00:02
Hey everybody, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mikkipedia and this week on the podcast, I bring back fan favorite Dr. Dan Plews to talk about his new paper, Fueled or Fooled? Examining the Evidence and Mechanisms Behind Ultra-High Carbohydrate Intake in Endurance Athletes. And it's not just Dan that's on the paper actually. There's also Paul Booth who was a previous guest on Mikipedia.

00:30
the coach of Ruth Croft in the UTMB race last year and Tom Evans and a couple of other notable people in the science realm like Ed Maunder, et cetera. And so anyway, Dan and I talk about the latest research on carbohydrate fueling from the very low to the very high and the evidence base to support ultra high carb fueling for your age group athlete.

00:58
um Such a great conversation. Dan keeps it very practical. as you'll hear in our discussion, the paper itself is very balanced. you know, Dan has been not tainted with the low carb brush. He's certainly a low carb guy, but he certainly isn't ketogenic the way that people think that he is. And he's certainly not in support of anything that doesn't have a good science to sort of back it up. So we talk about the nuance between science and

01:28
practice and the ideas that practice leads science and what this might mean for the ultra high carbohydrate space. And I think if you're an endurance athlete and you're curious about this, I think you're really going to be interested in some of the insights that Dan shares from that science perspective with, of course, the practical lens. For those of you unfamiliar with Dan, I would be surprised if you're a regular listener of the show because this is his sixth.

01:56
appearance here. Dr. Dan Plews is an applied sports scientist, exercise physiologist, researcher, coach, and accomplished endurance athlete with more than 17 years of experience working at the highest levels of international sport. Dan is also the founder of Enduro IQ, an endurance education and coaching platform designed to help athletes and coaches apply sports science in the real world. He's also the co-founder of Endurox alongside Dr. Adam Storey.

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providing evidence-based high rocks coaching and programming that combines endurance development, strength training, and race-specific preparation. In addition, if that's not enough, Dan is a research lead at Pillar Performance Supplements, where he helps translate emerging research into practical supplement strategies for athletes. Dan's work brings together scientific rigor, level coaching experience, and first-hand understanding of what it takes to perform.

02:53
His approach is centered on giving athletes the why behind the what and helping them apply science-driven strategies to train smarter and perform at their best, be it triathlon or high rocks. So I have linked in the show notes um to the paper that Dan and I discussed today, plus also Enduro IQ and Endurox. So if you're interested in getting coaching from Dan, be it high level triathlon,

03:22
ah any level high rocks, jump on in and have a look at these links here. Before we crack on to the interview though, I would like to remind you that the best way to support this podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform. That increases the visibility of Micopedia and amongst literally thousands of other podcasts out there. So more people get to hear from the guests that I have on the show, such as Dr. Dan Plews. All right guys, enjoy this conversation.

03:53
Good. Hey Dan, how are you? I'm very well, thanks, Mickey. Good to see you again. Yeah, great to see you. I will say I was thinking about you on the weekend because I was dragged along with my stepdaughter and her boyfriend to a ceremony class in Les Mills, which is very similar to high rocks training. And of course, anything related to high rocks, I immediately think of in durox. I, because of course I see you very well should.

04:19
I know, I know. And of course I see you all the time on Instagram doing your hard out workouts. And it's very clear to me, Dan, that it would be an excellent workout if you had skill. Like I, I did, I don't have skill in ski-erg. I can't box jump. I'm a ter, I'm not very good at burpees and therefore I'm unable to actually exert myself in those areas. So this is how I can have a very low level workout when other people are going ballstool. You know what, Miki, you can learn.

04:49
I know, I know, I know. You can, you can, I too was once like you. I was weak. couldn't do a box jump. I had no coordinate. Well, probably so that was coordination. But, um, yeah, he's amazing. You know, this old auntie, can't teach an old dog new tricks. can teach an old dog some tricks. They just can't be, they can't be too complicated. But I think the high, the cool thing about the high Ross is.

05:18
The movements are not that difficult to master. think CrossFit is a different story where you've got some Olympic lifting. That's quite tricky, but that's why it's grown in popularity so much because the movements are quite simple and it's sport for all. I like that. You must be a couple of years in now just loving it. Actually, how does it rank compared to triathlon? uh

05:46
I mean, triathlon is my number one love and thinking I'm still so involved in it. love triathlon, I'm, I mean, I get, I get, I'm still, I'm sad not to compete in triathlon. I would love to be still competing in triathlon, but I think with me is I, if I do triathlon, I want to do it well. don't want to do it half-assed and the training to compete at the level that I am associated with requires a lot. So I just.

06:13
It's been quite nice doing something like higher ups where the expectations are not so high. Um, and the training is a bit less volumous. that's the word, volumous, word, think it is, isn't it? It is. So, know, and I can do, you know, 12, 15 hours of training a week and do, and do well from that. and it's still, and it includes all the things that I enjoyed with triathlon. Yeah. And the thing that I didn't enjoy with triathlon is swimming. So I don't have to do that anymore.

06:41
And can still cycle and I can still run. Um, well, actually I can't run cause I'm injured, but, theoretically running is still an important thing. And, um, cycling is still a great form of cross training and, it's, it's good. Yeah. mean, getting, you know, getting older and still getting stronger. So I totally agree with you. And I loved what you said about, you know, it's sport for all. We were chatting about that in the weekend, actually, that doesn't matter how good or otherwise you are, you can turn up and you don't end.

07:10
There's less intimidation because you're not, everyone is there doing it, but everyone's there for themselves doing it. that's, mean, bottom line is like most people, think nearly anyone who's does any low level of fitness can probably jump and do a high rocks tomorrow, but that's not the case for an Ironman. mean, many people aren't even going to be able to do the bike portion of an Ironman or the swim portion of an Ironman straight. Right. But, that's why the barrier to entry is quite, is a lot higher.

