February 21, 2025 • 70 mins
In this episode:
Is hydrogen-rich water the latest miracle drink or just another marketing ploy? Juliet Hochman joins the fray to explore the claims surrounding this trendy beverage. We dissect the science (or lack thereof) behind hydrogen water. It turns out that while the hype is real, the actual benefits might not be worth the price tag. We dive into the absurdity of the wellness trends that promise the world but often deliver nothing more than a fancy label. If you’re thinking about spending your hard-earned cash on this new “super drink,” you might want to listen closely as we break it down.
Next up, I'm chatting with Trevor Connor, a total cycling aficionado and the brains behind Fast Talk Labs, about how the explosion of tech in endurance sports can be both a blessing and a curse. Sure, tracking every heartbeat and watt can feel like you’re leveling up in a video game, but let’s be real—sometimes all that data can just leave us spinning in circles, right? We're all about that balance: how do we harness the awesome power of analytics without getting lost in the weeds? So grab your headphones and get ready for a ride through the absurdly complex world of cycling metrics, sprinkled with a side of sarcasm because, let’s face it, this is endurance sports—we’re all just trying to keep our heads above water!
Segments:
[08:13]- Medical Mailbag: Hydrogen Rich Water
[37:09]- Interview: Trevor Connor
Links
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Now the amount of analysis youcan do of your rides, the amount
that you can see during yourworkouts is just at a whole nother
level.
And the one hand, you know, Ilove it.
I'm a data geek.
It's great to look at.
There's a lot of ways you canuse it for, for really good training.
On the other hand, I'm sureyou've talked about this a hundred
(00:20):
times.
There is that potential toreally get caught in the weeds and
lose the big picture.
And so it's finding thatbalance, I would say is the big challenge
right now.
Hello and welcome once againto the Tridock Podcast.
This is the February 21, 2025episode and I'm your host Jeff Sankoff,
(00:44):
the tridoc an emergencyphysician, triathlon coach and multiple
Ironman finisher.
Coming to you as always frombeautiful sunny Denver, Colorado.
The voice you heard at the topof the program was that of my guest
this episode, Trevor Connor.
Trevor is the CEO of the PaleoDiet and the co founder and CEO of
(01:05):
Fast Talk Labs.
He's also the co host of thevery popular Fast Talk podcast as
put out by that group.
And he joins me to chat abouthis long career in cycling and how
he sees the future ofendurance sport, particularly cycling,
evolving, as well as what liesin store for Fast Talk Labs.
And that's coming up in just alittle while.
Before we get to thatconversation, Coach Juliet Hockman
(01:28):
is going to join me to answeryet another listener question on
the Medical Mailbag.
This time around we are goingto be examining the science behind
the claims being made tosuggest that hydrogen rich water
can cure pretty much all thatails you and improve your exercise
performance as well.
We're gonna find out if addingthis gas is really all its proponents
(01:50):
would have you believe, or isit just more hot air?
We'll give you our take.
Before all of that, I wantedto take a moment to chat briefly
about the recently releasedUSA Triathlon Report on 2024, the
year in Review.
The review that was put out byUSAT recently begins with a high
level overview of Americanathletes successes on the global
(02:12):
stage.
At the elite level, While ofcourse there were hopes for individual
medals in triathlon at theOlympics in Paris, that did not come
to pass, but the success ofthe mixed relay team and of several
para triathletes at theParalympic were rightly highlighted.
For me though, the mostinteresting and important parts of
the report related more toexpanding membership and participation
(02:35):
than they did to the successesof elite athletes like Taylor Knipp
and her confreres.
USA Triathlon membership grewto 302,000 in 2024 and this marks
a 1.6% increase from 2023.
The average participation perevent also reached an all time high
with 354 participants per 120per race.
(03:00):
Although total participationslightly declined from 287,000 in
2023 to over 280,000 in 2024,these numbers still reflect the highest
engagement with triathlonsince pre Covid times.
Grassroots racing experiencedsignificant growth with over 3,600
(03:22):
races held across 1,034 events nationwide.
Shorter distance races anddiverse multisport formats including
Aquathon and Duathloncontributed to this expansion.
With the continuousconversation ongoing about the imminent
demise of our sport, thisreport to me demonstrates more than
(03:42):
just a glimmer of hope thatmuch of the consternation about the
health of triathlon is maybe,maybe just a little bit overblown.
Yes, there are certainly stillthreats to triathlon and the long
term health is anything butcompletely assured.
But seeing stability and evengrowth in membership numbers as reported
by usat, especially whenseeing growth of smaller local events
(04:06):
and participation andinvestment in youth, all of those
things give me a lot of reasonfor optimism.
When you add to that therecent announcement of sellouts at
large Ironman branded eventsincluding Oceanside and Chattanooga
70.3 and the Ironman in Texas,I can't help but think that we are
on a sure footing than maybewe have been for a little while.
(04:28):
Of course, time will tell.
What do you think?
I hope that you'll leave acomment in the private Facebook group
and join the conversationabout this specific topic there.
Do you think triathlon isstill in danger?
Is this a sport in decline orhave we reached sort of an equilibrium
of types or maybe even aperiod of growth?
If you're not a member of theFacebook group, please do search
(04:49):
for the podcast on that platform.
Answer the three very easyquestions and I will grant you admittance
so that you can comment andask questions that you might want
to have answered on theMedical Mailbag before we get to
the Medical Mailbag for thisepisode, I want to ask once again
that if you haven't alreadydone so, please consider leaving
a rating and a review whereveryou download this content.
(05:10):
It is so incredibly helpful tomaking this podcast more visible
among the veritable forest ofTriathlon related shows and it can
really, really help othersfind the show.
Recently a few people didleave reviews on Apple Apple podcasts
and I want to give them ashout out.
Try hard Ron in Pueblo wrote.
Thank you for all of theresearch based information and insight.
(05:34):
I don't miss a week and lovelistening when doing my workouts.
You are entertaining,informative and make me feel smarter
about my training.
AJ Thrifty and these areobviously Apple usernames that people
have entered.
I don't know what their actualnames are otherwise I would give
them a call out.
AJ Thrifty wrote, Dr.
Jeff presents a balanced andfair view of what training and supplemental
(05:56):
modalities can help or harm triathletes.
This is a fantastic resourcefor anyone just starting their triathlon
journey to experienced vetsand finally, an anonymous listener
wrote On Apple Podcasts, Jeffhas done a tremendous job of putting
together episode after episodeof legit science based content to
help endurance athletes betheir best without being suckered
into marketing hype onsupplements and gimmicks.
(06:18):
His guest interviews are alsoexcellent and focused on triathlon.
Thank you to all of those ofyou who have contributed reviews
like that.
I am eternally grateful for them.
If you want to give specificfeedback that is perhaps negative
in a way, and maybe you wantto give some constructive criticisms,
please don't be shy.
Reach out to me@tridocloud.comI am always looking for ways to improve
(06:43):
the program and my listenersare the best source of that kind
of feedback.
Hey there podcast listeners.
Are you a fan of the show?
Well, of course you are.
You're here, right?
But are you the kind of fanwho'd like to get even more try talk
podcasts coming your way inthe form of your own private feed
with bonus episodes that comeout about every month or so?
Well, you can do that.
(07:04):
And you've heard me say howfor about the price of a cup of coffee
per month, you could become aPatreon supporter that gets you access
to those bonus episodes.
And if you subscribe at the$10 per month level, you get a thank
you gift in the form of thispretty cool BOCO Tridock Podcast
Running Hat.
I'd love to have you along.
So many other listeners havejoined like Justin, like Stephanie,
(07:26):
like Layla, and many others,and I'd love to have you join their
ranks and become a Patreonsupporter who shows their love for
this podcast by helping defraysome of the costs that go into making
this show and bringing it toyou on a bimonthly basis.
So head on over to my Patreonsite, which is www.patreon.com tridockpodcast
(07:50):
and see how you can contributeand get access to those bonus episodes.
I'd love to have you along forthe ride.
It's been a great journey so far.
There's a lot more great stuffto come.
As always, I thank you justfor considering and thanks for being
here.
(08:13):
I'm joined once again by myfriend and colleague, Juliette Hockman.
Juliet, how are you?
I am great.
How are you?
I'm doing fantastic, althoughI am just thawing out from a long
run in the frigid temperatures.
My goodness, February has beenvery cold here.
How's it going out in Hood River?
Has it been as chilly?
Not as cold as where you are,but definitely very wet.
(08:34):
We're going through all thepossibilities of moisture falling
from the sky in this day alone.
But I decided today I wouldget out and embrace winter rather
than bitch about it.
So I went out and skied for alittle while and I'm glad I did.
Oh, good for you.
Good for you.
I like to think about my ourfriend Kelly, who is down in Brisbane,
Australia right nowluxuriating in the final days of
(08:54):
summer.
And I always think about thistime of year when I'm hating February,
thinking about how ha hersummer's coming to an end and our
spring is going to be starting.
Yeah, she gets a badge.
She gets me back in September.
So anyways, if Juliet's hereand we're having our little.
(09:15):
Our what are we had tata tatsabout the weather, it must mean that
the medical mailbag is hereonce again for another segment, which
means that we are going tobring you another listener question.
And Juliet, what question dowe have?
Who's it coming from and whatwill we be discussing on this segment?
This question comes to us froma listener and life sport athlete
(09:35):
Alex Rademko.
Alex, thanks so much for beingcurious and sending this in.
Alex had been reading abouthydrogen enriched water and he wanted
to know what we had found outabout it.
Doing a quick Google searchbefore this episode.
It is all over the press.
Easy to learn about for sure.
But I know that Jeff and hisfine team have gone down the rabbit
(09:57):
hole on this one.
So what can you tell us abouthydrogen enriched water and its effect
on performance for endurance sports?
So the first thing I'll tellyou is that when Alex so Alex is
one of my athletes who I coach.
Alex is actually getting setfor his first ever 70.3 coming up
in just a couple of shortweeks in Campeche in Mexico.
So he is in the final bits ofhis training and he's been doing
(10:19):
amazing work.
So I think he's gonna have agood debut on the 70.3 circuit.
But when Alex reached out tome and asked me this question, my
immediate response was, you doknow that hydrogen is an integral
component of water.
In fact, there are two piecesof hydrogen in every molecule of
water.
I thought for sure he waspulling my leg.
(10:40):
But no, you astutely notedwhen you did the quick Google search,
I did the same and found out,oh, this is a thing.
Yep.
So I think carbonated water,but instead of using carbon dioxide,
you use hydrogen gas.
That's essentially whathydrogen rich water is.
Actually, the second thing Ithought of was when he said this
to me, I was like, what areyou talking?
(11:00):
Like heavy water where theyuse deuterium instead of.
No, not quite the same.
No, this is like hydrogen gasinfused water.
And I started going down therabbit hole like you said, and shout
out to Nina Takashima, who wasthe intern who helped me out with
the research on thisparticular episode.
And if you're wondering whoNina is, you should definitely pay
(11:22):
attention to the newsletterthat'll be coming out next week,
because the next newsletter,the supplement form of this podcast,
will come out on Friday andwe'll have a feature all about Nina.
So if you're not already asubscriber, I hope you'll become
one.
At any rate, Nina did someresearch and what we found out is
basically the history of thisis that hydrogen as a chemical is
(11:43):
a very good electron acceptor.
It reduces substances.
That's a fancy way of sayingit's a really good free radical scavenger.
So within living systems, aswe've talked about many times, when
we do a lot of exercise, whenwe are under stress from inflammation
or anything like that, we forma lot of chemicals in the form of
(12:06):
free radicals.
These are things that have anextra electron.
The most common one is oxygen.
It's called an oxygen, a superfree radical in the form of an oxygen
that's got this one littlefree electron that's sitting there.
And there are a lot of thingsthat will scavenge free radicals,
and hydrogen is just one of them.
Hydrogen just happens to be avery good acceptor.
(12:28):
And when hydrogen grabs ontoone of these oxygens with its extra
electron, it just forms water.
So it neutralizes that oxygenand forms substance that we all need
and detoxifies those freeradicals, but it can also detoxify
other free radicals as well.
So scientists began to look athydrogen and its reducing capacity
in the test tube world, in thelab, and they started to do experiments
(12:53):
on cell cultures, and theywanted to see how good hydrogen would
be at detoxifying differentkinds of problems, cancers, inflammatory
processes, things like that.
And lo and behold, in the labscenario, it works quite well.
Hydrogen actually does apretty good job of neutralizing all
of the different evil humorsthat are involved in various different
(13:15):
physiologic processes.
So the next step becomes whathappens if we give hydrogen to animals
and to people and how do we dothat and what will happen?
Unfortunately, as so oftenhappens when we try to translate
the lab work to work withinhumans, things don't always go in
a straight line.
(13:35):
And as a result, there arequite a few papers that we were able
to find.
And a lot of them areanecdotes, a lot of them are hinting
at possible beneficial effects.
But very few really goodstudies and very few really earth
shattering findings.
But let's dig in.
(13:56):
So the first of these is apaper that came out just last year.
It's called Hydrogen WaterHealth Benefits.
And this is, it's not really apaper, sorry.
This is more of an articlethat was on WebMD.
So like you said, Juliet,there are a zillion different things
out there online about this.
Hydrogen water is one of these.
(14:17):
Alkaline water was all therage a few years ago, I remember.
It seems to have beendisplaced by hydrogen water, which
kind of is the hydro.
So hydrogen ions contribute toacidity, but molecular hydrogen,
which is two hydrogen atomsbound to each other, do not contribute
to acidity.
So it's not really theopposite of alkaline water.
But anyways, okay.
(14:38):
This was an article thatlooked at a host of different studies
and summarized what was found.
And it turns out that hydrogenwaters, when it's been given to patients
with like liver cancer who areundergoing radiation therapy, comparing
that to people who gotplacebo, the people who got hydrogen
rich water seemed to haveimprovement when it came to the side
(15:01):
effects of their radiation therapy.
They reported a lot ofsubjective improvements, things like
decreased fatigue, decreasedhair loss, some of the skin problems
related to burns that you cansee with radiation were better.
And they said their nausea,headaches and soreness related to
their cancer also seemed to bea little bit improved.
This was a review article inthe lay press, so I don't really
(15:23):
have any true results, but Ican just tell you that was a 30,000
foot view.
And there were other studiesthat have been done and very small
studies that suggested thathydrogen rich water could improve
inflammatory state, it couldhelp with cholesterol.
There are even some studiesthat have suggested that the cytokine
storm that we see in sepsisrelated to Covid could be attenuated
(15:47):
using hydrogen.
So a lot of interesting ideasbut nothing fleshed out with good
science.
Another paper, and the titleof this paper will probably give
away a little bit about what'sgoing on here.
Hydrogen Extra healthy or a Hoax?
A systematic review.
This is a paper that looks atlike almost 600 articles that talks
(16:12):
about hydrogenated water orhydrogen rich water or all kinds
of different ways thathydrogen has been used and talks
about the various thingsincluding health benefits and exercise.
