Now the amount of analysis you can do of your rides, the amount that you can see during your workouts is just at a whole nother level.
Speaker AAnd the one hand, you know, I love it.
Speaker AI'm a data geek.
Speaker AIt's great to look at.
Speaker AThere's a lot of ways you can use it for, for really good training.
Speaker AOn the other hand, I'm sure you've talked about this a hundred times.
Speaker AThere is that potential to really get caught in the weeds and lose the big picture.
Speaker AAnd so it's finding that balance, I would say is the big challenge right now.
Speaker BHello and welcome once again to the Tridock Podcast.
Speaker BThis is the February 21, 2025 episode and I'm your host Jeff Sankoff, the tridoc an emergency physician, triathlon coach and multiple Ironman finisher.
Speaker BComing to you as always from beautiful sunny Denver, Colorado.
Speaker BThe voice you heard at the top of the program was that of my guest this episode, Trevor Connor.
Speaker BTrevor is the CEO of the Paleo Diet and the co founder and CEO of Fast Talk Labs.
Speaker BHe's also the co host of the very popular Fast Talk podcast as put out by that group.
Speaker BAnd he joins me to chat about his long career in cycling and how he sees the future of endurance sport, particularly cycling, evolving, as well as what lies in store for Fast Talk Labs.
Speaker BAnd that's coming up in just a little while.
Speaker BBefore we get to that conversation, Coach Juliet Hockman is going to join me to answer yet another listener question on the Medical Mailbag.
Speaker BThis time around we are going to be examining the science behind the claims being made to suggest that hydrogen rich water can cure pretty much all that ails you and improve your exercise performance as well.
Speaker BWe're gonna find out if adding this gas is really all its proponents would have you believe, or is it just more hot air?
Speaker BWe'll give you our take.
Speaker BBefore all of that, I wanted to take a moment to chat briefly about the recently released USA Triathlon Report on 2024, the year in Review.
Speaker BThe review that was put out by USAT recently begins with a high level overview of American athletes successes on the global stage.
Speaker BAt the elite level, While of course there were hopes for individual medals in triathlon at the Olympics in Paris, that did not come to pass, but the success of the mixed relay team and of several para triathletes at the Paralympic were rightly highlighted.
Speaker BFor me though, the most interesting and important parts of the report related more to expanding membership and participation than they did to the successes of elite athletes like Taylor Knipp and her confreres.
Speaker BUSA Triathlon membership grew to 302,000 in 2024 and this marks a 1.6% increase from 2023.
Speaker BThe average participation per event also reached an all time high with 354 participants per 120 per race.
Speaker BAlthough total participation slightly declined from 287,000 in 2023 to over 280,000 in 2024, these numbers still reflect the highest engagement with triathlon since pre Covid times.
Speaker BGrassroots racing experienced significant growth with over 3,600 races held across 1,034 events nationwide.
Speaker BShorter distance races and diverse multisport formats including Aquathon and Duathlon contributed to this expansion.
Speaker BWith the continuous conversation ongoing about the imminent demise of our sport, this report to me demonstrates more than just a glimmer of hope that much of the consternation about the health of triathlon is maybe, maybe just a little bit overblown.
Speaker BYes, there are certainly still threats to triathlon and the long term health is anything but completely assured.
Speaker BBut seeing stability and even growth in membership numbers as reported by usat, especially when seeing growth of smaller local events and participation and investment in youth, all of those things give me a lot of reason for optimism.
Speaker BWhen you add to that the recent announcement of sellouts at large Ironman branded events including Oceanside and Chattanooga 70.3 and the Ironman in Texas, I can't help but think that we are on a sure footing than maybe we have been for a little while.
Speaker BOf course, time will tell.
Speaker BWhat do you think?
Speaker BI hope that you'll leave a comment in the private Facebook group and join the conversation about this specific topic there.
Speaker BDo you think triathlon is still in danger?
Speaker BIs this a sport in decline or have we reached sort of an equilibrium of types or maybe even a period of growth?
Speaker BIf you're not a member of the Facebook group, please do search for the podcast on that platform.
Speaker BAnswer the three very easy questions and I will grant you admittance so that you can comment and ask questions that you might want to have answered on the Medical Mailbag before we get to the Medical Mailbag for this episode, I want to ask once again that if you haven't already done so, please consider leaving a rating and a review wherever you download this content.
Speaker BIt is so incredibly helpful to making this podcast more visible among the veritable forest of Triathlon related shows and it can really, really help others find the show.
Speaker BRecently a few people did leave reviews on Apple Apple podcasts and I want to give them a shout out.
Speaker BTry hard Ron in Pueblo wrote.
Speaker BThank you for all of the research based information and insight.
Speaker BI don't miss a week and love listening when doing my workouts.
Speaker BYou are entertaining, informative and make me feel smarter about my training.
Speaker BAJ Thrifty and these are obviously Apple usernames that people have entered.
Speaker BI don't know what their actual names are otherwise I would give them a call out.
Speaker BAJ Thrifty wrote, Dr.
Speaker BJeff presents a balanced and fair view of what training and supplemental modalities can help or harm triathletes.
Speaker BThis is a fantastic resource for anyone just starting their triathlon journey to experienced vets and finally, an anonymous listener wrote On Apple Podcasts, Jeff has done a tremendous job of putting together episode after episode of legit science based content to help endurance athletes be their best without being suckered into marketing hype on supplements and gimmicks.
Speaker BHis guest interviews are also excellent and focused on triathlon.
Speaker BThank you to all of those of you who have contributed reviews like that.
Speaker BI am eternally grateful for them.
Speaker BIf you want to give specific feedback that is perhaps negative in a way, and maybe you want to give some constructive criticisms, please don't be shy.
Speaker BReach out to me@tridocloud.com I am always looking for ways to improve the program and my listeners are the best source of that kind of feedback.
Speaker BHey there podcast listeners.
Speaker BAre you a fan of the show?
Speaker BWell, of course you are.
Speaker BYou're here, right?
Speaker BBut are you the kind of fan who'd like to get even more try talk podcasts coming your way in the form of your own private feed with bonus episodes that come out about every month or so?
Speaker BWell, you can do that.
Speaker BAnd you've heard me say how for about the price of a cup of coffee per month, you could become a Patreon supporter that gets you access to those bonus episodes.
Speaker BAnd if you subscribe at the $10 per month level, you get a thank you gift in the form of this pretty cool BOCO Tridock Podcast Running Hat.
Speaker BI'd love to have you along.
Speaker BSo many other listeners have joined like Justin, like Stephanie, like Layla, and many others, and I'd love to have you join their ranks and become a Patreon supporter who shows their love for this podcast by helping defray some of the costs that go into making this show and bringing it to you on a bimonthly basis.
Speaker BSo head on over to my Patreon site, which is www.patreon.com tridockpodcast and see how you can contribute and get access to those bonus episodes.
Speaker BI'd love to have you along for the ride.
Speaker BIt's been a great journey so far.
Speaker BThere's a lot more great stuff to come.
Speaker BAs always, I thank you just for considering and thanks for being here.
Speaker BI'm joined once again by my friend and colleague, Juliette Hockman.
Speaker BJuliet, how are you?
Speaker CI am great.
Speaker CHow are you?
Speaker BI'm doing fantastic, although I am just thawing out from a long run in the frigid temperatures.
Speaker BMy goodness, February has been very cold here.
Speaker BHow's it going out in Hood River?
Speaker BHas it been as chilly?
Speaker CNot as cold as where you are, but definitely very wet.
Speaker CWe're going through all the possibilities of moisture falling from the sky in this day alone.
Speaker CBut I decided today I would get out and embrace winter rather than bitch about it.
Speaker CSo I went out and skied for a little while and I'm glad I did.
Speaker BOh, good for you.
Speaker BGood for you.
Speaker BI like to think about my our friend Kelly, who is down in Brisbane, Australia right now luxuriating in the final days of summer.
Speaker BAnd I always think about this time of year when I'm hating February, thinking about how ha her summer's coming to an end and our spring is going to be starting.
