00:00
Hey everyone, it's Mikki here, you're listening to Mikkipedia and this week on the podcast I speak to Professor Jose Antonio.

00:12
I've been following Jose for basically forever actually on Twitter and I am just so thrilled to be able to have him on the show. So he is this absolute wealth of information. He's a professor in exercise, science and sports nutrition. He is the co-founder of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. And on the show today we talk about protein, caffeine, myths and sports science and nutrition.

00:42
in these two areas. And also we talk about Jose's hot take on protein for endurance athletes, which might surprise a few of you out there as to what he's seen in practice really works for his endurance-based athletes. And we talk about a couple of different case studies, one which is about to be published, whereby it really does push the limits in terms of what we think is an optimal intake. And as you know, I'm

01:11
bit of a fan of protein so I really appreciated the conversation. For those of you unfamiliar with Jose, Jose Antonio earned his PhD and completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He's the CEO and co-founder of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, as well as the co-founder of the Society for Sports Neuroscience.

01:38
He is a professor in exercise and sports science at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida. His research agenda includes work on high protein diets, sports neuroscience, and sports supplements. And he is also an author of 15 books and over 180 peer-reviewed publications, which is phenomenal.

02:05
which I've linked in the show notes, the Sports Science Dudes. In addition to that, I've also linked his university profile, the paper we spend a bit of time discussing, his research gate so you can find all of Jose's research publications, and a link to the International Society of Sports Nutrition.

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Before we crack on into the show, I'd like to remind you that the best way to support the podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform. This increases the visibility of the podcast and amongst literally thousands of other podcasts that people have to choose from. So more people can get insights from the guests that I have on the show, including Professor Jose Antonio. All right, team, enjoy this conversation.

02:58
Thank you so much for joining me this morning. I'm super stoked to be able to talk to you. I think I followed you for as long as I've been on Twitter. How long has that been? Oh, 2011 or something. I'm not sure. It's been a while. And what I've noticed about you is that your area of interest seems to sort of like...

03:24
You seem to cast the net far and wide with regards to sports science and sports nutrition. And I might be wrong, but there are some studies that you do, which we will talk about, which also seem to sort of push the limits with regards to what we understand, high protein diets and health and other areas. Can you kick us off by sort of telling me what inspired you to sort of get into the field of sports science?

03:54
Originally, this is kind of funny. When I tell my students, I teach at a local university here in South Florida, and a lot of them don't realize for the first semester of college, I was a history major. Oh, really? And I like reading history. And the funny part is I often give history extra credit questions. Of course, they don't know any history, so that's what's funny. But I was a history major for one semester. And then I realized they really make you read a lot of, you know,

04:23
a lot of books, a lot of this. And I'm like, as a freshman in college, do I really want to read that much? And my dad was a physician. He's like, why don't you just be a pre-med major? I said, you know what, I'm going to do that because you know what, science majors, they don't have to read a lot. They just have to know like minuscule stuff like my, you know, minutia. So I was a biology major. And from that, I really gravitated towards wanting to do.

04:50
exercise science or exercise physiology research. Now, the problem is, back when I was an undergrad back in the 1980s, there really wasn't exercise physiology. It didn't really exist. Sports nutrition definitely did not exist. So I was a biology major and I always had my eye on, okay, I really love this stuff. I want to get a PhD in exercise physiology or whatever's related to that. And what really piqued my interest was, and this is going back a bit,

05:18
I'm a bit of a sports fan, but I've always been interested or I gravitated towards those athletes that were exceedingly fast. Now if you ask most young boys what they're interested in, they're probably going to say, well, I'm really interested in why that guy's so strong. How can they lift so much? And I was interested in, God, why are they so fast? I was a big fan of Bruce Lee. I was a big fan of Muhammad Ali. I remember watching this going way back. It was either the 1972 or 1976 Olympics.

05:47
There was a Russian sprinter named Valerie Borsoff. He won the 100, the 200. He doubled. I was like, wow, that guy's really fast. And so it just sort of piqued my interest. And that made me I was singularly focused on getting a PhD in exercise science, which I eventually did. I graduated in the early 1990s. And then from that sort of it dovetailed into, you know, people said, well, what plans did you have when you got your PhD? And my answer is, to be honest, I didn't have any. I just thought.

06:16
And I thought correctly, it was just a guess, that once you get the PhD, it'll open up doors for you because in the United States, I mean, this country is so big, there's so many things you can do if you really wanted to. You could do academia, you could do industry, you could work with athletes individually, work with athletes at the college level, at the pro level. So there's so many opportunities that really the sky's the limit. And oddly enough, the very first job I had after a PhD, and again, people are surprised by this, was I was actually a professional writer.

06:46
And it's like, well, why did you want to do that? And I said, well, one, I I don't do many things well, but I can write and I could write in the comfort of my home without having to go anywhere. And you may remember some of these old magazines from Wiener publications, Muscle and Fitness, Flex Magazine, Muscle Media 2000. But that was a different company. I wrote for almost all the fitness magazines back in the 90s. And.

07:13
Most people think you got a PhD, you go into academia. And then really, up until recently, half of my career was actually not in academics. It was actually in the industry. And people always ask me, you know, why did you choose to do that? And to be honest, I think what a lot of pure academics miss, and I have a lot of friends who are pure academics. They get their PhD, they've been in university, you know, their entire life. I think what they miss,

07:40
is they don't learn how to communicate to non-scientists. And I think that's a skill that you have to learn it, and you have to practice it. How do you talk to people who don't have a science background, make the information palatable for them, so that they're like, oh, OK, I never realized you could, if you said it that way, it's easy to understand. So that's part of the reason I went into industry, because I wanted to know how they were thinking. I wanted to know what their language was. So.

08:09
So sort of to make a long story short, I've always had an interest in human performance. And when I was doing my PhD, this is 1990s, there was no sports nutrition, by the way, which by itself, that's another topic of conversation. There's a lot of stories that revolve around that. So my PhD, my dissertation was actually on muscle fiber hypertrophy and hyperplasia. However, my interest was always in ergogenic aids, sports nutrition and whatnot. So I figured

08:38
Once I get my PhD, I'll start doing research into stuff that's more fun, the sports nutrition stuff. And that's really where my career is headed. Since the 1990s up until now, my focus has really primarily been sports nutrition and dietary supplements. And to be honest, before the year 2000, sports nutrition or sports supplements as a field of study was really frowned upon. I don't know what it's like in New Zealand, but here, if you said you...

09:08
If in 1990s, if you said you wanted to study supplements or sports nutrition, people look at you like, what are you crazy? There's nothing there. Yeah. And hate to say it, I was right. But me and maybe a dozen of my friends were like, you know what? We think they're all wrong. We think sports nutrition is a viable category. We think sports supplements is a viable category. And that's really why that's part of the reason why we formed the ISSN International Society for Sports Nutrition. Yeah.

