OVERVIEW
Christie Aschwanden is an award-winning science journalist and author of Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery. With all the hype and marketing dollars being thrown at recovery modalities like tart cherry juice, ketone supplements, ice plunges, and the timing of post-recovery meals, we brought Christie back to "The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast" to take a look at the evidence behind the claims. Which recovery products work? How do they work and are they worth the expense?
RECOVERY METHODS/PRODUCTS COVERED
- Tart Cherry Juice
- Ice plunges/Cold water Immersion
- Is inflammation bad for athletes?
- Ketones
- Post-workout recovery window
ASK A QUESTION FOR A FUTURE PODCAST
Guest Bio – Christie Aschwanden:
Christie Aschwanden is an award-winning science journalist. She was the lead science writer at FiveThirtyEight for many years and is a former health columnist for the Washington Post. A finalist for the National Magazine Award, her writing has appeared in Outside, Discover, Smithsonian, and Oprah Magazine. She’s also co-host of Emerging Form, a podcast about the creative process. She was a high school state champion in the 1,600-meter run, a national collegiate cycling champion, and an elite cross-country skier with Team Rossignol. She lives and occasionally still races in western Colorado.
Read More About Christie Aschwanden:
https://christieaschwanden.com/
Book Link – Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery
HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
From the team at CTS.
This is the Time Crunch Cyclistpodcast, our show dedicated to
answering your trainingquestions and providing
actionable advice to help youimprove your performance even if
you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches whomake up the team at CTS.
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,
(00:30):
other coaches and experts in thefield to provide you with the
practical ways to get the mostout of your training and
ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now on to our show.
Now onto our show.
Welcome back, or welcome to theTime Crunch Cyclist Podcast.
(00:51):
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford.
Recovery it's where all thegains are made.
Without it, your training iskind of pointless.
Remember that stress plus restequals adaptation.
If you remove the rest out, theequation doesn't work.
So if you can recover faster,you will get gains more quickly.
So can you recover faster?
(01:13):
If so, how and what's the bestyou know pill, potion or process
to do that?
I'm here with recovery guru andauthor of Good to Go with
Christy Ashwandan Christywelcome back to the show.
I should say yeah, thanks somuch for having me, adam.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Yes, well, I mean, episodenumber three on this podcast was
(01:35):
actually with Christy when shefirst wrote her book back in
2020, I think we interviewedyeah.
Yeah, which is wild.
That it like is that long ago.
But so if you're reallyinterested in a long form
podcast option, go back andlisten to that one.
This is going to be quick andto the point.
(01:58):
But, christy, for those whodidn't listen to episode number
three, we'll do a quick intro onyou.
You were an elite athleteyourself, which led to the
curiosities of how best torecover and ultimately writing
this book.
Could you give us a littlesummary of your background and
motivations in pursuing amonumental task of being an
author and you know what I'mgoing to say a best-selling?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
author.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
When it comes to the endurance community.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Sure.
So I started my career as arunner.
I actually went to Universityof Colorado as a runner.
I was on the team there and gotinto a freak car accident my
freshman year, partway throughthe first running season.
I didn't even own a car at thetime, I was just with some
friends.
Anyway, I banged up my knee soI had to stop running.
(02:39):
I had to redshirt that trackseason and I started
cross-country skiing because Iwas living in the dorm with some
Nordic skiers and fell in lovewith that sport.
So I started doing that.
But I also joined the cyclingteam I guess it was the second
year, second or third year andreally sort of realized oh wait,
this is what I want to be doing.
So I ended up my last couple ofyears of college.
(03:02):
I quit the cross-country andtrack team altogether.
I stopped running for a fewyears and was just skiing and
cycling exclusively.
I actually raced with TylerHamilton on the CU cycling team
back in the day, yeah, and ifanyone's interested, I wrote a
piece I think you can find it onmy website about him.
I actually covered his case asa science journalist and sort of
(03:26):
figuring out, did he or didn'the?
And I concluded that he haddoped and everyone hated me.
And then of course, he cameback later and confessed Never
apologized to me, by the way,but you know he lied to my face
and all of that but I guessthat's what one does when
they're in that situation.
Anyway, that's a whole otheraside, kind of down a rabbit
hole there, but anyway but thenI went to graduate school for
(03:50):
journalism and decided, hey, Ikind of miss competing, and so
went back and startedcross-country skiing at a pretty
high level, was skiing for theRossignol elite team and
actually moved to Europe andlived over there for a few years
and did some racing over there.
So that was probably the sportthat I did at the highest level.
Um, but yeah, for my twentiesand thirties I was pretty,
(04:13):
pretty serious athlete,endurance athlete mostly.
Yeah, I do all of the things atthis point in my life.
I run ski bike, um, but I do itfor pleasure and fun, not not
for competition, although I willadmit it feels good to go hard
sometimes still, so, not opposedto that ever.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yes, no, agreed with that.
Sometimes you just got to gohard.
And you know what, when you'refit, everything is more fun
including when you go hard.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So yeah, for sure, Just just for those things.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So I you know this is going to be a two part series
where the Time Crunched Cyclistpodcast, so it's going to be
maybe 20, 25 minutes each, butwhere I want to start first is
with some of the more trendythings right now in the fitness
and recovery industry,especially the hyped stuff
coming off the men's and women'sof Good to Go and then tell
everyone that they should readit?
Yeah, please do.
(05:01):
First question is Christy, areyou good to go for the first
question?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I am good to go Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
All right, tart cherry juice.
It is all the rage right now.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Okay, but that is nothing new under the sun.
It's been used for recoverymodality.
Tell us everything you knowabout tart cherry trees and I,
literally two days ago, finishedprocessing the last of our tart
cherry.
We had a ginormous crop thisyear, so I have probably
consumed more tart cherries,tart cherry juice, in the last
you know week and a half thanany human being should.
So I am packed full of tartcherry juice.
I can tell you.
I would love to say that, likemy recovery has been incredible,
(06:06):
haven't noticed a damndifference and what.
I will say is I love tartcherries.
They're great.
I have no doubt that they'regood for you.
I mean, they're fruit, theyhave fiber, they have lots of
antioxidants, vitamins, allkinds of good stuff.
Is this a magic recovery pill?
No, I am all for consuming tartcherries, consuming tart cherry
(06:27):
juice and, by the way, part ofthe reason it's juice is that
actually, I can even take a stepback.
The way that this became a thingin the sporting world was that
tart cherry producers werelooking for more markets for
their products, and so they gottogether with some university
researchers.
It's like okay, what else canwe do with it?
They started funding almostevery and I cannot, I haven't
(06:50):
seen every single study that hascome out, you know, since the
beginning, but it's almostentirely funded by industry,
which doesn't make it incorrect.
You had sent me some links tosome papers and looking at them,
I mean I think literally everysingle one of them was a study
with 10 participants.
You know, 10 people taking thetart cherry juice, and you just,
(07:10):
I'm sorry, you just can't comeup with any reliable answers
with studies that small.
And part of the reason I thinkit's really important to
understand is that humanphysiology is really complicated
.
It's actually really hard.
It's not that the truth isn'tout there and there aren't ways
to study this, but it's actuallypretty hard to pin down and
because our physiology is socomplex, it can be really hard
(07:32):
to figure out if something worksor to what extent.
But the other thing that I'llsay is, if something's really,
really helpful, like you'regoing to know it because you
know the effect itself will cueyou into it, and if you need all
these studies to say, oh, thisis amazing that you're taking it
.
You don't notice a difference.
It's maybe not so much.