Speaker BYeah, she gets a badge.
Speaker BShe gets me back in September.
Speaker BSo anyways, if Juliet's here and we're having our little.
Speaker BOur what are we had tata tats about the weather, it must mean that the medical mailbag is here once again for another segment, which means that we are going to bring you another listener question.
Speaker BAnd Juliet, what question do we have?
Speaker BWho's it coming from and what will we be discussing on this segment?
Speaker CThis question comes to us from a listener and life sport athlete Alex Rademko.
Speaker CAlex, thanks so much for being curious and sending this in.
Speaker CAlex had been reading about hydrogen enriched water and he wanted to know what we had found out about it.
Speaker CDoing a quick Google search before this episode.
Speaker CIt is all over the press.
Speaker CEasy to learn about for sure.
Speaker CBut I know that Jeff and his fine team have gone down the rabbit hole on this one.
Speaker CSo what can you tell us about hydrogen enriched water and its effect on performance for endurance sports?
Speaker BSo the first thing I'll tell you is that when Alex so Alex is one of my athletes who I coach.
Speaker BAlex is actually getting set for his first ever 70.3 coming up in just a couple of short weeks in Campeche in Mexico.
Speaker BSo he is in the final bits of his training and he's been doing amazing work.
Speaker BSo I think he's gonna have a good debut on the 70.3 circuit.
Speaker BBut when Alex reached out to me and asked me this question, my immediate response was, you do know that hydrogen is an integral component of water.
Speaker CIn fact, there are two pieces of hydrogen in every molecule of water.
Speaker BI thought for sure he was pulling my leg.
Speaker BBut no, you astutely noted when you did the quick Google search, I did the same and found out, oh, this is a thing.
Speaker CYep.
Speaker BSo I think carbonated water, but instead of using carbon dioxide, you use hydrogen gas.
Speaker BThat's essentially what hydrogen rich water is.
Speaker BActually, the second thing I thought of was when he said this to me, I was like, what are you talking?
Speaker BLike heavy water where they use deuterium instead of.
Speaker BNo, not quite the same.
Speaker BNo, this is like hydrogen gas infused water.
Speaker BAnd I started going down the rabbit hole like you said, and shout out to Nina Takashima, who was the intern who helped me out with the research on this particular episode.
Speaker BAnd if you're wondering who Nina is, you should definitely pay attention to the newsletter that'll be coming out next week, because the next newsletter, the supplement form of this podcast, will come out on Friday and we'll have a feature all about Nina.
Speaker BSo if you're not already a subscriber, I hope you'll become one.
Speaker BAt any rate, Nina did some research and what we found out is basically the history of this is that hydrogen as a chemical is a very good electron acceptor.
Speaker BIt reduces substances.
Speaker BThat's a fancy way of saying it's a really good free radical scavenger.
Speaker BSo within living systems, as we've talked about many times, when we do a lot of exercise, when we are under stress from inflammation or anything like that, we form a lot of chemicals in the form of free radicals.
Speaker BThese are things that have an extra electron.
Speaker BThe most common one is oxygen.
Speaker BIt's called an oxygen, a super free radical in the form of an oxygen that's got this one little free electron that's sitting there.
Speaker BAnd there are a lot of things that will scavenge free radicals, and hydrogen is just one of them.
Speaker BHydrogen just happens to be a very good acceptor.
Speaker BAnd when hydrogen grabs onto one of these oxygens with its extra electron, it just forms water.
Speaker BSo it neutralizes that oxygen and forms substance that we all need and detoxifies those free radicals, but it can also detoxify other free radicals as well.
Speaker BSo scientists began to look at hydrogen and its reducing capacity in the test tube world, in the lab, and they started to do experiments on cell cultures, and they wanted to see how good hydrogen would be at detoxifying different kinds of problems, cancers, inflammatory processes, things like that.
Speaker BAnd lo and behold, in the lab scenario, it works quite well.
Speaker BHydrogen actually does a pretty good job of neutralizing all of the different evil humors that are involved in various different physiologic processes.
Speaker BSo the next step becomes what happens if we give hydrogen to animals and to people and how do we do that and what will happen?
Speaker BUnfortunately, as so often happens when we try to translate the lab work to work within humans, things don't always go in a straight line.
Speaker BAnd as a result, there are quite a few papers that we were able to find.
Speaker BAnd a lot of them are anecdotes, a lot of them are hinting at possible beneficial effects.
Speaker BBut very few really good studies and very few really earth shattering findings.
Speaker BBut let's dig in.
Speaker BSo the first of these is a paper that came out just last year.
Speaker BIt's called Hydrogen Water Health Benefits.
Speaker BAnd this is, it's not really a paper, sorry.
Speaker BThis is more of an article that was on WebMD.
Speaker BSo like you said, Juliet, there are a zillion different things out there online about this.
Speaker BHydrogen water is one of these.
Speaker BAlkaline water was all the rage a few years ago, I remember.
Speaker BIt seems to have been displaced by hydrogen water, which kind of is the hydro.
Speaker BSo hydrogen ions contribute to acidity, but molecular hydrogen, which is two hydrogen atoms bound to each other, do not contribute to acidity.
Speaker BSo it's not really the opposite of alkaline water.
Speaker BBut anyways, okay.
Speaker BThis was an article that looked at a host of different studies and summarized what was found.
Speaker BAnd it turns out that hydrogen waters, when it's been given to patients with like liver cancer who are undergoing radiation therapy, comparing that to people who got placebo, the people who got hydrogen rich water seemed to have improvement when it came to the side effects of their radiation therapy.
Speaker BThey reported a lot of subjective improvements, things like decreased fatigue, decreased hair loss, some of the skin problems related to burns that you can see with radiation were better.
Speaker BAnd they said their nausea, headaches and soreness related to their cancer also seemed to be a little bit improved.
Speaker BThis was a review article in the lay press, so I don't really have any true results, but I can just tell you that was a 30,000 foot view.
Speaker BAnd there were other studies that have been done and very small studies that suggested that hydrogen rich water could improve inflammatory state, it could help with cholesterol.
Speaker BThere are even some studies that have suggested that the cytokine storm that we see in sepsis related to Covid could be attenuated using hydrogen.
Speaker BSo a lot of interesting ideas but nothing fleshed out with good science.
Speaker BAnother paper, and the title of this paper will probably give away a little bit about what's going on here.
Speaker BHydrogen Extra healthy or a Hoax?
Speaker BA systematic review.
Speaker BThis is a paper that looks at like almost 600 articles that talks about hydrogenated water or hydrogen rich water or all kinds of different ways that hydrogen has been used and talks about the various things including health benefits and exercise.
Speaker BSo one of the things that hydrogen has been suggested to help with endurance performance is to attenuate fatigue and also especially to help with post exercise soreness and things like that because it will scavenge all of the negative things that you lactic acid and all of the all of the chemicals that are produced when you break down muscle from a really hard workout.
Speaker BAnd some studies have suggested most of the studies done in this are by a particular individual by the name of Botek.
Speaker BSounds like a Czech name.
Speaker BBowtech.
Speaker BB O T E K Sounds like a pharmaceutical company.
Speaker BYeah, it could be.
Speaker BBut anyways, this gentleman named Bowtech has done a lot of studies on this.
Speaker BHe has found that hydrogen rich water seems to help with ventilatory efficiency in cyclists.
Speaker BHe says that it reduces lactic acid buildup.
Speaker BHe has showed that it can help runners in endurance, particularly slow runners, if runners who have really good fitness and runners who already have really good performance don't seem to benefit from hydrogen rich water.
Speaker BWhich is odd because he says that well trained cyclists do.
Speaker BBut his results stand out because most other researchers don't seem to show the same thing.
Speaker BAt any rate, in this review paper, one of the problems that this review paper Hydrogen water extra healthy or a Hoax pointed out is that in many of these studies there's not any standardized protocol about how much hydrogen you should actually give.
Speaker BAnd it's very hard to measure how much hydrogen people are taking.
Speaker BAnd so you'll see hydrogen levels all over the place.