07:40
Put it this way, I never had the mums at my kid's school talking to me about Ironman. They talked to me about the High Rocks. They're 45. It goes to show that there's big interest. It was a big weekend. There's a World Championships this weekend, which is cool. Yeah, I saw that actually. It was all over my Instagram because it appears everyone is doing it. Dan, before we get into our actual conversation on your paper, I'm curious, the training for High Rocks, does it

08:10
the box in all elements of training that we should be doing, you know, because you often see people, like I know a load of people who are really against anything that isn't progressive overload actually, you know, and I tend to think if it's going to get you out being functional, getting stronger. What do you mean by progressive overload? Well, like if you're not doing dedicated strength sessions in the gym, you know, three times a week, working on getting stronger with the same lifts for on end.

08:39
then it's not worth your time. So high rocks, for example, as a hybrid sport is not going to do, it's not as useful as the former. Yeah. yeah. I mean, I think, I think the thing about high rocks is it's, it's multifaceted, right? In that you're, you're developing many different systems, you know, there's aerobic systems, the V2 max, the strength system. think that in, in essence is the beauty. And there's for sure, there is a concurrent training effect where it's hard to

09:09
You know, you're, are to some extent borrowing from Pete to pay Paul. So, you know, but, um, in the end, that's the great thing about it is, is that you're, trying to be good at all those things and all those things are important for health and wellbeing. And, and you don't have to be doing progressive overload to improve in a, in a very mundane fashion. In fact, I mean, if you look at like the typical German volume training in weight training,

09:38
They do 10 sets of 10 at a low weight and they do exclusively that and they only lift heavy on race on the competition days and they get really, really strong. So there's just so many different ways you can do it. And actually, as you were talking about training all different systems, my mind fluttered to what people were doing in the 60s and the 50s and the 40s.

10:01
who were super healthy and were quite functionally strong. They probably weren't, well, they weren't in a gym doing progressive overload. They were doing a lot of things in real life to help train those systems, right? Yeah, exactly. Just general, general functional movements, think is what functional, the functional movements are important. That's what I like. That's what I do like about doing the higher ops is that

10:24
You get the aerobic training benefits of cycling and running and I know cycling is not an event, but I still do a lot of it. You get the mobility aspects from burpee broad jumps and box jumps and wall balls, and then you get the strength aspect as well. So I think those things are quite important. I went to the osteo the other day and the osteo was just amazed at how mobile I was for a 43 year old.

10:53
And I do think a lot of it is use it or lose it, but also just doing things that require mobility, right? So there's definitely something to be said for that. Nice one. I love it, Dan. Thank you. And just so listeners know, you train people obviously in high rocks with Endurox, you and Adam's story, right? Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and I think that's just such a, for the individual who might not have a clue, which is probably a lot of us.

11:21
It's a cost-effective way to get like really great training information for it. Yeah. We've got an in-house built app as well. And it's built between me and Adam. Adam is focusing more on the strength. I'm focusing more on the endurance and we're really building that app to be something more as well, where it's a bit more individualized. So we're just working on a system where you can, if you've done a high rocks before, it will analyze your race results, look at where your weaknesses lie in terms of the stations and then specifically give

11:51
you more training to work on your weaknesses, for example. we're just building and we're the only app to do that presently. And yeah, and we, you know, we do group coaching. So that's what we call as part of our society, which is where you can join that app and you get lots of different plans. then I don't do any one-on-one coaching for endurance at the moment. I just have one one-on-one athlete because I mainly focus on triathlon for the one-on-ones, but we have the

12:20
But Adam does one-on-one coaching. Oh, nice one. And just so the listers know, what's the starting rate for Endurox? $80 a month. Nice one. Yeah. Yeah. really is. Hey, so I loved your paper, Dan. Just finished reading it. Fueled or fooled? Examining the evidence and mechanisms behind ultra-high carbohydrate intake in endurance athletes. Now, a couple of things I'll say before I just

12:49
ask a good question is ah I heard you mentioned on another podcast, some work all play, David and Megan Roche. um And I actually, I love a lot of their contents. Excellent, like their training content I really love and because of course they're into the trail running and the longer stuff, et cetera. And they had a great conversation actually about this paper. Like I think I thought it was going to be um like a rant on

13:18
people pushing low carb, but they really discussed it in quite a nuanced way of sort of their position and your position in the paper, which was quite nice because a lot of the information in the lower carb space or um pushing back against high carb does come from Prof. Tim Noakes and the likes. there just tend to, these tend to be circular arguments, I suppose, that, I don't know,

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least what I see on X, nothing sort of gets very far in terms of um no one's trying to change anyone's mind anyway. ah So yeah, I thought that was super interesting. And I'm curious before we kick off into it, what was it about? I mean, there are arguments all the time on low carb versus high carb, etc. And obviously, this is still an area you're interested in. mean, you were the lead on this paper. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's a bit too

14:17
There's a few reasons why I wrote this paper. One is, I I have things in my head that I just need to get out sometimes. And I just had this whirling around in my head for a long time and it was off the back of writing my HRV book. So I had that kind of a bit of a writing flow. But the main thing was like, one is I really feel like that whole, this whole space at the moment is just getting really out of hand in terms of high car versus low car, both are high car performance, you know, and some are arguing 120, 180 grams and you've got another side of the argument, right.

14:47
um, saying 10 grams an hour sometimes, you know, I think 10 grams an hour gets a bit blown out of context because that no one really actually says that, but that's what, you know, that's kind of what people push. That's what the low carb is say. Um, and, and I, and I really wanted to write a piece on number one is why neither of them are right. and, and two is the, the, I'm involved in this sport.

15:16
And increasingly I'm seeing like 120 grams per hour has become the gold standard. It's become the norm. It's become the point where it's like talked about, like it's just the expected amount that people should be taking. And it couldn't be further from the truth because there's no evidence to support it. it kind of, and I think people need to realize that we get to this point where the outliers and

15:45
athletes doing things in the field is pushing guidelines over what the science is saying. And that's really the area of what that is kind of what the overarching theme of the paper, but alongside that, I want to say, okay, well, if it is working, how can it possibly be working? Because you can't deny the anecdote. You can't deny that people are saying that it is effective. And if it is effective, why, why might it be effective? So I kind of postulate within the article.