09:37
Yeah, nice one. And I feel like Jose, your experience in industry and academia, not only does it allow you to translate information to, you know, the wider population, but you actually get that insight into working with athletes that other academics just don't get. And I wonder whether, you know, in, in this field, I mean, nutrition is such a contentious field just in itself.

10:03
And there is a real, I notice a difference between those academics who are solely in the sort of ivory towers, if you like. They conduct the research, they publish the papers, and they sort of live or die by the results. Whereas you have other academics who work with athletes and people, and they're able to see how that might actually translate into actual differences at the athlete level. And that's where I feel

10:31
there's a real advantage to having that sort of link that you've got. Yeah. In fact, let me tell you a story. Let's for instance, let's look at protein recommendations and carbohydrate recommendations for endurance. Yeah. So when we put together these papers, you know, especially these consensus papers, we'll say, OK, well, protein intake seems to be somewhere around one point two to one point eight grams per kilo, somewhere in there. That's sort of that middle area where, you know, the the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the ISSN, that we all sort of.

11:00
play around in. And then we talk about carbon take. Well, work from a lot of people like to cite Louise's Burke's work showing that, you know, general recommendations for carbs, roughly five grams per kilo up to seven ish. And if you do a lot of endurance training, you know, up to 10 grams per kilo, which I don't know about you, but 10 grams per kilo. Crazy, crazy. How could you eat that much and then still eat other food? Right. So I'm like, okay, well, that's what it says in the

11:30
endurance athletes, because that's who I'm around. Most of my I paddle most of the times. I'm only I'm around endurance people all the time. Nobody eats that much carbs. Nobody, even the ones who podium, the ones who get first, second and third place. They're not eating that many cars. I actually just submitted a case report on. A female cyclist, she's national class, so she typically wins races in in the United States. Her protein intake is three grams per kilo, which is

12:00
Most people are like, wow, that's high. And her carb intake is three grams per kilo, which most people say, wow, that's kind of low. And yet she wins. So I look at science as I'm not what you call a science purist. You kind of referred to them. I call them science purists. You call them sort of pure academicians, pure people. I'm more of a pragmatist. I look at the data. And to me, it's a roadmap. So it's like, okay, well.

12:28
I can take the highway and take that exit and I'll end up in the town I want to be in. Or I could take this route and maybe there's just multiple ways to get to the same place. It doesn't have to be strictly 1.5 grams per kilo of protein or 5 grams per kilo of carbs. Maybe there's a little bit of leeway here that we just don't know yet. So we as coaches, whether you want to call us a sports coach or advisor, when we work with real people...

12:57
You know, they might say, you know what, I don't want to eat that much carbs. We're like, okay, well, I'm not going to force you. Let's figure out a way to do this so that your performance is best. So to me, treat science as a roadmap, but you don't have to be so strict that you're scared to veer off the road a little. Yeah, no, I completely resonate with that. I remember in my because I've I was in academia for a long time, but also in that sort of sport nutrition, working with athletes and space. And I remember going to

13:27
I can't recall what, there was some conference in Australia and there was Louise Burke and there were the other sort of AIS nutrition people and they were talking about the sports recommendations. And it was almost like a dirty secret in amongst practitioners there that, oh, you know, we're supposed to recommend this amount of carbs. But every time we did, you know, six, seven, eight grams per kg of body weight, bloating, weight gain, and just a complete inability to actually eat it.

13:56
when they published a paper saying, hey, these are the recommendations, but most athletes only really eat about five grams, as you mentioned. I wonder why no one thinks, well, gosh, if that's what these athletes are actually eating, maybe that's more in line with what some of the recommendations should be. No, that's a perfect. I think that's a perfectly reasonable viewpoint to take. I think most a lot of people, they become married to a recommendation.

14:22
It's almost like they don't want to let go or divorce themselves from recommendation, because they've been telling the general public, this is what I recommend, this is what I recommend. And then it's like, well, wait a minute, there's real world data that shows otherwise. And it kind of reminds me of the idea, I don't know what they teach in schools in New Zealand, but the idea that this is a little bit of a digression, but that you have a limited amount of capacity to eat protein per meal. So.

14:51
30 to 40 grams, right, per meal. We know that's not true because I know guys who eat 100 grams are really large men that could eat that much. And then that paper comes out from Jordan Tromelin up in Holland showing that at least post-workout a single meal of 100 grams of protein, it's still used for muscle protein synthesis, et cetera, et cetera. But that 30 to 40 grams is something so many people married themselves to that they find it difficult to divorce themselves from an idea that, let's face it, on its own.

15:20
In terms of just as a pragmatic issue, it never made sense to me because I heard that going back probably 20 years ago and I'm thinking there's just no way that's a limit because from an evolutionary standpoint, there's no way humans, you know, let's go back 20,000 years, you might eat every two days so you're hungry all the time. You're eating meat, let's say you kill a deer, you're eating meat. Are you telling me that?

15:45
You're limiting yourself to 20 to 30 grams of protein while you're like hungry and you haven't eaten in 24 to 48 hours. We'd all be dead. There would not be a human species. Yeah. Yeah. Such a good point. Such a good point. And it's not. And if we're thinking about the protein, because I do want to ask you a little bit more about your case study, if that's okay. But there are so many sort of entrenched beliefs and myths around protein intake with regards to the amount that you have in any one meal.

16:13
I'd be interested actually in your thoughts around the animal versus plant protein. I mean, I have thoughts on that, but I'd like to hear what you've got to say about that, Jose. The kidney thing, you know, like, and the unfortunate thing is, is that the people who stay really sort of tightly entrenched to these beliefs are ones that talk to people, like in our voices of authority, they are dieticians, they are doctors and, and people

16:42
look to them as being this sort of like all-knowing and this sort of fountain of knowledge. And they're telling people these like erroneous things, which then obviously skews what that person's going to do. And I find it very frustrating. Yeah, you know, you bring up the protein and kidney issue, which is kind of, it's kind of funny and it's near and dear to my heart, because that's something I heard when I was an undergrad in college back in the 1980s. And I still hear it. Yes, I know.

17:10
It's crazy. 1980s, 2024, I still hear it. But when I did a series of high protein studies in the mid 20 teens and what prompted it was I teach exercise physiology at the university. And there's always at least one or two guys who are bodybuilders who love to carry their water jugs around and they're always eating. All they do is eat in my class. They're just eating, eating, eating. So one day I go up to this guy and I'm like.

17:39
All you do is eat in my class. And so I said, how much do you eat and how much protein you eat a day? And one thing about male bodybuilders, they know exactly what they're eating. They're one of the few groups that will not lie about their food intake. They know. And so I could see him sort of thinking, and he told me it was like 200 to 300 grams or something. And then I did a calculation in my head. I'm like, wow, you're getting like over three grams per kilo. That's kind of high. I mean, high compared to what other people do.