So I have all the sympathy inthe world for cherry producers.
(07:54):
I think it's a great, greatcrop.
I think it's a great fruit.
I would never discourage peoplefrom consuming tart cherries.
But it is not the secret, and Ithink a lot of people are
actually a little bitdisappointed with the message of
my book, because everyone islooking for the secret and the
magic and the secret is there isno secret and a lot of people,
(08:17):
frankly, don't want to hear that.
They don't want to hear thatthe things that they already
know but yet are not masteringare the things that really
matter.
And I think, honestly, thereally best athletes and the
best coaches too, are the oneswho can recognize this and
separate the wheat from thechaff and say, okay, where are
you going to get gains that arereally meaningful and that are
(08:38):
worth the time and effort?
And where are you just chasingmirages?
And I can tell you that almostall of the newfangled you know
any kind of products andservices and things like this.
They're almost always a mirage,and when you're chasing those
or you're looking at what yourcompetition's doing and now
they're using this new productusually it's not worth your time
.
And I say that with confidence,because I looked into so many
(09:01):
of them while I was working onthis book and was really
surprised, frankly.
I mean, I really expected thatI was going to find more things
that had really meaningfuleffects.
You know what's meaningful isgoing to be different between
different people.
You know some people are goingto be completely willing to
spend thousands of dollars andhours of their time on something
that's going to give them a0.5% gain or something like that
(09:23):
.
Now, in real life, howsignificant are some of these
gains?
They usually don't live up tothe hype and live up to the
studies.
I'll say that too, but I thinkyou know you're really better
off using your time and yourenergy pursuing the things that
we know really make a bigdifference.
You know, let the other guywaste their time on this stuff
with their money, and it really.
(09:44):
You know, I think a lot ofpeople you know sometimes say,
well, what's the harm insupplements if they're not
hurting you, which, in fact,supplements can hurt you?
And I have a whole chapter inthe book about supplements.
If you're a competitive athletewho's going to be drug tested,
you should absolutely steerclear of supplements, because
you're so much more likely to beharmed or test positive from a
(10:05):
supplement than you are to getany meaningful benefit to your
performance.
And you know I say that havingwritten about Olympic athletes
who missed Olympic Games becausesupplements that their sponsor
gave them, you know, made themtest positive.
So I really want to be carefulthere.
But I think it's really aboutfiguring out what is worthy of
my attention and my time.
(10:25):
And the good news is there arereally, you know there's some
basic, fundamental things thatif you focus on those you can,
you can get really importantresults.
Um, so don't, don't sweat theother stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, that's.
That's a great summation and agreat overall message.
I'll say that I'll mention this, uh, mention this because on
the Tour de France Femme AuvikZwift podcast, we did talk about
tart cherry juice and what Isaid there was it's a marginal
gain thing that these girls aredrinking.
If they're drinking it, andsome of my athletes who say have
(11:00):
the swine ears given it to themShould I drink it, should I not
?
I say yeah, it's not going tohurt you, right, and but what
they're chasing and this is whatI want to kind of focus on, my
message was I don't think forthe time crunched athlete, for
the amateur athlete they need togo out and buy the $3 per shot
tart cherry juice for theirrecovery modalities, because
even the decrease ofinflammation, or the decreased
(11:23):
DOMS or the is my perceivedeffort lower today Is that
important?
And I think that the role ofinflammation that you write
about in your book.
By the way, and if anyone'swondering what this book looks
like, it looks like this and youshould read it.
But let's talk about the roleof inflammation on the body.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Well, really quickly actually, I want to go back for
a second and then we'll get toinflammation and just about
studies.
I really hope that people willread my book because, if nothing
else, go and read the firstchapter, which I think is a
really I hope I wrote it and youknow the purpose of the first
chapter, which, by the way, isabout beer and running so if
there's any beer drinkers outthere but it's really about why
(12:01):
these small studies areunreliable and why we have to be
really careful about puttingtoo much credence into this.
And I want to be really clear.
I'm not saying that science isbogus or that science is wrong,
but what I am saying is thatit's really easy to do small
studies that are misleading andit's actually really hard to
understand things.
And it takes a lot of studieswith a lot of people, a lot of
(12:22):
subjects to really getdefinitive answers.
Studies with a lot of people, alot of subjects to really get
definitive answers.
And in the sport sort of area,there are very few things that
we have very definitive evidenceabout, and that includes a lot
of training stuff.
Believe it or not, you know somuch of what we do is based on,
like what everyone else wasdoing, or sort of folklore and
whatever.
And oh, this really greatperson.
You know, what makes a reallygood athlete is good genes,
(12:43):
which none of us get to chooseRight, and so no one wants to
hear that either.
Right, right, right, whichdoesn't mean that everyone can't
, you know, do things to reachtheir own personal potential,
and I think that you should dothat.
And there are so many greatreasons to do sport, even if
you're never going to be theworld champion.
But the idea that these things,you know, I will just say this
the whole idea of marginal gains, right, first took root when
(13:04):
they were sort of like it was areason that was pointed to to
try and cover up doping, right.
It's like, oh, we're not doping, we're just getting all of
these marginal gains.
So and it's interesting.
So I do have a chapter in thebook about placebos.
I'm fascinated by this and oneof the things is you can do all
these different things and theycan create these small, you know
so-called marginal gains, butthey don't add up, like there
(13:25):
seems to be some sort of limit.
So it appears as though there'ssomething besides.
You know fancy magic physiologythat's going on here and some
of this may be anticipationeffect.
You know expectation effect,and that's great, that's fine.
I have nothing against that andI think anything you can do to
improve yourself is great.
But I think there's a limit tohow much you're going to get out
(13:46):
of.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, fully agree with that.
And to the placebo effect, it'sa grand reveal.
We're going to talk about thatin part two, because I think
that plays a huge role in allthe recovery widgets, gadgets,
boots, and is the target thateverybody's like shooting at
when they buy the Theragun ordrink the juice or whatever it
(14:08):
is so, Christy, is inflammationbad?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I think there's not a hard and fast yes or no answer.
There are instances in whichit's bad.
Chronic inflammation in yourbody is not good.
That's, you know, linked toheart problems, all sorts of bad
things, momentary inflammation,inflammation in your muscles
and things like that.
I mean people need tounderstand inflammation is part
of your body's healing process.
Like in many instances, it'sactually a good thing, and so
(14:44):
you don't want to necessarily beturning it off or blunting it,
and I think a really goodexample of this, a context in
which this is the case, is withicing and cooling.
You know this is, you know itgoes.
It's mostly in fashion, I think.
For a while these cryotherapychinks were really popular.
It seems like maybe they're notas popular as they were a few
years ago, but this idea right,yeah, and the ice baths, which I
(15:05):
think personally are horrible.
They're really painful andwhatever.
I was actually very pleased tofind out that they actually
don't seem to be helpful forrecovery and in fact, so a lot
of the stuff that I looked intofor the book.
It turned out well, it doesn'treally work, but this was one
that there is actually someevidence that it can be slightly
detrimental to recovery andit's not something like, oh,
you're going to totally wreckyourself, you're done for the
(15:27):
season or anything like that.
But basically what's happeningis you know, the reason that
you're training is to get fitter, faster and all of that.
And you know you create thismicro damage in your muscles and
so the repair process is whatmakes that muscle stronger and
what icing does and cooling doesis it actually reduces blood
(15:48):
flow to that area.
So you're just basicallyslowing down this process,
you're not stopping it, and assoon as you stop it, that area
so you're just basically slowingdown this process, you're not
stopping it, and as soon as youstop it comes back.
