Podcast #53 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2009/07/podcast- episode-53-six-key-performance-factors-every- athlete-needs-to-know-about/ Introduction: In this podcast episode: six key performance factors every athlete needs to know, stomach bloating while swimming, carbohydrate loading, running intervals, fat loss for breastfeeding mothers, whether mineral water actually works, more on the HCG diet for fat loss, and what to do to make raw almonds taste better. Ben: Hey podcast listeners, I am a little bit upset with you because there have not been many comments over on the blog at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com . What I would like for you guys to start doing is as much as possible, rather than emailing me your questions, leave them in the comment box over on the website underneath the podcast episode that you listened to that made you think of the question or in really any of the posts over there because it’s really fun to get conversations going and actually have more comments appearing over there. So I am going to be much more likely to pick your question to answer if it appears as a comment over at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com rather than as a question emailed to me. The other thing that you can do if you have questions and you want them answered on this show is you can call our toll free number that actually has a dedicated line that’s set up for questions and it is in the Shownotes to this podcast. It is 8772099439, you go check that out. Either way, I’ve got tons of questions this week. I’m not really mad at you. I’m not upset. I just want to see more comments over on the blog, less floating into my email inbox. Podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield coming to you once again from www.bengreenfieldfitness.com . And today I want to talk about a very interesting paper that I came across in the past couple of weeks and this paper identifies several key factors that I think every single athlete on the planet should actually know about. It was written by a physician and a gentleman who’s actually an avid athlete himself. He’s got about two decades of experience in preventive medicine and sports performance medicine and has been training and counseling members of the American medical community on
Listen to this podcast http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2009/07/podcast-episode-53-six-key-performance-factors-every-athlete-needs-to-know-about/
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Podcast #53 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2009/07/podcast-
episode-53-six-key-performance-factors-every-
athlete-needs-to-know-about/
Introduction: In this podcast episode: six key performance factors every
athlete needs to know, stomach bloating while swimming,
carbohydrate loading, running intervals, fat loss for
breastfeeding mothers, whether mineral water actually
works, more on the HCG diet for fat loss, and what to do to
make raw almonds taste better.
Ben: Hey podcast listeners, I am a little bit upset with you because
there have not been many comments over on the blog at
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com. What I would like for you
guys to start doing is as much as possible, rather than
emailing me your questions, leave them in the comment box
over on the website underneath the podcast episode that you
listened to that made you think of the question or in really
any of the posts over there because it’s really fun to get
conversations going and actually have more comments
appearing over there. So I am going to be much more likely
to pick your question to answer if it appears as a comment
over at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com rather than as a
question emailed to me. The other thing that you can do if
you have questions and you want them answered on this
show is you can call our toll free number that actually has a
dedicated line that’s set up for questions and it is in the
Shownotes to this podcast. It is 8772099439, you go check
that out. Either way, I’ve got tons of questions this week. I’m
not really mad at you. I’m not upset. I just want to see more
comments over on the blog, less floating into my email inbox.
Podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield coming to you once
again from www.bengreenfieldfitness.com. And today I want
to talk about a very interesting paper that I came across in
the past couple of weeks and this paper identifies several key
factors that I think every single athlete on the planet should
actually know about. It was written by a physician and a
gentleman who’s actually an avid athlete himself. He’s got
about two decades of experience in preventive medicine and
sports performance medicine and has been training and
counseling members of the American medical community on
8772099439 and I’ll fill you in on how you can do this and
help you take the guesswork out of your performance. So
thank you Dr. Cohen.
Dr. Richard Cohen: Hey appreciate it Ben, I’m glad to share the info. Hopefully it
was helpful.
Ben: Alright, so like you heard during that interview, if you’re an
athlete sitting there thinking wow, I wonder are my vitamin
D levels optimal? Are my iron stores adequate, are my
mineral levels balanced? Is my hormonal recovery system
strong? Do I know my essential amino acid? Does the food
that I eat provide my body with the fuel that it really needs?
Am I a fast oxidizer, am I a slow oxidizer – I’m currently in
the process of discovering all that about my body. It’s very
cool and it’s way easier than I thought it would be. So email
me if you want me to help walk you through that process.
You spend I don’t know how many hours training, hundreds
if not thousands of dollars on gear and this tiny investment
in your body to know exactly what’s going on in the
clockwork inside your body is not only very cool, but well
worth it. Ok, let’s go ahead and move on to this week’s jam-
packed Listener Q and A. My first question today comes from
Listener David.