18:08
So in my head, I'm thinking, okay, you know what? I'm just going to do a simple study, series of studies, where we have people consume over three grams per kilo for at least two months. And so we did those first two studies. The first, the initial one, it was actually 4.4 grams per kilo with no change in training. And we didn't find anything happened, which I thought by itself was kind of interesting. If you change nothing and just eat a lot of protein, it's hard to gain fat, it's hard to gain muscle.

18:36
So we followed it up with a second study where we dropped it to like 3.4 grams per kilo, but we made them train bodybuilding cells. So the goal was muscle hypertrophy, lean body mass gain. And interestingly, both groups, the higher, the super high protein and the high protein group gained the same amount of lean mass, but the very high protein group, 3.4 grams per kilo, lost more fat mass. I'm like, oh. So even though they ate more calories from protein, they still lost fat mass. Now...

19:04
We actually did some blood work and of course we didn't find anything, no liver issues, no kidney issues. But what's funny, social media is so funny. When I mentioned this on social media, I was telling a friend of mine, I'm like, I bet you someone's going to say two months is really short. And what do you know? They said two months is short, which is fine. So we followed up with a year. Yeah.

19:31
which basically showed, and this was a safety study, which basically showed, okay, after a year of eating a high protein diet, 2.5 to I think it was like 3.3 grams per kilo, no change in kidney function, liver function, nothing, blood lipids are beautiful, nothing. And then I told a friend of mine, I'm like, watch, one year's not enough. And what do you know? One year's not enough. So I'm like, okay, you know what? I'm going to get the most dedicated male bodybuilders, and we're going to do this for another year, so make it two years. So for two years, these guys were averaging, I think, 3.5 grams per kilo.

20:01
for two years. No changes in kidney function, liver function, blood lipids, you name it, nothing changed. And there was someone who actually had the gall to say, well, you need to do a 10 year study. Nobody's doing it in your study. These guys, I mean, if you're telling me that after two years of eating, you know, well over three grams per kilo, and there's no changes in kidney function or liver function, are you telling me that in 10 more years, it'll change? These guys.

20:29
And here's the caveat because people will ask, well, would you ever recommend that for your uncle or your aunt or your grandma? And my answer is always this. No, because they would never do it. Yeah, the only people who will do that are one bodybuilders will do it. They're by the number one group and then high end athletes, particularly in the believe it or not in the endurance realm, because their energy expenditure is so high that I think they need that kind of protein to recover. You know, I know.

20:58
The endurance world, we're so focused on glycogen replenishment, let you know, get carbs, carbs, glycogen, glycogen, but you still have to recover. Your skeletal muscles, immune system, all of it still has to recover. So that's why I recommend the higher dose of protein because at the end of the day, if you're not recovering, I don't care how much glycogen stored in your muscle, you're going to feel like crap. So after all of that, you know, I think it was like five or six different studies, a high protein diet. There's still people who will still say that for your kidneys.

21:27
There's a limit to how much you should eat. I mean, there are, I won't mention names, but there are very high-end scientists who are cited very, they're cited prolifically, who are stuck on a, you know, somewhere in that 1.5, 1.8 grams per kilo, and they will not budge on it. It's just, it's, to me, it's very dogmatic. It's like, you know, why, why are you stuck on these numbers?

21:53
I 100% agree. And it's interesting what you say about the endurance athletes, cause I think about my own protein intake. So I have around about that three grams per kg body weight. Wow. Yeah. And I find it really easy actually. And I think that some people might generally have an appetite for it than others. I'm not sure, but I'm an endurance athlete. I run, I train for marathons and trail events, which are fairly long.

22:21
I often think, well, if I wasn't going to be eating protein, what would I be filling up on? You know, and it would be stuff that would make me feel lethargic and sleepy. And it has made a huge difference to my recovery when I did bump up a couple of years ago and my body composition, you know, like I just sort of shifted from that, um, just being sort of a, I don't know, like I was able to preserve my muscle mass a lot more and, and actually got some muscle more muscle mass than what I was then, then.

22:48
what would I was sort of previous and I'm not particularly, I'm not old, but I'm sort of mid forties. So, you know, it made a, it really made a difference to me. You're a spring chicken. Exactly. Exactly. You know, it's funny as you bring up a very pragmatic point in terms of, and I mentioned this all the time, it's only three things you could eat. Let's leave out alcohol. So you got carbs, protein, fat. If I purposely limit protein, like you're getting three grams per kilo.

23:18
Nikki, you can only eat 1.8 grams of Gila and then stop. Well, guess what? The only things left to eat is carbs and fat. Yeah. And if you want better body composition, the higher protein intake is probably better for that. If you want skeletal muscles, your skeletal muscles to recover better, the higher protein is better for that. And people say, well, what about carb intake? Shouldn't you focus on that? Well, I actually think, and this is based on some data from the case study, there's actually two case studies.

23:47
Carbon take while you race is much more important than chronic carbon take as part of your diet. I think if you could teach yourself to oxidize, basically to eat or drink carbohydrates while you race, that takes care of a lot of it because most, I don't know what you do in terms of racing, but most racing, endurance racing, there's not an issue of glycogen depletion. I mean, you're gonna use it obviously, but that's not an issue. So I think...

24:13
I don't know a distance race like for instance, the paddling races I do, they range anywhere from six, three miles to six miles. Maybe on a rare occasion, there's a 12 mile race. I don't know if you can think in miles. You guys are... Yeah, no, I'm good. Yeah, I can do the math. Okay. So, so I'm out there anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes, maybe 60 to 80 minutes. I'm like, luggage and depletion is not an issue for me. No. So I have a camelback. I'll suck on.

24:39
Believe it or not, I'll oftentimes drink a regular coke before a race. People are like, you're drinking coke. I'm like, yeah, sugar, water, caffeine. And then in my camelback, I'll have, again, like some sort of sports drink to get some sugar and maybe a little extra caffeine. But in terms of chronic diet, I think it's I mean, obviously, your carbon intake is important and you focus on complex carbs and fruits and vegetables. But this I think the obsession that so many endurance athletes have, look, you know, I'm going to carb load before the race.

25:09
before the race. Even if it's a half marathon, you don't need to carb load. And let's face it in South Florida, it's mostly 5Ks and 10Ks. I'm like, you don't need to carb load for 5K. No, no. And tapering is an effect, carb loading anyway. You're just not going to be utilizing your glycogen to the same extent. So in a race for me, I did this back in the day when I was, this was like 2010, me and a colleague of mine.

