The Everyday Athlete’s Guide to the 6 Pillars of Performance

Well, I've been eyeballing that question number two that we never got to, which is, are we over-complicating training? And I want to yell, yes.

.

Yes,

Chop wood, carry water.

There you go, that is it. Yeah, it really is, it is quite simple, right?

Yes!

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. Today, we're stepping back from the nitty gritty details of training plans, workout structure and marginal gains to ask a much bigger question. What really moves the needle for everyday endurance athletes, particularly those who have very little time to train? We're looking at the key pillars of fitness, health and performance.

fitness and health for everyday athletes. Today, we're sitting back in the nitty gritty details of the plan. We've got structure and marginal needs that ask a much bigger question. What are the few moves that you can do for everyday endurance athletes, particularly those who have very little time to train?

the things that actually make a difference. We'll compare what elite athletes do versus what's practical and effective for everyday athletes. Because let's be honest, most of us can't train 20 hours a week or even 12 with unlimited recovery time. So let's get right to the heart of the matter. With so much training advice out there, what matters most for endurance athletes? If you had to boil it all down, what are the key pillars?

endurance athletes should build their training around.

Little is better than nothing, I mean.

Absolutely, yeah. It's movement at the end of the day, right? Like this is, know, the pillar that we focus on at Athletica first and foremost is movement and movement in itself is pivotal. It's fundamental for human existence. We wouldn't all be here without that movement first and foremost, right? And so in terms of one pillar that you...

Yeah, you want to prioritize in your life is movement. And of course, yeah, like we can start with the aerobic training. And when we, you we've just ⁓ spent a whole lot of time on learning about VO2 max training and all the various different, you know, influencers on your aerobic capacity. And this is, but this is ultimately our ability to, you know, get energy to move.

and ⁓ you want to kind of keep that up. So aerobic training is one of, I'll just sort of throw that out there. I'll let you guys go to some other ones, but yeah, that's just moving regularly, which means, you know, fuel usage and fat burning is pretty pivotal and pretty, it should be one of the big rocks.

Hallelujah. Is that all? Are we done the podcast? No, but the Arabic training and moving and that is so important. You can focus on all the nitty-gritty and the 1%, but if you don't move in your everyday life, not wearing the training clothes, but just move regularly, just go for a walk.

No, it's your turn. not going to take up the whole floor here today.

No, no.

You know, if you're always sitting in the car or, you know, treating your body like just a vehicle to take your brain from A to B, like you can forget about being a, you know, weekend warrior that's doing nothing. You know, like try to get more movement in your everyday life. That's, that's what I would say. And I see that in, some of my athletes who are, they walk every day, they bike to work.

And they're in their training diaries, there's like lots of different activities every day that are not planned. And they probably get the AI codes screaming at them like, you had 15 unplanned workouts, but they are kicking ass. They are qualifying for Boston marathons and they are reaching levels that they haven't before doing new PRs because they are active and they are constantly, you know, like

Hehehehe

moving their bodies. So I can't like, yeah, we can just drop the mic. ⁓

No.

Yeah, you're right. But this, mean, this is what this podcast is going to be all about though, right? It's like fundamentals and yeah, like movement and aerobic training is a key fundamental and yeah, doing like, yeah, commuting is and being efficient with your time of your, in your training. That is, that is fantastic. Again, the, ⁓ did they say? That sitting is the new smoking.

of today, right? Because yeah, it's a insidious, slow, it's not, we're all sitting right now, right? But we all know we're gonna get out after this and we're gonna start moving, right? We've gotta sit for certain amounts of time, especially in this day and age with many, many jobs, probably the, I don't know if it's the majority of jobs in the world, but certainly a large number and many of our followers.

but yeah, you gotta keep moving and how can you also be efficient with still learning, right? Like if you're in sort of the tech world or anything that's sort of, where you're actually required to take on more information, like that's all part and parcel with whatever it is that you do, there's so many efficient ways that you can do that now, right? Where headphones on during various different workouts inside or outside.

And so you can be quite efficient with your time, but still attaining the first foundation principle that we've talked about here, and that is aerobic training and movement.

So a second is definitely for me, HIIT training and doing some intensity. That would be a second pillar and your training does not need to be all intensity. In fact, it should be mostly your aerobic training and movement, but your VO2 max, the longevity markers will improve with some HIIT training.

some high intensity interval training. That would be a second pillar.