So one of the things thathydrogen has been suggested to help
with endurance performance isto attenuate fatigue and also especially
(16:32):
to help with post exercisesoreness and things like that because
it will scavenge all of thenegative things that you lactic acid
and all of the all of thechemicals that are produced when
you break down muscle from areally hard workout.
And some studies havesuggested most of the studies done
in this are by a particularindividual by the name of Botek.
(16:54):
Sounds like a Czech name.
Bowtech.
B O T E K Sounds like apharmaceutical company.
Yeah, it could be.
But anyways, this gentlemannamed Bowtech has done a lot of studies
on this.
He has found that hydrogenrich water seems to help with ventilatory
efficiency in cyclists.
He says that it reduces lacticacid buildup.
(17:16):
He has showed that it can helprunners in endurance, particularly
slow runners, if runners whohave really good fitness and runners
who already have really goodperformance don't seem to benefit
from hydrogen rich water.
Which is odd because he saysthat well trained cyclists do.
But his results stand outbecause most other researchers don't
(17:39):
seem to show the same thing.
At any rate, in this reviewpaper, one of the problems that this
review paper Hydrogen waterextra healthy or a Hoax pointed out
is that in many of thesestudies there's not any standardized
protocol about how muchhydrogen you should actually give.
(18:00):
And it's very hard to measurehow much hydrogen people are taking.
And so you'll see hydrogenlevels all over the place.
And the people who are gettingbenefit seem to not get the same
dose.
So let me explain what I meanby that.
So they're giving hydrogenrich water in a concentration of
about 2 parts per million inthe water and then they give the
(18:24):
same quantity of water.
So If I weighing 165 poundsdrank this amount of water with hydrogen
in it and then say my son Adamdrank the same amount of water and
then you test us both, wedidn't get the same dose and many
of these papers don't show adose response.
So that's one of the things, whenever.
(18:46):
And I've talked about this inother things that we've looked at.
Whenever you have an agent, achemical or a drug or whatever, and
you want to prove that thisdrug is doing something, you would
like to see the biologicalplausibility, which there is here
because we said it's a freeradical scavenger.
But you also want to see adose response that the more you give,
(19:07):
the more effect.
And most of these papers don'tshow that.
They.
They seem to be very scatteredin terms of their response.
Let's talk for a second.
Like, when we're talking abouthydrogen enriched water, I haven't
taken chemistry since ninth grade.
Are we talking like H3O?
What are we.
What are we talking?
Like, in one extra molecule ofhydrogen, you can get these hydrogen.
(19:30):
They make bombs out of hydrogen.
Things can blow up with hydrogen.
So what are we talking about here?
Hydrogen.
So water is H2O, which is twoatoms of hydrogen, one atom of oxygen.
Hydrogen enriched water isstill the same H2O, but now there's
hydrogen gas added.
And hydrogen gas is diatomichydrogen, which means it's H2.
(19:52):
So it's two atoms of hydrogenbound to each other.
And as I said before, when Isaid carbonated water.
So everybody's probablyfamiliar with the SodaStream device
that you can buy.
And when you buy theSodaStream device, you buy these
canisters that have dry iceinside of them that's basically solidified
carbon dioxide.
And when you liberate thatcarbon dioxide, it pressurizes your
(20:16):
water and it causes some ofthat carbon dioxide to dissolve in
the water.
And then when you open yourbottle of water, that carbon dioxide
starts to come out of solutionin the form of those little bubbles.
That.
That's why we get petiton aupetiton or bubbly water.
And all it is, it's justdissolved carbon dioxide in the water.
(20:38):
You can dissolve any gas inwater, but different gases will have
a different propensity to dissolve.
So when we dissolve nitrogenin a fluid in like water, like, that's
why, for example, most beershave carbon dioxide in them, but
Guinness has nitrogen.
And the bubbles in Guinnessare very small.
(20:59):
They're totally different.
And it's because it's nitrogengas instead of carbon dioxide.
When you do hydrogen gas, youdon't tend to get the bubbling quite
as much because hydrogendoesn't dissolve very well.
In order to get the bubbling,you have to dissolve a large amount
of the gas in the water.
And then when you release thepressure, then that gas comes out.
(21:19):
Of the solution and formsthese little bubbles.
But because hydrogen doesn'tdissolve in water terribly well,
then you can't get a hugesaturated amount of hydrogen in the
water.
And then therefore, when yourelease the pressure, you don't get
all this bubbling.
There are a couple ofdifferent ways to get hydrogen dissolved
in the water and you can buythese online.
(21:41):
There is a way to actuallypressurize it with gas, but that
obviously is very dangerousbecause we don't want to be sending
pressurized hydrogen canistersin the mail.
As you mentioned, that is abomb waiting to go off.
Anybody who wants to know whathappens when hydrogen gets lit, just
look at some vintage footageof the Hindenburg.
That's the most well known ofthe hydrogen gas explosions.
(22:05):
And the other way of doing itis to pass an electric current through
water.
And when you do that, it'scalled electrolysis.
And what that does is itcauses a reaction that breaks apart
the water molecules andliberates oxygen gas and hydrogen
gas.
So you can buy these bottleson the Internet.
They're very expensive.
(22:26):
Anywhere from like a hundred.
I think we saw 140.
I think.
Yeah, yeah, about 140 bucks.
But they go up to 300 bucks.
And you basically pour regularwater into this canister and then
you charge it with your USBand then you flip the switch and
you see the water starts bubbling.
And what's happening is it's,you're creating oxygen and hydrogen
(22:47):
in this bottle.
Because hydrogen doesn't tendto stay dissolved in the water.
You have to drink it rightaway because otherwise the hydrogen
is just going to evaporateright off and go away.
You're not going to.
You can't make this stuff andstore it.
It doesn't, it basically hasto be drunk pretty much right away.
The other thing is like you'reliberating pure oxygen and pure hydrogen
(23:11):
gas in this little bottle.
So don't light any matches.
I don't, I don't think it's alarge amount of gas.
Who knows?
I don't taking any chances.
Anyways, it's not inexpensive.
And we found a study thatlooked at swimmers.
This was a hydrogen rich water supplementation.
The title is misleading.
Promotes muscle recovery.
After two strenuous trainingexercises performed on the same day
(23:33):
in elite fin swimmers.
Randomized double blindplacebo controlled trial.
And basically what theysuggested was that using hydrogen
rich water seemed to promotesome muscle recovery in elite athletes.
But that was hard to reallyjustify based on what they actually
showed in their resultsbecause again, they did not have
(23:53):
a Good dose response.
So people were all over the place.
They also their recovery was alittle bit hard to measure.
It seemed to be measured, itseemed to be based on their ability
to repeat efforts.
But it, it was all over the place.
It was not the best study, butagain a hint that maybe hydrogen
(24:15):
water seems to do something.
Another one about hydrogenrich water to enhance exercise performance.
This one was a study thatcollected nine other studies and
basically across the board,all over the place, Some studies
that showed improvement insprint times, another study showing
no change at all.
I think one of the mostimportant findings here was there
(24:36):
was a study from 2022 whichsaid this study observed no significant
changes in race time, averagerace heart rate, rating of perceived
exertion immediately after therace in any athlete who used hydrogen
rich water.
And again, that's one study selected.
There are other studies inhere in which they found some results
that were positive.
(24:56):
A bunch of mix.
But I think hydrogen richwater now has been evaluated for
over a decade and it's one ofthese things where if there was anything
earth shattering, we wouldhave seen it.
And it's not, there's no majorsignal here.
There's a study about whyshould you be drinking this?
(25:16):
And the take home what ishydrogen rich water?
Why should you be drinking it?
This was by a freelance healthwriter on a running site and basically
her findings or herconclusions were there's really not
enough research to endorsespending money on hydrogen rich water.
And ultimately hydrogen richwater is very similar to alkaline
water in that it's probablynot going to hurt you, but it's also
(25:39):
probably not going to help.
And we've talked a lot aboutsupplements and about things when
we've talked in the past andit all boils down to this idea of
how much are you paying?
Are you going to get anypotential gains for what you're paying?
And a bottle of water, ifyou're buying bottled water, costs
about 60 cents a bottle.
Hydrogen rich water, when youfactor in all of the costs to make
(26:01):
it is somewhere about $2.50 to$3 a bottle.
It's pretty expensive for noobvious great benefits.
There's, as I said, very smallpotential signals of benefit here.
But certainly after more thana decade of a lot of different studies,
we haven't seen anything majorcome out yet.
And I think we've spent a lotof time, you and I, talking about
(26:25):
where we want to focus ourattention as athletes.
Do we want to go tiny littlepotential benefits or do we want
to instead invest in ourselvesand get more sleep and eat better
and focus on better trainingand quality.
And to me, this is anotherthing that, look, if you want to
use this, by all means, knockyourself out, but I just think you
(26:46):
could be spending your timeand effort on other things.
Right?
Yeah.
We've often talked about it'sso easy to look for the quick and
dirty silver bullet, but thoseare rare, let's just put it that
way.
There's a couple of thingsthat you found over the however many
years of this podcast.
In fact, we are going to dothat for the hundredth episode.
When is your 200th.
(27:07):
200Th.
200Th episode.
Yeah, this episode is 165, sowe got a little.
Wait till then.
Oh, okay.
All right.
But we will be doing that.
We'll be doing that for LifeSport.
Right.
We have a chalk talk coming upwhere I'll be talking about that.
So that'll be the intermediary.
But Juliet, you and I weretalking before we started recording
that.
I'm finding more and morethere's this gravitation to these
(27:28):
very kind of peripheral.
They're not reallypseudoscience because there is science
behind hydrogen and what itcan do.
But it's amazing how you getthis kernel of truth and this kernel
of scientific study and peoplejust run with it and take it to the
bank and make gobs and gobs ofcash off it because there are so
(27:50):
many people out there who arejust looking for answers and looking
for ways to improve their wellbeing and improve their life.
And I'm not sure why it is orwhat it is about this point in time
of where we are that makes usall so susceptible to this.
Social media definitely is oneof the ills that promote that I think
(28:12):
is to blame.
But as much as a civilization,we have gotten smarter because we've
got hundreds of years oflearning experience that we've built
on to get to where we are now.
Geez, we send people intospace, we do all of these things
and yet we still fall victimto latching onto stuff like this.
(28:35):
That doesn't really.
And I don't know.
Do you have any thoughts aboutwhy we're always looking at these
things?
I think that in general,people have less time than they used
to and so there's less time totrain, have less time to do the basics
and are looking for the quick fix.
And in everything, not just intraining, I think the social media,
I think that's correct.
(28:56):
Because I mean, look, ifyou're a professional triathlete
and you're looking for thatextra 1%.
You're looking for 5 watts, right?
Yeah.
And this is your whole job.
You might be really searchingaround the edges for this particular
training plan or this bikeposition in the wind tunnel or this
nutritional supplement that'llmake you feel better, et cetera.
(29:17):
But most age.
But I would argue, and I thinkyou would agree that the huge majority
of age groupers, the bestthing that we can do, and you're
an age grouper, I'm an agegrouper, so I'm not dissing age groupers.
We're age groupers.
The best thing that we can dois consistent training day in, day
out, year in, year out,building, building to get to the
(29:39):
performance goals that we'veset for ourselves.
And so that extra one degreein the wind tunnel that might cost
us $20,000 to ascertain is notgoing to make a whit of difference
for me when for me, if I couldjust run more consistently, that's
going to make a bigger difference.
Or for Joe over here, who ifhe picked up two minutes in transition
(30:01):
because he practices them,then that's going to be better than
that one want or whatever itis that you might find in the wind
tunnel.
So I think that we see thepros testing this and testing that,
and the pros have to have asocial media presence.
That's part of the deal.
It's part of their business.
And so they're talking aboutthis supplement or this position
or this product or whatever.
(30:22):
And of course age groupers aregoing to look at that and say, oh,
I'm going to try that, becauseLionel tries that or Paula tries
that or fill in the blank,whatever athlete it is.
I think that becauseinformation is more easily a spread
through social media and it's.
You're just, we're justscrolling through and seeing what
people are doing that peopleare more willing to try more different
(30:45):
types of things.
When as we started thisconversation, day by day, what we
really need to be doing isconsistent training day in, day out,
eating better, getting moresleep, taking care of our mental
health.
That's a theme that we've comeback to frequently.
This idea of the antelopeversus mice.
Right.
You could spend all youreffort chasing after a mouse, but
(31:06):
what you really need, what wereally need, because we are age groupers
who have not reached ourmaximum potential, we need to be
looking for the antelope.
If you get to the point wherethere are no more antelope, that's
when you focus on the mice.
Right.
So that's A theme we've comeback to over and over again.
And I think that is, that'simportant to restate.
But I think there's also this.
(31:28):
I think there's also thisthing, and I know you and I both
feel it because we're both inthe same age group.
And that is, as we've gottenolder, it's harder to recover, it's
harder to train at the sameintensity that we did not that long
ago.
We find we're getting injuredmore frequently, and we're always
looking.
And I think we fall victim tothis just like everybody else.
We're always looking forsomething to try and help us stay
(31:50):
healthy, to try and help us bemore resilient.
And the reality is there'sprobably no magic bullets.
There are a few things that wecan try.
I have tried this yearincorporating more stretching.
I know that's something thatyou're really big on.
I'm not doing it because Ithink it's going to make me more
(32:11):
injury free, because I knowthe research suggests it doesn't,
but I got to tell you, itmakes me feel a lot better in the
mornings.
I 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.
We do so many things, we haveso many things, demands on our time,
so many demands on us.
(32:33):
And if there's any possibleway to get a shortcut.
And that's really what mostsupplements are, right?
They're short, they're.
They're viewed.
We probably don't think ofthem that way, but that's what they
are.
It's.
We think by taking something,it's going to make us train, race
or recover better.
And that's why we take them.
And the reality is probablynot going to.
You also just said this reallyinteresting thing about.
(32:56):
So you and I are in the sameage group.
I think that most people knowwe're in the 55 to 59 or.
What is it, 50, 50.
That's it.
We don't have to narrow itdown anymore.
And I think that a lot ofathletes discover triathlon in middle
age, right?
And so at the beginning, theysee these phenomenal gains, right?
Their power numbers go up.
(33:17):
If they haven't come from abackground of running, they might
break PR, they might breaktheir 5k PR and their 10k and their
half marathon.
And it's really exciting.
They're swimming.
If they didn't grow up,swimming will get better and better.
Right?
And so that's really excitingthat here you are in your 40s and
your 50s and you're stillmaking these gains.
Right.
But there is a tipping point.
(33:40):
My fastest 5k ever, I was 50.
I am never seeing thosenumbers again.
Right.
But I only realized that thisyear I'm going out and doing these
fart lick runs and I'm lookingat the paces, I'm running and I'm
thinking, oh, my God, I amnever running this.
And that was only seven years ago.
Right.
And so I think that there is atipping point.
Until about two years ago, Icould ride with any woman in my area,
(34:03):
no problem.