Speaker BAnd the people who are getting benefit seem to not get the same dose.
Speaker BSo let me explain what I mean by that.
Speaker BSo they're giving hydrogen rich water in a concentration of about 2 parts per million in the water and then they give the same quantity of water.
Speaker BSo If I weighing 165 pounds drank this amount of water with hydrogen in it and then say my son Adam drank the same amount of water and then you test us both, we didn't get the same dose and many of these papers don't show a dose response.
Speaker BSo that's one of the things, whenever.
Speaker BAnd I've talked about this in other things that we've looked at.
Speaker BWhenever you have an agent, a chemical or a drug or whatever, and you want to prove that this drug is doing something, you would like to see the biological plausibility, which there is here because we said it's a free radical scavenger.
Speaker BBut you also want to see a dose response that the more you give, the more effect.
Speaker BAnd most of these papers don't show that.
Speaker BThey.
Speaker BThey seem to be very scattered in terms of their response.
Speaker CLet's talk for a second.
Speaker CLike, when we're talking about hydrogen enriched water, I haven't taken chemistry since ninth grade.
Speaker CAre we talking like H3O?
Speaker CWhat are we.
Speaker CWhat are we talking?
Speaker CLike, in one extra molecule of hydrogen, you can get these hydrogen.
Speaker CThey make bombs out of hydrogen.
Speaker CThings can blow up with hydrogen.
Speaker CSo what are we talking about here?
Speaker BHydrogen.
Speaker BSo water is H2O, which is two atoms of hydrogen, one atom of oxygen.
Speaker BHydrogen enriched water is still the same H2O, but now there's hydrogen gas added.
Speaker BAnd hydrogen gas is diatomic hydrogen, which means it's H2.
Speaker BSo it's two atoms of hydrogen bound to each other.
Speaker BAnd as I said before, when I said carbonated water.
Speaker BSo everybody's probably familiar with the SodaStream device that you can buy.
Speaker BAnd when you buy the SodaStream device, you buy these canisters that have dry ice inside of them that's basically solidified carbon dioxide.
Speaker BAnd when you liberate that carbon dioxide, it pressurizes your water and it causes some of that carbon dioxide to dissolve in the water.
Speaker BAnd then when you open your bottle of water, that carbon dioxide starts to come out of solution in the form of those little bubbles.
Speaker BThat.
Speaker BThat's why we get petiton au petiton or bubbly water.
Speaker BAnd all it is, it's just dissolved carbon dioxide in the water.
Speaker BYou can dissolve any gas in water, but different gases will have a different propensity to dissolve.
Speaker BSo when we dissolve nitrogen in a fluid in like water, like, that's why, for example, most beers have carbon dioxide in them, but Guinness has nitrogen.
Speaker BAnd the bubbles in Guinness are very small.
Speaker BThey're totally different.
Speaker BAnd it's because it's nitrogen gas instead of carbon dioxide.
Speaker BWhen you do hydrogen gas, you don't tend to get the bubbling quite as much because hydrogen doesn't dissolve very well.
Speaker BIn order to get the bubbling, you have to dissolve a large amount of the gas in the water.
Speaker BAnd then when you release the pressure, then that gas comes out.
Speaker BOf the solution and forms these little bubbles.
Speaker BBut because hydrogen doesn't dissolve in water terribly well, then you can't get a huge saturated amount of hydrogen in the water.
Speaker BAnd then therefore, when you release the pressure, you don't get all this bubbling.
Speaker BThere are a couple of different ways to get hydrogen dissolved in the water and you can buy these online.
Speaker BThere is a way to actually pressurize it with gas, but that obviously is very dangerous because we don't want to be sending pressurized hydrogen canisters in the mail.
Speaker BAs you mentioned, that is a bomb waiting to go off.
Speaker BAnybody who wants to know what happens when hydrogen gets lit, just look at some vintage footage of the Hindenburg.
Speaker BThat's the most well known of the hydrogen gas explosions.
Speaker BAnd the other way of doing it is to pass an electric current through water.
Speaker BAnd when you do that, it's called electrolysis.
Speaker BAnd what that does is it causes a reaction that breaks apart the water molecules and liberates oxygen gas and hydrogen gas.
Speaker BSo you can buy these bottles on the Internet.
Speaker BThey're very expensive.
Speaker BAnywhere from like a hundred.
Speaker BI think we saw 140.
Speaker CI think.
Speaker BYeah, yeah, about 140 bucks.
Speaker BBut they go up to 300 bucks.
Speaker BAnd you basically pour regular water into this canister and then you charge it with your USB and then you flip the switch and you see the water starts bubbling.
Speaker BAnd what's happening is it's, you're creating oxygen and hydrogen in this bottle.
Speaker BBecause hydrogen doesn't tend to stay dissolved in the water.
Speaker BYou have to drink it right away because otherwise the hydrogen is just going to evaporate right off and go away.
Speaker BYou're not going to.
Speaker BYou can't make this stuff and store it.
Speaker BIt doesn't, it basically has to be drunk pretty much right away.
Speaker BThe other thing is like you're liberating pure oxygen and pure hydrogen gas in this little bottle.
Speaker BSo don't light any matches.
Speaker BI don't, I don't think it's a large amount of gas.
Speaker BWho knows?
Speaker BI don't taking any chances.
Speaker BAnyways, it's not inexpensive.
Speaker BAnd we found a study that looked at swimmers.
Speaker BThis was a hydrogen rich water supplementation.
Speaker BThe title is misleading.
Speaker BPromotes muscle recovery.
Speaker BAfter two strenuous training exercises performed on the same day in elite fin swimmers.
Speaker BRandomized double blind placebo controlled trial.
Speaker BAnd basically what they suggested was that using hydrogen rich water seemed to promote some muscle recovery in elite athletes.
Speaker BBut that was hard to really justify based on what they actually showed in their results because again, they did not have a Good dose response.
Speaker BSo people were all over the place.
Speaker BThey also their recovery was a little bit hard to measure.
Speaker BIt seemed to be measured, it seemed to be based on their ability to repeat efforts.
Speaker BBut it, it was all over the place.
Speaker BIt was not the best study, but again a hint that maybe hydrogen water seems to do something.
Speaker BAnother one about hydrogen rich water to enhance exercise performance.
Speaker BThis one was a study that collected nine other studies and basically across the board, all over the place, Some studies that showed improvement in sprint times, another study showing no change at all.
Speaker BI think one of the most important findings here was there was a study from 2022 which said this study observed no significant changes in race time, average race heart rate, rating of perceived exertion immediately after the race in any athlete who used hydrogen rich water.
Speaker BAnd again, that's one study selected.
Speaker BThere are other studies in here in which they found some results that were positive.
Speaker BA bunch of mix.
Speaker BBut I think hydrogen rich water now has been evaluated for over a decade and it's one of these things where if there was anything earth shattering, we would have seen it.
Speaker BAnd it's not, there's no major signal here.
Speaker BThere's a study about why should you be drinking this?
Speaker BAnd the take home what is hydrogen rich water?
Speaker BWhy should you be drinking it?
Speaker BThis was by a freelance health writer on a running site and basically her findings or her conclusions were there's really not enough research to endorse spending money on hydrogen rich water.
Speaker BAnd ultimately hydrogen rich water is very similar to alkaline water in that it's probably not going to hurt you, but it's also probably not going to help.
Speaker BAnd we've talked a lot about supplements and about things when we've talked in the past and it all boils down to this idea of how much are you paying?
Speaker BAre you going to get any potential gains for what you're paying?
Speaker BAnd a bottle of water, if you're buying bottled water, costs about 60 cents a bottle.
Speaker BHydrogen rich water, when you factor in all of the costs to make it is somewhere about $2.50 to $3 a bottle.
Speaker BIt's pretty expensive for no obvious great benefits.
Speaker BThere's, as I said, very small potential signals of benefit here.
Speaker BBut certainly after more than a decade of a lot of different studies, we haven't seen anything major come out yet.
Speaker BAnd I think we've spent a lot of time, you and I, talking about where we want to focus our attention as athletes.