So it's not a huge effect, butthey've done enough studies now
that I think are prettyconvincing that it seems to be
like it's not only not helpfulbut it seems to be slightly
detrimental and it may actuallydecrease some of your gains,
(16:09):
like with strength training andthings like that muscle soreness
sorts of things.
And so I think it's just a goodexample of you know being
careful to listen to some of thehype, because in some cases you
really you want thatinflammation.
There are good reasons to.
Sometimes, you know, if I goout trail running and I sprain
my ankle and it's really hurtingme.
I might ice it just because itmakes it feel better, but I'm
(16:31):
not doing that in hopes thatit's going to heal any faster
and in fact, the advice now isthat you want to do everything
you can to maintain motion andjoints and things like that and
to allow blood flow, not stop it.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Exactly, and I think I even tell some of my athletes
master's level athletes reallyand older ice, if we need to get
back out there, I said todecrease the pain but then don't
ice it long-term and stillblows people's minds, uh, so
it's a message that needs to beout there.
And, in that role ofinflammation, I think my
personal agenda is to try to geteverybody to understand how
(17:06):
inflammation works, because,yeah, it is neutral.
Generally it's neutral, but ifyou can understand that
momentary inflammation can be abeneficial thing because of
recovery, because it's pushingthings in and out to help the
areas and whatever recover, nowyou can respect inflammation and
say or you know, instead oflike, just push it out Cause oh,
it's bad, and that's whatInstagram says it's not, and so,
(17:29):
whether it's, you know so,icing or tart cherry juice or
whatever it's like, yeah,respect the inflammation, but
there is a certain component toit of like thick legs Right and
I have a stage race and I've gotto perform the next day Okay,
cool.
So, Christy, how do I get rid ofsome thick legs if I have to go
hard the next day and is thicklegs even bad?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
legs if I have to go hard the next day and is thick
legs even bad?
Yeah, well, that's you know.
I will say one thing aboutrecovery is very individual, and
this is something I don't thinkI appreciated to the extent
that I did now before I startedresearching this book.
So one of the things I wasreally hoping to find there's a
whole chapter in the book aboutdata, sort of what kind of data
you can collect.
You know, markers of recoveryand all of that.
I think we're talking aboutthat in the second episode, um,
(18:14):
but anyway, you know, reallythinking, okay, what is that
going to be?
Well, it turns out, uh, therereally isn't one physiological
thing that you can measure forrecovery.
Um, so, for instance, a lot ofpeople will get this thick legs
is what you call it, but youknow this particular feeling in
their muscles.
Other people you know.
For me, it's like the slightestbit of a sore throat that I
wake up with in the morning.
Mood is actually the bestmarker of recovery, believe it
(18:38):
or not, and that's somethingthat we think is really squishy.
It's hard to measure and allthat.
But so we're sort of againlooking for this magic bullet,
and the magic bullet is how am Ifeeling and noticing how you
feel when you're recoveredversus when you aren't recovered
, if that makes sense.
So, anyway, getting back to thethick legs, though, and
soreness.
So there are instancesno-transcript, if you do have to
(19:22):
recover in short order.
In those instances, icing maybe beneficial, just because it
makes you it's more of a feelingof it, and any kind of
inflammation, you know, swellingthat you might get in the
muscle will be reduced, andthat's not helpful for
performing, right.
Then it's helpful for gettingthe training benefit, but you're
not going to get a trainingbenefit from the morning to the
(19:43):
afternoon, right?
So you're less concerned aboutthat.
And the same is true fornutrition too.
You know, this idea of a veryshort recovery window, uh, just,
really isn't a thing, theexception being if you're going
to really be depleting yourglycogen stores and then going
again before, your body wouldnaturally do that, which, yeah,
usually you can just wait untilthe next meal eat, you're fine.
(20:03):
But if you're going um you knowan hour or two later, you may
need to expedite that.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yep, exactly.
So again for all of ouraudience members listening it's,
it's understand, like, howthings work.
And and I think, as Christy said, and I've probably said a
thousand times on this podcast,like physiology is really
complicated.
So if you use reductionism toboil it down to tart cherry
juice is the answer you're,you're really missing a hell of
(20:30):
a lot more than than you realize.
So, understand how informationworks, understand and respect it
when it comes in and out, andjust know that yeah, there
there's some stuff that you cando to maybe mitigate it.
Uh, when you got to go hard,you know, the next day, or uh,
later on that day, and and andthat works.
The other thing with, like, acold plunge or a cold Creek or
something like that, like, ifyou race your bike, if you do a
(20:51):
criterium around here in themobber area right now, and it's
107 degree real field, go get inthe Creek because you just need
to decrease core temperatureafterwards to feel good again,
right Like that's going to behelpful.
But, um, so all that to say aswe kind of move along, um and
kind of toward the end of this,uh, episode number one, I just
(21:11):
want to touch on ketones,because we talked about tart
cherry juice.
It's a drinky thing.
Ketones are kind of new.
It's not in your book.
Yeah, Ketones for recovery.
Any thoughts?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, this kind of became a thing after I was
finished reporting my book andeverything and it's it feels
like another.
Every every few years a newthing comes up and it's like, oh
, here's the new thing.
And I don't want to completelydismiss it, but it feels like
something that sort of came up.
People were really interestedin it, they played around with
it and it doesn't seem to havereally lasted.
I'm not convinced that it'ssomething.
Again, I don't think that it'ssomething that's going to give
(21:43):
you super meaningful benefits.
Is it worth playing around with?
If you're really curious, maybe, but I wouldn't expect that it
would have a huge benefit.
And again, you know, like allthese other things, the research
on it is very slim, both in youknow there's more and more
studies now, but they tend to bevery small, and so you know,
the only way to get good datafrom small studies is to have a
(22:05):
whole bunch of them.
But even then it's hard tocombine those studies sometimes.
So you can get you know.
While I was working on the book,I would look at these
meta-analyses of something liketart cherry juice.
And I don't want to pick ontart cherry juice because I
think of all the stuff.
That's probably one of the onesthat's like has the most
potential and least potentialfor harm.
But you know, you put togethersort of crappy studies and you
(22:29):
can put them together.
It doesn't give you somethingmeaningful.
What you need is a larger,better design study, and it's
just.
There are a lot of good reasonswhy those are hard to do.
I don't want to just say thatresearchers are terrible or
they're not trying, but you knowthe funding is coming, you know
, with sort of an expectation ordesire for a certain effect.
So there's that, and you knowit's.
(22:51):
The other thing that you need tounderstand with science and
conflicts of interest is thatit's not always the case.
You know, we think of conflictsof interest as, like I'm giving
you this money to make a studythat says X, y, z, but it tends
to be much more subtle than that.
It's like we're reallyinterested in this, we think
it's really important.
So now, all of a sudden, you'restudying it.
So now there's all thesestudies about this thing.
That may not actually beimportant, but there are studies
(23:13):
measuring it and so now youhave numbers on it and it
creates this idea.
This is really what happenedwith hydration.
You know you get the Gatoradewho creates an entire Gatorade
sports industry complex wherethey are funding all of this
research.
So they're basically creatingthis.
You know the sense thathydration is, like this,
fundamental core part ofperformance, when in fact, the
(23:35):
evidence for that is not greatand in fact, part of the reason
that we think it's so importantis because there's been all this
money poured into creating thatidea.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yep, yep, yeah.
So, and that dovetails into thefinal kind of part of this, you
already mentioned this magicalrecovery window.
