recovery? Do women need to be paying more attention to psychological nutrition recovery? Is that just, you know, what do you think?

Yeah, I think so too.

Marjaana Rakai (28:09)

I think it's contextualized.

I don't believe that there's much of a physiological differences to recovery per se for women. But if we're looking at lifestyle factors, women often have something that's called the third shift, which is, like we have our training, have, you work, and then we have taking care of family and house.

Of course men contribute to, but we have the mental shifter of knowing everybody's schedules, we carry so much of that mental load in the family and lots of the housework falls still on women. And so we have three shifts and it, you know, eats up on their recovery for sure.

Paul Laursen (29:04)

Totally.

And there's personality differences between men and women. typically, know, stereotypically they're more about hurting everyone, like kind of like what you're sort of saying, MJ. And yeah, like I agree that third shift is a big one. And then, MJ talks about it a fair bit. We do on the podcast and that's just, you know, there's hormonal shifts as well, right? In various different stages of life. ⁓

the, you know, throughout the lifespan of the female human. So all these, all these things could be, could be factors.

Marjaana Rakai (29:39)

Yeah, like in perimenopause, one of the things that go often is sleep. And that's major recovery tool for us. So when we can't have that good quality sleep, we need extra efforts, to at least try to combat that, that we wake up several times ⁓ at night or sleep.

Paul Laursen (29:44)

Mm-hmm.

major for recovery. Huge.

Marjaana Rakai (30:04)

less or we sleep ⁓ less deep and yeah of course that affects all three shifts, four shifts however many we have.

Paul Laursen (30:16)

you

Paul Warloski (30:17)

How do we decide when an athlete or how should an athlete decide whether they need complete rest versus one of these active recovery modalities?

Marjaana Rakai (30:27)

I think ⁓ active recovery modalities would be planned in there otherwise they won't happen. ⁓ Better to plan them early and not wait until like, how is my recovery going? Talking about my own experience because I, you know, like everybody, you know, neglect my own recovery.

Paul Laursen (30:53)

Yeah, you take on a lot. ⁓ think I couldn't agree more with that, ⁓ Paul, but I would also say the choice to stay in the home potentially and just rest, I would really rethink that because there could be great benefit to actually going out and doing a zone one ride because you're getting away potentially from technology possibly.

and people and sometimes you just need that, some me time to just kind of be out there and move. There's great like movement itself is as Lawrence van Lingen told us on the Training Science podcast was it's just like it's so fundamental. That's why his whole mission is to help people move well. movement itself is another recovery modality believe it or not. It's like it's

because it's just like something that's fundamental that to the like the human being. And if you're stuck in a city potentially, sometimes we're not moving around too much. Sometimes we're very stationary. We're sitting on these desks. We're looking at these screens. So even though you sort of feeling really, really tired and it's almost like the last thing you're doing, sometimes it's good just to try and get out there. And more often than not from the athletes I've spoken to, they feel so glad after that they've just started because

and they're much happier being out there. And then they finish it and they feel like they've accomplished at least something. So take that for what it's worth, but yeah, definitely consider doing the session first and then just sort of feeling. You can always turn around and go back if it's really bad, if it's a wrong kind of fatigue, trust yourself there. But yeah, I always like to try and recommend the way athletes make a start.

Marjaana Rakai (32:27)

Mm-mm.

Paul Warloski (32:46)

Hmm. What are some red flags that an athlete is under recovering?

Paul Laursen (32:52)

⁓ you want to go first, MJ? Well, for me, it's like, again, my Athletica bias is hopefully you're monitoring your heart rate variability, and that's a nice red flag, right? We've got an incredible system that is taking your HRV into account. Again, just a reminder, if you've got the Garmin system and you wear your watch while you sleep, that's just taking this little snapshot of where the lowest level of HRV is in the evening.

Marjaana Rakai (32:55)

No, you go ahead.

Paul Warloski (33:03)

Hmm.

Paul Laursen (33:21)

And it takes that. Remember, heart rate variability is different than just your heart rate. It's actually the variation of your heart beating, not like a clock. And it's taking that variation and it's giving insight into what your central nervous system is doing, specifically the parasympathetic system, your rest and digest system, not the sympathetic fight or flight. So we're getting that marker and we're ⁓ finding out what is normal for you.

basically it's a 60 day rolling average. So if you join Athletica and you haven't been on for 60 days, you gotta be patient. We need that longitudinal data to find out what is physiologically normal for you. And then it's measuring what is changing over seven days. And that's one of the lines that you'll see on that. And basically when that line drifts up, it's suggesting that you're adapting. And if the line is shifting down,

It's suggesting that you're not adapting. So to Paul's point, this is the big red flag and AI coach will speak up and they'll say something to you if you, if you listen to it and if you ask it, if you actually like type in there, what's how's my recovery today? And AI coach will, will basically do that full analysis for you and give you insight into what your heart rate, heart rate variability and sleep kind of is, is telling it and hopefully make its recommendation accordingly. So that's the, I'll start with that one.