Speaker BDo we want to go tiny little potential benefits or do we want to instead invest in ourselves and get more sleep and eat better and focus on better training and quality.
Speaker BAnd to me, this is another thing that, look, if you want to use this, by all means, knock yourself out, but I just think you could be spending your time and effort on other things.
Speaker CRight?
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CWe've often talked about it's so easy to look for the quick and dirty silver bullet, but those are rare, let's just put it that way.
Speaker CThere's a couple of things that you found over the however many years of this podcast.
Speaker CIn fact, we are going to do that for the hundredth episode.
Speaker CWhen is your 200th.
Speaker B200Th.
Speaker C200Th episode.
Speaker BYeah, this episode is 165, so we got a little.
Speaker BWait till then.
Speaker COh, okay.
Speaker CAll right.
Speaker BBut we will be doing that.
Speaker BWe'll be doing that for LifeSport.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BWe have a chalk talk coming up where I'll be talking about that.
Speaker BSo that'll be the intermediary.
Speaker BBut Juliet, you and I were talking before we started recording that.
Speaker BI'm finding more and more there's this gravitation to these very kind of peripheral.
Speaker BThey're not really pseudoscience because there is science behind hydrogen and what it can do.
Speaker BBut it's amazing how you get this kernel of truth and this kernel of scientific study and people just run with it and take it to the bank and make gobs and gobs of cash off it because there are so many people out there who are just looking for answers and looking for ways to improve their well being and improve their life.
Speaker BAnd I'm not sure why it is or what it is about this point in time of where we are that makes us all so susceptible to this.
Speaker BSocial media definitely is one of the ills that promote that I think is to blame.
Speaker BBut as much as a civilization, we have gotten smarter because we've got hundreds of years of learning experience that we've built on to get to where we are now.
Speaker BGeez, we send people into space, we do all of these things and yet we still fall victim to latching onto stuff like this.
Speaker BThat doesn't really.
Speaker BAnd I don't know.
Speaker BDo you have any thoughts about why we're always looking at these things?
Speaker CI think that in general, people have less time than they used to and so there's less time to train, have less time to do the basics and are looking for the quick fix.
Speaker CAnd in everything, not just in training, I think the social media, I think that's correct.
Speaker CBecause I mean, look, if you're a professional triathlete and you're looking for that extra 1%.
Speaker CYou're looking for 5 watts, right?
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd this is your whole job.
Speaker CYou might be really searching around the edges for this particular training plan or this bike position in the wind tunnel or this nutritional supplement that'll make you feel better, et cetera.
Speaker CBut most age.
Speaker CBut I would argue, and I think you would agree that the huge majority of age groupers, the best thing that we can do, and you're an age grouper, I'm an age grouper, so I'm not dissing age groupers.
Speaker CWe're age groupers.
Speaker CThe best thing that we can do is consistent training day in, day out, year in, year out, building, building to get to the performance goals that we've set for ourselves.
Speaker CAnd so that extra one degree in the wind tunnel that might cost us $20,000 to ascertain is not going to make a whit of difference for me when for me, if I could just run more consistently, that's going to make a bigger difference.
Speaker COr for Joe over here, who if he picked up two minutes in transition because he practices them, then that's going to be better than that one want or whatever it is that you might find in the wind tunnel.
Speaker CSo I think that we see the pros testing this and testing that, and the pros have to have a social media presence.
Speaker CThat's part of the deal.
Speaker CIt's part of their business.
Speaker CAnd so they're talking about this supplement or this position or this product or whatever.
Speaker CAnd of course age groupers are going to look at that and say, oh, I'm going to try that, because Lionel tries that or Paula tries that or fill in the blank, whatever athlete it is.
Speaker CI think that because information is more easily a spread through social media and it's.
Speaker CYou're just, we're just scrolling through and seeing what people are doing that people are more willing to try more different types of things.
Speaker CWhen as we started this conversation, day by day, what we really need to be doing is consistent training day in, day out, eating better, getting more sleep, taking care of our mental health.
Speaker BThat's a theme that we've come back to frequently.
Speaker BThis idea of the antelope versus mice.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BYou could spend all your effort chasing after a mouse, but what you really need, what we really need, because we are age groupers who have not reached our maximum potential, we need to be looking for the antelope.
Speaker BIf you get to the point where there are no more antelope, that's when you focus on the mice.
Speaker CRight.
Speaker BSo that's A theme we've come back to over and over again.
Speaker BAnd I think that is, that's important to restate.
Speaker BBut I think there's also this.
Speaker BI think there's also this thing, and I know you and I both feel it because we're both in the same age group.
Speaker BAnd that is, as we've gotten older, it's harder to recover, it's harder to train at the same intensity that we did not that long ago.
Speaker BWe find we're getting injured more frequently, and we're always looking.
Speaker BAnd I think we fall victim to this just like everybody else.
Speaker BWe're always looking for something to try and help us stay healthy, to try and help us be more resilient.
Speaker BAnd the reality is there's probably no magic bullets.
Speaker BThere are a few things that we can try.
Speaker BI have tried this year incorporating more stretching.
Speaker BI know that's something that you're really big on.
Speaker BI'm not doing it because I think it's going to make me more injury free, because I know the research suggests it doesn't, but I got to tell you, it makes me feel a lot better in the mornings.
Speaker BI don't feel quite as stiff, but yeah, I think it's just the frustration of the fact that we are all, like you said, we're busy.
Speaker BWe do so many things, we have so many things, demands on our time, so many demands on us.
Speaker BAnd if there's any possible way to get a shortcut.
Speaker BAnd that's really what most supplements are, right?
Speaker BThey're short, they're.
Speaker BThey're viewed.
Speaker BWe probably don't think of them that way, but that's what they are.
Speaker BIt's.
Speaker BWe think by taking something, it's going to make us train, race or recover better.
Speaker BAnd that's why we take them.
Speaker BAnd the reality is probably not going to.
Speaker CYou also just said this really interesting thing about.
Speaker CSo you and I are in the same age group.
Speaker CI think that most people know we're in the 55 to 59 or.
Speaker CWhat is it, 50, 50.
Speaker CThat's it.
Speaker BWe don't have to narrow it down anymore.
Speaker CAnd I think that a lot of athletes discover triathlon in middle age, right?
Speaker CAnd so at the beginning, they see these phenomenal gains, right?
Speaker CTheir power numbers go up.
Speaker CIf they haven't come from a background of running, they might break PR, they might break their 5k PR and their 10k and their half marathon.
Speaker CAnd it's really exciting.
Speaker CThey're swimming.
Speaker CIf they didn't grow up, swimming will get better and better.
Speaker CRight?
Speaker CAnd so that's really exciting that here you are in your 40s and your 50s and you're still making these gains.
Speaker CRight.
Speaker CBut there is a tipping point.
Speaker CMy fastest 5k ever, I was 50.
Speaker CI am never seeing those numbers again.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker CBut I only realized that this year I'm going out and doing these fart lick runs and I'm looking at the paces, I'm running and I'm thinking, oh, my God, I am never running this.
Speaker CAnd that was only seven years ago.
Speaker CRight.
Speaker CAnd so I think that there is a tipping point.
Speaker CUntil about two years ago, I could ride with any woman in my area, no problem.
Speaker CAnd now I'm finding that I'm beginning to slide down the other side.
Speaker CAnd I think that's hard.
Speaker CAnd so we're trying to hold on to, as you say, we're.
Speaker CIt takes more to stay in the game.
Speaker CIt takes more stretching, it takes more pt.
Speaker CIt takes more gosh, I was just out cross country skiing and I swear to God, I fell in the snow and I couldn't get up.
Speaker BIt was deep snow.
Speaker CBut I finally reached out to my friend, I said, you're gonna have to pull me up.
Speaker CI can't get up.
Speaker CAnd so I do think you begin to feel the deceleration of everything.
Speaker BYeah, yeah.
Speaker CSo, yeah.
Speaker BBut the other thing is, and I know we focused a lot on the athletes, but.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BMy question is almost bigger than that and I.