We used to think that 30 to 45minutes post whatever you did,
you need to guzzle some proteinshake.
When is that important, if atall, and how should we rethink
about this?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah.
So this idea, it wasn't justinvented, it was kind of a relic
of some early studies on thisstuff.
So it was, you know, studydesigns where they were
comparing people that atesomething after a workout to
people who didn't, and so itseemed like it was the timing
when, in fact, it was just thecalories or the nutrients
themselves, and in fact, there'spretty good evidence now that
(24:28):
you know, for instance, proteinis important for athletes,
carbohydrates are absolutelyimportant, and if you're doing
hard exercise or you'redepleting your glycogen stores,
you need to, you know, take incarbohydrates so that your body
can replenish them.
But there isn't this shortwindow and you will not be
harmed by waiting a little bitlonger.
The exception is that if you'regoing to perform again in short
(24:50):
order and you know we'retalking a couple of hours, not a
full day, normally it's fine tojust wait until the next meal.
On the other hand, you canreally work up an appetite for a
workout.
So there are good reasonssometimes to eat something.
I will often have a snack aftera workout if I don't have a
meal right away, and I thinkthat's fine.
But I think you need to alsomake sure that you're kind of
(25:17):
putting that in your overallcalorie budget for the day, and
this idea that it's somethingspecial about having it then is
just again, it's a way to createproducts.
And, to you know, one of thereasons that protein powders
have become such a thing is thatmilk producers had this, you
know, this byproduct of all theother things that they were
making, and so they neededsomething to do with it.
And so now, all of a sudden,protein powder is a thing for
athletes, because, again, it's agood market and, unfortunately,
(25:38):
athletes are kind of easytargets.
And another thing that I thinkis really worth considering is
the extent to which theseproducts sponsor all sorts of
athletes and events and things.
One of the reasons thatsupplements are so big is that
all of these companies aresponsoring both Olympic teams,
trade teams, professional teams.
(25:59):
Every team has a sponsor ofthese things.
Does that mean that it'sawesome stuff?
No, it means that the companiesare paying them to create this
idea that everyone needs to doit, and this is what makes you
fast and simply not the case,right.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, yeah, that's it .
And I think you might've beenlike one of the first people I
heard like speak about it of andI thought I thought it was
beautiful.
Um, is that, you know, eatingsomething after you work out.
It's not a bad thing here,especially my juniors, who
(26:39):
they're like, well, coach AP,you say to pack a meal for post
race, and all that kind of stuffis like, yeah, cause,
especially juniors, they justthey forget about stuff, right.
So if I can get some caloriesin them right away, um,
especially if we're racing againthe next day or just for good
recovery habit, that's positive,but that's just like calories
in now.
The message to add or to layeronto that is don't freak out If
it doesn't happen, just makesure to eat properly later.
(27:03):
And you know, you know, ask her, as you can, group who's um, I
mean legend in the sport to, uh,just give a talk to us and you
know, same message from him.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, yeah, and I think it's really important to
recognize that our bodies areactually really good at at
maintaining something calledhomeostasis, which is basically
like trying to keep your bodyalive and going and everything
working properly.
And these companies have triedto convince us, you know that
you need a scientist standingbehind you, you know, monitoring
how much you're taking in forhydration and all this stuff,
(27:28):
when in fact, your body has verygood mechanisms in place, very
complex physiological feedbacksystems that keep you healthy
and keep systems running.
So this idea that you knowyou're just going to fall apart
if you don't eat somethingwithin 20 minutes is just
ridiculous.
And you think about I'm not abig fan generally of like well,
think about what our, you know,hunter-gatherer ancestors did.
(27:49):
But in fact, you know, humanbeings have been, you know,
functioning quite well andexercising in heat and adverse
conditions for a long timewithout all these products and
things.
And that's not to say that theydon't have a use and that
doesn't, you know, some of themdon't make life better.
But I think you have to bereally skeptical of these ideas
that there's this exact, perfect, optimal way and in fact, I
(28:10):
think, this sort of drive tooptimize everything is a little
bit negative because it createsthis impression that, oh, I'm
getting something wrong, or if Idon't do this exact thing,
everything's going to be wrong,when in fact you know most of
the stuff is not that importantin terms of, like, getting it
exactly right.
You know you can drink to thirst, you can eat to hunger, you
know it's okay to do that, andwhat happens is people sort of
(28:33):
outsource decisions on thesethings to these companies or
coaches, or algorithms, or theirsports watch or whatever, and
it really robs them of thisopportunity to be much better
athlete, one who can understandand read their body and
understand you know the signalsthat it's giving them on its own
, like you don't actually needall this stuff.
I'm not saying that they don'thave uses and they can't be
(28:56):
helpful, but I think the mostimportant skill that any athlete
can develop is the ability toread their own body and
understand what it's telling you.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, that is also something that I fully will
preach on this podcast is createan awareness of your body,
create an awareness of perceivedeffort and all that kind of
stuff.
The last question, just to roundoff that window and timing.
One of my own athletes, josh,asked about electrolytes for
that timing window In particular.
It's super hot in the Southright now, so 100 degrees plus.
(29:33):
You do four, five, six-hourhard ride, a little bit crampy
at the end.
Should you be blasting yourselfwith a thousand milligrams of
electrolytes right away?
Is that super crucial or willthat too kind of follow the way
of the body seeking homeostasis?
And as long as you're eatingnormally, naturally that will
kind of take care of itself too.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, the latter, that's exactly right.
Yeah, again, people took these.
You know, very cheap chemicals.
They rebranded themelectrolytes.
You know they're just salts.
Your body gets them, they storethem.
I mean, we get electrolytes forthe food that we eat.
There's absolutely no reasonthat you should be buying
products to put them into drinksor things like that.
It's not necessary.
You know it occurs naturally inour food.
(30:11):
You know, if you finish aworkout and you have a hankering
for a salty snack, then maybeyou need some salt.
But it's not something that youneed to be really thinking
about on that sort of level.
And I think it's reallyimportant to understand that
your body is capable of sort ofkeeping its fluid balance.
As long as you're eating anddrinking, normally you don't
need to do special things, andwhen you really try and
(30:34):
micromanage it, that's actuallywhen things can go wrong.
I mean, we have people now whoare dying in events because
they're overhydrating and that'sactually believe it or not much
, much, much riskier thanunderhydrating, because your
body has the ability to sort ofhang on to fluids internally so
that you can stay safe andhealthy, but when you overload
(30:54):
it, it's not as good at dealingwith that.
So electrolytes, not somethingto worry about.
Just eat food.
Normally you get these thingsin your food.
The other thing that I wanted tomention so you said something
about cramps.
There is this idea that crampscome from electrolytes, but the
best evidence that we have rightnow is that it seems to be some
sort of neurological thing,that it's not actually something
(31:15):
having to do with electrolytesor salts Electrolytes are salts,
but it's not something to dowith that but really about
signaling, neurologicalsignaling and things like that.
So it's kind of interesting butit's probably not.
The thing that's going to saveyou is a salt tablet.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah, exactly, and it's a misnomer that you know a
thousand milligrams of sodium isgoing to help your cramp.
That was popular back then.
We've talked on it on thispodcast before.
Cramps are multifaceted, justlike fatigue, and usually
specificity of training,depletion of all the things um
and and peak uh performanceslike like running faster, skiing
(31:52):
harder, riding harder thanyou've ever had before.
Typically, when people are likecramping and stuff, it's
usually they're seeing newlimits that they haven't reached
and then they get tired andthey're like oh, it was a shitty
day and it's like actually notbecause, but you know anyway so.