16:14
three mechanisms as to why that might be. I'm not saying that these are the mechanisms. In fact, I don't think they are the mechanisms because I don't think it is true. don't think is. I don't think ultra high-car performance can be used for the masses and is an um effective strategy for most people. I think that was the overarching theme and why I wrote the paper. This is a thing with exercise science, right? Is often practice

16:44
uh comes before science and you often hear that in different areas of strength conditioning and you know what the bros are doing often informs research studies that then um illustrate that what they've been doing forever is in fact from a science perspective, oh yeah that's actually what we see in exercise science. So it's not unusual for things to happen on the field that we are then interested in.

17:11
know, people like you are interested in studying, which I suppose is, is, exactly. I totally agree with that. And that's, and that's one of the things that comes across a lot from, you know, you David Roaches, and now you're Zach Bitters as well, who's biggest high carb advocate there is out there and made a full 360. But you know, they always, they're always the argument is that the, you know, what's the, what's the, what do they say? They say that the

17:41
the competitive pressure will always be the thing that makes you, that is the overarching principle. But number one, the second author of this paper is Paul Booth, who is on your podcast. Yes, very good. And is the nutritionist for Tom Evans and Ruth Croft, neither of which used high carb fueling when they both won the UTMB last year. there's a bit of competitive pressure for you.

18:11
And so we can't be saying that it's always the best, of course. And I would say that those auto... And to your point that the science is behind, as I point out in the paper, the research has been done. We have had dose-response relationships looking at performance. There's not many, admittedly, there aren't many, but we do have that data and we do have that research.

18:36
Okay, we don't have it, you know, you can pull it apart. We don't have it over four, five, six hours, but the research is there. And to this point in time, we haven't seen any evidence to show that the ultra high carb um fueling is more effective in terms of performance. The only paper that has come out recently is the Ravanti paper. I think I pronounced that right. Where, you know, we looked at the Enduro, the Ravathon runners and there was a

19:05
a reduction in running economy during the ultra high carb fueling, right? But that paper is very, a little bit suspect because if you actually really delve into the paper, there's not much difference between 90 and 120 grams for one. And it's still touted as the evidence for a performance gain at 120 grams. That very podcast that you referenced with David Roach, that's what they touting in there is that they're saying that this is the paper that proves it.

19:35
Performance was never even measured. There was no performance measure in that paper. It was only looking at marine economy. Marine economy is not a performance measure. is a determinant of running success. So we're still nowhere near closer to having the evidence and that's the way we stand today. Yeah, interesting. know, this is why I'm pleased that we're just having a conversation about it, Dan, are you happy for us just to go through just the different parts of the paper? You laid it out so clearly.

20:03
is to, because a lot of the, I guess people will argue, know, first up, of course, if you go ultra high carbohydrate, it's going to help spare my endogenous glycogen stores. And so out the gate, that's one of the first um myths, if you like, that you uh address in, whether or not, in the benefit or not of ultra high carb. So what's actually going on?

20:32
Yeah. the, the, I I was, I was, thought this for a long time as well. Um, but the idea that, any of you, my favorite, my favorite, um, thing to ask an athlete who's doing high carb is I'll always say, why are you doing high carb? What's your, what's your reasoning behind it? Because I'm trying to preserve my muscle glycogen. And I went, but that carbohydrate doesn't work that way. You know,

20:58
And, know, and I made a comment to my, I'm not saying that glycogen depletion isn't, I mean, there's an area of thought where people will say glycogen depletion doesn't cause fatigue. I'm not one of those people. do believe glycogen depletion can cause fatigue. All right. But having carbohydrates is not going to save you from glycogen depletion very much. So we published a paper, we published a meta analysis that looked at, you know, we took all the studies to see if taking in carbohydrates would preserve muscle glycogen. The outcome was, yes, it does.

21:28
a small to almost trivial amount, and that was not dose dependent. So that means that the more you took, the more it didn't preserve muscle glycogen. So at 50 grams per hour, seemed to be the limit that made a small to trivial amount of reduction in your muscle glycogen. And in fact, as I talk about in the paper, there's some studies that show the opposite. Andrew King, for example, he's done a few studies that showed that

21:58
when you're taking carbohydrates in very high amounts, more than 100 grams, it actually speeds up your use of internal endogenous carbohydrates, so you use it at a quicker rate. yeah, that's kind of the starting point of where, you know, you say, if that's not happening, if that's not the case, then what's happening? Okay. And you mentioned 50 grams of carbohydrates. So that's sort of in line with traditional

22:25
carbohydrate recommendations, right? Yeah, I think traditional carbohydrate recommendations of single carbs, just multi-degenerative pure glucose, which is closer to the 50-60. I think we're beyond that now. But yeah, like I say, even if it's beyond that, and we're taking multiple transporters like foot tests and glucose, doesn't seem to be taking up 90 grams, doesn't seem to be having an additional preserving effect. Yeah.

22:54
What's your sense on what is going to help protect our endogenous glycogen stores then? You mentioned glycogen depletion is a thing, just so practically speaking, like if it's not the carbon take during exercise, what should we be focusing on? So if you think about, so the thing that really drives your usage is mainly fat oxidation. So if you improve your fat oxidation, you get fitter, even if you're on a low carb diet, dare I say.

23:20
You improve your fat oxidation. That's one of the main things that's going to improve your ability to preserve the endogenous carbohydrate stores. The higher your carbohydrate, you can higher your fat usage at all times, the less the bite into the endogenous carbohydrate stores um and taking in the carbohydrates won't stop your endogenous use though. It's a very complicated mix tricks between what's being burned exogenously.

23:50
carbs that you're taking in, your fat metabolism and your endogenous use. the best bet is to train, build your fat metabolism, and that's going to be the best way you're going to preserve it. And I guess, and the other thing, just to clarify for the listener, and I'm pretty sure we're on the same page here, Dan, is that low carb for an athlete is quite different from low carb that you might see on social media, i.e. 20 to 50 grams of carbohydrate.

