Listener questions: cross-training for marathoner, strength training for women and more

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. Today we have a couple of great questions from listeners that we are going to get to today. Marjaana why you take it away.

Yes, we have a listener question from Alan Egbert. I'm getting ready for Team USA World Championships in Long Duathlon in Sofingen, Switzerland, September 8. I don't have any mountains around me to train on or breathing in high altitude. My AI training with Athletica is doing great, but with the high altitude, will this make a difference? Should I wear an altitude mask or maybe a heavy weighted?

Yeah, hey Alan, that's a great question, man. And I would highly recommend that you have a listen to the most recent, one of the most recent podcasts that I did on the training science podcast, our sister podcast. And in it, I was able to interview professor Chris Minson of Oregon State University and

Professor Chris is a world expert in the application of heat. And one of the things that he actually has discovered in his research is how you can use heat as a stimulus for altitude training. In other words, kind of does, what we've discovered is that it actually does some of the same.

sorts of things that altitude training does. one of the things that you'll want, we know altitude training does is it, we get a release of erythropoietin and that is the hormone that causes for more red blood cells to be produced in your bone marrow. Okay, that's how we get more red blood cells. That's why, you know, that's, we've heard of EPO as one of the drugs that, you know,

the professional cyclists and endurance runners tended to have used and cross -country skiers, Marjaana, they'd use that for doping, So, but we want of course the natural release of that. That's why we do altitude training. And what Chris and his team and others have discovered is that you actually get a similar response for heat training. And let me tell you why. The reason is because when you get hot, when you exercise,

you get this expansion of the water component that's in your bloodstream, the plasma volume. And what that causes a relative dilution. Basically you trick the body to think that you're at altitude. So it winds up producing more EPO. It winds up producing more red blood cells. you counter that basically, you're getting the same sort of thing that you would get if you were going to altitude.

So number one, Alan, if I would, I'm not sure where you live in the world, but we can all get some level of heat in our training. And this is kind of one of the things that Professor Chris said in the podcast. He said that basically, you can't lose getting hot when you exercise. have to be a little bit careful in terms of the amount of stress that you're getting, but in general,

you're going to be getting all the key things that you need for any sort of performance. And he was explaining performance in cool environments even, right? Just like we know Altitude assists with as well. But it will also help you for your Zollfinger race in September. So I would add that first.

Steve Neal on the podcast, on the Training Science podcast. And one of the things that he actually showed was the Breathe Way Better Bag. I think, Paul, you might have one of these too. But basically, the Breathe Way Better Bag allows you for some respiratory muscle training as well. So that is another excellent one. Basically, you breathe through the bag here, isocapnic Breathe Way Better Bag.

There's an app that kind of comes with that as well. And it trains your respiratory muscles and it strengthens those. these are enhancing things like your VO2 max, right? And you think when you're breathing at high flow rates, you need to have strong respiratory muscles to do that. So ultimately this gives you extra leverage to your respiratory muscles to make them stronger.

so that you don't, like they don't fatigue and cause this reflex to go back to your brain to cause you to fatigue. So it's called the Metabolo reflex and it's something that you can train with a Breathe Way Better bag. So I would recommend those two as key things for your Zoola finger race. One, adding heat, two, adding some respiratory muscle training if you can. And the isocapnic is a relatively affordable means to do that. I think it's only about

It's about 300 bucks, I think, to get a Breathe Way Better bag or thereabouts.

Yeah, think we've talked a bit about using heat for altitude racing. He's also asking if he should wear an altitude mask. Like you see sometimes athletes wearing, I

don't know what the masks are called, but they kind of restrict their air inflow. Kind of like their breathe way better bag, but you take it with you when you're training. Would that be something that would help him?

yeah.