Speaker BWe're not gonna have time to answer it here.
Speaker BAnd I don't think there is an answer.
Speaker BBut it's not just athletes that gravitate to stuff like hydrogen rich water.
Speaker BIt's society in general.
Speaker BIt's all over the Internet because it's not just going to athletes being marketed to everybody as a, as the latest and greatest panacea, that's.
Speaker BThat will fix all that ails you.
Speaker BAnd there's no evidence that it's going to do anything except set you back a couple of hundred bucks for the bottle and then who knows how much more for whatever it is you need to keep the bottle working.
Speaker BAnd I don't know, I just.
Speaker CBut you and I compare notes all the time.
Speaker CYou'll have an athlete or I'll have an athlete who tries or goes and does something, either takes this supplement or goes for this special treatment or whatever it is.
Speaker CAnd you and I share stories on this and, and at the end of the day, as long as no harm done, if people want to go and do these and it makes them feel better and it makes them feel like they're doing something to preserve their health or push off aging just a little bit more or whatever it is.
Speaker CLook, some people go and buy a new Jaguar.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker CSome people, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker CBide bling, whatever it is.
Speaker CAnd so it, at the end of the day, people get to choose and your job is just to say, okay, but it's probably not helping you.
Speaker BYeah, yeah.
Speaker BAnd we're in.
Speaker BWe're about to start a string of episodes where we're going to be talking about these kinds of things.
Speaker BI think that's why I'm attuned to it right now, because I've talked to both of the interns about the next couple of subjects and they're both in this sort of realm.
Speaker BSo.
Speaker BOkay, as you'll see as time comes up, well, that is the conclusion of another episode.
Speaker BThanks Alex, for sending in that question.
Speaker BAnd thank you to all the readers who or readers, all the listeners and readers of the newsletter who have sent in questions for the upcoming episodes.
Speaker BIf you have a question you'd like us to answer on the Medical Mailbag, there are numerous ways that you could submit them.
Speaker BProbably the easiest one is to drop me a line.
Speaker BSend me an email@tridocloud.com you could drop it into the Facebook group that is set up specifically for listeners of this podcast.
Speaker BYou can search for Tridoc podcast on Facebook.
Speaker BAnswer the three easy questions.
Speaker BI'll grant you admittance.
Speaker BYou can join the conversation and ask your questions there and hear it answered here on the Medical Mailbag on a segment in the future.
Speaker BJuliet, thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker BThis is another good conversation.
Speaker BI look forward to chatting with you again on the next episode.
Speaker CThanks Jeff.
Speaker CHave a great rest of your weekend.
Speaker BPodcast is Trevor Connor Trevor raced in the pro peloton for nearly 20 years, getting on the podium at some of the largest races in North America.
Speaker BHe started his coaching career working with the National Development Program at Pacific Sport in Canada.
Speaker BFrom there, he coached the Colorado State University cycling team to number two in the country and worked with several semi professional and amateur teams throughout Canada and the United States.
Speaker BFrom 2011 to 2020, he wrote the monthly training articles for Velo News magazine.
Speaker BThis is also where he first became the co host of the popular training podcast Fast Talk.
Speaker BTrevor's Master's thesis advisor was Dr.
Speaker BLauren Cordain, the originator of the popular Paleo Diet, and Trevor has been the CEO of the Paleo Diet since 2018.
Speaker BHe founded Fast Talk Laboratories in 2019, where he continues the Fast Talk podcast that focuses on producing information on Endurance sports training for top coaches, physiologists, and professional athletes from around the world.
Speaker BAnd coincidentally, is where I got to meet him about a couple years ago.
Speaker BNow, Trevor, welcome to the tridog Podcast.
Speaker BIt's a pleasure to finally get you on the show here.
Speaker AThanks for getting me on the show.
Speaker AAnd I gotta say, when you said 20 years in the professional peloton, boy, did you make me feel old.
Speaker BYeah, I know, right?
Speaker BIt's a.
Speaker AThink about that.
Speaker BWhen you.
Speaker BWhen you look back on a long career, it's.
Speaker BIt's with a certain degree of satisfaction, but then also with this knowledge that, oh, my goodness, it's.
Speaker BIt's a lot of water under the bridge, right?
Speaker AOh, it is.
Speaker AWell, I still won the last pro races I ever did.
Speaker AI.
Speaker AI had this kid yell at me, and I.
Speaker AI had gotten in the habit of when somebody yells at me, go.
Speaker AJust saying, don't yell at me.
Speaker AI've been racing since, you know, since before you did your first race and suddenly realized, oh, God, like, think of how many years I've been doing this.
Speaker AAnd just said to the kid, don't yell at me.
Speaker AI've been doing this since before you were born.
Speaker BThat's right.
Speaker BThat's right.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BIt really does catch up with you quickly.
Speaker BSo tell us about how you got your stuff.
Speaker BWhere are you from in Canada, and how did you come to cycling?
Speaker ASo I'm originally from Toronto, and, yeah, I don't have a particular.
Speaker AThere was this one incident that just made me realize I wanted to get into cycling.
Speaker AI've always ridden my bike.
Speaker AI always loved doing it, and it was just one of those things of slow progression where I tried my first race, and I loved it and got into racing and then said, hey, I want to take this a little bit further, and said, you know, I want to go to Canadian Nationals.
Speaker AAnd the first time I went to Canadian Nationals, I had a great result.
Speaker AAnd they had a little pamphlet there for the National Training Center.
Speaker ASo I just went, no, sure, let's apply.
Speaker AThey won't accept me.
Speaker AAnd they did.
Speaker AAnd then I had to make the decision of, oh, do I want to completely upend my life?
Speaker AAnd said, you know, for a couple years, this would be fun.
Speaker ASo it was never fully planned out.
Speaker AIt just kind of progressed.
Speaker AHad I planned it out, I actually would have done it a little differently.
Speaker BAnd cycling was not a huge thing in Canada.
Speaker BI mean, I grew up a fan of cycling only because of.
Speaker BGosh, I'm blanking on his name.
Speaker BSteve.
Speaker BRight, Steve.
Speaker BWho.
Speaker BWho raced in the France a few years.
Speaker BWhy can't I remember his last name?
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AAnd so whenever somebody asked me to remember a name, I instantly forget.
Speaker AIt starts with a B.
Speaker AIt'll come to me in a second.
Speaker BYeah, we'll look it up and we'll put it in at the end.
Speaker BBut, yeah, he was the first Canadian cyclist of any renown that I remember.
Speaker BAnd that was what drew me into being interested in following cycling.
Speaker BBut it was not something that we really did growing up in Montreal.
Speaker BWe had.
Speaker BHockey was really the primary thing, and.
Speaker BAnd yet you found yourself doing it and really drawn to the national kind of scene.
Speaker BWas there much of a scene in Canada?
Speaker AYeah, actually was.
Speaker AAnd so Steve Bauer just came to me.
Speaker ASorry, I blanked too.
Speaker ABut I was actually really lucky.
Speaker AWhen I was at the national center, we were in kind of a golden age of Canadian cycling.
Speaker ASo I was there with Swain, Tough ryder Hesdal, Melanie McQuaid, who, as you know, is, you know, three time XTERRA World Champion and could keep going with the names.
Speaker AI mean, I was basically the person at the back of the group, just not saying a word because everybody was three times stronger than me.
Speaker ABut we had a really strong contingent of Canadian cyclists who were going over to Europe and performing well.
Speaker ASo I was very lucky to be part of that group and to have them all at the center in British Columbia at that time.
Speaker BSo tell us about your work with FastDalk.
Speaker BLet's transition to what you've been doing more recently.
Speaker BAnd how did Fast Talk Labs come about and what has been kind, because I've been really impressed since I've come to know about FastDoc and been involved a little bit and really watch its growth.
Speaker BHow did you come to begin that company and.
Speaker BAnd what has been the kind of the trajectory of it?
Speaker AYeah, so as you said, it started at Veloneus.
Speaker AI was writing the coaching article for the magazine every month, which I was loving.