And now I'm finding that I'mbeginning to slide down the other
side.
And I think that's hard.
And so we're trying to hold onto, as you say, we're.
It takes more to stay in the game.
It takes more stretching, ittakes more pt.
It takes more gosh, I was justout cross country skiing and I swear
to God, I fell in the snow andI couldn't get up.
It was deep snow.
But I finally reached out tomy friend, I said, you're gonna have
(34:23):
to pull me up.
I can't get up.
And so I do think you begin tofeel the deceleration of everything.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah.
But the other thing is, and Iknow we focused a lot on the athletes,
but.
Right.
My question is almost biggerthan that and I.
We're not gonna have time toanswer it here.
And I don't think there is an answer.
But it's not just athletesthat gravitate to stuff like hydrogen
(34:46):
rich water.
It's society in general.
It's all over the Internetbecause it's not just going to athletes
being marketed to everybody asa, as the latest and greatest panacea,
that's.
That will fix all that ails you.
And there's no evidence thatit's going to do anything except
set you back a couple ofhundred bucks for the bottle and
then who knows how much morefor whatever it is you need to keep
(35:10):
the bottle working.
And I don't know, I just.
But you and I compare notesall the time.
You'll have an athlete or I'llhave an athlete who tries or goes
and does something, eithertakes this supplement or goes for
this special treatment orwhatever it is.
And you and I share stories onthis and, and at the end of the day,
as long as no harm done, ifpeople want to go and do these and
(35:34):
it makes them feel better andit makes them feel like they're doing
something to preserve theirhealth or push off aging just a little
bit more or whatever it is.
Look, some people go and buy anew Jaguar.
Yeah.
Some people, yeah, I don't know.
Bide bling, whatever it is.
And so it, at the end of theday, people get to choose and your
(35:56):
job is just to say, okay, butit's probably not helping you.
Yeah, yeah.
And we're in.
We're about to start a stringof episodes where we're going to
be talking about these kindsof things.
I think that's why I'm attunedto it right now, because I've talked
to both of the interns aboutthe next couple of subjects and they're
both in this sort of realm.
So.
Okay, as you'll see as timecomes up, well, that is the conclusion
(36:19):
of another episode.
Thanks Alex, for sending inthat question.
And thank you to all thereaders who or readers, all the listeners
and readers of the newsletterwho have sent in questions for the
upcoming episodes.
If you have a question you'dlike us to answer on the Medical
Mailbag, there are numerousways that you could submit them.
Probably the easiest one is todrop me a line.
(36:40):
Send me anemail@tridocloud.com you could drop
it into the Facebook groupthat is set up specifically for listeners
of this podcast.
You can search for Tridocpodcast on Facebook.
Answer the three easy questions.
I'll grant you admittance.
You can join the conversationand ask your questions there and
hear it answered here on theMedical Mailbag on a segment in the
(37:00):
future.
Juliet, thanks so much forjoining me.
This is another good conversation.
I look forward to chattingwith you again on the next episode.
Thanks Jeff.
Have a great rest of your weekend.
Podcast is Trevor ConnorTrevor raced in the pro peloton for
(37:21):
nearly 20 years, getting onthe podium at some of the largest
races in North America.
He started his coaching careerworking with the National Development
Program at Pacific Sport in Canada.
From there, he coached theColorado State University cycling
team to number two in thecountry and worked with several semi
professional and amateur teamsthroughout Canada and the United
(37:41):
States.
From 2011 to 2020, he wrotethe monthly training articles for
Velo News magazine.
This is also where he firstbecame the co host of the popular
training podcast Fast Talk.
Trevor's Master's thesisadvisor was Dr.
Lauren Cordain, the originatorof the popular Paleo Diet, and Trevor
has been the CEO of the PaleoDiet since 2018.
(38:04):
He founded Fast TalkLaboratories in 2019, where he continues
the Fast Talk podcast thatfocuses on producing information
on Endurance sports trainingfor top coaches, physiologists, and
professional athletes fromaround the world.
And coincidentally, is where Igot to meet him about a couple years
ago.
Now, Trevor, welcome to thetridog Podcast.
(38:24):
It's a pleasure to finally getyou on the show here.
Thanks for getting me on the show.
And I gotta say, when you said20 years in the professional peloton,
boy, did you make me feel old.
Yeah, I know, right?
It's a.
Think about that.
When you.
When you look back on a longcareer, it's.
It's with a certain degree ofsatisfaction, but then also with
this knowledge that, oh, mygoodness, it's.
(38:46):
It's a lot of water under thebridge, right?
Oh, it is.
Well, I still won the last proraces I ever did.
I.
I had this kid yell at me, and I.
I had gotten in the habit ofwhen somebody yells at me, go.
Just saying, don't yell at me.
I've been racing since, youknow, since before you did your first
race and suddenly realized,oh, God, like, think of how many
(39:07):
years I've been doing this.
And just said to the kid,don't yell at me.
I've been doing this sincebefore you were born.
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
It really does catch up withyou quickly.
So tell us about how you gotyour stuff.
Where are you from in Canada,and how did you come to cycling?
So I'm originally fromToronto, and, yeah, I don't have
(39:29):
a particular.
There was this one incidentthat just made me realize I wanted
to get into cycling.
I've always ridden my bike.
I always loved doing it, andit was just one of those things of
slow progression where I triedmy 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, youknow, I want to go to Canadian Nationals.
(39:51):
And the first time I went toCanadian Nationals, I had a great
result.
And they had a little pamphletthere for the National Training Center.
So I just went, no, sure,let's apply.
They won't accept me.
And they did.
And then I had to make thedecision of, oh, do I want to completely
upend my life?
And said, you know, for acouple years, this would be fun.
So it was never fully planned out.
(40:13):
It just kind of progressed.
Had I planned it out, Iactually would have done it a little
differently.
And cycling was not a hugething in Canada.
I mean, I grew up a fan ofcycling only because of.
Gosh, I'm blanking on his name.
Steve.
Right, Steve.
Who.
Who raced in the France a few years.
Why can't I remember his last name?
Yeah.
And so whenever somebody askedme to remember a name, I instantly
(40:36):
forget.
It starts with a B.
It'll come to me in a second.
Yeah, we'll look it up andwe'll put it in at the end.
But, yeah, he was the firstCanadian cyclist of any renown that
I remember.
And that was what drew me intobeing interested in following cycling.
But it was not something thatwe really did growing up in Montreal.
(40:57):
We had.
Hockey was really the primarything, and.
And yet you found yourselfdoing it and really drawn to the
national kind of scene.
Was there much of a scene in Canada?
Yeah, actually was.
And so Steve Bauer just cameto me.
Sorry, I blanked too.
But I was actually really lucky.
(41:19):
When I was at the nationalcenter, we were in kind of a golden
age of Canadian cycling.
So I was there with Swain,Tough ryder Hesdal, Melanie McQuaid,
who, as you know, is, youknow, three time XTERRA World Champion
and could keep going with the names.
I mean, I was basically theperson at the back of the group,
(41:39):
just not saying a word becauseeverybody was three times stronger
than me.
But we had a really strongcontingent of Canadian cyclists who
were going over to Europe andperforming well.
So I was very lucky to be partof that group and to have them all
at the center in BritishColumbia at that time.
(42:00):
So tell us about your workwith FastDalk.
Let's transition to whatyou've been doing more recently.
And how did Fast Talk Labscome about and what has been kind,
because I've been reallyimpressed since I've come to know
about FastDoc and beeninvolved a little bit and really
watch its growth.
How did you come to begin thatcompany and.
And what has been the kind ofthe trajectory of it?
(42:22):
Yeah, so as you said, itstarted at Veloneus.
I was writing the coachingarticle for the magazine every month,
which I was loving.
It was a great opportunity.
And for what they were payingme, I was putting in five times more
work than I should havebecause it was just this great opportunity.
So I'd spend 15 hoursresearching every article and rewrite
(42:45):
it like 10 times before I'dsubmit it.
But I'd been doing that for afew years, and the one thing that
had really bothered me wasarticles had to be a thousand words.
And I never really felt like Icould cover the topic.
And I was working with acycling club up in Toronto and running
their.
Their morning trainer sessions.
(43:06):
And during the trainersessions, I would just sit there
and talk physiology and training.
And one of the athletes cameup to me and said, you should do
a podcast.
And I wasn't really into them,so I looked them up and just said,
hey, this is kind of a, a neatidea and it would be a way to dive
much deeper into thesesubjects than I thought.
So I went back to Vella News,said, hey, you know, what do you
(43:30):
think about doing a podcast?
And they said, oh, those aregoing nowhere.
Why would you ever want to doone of those?
So I said, would you let me doone through you?
I'll do all the work, I'll payfor it, everything.
Just let me put it out throughVeloneus and give me a co host.
And they were amenable to that.
So that's kind of how fasttalk started.
And for years it was justthrough VEL News and we were getting
(43:54):
a good listenership.
So they kind of went, oh,there is something to these podcasts.
But eventually it was goingwell enough that Chris Case, who
is my co host and I talkedabout and said, you know, we think
there's a business opportunity here.
So we, we went out on our ownand, and just explored this whole
idea of just getting goodscience about endurance sports training
(44:16):
out to as broad an audience aswe could.
And now almost like a fullfledged platform with coaching and
lots of discussion and greatarticles for athletes.
And it's just kind of evolvedin a very natural kind of way.
And, and I gather Chris hasreally come back and almost taken
(44:38):
it over as you've moved moreinto the paleo diet thing.
Well, I work with both.
I'm the one person who worksacross both companies, which means
I'm the one who's alwaystearing his hair out where everybody
else works with one company oranother and has a little more time
to focus on it.
Chris, his ability to put outgood content and to get it done quickly
(45:03):
is extraordinary.
There was a time at Velo Newswhere they a bit of a mass exodus.
And so for six months, Chriswas putting out a magazine every
month with just him, onewriter and a photographer.
So, you know, I knew when Iset this company up, I'm like, I
want to do this with Chris.
I've never seen somebodycapable of doing what he's doing
(45:26):
and he has been nothing but great.
And you know, he, he caresabout the quality of the content
and he gets a lot of goodcontent out there.
So, you know, I really trusthim to just say, chris, go find good
writers.
Let's get good stuff up there.
And I Know, it's going to be great.
Yeah.
It's so important to havesomeone like that that you can trust
and really let go with aproject like this.
(45:49):
You've been around the sportfor a long time.
I love asking people who havebeen in endurance, especially in
a niche sport like cycling, aslong as you have the question about
what kind of changes have youseen and.
And what are the things thatkind of resonate with you as being
most impactful as havingchanged cycling in the last 20 years?
(46:11):
Oh, boy.
No, there's a good question.
Are you talking about thehighest levels or just in general?
Well, I mean, you could thinkabout it in both ways, both for those
who are operating at the highlevel, but also for the average cyclist.
Yeah, I would say it's notgoing to be anything unexpected,
(46:34):
but I would say there's twosides to the coin.
It's the amount of detail, theamount of information we can collect,
the amount of analysis thatyou can do.
When I was getting into it,they were talking about, oh, wow,
the amount of data we have nowis incredible.
And all we had was heart rateand you had some training software,
(46:57):
but it wasn't very good.
And I'm sure you remember thedays when you were sitting there
with that little IR sensor,trying to pull the data off of your
heart rate sensor.
And I love going back andlooking at my data then and going,
I can't even see what's goingon in this ride.
There's so little information there.
So there was a lot of trainingby feel.
(47:18):
Now, the amount of analysisyou can do of your rides, the amount
that you can see during yourworkouts is just at whole nother
level.
And the one hand, you know, Ilove it.
I'm a data geek.
It's great to look at.
There's a lot of ways you canuse it for, for really good training.
On the other hand, I'm sureyou've talked about this a hundred
(47:38):
times.
There is that potential toreally get caught in the weeds and
lose the big picture.
And so it's finding thatbalance, I would say, is the big
challenge right now.
It is such an issue,especially with athletes who are
fairly new to the sport, wholove to get sucked in by all the
technology and willimmediately get consumed with all
of the different, not just thetoys that they can have, but also
(48:01):
what the toys are giving them.
And I know as someone who'sbeen doing my own podcast now for
the last six years, we'reconstantly reviewing different devices
and we're always keeping ourmind on this idea.
Okay, just because you canmeasure something, does that mean
you need, need to and how isthat going to really be helpful?
(48:23):
So when you think about thedifferent kinds of streams of data
that have become available,can you think of one or two that
really have stuck out as beingkind of really important and maybe
one or two that you sort ofmaybe think, you know what, I don't
need this.
Well, I think there's a tonthat are coming out where I go, I
(48:45):
don't need this, particularlybecause I think, think more and more.
You know, the, the lifechanging metrics are coming out every
six months that I don't thinkare fully tested.
They haven't done thescientific research on it and so
I'm always skeptical of it.
So you know, with me I stillreally look at the, the four primary
numbers, which is speed,cadence, power, heart rate.
(49:10):
And I think the, you, youknow, the software is letting you
do more and more with thosefour numbers.
But I haven't really seenanything that I look at and go, yeah,
this is a fifth that I'm goingto look at constantly.
I mean, every once in a whilelook at heart rate variability, things
like that, but it's using themin conjunction that I find really
(49:32):
valuable.
And you'll get a laugh out of this.
Going back to the old days, Iused to have a power sensor and had
a heart rate monitor andneither one could measure both.
So I used to have to everyride open up an Excel sheet, export
my data pulled into the Excelsheet and line them up so I could
see what was going on with myheart rate relative to power.
(49:52):
And I think that's a reallyimportant thing to look at because
power is an external metric.
It shows you basically howhard you're moving the bike, but
tells you nothing about what'sgoing on inside your body where heart
rate is an internal metric.
But saying I was riding at 160beats per minute doesn't tell you
(50:17):
were you going faster than everybody?
Were you going slower than everybody?
It's just an internal measureand I think it's really important
to have that external metricand that internal metric side by
side so you can get the wholepicture of what's going on with the
athlete.
And I've been finding more andmore ability to analyze those two
together.
But I think it's critical.
(50:39):
Well, take a step back.
About 10, 15 years ago therewas a kind of a movement saying heart
rate's outdated, stop lookingat that.
It's just power.
That's all we need.
I think that was a mistake.
And I'm glad to see us movingback to.
You really need both, and youneed to see them together.
Yeah, Yeah, I agree.
I think that the inter.
Interplay between the externaland internal.
(51:01):
I like the way you.
You put that.
Is really important.
I think that a lot of coachesand athletes will use RPE and power,
which is, I think, a fair.
Almost a fair substitution,but heart rate as sort of that check
on rpe, because sometimes youfeel great, but your heart rate's
telling you something a littlebit different.
(51:22):
And sometimes you don't feelso good, your heart rate's telling
you also something a little different.
So I think having those thingsinterplay together is really nice.
I agree with you.
When you look at the.
Sorry, go ahead.
So I was going to say youbrought up rpe.
So we just.
Literally, a couple days ago,we're talking with Dr.