Yes, yes, I think they're called the go -to altitude masks. And I do have one, Steve Neal actually gave me one of those as

The only one I question on there is the practicality. And

mentioned this to me as well.

you you wear this thing, it's basically like it's just this small little thing that's in your mouth and it's, from a social standpoint, it's restrictive, right? You're not gonna be able to talk to anyone so much. But if you're able to kind of train on your own, then you can walk around with this thing. And you know, if you see someone in the forest or on the roads and you wanna talk to them, you pull it out, right? So no big deal. But otherwise, yeah, it's another means where you can add

some simulated altitude properties, right? And again, we're mostly going back into restricting the ventilation so that we can enhance the whole respiratory, you know, ventilation of our lungs when we go to altitude, because we're going to need that in the Zollfinger race. yeah, nothing wrong with using that as well. The only thing I'll preference around all of this,

Don't ever lose sight of the basics. So you're doing the key things, Alan. So by training on Athletica, you're getting all of the key sessions that you're going to need for that doathlon race. Those are gonna be the key things like exercise training, becoming as fit as you possibly can. We're talking about little one one percenters that are going to help with the specificity of where that race is for you. So never lose sight of and don't do some of the one percenter things in spite of

the key aspect of the training. That would be the only other thing I would add to

I would note too, if you're doing heat training, don't overdo it so that you get too much of the load and the stress and then you can't keep consistent because you're recovering from a really hot session for longer. As you're getting adapted to it, it might take a little bit longer. If you do your standard set, you might feel like it's harder than normally and thus you have to recover a little bit longer.

But because he doesn't have any mountains, so I'm not quite sure if he gets the elevation. I assume that Sofingen has quite a bit of elevation during the race. And he's asking if you should use a heavy weighted vest to stimulate, I guess, simulate like little bit heavier conditions. what you would see in a Thvedigga would be those strength endurance sessions, but

Like me here in Houston, can't get the, you know, uphills because it's flat here. Would there be an idea to use a vest

Sure. mean, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, we're looking for a neuromuscular kind of stress, right? And again, I leverage my colleague at HIT Science, Martin Besheyt, who's trained for lots of these mountain runs in flat conditions. And one of the things that he did a lot of, he never lost sight of his strength training sessions. So he really worked on, because he knew he was going to have to run up and run down hills. He knew that there was going to be

an issue with the stretch sorting cycle in the muscles, just think about it when you're, think about running downhill for ages, right? And your constant constant damage of those muscles, right? Know that that's coming. And this is where getting in the gym and doing specific strength training sessions and the athletic strength sessions are very, they're very good for this, right? They're plyometric sessions, you know, single leg,

single leg squats and these sorts of things, right? So these are very specific at kind of protecting you for those. These are things that you don't need a hill for, and they're gonna help you when you're have to run up and down hills. So I would say do that first. If you need to add weight to that situation, that's fine. Caution with that stress always.

And the other thing you could use is a treadmill. We're talking runs here as well. And finally, there's lots of ergometers, like cycling ergometers, that have a low cadence, I guess, option on them, right? Where you can slow the cadence down and grind out those slower cadence functional strength endurance sort of sessions. And Paul, with your cycling hat on, you might even have something, I'm not sure,

What are some of the best systems you've heard of or seen in the ergometer world?

I don't know of any specific ergometer things, but that's simply shifting into a bigger gear and, you know,

you know, the four two threshold.

that I'm using with one of my athletes who's

Just having a beer gear and just getting that functional strength is key.

All right, so here's our second question from Patsylus Georgios. How do you combine training, like swimming and running, although you are preparing for a marathon? In other words, are there parts of swimming that will help

Patsylus be a better

Yes, the answer is yes, absolutely. you know, just actually had a, we're having a bit of a debate in the backend of a Athletica on this exact, this exact issue. And it came from the, you know, you'll notice if you're a runner and you're checking out the Athletica plans, a lot of them, we get some complaints sometimes because

are cross -training cycling sessions on the running plans. And you're like, well, what the heck? I'm a runner. I don't want a bike. And that's fine. If you have that philosophy, no problem. And again, if you want to look further into the science behind this, encourage you to have a listen to Baz Van Heren, who is a world -class runner, but also a sports scientist.