Speaker AIt was a great opportunity.
Speaker AAnd for what they were paying me, I was putting in five times more work than I should have because it was just this great opportunity.
Speaker ASo I'd spend 15 hours researching every article and rewrite it like 10 times before I'd submit it.
Speaker ABut I'd been doing that for a few years, and the one thing that had really bothered me was articles had to be a thousand words.
Speaker AAnd I never really felt like I could cover the topic.
Speaker AAnd I was working with a cycling club up in Toronto and running their.
Speaker ATheir morning trainer sessions.
Speaker AAnd during the trainer sessions, I would just sit there and talk physiology and training.
Speaker AAnd one of the athletes came up to me and said, you should do a podcast.
Speaker AAnd I wasn't really into them, so I looked them up and just said, hey, this is kind of a, a neat idea and it would be a way to dive much deeper into these subjects than I thought.
Speaker ASo I went back to Vella News, said, hey, you know, what do you think about doing a podcast?
Speaker AAnd they said, oh, those are going nowhere.
Speaker AWhy would you ever want to do one of those?
Speaker ASo I said, would you let me do one through you?
Speaker AI'll do all the work, I'll pay for it, everything.
Speaker AJust let me put it out through Veloneus and give me a co host.
Speaker AAnd they were amenable to that.
Speaker ASo that's kind of how fast talk started.
Speaker AAnd for years it was just through VEL News and we were getting a good listenership.
Speaker ASo they kind of went, oh, there is something to these podcasts.
Speaker ABut eventually it was going well enough that Chris Case, who is my co host and I talked about and said, you know, we think there's a business opportunity here.
Speaker ASo we, we went out on our own and, and just explored this whole idea of just getting good science about endurance sports training out to as broad an audience as we could.
Speaker BAnd now almost like a full fledged platform with coaching and lots of discussion and great articles for athletes.
Speaker BAnd it's just kind of evolved in a very natural kind of way.
Speaker BAnd, and I gather Chris has really come back and almost taken it over as you've moved more into the paleo diet thing.
Speaker AWell, I work with both.
Speaker AI'm the one person who works across both companies, which means I'm the one who's always tearing his hair out where everybody else works with one company or another and has a little more time to focus on it.
Speaker AChris, his ability to put out good content and to get it done quickly is extraordinary.
Speaker AThere was a time at Velo News where they a bit of a mass exodus.
Speaker AAnd so for six months, Chris was putting out a magazine every month with just him, one writer and a photographer.
Speaker ASo, you know, I knew when I set this company up, I'm like, I want to do this with Chris.
Speaker AI've never seen somebody capable of doing what he's doing and he has been nothing but great.
Speaker AAnd you know, he, he cares about the quality of the content and he gets a lot of good content out there.
Speaker ASo, you know, I really trust him to just say, chris, go find good writers.
Speaker ALet's get good stuff up there.
Speaker AAnd I Know, it's going to be great.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BIt's so important to have someone like that that you can trust and really let go with a project like this.
Speaker BYou've been around the sport for a long time.
Speaker BI love asking people who have been in endurance, especially in a niche sport like cycling, as long as you have the question about what kind of changes have you seen and.
Speaker BAnd what are the things that kind of resonate with you as being most impactful as having changed cycling in the last 20 years?
Speaker AOh, boy.
Speaker ANo, there's a good question.
Speaker AAre you talking about the highest levels or just in general?
Speaker BWell, I mean, you could think about it in both ways, both for those who are operating at the high level, but also for the average cyclist.
Speaker AYeah, I would say it's not going to be anything unexpected, but I would say there's two sides to the coin.
Speaker AIt's the amount of detail, the amount of information we can collect, the amount of analysis that you can do.
Speaker AWhen I was getting into it, they were talking about, oh, wow, the amount of data we have now is incredible.
Speaker AAnd all we had was heart rate and you had some training software, but it wasn't very good.
Speaker AAnd I'm sure you remember the days when you were sitting there with that little IR sensor, trying to pull the data off of your heart rate sensor.
Speaker AAnd I love going back and looking at my data then and going, I can't even see what's going on in this ride.
Speaker AThere's so little information there.
Speaker ASo there was a lot of training by feel.
Speaker ANow, the amount of analysis you can do of your rides, the amount that you can see during your workouts is just at whole nother level.
Speaker AAnd the one hand, you know, I love it.
Speaker AI'm a data geek.
Speaker AIt's great to look at.
Speaker AThere's a lot of ways you can use it for, for really good training.
Speaker AOn the other hand, I'm sure you've talked about this a hundred times.
Speaker AThere is that potential to really get caught in the weeds and lose the big picture.
Speaker AAnd so it's finding that balance, I would say, is the big challenge right now.
Speaker BIt is such an issue, especially with athletes who are fairly new to the sport, who love to get sucked in by all the technology and will immediately get consumed with all of the different, not just the toys that they can have, but also what the toys are giving them.
Speaker BAnd I know as someone who's been doing my own podcast now for the last six years, we're constantly reviewing different devices and we're always keeping our mind on this idea.
Speaker BOkay, just because you can measure something, does that mean you need, need to and how is that going to really be helpful?
Speaker BSo when you think about the different kinds of streams of data that have become available, can you think of one or two that really have stuck out as being kind of really important and maybe one or two that you sort of maybe think, you know what, I don't need this.
Speaker AWell, I think there's a ton that are coming out where I go, I don't need this, particularly because I think, think more and more.
Speaker AYou know, the, the life changing metrics are coming out every six months that I don't think are fully tested.
Speaker AThey haven't done the scientific research on it and so I'm always skeptical of it.
Speaker ASo you know, with me I still really look at the, the four primary numbers, which is speed, cadence, power, heart rate.
Speaker AAnd I think the, you, you know, the software is letting you do more and more with those four numbers.
Speaker ABut I haven't really seen anything that I look at and go, yeah, this is a fifth that I'm going to look at constantly.
Speaker AI mean, every once in a while look at heart rate variability, things like that, but it's using them in conjunction that I find really valuable.
Speaker AAnd you'll get a laugh out of this.
Speaker AGoing back to the old days, I used to have a power sensor and had a heart rate monitor and neither one could measure both.
Speaker ASo I used to have to every ride open up an Excel sheet, export my data pulled into the Excel sheet and line them up so I could see what was going on with my heart rate relative to power.
Speaker AAnd I think that's a really important thing to look at because power is an external metric.
Speaker AIt shows you basically how hard you're moving the bike, but tells you nothing about what's going on inside your body where heart rate is an internal metric.
Speaker ABut saying I was riding at 160 beats per minute doesn't tell you were you going faster than everybody?
Speaker AWere you going slower than everybody?
Speaker AIt's just an internal measure and I think it's really important to have that external metric and that internal metric side by side so you can get the whole picture of what's going on with the athlete.
Speaker AAnd I've been finding more and more ability to analyze those two together.
Speaker ABut I think it's critical.
Speaker AWell, take a step back.
Speaker AAbout 10, 15 years ago there was a kind of a movement saying heart rate's outdated, stop looking at that.
Speaker AIt's just power.
Speaker AThat's all we need.
Speaker AI think that was a mistake.
Speaker AAnd I'm glad to see us moving back to.
Speaker AYou really need both, and you need to see them together.
Speaker BYeah, Yeah, I agree.
Speaker BI think that the inter.
Speaker BInterplay between the external and internal.
Speaker BI like the way you.
Speaker BYou put that.
Speaker BIs really important.
Speaker BI think that a lot of coaches and athletes will use RPE and power, which is, I think, a fair.
Speaker BAlmost a fair substitution, but heart rate as sort of that check on rpe, because sometimes you feel great, but your heart rate's telling you something a little bit different.
Speaker BAnd sometimes you don't feel so good, your heart rate's telling you also something a little different.
Speaker BSo I think having those things interplay together is really nice.
Speaker BI agree with you.
Speaker BWhen you look at the.
Speaker BSorry, go ahead.
Speaker ASo I was going to say you brought up rpe.
Speaker ASo we just.