24:19
Yeah, yeah, because I mean, yeah, um that's more ketogenic as well. I think low carb is just, and I don't think it's even low carb, it's just like making sure that your body has the ability to use fats as a fuel source, which can be killed off quite easily if you're oh purely, you're taking in a lot of carbohydrates during all your exercise. Yeah. Yeah. And then therefore periodizing the carbohydrates and have them at times where

24:49
You need it for exercise, also train in a state of low carbohydrate availability to help push that fat metabolism. Yeah, exactly. And it comes back to that right fuel, right time. uh Train for the fuel for the work we can't require. And I think in the end, that's the best way. You're getting the best of both worlds in that respect.

25:12
I don't think you can do some good training as well, but I think the problem would come is if you're just continuously good training and pushing the carbohydrates in every single session, you'll never give yourself the ability to use those fat stores. then I think you can run into a bit of a tricky situation if suddenly your gut doesn't turn out well on race day that you can't oxidize those carbs.

25:39
Yeah, actually, because that was, again, that's one of your other premises about ultra high carb training, about ultra high carb intakes and gut training. You also, of course, mentioned this in the paper. How trainable is the gut? Like, have you changed how you thought about this? How you think about this? uh No, not really. mean, the gut is trainable from a tolerance point of view. So you can certainly train your gut to tolerate more

26:08
carbohydrates. But that's definitely a given you can train it to tolerate but remember tolerance isn't the same as a performance driver just because you're tolerating them doesn't mean it's driving your performance. What's a bit more nuanced and a bit I would say the evidence is against it more than for it is the ability to improve your body's um ability to oxidize more cars by training it that that part is still

26:35
I would say is not that clear. And I referenced that in the paper as well. wouldn't say, I I'm a little bit on the fence with that one, but if I was to sit on one side, if I had to pick a side, I would say it's not really improving your oxidation to a meaningful amount by good training. Okay. And with that gut related stuff, suppose, I mean, you mentioned

26:59
You can train at all you want, but you turn up on race day. There's so many things that affect your ability, like what your gut's doing, Like sleep, um the foods that you've had before the race. Regardless of your tolerability of carbohydrate, um it's one of the most variable aspects. Yeah. Another massive one is heat and intensity. Of course. Heat and intensity has a massive effect on your oh ability to oxidize and your efficiency.

27:27
generally the more you increase your intensity, the worse your ability to oxidize carbs. So you can train the gut and think you're fine when your heart is at 120, try doing the same thing when your heart is at 155 and you'll see a very different picture. And this is one of the issues, right? Is that it's never always going to be the same. so you can't, so it will be a problem if you're, um, if you're just training the gut in your training and thinking that's how you're going to.

27:57
turn up on race day. And I think my, can think of it in two ways is that I remember when Paul Booth came on your podcast. And one of the things he said was, and you we, we had a, we, cause he came on the pillar podcast and we had the same discussion. And one of the things he said is that, well, if you can tolerate it, why not take as much as you can tolerate, you know, one of the points, but I would say my stance is the opposite of that. Go for the minimum, you know, you can take and go with that because

28:25
You never know how your gut will turn up on race day. Cause if you know you can race well on the uh lower dose, 80 grams or 90 grams, then it gives you more wiggle room to, where, your guts going to respond on the day. Because if you're already at the upper limit and it just so happens, it's a bit hotter. go a little bit harder up a hill than you should have done. Um, you know, you had too much, um, um, like.

28:50
high FODMAP foods in the week or something like that and you can't take it, it's going to be a very different story. Yeah. And in fact, a couple of things on that, I think maybe a good practice point here would be, train your gut and push to see how much you can tolerate in training, knowing that you might have to, that, you know, you may only be able to ingest, you know, 70 % of that, you know, like, so, so count on, count on a 30 % reduction or something.

29:18
come race day. don't know. I mean, we can't quantify it like that, but that's how I'm sort of thinking about it in terms of, of how you've just described it. Um, and, and interesting, Rachel, I'm going to say her name is Ekatrin. Do you know that name? Um, she just won the, um, coca-donut 250, which is a 250 mile race. She did it on 60 grams of carbs an hour actually for the, for the entire thing. When Chelsea, when Chelsea won Kona.

29:47
She was on about 50 to 60 grams per hour. People forget that as well. Still the second, I think it's like the third fastest ever female time in Kona. I mean, is that not competitive pressure? oh Yeah. It's like, oh, the term competitive pressure just drives me wild because it's the, I also feel like, you know, choose your side. Like don't behave, don't behave like you're a scientist.

30:15
And then when it suits, you don't follow the science. Yeah. Yeah. Really good point. You know, like don't, don't pretend you're a scientist. either, you either are where you are. You're like, you follow the science or you don't. And then you kind of say competitive pressure and that's what the people are doing. It's like, just, you know, you can't, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Especially not ultra high carbohydrate cake. That's for sure. So, um, so actually, can we talk about.

30:45
your second point in paper actually, Dan, because you said, like the headline, there's a lack of evidence for improved performance with ultra high carb ingestion rates. Like, have we actually covered that off yet? Do we know, in fact, like you mentioned in the paper, to 90 grams, there appears to be performance benefits, but beyond that, there's just, we just don't see it. Exactly, yeah. And there have been a number of performance studies

31:13
that have been done. Of course, the, I mean, to play devil's advocate with myself, which I can easily do, is that it's very hard to replicate what's going on in competition. You know, we're not, we're not taking, we're not doing full Ironmans in the lab. We're certainly not doing eight hours, 10 hour ultra runs in the lab. Right. So it's hard to say, but for the data that we have so far, which I think the maximum is up to like three to four hours, it doesn't.

31:42
There is no, there's no, one study that's showing a significant performance advantage from 90 to 120 grams. saw there was just a durability study that was just published, that looked at 60 to 120 grams and showed a difference. My feeling is that paper, it was a, that paper did test 90 grams as well, but it didn't suit the hypothesis. So they just missed it out.