And I, he was on the, again, the, the, the sister podcast, the training science podcast. And you know, his, his philosophy aligns with this when you actually have cross training conditioning sessions alongside that running, you are allowing your body to not have that neuromuscular stress that we just, you know, we were trying to get that for Alan. That's what we were talking about with the weighted vests and the, you know, the, the, the low cadence strength endurance stuff and this, and the weight

We're kind of taking the opposite philosophy here. Now we're actually trying to remove that neuromuscular stress, but we're working on the metabolic aerobic conditioning, right? And it's all about balancing these various different stresses. So for Patsilas, is looking at trying to enhance the metabolic conditioning, but with either the swimming or the running.

strengthen the heart and lungs and the metabolic system, but kind of almost you're supplementing that to the overall run training. So the answer is certainly yes, do that. And especially if it makes you feel good. And there's all these various different benefits that you're getting, mostly central and metabolic. When I say metabolic, your ability to burn fuels, carbohydrates and fats mostly.

Right? You're actually, enhancing your ability to burn fat when you do that extra training outside of your specific running. And you're not actually doing the, any extra damage that you would all, that would get from adding like another run session, right? Like intuitively we think first of all, to enhance our performance, add more run stress. We'll be the better runner there, but you got to be so cautious with that, right? We're always because that is that specific.

Neuromuscular, musculoskeletal stress, they call it. Think about muscle soreness, right? You don't want to make your body more sore, but how can I still get a training bump? And you do that from adding swimming and cycling to your marathon plan, Patsylus. there, that's my thoughts. What do you think, Marjaana, as a cross -training queen athlete?

Yeah, I actually have a few runners or my athletes that are running for marathon and we've added swimming and they're doing pretty good in swimming actually, which is also wonderful. But I think what Pazili also wants to do is to add enjoyment and if he loves swimming, absolutely go for it.

And it's really good for that muscle soreness. often find like if my muscles, especially leg muscles are sore from all that running and I jump in the pool, it's just kind of that hydrostatic pressure kind of feels good. And especially for my head, it's like a little meditation session underneath the water. can't hear anything and it's just the black line

me.

I couldn't agree more. yeah, I'll just add in that, you know, so there was the Baz Van Heren podcast where, you know, he uses this to be a world -class athlete. He uses the cross -training principle that you're speaking of. I reflect also on my coaching and training of Theresa Adam, who's a, if you look up Theresa Adam, she's a, you know, an elite world -class triathlete.

How?

who was injured with running and she did this cross between cycling and swimming and that cross training of swimming helped her become a world -class cyclist. So there was something about mixing the two muscle groups that beefed up the central circulation. there's a lot of benefit. I think we're just saying yes, yes, yes, but Paul, I could see you wanted to put something in there as

Yeah, just how often are we looking at doing this? Twice a week? As often as you want kind of thing? Or what's the parameter?

I don't think there's any, you know, there's lots of different ways to skin the cat. mean, obviously we look to the principle of specificity. If you're preparing for a marathon, you want running to be the focus of your training, right? So, but yeah, there's, and again, it's, you know, there's going to be different strokes for different folks. There's going to be people that can do swimming and cycling training frequently around that. There's loads of triathletes that are top runners that love their swimming and cycling over

And probably most importantly, to Marjaana's point, whenever you know what makes you feel good.

Yeah. And how much time you have in your hands. Right. But also like, because, swimming is a little bit more gentle on your, your muscular skeletal system, you could add one of your, like, if you're struggling to get your high intensity interval training done running, you could do one of them in the pool. If you're efficient

Correct, correct. that is, yeah, absolutely. Like intensity might be the last thing that your lower leg muscles want to do, but maybe you still, we know the importance of oxygen delivery. It gets delivered by the heart through cardiac output. And to Marjaana point, absolutely. Like, know, de -load the legs, but do a high intensity swim, especially if you have that ability. It's such a great,

A great method.