25:37
Grant Schofield, who's also a very good friend and he's studied a lot of low-carbohydrate type diets here in New Zealand. He's like, this is before we got onto the low carb. He's like, Miki, your limiting factor is carbohydrate. What you need to do is up your carbohydrate intake for the race. I had a gel every half hour and by... It was either the gels or the dried apricots I had pre the race, but by K28, I had a very

26:05
was all over for me. I needed a Port-au-Loup, there were no Port-au-Loups, and that was the end of my race. Nowadays, I have a gel every 8K, I think. I have enough carbs just to keep that glucose in the bloodstream, is what I think. But not so much that I'm going to give myself GI problems because isn't that one of the major reasons for DNF and poor performances for endurance

26:35
Yeah, yeah. And I think part of it, a lot of it, a lot of them before they use carbs during training or during a race is they really have to teach themselves how to do it during training. And I think that's, I mean, it's a skill and people don't think of it as a skill, but it is a skill and you almost have to figure out, well, what kind of carbs do you want? And for me, regular Coca-Cola before a race is enough. It's like, you know, this race is long enough to matter. But I always feel I don't know what your view of this, but

27:04
in the endurance run, particularly races that are limited by glycogen depletion. It's a lot of his central nervous system that if my head feels okay, like once, once my head is my brain start, I'm done. I can't do anything. But as long as my brain feels fine, I think I can push myself really hard, but it's, I feel it's like my nervous central nervous system is my limiting factor. So I want to have, I want it up. I want it alive. Yeah. Yeah. No, I completely appreciate that. I say,

27:33
What is your view on this? Like so many of the, there are like certain sports scientists who are very wedded to 90 grams of carbohydrate an hour, 120 grams of carbohydrate an hour for athletes at that elite level. However, it's now filtering down into the general population and now more and more sports nutrition companies are coming out with their recommendations. So this is our new 90 grams of carbohydrate an hour product. And...

28:02
have to say practically speaking, the athletes I speak to about their sports nutrition, who try to push those numbers, even if they train with it, they're vomiting on the side of the course. So because in that race situation, despite the fact they've trained, it's just too much for them. I just, I'm curious to hear what your take is on, on it's as high as one 20 now, right? I feel like I've read under 20 grams. Um, I had a hard time with 60.

28:30
It's like 60s high and I always tell people, how about one gram a minute? That's sort of an easy number to remember. Now, yeah, the one up to 120 grams per hour, it's so extreme that I would imagine there's only a few people who can tolerate that. Because to me, you're just screaming GI issues that you just don't want to deal with. If you're in the middle of the race, the last thing you need to do is worry about your gut.

28:58
With that said, I don't think most people even practice that much, practice with that much of an intake during training. I mean, imagine if you did 120 grams, how many calories is that? Do the math real quick. Yeah. So that, what's that, 480 calories? So that's like a meal. Yeah. It's like a small meal. It's like eating a hamburger or something. I mean, you're going to feel so gross that you're not going to want to touch any other, any carbs the rest of the day. But um...

29:26
Again, I think it's something that athletes need to experiment with and also titrate the dose per the type of race you're doing. And you know, I've always wondered, like you do what running triathlons or running running is a unique sport in that GI distress is probably a much bigger part for running than let's say it is for cycling just because your body's bouncing up and down. Definitely different than stand up paddling, which is on water. And

29:54
If you have GI distress, no one cares because you're on water. So that's taking care. And then how about we compare it to swimming, which your body is, you know, your body's horizontal. All these endurance sports are so different that I've always wondered if there has to be sports specific recommendations, like, for instance, there aren't many long distance swim races, but obviously you're not consuming carbs during a swim race. With cycling, it's easier to consume food because you could attach it to your body, attach it to the bike.

30:23
In the longest paddling race I've done, it was around Key West Island. It was a 12 to 13 mile race. The only food, well, the only drinks you have is what's attached to your camelback and probably three fourths through the race, you're done. You're out of it. There's no aid stations in the middle of the water. So there's all these things you have to think of that are specific to the sport. Running is probably the one where at least you're somewhat guaranteed that there's

30:52
X number of kilometers or miles, whereas most other sports, you just don't see that. So you have to practice in a manner that's similar to your sport. Yeah, yeah, completely. And I, and you're right about that. Like the GI issue is, is so much more and running. And I often think with triathlon, like you need to sort of work on that basis of sort of eat when you can on the bike, titrate off in that last third of the bike, and then just do what you can during the run, you know, and don't.

31:22
what you mentioned about your central nervous system has to be on board for you to perform well. I mean, just in terms of being in the game, like your head has to, you have to, as an athlete, sort of think, right, this is my strategy and this is the best strategy. Like you have to sort of buy into it, not like, oh my God, I'm not getting my carbs in so I'm going to have a terrible run. Like you actually in fact need to have already thought, okay, I've done what I can on the bike. I'm upset. I'm good to go. You know, I just need to like run for survival and as fast as I can.

31:52
Right. No, that's absolutely true. I think that completely makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Jose, can you talk to me a little bit about those case reports? So I know you've got one submitted for publication. So how did you, was it just sort of happenstance that you were chatting to athletes that follow this type of approach? Well, let me tell you the two case reports. One is actually published. It's one of my good friends. She actually lives like 30 minutes north of me. She's a world-class paddler and world-class surfer. So there's a race that goes from

32:21
the island of Molokai to Oahu in Hawaii. It's a stand-up paddling race, that's one of the categories, and it took her six and a half hours. So that's six and a half hours on ocean water where you're getting swells that often are higher than your height. What's funny about that is, okay, so how would you train, you know, when you think endurance athlete, okay, how would you train for a race that'll take six to seven hours? Well, most people will give you the typical stuff.

32:51
Make sure you get your make sure you get your carbs. Make sure you do all things that the traditional endurance athlete can do. But remember, there's no aid stations in the ocean. So you can't what you carry on your back. That's all you have. So you got to keep that in mind. Her protein intake was high because I told her you need to. And that's during training because you need to recover. You wouldn't believe how low her carb intake was. Yes.

33:21
It was less than two grams per kilo. Oh, wow. She's a world. She's a world class paddler. That's so, so it's like, okay, well, she's nowhere near the five and she's world class. So what's the argument? The argument she made is when you're dealing with a high skill endurance sport, this is super high skill. Maybe the skill part is so important that the metabolic machine reads like, okay, we know that if this was like a running race, the low skill

33:49
metabolism, it's different. But if you're dealing with a race that's basically, okay, how do I navigate the ocean and not fall off my board? You're dealing with skill. So let's leave that aside. She was on high protein, you'd almost say low carb. Now the other one is actually my wife. And this is why it's interesting. When I send this paper to a friend, they're like, is this your wife? I'm like, yes, that's my wife. She was a division one track runner in college. She was pretty good. She never wanted to quit running.

34:19
chronic injuries, et cetera, et cetera. She transitioned probably three or four years ago from running to do a duathlon. So run, bike, run, okay? But running still seemed to not agree with her body, even though she loved running. So she transitioned only two and a half to three years ago to purely cycling. And her niche has been time trial cycling. And sometimes, I don't know if you've seen velodrome racing. Yeah. Her niche is these time trials in velodrome. So...