32:13
We people to believe the 120. So we'll miss the 90, remove that from the paper. Here's a good headline for you. 16 compared to 120 is way better. There you go, everyone. Well, it's interesting because a lot of the, I don't know if you recall a couple of years ago, Luke Van Loo's laboratory published a paper showing that 100 grams of casein protein

32:38
could be ingested and continue to increase muscle protein synthetic response across 24 hours, um compared to, I think it was like 10, 20, I'm getting these numbers, but very low numbers. And then they shot up from like 30 grams of protein to like 100 grams of protein. Yeah, but what about the sort of general normal amounts of protein that people might At the end of the day, I mean, you want to know the minimal effective dose.

33:06
So like, you know, the question is in the paper, why did we choose 90 grams is because we specified, we, we, um, specified what is ultra high carbohydrates. It was over 90 grams. And the reason we chose that number is that's cause this was the ACM guidelines that 90 grams is standard. Right. And then anything above that is what we were deemed as ultra high. Um, so it baffles me as to why you wouldn't actually test the

33:34
ACM guidelines as your one of the, as the one really, rather than a lower one. Interesting. Funnily enough, we have a, we have a paper in print at the moment, um, that compared durability with just 15 grams. Ah, oh, interesting. Are you able to talk to us about this and actually, and also what remind listeners what... So durability is when you look at the changes in thresholds over time. So it's during the course of

34:04
So during the course of a prolonged endurance exercise, so that might be your LT1, the LT2, how that changes from say the first hour or the first start to hour four. So if your LT1 starts at 300 watts, then what is it after four hours? We would assume it would have dropped by 260. So say someone goes from 300 watts to 200 watts, that will be quite poor durability. But if someone goes from 300 watts to 280 watts, they've got quite a good durability.

34:34
And we're typically seeing that that's a real hallmark of a great athlete who's very good at the endurance sports is they have very high durability. So that's the thing that we measure is we measure is can we alter that drop off by taking in carbohydrates? And we've shown a few times now that uh we've got a few things in the pipeline. We've got another, I think we've got another study that, that where we purposely, we purposely sped up endogenous carbohydrate use. We, yeah. So we, um

35:04
basically heated the muscle and took and and we took niacin to speed up endogenous carbohydrate use and durability was worse when we sped up endogenous carbohydrate use. We had another study where we just looked at 15 grams, that 15 grams protected durability as well. So it was much improved from just 15 grams. So yeah, anyway, I was going somewhere with this. I can't remember.

35:30
I really went off on a tangent then. but I'm curious, does durability changes depending on, of course, fat metabolism as well, right? I'd admit. Yeah, you would think, you would think and we're to really prove that. uh Because we're really trying to understand the mechanisms as to why that is actually happening, what's affecting durability, because it's a key question. Then we can understand what's affecting durability, it allows us to train properly.

35:58
Um, but yet to show that fat metabolism has a consistent relationship with durability. did one study where it was a prolonged time to exhaustion study where we basically, um, the athletes were tested the LT one every 30 minutes until they could go no more. And what happened was durability would just be quite stationary or quite stagnant. It would hold, hold, hold, then just fall off edge of a cliff. It would drop. And that one, you know, but these were cycling for three, four hours doing multiple.

36:28
step test measuring the LT1, fat metabolism seems to have an effect in that particular instance, yes. But that's the only time we've really been able to replicate it. Would Prof Tim Noakes take your paper that is in print, about to be published, and see that 15 grams help rescue durability and say, there you go, there's another, like is that? Yeah, I I think the question will always be, well, will more have done better? Yeah, yeah.

36:56
Yeah. We don't know. And you know, we wanted to do a 120 gram trial as well. But the problem is, it's just so hard getting people in the lab. mean, time and time again, there's only so much you can do and we were limited on time. So we just chose for that. But the interesting thing is on the other paper where we purposely reduced endogenous carbohydrate. So we sped up the usage. And that flies in the face of this idea that

37:24
glycogen depletion doesn't have an effect on fatigue. Yes. Yes, absolutely. But we didn't measure muscle, we didn't measure high glucose either or hyperglycemia. So you have nothing to do with that. I'm really good at playing devil's advocate with, I just think of the other person, what they would say and the other side of the story, you know, but. Is that called steel manning an argument or straw manning an argument? you hear the steel man? I think straw manning an argument is when you

37:53
I think that's a bit different. It's when you basically you discredit the person from their credentials for something else they've done. Right. And not actually address the... To win an argument. Yeah. I think that's a strong argument. Yeah. And I need to look up what steelmanning is. Maybe it's the opposite. Who knows? Who knows? Hey, the other... You mentioned Nielsen.

38:17
So inform the listeners what Niacin, like, IE do not take Niacin before a long training session? Yeah, you don't, yeah, because it speeds up, makes you really, I mean, I didn't actually do this as a, um, as a subject, and I wish I did cause I could have experienced it, but I mean, I don't really understand the full mechanisms as to how it works, but it makes you very hot, gives you a very red face, makes you very flushed and it speeds up, and it speeds up the, um, your uses of endogenous carbohydrate. Is it because it increases like,

38:46
Niacin increases vasodilation. It helps vasculin. You can actually get non-flushing Niacin, just so you know. We probably didn't want that one. Yeah. So in fact, it's increased oxidation. Yeah, increasing oxidation in the blood flow, will therefore increase the use of the carbohydrate. Yeah. Oh, that makes sense. I'd expect someone to go...