I agree, yeah, totally. ⁓ Have the adaptation energy ready first as we've spoken about and you get that from the base training, ⁓ which is the first pillar. But if you've got the first pillar in place, I couldn't agree more with you, Paul. The next pillar sort of throw on top of that is to add the high intensity training and get that. If we think of a polarized model,

polarized is like the 80-20 principle and 80 % of your training more in the aerobic base mode, zone two or below, whilst the 20 % pulse kind of referring to is like, you'll get some high intensity activity in and you're weak as well.

Okay, so I sense that it's my job to throw my guns out there and then next is strength training. If you don't do strength training, you get hurt. Maybe not get hurt, but third pillar is definitely strength training for everybody.

Yeah.

Yes,

yeah, absolutely. Why do we want to do that as humans? Why should we lift weights?

Well, more muscle is metabolically friendly, right? And we prevent injuries, we get more efficient running, cycling, swimming, rowing, whatever we want to do for our big exercise.

Yeah, perfect, perfect. Yeah,

and again, if we go back to the unfortunate reality of modern life in many of these sitting occupations, that again, that sitting, and if you're just doing that, you're not giving your body the signals to say, keep that muscle mass on you, right? And ⁓ we want to make sure that those signals are there so that the body knows it. ⁓

it needs to hold on to that muscle mass. So yeah, this is why, again, going back to Athletica, the first three pillars, they're all within Athletica. Did you know that? yeah, we got the aerobic training there, we got the HIIT training there, and I just wanna commend MJ for putting together these incredible demo videos of her on all of the various different... ⁓

Mm-hmm.

strength training exercises that we recommend in Athletica. So MJ, incredible job.

Thank you. And they are all done in my dusty, messy garage and no pretty background drops or anything. They're as real as they can get.

But isn't that cool? Everyone can do this in their garage or any sort of space that you can make for yourself. You can buy or just manipulate the various different tools that are around us ⁓ to lift heavy things or move with force and intent. And that's what you sort of show in these demos, which is cool.

So the first three pillars were movement-based, aerobic training, HIIT, and strength training. Then we need to add in the pillars that are keeping us healthy. And the first, also the fourth key pillar would be nutrition and making sure that we have a solid nutritional base to fuel our workouts, to fuel our body. ⁓

you know, if there is, you know, if we're eating and consuming junk food, we're going to not feel great and not, you know, not work at an optimal level. So by getting a, making sure we get enough protein in, in a day, and making sure we have a balanced diet of good whole foods, as much green vegetables, vegetables as we can with fruit, and ⁓ good protein.

Yeah, could not agree more, Paul. Just this is the, you know, these are the building blocks, ultimately, of you. Literally, you are what you eat. You are your cells turnover. You're basically, you right now are the product of the last six months of your food consumption. That's you, you know, and so you got to keep that in mind.

And if your ⁓ food consumption of the last six months has not been great, you're not giving yourself the chance to be as good as you kind of can be. So, ⁓ yeah, really, this is why smart choices at the supermarket, in the house, in the home, and elsewhere are really, really important. And so important to kind of get your head around that. ⁓ I want to take this opportunity also, if I can right now, on the topic of

of fueling and nutrition to plug our latest study in this, because this is, as many of us might know, I think we've done ⁓ podcasts on this topic in the past. done, ⁓ really looked at the balance of carbs and fat in the diet and what source of macronutrient might be better to have in your diet for various reasons. And to be honest, the... ⁓

You know, the jury is still out on this topic and we want to run the very first large scale, know, mass tech study on this. We're calling it, we're launching it now. It's called the field study and field stands for, it's an acronym for fueling influence on endurance load and development. And this is being run by some really big league researchers in the world in this topic. And ⁓

And yeah, and ultimately it's free for everyone in the world to participate in. All you need to do is fill out a questionnaire. It'll take you less than 10 minutes to fill out. And you couple that with your Athletica account and you upload ⁓ with the Athletica onboarding. If you're not already an Athletica member,

basically ⁓ come in and just upload your historical data using your wearable, just like ⁓ Athletica does, Garmin, Wahoo, Intervals, ⁓ Strava, and boom, you've got actually a look at your movement patterns in comparison to your nutrition practices. And we're comparing across individuals, across ages, genders, different diets.

But this is, we hope to have thousands of participants in this too, so that it's a very powerful study that we can make, we can bring insight back to you, public.

That's exciting. We'll put a link in the show notes for the questionnaire and stay tuned for more information on that.

What's the next pillar?

Sleep, my favorite. What do we do? Why sleep is so important?

I love sleep.