Speaker ALiterally, a couple days ago, we're talking with Dr.
Speaker ASteven Seiler, and he's getting excited about respiratory frequency and read some research, getting ready for that conversation with him.
Speaker AAnd the central governor in our brain that regulates our perception of effort is the same one that regulates breathing frequency.
Speaker ASo they're showing multiple research studies that breathing frequency and RPE line up perfectly.
Speaker BYeah, I'm not surprised.
Speaker BYeah, I'm not surprised.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BBecause when you think about RPE and how RPE is often taught to athletes, they often say things like, are you able to hold a conversation?
Speaker BAre you able to speak in more than one or two words at a time?
Speaker BBecause that gut refers back to respiratory rate.
Speaker BSo that's really interesting to see that somebody actually has studied that and put that to paper.
Speaker ASo they're working right now on devices to measure respiratory rate.
Speaker ASo going back to that, I haven't really seen a new metric that I'm excited about.
Speaker AThat's one I really want to try out.
Speaker ABecause reading the research, I think there is some potential there.
Speaker BYeah, that's fascinating.
Speaker BWhen you look at the bike itself, there's been so much technological advancement in bicycles.
Speaker BNow, granted, I think that it's the athlete that drives the true advances in terms of how fast you go and how much success you have.
Speaker BBut let's face it, we all love our bikes.
Speaker BWhen we think about the technological advances in bicycles, and there's been many.
Speaker BI mean, electronic shifting, disc brakes, carbon wheels, on and on it goes.
Speaker BWhat are a couple of things that you sort of look at from the time that you were racing as a pro to now that really sort of stand out as things that you think are most impressive?
Speaker AOh, boy.
Speaker AAre you asking the wrong Person.
Speaker AMy newest bike is from 2014.
Speaker AI've never done electronic.
Speaker AI do have one bike that has disc brakes, but I am the biggest retro grouch you will ever meet.
Speaker APart of the.
Speaker APart of my explanation for that is, you know, I still go to races.
Speaker AI still go to races where they have support, they have a vehicle following that can get you a new wheel, things like that.
Speaker AAnd so I don't want to be on disc brakes because they will always have a rim brake wheel in those cars.
Speaker AAnd I have to keep it simple.
Speaker AWhen I go to a race, I do all my own mechanic work.
Speaker AI don't want a bike that I'm going to be up for six hours trying to do repair work on.
Speaker ASo I look at it from a very different perspective, and I talk with mechanics who are at the Tour de France and like, you have no idea how difficult our life has gotten.
Speaker AYou know, we used to be able to.
Speaker ATo get a bike in shape for the next day.
Speaker AUsed to take less than an hour.
Speaker ANow it's hours per bike, and we stay up all night.
Speaker AAnd you can see they can't even do a quick wheel swap.
Speaker ASo on the.
Speaker AThe cars at the Tour de France, they have to have a whole bunch of spare bikes on the back of the car because they're just going to give you a new bike.
Speaker ASo, you know, my answer to that question is I think there's some really neat advances.
Speaker AYou know, the electronic shifting is great.
Speaker AThe disc brakes are much quicker.
Speaker AI personally think all the integrated housing and integrated top stems and all that sort of stuff look nice, but I think they're more aesthetic than any sort of performance gain.
Speaker ABut I'm always just concerned because most people can't now fix their own bike.
Speaker AIf you're out on the road and you have any sort of issue, you're in trouble.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BSo.
Speaker BAnd if you travel with your bike, learning how to do all of it, to be able to pack your bike and then put it back together again is a real.
Speaker BIt's a chore.
Speaker BIt's very daunting for a lot of people.
Speaker BSo I don't disagree with you on that.
Speaker BThere's nothing wrong with being retro.
Speaker BWould you call it a retro grouch?
Speaker BI love that.
Speaker BI think that's pretty cool.
Speaker AI am a giant retro grouch.
Speaker ABut, yeah, I had a friend who bought an $8,000 bike, and then he was traveling to a race, and he wanted to pack it up into his bike bag, and because of the integrated stem, he couldn't fold it up.
Speaker AHe had to take it to his bike shop and they had to use special tools that you could get the handlebars off.
Speaker AAnd then the question is, when I get there, what do I do?
Speaker BYeah, I want to shift gears a little bit and ask your opinion.
Speaker BThere is always a discussion going on.
Speaker BI think it reflects the angst among triathletes about the health and vitality of multi sport.
Speaker BThere's always this question about, oh my gosh, is triathlon on the decline, things like that?
Speaker BI don't know that cycling has really faced that.
Speaker BI think cycling is in a really good kind of place right now with the emergence of Tatte Picacha and of course Remco Venable and all of the others who are out at the front of these big races.
Speaker BThere are, however, some concerns about the fact that cycling is becoming harder to watch.
Speaker BAnd as cycling becomes more and more behind paywalls, it stands to lose viewership.
Speaker BAnd as it loses viewership, then you lose what a lot of sports do when they go behind those paywalls, which is lose younger viewers.
Speaker BAnd if you lose younger viewers, then younger viewers will take their sports attention elsewhere and not necessarily get into cycling.
Speaker BDo you have any concerns that that's a valid thing to be worried about?
Speaker BI mean, is cycling potentially cutting its nose off despite its face because it's so in the pursuit of profit?
Speaker AYou know, that's a really good question and I hadn't thought about it from that perspective.
Speaker AI also, you know, I'm being very regional here.
Speaker AI think it is doing very well over in Europe.
Speaker ANorth American cycling has been on a big decline and is at the lowest I've seen it my entire time.
Speaker AIt is a struggle.
Speaker AAnd you saw about, say 10, 15 years ago now race organizers getting out of races because they were having a hard time getting sponsorship.
Speaker AAnd it's because sponsors would say, why do I want to sponsor this race?
Speaker AWe're not getting TV ev time.
Speaker AWe're not getting exposure to, except to anybody who's just there at the race.
Speaker AAnd as soon as the sponsors pulled out and race organizers said, we can't put races together anymore, that's when you start to see the decline of North American cycling.
Speaker ASo, yeah, I would be concerned that you would end up having the same issue over in Europe.
Speaker AThey might initially make a lot of money off of putting it all behind paywalls, but they got to be real careful of sponsors saying, you know what, we're not getting the exposure we want anymore.
Speaker AWe're going to look to other Sports where we can still get exposure if it goes that route.
Speaker AYeah, that's what happened here.
Speaker AAnd they're going to be in big trouble if that happens.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BThe other, the other thing that always worries me about cycling's popularity in North America is just the threat against cyclists, the continued animosity towards cyclists who just want to be outside riding on the roads, that I think drivers.
Speaker BWhat's always lost in the conversation is that cyclists are drivers, too, 99.9% of the time, and pay for those roads and want to just make use of those roads in a means to either commute or get fit or train for something.
Speaker BAnd yet there is just this overt hostility and literally, as we've seen in the last couple of years, drivers who will, on purpose, purposefully hit cyclists out of some.
Speaker BI have no idea what's motivating it, but that also concerns me a great deal.
Speaker BAnd I don't see any movement in that dialogue, despite groups like.
Speaker BIt could be me and various other organizations who are trying to shift that dialogue.
Speaker BBut I don't see it changing.
Speaker BAnd I wonder if you or your colleagues at Fast Talk have thought about it or talked about it and have any ideas of how to make this be more of a friendly environment for cyclists.
Speaker AI heard a real sobering thought from somebody who knows a lot about this, who said basically 2 to 3% of drivers, if they could hit you, kill you and get away with it, they would do it.
Speaker BYeah, that is definitely sobering.
Speaker AIt is a sobering thought.
Speaker ABut it's an important thing to realize when we are out on the road.
Speaker AOne thing we're never going to change is there are going to be drivers that just don't want us on the road, and it doesn't matter what we do.
Speaker AThey hate having us there.
Speaker AThey're going to honk at us.
Speaker AI'm sure you've been smoked, which is when a diesel truck passes you, they shift down a gear and push out all this smoke that goes right in your face, and it's awful.
Speaker AAnd they do that just because they don't like the cyclists out there.
