Tri Talk Triathlon Podcast

The audio for this podcast can be found here.

The ethics of supplements, how to age with speed, and the altitude debate heats up. A few examples of responses to the best of your e-mails, today on Tri Talk.

Welcome to Tri Talk, your podcast source for triathlon tips, training, news and more. I’d like to thank the Timp Tri Club of American Fork, Utah for allowing me to take the time to present at their club meeting. Most new listeners since the last episode came from Auckland, New Zealand. Thanks a ton for spreading the word in that part of the world. My goal at Tri Talk is to help you swim, bike, and run faster, to meet your personal triathlon goals. Whether you are an elite or amateur triathlete, we cover sprint distance to Ironman distance. I’m your host, David Warden, and this is Tri Talk episode 47.

Let me propose something to you. Can you think of any sport where the athlete is smarter or more informed than a triathlete? Seriously, when you think of the complexity of triathlon, from transitions to nutrition, to skill work, to gear, what other sport has the breadth and depth that triathlon does? What other sport could support a podcast, magazines, forums and books dedicated so much to physics and physiology? Fortunately, a triathlete has lots of resources to turn to, but for the content creators, it can be a nightmare. The reason is, you guys are just too darn smart. Some of the questions you ask me and comments you make blow my mind with their precise thinking and creativity. It forces me to be extremely thorough and accurate with my research, because I know I can’t pull the wool over your eyes. I am constantly amazed at the resourcefulness and intelligence of my listeners, and as a result, some of the best ideas and comments I have had for topics have come from questions from you. I realized the other day that some of the responses I have written are long enough to be a topic for the show, and so I decided to take a collection of questions you have sent in and script them for this episode. We’ll talk about aging, nutrition, ergogenic aids, heart rate, and just a bit more on altitude. You can send in your comments and questions to david@tri-talk.com.

This Tri Talk episode is sponsored by PowerTri.com. PowerTri.com is your store for triathlon wetsuits, clothing, gear and more! Tri Talk listeners get a 15% discount when you enter the discount code listed at tri-talk.com. And as always, you’ll enjoy free ground shipping on any orders over $49. Visit the tri-talk.com website to get your 15% discount code. Let me tell you guys something, I am good friends with PowerTri.com, and I don’t get much more than a 15% discount. There is something really wrong with that. The only way you will find the same quality triathlon items at that price, is to get them used, or open your own triathlon shop.

In triathlon news, I am happy to announce that Joe Friel will be publishing the 3rd edition of the Triathlete Training Bible late 2008, with updated triathlon training information, expected to add changes to every chapter of the 2nd edition. Or if you already have the 2nd edition, he will be offering a smaller companion book that just contains the changes to the 3rd edition. You heard it first here on Tri Talk!

Let’s get onto the good stuff! From your keyboards to my lips. In what has become the #1 question I am asked, Greg from Georgia writes:

“I will be turning 44 next month and in the last year to year and a half, I have really started to slow down. I have never been really fast, but I have felt a lot slower recently. I have done 4 sprint and 2 olympic triathlons. In the past 2 years I have completed 4 marathons with times of 3:55, 3:52, 4:01 and 4:28. Nearly all of my workouts are cardio. Do I have to just accept the fact that I am getting slower with age? What do 40+ endurance athletes have to do that is different than younger athletes?”

Thanks, Greg. You can still be very fast over 40 and even over 50. Much, though not all, of the performance you have lost can be gained back, but unfortunately at an increased effort and discipline. I’m going to give you 2 references to address this. The first is the Triathlete Training Bible, which has a section dedicated to this issue. And the second reference is a featured article in the September edition of Triathlete magazine. I have only seen the cover for this edition, I have not not read the article, but it is available on newsstands now and evidently addresses this very issue. But, let’s go over some basic concepts. First, continue to train intensely, but moderately. You have to keep that intensity, but it becomes more important than ever to regulate it to a fraction of your overall volume. Second, increase your rest. Perhaps at 50, it may be time to go from 6 day training weeks to 5 day training weeks. Third, strength train year round. Muscle mass loss really begins to accelerate past 40, and that strength training makes a huge difference. Fourth, nutrition becomes even more important. We have talked previously on about how certain foods can also contribute to loss of muscle, and in fact I’ll talk about that more in the podcast today later on. Finally, fifth, at the first sign of injury, involve your physical therapist. The recovery time when involving a PT immediately after an injury can be days or weeks faster than not engaging a PT.