Well, I mean, I always say it, I, you know, I always quote Alistair, Alistair Brownlee, two-time gold medalist in Trathlon, he's a athletic investor. And he came on the podcast and he said that, look, in his entire experience, he found that, you know, recovery was 90 % sleep, 9 % nutrition and 1 % everything else. It really, for him, if he could get a good night's sleep, he could get away with

just about anything he said in terms of anything, in terms of ⁓ his adaptations around it. So that was the key pillar. And he's got a really good point. This kind of comes down to what's called your circadian rhythm, right? And this is the, it's a fancy term for basically being in sleep mode to being in your active day mode. And it's just Matt Walker, Why We Sleep.

In the past, we thought we could get away with a lot less and there is the 1 to 5 % of individuals that can get away for a certain amount of time with very little sleep. But for the majority of us, you need this to be healthy. You need this for your health and longevity. You need this for the VO2 max we spoke about in the last five episodes before this. ⁓ It puts everything back together.

It takes all of those nutrition building blocks that we just mentioned and it recreates you ⁓ during that sleeping time.

how do people set themselves up for good sleep, Marjaana and Paul? Marjaana, you go first. What are your top tips for getting a good night's sleep?

I was going to say Alistair and Paul, that's all good, but people do not have time to sleep. Seriously, no, regular everyday athletes, have work. If they want to get some workouts in, they have to get up at four to get it done before going to work or get the kids out of the door. And my God, my kids, they woke up super early when they were little.

And I wanted to get a little bit of time for myself before they got up. Cause you know, when kids are up, it's go, go, go. So I got up an hour before estimated time they got up. And now they are back to like getting up at six because they have to go to school. And I'm like, do I really have to get up at five to get my time? ⁓ so no, like we don't get sleep.

Yeah.

yeah, we can talk about good sleep and how important it is and nutrition and all that, but sometimes it's not in the cards. So what do we do? Like, okay, so what do we do?

Let's finish with the sixth ⁓ key pillar first and then come back to those really legitimate questions. So the sixth one is our mental health and emotional health and making sure that we are in a good place to do our training, to make sure that we are in a good place.

emotionally and mentally that we are able to ⁓ even consider doing the training that we're, that we have scheduled. ⁓ You know, if you're in a bad place, you know, sometimes the training is a really good thing to do. Other times you need to take care of yourself and go for an easy walk. ⁓ Again, it's a, it's a pillar of how are we doing today? How are we feeling today?

Yeah, totally. It's a tough one to almost talk about and kind of get your head around, but it's the mental health and your own feeling of self-worth and health. It's a challenge ⁓ at various different times in our lives, but it's so key, right? And I think, of course, the five

pillars that we mentioned before go towards developing that, but there's other things that would be outside of that control that happen to all of us. ⁓ Losses, ultimately, of loved ones from various different ways, breaks of relationships in various different ways. These all take a huge mental toll on us, right? ⁓ And, ⁓ yeah, and every single one of us humans is ⁓ not immune to this.

and many of our loved ones in various different ways, and friends and relationships in various different ways.

So this is just a human experience. Of course, we're all so designed to be resilient and move forward, but in interim, and that can be a really challenging period. When you can get your head around it, the key pillars are the things that get you back to developing the mental health, right? And a lot of that can start with the movement. ⁓ so getting out the door, if you're having a...

a challenging time from the mental health ⁓ situation, getting out the door and moving and talking it through and thinking and with all the pain that might be involved is often a really good sort of first step.

Yeah, and oftentimes when you have had bad sleep, it ties back into their mental health too. And then that also plays a role in your decisions when it comes to nutrition. I find if I'm cranky or slept bad and cranky, I also tend to make less smart decisions of what goes in my mouth.

yeah, a spiral.

Yes.

It kind of loops right back to the sleep and the circadian rhythm, right? So that morning light in the eyes is another key pillar, actually, that it's just looped into all that. ⁓ So, yeah, this is a really neat episode, actually. I mean, I'm reflecting on my own, you know, all those various different elements in my own life as a result of that, right? Because we all have this, like, we all can relate.

to these pillars. ⁓ Yeah, aerobic training, HIIT training, am I getting strength training? How's my nutrition? How's my sleep? And then how's my mental health? And it's ⁓ just like a little loop around, right? And they all feed on one another. They're all important for the other one, right? Like there's just this integrative link between all six of those.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So we have a whole list of questions to talk about with this, but let's also address what Marjaana was talking about. For the everyday endurance athlete who wants to have some events that they do well at, and you have a busy family life, how do you manage nutrition and sleep? We've done a lot of episodes on nutrition and sleep, and we'll link to some of them in the show notes.