34:48
We have data, I mean, she has a lot of data. She keeps track of everything. So I collected data. She gave me her data from 29 weeks up until USA Cycling, USA Nation. So this is a championship races in the United States last year in 2023. So over 29 weeks, get this Mickey, actually, before I tell you this, what percentage of training you think should be sort of steady state cardio LSD training versus high intensity interval training or sprint interval training?

35:17
What do you hear athletes tell you? What do your coaches tell you if there's like roughly a percentage split? Well, I don't know if this holds, but I'm just going to go 80 20. That's that's what almost everyone says. Yeah, yeah, I thought they would. Yeah. Yeah. 55% of her training is interval training. Oh, wow. Amazing. And is that usual as well? Like the people in her sport, is that just what they do or is this unusual? No, that well, it's it's hard to say it because

35:47
Everyone sort of trains differently. That's what's crazy. It's some people, there are some people like I'm not a, I think interval training is really painful. Yeah. If someone said, would you rather train for an hour, you know, steady state or do 20 to 30 minutes of, you know, hit, I'm like, but anyways, okay. So that's one thing that's really different. More than half of our training is interval training.

36:15
because I've known her forever. I've always said protein, protein, protein, protein, you need to recover, you need to recover. And believe me, she didn't take my advice when we first met it. She's like years and years and years. Yeah, she didn't. I mean, it's, it's really been more recent than she's like, yeah, she's so she's up to protein intake to three grams per kilo. Yeah, she feels better. Her body composition is better. And of course, she loves that part. She recovers better. So those things, which I think

36:41
A lot of endurance people don't think about that per se. They think about, well, they think just about training and glycogen repletion. And I've always, and you sort of alluded to this, I've always thought that if you can get protein intake to three grams per kilo, and then backfill the rest of your diet with carbs and fat, your diet will be fine. Body comp issues will be fine. You're going to get enough carbs. And if carbs are an issue, which for her, for time trial racing, it's really not.

37:09
But she's done a few gravel races, which tend to be longer. Just teach yourself to consume carbohydrates while you're cycling. But because their focus is time trials, which tend to be short, velodrome racing, which tends to be short, it's almost like the analogy in track would probably be some of the shorter middle distance races where it's not glycogen depletion. It's just not. It's got to be in crazy good shape. So she does high protein.

37:39
someone might say low carb, she takes creatine, beetroot juice, beta alanine, vitamin D. She takes pretty much every supplement I tell her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's smart. That's smart. And I know none of her competitors do those supplements. And I know none of them are eating that much protein. So in a way, she has an advantage. And even if she told them that's what she's doing,

38:07
she does, dietarily and supplement-wise, I guarantee you no one would do it. It's just, it's a strange thing. No, I do agree with you with that, you know? Like, regardless of the fact that these people are like super high performers, you know, oftentimes when you get sort of a rundown of the training or their regime, you're like, oh, amazing. I could never do that, you know? Like that's the, you know, by default, could never do that. How much training does she do in a week?

38:35
Jose. She is on her bike roughly nine to 10 times a week. You actually had a mileage, I don't recall it offhand, but there's a running joke in our family. My kids are like, I have twin daughters, they'll be 24 years old this year. And the running joke in our family is, does mother ever rest? She's always on that bike. She's always on the damn bike. I mean, I, you know.

39:02
I don't know anyone who's more maniacal about training than her. It's just ingrained in her brain. That's just the way she is. So when people say, wow, you didn't win this time, you got second or third place. It's like, it's almost like people are shocked when she doesn't win. Yeah. But people also don't see how much she trains. I mean, you know, the diet's cool, the supplements cool, but do you know how much she trains? And it's like, I even tell them like, I don't know how you train as much because if I train that much, I don't, I couldn't recover. I don't know how you do it. And so

39:31
I think here's what's in it. And I'd like your thoughts on this. I think in the endurance world in a way there's, it's, it's like a war of attrition is like, who has the body that can handle that kind of training? And if they can handle that kind of training, they're going to beat you because you can't handle that training. Completely, completely right. Because it is, it's all about consistency and doing the training to be able to

39:55
make it to the start line, but so many people fall down in the training, be it they don't recover well enough or they get injured or their body just sort of breaks down. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Jose, what is, like, I'm pretty ignorant actually, when it comes to the requirements for paddling. So the first case study that you mentioned, what kind of intensity would you be having to hold for that sort of six and a half hours? Well for...

40:25
for a six and a half hour race. This is why paddling is so weird. In fact, if if you look at the water sports, the endurance sports, that would be canoeing. Rowing is not really an endurance sport. I mean, usually they race two thousand meters in college. But the water sports, you have outrigger canoe. Those are the kind that have you been to Hawaii. Actually, they have these in New Zealand, the outrigger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's kind of weird in.

40:52
I compare it to running where if you're to run race, you typically want to do negative splits. You want the second half to be faster than the first half. In a lot of these water sports, it is a sprint from the start. It's like when that gun goes, you just go as hard as possible and try to hold it. There's no way a runner could do that. If you said, hey, sprint the first 400 meters and hold it, it's like, no, I would die. But in the water sports, you can do it. I think part of it is this.

41:22
when you're handling the stroke, this sounds weird, but there is a tiny, tiny bit of rest between strokes. So if you're stroking and you're recovering, people are like, well, that's technically not resting. No, it's resting because if you're running, there's no rest in running. Your feet are always moving. Yeah. In the paddling sports, in the water sport, there's that tiny, tiny, tiny bit of rest. And that makes it different. So that I think what makes it so different from running.

41:51
is the skill part can overcome the metabolic demands. That might sound weird. If you get two people who are equally conditioned, the one with more skill is always going to win. Yeah, yeah, makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And I see that with some of the elite paddlers. There's a lot of elite paddlers in South Florida. It's sort of like they make it seem effortless. In fact, there's one guy who I don't even think he trains, to be honest. He does it. He'll enter a race and I'm like,

42:21
And he's fast. I'm like, how the hell are you fast? It's you don't even you do whether you play golf and stuff. What the hell? I mean, you can't do that running. You know, you really can't. It hurts. It hurts way too much if you do. But you can do it in battling. So it's it's just a weird it's it's a weird kind of sport. I mean, there's a resistance training component to it because you're, you know, moving water, but there's an aerobic there's a cardio component to it because.

42:49
you're doing something, you're trying to sustain something for 30 to 90 minutes. Yeah, yeah, crazy. Jose, with regards to your wife and her carb intake, so you mentioned it was around about 150 grams. Is there any, does she have a particular strategy around timing of carbohydrate intake? No. No, her carb intake, the only even, okay, no, let me backtrack. Before a race, whether it's a time trial.