Steven Seiler, and he'sgetting excited about respiratory
(51:44):
frequency and read someresearch, getting ready for that
conversation with him.
And the central governor inour brain that regulates our perception
of effort is the same one thatregulates breathing frequency.
So they're showing multipleresearch studies that breathing frequency
(52:04):
and RPE line up perfectly.
Yeah, I'm not surprised.
Yeah, I'm not surprised.
Right.
Because when you think aboutRPE and how RPE is often taught to
athletes, they often saythings like, are you able to hold
a conversation?
Are you able to speak in morethan one or two words at a time?
(52:24):
Because that gut refers backto respiratory rate.
So that's really interestingto see that somebody actually has
studied that and put that to paper.
So they're working right nowon devices to measure respiratory
rate.
So going back to that, Ihaven't really seen a new metric
that I'm excited about.
That's one I really want totry out.
(52:44):
Because reading the research,I think there is some potential there.
Yeah, that's fascinating.
When you look at the bikeitself, there's been so much technological
advancement in bicycles.
Now, granted, I think thatit's the athlete that drives the
true advances in terms of howfast you go and how much success
(53:06):
you have.
But let's face it, we all loveour bikes.
When we think about thetechnological advances in bicycles,
and there's been many.
I mean, electronic shifting,disc brakes, carbon wheels, on and
on it goes.
What are a couple of thingsthat you sort of look at from the
time that you were racing as apro to now that really sort of stand
out as things that you thinkare most impressive?
(53:29):
Oh, boy.
Are you asking the wrong Person.
My newest bike is from 2014.
I've never done electronic.
I do have one bike that hasdisc brakes, but I am the biggest
retro grouch you will ever meet.
Part of the.
Part of my explanation forthat is, you know, I still go to
races.
I still go to races where theyhave support, they have a vehicle
(53:51):
following that can get you anew wheel, things like that.
And so I don't want to be ondisc brakes because they will always
have a rim brake wheel inthose cars.
And I have to keep it simple.
When I go to a race, I do allmy own mechanic work.
I don't want a bike that I'mgoing to be up for six hours trying
(54:12):
to do repair work on.
So I look at it from a verydifferent perspective, and I talk
with mechanics who are at theTour de France and like, you have
no idea how difficult our lifehas gotten.
You know, we used to be able to.
To get a bike in shape for thenext day.
Used to take less than an hour.
Now it's hours per bike, andwe stay up all night.
(54:33):
And you can see they can'teven do a quick wheel swap.
So on the.
The cars at the Tour deFrance, they have to have a whole
bunch of spare bikes on theback of the car because they're just
going to give you a new bike.
So, you know, my answer tothat question is I think there's
some really neat advances.
You know, the electronicshifting is great.
The disc brakes are much quicker.
(54:55):
I personally think all theintegrated housing and integrated
top stems and all that sort ofstuff look nice, but I think they're
more aesthetic than any sortof performance gain.
But I'm always just concernedbecause most people can't now fix
their own bike.
If you're out on the road andyou have any sort of issue, you're
(55:17):
in trouble.
Yeah.
So.
And if you travel with yourbike, learning how to do all of it,
to be able to pack your bikeand then put it back together again
is a real.
It's a chore.
It's very daunting for a lotof people.
So I don't disagree with youon that.
There's nothing wrong withbeing retro.
Would you call it a retro grouch?
I love that.
I think that's pretty cool.
(55:38):
I am a giant retro grouch.
But, yeah, I had a friend whobought an $8,000 bike, and then he
was traveling to a race, andhe wanted to pack it up into his
bike bag, and because of theintegrated stem, he couldn't fold
it up.
He had to take it to his bikeshop and they had to use special
tools that you could get thehandlebars off.
And then the question is, whenI get there, what do I do?
(55:58):
Yeah, I want to shift gears alittle bit and ask your opinion.
There is always a discussiongoing on.
I think it reflects the angstamong triathletes about the health
and vitality of multi sport.
There's always this questionabout, oh my gosh, is triathlon on
the decline, things like that?
(56:18):
I don't know that cycling hasreally faced that.
I think cycling is in a reallygood kind of place right now with
the emergence of Tatte Picachaand of course Remco Venable and all
of the others who are out atthe front of these big races.
There are, however, someconcerns about the fact that cycling
(56:40):
is becoming harder to watch.
And as cycling becomes moreand more behind paywalls, it stands
to lose viewership.
And as it loses viewership,then you lose what a lot of sports
do when they go behind thosepaywalls, which is lose younger viewers.
And if you lose youngerviewers, then younger viewers will
take their sports attentionelsewhere and not necessarily get
(57:02):
into cycling.
Do you have any concerns thatthat's a valid thing to be worried
about?
I mean, is cycling potentiallycutting its nose off despite its
face because it's so in thepursuit of profit?
You know, that's a really goodquestion and I hadn't thought about
it from that perspective.
I also, you know, I'm beingvery regional here.
(57:23):
I think it is doing very wellover in Europe.
North American cycling hasbeen on a big decline and is at the
lowest I've seen it my entire time.
It is a struggle.
And you saw about, say 10, 15years ago now race organizers getting
(57:44):
out of races because they werehaving a hard time getting sponsorship.
And it's because sponsorswould say, why do I want to sponsor
this race?
We're not getting TV ev time.
We're not getting exposure to,except to anybody who's just there
at the race.
And as soon as the sponsorspulled out and race organizers said,
we can't put races togetheranymore, that's when you start to
see the decline of NorthAmerican cycling.
(58:06):
So, yeah, I would be concernedthat you would end up having the
same issue over in Europe.
They might initially make alot of money off of putting it all
behind paywalls, but they gotto be real careful of sponsors saying,
you know what, we're notgetting the exposure we want anymore.
We're going to look to otherSports where we can still get exposure
(58:27):
if it goes that route.
Yeah, that's what happened here.
And they're going to be in bigtrouble if that happens.
Yeah.
The other, the other thingthat always worries me about cycling's
popularity in North America isjust the threat against cyclists,
the continued animositytowards cyclists who just want to
be outside riding on theroads, that I think drivers.
(58:51):
What's always lost in theconversation is that cyclists are
drivers, too, 99.9% of thetime, and pay for those roads and
want to just make use of thoseroads in a means to either commute
or get fit or train for something.
And yet there is just thisovert hostility and literally, as
(59:13):
we've seen in the last coupleof years, drivers who will, on purpose,
purposefully hit cyclists outof some.
I have no idea what'smotivating it, but that also concerns
me a great deal.
And I don't see any movementin that dialogue, despite groups
(59:33):
like.
It could be me and variousother organizations who are trying
to shift that dialogue.
But I don't see it changing.
And I wonder if you or yourcolleagues at Fast Talk have thought
about it or talked about itand have any ideas of how to make
this be more of a friendlyenvironment for cyclists.
(59:56):
I heard a real soberingthought from somebody who knows a
lot about this, who saidbasically 2 to 3% of drivers, if
they could hit you, kill youand get away with it, they would
do it.
Yeah, that is definitely sobering.
It is a sobering thought.
But it's an important thing torealize when we are out on the road.
(01:00:18):
One thing we're never going tochange is there are going to be drivers
that just don't want us on theroad, and it doesn't matter what
we do.
They hate having us there.
They're going to honk at us.
I'm sure you've been smoked,which is when a diesel truck passes
you, they shift down a gearand push out all this smoke that
(01:00:38):
goes right in your face, andit's awful.
And they do that just becausethey don't like the cyclists out
there.
That's.
I, I don't think that's evergoing to change.
The most promising thing I, I've.
I've heard of recently.
I'm sorry, I.
I think it's spoke.
Safety is the name of the company.
You know Dr.
(01:00:59):
Andy Pruitt.
Yeah.
He is working with thiscompany that is now working with
many of the car manufacturersand many of the bike computer manufacturers
like Garmin, where they arecreating an interface where cars
and bike computers can communicate.
(01:01:19):
So, quite literally, if youhave a Garmin on your computer, on
your handlebar, and a car iscoming up on you and the car doesn't
see you, the Garmin and thecar will communicate and the car
will take control and swervethe car away from the cyclist.
And car manufacturers areexcited about this.
(01:01:42):
They're getting on board.
So I would actually say I'mnot sure we're ever going to get
a lot of car drivers to stophating us, but I think something
like this and seeing thisbecome something that's required
is going to save a lot of lives.
And, you know, Andy keepsgiving me updates and it's really
exciting what they're doing.
Yeah, that is exciting.
And that would be potentiallyreally interesting technology.
(01:02:05):
I mean, we have the radarwhich warns the cyclist but does
nothing to tell the car.
And to have something thatgoes both ways would be fantastic.
So we've seen there ispedestrian avoidance available on
some of the newer cars, socyclist avoidance would be nice,
too.
Following up on that and acompletely different technological
(01:02:28):
question, you and I think itwas you and I.
I know Griffin for sure, and Ihave chatted about this.
And that is the impact thatartificial intelligence, or AI, is
having on endurance athletesand coaches specifically.
I know in triathlon, AI ishaving a pretty big impact in displacing
coaches.
There's one big company thatsounds a lot like what I call myself,
(01:02:53):
and they have unfortunatelykind of sucked up, hoovered up a
lot of the athletes and arereally causing a lot of problems
for independent coaches.
Do you see this as a positivething, not necessarily running coaches
out of business, but theemergence of AI in coaching as a
(01:03:13):
positive thing?
Or is this something that weshould all be thinking, maybe pump
the brakes a little bit?
Well, I've got to first say Ihave a bias.
I think coaches are great.
I think it's great workingwith a coach, so I'm always going
to support the coach.
So just know my bias is alittle towards the coaches here.
Yeah.
And it's quite possible atsome point that the AI is going to
(01:03:35):
do just as good, if notbetter, a job than the coaches.
And I'll still be yelling andscreaming, hire a coach.
You know, I have that bias.
But I think my answer to thatquestion right now.
I read this really interestingstudy where they had computer software
create a training plan for anathlete, and then they had somebody
(01:03:58):
from the British CyclingFederation, one of their top coaches,
also create a plan for anathlete, and then they compared which
plan was better and basicallysaid the AI plan was better.
And I've heard proponents ofAI cite the study again and again
and again.
So I went and read it and whatthey did was they just took the two
(01:04:20):
plans, put them into sometraining software and determined,
figured out which one had abetter mix of ctl, TSB and atl, which
is a hypothetical.
But my point is that's great.
But I guarantee you withinthree days the athlete's going to
be off plan.
And how good is the AIsoftware going to be at talking to
(01:04:40):
the athlete, encouraging themto go out and do their training and
everything else?
I don't think.
I think the plan is a verysmall part of coaching.
I think the most importantpart of coaching is the interaction
and dynamic between the coachand the athlete.
And I don't think AI is there yet.
Yeah, yeah, that's something Ihave said as well.
(01:05:02):
The intangibles that anindividual, the human intelligence
brings to coaching.
Right.
In the time that we have left.
Trevor, tell us a little bitabout the Paleo diet and how you
came to be the CEO of thatcompany and what it is exactly that
you're doing there.
So I'll try to give you theshort version here.
So I ended up towards the endof my cycling career going to Colorado
(01:05:26):
State University because Ireally wanted to study exercise science
and nutrition.
And I came from a traditionalsports nutrition background and it
was a requirement when I wasthere that I took Dr.
Cordain's course.
And I will tell you, havingstudied traditional sports nutrition,
the course just infuriated me.
I thought he was dead wrongand I couldn't believe the things
(01:05:47):
he was saying.
I was actually so frustrated,I spent the summer after the course
trying to prove him wrong.
And as I read the research, inmy efforts to prove him wrong, I
just kind of went, wow, thisactually kind of makes sense.
I really couldn't find majorholes and without really even knowing
(01:06:07):
it, I just slowly moved to thePaleo diet.
And I was 38, 39 at the time.
I had given up on cycling,cycling at the highest levels just
because I was struggling.
I was getting sick all the time.
I was having issues.
And that winter I had one ofmy best winters ever.
Didn't get sick.
Even though I was a full timestudent with a coaching business,
(01:06:29):
I could train really hard.
Went to Canadian nationals onmy 39th, 9th birthday and missed
third place by a wheel length.
I was broken away almost theentire refer good hour of the race
in third place and they caughtme on the line.
But still, you know, at 39, Iwas pretty happy with that.
And the next year, at the ageof 40, I went back and raced a a
(01:06:53):
full season in the pro pelotonand at one point had myself top 10.
And that was all the diet andjust completely convinced me there
was something to this.
So reached out to Dr.
Cordain, said, you know, I'dlove to be your graduate student.
So I became his final adviseeand just kept working with him after
(01:07:15):
I graduated.
And in 2019, he decided toretire and he handed me the business.
Wow, that's fantastic.
And now the business isproducing cookbooks, I understand,
as well as different foodstoo, is that correct?
We're doing a whole mix of things.
I'll admit to you that thebiggest struggle here is figuring
(01:07:36):
out a business model for it,because we're really just trying
to help people eat healthier.
And one of the things we'reactually fighting is there are a
lot of people that got intothe Paleo movement going, oh, make
a ton of money, because thisis really popular.
And the discovery Paleo dietsbasically just go to your local farmer's
market and just buy fresh food.
(01:07:57):
There is nothing to sell,which we see as well.
And so we're really justtrying to get people back towards
more natural foods, eatingwhole foods that are nutrient dense.
And as I said, there reallyisn't a product to sell.
So it's mostly just advocacyfor healthy eating.
(01:08:18):
Well, you won't get anargument over here.
I think that's great andthat's important work you're doing.
Well, Trevor, I can't thankyou enough for joining me for a really
interesting conversation.
I think it was pretty wide ranging.
We covered a lot of topics inthe short time that you had here
with me, and I reallyappreciate you taking the time.
I look forward to myappearance on Fast Talk Labs, which
(01:08:39):
will be coming up about sixweeks from now.
So I am looking forwardforward to that.
And until we speak again,thank you so much again for joining
me on the TRADAR podcast today.
Well, it was a real pleasureand, yeah, excited to get you on
the show.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
What's up, everybody?
(01:09:00):
My name is Joe Wilson and I'ma proud supporter of the TR Podcast.
The Tridar Podcast is producedand edited by Jeff Sanov, one of
my good friends, along withhis amazing interns, Cosette Rhodes
and Nina Takashima.
You can find the show notesfor everything discussed on the show
today, as well as the archivesof previous episode@www.tridog podcast.com
(01:09:22):
do you have any questionsabout any of the issues discussed
on this episode or do you havea question for consideration to be
answered on a future episode?
Send Jeff an email@trydoctrial.com if you are interested in
coaching services, you shouldreally reach out to jeff@tridocoaching.com
or lifesportcoaching.com whereyou can find a lot of information
(01:09:45):
about Jeff and the servicesthat he provides.
You can also follow Jeff onthe Tridog Podcast Facebook page,
Tridog Coaching on Instagramand the TriDarch YouTube channel.