I guess let's leave it there forepisode one.
That's, that's a lot and I, andI think too, it's, it's, it's
(32:13):
rich.
So you know it's quick, but itcomes, you know, fast at you,
just like her book.
So we'll leave it there fortoday, christy, thank you so
much and we're going to hearfrom Christy again on part two
coming up next.
Thanks for joining us on theTime Crunch Cyclist podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
If you want even moreactionable training advice, head
(32:36):
over to train rightcombackslash newsletter and
subscribe to our free weeklypublication.
Each week you'll get in depthtraining content that goes
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast.
That'll help you take yourtraining to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart, train right.
From the team at CTS.
This is the Time Crunch Cyclistpodcast, our show dedicated to
answering your trainingquestions and providing
actionable advice to help youimprove your performance even if
you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches whomake up the team at CTS.
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,
(00:30):
other coaches and experts in thefield to provide you with the
practical ways to get the mostout of your training and
ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now on to our show.
Now onto our show.
Welcome back, or welcome to theTime Crunch Cyclist Podcast.
(00:51):
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford.
Recovery it's where all thegains are made.
Without it, your training iskind of pointless.
Remember that stress plus restequals adaptation.
If you remove the rest out, theequation doesn't work.
So if you can recover faster,you will get gains more quickly.
So can you recover faster?
(01:13):
If so, how and what's the bestyou know pill, potion or process
to do that?
I'm here with recovery guru andauthor of Good to Go with
Christy Ashwandan Christywelcome back to the show.
I should say yeah, thanks somuch for having me, adam.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Yes, well, I mean, episodenumber three on this podcast was
(01:35):
actually with Christy when shefirst wrote her book back in
2020, I think we interviewedyeah.
Yeah, which is wild.
That it like is that long ago.
But so if you're reallyinterested in a long form
podcast option, go back andlisten to that one.
This is going to be quick andto the point.
(01:58):
But, christy, for those whodidn't listen to episode number
three, we'll do a quick intro onyou.
You were an elite athleteyourself, which led to the
curiosities of how best torecover and ultimately writing
this book.
Could you give us a littlesummary of your background and
motivations in pursuing amonumental task of being an
author and you know what I'mgoing to say a best-selling?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
author.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
When it comes to the endurance community.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Sure.
So I started my career as arunner.
I actually went to Universityof Colorado as a runner.
I was on the team there and gotinto a freak car accident my
freshman year, partway throughthe first running season.
I didn't even own a car at thetime, I was just with some
friends.
Anyway, I banged up my knee soI had to stop running.
(02:39):
I had to redshirt that trackseason and I started
cross-country skiing because Iwas living in the dorm with some
Nordic skiers and fell in lovewith that sport.
So I started doing that.
But I also joined the cyclingteam I guess it was the second
year, second or third year andreally sort of realized oh wait,
this is what I want to be doing.
So I ended up my last couple ofyears of college.
(03:02):
I quit the cross-country andtrack team altogether.
I stopped running for a fewyears and was just skiing and
cycling exclusively.
I actually raced with TylerHamilton on the CU cycling team
back in the day, yeah, and ifanyone's interested, I wrote a
piece I think you can find it onmy website about him.
I actually covered his case asa science journalist and sort of
(03:26):
figuring out, did he or didn'the?
And I concluded that he haddoped and everyone hated me.
And then of course, he cameback later and confessed Never
apologized to me, by the way,but you know he lied to my face
and all of that but I guessthat's what one does when
they're in that situation.
Anyway, that's a whole otheraside, kind of down a rabbit
hole there, but anyway but thenI went to graduate school for
(03:50):
journalism and decided, hey, Ikind of miss competing, and so
went back and startedcross-country skiing at a pretty
high level, was skiing for theRossignol elite team and
actually moved to Europe andlived over there for a few years
and did some racing over there.
So that was probably the sportthat I did at the highest level.
Um, but yeah, for my twentiesand thirties I was pretty,
(04:13):
pretty serious athlete,endurance athlete mostly.
Yeah, I do all of the things atthis point in my life.
I run ski bike, um, but I do itfor pleasure and fun, not not
for competition, although I willadmit it feels good to go hard
sometimes still, so, not opposedto that ever.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yes, no, agreed with that.
Sometimes you just got to gohard.
And you know what, when you'refit, everything is more fun
including when you go hard.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So yeah, for sure, Just just for those things.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So I you know this is going to be a two part series
where the Time Crunched Cyclistpodcast, so it's going to be
maybe 20, 25 minutes each, butwhere I want to start first is
with some of the more trendythings right now in the fitness
and recovery industry,especially the hyped stuff
coming off the men's and women'sof Good to Go and then tell
everyone that they should readit?
Yeah, please do.
(05:01):
First question is Christy, areyou good to go for the first
question?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I am good to go Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
All right, tart cherry juice.
It is all the rage right now.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Okay, but that is nothing new under the sun.
It's been used for recoverymodality.
Tell us everything you knowabout tart cherry trees and I,
literally two days ago, finishedprocessing the last of our tart
cherry.
We had a ginormous crop thisyear, so I have probably
consumed more tart cherries,tart cherry juice, in the last
you know week and a half thanany human being should.
So I am packed full of tartcherry juice.
I can tell you.
I would love to say that, likemy recovery has been incredible,
(06:06):
haven't noticed a damndifference and what.
I will say is I love tartcherries.
They're great.
I have no doubt that they'regood for you.
I mean, they're fruit, theyhave fiber, they have lots of
antioxidants, vitamins, allkinds of good stuff.
Is this a magic recovery pill?
No, I am all for consuming tartcherries, consuming tart cherry
(06:27):
juice and, by the way, part ofthe reason it's juice is that
actually, I can even take a stepback.
The way that this became a thingin the sporting world was that
tart cherry producers werelooking for more markets for
their products, and so they gottogether with some university
researchers.
It's like okay, what else canwe do with it?
They started funding almostevery and I cannot, I haven't
(06:50):
seen every single study that hascome out, you know, since the
beginning, but it's almostentirely funded by industry,
which doesn't make it incorrect.
You had sent me some links tosome papers and looking at them,
I mean I think literally everysingle one of them was a study
with 10 participants.
You know, 10 people taking thetart cherry juice, and you just,
(07:10):
I'm sorry, you just can't comeup with any reliable answers
with studies that small.
And part of the reason I thinkit's really important to
understand is that humanphysiology is really complicated
.
It's actually really hard.
It's not that the truth isn'tout there and there aren't ways
to study this, but it's actuallypretty hard to pin down and
because our physiology is socomplex, it can be really hard
(07:32):
to figure out if something worksor to what extent.
But the other thing that I'llsay is, if something's really,
really helpful, like you'regoing to know it because you
know the effect itself will cueyou into it, and if you need all
these studies to say, oh, thisis amazing that you're taking it
.
You don't notice a difference.
It's maybe not so much.
So I have all the sympathy inthe world for cherry producers.
(07:54):
I think it's a great, greatcrop.
I think it's a great fruit.
I would never discourage peoplefrom consuming tart cherries.
But it is not the secret, and Ithink a lot of people are
actually a little bitdisappointed with the message of
my book, because everyone islooking for the secret and the
magic and the secret is there isno secret and a lot of people,
(08:17):
frankly, don't want to hear that.
They don't want to hear thatthe things that they already
know but yet are not masteringare the things that really
matter.
And I think, honestly, thereally best athletes and the
best coaches too, are the oneswho can recognize this and
separate the wheat from thechaff and say, okay, where are
you going to get gains that arereally meaningful and that are
(08:38):
worth the time and effort?