Also, the Training Bible contains an adjusted weekly training hours schedule for masters athletes.

Another e-mail comes from from Priscilla from Montana. Now, this e-mail did not actually come from Priscilla from Montata, but this listener was very concerned about anonymity when she wrote me, and so I have changed the name and state to protect the innocent.

“I have a question about heart rate training. I have a friend [it’s always a “friend”, isn’t it?] and fellow-triathlete who is in his early 40’s. In a spin class last week, we were doing a sub-max test to determine max heart rate. He was getting frustrated when [the instructor] asked the group to go from 150 to 160. He said he’s been unable to raise his heart rate above about 155 on the bike, but 165 running, no matter how hard he tries.”

Thanks, Priscilla. First, it is very common for a bike lactate threshold HR to be 5-10 beats lower than the running lactate threshold. After years of training, only the very fittest athletes have the same zones for biking and running. The 30-minute self-test protocol for lactate threshold heart rate that I have discussed a few times on the show is not only a great way to get your LTHR, but it needs to be done independently for the bike and run. Very fit triathletes will find that there biking and running thresholds will slowly start to merge, and other reason for the importance of frequent self-testing.

Also, although I have no independent data to back this up, my HR when cycling indoors is always about 5 beats lower than outdoors. It drives me crazy. Same bike on an indoor trainer, same power output. Can’t explain it, but your friend may have the same “condition” as me. I’m looking forward to training this fall on a roller treadmill to see if this condition continues. Finally, at an indoor spinning class, that bike is not really fit to his body. Sure, you can raise the seat a bit, but it is possible that he is bio-mechanically simply not able to go as hard on that trainer and generate the effort.

In summary, any one of those 3 reasons would explain why his bike HR is lower than his run. It is perfectly normal.

From Episode 34, there was a discussion on nutrition, and the impact of the acidity level in certain foods could lean to accelerated muscle mass. The theory is that high levels of acid in the blood cause nitrogen to leave the body faster when we age, and that nitrogen is a key building block for protein, and therefore muscle. By reducing the acidity levels of foods in our diet, we could theoretically maintain more muscle mass. This is part of the theory behind the Pelo Diet, for which I am a proponent. However, Yehudah from Israel writes:

“I’m sorry but I have a really hard time accepting that the food which we eat will impact on blood acidity in a major way. After all the food is not injected directly into the blood but rather goes through the stomach and GI tract and is absorbed from there. The stomach is a very acidic environment; the rest of the GI tract much less so. During the process of digestion the food is broken apart to it components so that a protein for example may be broken down to amino acids (acids - get that!). So a food item which is not acidic to begin with may be broken down to components which are acidic. And vice versa.

In sum, since the food we eat is not absorbed into the blood stream as is but rather undergoes biochemical changes, and is worked on by the acidity and enzymes of the digestive system, I do not believe that a more acidic food will make your blood more acidic”.

I like this thinking. Essentially, Yehudah is saying the regardless of the level of acidity of alkalinity of foods, the digestive process neutralizes it before it enters the bloodstream. What we know for sure is that foods do have significantly different levels of acidity of alkalinity, and that higher levels of acid in the blood will release more nitrogen from the body. The question is can the digestive system make this irrelevant. I have some information that supports both positions. If we were to take Yuhudah’s position to the extreme, the digestive system would be able to neutralize all kinds of junk food too. If the stomach can’t keep sugars and fats from entering the blood stream, why can it hold back acids? This, of course, is not what Yuhudah is proposing, his main point being that the stomach is a very acidic place to begin with, and not a sugary place to begin with. But, I’ll still have to voice my opinion, not fact, but opinion, in favor of Dr. Loren Cordain’s theory, author of the Paleo Diet. The thing about the paleo diet is, it recommends a diet of lean meats, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, which are all low in acidic content. Even if you don’t buy the theory of acidic content in the blood, having those foods as your primary nutrients is still an excellent choice. Just before I started to record this podcast, I received a followup e-mail from Yuhudah disclosing that he has PH.D in biochemistry molecular biology. SO he might have a pretty good idea of what he is talking about too. This is what I mean about you guys being to damn smart.