43:17
Maybe she is training on velodrome. She will consume and usually tell her about 15 minutes before the start, consume carbohydrates and caffeine and then don't worry about it the rest of the race. So that's the only timing component. It's the carbs and the caffeine, 10 to 15 minutes pre-race. Yeah. Okay. And in terms of the amount of carbohydrate, is it like 50 grams or? Usually

43:46
Yeah, not much, actually, just enough. And honestly, OK, maybe there's a placebo effect. At least sugar tastes good on your tongue. Yeah. And also, I still believe that as long as your brain is on, you're good. It's like the minute you feel somewhat tired up here, it's like you're done. No, I know. And that's how I feel. Like I know a day that when I wake up on like a race day, regardless of what sort of event it is, I already know how it's going to play out because of how I feel.

44:16
I remember having to do a trail marathon one day and I woke up and went, I really don't want to do this. And I just, and I had the worst run, unfortunately. And I knew it. I knew it before I started. You could see it in my face. And then once it was over, it was just like the biggest relief. And I love running and it was so unenjoyable. What you describe is probably what every racer describes when they wake up that morning. Like, Oh my God. I know, but sometimes you're excited. You're like, yeah, this is it. I'm going to have a great day. So

44:45
Yeah. Now, um, caffeine and creatine, like those are the two probably most studied, organic aids. Like when you, and I'm actually, I've spoken to Darren Cando and I'm speaking to him again in a few weeks, which will be great just to get an update in the creatine space. I just spoke to him yesterday. I know he's a good mate of yours. I'm sure he must be, because I see you guys all the time on papers. Um, like, like,

45:12
Are you surprised by, I'm just interested before we move on to caffeine, but with creatine, are you surprised by the emerging research, Jose, that's coming out about creatine, given just how long it's been in the space? And well, the, the emerging research on the non-exercise application of creatine is super cool. Yeah. In fact, um, if you go back to the early nineties, when, you know, Haltman, Roger Harris, and all those guys were doing the original creatine research.

45:42
There was a lot of skepticism around the supplement that, wow, you get stronger and increases lean mass. That's, wow, that's kind of crazy. Now you fast forward to here to now, I tell, you know, I tell students this all the time, hey, if you want to do a master's seat, just do something on creatine because we know it works. However, we do not need another study showing creatine makes you stronger and bigger. So like, yeah, but it'll, you'll graduate. But if you're thinking of going PhD, you're not going to do one on creatine making you bigger and stronger.

46:12
We already know. So now we're moving into some of the neuroscience stuff. Well, how does it affect your brain? I know Darren, he's a, this is for, I heard this hit from him first. He's like, you know, I think maybe you need a higher dose to get to the brain. Maybe 10 grams a day is, what you need, not five grams a day. However, and I told him, I said, Darren, I ain't changing my creatine intake. I'm on, in fact, I get these three pills. They're made by Optimum. Yeah. It's like 3.2 grams.

46:41
I'm like, I'm sticking to my three pills a day. Eventually it's gotta get to my brain. I've been doing this since before my kids were born. So it's like, yeah, it kind of makes sense to be doing it that long. Eventually it has to get to your brains. But anyway, so the cognitive stuff is super interesting. A lot of the, and also I talked to them yesterday about, you know, you did this study on hemodialysis patients. There's a group I would never think of in terms of creatine.

47:09
We know it helps preserve lean body medicine, whatnot. And also some of the clinical aspects of it dealing with, you know, for instance, if you have a fracture or a sprain, let's say your joint is immobilized, maybe creatine is good as something to prevent excess atrophy. So there's that. And then I think it was him and Scott Forbes up in Brandon University of Canada, had a really good paper on endurance athletes in creatine because they're a group that are, they're very sort of,

47:38
They're reluctant to try it because that little bit of muscle mass gain they might have might impede them, but it might impede them only if they run. It's not going to impede them if they're in a sport where body weight is supported. And that's what I tell endurance athletes all the time. If you're running, maybe it's an issue. Anything else? Probably not an issue. But to me, what's most surprising is despite the fact that pre-natal is now being studied in clinical settings.

48:06
So outside of sports, we're now going into clinical settings. Most people still do not recommend creative in the sports setting. And the reason I know this is if in the United States, we have a gigantic university system. We have like hundreds of colleges and every college has sports teams and every sports teams has sports dietitians or sports nutritionists there. And if you find a coach, like a coach of a team, let's take a random team, soccer, football, whatever.

48:36
that says their athlete should take creatine. I want to meet that person because I don't know who they are. Oh, wow. Crazy. Coaches are so scared of whatever. They're like, oh, what if my athlete starts to cramp? Well, there's no evidence that you cramp more. Well, what if this happens? What if that happens? I'm like, it's not going to happen. There's no evidence any of that happens. But they're so reluctant to recommend creatine. Despite all the science, it blows my mind. Now, here's what's interesting, sort of a little sidebar.

49:06
They were also reluctant years ago to recommend protein. And now, OK, proteins, fine. It's not going to be no kidney. Let's give everyone. I'm like, you know, we said this like 20 years ago. Yeah, it takes time for things to filter down. It takes a long, long time. So it's like, OK, maybe in 20 years, you know, college athletes, you know what? They'll be taking creatine because their strength coach said to take it. So it's just weird how with all this data.

49:35
people are still reluctant to recommend it. I know. And so to sort of move on- By the way, sorry to interrupt, just so you know, my kids played, we call it travel softball in the United States. Oh yeah. We had them on creatine when they were five years old. Are you serious? Yes. Brilliant. Let's see, early adopters. Very early adopters. Yeah, and you know, it's interesting on, so I speak to a lot of parents about their child's,

50:04
you know, intake and stuff. And it often comes up, creatine is one that comes up, but protein powder as well. Like, but parents are like, oh, is it safe for me to give my kids protein powder? And I'm like, look at the crap that your kids are eating. Protein powder is the least of your concerns. I hear that too. And it's like, it's protein. Yeah, it is. It's protein from milk. Yeah, exactly. I know. I know. But it is it. These, you know, sports supplements are in that sort of special category of

50:33
you know, like it's not, it's, you know, it's not the worst is it's not natural, you know, and, and when I'm like, well, yeah, protein powder is very, very refined, but it's refined for a reason to allow us to digest it and get a good load and all the rest of it. I always say it's, it's a processed food. That's a great processed food. They've removed the fat. They've removed a lot of the sugar. So it's almost just pure protein. Yeah, exactly. Hey, Jose now.

51:01
I know I really want to be respectful of your time, but I do want to chat to you a bit about caffeine. I love caffeine. Yeah, I love caffeine as well. And obviously, I saw a couple of papers, I saw a coffee specific paper, just sort of the state of the research. But then of course, I saw caffeine and in the paper, you sort of designed it or you sort of evaluated the science around some of these common...

51:26
beliefs around caffeine. And of course, the first one I do want to ask you about, oh, actually, first I'll ask what the genesis of the paper was. Why? Why did you decide that this now is a good time to talk about caffeine? Great question. And this actually segues into Darren Kandell. So do you recall the prior paper Common Questions and Misconceptions about Creatine? Yes. Yes, that actually Darren had emailed me way back when he's like, you know what?