Speaker AThat's.
Speaker AI, I don't think that's ever going to change.
Speaker AThe most promising thing I, I've.
Speaker AI've heard of recently.
Speaker AI'm sorry, I.
Speaker AI think it's spoke.
Speaker ASafety is the name of the company.
Speaker AYou know Dr.
Speaker AAndy Pruitt.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AHe is working with this company that is now working with many of the car manufacturers and many of the bike computer manufacturers like Garmin, where they are creating an interface where cars and bike computers can communicate.
Speaker ASo, quite literally, if you have a Garmin on your computer, on your handlebar, and a car is coming up on you and the car doesn't see you, the Garmin and the car will communicate and the car will take control and swerve the car away from the cyclist.
Speaker AAnd car manufacturers are excited about this.
Speaker AThey're getting on board.
Speaker ASo I would actually say I'm not sure we're ever going to get a lot of car drivers to stop hating us, but I think something like this and seeing this become something that's required is going to save a lot of lives.
Speaker AAnd, you know, Andy keeps giving me updates and it's really exciting what they're doing.
Speaker BYeah, that is exciting.
Speaker BAnd that would be potentially really interesting technology.
Speaker BI mean, we have the radar which warns the cyclist but does nothing to tell the car.
Speaker BAnd to have something that goes both ways would be fantastic.
Speaker BSo we've seen there is pedestrian avoidance available on some of the newer cars, so cyclist avoidance would be nice, too.
Speaker BFollowing up on that and a completely different technological question, you and I think it was you and I.
Speaker BI know Griffin for sure, and I have chatted about this.
Speaker BAnd that is the impact that artificial intelligence, or AI, is having on endurance athletes and coaches specifically.
Speaker BI know in triathlon, AI is having a pretty big impact in displacing coaches.
Speaker BThere's one big company that sounds a lot like what I call myself, and they have unfortunately kind of sucked up, hoovered up a lot of the athletes and are really causing a lot of problems for independent coaches.
Speaker BDo you see this as a positive thing, not necessarily running coaches out of business, but the emergence of AI in coaching as a positive thing?
Speaker BOr is this something that we should all be thinking, maybe pump the brakes a little bit?
Speaker AWell, I've got to first say I have a bias.
Speaker AI think coaches are great.
Speaker AI think it's great working with a coach, so I'm always going to support the coach.
Speaker ASo just know my bias is a little towards the coaches here.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AAnd it's quite possible at some point that the AI is going to do just as good, if not better, a job than the coaches.
Speaker AAnd I'll still be yelling and screaming, hire a coach.
Speaker AYou know, I have that bias.
Speaker ABut I think my answer to that question right now.
Speaker AI read this really interesting study where they had computer software create a training plan for an athlete, and then they had somebody from the British Cycling Federation, one of their top coaches, also create a plan for an athlete, and then they compared which plan was better and basically said the AI plan was better.
Speaker AAnd I've heard proponents of AI cite the study again and again and again.
Speaker ASo I went and read it and what they did was they just took the two plans, put them into some training software and determined, figured out which one had a better mix of ctl, TSB and atl, which is a hypothetical.
Speaker ABut my point is that's great.
Speaker ABut I guarantee you within three days the athlete's going to be off plan.
Speaker AAnd how good is the AI software going to be at talking to the athlete, encouraging them to go out and do their training and everything else?
Speaker AI don't think.
Speaker AI think the plan is a very small part of coaching.
Speaker AI think the most important part of coaching is the interaction and dynamic between the coach and the athlete.
Speaker AAnd I don't think AI is there yet.
Speaker BYeah, yeah, that's something I have said as well.
Speaker BThe intangibles that an individual, the human intelligence brings to coaching.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker BIn the time that we have left.
Speaker BTrevor, tell us a little bit about the Paleo diet and how you came to be the CEO of that company and what it is exactly that you're doing there.
Speaker ASo I'll try to give you the short version here.
Speaker ASo I ended up towards the end of my cycling career going to Colorado State University because I really wanted to study exercise science and nutrition.
Speaker AAnd I came from a traditional sports nutrition background and it was a requirement when I was there that I took Dr.
Speaker ACordain's course.
Speaker AAnd I will tell you, having studied traditional sports nutrition, the course just infuriated me.
Speaker AI thought he was dead wrong and I couldn't believe the things he was saying.
Speaker AI was actually so frustrated, I spent the summer after the course trying to prove him wrong.
Speaker AAnd as I read the research, in my efforts to prove him wrong, I just kind of went, wow, this actually kind of makes sense.
Speaker AI really couldn't find major holes and without really even knowing it, I just slowly moved to the Paleo diet.
Speaker AAnd I was 38, 39 at the time.
Speaker AI had given up on cycling, cycling at the highest levels just because I was struggling.
Speaker AI was getting sick all the time.
Speaker AI was having issues.
Speaker AAnd that winter I had one of my best winters ever.
Speaker ADidn't get sick.
Speaker AEven though I was a full time student with a coaching business, I could train really hard.
Speaker AWent to Canadian nationals on my 39th, 9th birthday and missed third place by a wheel length.
Speaker AI was broken away almost the entire refer good hour of the race in third place and they caught me on the line.
Speaker ABut still, you know, at 39, I was pretty happy with that.
Speaker AAnd the next year, at the age of 40, I went back and raced a a full season in the pro peloton and at one point had myself top 10.
Speaker AAnd that was all the diet and just completely convinced me there was something to this.
Speaker ASo reached out to Dr.
Speaker ACordain, said, you know, I'd love to be your graduate student.
Speaker ASo I became his final advisee and just kept working with him after I graduated.
Speaker AAnd in 2019, he decided to retire and he handed me the business.
Speaker BWow, that's fantastic.
Speaker BAnd now the business is producing cookbooks, I understand, as well as different foods too, is that correct?
Speaker AWe're doing a whole mix of things.
Speaker AI'll admit to you that the biggest struggle here is figuring out a business model for it, because we're really just trying to help people eat healthier.
Speaker AAnd one of the things we're actually fighting is there are a lot of people that got into the Paleo movement going, oh, make a ton of money, because this is really popular.
Speaker AAnd the discovery Paleo diets basically just go to your local farmer's market and just buy fresh food.
Speaker AThere is nothing to sell, which we see as well.
Speaker AAnd so we're really just trying to get people back towards more natural foods, eating whole foods that are nutrient dense.
Speaker AAnd as I said, there really isn't a product to sell.
Speaker ASo it's mostly just advocacy for healthy eating.
Speaker BWell, you won't get an argument over here.
Speaker BI think that's great and that's important work you're doing.
Speaker BWell, Trevor, I can't thank you enough for joining me for a really interesting conversation.
Speaker BI think it was pretty wide ranging.
Speaker BWe covered a lot of topics in the short time that you had here with me, and I really appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker BI look forward to my appearance on Fast Talk Labs, which will be coming up about six weeks from now.
Speaker BSo I am looking forward forward to that.
Speaker BAnd until we speak again, thank you so much again for joining me on the TRADAR podcast today.
Speaker AWell, it was a real pleasure and, yeah, excited to get you on the show.
Speaker AIt's going to be a lot of fun.
Speaker DWhat's up, everybody?
Speaker DMy name is Joe Wilson and I'm a proud supporter of the TR Podcast.
Speaker DThe Tridar Podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Sanov, one of my good friends, along with his amazing interns, Cosette Rhodes and Nina Takashima.
Speaker DYou can find the show notes for everything discussed on the show today, as well as the archives of previous episode@www.tridog podcast.com do you have any questions about any of the issues discussed on this episode or do you have a question for consideration to be answered on a future episode?
Speaker DSend Jeff an email@trydoc trial.com if you are interested in coaching services, you should really reach out to jeff@tridocoaching.com or lifesportcoaching.com where you can find a lot of information about Jeff and the services that he provides.
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Speaker DThe Tridark Podcast Be back soon with another medical question and answer in another interview with someone in the world of multisport.
Speaker DUntil then, train hard, train healthy.