39:14
don't know. It's funny. I think, well, if you can increase your carbohydrate usage, surely you'd go a bit quicker, but I guess you weren't really looking at that. Yeah. Well, I think, again, it depends, doesn't it? Like, you know, there's an argument to suggest that having a greater carbohydrate use is of advantage for shorter events, but was not of an advantage for ultra long events. And it's an interesting argument, isn't it? Because I've heard that one be talked about from some of the high carb, as it's like, well,

39:44
It doesn't matter. You know, I'm replacing my carbohydrates because the argument because what happens is, that when you're taking more carbohydrates, you burn more carbohydrates, right? You know, if your muscle glycogen is really high at the start, you burn more carbohydrates, you take more carbohydrates in, you burn more carbohydrates, your fat metabolism goes down. And the argument as well, I want to be using all my carbohydrates. I don't care if my endogenous supplies being ruined because I'm taking more in. But as we discussed at the start, that doesn't matter because

40:12
taking in carbohydrates is not helping you with your endogenous carbohydrates, saving it. yes. Yeah. Actually, something else I see a lot is that using fat as a fuel source. doesn't matter that you're suppressing fat metabolism because, in fact, it takes more energy to create ATP from fat. Therefore, it's a slower use of energy. What's the go-to, Yeah. Well, that's...

40:39
wasn't that point one in my in the paper as well? Oh, could have been. I might have skipped that one over. Talk to me. Come on, Mickey, do your homework. Figure one, point one. Yeah, so one of the things that we talked about is we address that very, that very point, point one is, is this idea that

41:08
Because carbohydrates has a oxidative efficiency, you're creating more ATP with less energy usage, so to speak. So generally, it's a more superior substrate. And as we will therefore see, the argument is because of this, you use less VO2. You're using less VO2 to burn the carbohydrate.

41:37
So if you're using less VO2, you are therefore more efficient. So you're improving your overall economy or you're improving your overall efficiency of exercise or your gross efficiency. So if you can, and one of the things that we talk about is almost this reverse, rethinking the crossover points. So typically in exercise physiology, we have this crossover point where you'll start at a low intensity.

42:03
you'll burn predominantly fat as a fuel source. And as intensity goes up, you make a cross, you switch, and you go from burning predominantly fats as a fuel source to burning predominantly carbohydrates as a fuel source as the intensity goes up. And traditionally, in exercise physiology, we've always thought, OK, we want that crossover point to be as late as possible. So the later we can cross over from burning predominantly fats to predominantly carbohydrates, the better, because it's going to preserve our carbohydrates, it's going to preserve our endogenous. But the theory is that

42:31
By taking in a lot of carbohydrates, we're making that crossover point happen even at a very, very low intensity. So we're actually at low intensities. We're being very efficient. We're using less oxygen. We're saving energy because we're burning more carbohydrates as a fuel source. And that was the idea behind um the paper that was published in the Marathon Runners. So all those marathon runners were two hours and 20 minute marathon runners, so very elite.

43:00
And they showed that when they took 120 grams of carbohydrates, they had, I think, a 2 to 3 % improvement in their running economy. So that's not a performance outcome, but a determinant of success that was there running an economy. So one of the things that we did is we went, OK, well, in all the papers that we've included, if we go back and we just get the VO2 for their exercise, where they took the lowest amount of carbohydrates, so that could be zero.

43:29
could be 60, whatever it was, whatever the lowest amount of carbohydrates it did. And then we say, okay, well, now let's look at the VO2 at the highest amount of carbohydrates and let's see if there's a difference, let's see if there's a change. And there wasn't. So we couldn't really pull out that idea that you're becoming more efficient and you'll be becoming more economical by taking in more carbohydrates because that wasn't the case that we pulled look to all the studies that we could we could find. Yeah.

43:58
No, nice one. Thank you, Dan. And of course, that was not just for the benefit of me who skipped that part um of your paper. It's for the listener as well to understand the full... You were just pretending like you hadn't read that part. Do you know, funny though, I don't know if this is you, bit of a tangent, but often I'm listening to like the diary of a CEO, Steve Bennett tends to do this a lot. He asks a question like,

44:27
He's absolutely no prior knowledge on any or has never had an opinion on whatever it is he's talking about. And he's like, he might've at this point interviewed on a particular topic, like five or six different people. He clearly has this knowledge, but the way he asks questions, he asks it like he's like, so.

44:44
What do you think about carbohydrate? know, like it makes me laugh. That is not me. I'm not that person. You're a much better, you're a much better interviewer than I am. Oh, I'm going to pull, I'm going to pull that out. That is going to be the investment. That amateur hour compared to Micropedia. Clearly, clearly, clearly they are. Dan, uh of course the elephant, it's not even an elephant in the room, but I do think that when we talk about competitive pressure and when you see uh comments like that and

45:13
referring to why high carb is superior. Health, health, long-term health of these athletes. This is the thing I keep coming back to. The fact that, know, Prin's paper was small, but it showed that definite uptick in blood glucose levels. I mean, when you say 31 % of participants, it sounds quite major, but there were very small participant numbers. So I'm very cognizant of that. But

45:41
In real life, we see this with athletes that we work with is that there are just, particularly as you get to our middle age, people can't tolerate carbohydrate to the same extent, not gut related, not performance related, but actually looking at health markers, looking at body composition. I think this is super important. I assume you still do as well. Does that drive any of the decisions you make with your athletes and your recommendations?

46:12
I'm just still getting over the fact that you just call me middle-aged, to be honest. Well, you did say you were 43. You don't have to say it. You're a mammal. Are you a mammal now, middle-aged man? Yeah, I am, actually. I don't look like a mammal. No, you don't. I actually talk about this in the conclusion as well. I talk about this very fact.

46:41
And the funny thing is, is that one of the reviewers who reviewed this paper really wanted me to take it out. He didn't like it at all. Because the argument was why this shouldn't be in here. This is nothing to do with the paper because you're talking about, you know, you're talking about in-house, taking fuel during competition. Why is it related to this paper? But I really wanted it in there because I felt it was such an important point. So I managed to get it in there. And the reason being is because if we do think about the gut training,

47:10
and the ultra high carb fueling and the recovery, it is something that you need to consider. And as you get older, you cannot tolerate those amounts of carbohydrates in the same way. And I think it goes a bit beyond that as well, is that if you're just really prioritizing carbohydrates in such a high uh level, and you're talking like, you know, probably 80 % of your total diet is carbohydrates, if not more, then

47:38
where's your room for the actual the things that are really making the difference? And then where's your room for all your micronutrients and your your good fats and your proteins, dare I say, this is probably the most important thing. So I think it leaves it leaves that as a question as well. Yeah, no, I agree. And like, you can't talk about performance without considering health. And to your point, and practically what I see is that

48:06
large carbohydrate intakes during exercise. I mean, I've certainly evolved how I feel about carbohydrates. I'm much more of a fan than I ever was like 10 years ago. You know, I think like all of us have sort of evolved. I agree. Like when I was training for Kona, some, I would, like some of the things I did, like, you know, I would not touch a carbohydrate at all, hardly ever. You'd hold your breath if you, if you cycled past a bakery. He was crazy. I don't know. I would just do so much things on app.