And where are you just chasingmirages?
And I can tell you that almostall of the newfangled you know
any kind of products andservices and things like this.
They're almost always a mirage,and when you're chasing those
or you're looking at what yourcompetition's doing and now
they're using this new productusually it's not worth your time
.
And I say that with confidence,because I looked into so many
(09:01):
of them while I was working onthis book and was really
surprised, frankly.
I mean, I really expected thatI was going to find more things
that had really meaningfuleffects.
You know what's meaningful isgoing to be different between
different people.
You know some people are goingto be completely willing to
spend thousands of dollars andhours of their time on something
that's going to give them a0.5% gain or something like that
(09:23):
.
Now, in real life, howsignificant are some of these
gains?
They usually don't live up tothe hype and live up to the
studies.
I'll say that too, but I thinkyou know you're really better
off using your time and yourenergy pursuing the things that
we know really make a bigdifference.
You know, let the other guywaste their time on this stuff
with their money, and it really.
(09:44):
You know, I think a lot ofpeople you know sometimes say,
well, what's the harm insupplements if they're not
hurting you, which, in fact,supplements can hurt you?
And I have a whole chapter inthe book about supplements.
If you're a competitive athletewho's going to be drug tested,
you should absolutely steerclear of supplements, because
you're so much more likely to beharmed or test positive from a
(10:05):
supplement than you are to getany meaningful benefit to your
performance.
And you know I say that havingwritten about Olympic athletes
who missed Olympic Games becausesupplements that their sponsor
gave them, you know, made themtest positive.
So I really want to be carefulthere.
But I think it's really aboutfiguring out what is worthy of
my attention and my time.
(10:25):
And the good news is there arereally, you know there's some
basic, fundamental things thatif you focus on those you can,
you can get really importantresults.
Um, so don't, don't sweat theother stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, that's.
That's a great summation and agreat overall message.
I'll say that I'll mention this, uh, mention this because on
the Tour de France Femme AuvikZwift podcast, we did talk about
tart cherry juice and what Isaid there was it's a marginal
gain thing that these girls aredrinking.
If they're drinking it, andsome of my athletes who say have
(11:00):
the swine ears given it to themShould I drink it, should I not
?
I say yeah, it's not going tohurt you, right, and but what
they're chasing and this is whatI want to kind of focus on, my
message was I don't think forthe time crunched athlete, for
the amateur athlete they need togo out and buy the $3 per shot
tart cherry juice for theirrecovery modalities, because
even the decrease ofinflammation, or the decreased
(11:23):
DOMS or the is my perceivedeffort lower today Is that
important?
And I think that the role ofinflammation that you write
about in your book.
By the way, and if anyone'swondering what this book looks
like, it looks like this and youshould read it.
But let's talk about the roleof inflammation on the body.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Well, really quickly actually, I want to go back for
a second and then we'll get toinflammation and just about
studies.
I really hope that people willread my book because, if nothing
else, go and read the firstchapter, which I think is a
really I hope I wrote it and youknow the purpose of the first
chapter, which, by the way, isabout beer and running so if
there's any beer drinkers outthere but it's really about why
(12:01):
these small studies areunreliable and why we have to be
really careful about puttingtoo much credence into this.
And I want to be really clear.
I'm not saying that science isbogus or that science is wrong,
but what I am saying is thatit's really easy to do small
studies that are misleading andit's actually really hard to
understand things.
And it takes a lot of studieswith a lot of people, a lot of
(12:22):
subjects to really getdefinitive answers.
Studies with a lot of people, alot of subjects to really get
definitive answers.
And in the sport sort of area,there are very few things that
we have very definitive evidenceabout, and that includes a lot
of training stuff.
Believe it or not, you know somuch of what we do is based on,
like what everyone else wasdoing, or sort of folklore and
whatever.
And oh, this really greatperson.
You know, what makes a reallygood athlete is good genes,
(12:43):
which none of us get to chooseRight, and so no one wants to
hear that either.
Right, right, right, whichdoesn't mean that everyone can't
, you know, do things to reachtheir own personal potential,
and I think that you should dothat.
And there are so many greatreasons to do sport, even if
you're never going to be theworld champion.
But the idea that these things,you know, I will just say this
the whole idea of marginal gains, right, first took root when
(13:04):
they were sort of like it was areason that was pointed to to
try and cover up doping, right.
It's like, oh, we're not doping, we're just getting all of
these marginal gains.
So and it's interesting.
So I do have a chapter in thebook about placebos.
I'm fascinated by this and oneof the things is you can do all
these different things and theycan create these small, you know
so-called marginal gains, butthey don't add up, like there
(13:25):
seems to be some sort of limit.
So it appears as though there'ssomething besides.
You know fancy magic physiologythat's going on here and some
of this may be anticipationeffect.
You know expectation effect,and that's great, that's fine.
I have nothing against that andI think anything you can do to
improve yourself is great.
But I think there's a limit tohow much you're going to get out
(13:46):
of.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, fully agree with that.
And to the placebo effect, it'sa grand reveal.
We're going to talk about thatin part two, because I think
that plays a huge role in allthe recovery widgets, gadgets,
boots, and is the target thateverybody's like shooting at
when they buy the Theragun ordrink the juice or whatever it
(14:08):
is so, Christy, is inflammationbad?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I think there's not a hard and fast yes or no answer.
There are instances in whichit's bad.
Chronic inflammation in yourbody is not good.
That's, you know, linked toheart problems, all sorts of bad
things, momentary inflammation,inflammation in your muscles
and things like that.
I mean people need tounderstand inflammation is part
of your body's healing process.
Like in many instances, it'sactually a good thing, and so
(14:44):
you don't want to necessarily beturning it off or blunting it,
and I think a really goodexample of this, a context in
which this is the case, is withicing and cooling.
You know this is, you know itgoes.
It's mostly in fashion, I think.
For a while these cryotherapychinks were really popular.
It seems like maybe they're notas popular as they were a few
years ago, but this idea right,yeah, and the ice baths, which I
(15:05):
think personally are horrible.
They're really painful andwhatever.
I was actually very pleased tofind out that they actually
don't seem to be helpful forrecovery and in fact, so a lot
of the stuff that I looked intofor the book.
It turned out well, it doesn'treally work, but this was one
that there is actually someevidence that it can be slightly
detrimental to recovery andit's not something like, oh,
you're going to totally wreckyourself, you're done for the
(15:27):
season or anything like that.
But basically what's happeningis you know, the reason that
you're training is to get fitter, faster and all of that.
And you know you create thismicro damage in your muscles and
so the repair process is whatmakes that muscle stronger and
what icing does and cooling doesis it actually reduces blood
(15:48):
flow to that area.
So you're just basicallyslowing down this process,
you're not stopping it, and assoon as you stop it, that area
so you're just basically slowingdown this process, you're not
stopping it, and as soon as youstop it comes back.
So it's not a huge effect, butthey've done enough studies now
that I think are prettyconvincing that it seems to be
like it's not only not helpfulbut it seems to be slightly
detrimental and it may actuallydecrease some of your gains,
(16:09):
like with strength training andthings like that muscle soreness
sorts of things.
And so I think it's just a goodexample of you know being
careful to listen to some of thehype, because in some cases you
really you want thatinflammation.
There are good reasons to.
Sometimes, you know, if I goout trail running and I sprain
my ankle and it's really hurtingme.