But that's from the technical and the wearable standpoint, MJ.

Marjaana Rakai (34:55)

into that a little bit more context. So not every woman will have very fluctuating HRV, like mine, mine would track really well with my menstrual cycle. But on, so I don't like, I know where, where it should be over time and depending on my menstrual cycle phase, but I, I've noticed

Paul Warloski (35:09)

Hmm.

Marjaana Rakai (35:23)

Afterwards, when I'm looking at my training data is that when I've been pushing, you know, the envelope a little, maybe little too hard, the variation is pretty, it doesn't fluctuate that much. So if my HRV over a month fluctuates a lot, when I'm pushing the envelope too much, it's kind of flat lines. If that makes sense. Paul, look at my 2024.

Take the summer, there was a high stress, lots of training. was just like, like this. didn't fluctuate much. But also I would say, ⁓ for a red flag would be not finding joy in what you're doing anymore. It's the mental side of, ⁓ not recovering well, think, ⁓ based on, we talked about this with, Dr. Ali.

Paul Laursen (36:16)

Yeah.

Marjaana Rakai (36:19)

last week.

Paul Laursen (36:21)

100%. Yeah. Joy, motivation. Those are the big ones. Yeah. You got to keep loving what you're doing. You got to keep showing up. Are you motivated to train? If you're not, that's a big red flag.

Marjaana Rakai (36:24)

Yeah.

Paul Warloski (36:32)

So athletes should definitely be tracking their RPE and their mood and motivation levels as well.

Marjaana Rakai (36:32)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Laursen (36:40)

Yep, absolutely. And you can do that on Athletica. And you should do that if you want to get the most out of the platform too, right? So what's my rating of perceived exertion for every session? How did that feel? Of course, a session can be hard and feel great, and a session can be hard and feel not so good. So fill those in and then give some context also to the AI coach. Fill in sort of how you're feeling. As we've spoken before with Dr. Andrea Zignoli, we're doing something called semantic analysis.

the AI coach can actually read your mood, which we've discovered is another marker of actually like how you're responding to that load, how your mood shifts. And that's revealed in the words that your mind chooses to use when you fill in your report and your diary. very, yeah, really important to give that feedback. And isn't it cool how AI can be interpreting that for us now?

Marjaana Rakai (37:37)

And you know, like if you're someone who has lost to some of the joy, it can be that it's not the training. It can be all the other things that you're putting in your bucket, right? Like just too much of everything and you're not recovering.

Paul Laursen (37:57)

Yeah. yeah. Well said, right? Like, yeah, back to balance that you spoke on MJ before in the Allie Wagner podcast. And yeah, sometimes you need to stop and remove something from that bucket to make sure that the balance is right.

Paul Warloski (38:01)

Yeah.

All right, anything else that we need to add in about recovery and modalities and anything that we missed that you guys use?

Paul Laursen (38:31)

Well, maybe just on modality is a really important one to keep in mind the most stressful exercise. So the triathletes listening, keep in mind that you're, you know, from a neuromuscular stress and pop factor and muscle tone, we sort of talked about the running can be the most stressful one. Right. So that is another means of actually facilitating more recovery. If you still want to do something, you know, check out your workout wizard and flip over the modality and do swimming, cycling, rowing even. ⁓

all the other ones, like things that are not actually, neuromuscularly demanding. That's a really, that can be a really important tool just to sort of know that that is there in, you know, just what you said, Paul, the mode of exercise can influence the stress and the load that you're experiencing. So yeah, really glad you brought that one up. I think that's an important point too.

Marjaana Rakai (39:24)

glad you brought that up because I'm going to tap into that. Because if you're someone who always runs on concrete, like me here in Texas, everything is concrete. ⁓ I still want to run, but I've noticed that my body just can't handle the concrete running anymore. So I'm changing running to grass or trail. But if I had mountains, that's where I would head.

For sure. Just do.

Paul Laursen (39:55)

Yeah, mean, forest

bathing, right? It's like, yeah, it's been central to the podcast, don't end. Yeah, it's key.

Marjaana Rakai (40:01)

Yeah. Yeah, and like

softer, softer ground to run on and, you know, taking walk breaks and yeah.

Paul Warloski (40:10)

Thanks for listening today to the Athletes Compass podcast. Take a moment now, subscribe, share, and let's keep navigating this endurance adventure together. Improve your training with the science-based training platform, Athletica, and join the conversation at the Athletica Forum.

for Marjaana Rakai and Dr. Paul Laursen on Paul Warloski And this has been the Athletes Compass podcast. Thank you so much for listening.