All right. We have third question from Mary Knowles. She says she's a 60 -year -old female. There's a lot of current advice on benefits of doing strength training with weights for women around my age. What are athleticists view on this and should it be included with women's training

again, it's another big, big yes, right? So strength training is key for so many different things. you know, I guess bone and muscle mass maintenance is so key, right? Especially when we reach menopause is for females because there's this big hormone shift and it's

that

phosphate winds up slowly being leached away and our bones become brittle. And we want to delay that time as long as we

but it's a bit of a, you know, it's a race against the time to really build up a strong foundation. But with the research has shown

we can slow that process down if we do strength training. So resistance training is one of the things that keeps bone together strong and it keeps muscle mass on. And this is gonna prevent falls and breaks, especially when we look to the later years, which we're hopefully all going

Yeah, yes, yes, yes. So important and not just, you know, for 60 year olds, but already women in their 30s should be doing strength training. Now we could go into details, you know, what kind of strength training are they doing. In atheletica, we already have strength endurance work and heel sprints, which are

then we

several different, depending on what training program you are, there is strength training. But if you really want to maximize your strength and health grain gains and your bone mass, metabolic flexibility and efficiency, you might want to consider hiring a PT to go through all the techniques so that you don't get injured because

To stimulate muscle growth, really kind of have to hit the weights hard. Like you need to lift heavy and you can't go from zero to hero, right? Because you're most likely going to get injured. So you need to find somebody to help you build a program that progressively takes you from, you know, building your stability, balance, mobility. You know, you want to have some kind of fast feet there.

you know, quickness, because as we age, we don't want to be tripping when we reach out and, you know, flour or whatever we want to grab from toothpaste or a pack of toilet paper from the upper shelf. So we want to incorporate all different kinds of elements in our strength training, right?

So you want to kind of take a long -term perspective, make sure that those elements are in your program, and then build to like a hypertrophy kind of work where you heavy but only few reps.

Like this, you're making me think of the Peter Attia outlive book. And I love how Peter kind of, you know, he asks us to reverse engineer the process. So Mary, you're a 60 year old female. And what Peter suggests in his outlive book is that you think about being 20 years down the road, think about being an 80 year old female.

What do you want to do when you're 80 years of age? Think about the tasks that you want to be good at. Then reverse engineer those tasks. And like Marjaana was saying, you know, how are you going to work on your balance? How are you going to work on your strength? And like imagine a simple task of say you want to travel when you're 80 and you want to be able to lift your bag into the carry on upper, you know, compartment on your plane or

your boss or wherever you are, imagine that movement. you now, can you do that movement? how can you, how can we put a program in place that actually allows you to do that, that movement or whatever it is, but reverse engineer it back and then, work with a professional to progress the weights and the movement and all those different features that, that Marjaana was sort of talking about too, so that you can, you can do these various different tasks.

got to think what you want your life to be when you're 80, 90 year

also want to load the bone with jumps. And for an 80 year old, this might sound horrible, if you start now, you're going to be able to, you know, because you might have to jump off something without hurting yourself.

So jumps are really important to stimulate the bone

women need to make sure that they have enough protein and creatine in their diet. And Dr. Laursen did episode with, training science podcast with Dr. Jose Antonio. can you kind of summarize what Dr. Antonio was saying about protein and creatine intake?

For sure. just to give the listener some background. So Dr. Antonio is one of the leading experts in the world of nutrition, editor of the International Journal on Sports Nutrition. And he's led these position stands with all the scientists on creatine, caffeine, and protein. And in the context of this conversation

specific and the two that really coupled together is both creatine which is a Supplement, but it's also we get creatine when we have meat it's a it winds up going in and Into the muscle cells and actually forms an energy reservoir called creatine phosphate and So yeah, basically what

Dr. Antonio was saying was that there's almost no drawback to having creatine as a supplement. And this is especially if you think that it's possible that meat level in your diet is on the lower side. If you don't consume a lot of meat in your diet, you will be one that is a responder to creatine. And to Marjaana's point, and really what we're saying here,

You know, we can do all these various different stressors to enhance our balance, our strength, our power. But if we're not providing the building blocks that are needed to build up that muscle mass from creatine and protein, we're not going to be able to achieve these goals. So the two kind of have to go hand in hand. We do also have to think about the nutrition side. got to build those. We got to give the resources that the body needs also to build a stronger you.