51:53
I keep getting the same old questions about creative. I keep answering the same old questions. How come no one believes us? I'm like, yeah, I get the same question soon. No one believes us. He's like, why don't we write a paper and we'll frame it. Question and answer. Yeah, that's a damn good idea. So so that was like three or four years ago. We did the paper and he's like, you know what? I get the same questions about caffeine. And actually, there's one on protein, too, which should be published in a few months. Amazing.

52:20
We compiled all these questions that you probably hear. I probably hear about caffeine before I was created. So we did caffeine, we just finished protein. It's like, okay, these are all the questions we've been getting for like three or four decades. We answered them, no one believes us. So we're just gonna write a paper in that format. And the format actually works really well because talking to students are like, yeah, I don't wanna read all of it, but I'll read the question that I like and the answer.

52:47
Yeah, so they can skip all the stuff that like, I don't care what happens to pregnant women, blah, blah, blah. But I want to know if it dehydrates me. And so we're doing that with, we're doing part two at Creatine because that was the important questions. We're doing what with energy drinks, you know, common questions and misconceptions. So that was really the genesis of it. It's sort of like, we can, why is it we all get asked the same questions and no one believes our answers? Yeah, no, completely.

53:16
Oh, now, so are you doing, so with energy drinks, just before we get onto the caffeine, are you doing one specifically on pre-workout supplements or is that gonna be a separate one? This is a good question. Should we include pre-workout supplements in the energy drink category? Because technically you're mixing it with water and you are drinking it. Yeah, but I actually, I think you would muddy the waters. I think you need a separate.

53:42
So just the canned drinks first and the pre-workout. I think so. I agree with you. Cause someone asked me that they're like, well, I'm drinking this technically it's an energy drink. I'm like, yeah, but no. It's not what people understand as energy drink. Yeah, completely. Yeah. What I love the most Jose about your caffeine paper. And of course I will link to the papers that we've discussed in the show notes.

54:10
is probably the last question, because this was all over the internet last year. I can only guess. Do I have to wait 90 minutes to drink my coffee? When I heard that, I've heard several things on that Huberman podcast, which I'm like, like the cretin and hair loss. I mean, he was very certain, I don't take cretin because of the hair loss. So many things that he says are just like, just blow my mind that people believe it, but they do.

54:40
Tell me about the caffeine and the timing. What did you find with that? And the question was, what was the first minute? Does waiting one and a half to two hours after waking to consume caffeine help you avoid the afternoon crash? Well, the simple answer to that is, this is how you should view it. Is there any data showing that there's a relationship between drinking coffee, which is where people are getting caffeine, and what happens in the afternoon?

55:09
And the answer is there's actually not a single randomized controlled trial. So it's sort of one of those things where how do you, how do you disprove something that has literally no data on it? It would be like you saying, you know what? I think you should wait 3.6 hours before you drink coffee and then you'll, you'll run better at 6 p.m. It's like, how do you disprove that? Because there's no data on that specific question. So when we looked at the data, it was actually Sean Aron who wrote that section. He did a really good job and he likened it to

55:38
If you look at training in the morning, you know, because training in the morning will elevate cortisol levels, et cetera, et cetera, because it's a stress, then using the logic that you Berman talked about, well, then you shouldn't train in the morning either, because I'll tell you this, you know, what causes me to have a crash in the afternoon is if I train hard in the morning. Yes. Yeah, completely. So I guess I shouldn't train hard in the morning. So the whole idea of it was really it's one of those nonsensical.

56:07
social media things that for whatever reason people are like, I think people love these super specific messages. They're like, you know what, if I wait 90 minutes, okay, that's not so hard. I might just feel better in the afternoon. Whereas, hey, you know what, there are people who feel like crap in the afternoon who don't even drink coffee. Yeah, 100% only unrelated. And then the other thing is sort of the common sense argument is, well, if you wait 90 minutes,

56:35
You don't get the crash. Maybe you'll just get the crash later. How about that? So rather than worrying about, you know, this 90 or 120 minute window, just drink your coffee in the morning. Don't worry about cortisol levels. If you're training, all of this just doesn't matter. It's me. It's just minutia. That's just made up. It doesn't make any sense. When I first saw that I'm like, this is BS. He just made this up. He just made it up. So Jose, was there any mechanism that Huberman used?

57:04
around that other than cortisol, like, cause I went searching like probably most people did for the papers. I just couldn't see anything. And I'm like, is he extra and he certainly didn't link to any research. Well, that's just it. There isn't one. It's one of those things where you're looking for a unicorn. And at the end of the day, it's sort of like, okay, if you're saying there's a unicorn, you got to show me that the unicorn exists. It can't be.

57:28
It can't be me looking for the unicorn because I'm never going to find the unicorn. Yeah. So yeah, there's no real mechanism. It's just like I said, it's weird that people just make stuff up. It's crazy. And in people in positions like that where they are, they've just very quick, swiftly sort of risen to the top of the guru food chain.

57:52
And everyone just looks to them for advice that is so out of their wheelhouse or their original warehouse. And it's not that these people can't have informed opinions on on topics and make recommendations. But, you know, to get your entire morning or your whole sort of day schedule from one person, I think is problematic. So it's short. Well, before I listen to them, I make sure I sit in a cold bath for four or five. Four point five minutes.

58:18
That's good. That's good. Good stuff. Hey, and what about the some of those other sort of myths, that, you know, all questions that that you've heard that people ask all the time? And of course, I get it all the time. How much of the first thing, how much of the caffeine related literature can we translate into coffee? Because I think is that where most people get their caffeine from, Jose? Yeah, I think the performance stuff you can because when you do head head.

58:46
equal caffeine from coffee and just pure caffeine. I think performance is pretty similar. I don't think there's an issue there. Now, in terms of health effects, a lot of the observational data does show that coffee is actually quite healthy in terms of decreasing or isobarious cancers and whatnot. Caffeine, not so much. So there are polyphenols in the coffee that are good for you. And most, I mean, I think almost all the caffeine I consume is in coffee. I don't think it's, and maybe the occasional Coke.

59:16
So I think that needs to be separated. That's why we did a position paper on just coffee versus just caffeine. But from a sports standpoint, always focusing on performance. To me, it's six and one half dozen of another. It's the same thing. Some people say, what's your pre-workout? I say, actually for training, it's normally just coffee. I'll just drink a lot of coffee before I train. So I think...

59:42
For performance, it's okay to put them together. For other things like health, it's probably different. Now, you know what really surprised me from the caffeine paper was, and I kinda knew this, but when we delved into literature, the caffeine not being consumed by pregnant women, because it might have a deleterious effect. And the other one was, and the data is really weird, and actually I spoke to Darren Kanda about this, the bone mineral density stuff in caffeine, that...