I might ice it just because itmakes it feel better, but I'm
(16:31):
not doing that in hopes thatit's going to heal any faster
and in fact, the advice now isthat you want to do everything
you can to maintain motion andjoints and things like that and
to allow blood flow, not stop it.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Exactly, and I think I even tell some of my athletes
master's level athletes reallyand older ice, if we need to get
back out there, I said todecrease the pain but then don't
ice it long-term and stillblows people's minds, uh, so
it's a message that needs to beout there.
And, in that role ofinflammation, I think my
personal agenda is to try to geteverybody to understand how
(17:06):
inflammation works, because,yeah, it is neutral.
Generally it's neutral, but ifyou can understand that
momentary inflammation can be abeneficial thing because of
recovery, because it's pushingthings in and out to help the
areas and whatever recover, nowyou can respect inflammation and
say or you know, instead oflike, just push it out Cause oh,
it's bad, and that's whatInstagram says it's not, and so,
(17:29):
whether it's, you know so,icing or tart cherry juice or
whatever it's like, yeah,respect the inflammation, but
there is a certain component toit of like thick legs Right and
I have a stage race and I've gotto perform the next day Okay,
cool.
So, Christy, how do I get rid ofsome thick legs if I have to go
hard the next day and is thicklegs even bad?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
legs if I have to go hard the next day and is thick
legs even bad?
Yeah, well, that's you know.
I will say one thing aboutrecovery is very individual, and
this is something I don't thinkI appreciated to the extent
that I did now before I startedresearching this book.
So one of the things I wasreally hoping to find there's a
whole chapter in the book aboutdata, sort of what kind of data
you can collect.
You know, markers of recoveryand all of that.
I think we're talking aboutthat in the second episode, um,
(18:14):
but anyway, you know, reallythinking, okay, what is that
going to be?
Well, it turns out, uh, therereally isn't one physiological
thing that you can measure forrecovery.
Um, so, for instance, a lot ofpeople will get this thick legs
is what you call it, but youknow this particular feeling in
their muscles.
Other people you know.
For me, it's like the slightestbit of a sore throat that I
wake up with in the morning.
Mood is actually the bestmarker of recovery, believe it
(18:38):
or not, and that's somethingthat we think is really squishy.
It's hard to measure and allthat.
But so we're sort of againlooking for this magic bullet,
and the magic bullet is how am Ifeeling and noticing how you
feel when you're recoveredversus when you aren't recovered
, if that makes sense.
So, anyway, getting back to thethick legs, though, and
soreness.
So there are instancesno-transcript, if you do have to
(19:22):
recover in short order.
In those instances, icing maybe beneficial, just because it
makes you it's more of a feelingof it, and any kind of
inflammation, you know, swellingthat you might get in the
muscle will be reduced, andthat's not helpful for
performing, right.
Then it's helpful for gettingthe training benefit, but you're
not going to get a trainingbenefit from the morning to the
(19:43):
afternoon, right?
So you're less concerned aboutthat.
And the same is true fornutrition too.
You know, this idea of a veryshort recovery window, uh, just,
really isn't a thing, theexception being if you're going
to really be depleting yourglycogen stores and then going
again before, your body wouldnaturally do that, which, yeah,
usually you can just wait untilthe next meal eat, you're fine.
(20:03):
But if you're going um you knowan hour or two later, you may
need to expedite that.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yep, exactly.
So again for all of ouraudience members listening it's,
it's understand, like, howthings work.
And and I think, as Christy said, and I've probably said a
thousand times on this podcast,like physiology is really
complicated.
So if you use reductionism toboil it down to tart cherry
juice is the answer you're,you're really missing a hell of
(20:30):
a lot more than than you realize.
So, understand how informationworks, understand and respect it
when it comes in and out, andjust know that yeah, there
there's some stuff that you cando to maybe mitigate it.
Uh, when you got to go hard,you know, the next day, or uh,
later on that day, and and andthat works.
The other thing with, like, acold plunge or a cold Creek or
something like that, like, ifyou race your bike, if you do a
(20:51):
criterium around here in themobber area right now, and it's
107 degree real field, go get inthe Creek because you just need
to decrease core temperatureafterwards to feel good again,
right Like that's going to behelpful.
But, um, so all that to say aswe kind of move along, um and
kind of toward the end of this,uh, episode number one, I just
(21:11):
want to touch on ketones,because we talked about tart
cherry juice.
It's a drinky thing.
Ketones are kind of new.
It's not in your book.
Yeah, Ketones for recovery.
Any thoughts?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, this kind of became a thing after I was
finished reporting my book andeverything and it's it feels
like another.
Every every few years a newthing comes up and it's like, oh
, here's the new thing.
And I don't want to completelydismiss it, but it feels like
something that sort of came up.
People were really interestedin it, they played around with
it and it doesn't seem to havereally lasted.
I'm not convinced that it'ssomething.
Again, I don't think that it'ssomething that's going to give
(21:43):
you super meaningful benefits.
Is it worth playing around with?
If you're really curious, maybe, but I wouldn't expect that it
would have a huge benefit.
And again, you know, like allthese other things, the research
on it is very slim, both in youknow there's more and more
studies now, but they tend to bevery small, and so you know,
the only way to get good datafrom small studies is to have a
(22:05):
whole bunch of them.
But even then it's hard tocombine those studies sometimes.
So you can get you know.
While I was working on the book,I would look at these
meta-analyses of something liketart cherry juice.
And I don't want to pick ontart cherry juice because I
think of all the stuff.
That's probably one of the onesthat's like has the most
potential and least potentialfor harm.
But you know, you put togethersort of crappy studies and you
(22:29):
can put them together.
It doesn't give you somethingmeaningful.
What you need is a larger,better design study, and it's
just.
There are a lot of good reasonswhy those are hard to do.
I don't want to just say thatresearchers are terrible or
they're not trying, but you knowthe funding is coming, you know
, with sort of an expectation ordesire for a certain effect.
So there's that, and you knowit's.
(22:51):
The other thing that you need tounderstand with science and
conflicts of interest is thatit's not always the case.
You know, we think of conflictsof interest as, like I'm giving
you this money to make a studythat says X, y, z, but it tends
to be much more subtle than that.
It's like we're reallyinterested in this, we think
it's really important.
So now, all of a sudden, you'restudying it.
So now there's all thesestudies about this thing.
That may not actually beimportant, but there are studies
(23:13):
measuring it and so now youhave numbers on it and it
creates this idea.
This is really what happenedwith hydration.
You know you get the Gatoradewho creates an entire Gatorade
sports industry complex wherethey are funding all of this
research.
So they're basically creatingthis.
You know the sense thathydration is, like this,
fundamental core part ofperformance, when in fact, the
(23:35):
evidence for that is not greatand in fact, part of the reason
that we think it's so importantis because there's been all this
money poured into creating thatidea.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yep, yep, yeah.
So, and that dovetails into thefinal kind of part of this, you
already mentioned this magicalrecovery window.
We used to think that 30 to 45minutes post whatever you did,
you need to guzzle some proteinshake.
When is that important, if atall, and how should we rethink
about this?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah.
So this idea, it wasn't justinvented, it was kind of a relic
of some early studies on thisstuff.
So it was, you know, studydesigns where they were
comparing people that atesomething after a workout to
people who didn't, and so itseemed like it was the timing
when, in fact, it was just thecalories or the nutrients
themselves, and in fact, there'spretty good evidence now that
(24:28):
you know, for instance, proteinis important for athletes,
carbohydrates are absolutelyimportant, and if you're doing
hard exercise or you'redepleting your glycogen stores,
you need to, you know, take incarbohydrates so that your body
can replenish them.