David asks: Ben, I appreciate your training and health insights. I have followed your comments online and on the EverymanTri newsletter and I’ve just subscribed to your podcast. I have a question about trouble I experience with my swim workouts. Virtually every workout is interrupted or shortened by the need for a bowel movement. I swim first thing in the morning -- before breakfast- yet always exit the pool feeling bloated. What can I do? I suspect this is a result of gulping too much air but you recently referenced adjusting your diet.
I’ve got a race in six weeks. How can eliminate this discomfort and interruption?
Ben answers: I did mention last week that a lot of times bloating and stomach discomfort, especially prior to athletic events can be the result of too much fiber intake leading up to the event. So that’s one of the first things I would inspect in your diet. Are you on any multivitamin that has a high amount of a vegetable starch type of fiber in it? Are you eating multiple salads during the day? Are you eating more than 2 pieces of fresh raw fruit during the day? Do you have a high intake of thing like legumes, black beans, garbanzo beans, kidney beans – and if you do have a high intake of those, are you soaking them? Aare you doing anything to soften them? Are you mixing a little bit of vinegar with them to help break them down prior to consuming them to allow your body to actually digest them a little better, so they don’t sit and ferment in your stomach. And also you didn’t mention what you’re eating prior to your swim, but if you are eating a food that would tend to ferment a bit in your stomach or metabolize and create gas formation and typically a starchy carbohydrate is the biggest culprit, then I would eliminate that. Now that’s not to say that these are the issues. If you have a food allergy, if you’re intolerant to something like soy, gluten or wheat, caffeine, alcohol, dairy – any number of different things that people tend to be unable to tolerate, you can actually get inadequate digestion of those types of substances, and again they can sit in your stomach, they can ferment, they can cause bloating, they can cause heart burn. So you may want to look into a blood test or a saliva test or a stool test to actually see if you have any food allergies and that’s something if you email me privately, I can help walk you through that process but that’s another thing you would look into. Eating too close to your swim workout, it takes a minimum of two hours for gastric emptying to occur and so if you’re eating a bowl of cereal, strawberry, banana, chocolate, pop tart before you head over to swim, these types of things can actually cause that bloating and stomach discomfort as well. Over-hydration – believe it or not, drinking too much prior to the workout can cause a lot of sloshing in the stomach, you get a lot of bloating and your breathing pattern while you’re swimming could also be an issue. Some people focus too hard on exhaling the entire time that their head is underneath the water and then coming up for one big breath and the amount of activity that takes from the inspiratory and expiratory muscles can cause a little bit of stomach discomfort.. It would be better to let
the air naturally escape that’s going to escape anyways when your head goes into the water after you’ve taken your breath. Then exhale anything that’s left with one big final exhalation before you come up for oxygen. The other thing you can do to make sure you’re not breathing in water when you are taking a breath is make sure you’re practicing really using the arm that’s extended out in front of you while you’re swimming as a buoy. The best way I like to describe it is pretend you have $100 bill and you’re trying to trap it between your head and your shoulder. If that arm that’s out in front of you is truly extended, it’s going to create almost like this little trough of a non-water area for you to breathe when you take your breath. So focus on that, do some side swimming drills. Those are the best ways to actually learn how to maintain that type of buoy in the water. And then the last thing – and this is a tip that a lot of Ironman triathletes will use – you can drink a carbonated beverage prior to swimming and that will help you displace any air that’s in your stomach before you get into the water – the next best thing if you don’t have access to carbonated water would be an effervescent tablet like a Nuun tablet, alka seltzer tablet, something that’s going to make you burp a little bit before you get into the water. So hopefully that helps David.
Chuck asks: Hey Ben, Hope everything is going well. Just had a quick question that I thought about today. I have a race this Saturday, it’s a run-swim-run. In the sense of preparing for the race, I was going to do as I usually do--focus my higher carbohydrate meals to be Thursday dinner and Friday lunch for the Saturday race. But the race itself hopefully won’t take me more than around 1:05 which is just as long as most of my workouts. The difference obviously is that I won’t be holding anything back during the race. This being said, why does it/ does it all, matter if I eat increased an healthy carbohydrate diet before the race as opposed to eating like that before every day that I train if I plan on going hard? I hope that makes sense. I appreciate any insight you can offer.