but what are some easy ways that we can start to manage good nutrition and good sleep health?

again, if we're going to start with sleep, so that's one of the key pillar or key things that you do to try to protect your sleep is to make sure that your screens are off at least an hour before you're going to bed. And then have something like paper to read. Don't bring your phone to your bedroom.

if you can help it, ⁓ try to have that outside of the rooms. ⁓ And yeah, and like the, I think to the nutrition question, Paul, I think that starts as best you can with your own awareness and knowledge of the importance of whole foods. ⁓ And then to, you know, when you're hunting and gathering at your local supermarket or market,

⁓ Make sure you're choosing wisely. The outer aisles tend to be the better choices and the less processed choices ⁓ than the central aisles. And that's if you can make those choices and stock your larder with the right food sources, that's half the battle right

But it's so hard to know what to buy and listen to all this nutrition advice that is online. Who do we listen to?

That's a good question. ⁓ I mean, we're biased, right? We think you should listen to us, but others would say the opposite.

Yeah, yeah,

we're all biased.

Yeah, I think you can't go wrong with whole food at the end of the day, right? ⁓ Yeah. Take the Athletica U nutrition course that I've already created and we just have to get that out of the... Out there, right? And then, yeah, follow that as would be my recommendation.

Yeah, you heard it here first.

You

So what's a realistic practical roadmap for integrating these pillars into the everyday life without burnout or over analysis or freaking ourselves out? How should we balance this?

Yeah, super, super good question. And I don't think there's an easy answer. Life's going to get in the way first, right? We always sort of say that life, you know, life gets in the way of the perfect plan. And that's again, why we've built up what it is, a workout wizard and changing things up and clicking, you know, dragging things around. You've got to, your life, your life goes first, your context goes first. So you got to deal with it. Whatever's in front of you, you got to, that's what you've got to address first and foremost.

And then once you've ticked the box and you've got that work done and you feel like you've got some space and you've blocked out some time for yourself, then now make a choice. Now go back to the key pillars. What am I now going to do in that window that's all of a sudden popped up for me? know, is it, do I, am I going to start with some aerobic training? Do I have time for a HIIT session? Am I going to get in the gym?

Am I gonna eat some good food? Am I gonna have a nap? Well, what is your body, what do you think your body really needs at that point in time? And go grab that relative to your needs. You know your needs more than any AI coach in Athletica does. ⁓ Or talk to your coach. What does your coach think you need, right? I that's why MJ and Paul are so valuable.

So we have a lot of other things to talk about, but we want to be mindful of your time because we're talking about, you know, managing our time. ⁓ are there any things that you, Paul and Marjaana, that you want to bring up for today? We're going to be doing some additional episodes on these key pillars. Is there anything that you want to say to wrap up what we're talking about today?

Well, I've been eyeballing that question number two that we never got to, which is, are we over-complicating training? And I want to yell, yes.

.

Yes,

Chop wood, carry water.

There you go, that is it. Yeah, it really is, it is quite simple, right? And again, yeah, like the, and this comes up a lot, right? Like in terms of feedback from many, many users of Athletica, and they are very worried about the precision of their training, right? Like just the granularity of the zones, whether, know, if they're off by five beats or.

Yes!

Mm-hmm.

you know, 10 watts or these sorts of things, right? And these are probably not big rocks at the end of the day in terms of doing the things that sort of matter, right? It is, yeah, like everything there is a guide, but if it's just slightly off in either duration or intensity or recovery, all these sorts of things, like get the fundamentals in first and foremost, just, you know, get the bulk of the work.

Aim for 75 % of the workout as best you can. If you're little off on the compliance score, don't worry about it too much. Even if AI coach gives you a hard time, just tell AI coach to not now, give me a break.

We will come back to these key pillars in next episodes. So stay tuned and pay attention to what will be coming out. But for today, thanks for exploring the path to peak performance with us today on the Athletes Compass podcast. When you subscribe, you'll ensure you're always tuned in for our next journey into endurance, mindset, and performance. And when you share this episode with a friend, teammate, or a coach, you'll be helping them discover new ways to level up their training and life.

Take a moment now, subscribe, share, and let's keep navigating this endurance adventure together. For more information or to schedule a consultation with Paul, Marjaana, or me, check the links in the show notes. For Marjaana Rakai and Dr. Paul Laursen I'm Paul Warloski, and this has been the Athletes Compass podcast. Thanks for listening.