But there isn't this shortwindow and you will not be
harmed by waiting a little bitlonger.
The exception is that if you'regoing to perform again in short
(24:50):
order and you know we'retalking a couple of hours, not a
full day, normally it's fine tojust wait until the next meal.
On the other hand, you canreally work up an appetite for a
workout.
So there are good reasonssometimes to eat something.
I will often have a snack aftera workout if I don't have a
meal right away, and I thinkthat's fine.
But I think you need to alsomake sure that you're kind of
(25:17):
putting that in your overallcalorie budget for the day, and
this idea that it's somethingspecial about having it then is
just again, it's a way to createproducts.
And, to you know, one of thereasons that protein powders
have become such a thing is thatmilk producers had this, you
know, this byproduct of all theother things that they were
making, and so they neededsomething to do with it.
And so now, all of a sudden,protein powder is a thing for
athletes, because, again, it's agood market and, unfortunately,
(25:38):
athletes are kind of easytargets.
And another thing that I thinkis really worth considering is
the extent to which theseproducts sponsor all sorts of
athletes and events and things.
One of the reasons thatsupplements are so big is that
all of these companies aresponsoring both Olympic teams,
trade teams, professional teams.
(25:59):
Every team has a sponsor ofthese things.
Does that mean that it'sawesome stuff?
No, it means that the companiesare paying them to create this
idea that everyone needs to doit, and this is what makes you
fast and simply not the case,right.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, yeah, that's it .
And I think you might've beenlike one of the first people I
heard like speak about it of andI thought I thought it was
beautiful.
Um, is that, you know, eatingsomething after you work out.
It's not a bad thing here,especially my juniors, who
(26:39):
they're like, well, coach AP,you say to pack a meal for post
race, and all that kind of stuffis like, yeah, cause,
especially juniors, they justthey forget about stuff, right.
So if I can get some caloriesin them right away, um,
especially if we're racing againthe next day or just for good
recovery habit, that's positive,but that's just like calories
in now.
The message to add or to layeronto that is don't freak out If
it doesn't happen, just makesure to eat properly later.
(27:03):
And you know, you know, ask her, as you can, group who's um, I
mean legend in the sport to, uh,just give a talk to us and you
know, same message from him.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, yeah, and I think it's really important to
recognize that our bodies areactually really good at at
maintaining something calledhomeostasis, which is basically
like trying to keep your bodyalive and going and everything
working properly.
And these companies have triedto convince us, you know that
you need a scientist standingbehind you, you know, monitoring
how much you're taking in forhydration and all this stuff,
(27:28):
when in fact, your body has verygood mechanisms in place, very
complex physiological feedbacksystems that keep you healthy
and keep systems running.
So this idea that you knowyou're just going to fall apart
if you don't eat somethingwithin 20 minutes is just
ridiculous.
And you think about I'm not abig fan generally of like well,
think about what our, you know,hunter-gatherer ancestors did.
(27:49):
But in fact, you know, humanbeings have been, you know,
functioning quite well andexercising in heat and adverse
conditions for a long timewithout all these products and
things.
And that's not to say that theydon't have a use and that
doesn't, you know, some of themdon't make life better.
But I think you have to bereally skeptical of these ideas
that there's this exact, perfect, optimal way and in fact, I
(28:10):
think, this sort of drive tooptimize everything is a little
bit negative because it createsthis impression that, oh, I'm
getting something wrong, or if Idon't do this exact thing,
everything's going to be wrong,when in fact you know most of
the stuff is not that importantin terms of, like, getting it
exactly right.
You know you can drink to thirst, you can eat to hunger, you
know it's okay to do that, andwhat happens is people sort of
(28:33):
outsource decisions on thesethings to these companies or
coaches, or algorithms, or theirsports watch or whatever, and
it really robs them of thisopportunity to be much better
athlete, one who can understandand read their body and
understand you know the signalsthat it's giving them on its own
, like you don't actually needall this stuff.
I'm not saying that they don'thave uses and they can't be
(28:56):
helpful, but I think the mostimportant skill that any athlete
can develop is the ability toread their own body and
understand what it's telling you.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, that is also something that I fully will
preach on this podcast is createan awareness of your body,
create an awareness of perceivedeffort and all that kind of
stuff.
The last question, just to roundoff that window and timing.
One of my own athletes, josh,asked about electrolytes for
that timing window In particular.
It's super hot in the Southright now, so 100 degrees plus.
(29:33):
You do four, five, six-hourhard ride, a little bit crampy
at the end.
Should you be blasting yourselfwith a thousand milligrams of
electrolytes right away?
Is that super crucial or willthat too kind of follow the way
of the body seeking homeostasis?
And as long as you're eatingnormally, naturally that will
kind of take care of itself too.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, the latter, that's exactly right.
Yeah, again, people took these.
You know, very cheap chemicals.
They rebranded themelectrolytes.
You know they're just salts.
Your body gets them, they storethem.
I mean, we get electrolytes forthe food that we eat.
There's absolutely no reasonthat you should be buying
products to put them into drinksor things like that.
It's not necessary.
You know it occurs naturally inour food.
(30:11):
You know, if you finish aworkout and you have a hankering
for a salty snack, then maybeyou need some salt.
But it's not something that youneed to be really thinking
about on that sort of level.
And I think it's reallyimportant to understand that
your body is capable of sort ofkeeping its fluid balance.
As long as you're eating anddrinking, normally you don't
need to do special things, andwhen you really try and
(30:34):
micromanage it, that's actuallywhen things can go wrong.
I mean, we have people now whoare dying in events because
they're overhydrating and that'sactually believe it or not much
, much, much riskier thanunderhydrating, because your
body has the ability to sort ofhang on to fluids internally so
that you can stay safe andhealthy, but when you overload
(30:54):
it, it's not as good at dealingwith that.
So electrolytes, not somethingto worry about.
Just eat food.
Normally you get these thingsin your food.
The other thing that I wanted tomention so you said something
about cramps.
There is this idea that crampscome from electrolytes, but the
best evidence that we have rightnow is that it seems to be some
sort of neurological thing,that it's not actually something
(31:15):
having to do with electrolytesor salts Electrolytes are salts,
but it's not something to dowith that but really about
signaling, neurologicalsignaling and things like that.
So it's kind of interesting butit's probably not.
The thing that's going to saveyou is a salt tablet.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah, exactly, and it's a misnomer that you know a
thousand milligrams of sodium isgoing to help your cramp.
That was popular back then.
We've talked on it on thispodcast before.
Cramps are multifaceted, justlike fatigue, and usually
specificity of training,depletion of all the things um
and and peak uh performanceslike like running faster, skiing
(31:52):
harder, riding harder thanyou've ever had before.
Typically, when people are likecramping and stuff, it's
usually they're seeing newlimits that they haven't reached
and then they get tired andthey're like oh, it was a shitty
day and it's like actually notbecause, but you know anyway so.
I guess let's leave it there forepisode one.
That's, that's a lot and I, andI think too, it's, it's, it's
(32:13):
rich.
So you know it's quick, but itcomes, you know, fast at you,
just like her book.
So we'll leave it there fortoday, christy, thank you so
much and we're going to hearfrom Christy again on part two
coming up next.
Thanks for joining us on theTime Crunch Cyclist podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
If you want even moreactionable training advice, head
(32:36):
over to train rightcombackslash newsletter and
subscribe to our free weeklypublication.
Each week you'll get in depthtraining content that goes
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast.
That'll help you take yourtraining to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart, train right.
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