And don't forget to join theTridarch Podcast private Facebook
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Search for it and request tojoin today.
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(01:10:08):
the show whenever you download it.
And of course there's alwaysthe option of becoming a supporter@patreon.com
drydockpodcast the music heardat the beginning and the end of the
show is radio by empty hoursand is used with permission.
This song and many others likeit can be found found at www.reverbnation.com
(01:10:29):
where I hope that you willvisit and give a small independent
fans a chance.
The Tridark Podcast Be backsoon with another medical question
and answer in anotherinterview with someone in the world
of multisport.
Until then, train hard, train healthy.
Now the amount of analysis youcan do of your rides, the amount
that you can see during yourworkouts is just at a whole nother
level.
And the one hand, you know, Ilove it.
I'm a data geek.
It's great to look at.
There's a lot of ways you canuse it for, for really good training.
On the other hand, I'm sureyou've talked about this a hundred
(00:20):
times.
There is that potential toreally get caught in the weeds and
lose the big picture.
And so it's finding thatbalance, I would say is the big challenge
right now.
Hello and welcome once againto the Tridock Podcast.
This is the February 21, 2025episode and I'm your host Jeff Sankoff,
(00:44):
the tridoc an emergencyphysician, triathlon coach and multiple
Ironman finisher.
Coming to you as always frombeautiful sunny Denver, Colorado.
The voice you heard at the topof the program was that of my guest
this episode, Trevor Connor.
Trevor is the CEO of the PaleoDiet and the co founder and CEO of
(01:05):
Fast Talk Labs.
He's also the co host of thevery popular Fast Talk podcast as
put out by that group.
And he joins me to chat abouthis long career in cycling and how
he sees the future ofendurance sport, particularly cycling,
evolving, as well as what liesin store for Fast Talk Labs.
And that's coming up in just alittle while.
Before we get to thatconversation, Coach Juliet Hockman
(01:28):
is going to join me to answeryet another listener question on
the Medical Mailbag.
This time around we are goingto be examining the science behind
the claims being made tosuggest that hydrogen rich water
can cure pretty much all thatails you and improve your exercise
performance as well.
We're gonna find out if addingthis gas is really all its proponents
(01:50):
would have you believe, or isit just more hot air?
We'll give you our take.
Before all of that, I wantedto take a moment to chat briefly
about the recently releasedUSA Triathlon Report on 2024, the
year in Review.
The review that was put out byUSAT recently begins with a high
level overview of Americanathletes successes on the global
(02:12):
stage.
At the elite level, While ofcourse there were hopes for individual
medals in triathlon at theOlympics in Paris, that did not come
to pass, but the success ofthe mixed relay team and of several
para triathletes at theParalympic were rightly highlighted.
For me though, the mostinteresting and important parts of
the report related more toexpanding membership and participation
(02:35):
than they did to the successesof elite athletes like Taylor Knipp
and her confreres.
USA Triathlon membership grewto 302,000 in 2024 and this marks
a 1.6% increase from 2023.
The average participation perevent also reached an all time high
with 354 participants per 120per race.
(03:00):
Although total participationslightly declined from 287,000 in
2023 to over 280,000 in 2024,these numbers still reflect the highest
engagement with triathlonsince pre Covid times.
Grassroots racing experiencedsignificant growth with over 3,600
(03:22):
races held across 1,034 events nationwide.
Shorter distance races anddiverse multisport formats including
Aquathon and Duathloncontributed to this expansion.
With the continuousconversation ongoing about the imminent
demise of our sport, thisreport to me demonstrates more than
(03:42):
just a glimmer of hope thatmuch of the consternation about the
health of triathlon is maybe,maybe just a little bit overblown.
Yes, there are certainly stillthreats to triathlon and the long
term health is anything butcompletely assured.
But seeing stability and evengrowth in membership numbers as reported
by usat, especially whenseeing growth of smaller local events
(04:06):
and participation andinvestment in youth, all of those
things give me a lot of reasonfor optimism.
When you add to that therecent announcement of sellouts at
large Ironman branded eventsincluding Oceanside and Chattanooga
70.3 and the Ironman in Texas,I can't help but think that we are
on a sure footing than maybewe have been for a little while.
(04:28):
Of course, time will tell.
What do you think?
I hope that you'll leave acomment in the private Facebook group
and join the conversationabout this specific topic there.
Do you think triathlon isstill in danger?
Is this a sport in decline orhave we reached sort of an equilibrium
of types or maybe even aperiod of growth?
If you're not a member of theFacebook group, please do search
(04:49):
for the podcast on that platform.
Answer the three very easyquestions and I will grant you admittance
so that you can comment andask questions that you might want
to have answered on theMedical Mailbag before we get to
the Medical Mailbag for thisepisode, I want to ask once again
that if you haven't alreadydone so, please consider leaving
a rating and a review whereveryou download this content.
(05:10):
It is so incredibly helpful tomaking this podcast more visible
among the veritable forest ofTriathlon related shows and it can
really, really help othersfind the show.
Recently a few people didleave reviews on Apple Apple podcasts
and I want to give them ashout out.
Try hard Ron in Pueblo wrote.
Thank you for all of theresearch based information and insight.
(05:34):
I don't miss a week and lovelistening when doing my workouts.
You are entertaining,informative and make me feel smarter
about my training.
AJ Thrifty and these areobviously Apple usernames that people
have entered.
I don't know what their actualnames are otherwise I would give
them a call out.
AJ Thrifty wrote, Dr.
Jeff presents a balanced andfair view of what training and supplemental
(05:56):
modalities can help or harm triathletes.
This is a fantastic resourcefor anyone just starting their triathlon
journey to experienced vetsand finally, an anonymous listener
wrote On Apple Podcasts, Jeffhas done a tremendous job of putting
together episode after episodeof legit science based content to
help endurance athletes betheir best without being suckered
into marketing hype onsupplements and gimmicks.
(06:18):
His guest interviews are alsoexcellent and focused on triathlon.
Thank you to all of those ofyou who have contributed reviews
like that.
I am eternally grateful for them.
If you want to give specificfeedback that is perhaps negative
in a way, and maybe you wantto give some constructive criticisms,
please don't be shy.
Reach out to me@tridocloud.comI am always looking for ways to improve
(06:43):
the program and my listenersare the best source of that kind
of feedback.
Hey there podcast listeners.
Are you a fan of the show?
Well, of course you are.
You're here, right?
But are you the kind of fanwho'd like to get even more try talk
podcasts coming your way inthe form of your own private feed
with bonus episodes that comeout about every month or so?
Well, you can do that.
(07:04):
And you've heard me say howfor about the price of a cup of coffee
per month, you could become aPatreon supporter that gets you access
to those bonus episodes.
And if you subscribe at the$10 per month level, you get a thank
you gift in the form of thispretty cool BOCO Tridock Podcast
Running Hat.
I'd love to have you along.
So many other listeners havejoined like Justin, like Stephanie,
(07:26):
like Layla, and many others,and I'd love to have you join their
ranks and become a Patreonsupporter who shows their love for
this podcast by helping defraysome of the costs that go into making
this show and bringing it toyou on a bimonthly basis.
So head on over to my Patreonsite, which is www.patreon.com tridockpodcast
(07:50):
and see how you can contributeand get access to those bonus episodes.
I'd love to have you along forthe ride.
It's been a great journey so far.
There's a lot more great stuffto come.
As always, I thank you justfor considering and thanks for being
here.
(08:13):
I'm joined once again by myfriend and colleague, Juliette Hockman.
Juliet, how are you?
I am great.
How are you?
I'm doing fantastic, althoughI am just thawing out from a long
run in the frigid temperatures.
My goodness, February has beenvery cold here.
How's it going out in Hood River?
Has it been as chilly?
Not as cold as where you are,but definitely very wet.
(08:34):
We're going through all thepossibilities of moisture falling
from the sky in this day alone.
But I decided today I wouldget out and embrace winter rather
than bitch about it.
So I went out and skied for alittle while and I'm glad I did.
Oh, good for you.
Good for you.
I like to think about my ourfriend Kelly, who is down in Brisbane,
Australia right nowluxuriating in the final days of
(08:54):
summer.
And I always think about thistime of year when I'm hating February,
thinking about how ha hersummer's coming to an end and our
spring is going to be starting.
Yeah, she gets a badge.
She gets me back in September.
So anyways, if Juliet's hereand we're having our little.
(09:15):
Our what are we had tata tatsabout the weather, it must mean that
the medical mailbag is hereonce again for another segment, which
means that we are going tobring you another listener question.
And Juliet, what question dowe have?
Who's it coming from and whatwill we be discussing on this segment?
This question comes to us froma listener and life sport athlete
(09:35):
Alex Rademko.
Alex, thanks so much for beingcurious and sending this in.
Alex had been reading abouthydrogen enriched water and he wanted
to know what we had found outabout it.
Doing a quick Google searchbefore this episode.
It is all over the press.
Easy to learn about for sure.
But I know that Jeff and hisfine team have gone down the rabbit
(09:57):
hole on this one.
So what can you tell us abouthydrogen enriched water and its effect
on performance for endurance sports?
So the first thing I'll tellyou is that when Alex so Alex is
one of my athletes who I coach.
Alex is actually getting setfor his first ever 70.3 coming up
in just a couple of shortweeks in Campeche in Mexico.
So he is in the final bits ofhis training and he's been doing
(10:19):
amazing work.
So I think he's gonna have agood debut on the 70.3 circuit.
But when Alex reached out tome and asked me this question, my
immediate response was, you doknow that hydrogen is an integral
component of water.
In fact, there are two piecesof hydrogen in every molecule of
water.
I thought for sure he waspulling my leg.
(10:40):
But no, you astutely notedwhen you did the quick Google search,
I did the same and found out,oh, this is a thing.
Yep.
So I think carbonated water,but instead of using carbon dioxide,
you use hydrogen gas.
That's essentially whathydrogen rich water is.
Actually, the second thing Ithought of was when he said this
to me, I was like, what areyou talking?
(11:00):
Like heavy water where theyuse deuterium instead of.
No, not quite the same.
No, this is like hydrogen gasinfused water.
And I started going down therabbit hole like you said, and shout
out to Nina Takashima, who wasthe intern who helped me out with
the research on thisparticular episode.
And if you're wondering whoNina is, you should definitely pay
(11:22):
attention to the newsletterthat'll be coming out next week,
because the next newsletter,the supplement form of this podcast,
will come out on Friday andwe'll have a feature all about Nina.
So if you're not already asubscriber, I hope you'll become
one.
At any rate, Nina did someresearch and what we found out is
basically the history of thisis that hydrogen as a chemical is
(11:43):
a very good electron acceptor.
It reduces substances.
That's a fancy way of sayingit's a really good free radical scavenger.
So within living systems, aswe've talked about many times, when
we do a lot of exercise, whenwe are under stress from inflammation
or anything like that, we forma lot of chemicals in the form of
(12:06):
free radicals.
These are things that have anextra electron.
The most common one is oxygen.
It's called an oxygen, a superfree radical in the form of an oxygen
that's got this one littlefree electron that's sitting there.
And there are a lot of thingsthat will scavenge free radicals,
and hydrogen is just one of them.
Hydrogen just happens to be avery good acceptor.
(12:28):
And when hydrogen grabs ontoone of these oxygens with its extra
electron, it just forms water.
So it neutralizes that oxygenand forms substance that we all need
and detoxifies those freeradicals, but it can also detoxify
other free radicals as well.
So scientists began to look athydrogen and its reducing capacity
in the test tube world, in thelab, and they started to do experiments
(12:53):
on cell cultures, and theywanted to see how good hydrogen would
be at detoxifying differentkinds of problems, cancers, inflammatory
processes, things like that.
And lo and behold, in the labscenario, it works quite well.
Hydrogen actually does apretty good job of neutralizing all
of the different evil humorsthat are involved in various different
(13:15):
physiologic processes.
So the next step becomes whathappens if we give hydrogen to animals
and to people and how do we dothat and what will happen?
Unfortunately, as so oftenhappens when we try to translate
the lab work to work withinhumans, things don't always go in
a straight line.
(13:35):
And as a result, there arequite a few papers that we were able
to find.
And a lot of them areanecdotes, a lot of them are hinting
at possible beneficial effects.
But very few really goodstudies and very few really earth
shattering findings.
But let's dig in.
(13:56):
So the first of these is apaper that came out just last year.
It's called Hydrogen WaterHealth Benefits.
And this is, it's not really apaper, sorry.
This is more of an articlethat was on WebMD.
So like you said, Juliet,there are a zillion different things
out there online about this.
Hydrogen water is one of these.
(14:17):
Alkaline water was all therage a few years ago, I remember.
It seems to have beendisplaced by hydrogen water, which
kind of is the hydro.
So hydrogen ions contribute toacidity, but molecular hydrogen,
which is two hydrogen atomsbound to each other, do not contribute
to acidity.
So it's not really theopposite of alkaline water.
But anyways, okay.
(14:38):
This was an article thatlooked at a host of different studies
and summarized what was found.
And it turns out that hydrogenwaters, when it's been given to patients
with like liver cancer who areundergoing radiation therapy, comparing
that to people who gotplacebo, the people who got hydrogen
rich water seemed to haveimprovement when it came to the side
(15:01):
effects of their radiation therapy.
They reported a lot ofsubjective improvements, things like
decreased fatigue, decreasedhair loss, some of the skin problems
related to burns that you cansee with radiation were better.
And they said their nausea,headaches and soreness related to
their cancer also seemed to bea little bit improved.
This was a review article inthe lay press, so I don't really
(15:23):
have any true results, but Ican just tell you that was a 30,000
foot view.
And there were other studiesthat have been done and very small
studies that suggested thathydrogen rich water could improve
inflammatory state, it couldhelp with cholesterol.
There are even some studiesthat have suggested that the cytokine
storm that we see in sepsisrelated to Covid could be attenuated
(15:47):
using hydrogen.
So a lot of interesting ideasbut nothing fleshed out with good
science.
Another paper, and the titleof this paper will probably give
away a little bit about what'sgoing on here.
Hydrogen Extra healthy or a Hoax?
A systematic review.
This is a paper that looks atlike almost 600 articles that talks
(16:12):
about hydrogenated water orhydrogen rich water or all kinds
of different ways thathydrogen has been used and talks
about the various thingsincluding health benefits and exercise.
So one of the things thathydrogen has been suggested to help
with endurance performance isto attenuate fatigue and also especially
(16:32):
to help with post exercisesoreness and things like that because
it will scavenge all of thenegative things that you lactic acid
and all of the all of thechemicals that are produced when
you break down muscle from areally hard workout.
And some studies havesuggested most of the studies done
in this are by a particularindividual by the name of Botek.
(16:54):
Sounds like a Czech name.
Bowtech.
B O T E K Sounds like apharmaceutical company.
Yeah, it could be.
But anyways, this gentlemannamed Bowtech has done a lot of studies
on this.
He has found that hydrogenrich water seems to help with ventilatory
efficiency in cyclists.