48:35
absolutely nothing. But now, know, I do take, I do take more carbohydrates when I exercise. And I think it makes me, you know, I feel like I do feel like come out of the session feeling a little bit less zonked half the time. I do feel that makes a difference. You know, if I really push like five, six hour rides on no fueling, it really leaves a mark. But now, you know, I arrived for three hours and I'll take a, you know, maybe one or two gels. And I think that's, that's fine. That's great. I think it's not, it's not that

49:03
The aim of this paper was a balanced review and I had some great feedback from some academics who I really hold in high regard and they commented on how well balanced the paper was and I really wanted that to come across. And I know I have a reputation of not being balanced, but I think that's more of a reputation and I hope that the article actually shows my real stance on the whole situation. I mean, I've had a lot of success on the low carb diets for sure.

49:29
And I still think people can have success on low carb diets. think it's a choice. You can do what you want. And I think that's the really important thing is you can have success on either diet. And I think, but I think extremes of both, you just don't need to be there. You can do, you can do either you want, but a poorly formulated low carbohydrate diet is not very good. Likewise, a poorly formulated high carbohydrate diet is not very good.

49:55
formulation of the diet is the most important thing and there's just more nuances and I do but I think like most likely it's easier to get a low carbohydrate diet wrong for performance than it is to get high carbohydrate diet wrong for performance I would say. no, I agree. Would you agree with that? That's a fair statement. Yeah, I think. But I think if they're both done, if it's done well, you can perform very well and that's been shown. Jan van Berkel.

50:22
You've won Ironman Switzerland five times, low-carb, a hydro diet. That's another example of competitive pressure for you. Yeah, yeah. I know. I totally appreciate it. And I guess my point around the high-carb approach is that super high-carb during training can often drive eating behavior outside of training as well, which people don't really talk about, but it'll drive cravings. It'll tank energy. People will go to more caffeine, more sugar, to your point.

50:51
You mean low carb? Low carb? No, mean that if someone's pushing super high carb during training, post training, it'll shift their food preferences, their energy levels, in terms of they can have that blood glucose disturbances. would also say that it goes both ways because I think that when you go really low carb,

51:18
and you don't eat for six hours, you finish the ride, or whatever it is and you're absolutely ravenous. And then you just eat and eat and eat. So Dan, and to your point, just before we finish up, I will say it's a very balanced paper, like it really is. And also I mentioned David and Megan Rocha's podcast early on in our chat, and they were,

51:47
they were very balanced in how they discussed it as well. So it wasn't like your name was Mark over there. Like, yeah, yeah, at all. was, this is, that was the, yeah, it was good. It was a good discussion. You do of course mention the three, there are, you know, three possible mechanisms that you don't think that these would play out if we actually researched them, but there were three different mechanisms with which an ultra high carbohydrate approach could benefit.

52:16
And one of them actually, the carbohydrate to lactate interplay. Is it all right? Yeah, it's becoming more popular as well, right? It possibly is a thing. now we're even seeing some fueling products come out that are lactate fueling products. It's getting a bit of pressing the cycling press at the moment, is that lactate is a fuel, lactate is not a byproduct. And when you take in both fructose and glucose at the same time,

52:47
Well, let's firstly, you know, one of the things that we say in the article is the, what really is a key, um, a key, a key point of taking carbohydrates is the ratios, right? Is the fructose glucose ratios. Um, if you are going to take super high amounts, it needs to be in a 0.8 to 0.1 ratio or a one to one ratio 0.8 to one consistently is likely the best. I think the research shows it's the best because the fructose load is that little bit lower.

53:16
So doesn't load, it's not as hard on the gut, but it's just enough to give you that good balance between fructose and glucose. And the average oxidation rates are higher. But with the higher fructose load, that fructose can be converted into lactate much more easily. And that lactate can then be put back into circulation and used in the aerobic system. Yeah, amazing. So that ratio that you describe in the paper, is that a typical ratio that we'll find in a gel?

53:46
So typical ratios that you find in the gel, like this is one of the things that I find quite interesting as well. And we talk about this in the paper is that if you look at the average oxidation rates of a two to one ratio, it's much lower than a 0.8 to 0.1 ratio. when you see nutrition companies suggesting 120 grams per hour with a two to one ratio, not doing the research, very bad practice on their part.

54:16
Big nutrition companies that do that. There's many, many that do that, which is really not great. I think if the companies are 0.8 to 0.1 and they're going to 120, I still don't think it's best, but at least they're using correct ratios. mean, 0.8 to 0.1 or 1 to 1, I think 1 to 1 poses, I don't think there's no real extra benefit of that extra 0.2, but there's potential downside costs because of the added foot toast load.

54:45
Okay. And then you mentioned that this is something you may see in elite people, but not necessarily your average age group, is that correct? Yeah, exactly. I think in the conclusion of the paper, we acknowledge that there are differences in oxidation rates and the ability to use fuels. Very apparent. mean, the Harris paper that we cite in there, they do a really, it's a really great paper. And they actually plot the individual, the oxidation rates of all the individuals. And you can see there's a huge variation.

55:12
The average was about 90 grams, but there were some who were close to two grams per minute. I think there was a 1.8, 1.9. So there are athletes who exist out there, but that's not the majority. Yeah. And I guess that's the thing, right? This is one of the reasons why you can't take the anecdotes and apply them as evidence-based practice, because a lot of the anecdotes that we hear about are from elite athletes.