In regards to caffeine, John in North Carolina writes:

“The question I have is about the regulation of caffeine - my understanding is that caffeine is on the banned substance list and if the dosage is too high, would constitute a doping infraction. All the while searching for our best performance, does it make sense to recommend caffeine to any one who is competing, elite or age grouper?”

John, for some reason this question hit me hard. I presented this very argument to my 2 oldest children at dinner one evening, and got a different response from each of them. My daughter, who is a triathlete, was all for it, and my son, who has not caught the bug yet had concerns. It is certainly enough to make one pause when a 12-year-old child says, “I don’t think caffeine sounds fair.” I’d like to present an argument that was formed, in part, from this dinnertime discussion. (by the way, I do not allow my 10-year-old triathlete daughter to take caffeine, when I said she was all for it, I mean she had no objections to other triathletes taking it).

One clarification I need to make, is that when I first podcast the episode on caffeine in 2006, I stated that it was a banned substance in the Olympics at certain levels. I subsequently posted some information on caffeine in the Triathlete magazine blog site. Those banned caffeine levels were extremely high. Much higher than caffeine intake recommendations, but it was notable that it was recognized as a significant performance enhancing supplement. Our astute listeners recently corrected me, including, Dr. John Martinez of the Coastal Sports and Wellness Medical Center in San Diego, that caffeine was removed from the Olympic banned substance list in 2004. It is currently legal at any level.

However, independent of that fact, I believe that sports supplementation can be broken into three types. Natural-necessary, natural-unnecessary, and unnatural-unnecessary. The first group, natural-necessary would include vitamins and minerals, macronutrients like protein and carbs, and even water. Whether or not we participate in endurance sports, our bodies have to have these supplements anyway to survive. A smart triathlete can apply the right balance and timing of vitamins, minerals, protein, carbs to maximize performance.

The second group, natural-unnecessary, would include supplements such as caffeine, as well as BCAAs, medium-chain triglycerides, or creatine. All of these supplements can be found and grown in a natural state and extracted without changing their chemical properties. But they are not required to sustain life. We can go our whole lives without consuming caffeine, and be a healthy person. But, the practicalities of consuming enough caffeine or creatine in a natural state to improve performance in inhibitive. The only way we can reasonably consume these supplements is if they are extracted and refined into a concentrated state.

The last group, unnatural-unnecessary would include performance-enhancing drugs such as EPO. These drugs are chemically engineered well beyond their natural state.

I think we all agree on the first and third supplement types. Natural-necessary are universally accepted as ethical, while unnatural-unnecessary are accepted as unethical, and typically banned. The question is in that second category. Is it ethical to use supplements that can be found in a natural state, but are then extracted and concentrated. There is no question that these are legal to use in triathlon, but I don’t like that argument. We all know the consequences of actions within society that are perfectly legal, but highly unethical.

Another thing to note about caffeine as a former banned substance in the Olympics. I think that the bigger statement about caffeine is not that it was ever on the banned list, but rather that it was taken off the list, indicating that some fairly sharp medical and scientific minds had had a significant debate before that took place, and concluded it was appropriate.

John, I think my answer is that this gray area has to be an individual decision. I don’t know that there is any one right or wrong answer. I see my position on caffeine possibly evolving over the next few years, I don’t know. I propose that each athlete reflect on this subject themselves, and do what they think is right. Thanks for bringing up such an excellent topic.

You’ll recall Bree from Alaska wrote me and asked why she may have seen improved swim times in a saline pool vs a chlorine pool. Her question spawned a significant amount of interest and research, with the increased buoyancy in the saline pool the most likely reason. Bill from Maryland had another idea, and wrote, “Bree’s improvement in the saline pool could be due to breathing easier.” That’s not a bad theory, if some amount of chlorine gas is evaporating into the air that she was breathing and reducing oxygen. Although I can’t really find anything to confirm that, I liked Bill’s thinking.