He says that it reduces lacticacid buildup.
(17:16):
He has showed that it can helprunners in endurance, particularly
slow runners, if runners whohave really good fitness and runners
who already have really goodperformance don't seem to benefit
from hydrogen rich water.
Which is odd because he saysthat well trained cyclists do.
But his results stand outbecause most other researchers don't
(17:39):
seem to show the same thing.
At any rate, in this reviewpaper, one of the problems that this
review paper Hydrogen waterextra healthy or a Hoax pointed out
is that in many of thesestudies there's not any standardized
protocol about how muchhydrogen you should actually give.
(18:00):
And it's very hard to measurehow much hydrogen people are taking.
And so you'll see hydrogenlevels all over the place.
And the people who are gettingbenefit seem to not get the same
dose.
So let me explain what I meanby that.
So they're giving hydrogenrich water in a concentration of
about 2 parts per million inthe water and then they give the
(18:24):
same quantity of water.
So If I weighing 165 poundsdrank this amount of water with hydrogen
in it and then say my son Adamdrank the same amount of water and
then you test us both, wedidn't get the same dose and many
of these papers don't show adose response.
So that's one of the things, whenever.
(18:46):
And I've talked about this inother things that we've looked at.
Whenever you have an agent, achemical or a drug or whatever, and
you want to prove that thisdrug is doing something, you would
like to see the biologicalplausibility, which there is here
because we said it's a freeradical scavenger.
But you also want to see adose response that the more you give,
(19:07):
the more effect.
And most of these papers don'tshow that.
They.
They seem to be very scatteredin terms of their response.
Let's talk for a second.
Like, when we're talking abouthydrogen enriched water, I haven't
taken chemistry since ninth grade.
Are we talking like H3O?
What are we.
What are we talking?
Like, in one extra molecule ofhydrogen, you can get these hydrogen.
(19:30):
They make bombs out of hydrogen.
Things can blow up with hydrogen.
So what are we talking about here?
Hydrogen.
So water is H2O, which is twoatoms of hydrogen, one atom of oxygen.
Hydrogen enriched water isstill the same H2O, but now there's
hydrogen gas added.
And hydrogen gas is diatomichydrogen, which means it's H2.
(19:52):
So it's two atoms of hydrogenbound to each other.
And as I said before, when Isaid carbonated water.
So everybody's probablyfamiliar with the SodaStream device
that you can buy.
And when you buy theSodaStream device, you buy these
canisters that have dry iceinside of them that's basically solidified
carbon dioxide.
And when you liberate thatcarbon dioxide, it pressurizes your
(20:16):
water and it causes some ofthat carbon dioxide to dissolve in
the water.
And then when you open yourbottle of water, that carbon dioxide
starts to come out of solutionin the form of those little bubbles.
That.
That's why we get petiton aupetiton or bubbly water.
And all it is, it's justdissolved carbon dioxide in the water.
(20:38):
You can dissolve any gas inwater, but different gases will have
a different propensity to dissolve.
So when we dissolve nitrogenin a fluid in like water, like, that's
why, for example, most beershave carbon dioxide in them, but
Guinness has nitrogen.
And the bubbles in Guinnessare very small.
(20:59):
They're totally different.
And it's because it's nitrogengas instead of carbon dioxide.
When you do hydrogen gas, youdon't tend to get the bubbling quite
as much because hydrogendoesn't dissolve very well.
In order to get the bubbling,you have to dissolve a large amount
of the gas in the water.
And then when you release thepressure, then that gas comes out.
(21:19):
Of the solution and formsthese little bubbles.
But because hydrogen doesn'tdissolve in water terribly well,
then you can't get a hugesaturated amount of hydrogen in the
water.
And then therefore, when yourelease the pressure, you don't get
all this bubbling.
There are a couple ofdifferent ways to get hydrogen dissolved
in the water and you can buythese online.
(21:41):
There is a way to actuallypressurize it with gas, but that
obviously is very dangerousbecause we don't want to be sending
pressurized hydrogen canistersin the mail.
As you mentioned, that is abomb waiting to go off.
Anybody who wants to know whathappens when hydrogen gets lit, just
look at some vintage footageof the Hindenburg.
That's the most well known ofthe hydrogen gas explosions.
(22:05):
And the other way of doing itis to pass an electric current through
water.
And when you do that, it'scalled electrolysis.
And what that does is itcauses a reaction that breaks apart
the water molecules andliberates oxygen gas and hydrogen
gas.
So you can buy these bottleson the Internet.
They're very expensive.
(22:26):
Anywhere from like a hundred.
I think we saw 140.
I think.
Yeah, yeah, about 140 bucks.
But they go up to 300 bucks.
And you basically pour regularwater into this canister and then
you charge it with your USBand then you flip the switch and
you see the water starts bubbling.
And what's happening is it's,you're creating oxygen and hydrogen
(22:47):
in this bottle.
Because hydrogen doesn't tendto stay dissolved in the water.
You have to drink it rightaway because otherwise the hydrogen
is just going to evaporateright off and go away.
You're not going to.
You can't make this stuff andstore it.
It doesn't, it basically hasto be drunk pretty much right away.
The other thing is like you'reliberating pure oxygen and pure hydrogen
(23:11):
gas in this little bottle.
So don't light any matches.
I don't, I don't think it's alarge amount of gas.
Who knows?
I don't taking any chances.
Anyways, it's not inexpensive.
And we found a study thatlooked at swimmers.
This was a hydrogen rich water supplementation.
The title is misleading.
Promotes muscle recovery.
After two strenuous trainingexercises performed on the same day
(23:33):
in elite fin swimmers.
Randomized double blindplacebo controlled trial.
And basically what theysuggested was that using hydrogen
rich water seemed to promotesome muscle recovery in elite athletes.
But that was hard to reallyjustify based on what they actually
showed in their resultsbecause again, they did not have
(23:53):
a Good dose response.
So people were all over the place.
They also their recovery was alittle bit hard to measure.
It seemed to be measured, itseemed to be based on their ability
to repeat efforts.
But it, it was all over the place.
It was not the best study, butagain a hint that maybe hydrogen
(24:15):
water seems to do something.
Another one about hydrogenrich water to enhance exercise performance.
This one was a study thatcollected nine other studies and
basically across the board,all over the place, Some studies
that showed improvement insprint times, another study showing
no change at all.
I think one of the mostimportant findings here was there
(24:36):
was a study from 2022 whichsaid this study observed no significant
changes in race time, averagerace heart rate, rating of perceived
exertion immediately after therace in any athlete who used hydrogen
rich water.
And again, that's one study selected.
There are other studies inhere in which they found some results
that were positive.
(24:56):
A bunch of mix.
But I think hydrogen richwater now has been evaluated for
over a decade and it's one ofthese things where if there was anything
earth shattering, we wouldhave seen it.
And it's not, there's no majorsignal here.
There's a study about whyshould you be drinking this?
(25:16):
And the take home what ishydrogen rich water?
Why should you be drinking it?
This was by a freelance healthwriter on a running site and basically
her findings or herconclusions were there's really not
enough research to endorsespending money on hydrogen rich water.
And ultimately hydrogen richwater is very similar to alkaline
water in that it's probablynot going to hurt you, but it's also
(25:39):
probably not going to help.
And we've talked a lot aboutsupplements and about things when
we've talked in the past andit all boils down to this idea of
how much are you paying?
Are you going to get anypotential gains for what you're paying?
And a bottle of water, ifyou're buying bottled water, costs
about 60 cents a bottle.
Hydrogen rich water, when youfactor in all of the costs to make
(26:01):
it is somewhere about $2.50 to$3 a bottle.
It's pretty expensive for noobvious great benefits.
There's, as I said, very smallpotential signals of benefit here.
But certainly after more thana decade of a lot of different studies,
we haven't seen anything majorcome out yet.
And I think we've spent a lotof time, you and I, talking about
(26:25):
where we want to focus ourattention as athletes.
Do we want to go tiny littlepotential benefits or do we want
to instead invest in ourselvesand get more sleep and eat better
and focus on better trainingand quality.
And to me, this is anotherthing that, look, if you want to
use this, by all means, knockyourself out, but I just think you
(26:46):
could be spending your timeand effort on other things.
Right?
Yeah.
We've often talked about it'sso easy to look for the quick and
dirty silver bullet, but thoseare rare, let's just put it that
way.
There's a couple of thingsthat you found over the however many
years of this podcast.
In fact, we are going to dothat for the hundredth episode.
When is your 200th.
(27:07):
200Th.
200Th episode.
Yeah, this episode is 165, sowe got a little.
Wait till then.
Oh, okay.
All right.
But we will be doing that.
We'll be doing that for LifeSport.
Right.
We have a chalk talk coming upwhere I'll be talking about that.
So that'll be the intermediary.
But Juliet, you and I weretalking before we started recording
that.
I'm finding more and morethere's this gravitation to these
(27:28):
very kind of peripheral.
They're not reallypseudoscience because there is science
behind hydrogen and what itcan do.
But it's amazing how you getthis kernel of truth and this kernel
of scientific study and peoplejust run with it and take it to the
bank and make gobs and gobs ofcash off it because there are so
(27:50):
many people out there who arejust looking for answers and looking
for ways to improve their wellbeing and improve their life.
And I'm not sure why it is orwhat it is about this point in time
of where we are that makes usall so susceptible to this.
Social media definitely is oneof the ills that promote that I think
(28:12):
is to blame.
But as much as a civilization,we have gotten smarter because we've
got hundreds of years oflearning experience that we've built
on to get to where we are now.
Geez, we send people intospace, we do all of these things
and yet we still fall victimto latching onto stuff like this.
(28:35):
That doesn't really.
And I don't know.
Do you have any thoughts aboutwhy we're always looking at these
things?
I think that in general,people have less time than they used
to and so there's less time totrain, have less time to do the basics
and are looking for the quick fix.
And in everything, not just intraining, I think the social media,
I think that's correct.
(28:56):
Because I mean, look, ifyou're a professional triathlete
and you're looking for thatextra 1%.
You're looking for 5 watts, right?
Yeah.
And this is your whole job.
You might be really searchingaround the edges for this particular
training plan or this bikeposition in the wind tunnel or this
nutritional supplement that'llmake you feel better, et cetera.
(29:17):
But most age.
But I would argue, and I thinkyou would agree that the huge majority
of age groupers, the bestthing that we can do, and you're
an age grouper, I'm an agegrouper, so I'm not dissing age groupers.
We're age groupers.
The best thing that we can dois consistent training day in, day
out, year in, year out,building, building to get to the
(29:39):
performance goals that we'veset for ourselves.
And so that extra one degreein the wind tunnel that might cost
us $20,000 to ascertain is notgoing to make a whit of difference
for me when for me, if I couldjust run more consistently, that's
going to make a bigger difference.
Or for Joe over here, who ifhe picked up two minutes in transition
(30:01):
because he practices them,then that's going to be better than
that one want or whatever itis that you might find in the wind
tunnel.
So I think that we see thepros testing this and testing that,
and the pros have to have asocial media presence.
That's part of the deal.
It's part of their business.
And so they're talking aboutthis supplement or this position
or this product or whatever.
(30:22):
And of course age groupers aregoing to look at that and say, oh,
I'm going to try that, becauseLionel tries that or Paula tries
that or fill in the blank,whatever athlete it is.
I think that becauseinformation is more easily a spread
through social media and it's.
You're just, we're justscrolling through and seeing what
people are doing that peopleare more willing to try more different
(30:45):
types of things.
When as we started thisconversation, day by day, what we
really need to be doing isconsistent training day in, day out,
eating better, getting moresleep, taking care of our mental
health.
That's a theme that we've comeback to frequently.
This idea of the antelopeversus mice.
Right.
You could spend all youreffort chasing after a mouse, but
(31:06):
what you really need, what wereally need, because we are age groupers
who have not reached ourmaximum potential, we need to be
looking for the antelope.
If you get to the point wherethere are no more antelope, that's
when you focus on the mice.
Right.
So that's A theme we've comeback to over and over again.
And I think that is, that'simportant to restate.
But I think there's also this.
(31:28):
I think there's also thisthing, and I know you and I both
feel it because we're both inthe same age group.
And that is, as we've gottenolder, it's harder to recover, it's
harder to train at the sameintensity that we did not that long
ago.
We find we're getting injuredmore frequently, and we're always
looking.
And I think we fall victim tothis just like everybody else.
We're always looking forsomething to try and help us stay
(31:50):
healthy, to try and help us bemore resilient.
And the reality is there'sprobably no magic bullets.
There are a few things that wecan try.
I have tried this yearincorporating more stretching.
I know that's something thatyou're really big on.
I'm not doing it because Ithink it's going to make me more
(32:11):
injury free, because I knowthe research suggests it doesn't,
but I got to tell you, itmakes me feel a lot better in the
mornings.
I 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.
We do so many things, we haveso many things, demands on our time,
so many demands on us.
(32:33):
And if there's any possibleway to get a shortcut.
And that's really what mostsupplements are, right?
They're short, they're.
They're viewed.
We probably don't think ofthem that way, but that's what they
are.
It's.
We think by taking something,it's going to make us train, race
or recover better.
And that's why we take them.
And the reality is probablynot going to.
You also just said this reallyinteresting thing about.
(32:56):
So you and I are in the sameage group.
I think that most people knowwe're in the 55 to 59 or.
What is it, 50, 50.
That's it.
We don't have to narrow itdown anymore.
And I think that a lot ofathletes discover triathlon in middle
age, right?
And so at the beginning, theysee these phenomenal gains, right?
Their power numbers go up.
(33:17):
If they haven't come from abackground of running, they might
break PR, they might breaktheir 5k PR and their 10k and their
half marathon.
And it's really exciting.
They're swimming.
If they didn't grow up,swimming will get better and better.
Right?
And so that's really excitingthat here you are in your 40s and
your 50s and you're stillmaking these gains.
Right.
But there is a tipping point.
(33:40):
My fastest 5k ever, I was 50.
I am never seeing thosenumbers again.
Right.
But I only realized that thisyear I'm going out and doing these
fart lick runs and I'm lookingat the paces, I'm running and I'm
thinking, oh, my God, I amnever running this.
And that was only seven years ago.
Right.
And so I think that there is atipping point.
Until about two years ago, Icould ride with any woman in my area,
(34:03):
no problem.
And now I'm finding that I'mbeginning to slide down the other
side.
And I think that's hard.
And so we're trying to hold onto, as you say, we're.
It takes more to stay in the game.
It takes more stretching, ittakes more pt.
It takes more gosh, I was justout cross country skiing and I swear
to God, I fell in the snow andI couldn't get up.
It was deep snow.
But I finally reached out tomy friend, I said, you're gonna have
(34:23):
to pull me up.
I can't get up.
And so I do think you begin tofeel the deceleration of everything.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah.
But the other thing is, and Iknow we focused a lot on the athletes,
but.
Right.
My question is almost biggerthan that and I.
We're not gonna have time toanswer it here.
And I don't think there is an answer.