55:38
who really, you know, they're elite for a number of different reasons. One of which is their ability to tolerate vast quantities of carbohydrate. Yeah. And they have the muscular makeup to do that. Their muscles are different to everyone else's. More mitochondria, more capillarization. So all those things have an effect. Yeah. Nice one, Dan. So, mindful of our time, is there anything else in this subject area that I haven't mentioned that you think is worth mentioning? I think like the

56:08
The concluding remark is the idea of that paper is by no means an anti-carbohydrate paper. think if we were here 10 years ago and wrote a paper on 90 grams per hour, we'd be like, oh, look at these great people. But I think it's just pulling things back into perspective. And for practical recommendations, I do believe that there's an individual level.

56:33
but we shouldn't be starting with the highest level possible. We should be starting with the lowest level possible and then finding out what works for the individual. Nice one. Dan, what's your favorite carbohydrate? Oh, what? In a food? Yeah, in a food. Well, that's a stupid question. What else would it be? It could have been a gel. It could have been a gel. That's what I was thinking. I know. Are you thinking like a sports nutrition or any type No, any type. Just carbohydrate. What's your favorite?

57:06
I it might, I'm just a very big, I do enjoy a banana. You can't get wrong with a banana, can you? No, I like a banana. I actually like a potato. Potato might be my top carbohydrate food in a lot of forms as well. Like obviously the fat chip is my favorite carbohydrate form of potato, but I love my air fried potato as well that I have at lunch. Maybe it's chips. But when I used to, when I raced, I used to have a packet of

57:35
um potato chips in my post race bag because I just, but after racing that salty, say you are. Yeah, it does it. I haven't said that, like I have no filter when it comes to potato chips. So maybe it is potato chips because I'm not going to be stuffing like continuously in a whole bunch of bananas, but if you put a full packet of potato chips in front of me, it's likely going to go. That's a trigger food for you.

57:59
Yeah, yeah. Hey, and so Dan, I think this paper must be open access because I... It's open access, yeah. It's open access, so anyone can get Yeah, nice one. So obviously we'll pop a link to that in the show notes along with a link to the Endurox um information. And of course, Enduro IQ, like top-notch education. Might be more suitable. Enduro IQ is probably more...

58:27
people listen to this, I'm guessing there's more endurance athletes in there than high rocks maybe. But a lot of people are high rocks curious, I think we'd call them. What's all this high rocks about? Yeah, getting involved. Yeah, and also um show us your book. Oh. Just so I can pop it on. So you just published a book. Amazing. You just wrote a book. Funny enough, Miki, I'm actually not really that well known for carbohydrates and I'm more well known for this. I know.

58:57
Amazing. That's so great. So who's that a book for? Anyone who's wearing a wearable. If you're wearing a wearable, this one's for you. mean, because high rate variability is on every single wearable, whether it's your woop, your aura, your garment, whatever it might be. how accurate is it on my Phoenix? Not super accurate, but...

59:19
It's still for you. Yeah, yeah. But it would show me, the trends, Like, the wearables may show trends rather than complete accuracy. Yeah. Yep. So yeah. then the other thing is we've just launched a hydration product at Pillar as Amazing. Amazing. And it looks like it's got about 400 milligrams of sodium per serve. Is that right? Exactly. Yeah. So we're not the crazy 1,000 milligrams. But you're not so low. You're not down at the.

59:48
80 milligrams that a of other electrolyte powders are sitting at. Whoa, who does that? Nothing naughty, think. I mean, people like the flavor, but it's not an electrolyte during that. That's really a lot. mean, is on the mid-range of ACM guidelines, basically. Yeah, nice one. ACM guidelines is 300 to 600. And the idea is that we don't want it to be... There's no evidence to suggest that you need a thousand milligrams generally anyway.

01:00:18
anyone. I mean, don't know where these trends come from. And it's just going to affect your absorption of everything else. as I have mentioned, electrolytes are important, but they're probably most important for pre-hydration and recovery to improve the intracellular, extracellular shift. I still think that within electrolyte consumption for sports performance is not a proven fact. Well, there you have it, folks.

01:00:47
Um, all right, Dan, I will disagree. we'll have to have another one on this one. No, no, no, no, I don't. But I like to end it on that. it, we just need to end it there. It was a very strong, that is fact. Like what else is there to say? Nothing's back. The science has never settled people. No, no, no. Like someone said to me the other day, they were trying to sell me a product and they said, I'm a hundred percent certain this works in a hundred percent of people. And I said,

01:01:16
I'm not buying your products. You stood a chance, but now... Yeah, it is over. I'm lost. Dan, great to catch up with you. Just let the listeners know where they can catch up with you day to day. Yeah, I think I'm pretty active on the old Instagram mainly. Yeah, nice one. So you can catch me on there. We've got my own personal account, at thepluze, and then

01:01:45
Endurox has an account, Enduro IQ has an account, and we've been quite active recently. We're putting up quite a lot of content. So we've upped our game. nice one, I've noticed. Awesome, Dan. You have a great rest of your day. Thank you.

01:02:11
Alrighty, hopefully you enjoyed that. And you know, we have a lot of discussion over here in the space of what is the most appropriate approach for an athlete. And I really love the work coming out in the low carbohydrate space. I'm super fascinated by the information shared by the likes of David and Megan Roche and their experiences with high carb, because I know it works so brilliantly for so many people. And I'd actually just love a lot of their information anyway.

01:02:41
So um these conversations I think are just so valuable and bringing in that health lens I do think is important for old people like us. You might not be as old as me. I know Dan isn't as old as me. Anyway, ah that's it from me team. So great to have you. Thank you so much. Share this with your friend. I'm over on Instagram threads and X @mikkiwilliden Facebook @mikkiwillidennutrition or head to my website, mikkiwilliden.com.

01:03:08
and book a one-on-one call with me. Alright guys, you have the best week. See you later.