Speaking of reduced oxygen, regarding altitude training, Mike, who did not specify a geography, writes:

“All of your conclusions made sense, but it made me wonder. From what you seem to be saying, training at altitude didn’t seem to add a lot of advantages for endurance athletes, except in one narrowly-defined situation ( i.e., live high, train low) that would be quite hard to duplicate. If that’s the case, why are there so many examples of world-class U.S. athletes who train at high-altitude? In particular, I know that there’s a large contingent that train in Colorado Springs. Are these guys exploiting some angle that your research doesn’t address? Just curious.”

There are certainly some subjects on Tri Talk that illicit more interest than others. I would have never guessed that altitude training would be one of them. In episode 44 I summarized the research showing that altitude training for improved performance is only effective in narrowly defined environments, and received quite a bit of feedback. The timing of this subject is excellent, in part because Melanie McQuaid published a well-written article on triathletemag.com regarding altitude training, available on that web-site as of the release of this podcast. Although I agree with the article on the physiological effects of altitude, I disagree with the interpretation of how that translates into improved performance. But, the article is presented very well, and I felt that the listener should have opportunity to read an opposing view.

However, I feel comfortable stating this: there is no credible independent study to support the use of altitude training under 8,000 feet on already well-trained athletes. There is some research on the benefits of altitude training to novice athletes, but nothing on well-trained athletes. In fact, there is just the opposite support. There is credible research to show that altitude training is only effective at living over 8000 feet, and training under 4000 feet. There is obviously plenty of anecdotal and theoretical evidence for altitude training outside those extreme conditions, but those theories do not hold up under carefully measured environments. I could spend another 30 minutes on this subject alone. Instead, I’ll be writing up a detailed blog entry in the next 2 weeks on the blog site. I won’t be doing it in the podcast, because I don’t want to expose you to “altitude sickness”, pun intended, for those of you who are sick of the subject. If you are really interested in the nitty-gritty, check out the blog in a couple of weeks.

But, for today, I’d would like to answer Mike’s specific e-mail regarding altitude.
This question was echoed by many other listeners. If altitude training has no positive effect to performance, why are so many pro athletes training in Boulder and Colorado Springs in the summer months? That’s a fair question. I appreciate that line of thinking, but that logic essentially says, “if this athlete trains at high altitude, and he is fast, high altitude must work”. Using that same argument, there are plenty of successful pro triatheltes who do not train at altitude, and are just as successful. We can use the same logic to prove that low altitude training works just as well.

Now, to answer Mike’s question directly. Athletes train in Boulder and Colorado Springs not because of the altitude, but because it is the home of the US Olympic Training Center. Not only is it the home of the USOTC, it is the home of USAT, USA Swimming and USA Cycling. Some of the best coaches and training facilities in the world are in Colorado Springs, just 1.5 hours from Boulder. It is not just the fact that the triathlete has access to the best triathlon coach and facilities, they have access to the best swimming coaches and cycling coaches. Colorado is the Disneyland of pro triathletes. Any athlete who chooses to train in that area will be able to draw from the best of the best. That is the real draw to that area.

Now, the next question, so why is Colorado Springs the home of the USOTC? Was it picked because of altitude? No, it was picked because of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act of 1978, which established the Olympic Committee. The committee needed a headquarters, and one that would accommodate training facilitates for hundreds of athletes. It was decided that the recently abandoned ENT Air Force Base and the former headquarters of the North American Defense Command would do nicely for the Olympic Complex. The fact that Colorado Springs was at altitude is purely coincidental. There is no physiological benefit for a tennis player to train in southern California. But that just happens to be the place where the best tennis players in the United States train, because there is where the finest coaches and facilities are.

An important point to remember is that there is no study to show that altitude training under 8,000 feet has detrimental effects. It is a safe choice for a pro. They have nothing to lose. Imagine the choice that a pro triathlete has to make. They can stay in their home-state, or they can move to Boulder, surrounded by other pro athletes, access to the USOTC, access to the best coaches for each discipline, and who cares if altitude training actually works or not, it certainly won’t hurt them to train that high. It is essentially a low risk/high reward decision to move to Colorado.

Next week the tables turn as I report live from my experience as assistance race director from a major race, and we’ll visit how to perform lightening fast transitions, complete with video analysis. Don’t forget if you live in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, or El Paso County Texas, please consider allowing me to be your USAT Regional Representative and vote electronically today at www.usatriathlon.org. See you in a couple of weeks!