But it's not just athletesthat gravitate to stuff like hydrogen
(34:46):
rich water.
It's society in general.
It's all over the Internetbecause it's not just going to athletes
being marketed to everybody asa, as the latest and greatest panacea,
that's.
That will fix all that ails you.
And there's no evidence thatit's going to do anything except
set you back a couple ofhundred bucks for the bottle and
then who knows how much morefor whatever it is you need to keep
(35:10):
the bottle working.
And I don't know, I just.
But you and I compare notesall the time.
You'll have an athlete or I'llhave an athlete who tries or goes
and does something, eithertakes this supplement or goes for
this special treatment orwhatever it is.
And you and I share stories onthis and, and at the end of the day,
as long as no harm done, ifpeople want to go and do these and
(35:34):
it makes them feel better andit makes them feel like they're doing
something to preserve theirhealth or push off aging just a little
bit more or whatever it is.
Look, some people go and buy anew Jaguar.
Yeah.
Some people, yeah, I don't know.
Bide bling, whatever it is.
And so it, at the end of theday, people get to choose and your
(35:56):
job is just to say, okay, butit's probably not helping you.
Yeah, yeah.
And we're in.
We're about to start a stringof episodes where we're going to
be talking about these kindsof things.
I think that's why I'm attunedto it right now, because I've talked
to both of the interns aboutthe next couple of subjects and they're
both in this sort of realm.
So.
Okay, as you'll see as timecomes up, well, that is the conclusion
(36:19):
of another episode.
Thanks Alex, for sending inthat question.
And thank you to all thereaders who or readers, all the listeners
and readers of the newsletterwho have sent in questions for the
upcoming episodes.
If you have a question you'dlike us to answer on the Medical
Mailbag, there are numerousways that you could submit them.
Probably the easiest one is todrop me a line.
(36:40):
Send me anemail@tridocloud.com you could drop
it into the Facebook groupthat is set up specifically for listeners
of this podcast.
You can search for Tridocpodcast on Facebook.
Answer the three easy questions.
I'll grant you admittance.
You can join the conversationand ask your questions there and
hear it answered here on theMedical Mailbag on a segment in the
(37:00):
future.
Juliet, thanks so much forjoining me.
This is another good conversation.
I look forward to chattingwith you again on the next episode.
Thanks Jeff.
Have a great rest of your weekend.
Podcast is Trevor ConnorTrevor raced in the pro peloton for
(37:21):
nearly 20 years, getting onthe podium at some of the largest
races in North America.
He started his coaching careerworking with the National Development
Program at Pacific Sport in Canada.
From there, he coached theColorado State University cycling
team to number two in thecountry and worked with several semi
professional and amateur teamsthroughout Canada and the United
(37:41):
States.
From 2011 to 2020, he wrotethe monthly training articles for
Velo News magazine.
This is also where he firstbecame the co host of the popular
training podcast Fast Talk.
Trevor's Master's thesisadvisor was Dr.
Lauren Cordain, the originatorof the popular Paleo Diet, and Trevor
has been the CEO of the PaleoDiet since 2018.
(38:04):
He founded Fast TalkLaboratories in 2019, where he continues
the Fast Talk podcast thatfocuses on producing information
on Endurance sports trainingfor top coaches, physiologists, and
professional athletes fromaround the world.
And coincidentally, is where Igot to meet him about a couple years
ago.
Now, Trevor, welcome to thetridog Podcast.
(38:24):
It's a pleasure to finally getyou on the show here.
Thanks for getting me on the show.
And I gotta say, when you said20 years in the professional peloton,
boy, did you make me feel old.
Yeah, I know, right?
It's a.
Think about that.
When you.
When you look back on a longcareer, it's.
It's with a certain degree ofsatisfaction, but then also with
this knowledge that, oh, mygoodness, it's.
(38:46):
It's a lot of water under thebridge, right?
Oh, it is.
Well, I still won the last proraces I ever did.
I.
I had this kid yell at me, and I.
I had gotten in the habit ofwhen somebody yells at me, go.
Just saying, don't yell at me.
I've been racing since, youknow, since before you did your first
race and suddenly realized,oh, God, like, think of how many
(39:07):
years I've been doing this.
And just said to the kid,don't yell at me.
I've been doing this sincebefore you were born.
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
It really does catch up withyou quickly.
So tell us about how you gotyour stuff.
Where are you from in Canada,and how did you come to cycling?
So I'm originally fromToronto, and, yeah, I don't have
(39:29):
a particular.
There was this one incidentthat just made me realize I wanted
to get into cycling.
I've always ridden my bike.
I always loved doing it, andit was just one of those things of
slow progression where I triedmy 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, youknow, I want to go to Canadian Nationals.
(39:51):
And the first time I went toCanadian Nationals, I had a great
result.
And they had a little pamphletthere for the National Training Center.
So I just went, no, sure,let's apply.
They won't accept me.
And they did.
And then I had to make thedecision of, oh, do I want to completely
upend my life?
And said, you know, for acouple years, this would be fun.
So it was never fully planned out.
(40:13):
It just kind of progressed.
Had I planned it out, Iactually would have done it a little
differently.
And cycling was not a hugething in Canada.
I mean, I grew up a fan ofcycling only because of.
Gosh, I'm blanking on his name.
Steve.
Right, Steve.
Who.
Who raced in the France a few years.
Why can't I remember his last name?
Yeah.
And so whenever somebody askedme to remember a name, I instantly
(40:36):
forget.
It starts with a B.
It'll come to me in a second.
Yeah, we'll look it up andwe'll put it in at the end.
But, yeah, he was the firstCanadian cyclist of any renown that
I remember.
And that was what drew me intobeing interested in following cycling.
But it was not something thatwe really did growing up in Montreal.
(40:57):
We had.
Hockey was really the primarything, and.
And yet you found yourselfdoing it and really drawn to the
national kind of scene.
Was there much of a scene in Canada?
Yeah, actually was.
And so Steve Bauer just cameto me.
Sorry, I blanked too.
But I was actually really lucky.
(41:19):
When I was at the nationalcenter, we were in kind of a golden
age of Canadian cycling.
So I was there with Swain,Tough ryder Hesdal, Melanie McQuaid,
who, as you know, is, youknow, three time XTERRA World Champion
and could keep going with the names.
I mean, I was basically theperson at the back of the group,
(41:39):
just not saying a word becauseeverybody was three times stronger
than me.
But we had a really strongcontingent of Canadian cyclists who
were going over to Europe andperforming well.
So I was very lucky to be partof that group and to have them all
at the center in BritishColumbia at that time.
(42:00):
So tell us about your workwith FastDalk.
Let's transition to whatyou've been doing more recently.
And how did Fast Talk Labscome about and what has been kind,
because I've been reallyimpressed since I've come to know
about FastDoc and beeninvolved a little bit and really
watch its growth.
How did you come to begin thatcompany and.
And what has been the kind ofthe trajectory of it?
(42:22):
Yeah, so as you said, itstarted at Veloneus.
I was writing the coachingarticle for the magazine every month,
which I was loving.
It was a great opportunity.
And for what they were payingme, I was putting in five times more
work than I should havebecause it was just this great opportunity.
So I'd spend 15 hoursresearching every article and rewrite
(42:45):
it like 10 times before I'dsubmit it.
But I'd been doing that for afew years, and the one thing that
had really bothered me wasarticles had to be a thousand words.
And I never really felt like Icould cover the topic.
And I was working with acycling club up in Toronto and running
their.
Their morning trainer sessions.
(43:06):
And during the trainersessions, I would just sit there
and talk physiology and training.
And one of the athletes cameup to me and said, you should do
a podcast.
And I wasn't really into them,so I looked them up and just said,
hey, this is kind of a, a neatidea and it would be a way to dive
much deeper into thesesubjects than I thought.
So I went back to Vella News,said, hey, you know, what do you
(43:30):
think about doing a podcast?
And they said, oh, those aregoing nowhere.
Why would you ever want to doone of those?
So I said, would you let me doone through you?
I'll do all the work, I'll payfor it, everything.
Just let me put it out throughVeloneus and give me a co host.
And they were amenable to that.
So that's kind of how fasttalk started.
And for years it was justthrough VEL News and we were getting
(43:54):
a good listenership.
So they kind of went, oh,there is something to these podcasts.
But eventually it was goingwell enough that Chris Case, who
is my co host and I talkedabout and said, you know, we think
there's a business opportunity here.
So we, we went out on our ownand, and just explored this whole
idea of just getting goodscience about endurance sports training
(44:16):
out to as broad an audience aswe could.
And now almost like a fullfledged platform with coaching and
lots of discussion and greatarticles for athletes.
And it's just kind of evolvedin a very natural kind of way.
And, and I gather Chris hasreally come back and almost taken
(44:38):
it over as you've moved moreinto the paleo diet thing.
Well, I work with both.
I'm the one person who worksacross both companies, which means
I'm the one who's alwaystearing his hair out where everybody
else works with one company oranother and has a little more time
to focus on it.
Chris, his ability to put outgood content and to get it done quickly
(45:03):
is extraordinary.
There was a time at Velo Newswhere they a bit of a mass exodus.
And so for six months, Chriswas putting out a magazine every
month with just him, onewriter and a photographer.
So, you know, I knew when Iset this company up, I'm like, I
want to do this with Chris.
I've never seen somebodycapable of doing what he's doing
(45:26):
and he has been nothing but great.
And you know, he, he caresabout the quality of the content
and he gets a lot of goodcontent out there.
So, you know, I really trusthim to just say, chris, go find good
writers.
Let's get good stuff up there.
And I Know, it's going to be great.
Yeah.
It's so important to havesomeone like that that you can trust
and really let go with aproject like this.
(45:49):
You've been around the sportfor a long time.
I love asking people who havebeen in endurance, especially in
a niche sport like cycling, aslong as you have the question about
what kind of changes have youseen and.
And what are the things thatkind of resonate with you as being
most impactful as havingchanged cycling in the last 20 years?
(46:11):
Oh, boy.
No, there's a good question.
Are you talking about thehighest levels or just in general?
Well, I mean, you could thinkabout it in both ways, both for those
who are operating at the highlevel, but also for the average cyclist.
Yeah, I would say it's notgoing to be anything unexpected,
(46:34):
but I would say there's twosides to the coin.
It's the amount of detail, theamount of information we can collect,
the amount of analysis thatyou can do.
When I was getting into it,they were talking about, oh, wow,
the amount of data we have nowis incredible.
And all we had was heart rateand you had some training software,
(46:57):
but it wasn't very good.
And I'm sure you remember thedays when you were sitting there
with that little IR sensor,trying to pull the data off of your
heart rate sensor.
And I love going back andlooking at my data then and going,
I can't even see what's goingon in this ride.
There's so little information there.
So there was a lot of trainingby feel.
(47:18):
Now, the amount of analysisyou can do of your rides, the amount
that you can see during yourworkouts is just at whole nother
level.
And the one hand, you know, Ilove it.
I'm a data geek.
It's great to look at.
There's a lot of ways you canuse it for, for really good training.
On the other hand, I'm sureyou've talked about this a hundred
(47:38):
times.
There is that potential toreally get caught in the weeds and
lose the big picture.
And so it's finding thatbalance, I would say, is the big
challenge right now.
It is such an issue,especially with athletes who are
fairly new to the sport, wholove to get sucked in by all the
technology and willimmediately get consumed with all
of the different, not just thetoys that they can have, but also
(48:01):
what the toys are giving them.
And I know as someone who'sbeen doing my own podcast now for
the last six years, we'reconstantly reviewing different devices
and we're always keeping ourmind on this idea.
Okay, just because you canmeasure something, does that mean
you need, need to and how isthat going to really be helpful?
(48:23):
So when you think about thedifferent kinds of streams of data
that have become available,can you think of one or two that
really have stuck out as beingkind of really important and maybe
one or two that you sort ofmaybe think, you know what, I don't
need this.
Well, I think there's a tonthat are coming out where I go, I
(48:45):
don't need this, particularlybecause I think, think more and more.
You know, the, the lifechanging metrics are coming out every
six months that I don't thinkare fully tested.
They haven't done thescientific research on it and so
I'm always skeptical of it.
So you know, with me I stillreally look at the, the four primary
numbers, which is speed,cadence, power, heart rate.
(49:10):
And I think the, you, youknow, the software is letting you
do more and more with thosefour numbers.
But I haven't really seenanything that I look at and go, yeah,
this is a fifth that I'm goingto look at constantly.
I mean, every once in a whilelook at heart rate variability, things
like that, but it's using themin conjunction that I find really
(49:32):
valuable.
And you'll get a laugh out of this.
Going back to the old days, Iused to have a power sensor and had
a heart rate monitor andneither one could measure both.
So I used to have to everyride open up an Excel sheet, export
my data pulled into the Excelsheet and line them up so I could
see what was going on with myheart rate relative to power.
(49:52):
And I think that's a reallyimportant thing to look at because
power is an external metric.
It shows you basically howhard you're moving the bike, but
tells you nothing about what'sgoing on inside your body where heart
rate is an internal metric.
But saying I was riding at 160beats per minute doesn't tell you
(50:17):
were you going faster than everybody?
Were you going slower than everybody?
It's just an internal measureand I think it's really important
to have that external metricand that internal metric side by
side so you can get the wholepicture of what's going on with the
athlete.
And I've been finding more andmore ability to analyze those two
together.
But I think it's critical.
(50:39):
Well, take a step back.
About 10, 15 years ago therewas a kind of a movement saying heart
rate's outdated, stop lookingat that.
It's just power.
That's all we need.
I think that was a mistake.
And I'm glad to see us movingback to.
You really need both, and youneed to see them together.
Yeah, Yeah, I agree.
I think that the inter.
Interplay between the externaland internal.
(51:01):
I like the way you.
You put that.
Is really important.
I think that a lot of coachesand athletes will use RPE and power,
which is, I think, a fair.
Almost a fair substitution,but heart rate as sort of that check
on rpe, because sometimes youfeel great, but your heart rate's
telling you something a littlebit different.
(51:22):
And sometimes you don't feelso good, your heart rate's telling
you also something a little different.
So I think having those thingsinterplay together is really nice.
I agree with you.
When you look at the.
Sorry, go ahead.
So I was going to say youbrought up rpe.
So we just.
Literally, a couple days ago,we're talking with Dr.
Steven Seiler, and he'sgetting excited about respiratory
(51:44):
frequency and read someresearch, getting ready for that
conversation with him.
And the central governor inour brain that regulates our perception
of effort is the same one thatregulates breathing frequency.
So they're showing multipleresearch studies that breathing frequency
(52:04):
and RPE line up perfectly.
Yeah, I'm not surprised.
Yeah, I'm not surprised.
Right.
Because when you think aboutRPE and how RPE is often taught to
athletes, they often saythings like, are you able to hold
a conversation?
Are you able to speak in morethan one or two words at a time?
(52:24):
Because that gut refers backto respiratory rate.
So that's really interestingto see that somebody actually has
studied that and put that to paper.