So, yeah, so think about your diet. Are you having a very, quite a bit of protein in your diet? And we're talking upwards of two grams per kilogram body weight. Are you above that two grams per kilogram body weight? Then you're probably okay and maybe you can disregard this recommendation. Dr. Antonio still says you probably have a little bit supplemented, probably can't go wrong.

It was his opinion. And certainly if you're on the lower side, more into the vegetarian, vegan kind of side, you're certainly going to benefit from this. then the, yeah, and I think that was generally the recommendations there for creatine and protein. Protein, you you can't go wrong. think everyone is, doesn't even matter the side of the, you know, low carb versus high carb kind of diet.

Everyone, every single person agrees that you need lots of protein in your diet to enhance your, you know, wellbeing, health, wellness performance, right? So can't go kind of wrong there. And certainly try to shoot above for above two grams per kilogram, the RDI, RDA, whatever you go with. is, everyone says it's absolute bunk. Don't listen to that. If you want to be healthy, strong, robust individual,

more protein in your diet. Creatine comes with protein generally, so this is why I'm kind of just saying focus on the protein.

Yeah, I think the RDA is like 0 .8 grams per body weight.

It's like the minimal amount to live, like to survive. But not thrive. But not thrive.

So that's way too little. I think a lot like common misconception is that endurance athletes don't need as much protein as for example, somebody who is focusing on like bodybuilders or focusing on building their muscle mass. But absolutely

It's the opposite actually. It's the endurance athletes for whatever reason, it's the endurance athlete. I think there's just more breakdown that occurs with more movement and these sorts of things, but it's actually the opposite. So the endurance athletes actually need the most even compared to a big gym junkie that you might see like a CrossFit guy or gal that's just all jacked up. It's actually the endurance athlete that needs more protein than the strength training.

focused individual.

think what might be surprising to lot of people is that protein actually helps build bone mass. You would think, OK, what is bone made of? Calcium, you to have your milk or whatever, but you need lots of protein in your diet to build those strong bones and muscles.

Totally.

Yeah, for everything, right? And for mood as well, right? Like if you're, if you or someone you know is suffering from mental health issues, focus on the protein as well. Like the protein is used and the things that are coming with the protein with like the essential fatty acids, those are coming to form all of the various different neurotransmitters and hormones and all the various different things that we need to maintain a happy and healthy mood as well.

So if mental health is a challenge also, focus on the protein in your diet.

I've been chewing up a piece of steak last week. Also immune function, right?

absolutely, exactly. The entire immune system is built on all of the various different components. They all are built with amino acids and fatty acids, which usually you'll get from protein sources.

know Athletica is working with strength programming. Can you give us an update?

Yes, I'm actually as we speak I'm preparing for a big podcast with Steven Webster of a sensei's and a sensei is one of the is kind of the equivalence in it for atheletica in the biomechanic and strength training

but we're looking at various different means where, you know, Athletica can also bring an AI strength training, you know, service into its athletes as well. So, and Asensei is, you know, like others for HRV, they actually have like what's called an SDK, a piece that you can basically attach to your product that will give you these similar sort of benefits too.

This is a bit of a long -term development. We're still moving around with things on this.

But it's like everything, Rome was not built in a day, but we are working hard in the background to bring something that is going to be helpful in this whole world of AI training programming for athletes and services for

That's all for this week. Thanks for listening and join us next week for the Athletes Compass podcast. Ask your training questions in the comments and our social media. That's where today's questions come from. Thank you for taking a moment to give us a five star review. Paul, Marjaana and I are professional endurance sport coaches with limited availability. Contact us for an appointment. Let's talk.

Marjaana Rakai and Dr. Paul Laursen I'm Paul Warloski and this has been the Athletes Compass podcast. Thanks for listening.