01:00:10
maybe there is some sort of harmful effect or some sort of effect on bone mineral density that it might adversely affect particularly in women. And I thought, well, that's really interesting. Is it the caffeine or is it when you consume caffeine containing drinks, you're taking away other things you might consume that might be better for your bones. You're basically just doing a replacement. So I thought that was kind of, I was like, huh. But then

01:00:38
going back to we all exercise, at least the people who read the papers exercise, exercise will offset that anyways. So if you're training, it's like bone mineral density, typically it's not an issue and you could drink all the caffeine or drink all the coffee you want and it shouldn't affect bone mineral density because you're training. Right, but is a lot of the research done in sedentary populations and that's where they're seeing a link? Yeah, that's just it. I mean, when you're dealing with trained people, I tell,

01:01:06
When I talked to physician groups all the time, I said, people who train are not literally, but there are different species than people who don't train. People who train are just totally different in every way. So, so yeah, a lot of obviously the observational studies are in untrained people. So you're dealing with that. But it is interesting that there's some relationship between bone mineral density and caffeine. And then the big one is caffeine causes dehydration.

01:01:36
It's not a diuretic, it doesn't dehydrate you. Yeah, yeah, interesting. And what about any sex differences regarding caffeine's effects? What was the general consensus there? I think in general, in general, there's not a difference. For instance, the recommendations I give to women pre-race or pre-training for caffeine intake isn't based on sex, it's just based on body size. So in general, there shouldn't be any differences, in general.

01:02:03
And I tell people to experiment with dosing anyways to see what works best. Yeah, no, that's nice. And can you remind us actually whether pregnant women should avoid caffeine? Yeah, in general, that's you know, it's one of those things where. Do you want to take the risk? Is the risk worth the benefit? And in general, with caffeine, certainly with drinking alcohol, the risk isn't worth the benefits. So

01:02:33
in general recommend both coffee, of course, since that's most of the caffeine, to refrain from consuming caffeine or coffee during pregnancy. Yeah, yeah. Nice. And I mean, you get a lot of these. I've seen a couple of research papers looking at the genetic sort of the metabolism of caffeine and how that impacts on whether or not someone feels good or is going to benefit necessarily from caffeine. Like, did you, was there any sort of major

01:03:02
that leaped out to you there, Jose? Well, I think what leaped out was it seems that different doses will affect, like you might need a smaller dose or a higher dose compared to me to get the same effect. So it could be purely a dosing issue. And I think that's something we got to sort of titrate. I mean, obviously genetics is important, but it sort of reminds me of, and I forget who did this study, but the issue of non-responders with aerobic training.

01:03:30
that they're not non-responders. It just takes more of a stimulus for them to respond. So some people will get a change in aerobic fitness from twice a week, but some people get nothing. They got to train three times a week or four or maybe five times a week to get the same effect. So no one's truly a non-responder. It's just that you got to beat them so that they respond. They will respond eventually. That's such a good point actually, because we talk about non-responders

01:03:59
with caffeine, beetroot juice is another one people talk about or nitrates like non-responders and nitrates and stuff, but maybe it is actually just a dose. It's funny, actually, I remember reading a paper, it's a bit of a tangent, but looking at non-responders for beet juice amongst athletes. And one of the reasons given for the sort of non-response was that athletes have really good diets. So that's probably why they're not going to respond. And I'm like,

01:04:26
Athletes don't have good diets. Like, why would you say that? Yeah, which athletes are we talking about? Exactly. Yeah. Do you know what? What I will say, Jose, is that what I love about the position stands that your group puts out, which they're so helpful for a practitioner. But also, I think from a research perspective, it's a really gives a really clear, you know, the sort of question and answer. Like the questions are.

01:04:53
of interest to people. This is why you're getting them. That's why you're framing it. And then if the answer is a little bit unclear because the data is not there, then it gives such a good sort of direction as to where the next sort of line of research could sort of look at, I think. No, absolutely. Yeah, and I appreciate your sentiments on that. These papers, they are, I mean, it's like writing a book. It takes a while to compile all this information. And...

01:05:21
But we have a great group of people in the United States and Canada that help quite a bit. So hopefully if you ever come to the ISSN conference, it's always in Florida, unfortunately. I know, I know I want to come in fact. Like it's definitely on my list. Yeah, totally. Jose, thank you so much for your time this morning. I really appreciate it. And hopefully in the future, I can reach out and chat to you about some of your other research as well and your other areas of interest.

01:05:51
You've got this wealth of information which people are super interested in as well. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Feel free to reach out. This has been a really fun podcast for me. I like telling these stories, particularly, you know, going back 20 or 30 years, like, you know, this whole evolution of sports nutrition, it's and we didn't have enough time. But just telling you the story of how how I was told not to do sports nutrition research. I was told not to.

01:06:20
by the president of the American College of Sports Medicine. It's another story, yes. Yes, oh yeah, no, that's super interesting. Now please tell people how they can find you. Oh, well, the easiest way to reach me is probably on Twitter or X under Jose Antonio PhD. I'm also on Instagram under, and people don't understand my...

01:06:44
my name on Instagram because I have two accounts, ISSN, it's the ISSN. Oh yeah. And the other one, which I run just, I basically post paddling pictures and the podcast and stuff, but it's, it's SUPPHD and people are like, what the hell is that? It's Sandup Paddling PhD. That's all. So if you want to see a bunch of paddling pictures.

01:07:07
Go on SUPPHD. SUPPHD. I love it. And so I'll put links to that. And of course to your podcast. Super interesting. And you know, you're such a good talker as well. So I think people really gain a lot from that. So thanks so much, Jose. Thanks, Miki. Hey, enjoy your day. I think it's still early where you are. So, you know. I've got a whole day ahead of me. You've been a great host. Yes, thank you.

01:07:41
so I could have talked to Jose for it.

01:07:43
He was so fun to chat to and just a realist, you know, like he certainly doesn't sit in his ivory tower and just tell us this best practice guideline based on clinical research. He is out there working with athletes, figuring out what actually works on the ground level. And I just really appreciated the time that Jose took to chat to me. And I'm really looking forward to chatting to him again because he's got so many different areas where he is, he has so much knowledge.

01:08:14
Next week on the podcast team, I bring to you a conversation I have with Professor Ken Ford. Super excited to bring that to you. Until then though, you can catch me over on Instagram, threads and Twitter @mikkiwilliden, Facebook @mikkiwillidenNutrition. Head to my website, mikkiwilliden.com, sign up for the anatomy of fat loss. I've got this program running in the lead up to Monday's matter to help you dial in your fat loss approach.

01:08:44
using the best practical and research backed strategies that have worked for thousands of people. So if you're in a bit of a limbo as to how to approach your body composition goals, this could be the thing for you. All right, team, you have the best week. See you later, bye.