So they're working right nowon devices to measure respiratory
rate.
So going back to that, Ihaven't really seen a new metric
that I'm excited about.
That's one I really want totry out.
(52:44):
Because reading the research,I think there is some potential there.
Yeah, that's fascinating.
When you look at the bikeitself, there's been so much technological
advancement in bicycles.
Now, granted, I think thatit's the athlete that drives the
true advances in terms of howfast you go and how much success
(53:06):
you have.
But let's face it, we all loveour bikes.
When we think about thetechnological advances in bicycles,
and there's been many.
I mean, electronic shifting,disc brakes, carbon wheels, on and
on it goes.
What are a couple of thingsthat you sort of look at from the
time that you were racing as apro to now that really sort of stand
out as things that you thinkare most impressive?
(53:29):
Oh, boy.
Are you asking the wrong Person.
My newest bike is from 2014.
I've never done electronic.
I do have one bike that hasdisc brakes, but I am the biggest
retro grouch you will ever meet.
Part of the.
Part of my explanation forthat is, you know, I still go to
races.
I still go to races where theyhave support, they have a vehicle
(53:51):
following that can get you anew wheel, things like that.
And so I don't want to be ondisc brakes because they will always
have a rim brake wheel inthose cars.
And I have to keep it simple.
When I go to a race, I do allmy own mechanic work.
I don't want a bike that I'mgoing to be up for six hours trying
(54:12):
to do repair work on.
So I look at it from a verydifferent perspective, and I talk
with mechanics who are at theTour de France and like, you have
no idea how difficult our lifehas gotten.
You know, we used to be able to.
To get a bike in shape for thenext day.
Used to take less than an hour.
Now it's hours per bike, andwe stay up all night.
(54:33):
And you can see they can'teven do a quick wheel swap.
So on the.
The cars at the Tour deFrance, they have to have a whole
bunch of spare bikes on theback of the car because they're just
going to give you a new bike.
So, you know, my answer tothat question is I think there's
some really neat advances.
You know, the electronicshifting is great.
The disc brakes are much quicker.
(54:55):
I personally think all theintegrated housing and integrated
top stems and all that sort ofstuff look nice, but I think they're
more aesthetic than any sortof performance gain.
But I'm always just concernedbecause most people can't now fix
their own bike.
If you're out on the road andyou have any sort of issue, you're
(55:17):
in trouble.
Yeah.
So.
And if you travel with yourbike, learning how to do all of it,
to be able to pack your bikeand then put it back together again
is a real.
It's a chore.
It's very daunting for a lotof people.
So I don't disagree with youon that.
There's nothing wrong withbeing retro.
Would you call it a retro grouch?
I love that.
I think that's pretty cool.
(55:38):
I am a giant retro grouch.
But, yeah, I had a friend whobought an $8,000 bike, and then he
was traveling to a race, andhe wanted to pack it up into his
bike bag, and because of theintegrated stem, he couldn't fold
it up.
He had to take it to his bikeshop and they had to use special
tools that you could get thehandlebars off.
And then the question is, whenI get there, what do I do?
(55:58):
Yeah, I want to shift gears alittle bit and ask your opinion.
There is always a discussiongoing on.
I think it reflects the angstamong triathletes about the health
and vitality of multi sport.
There's always this questionabout, oh my gosh, is triathlon on
the decline, things like that?
(56:18):
I don't know that cycling hasreally faced that.
I think cycling is in a reallygood kind of place right now with
the emergence of Tatte Picachaand of course Remco Venable and all
of the others who are out atthe front of these big races.
There are, however, someconcerns about the fact that cycling
(56:40):
is becoming harder to watch.
And as cycling becomes moreand more behind paywalls, it stands
to lose viewership.
And as it loses viewership,then you lose what a lot of sports
do when they go behind thosepaywalls, which is lose younger viewers.
And if you lose youngerviewers, then younger viewers will
take their sports attentionelsewhere and not necessarily get
(57:02):
into cycling.
Do you have any concerns thatthat's a valid thing to be worried
about?
I mean, is cycling potentiallycutting its nose off despite its
face because it's so in thepursuit of profit?
You know, that's a really goodquestion and I hadn't thought about
it from that perspective.
I also, you know, I'm beingvery regional here.
(57:23):
I think it is doing very wellover in Europe.
North American cycling hasbeen on a big decline and is at the
lowest I've seen it my entire time.
It is a struggle.
And you saw about, say 10, 15years ago now race organizers getting
(57:44):
out of races because they werehaving a hard time getting sponsorship.
And it's because sponsorswould say, why do I want to sponsor
this race?
We're not getting TV ev time.
We're not getting exposure to,except to anybody who's just there
at the race.
And as soon as the sponsorspulled out and race organizers said,
we can't put races togetheranymore, that's when you start to
see the decline of NorthAmerican cycling.
(58:06):
So, yeah, I would be concernedthat you would end up having the
same issue over in Europe.
They might initially make alot of money off of putting it all
behind paywalls, but they gotto be real careful of sponsors saying,
you know what, we're notgetting the exposure we want anymore.
We're going to look to otherSports where we can still get exposure
(58:27):
if it goes that route.
Yeah, that's what happened here.
And they're going to be in bigtrouble if that happens.
Yeah.
The other, the other thingthat always worries me about cycling's
popularity in North America isjust the threat against cyclists,
the continued animositytowards cyclists who just want to
be outside riding on theroads, that I think drivers.
(58:51):
What's always lost in theconversation is that cyclists are
drivers, too, 99.9% of thetime, and pay for those roads and
want to just make use of thoseroads in a means to either commute
or get fit or train for something.
And yet there is just thisovert hostility and literally, as
(59:13):
we've seen in the last coupleof years, drivers who will, on purpose,
purposefully hit cyclists outof some.
I have no idea what'smotivating it, but that also concerns
me a great deal.
And I don't see any movementin that dialogue, despite groups
(59:33):
like.
It could be me and variousother organizations who are trying
to shift that dialogue.
But I don't see it changing.
And I wonder if you or yourcolleagues at Fast Talk have thought
about it or talked about itand have any ideas of how to make
this be more of a friendlyenvironment for cyclists.
(59:56):
I heard a real soberingthought from somebody who knows a
lot about this, who saidbasically 2 to 3% of drivers, if
they could hit you, kill youand get away with it, they would
do it.
Yeah, that is definitely sobering.
It is a sobering thought.
But it's an important thing torealize when we are out on the road.
(01:00:18):
One thing we're never going tochange is there are going to be drivers
that just don't want us on theroad, and it doesn't matter what
we do.
They hate having us there.
They're going to honk at us.
I'm sure you've been smoked,which is when a diesel truck passes
you, they shift down a gearand push out all this smoke that
(01:00:38):
goes right in your face, andit's awful.
And they do that just becausethey don't like the cyclists out
there.
That's.
I, I don't think that's evergoing to change.
The most promising thing I, I've.
I've heard of recently.
I'm sorry, I.
I think it's spoke.
Safety is the name of the company.
You know Dr.
(01:00:59):
Andy Pruitt.
Yeah.
He is working with thiscompany that is now working with
many of the car manufacturersand many of the bike computer manufacturers
like Garmin, where they arecreating an interface where cars
and bike computers can communicate.
(01:01:19):
So, quite literally, if youhave a Garmin on your computer, on
your handlebar, and a car iscoming up on you and the car doesn't
see you, the Garmin and thecar will communicate and the car
will take control and swervethe car away from the cyclist.
And car manufacturers areexcited about this.
(01:01:42):
They're getting on board.
So I would actually say I'mnot sure we're ever going to get
a lot of car drivers to stophating us, but I think something
like this and seeing thisbecome something that's required
is going to save a lot of lives.
And, you know, Andy keepsgiving me updates and it's really
exciting what they're doing.
Yeah, that is exciting.
And that would be potentiallyreally interesting technology.
(01:02:05):
I mean, we have the radarwhich warns the cyclist but does
nothing to tell the car.
And to have something thatgoes both ways would be fantastic.
So we've seen there ispedestrian avoidance available on
some of the newer cars, socyclist avoidance would be nice,
too.
Following up on that and acompletely different technological
(01:02:28):
question, you and I think itwas you and I.
I know Griffin for sure, and Ihave chatted about this.
And that is the impact thatartificial intelligence, or AI, is
having on endurance athletesand coaches specifically.
I know in triathlon, AI ishaving a pretty big impact in displacing
coaches.
There's one big company thatsounds a lot like what I call myself,
(01:02:53):
and they have unfortunatelykind of sucked up, hoovered up a
lot of the athletes and arereally causing a lot of problems
for independent coaches.
Do you see this as a positivething, not necessarily running coaches
out of business, but theemergence of AI in coaching as a
(01:03:13):
positive thing?
Or is this something that weshould all be thinking, maybe pump
the brakes a little bit?
Well, I've got to first say Ihave a bias.
I think coaches are great.
I think it's great workingwith a coach, so I'm always going
to support the coach.
So just know my bias is alittle towards the coaches here.
Yeah.
And it's quite possible atsome point that the AI is going to
(01:03:35):
do just as good, if notbetter, a job than the coaches.
And I'll still be yelling andscreaming, hire a coach.
You know, I have that bias.
But I think my answer to thatquestion right now.
I read this really interestingstudy where they had computer software
create a training plan for anathlete, and then they had somebody
(01:03:58):
from the British CyclingFederation, one of their top coaches,
also create a plan for anathlete, and then they compared which
plan was better and basicallysaid the AI plan was better.
And I've heard proponents ofAI cite the study again and again
and again.
So I went and read it and whatthey did was they just took the two
(01:04:20):
plans, put them into sometraining software and determined,
figured out which one had abetter mix of ctl, TSB and atl, which
is a hypothetical.
But my point is that's great.
But I guarantee you withinthree days the athlete's going to
be off plan.
And how good is the AIsoftware going to be at talking to
(01:04:40):
the athlete, encouraging themto go out and do their training and
everything else?
I don't think.
I think the plan is a verysmall part of coaching.
I think the most importantpart of coaching is the interaction
and dynamic between the coachand the athlete.
And I don't think AI is there yet.
Yeah, yeah, that's something Ihave said as well.
(01:05:02):
The intangibles that anindividual, the human intelligence
brings to coaching.
Right.
In the time that we have left.
Trevor, tell us a little bitabout the Paleo diet and how you
came to be the CEO of thatcompany and what it is exactly that
you're doing there.
So I'll try to give you theshort version here.
So I ended up towards the endof my cycling career going to Colorado
(01:05:26):
State University because Ireally wanted to study exercise science
and nutrition.
And I came from a traditionalsports nutrition background and it
was a requirement when I wasthere that I took Dr.
Cordain's course.
And I will tell you, havingstudied traditional sports nutrition,
the course just infuriated me.
I thought he was dead wrongand I couldn't believe the things
(01:05:47):
he was saying.
I was actually so frustrated,I spent the summer after the course
trying to prove him wrong.
And as I read the research, inmy efforts to prove him wrong, I
just kind of went, wow, thisactually kind of makes sense.
I really couldn't find majorholes and without really even knowing
(01:06:07):
it, I just slowly moved to thePaleo diet.
And I was 38, 39 at the time.
I had given up on cycling,cycling at the highest levels just
because I was struggling.
I was getting sick all the time.
I was having issues.
And that winter I had one ofmy best winters ever.
Didn't get sick.
Even though I was a full timestudent with a coaching business,
(01:06:29):
I could train really hard.
Went to Canadian nationals onmy 39th, 9th birthday and missed
third place by a wheel length.
I was broken away almost theentire refer good hour of the race
in third place and they caughtme on the line.
But still, you know, at 39, Iwas pretty happy with that.
And the next year, at the ageof 40, I went back and raced a a
(01:06:53):
full season in the pro pelotonand at one point had myself top 10.
And that was all the diet andjust completely convinced me there
was something to this.
So reached out to Dr.
Cordain, said, you know, I'dlove to be your graduate student.
So I became his final adviseeand just kept working with him after
(01:07:15):
I graduated.
And in 2019, he decided toretire and he handed me the business.
Wow, that's fantastic.
And now the business isproducing cookbooks, I understand,
as well as different foodstoo, is that correct?
We're doing a whole mix of things.
I'll admit to you that thebiggest struggle here is figuring
(01:07:36):
out a business model for it,because we're really just trying
to help people eat healthier.
And one of the things we'reactually fighting is there are a
lot of people that got intothe Paleo movement going, oh, make
a ton of money, because thisis really popular.
And the discovery Paleo dietsbasically just go to your local farmer's
market and just buy fresh food.
(01:07:57):
There is nothing to sell,which we see as well.
And so we're really justtrying to get people back towards
more natural foods, eatingwhole foods that are nutrient dense.
And as I said, there reallyisn't a product to sell.
So it's mostly just advocacyfor healthy eating.
(01:08:18):
Well, you won't get anargument over here.
I think that's great andthat's important work you're doing.
Well, Trevor, I can't thankyou enough for joining me for a really
interesting conversation.
I think it was pretty wide ranging.
We covered a lot of topics inthe short time that you had here
with me, and I reallyappreciate you taking the time.
I look forward to myappearance on Fast Talk Labs, which
(01:08:39):
will be coming up about sixweeks from now.
So I am looking forwardforward to that.
And until we speak again,thank you so much again for joining
me on the TRADAR podcast today.
Well, it was a real pleasureand, yeah, excited to get you on
the show.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
What's up, everybody?
(01:09:00):
My name is Joe Wilson and I'ma proud supporter of the TR Podcast.
The Tridar Podcast is producedand edited by Jeff Sanov, one of
my good friends, along withhis amazing interns, Cosette Rhodes
and Nina Takashima.
You can find the show notesfor everything discussed on the show
today, as well as the archivesof previous episode@www.tridog podcast.com
(01:09:22):
do you have any questionsabout any of the issues discussed
on this episode or do you havea question for consideration to be
answered on a future episode?
Send Jeff an email@trydoctrial.com if you are interested in
coaching services, you shouldreally reach out to jeff@tridocoaching.com
or lifesportcoaching.com whereyou can find a lot of information
(01:09:45):
about Jeff and the servicesthat he provides.
You can also follow Jeff onthe Tridog Podcast Facebook page,
Tridog Coaching on Instagramand the TriDarch YouTube channel.
And don't forget to join theTridarch Podcast private Facebook
group.
Search for it and request tojoin today.
If you enjoy this podcast, Ihope you would consider leaving a
rating interview as it helpsthe show as well as subscribe to
(01:10:08):
the show whenever you download it.
And of course there's alwaysthe option of becoming a supporter@patreon.com
drydockpodcast the music heardat the beginning and the end of the
show is radio by empty hoursand is used with permission.
This song and many others likeit can be found found at www.reverbnation.com
(01:10:29):
where I hope that you willvisit and give a small independent
fans a chance.
The Tridark Podcast Be backsoon with another medical question
and answer in anotherinterview with someone in the world
of multisport.
Until then, train hard, train healthy.
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