Ben answers: He’s kind of got a two-part question because he says…
Chuck asks: Again, the shirt is awesome (I think this I the guy that won one of the Ben Greenfield Fitness t-shirts.) I plan to wear it pre and post race this weekend. Speaking of gear, I currently don’t have any tri jersey or sponsor for that matter. Does your training company have a team and jerseys for your
racers? It would be cool if I could represent it on the East coast. Thanks again Ben, I look forward to hearing from you.
Ben answers: Let’s address the first part of your question first Chuck. When you are doing a sprint triathlon or if you’re doing any athletic event that you plan on using anything less than two hours to complete, carbohydrate loading isn’t really going to give you that much benefit because your body’s natural carbohydrate stores – for most males, you’re looking at 1800 to 2000 calories, females around that 1400 to 1500 range. That’s enough to get you through a couple of hours of intense exercise. So the reason that you would eat during a race like that is to maintain high blood sugar levels which have been associated with a decreased rating of perceived exertion. Meaning that when your blood sugar levels are high, you actually feel like you’re not working quite as hard and we can even take that another step, there’s been studies that have been done on cyclists that show even when they do something as simple as sloshing a sugar solution in their mouth and tasting sugar, it actually decreases their rating of perceived exertion. So you don’t eat during those races to keep your carbohydrate levels up and you don’t carbohydrate load before those races to make sure your carbohydrate levels are all loaded up. It’s not that necessary. Now, there were a couple of studies – I remember back in exercise physiology during my graduate studies, we did come across one study that showed to a minimal level, creatine is one of the first things that your body uses for quick explosive contraction for anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds and then it switches over to carbohydrate but there was a study that saw that the body was actually using a little bit of carbohydrate during the time it was accessing the creatine so it was depleting the carbohydrate stores even during quick, explosive type of activities. So theoretically, carbohydrate loading might help you a little bit during those short races. But for a lot of triathletes, if you’re doing short races, a few mid-distance races, a few long-distance races over the course of the summer, you’re looking at carbohydrate loading one out of every three weeks and then you want to consider the long term effects of that on your body. Because carbohydrate loading, if you’re doing it correctly means that you’re literally shoving carbohydrate down the hatch on a daily basis – 80, 85, 90% carbohydrate for four to five days leading up to that race after a carbohydrate depleting protocol where you’re on a high protein diet and you’re exercising and you’re not putting that many carbohydrates in – you do that to your body over and over again leading up to the race, multiple
races – it might not be that healthy. So I wouldn’t worry about carbohydrate loading before the short races and all you want to do is make sure that during that week, for all of your pre-race workouts, you fuel with a carbohydrate protein blend within about 20 minutes after that workout and that will help you maintain adequate carbohydrate stores on board and then just a little bit to keep your blood sugar levels up during the race like a sports gel.
The second part of your question… you know, I have considered for – I coach a lot of triathletes through a company called Pacific Elite Fitness which I own and we coach athletes primarily online across the country. I have looked into getting cycling jerseys, tri tops, triathlon outfits –I would have to get a minimum of 10 if I were going to do it and right now, I have 23 athletes that I coach and I’ve only got four or five that are really interested in the tri top or the cycling jersey. I haven’t really pushed it that much. I can get 10 sets of triathlon suits – tops and bottoms – for about $1200. So you’d be looking at… if this was something you wanted to do, it’d cost right around $120. A cycling jersey with the cycling bib would be closer to about $130. If you’re a listener listening in to this show and you think it’d be cool to have a Ben Greenfield Fitness cycling jersey, I can get a cycling jersey for 60. And so I imagine that once we factor in shipping and everything, it’s come out to about $70 for a Ben Greenfield Fitness cycling jersey. A triathlon outfit would be closer to 120. Tell you what, if you’re listening in to the show and you want me to actually do this, email me. Tell me if you would like a cycling jersey or if you’re a little bit more serious and you want a triathlon kit – like a triathlon top and a triathlon bottom – if I can get at least 10 people that are interested, I’ll pull the trigger and order. That’s a no brainer. I’ll definitely do it. But just let me know and I can make sure that the design is really cool. So just email me [email protected]. And I’ll do it if there’s enough interest. So we’ll get some jerseys out there and I can probably have them sent out within about four weeks or so.
Scott asks: Ben, I’d like your opinion on how to incorporate intervals into my run. I’m not much for sprinting, but I’ve read enough articles and research to know how effective intervals are for fat loss. I’m sure that altering my pace would be a systematic way to decrease my mile times, which is my goal. I average 2-3 runs per week and like to go for 40-50 minutes. I have access to a high school track so I can accurately measure my laps. What suggestions do you have?
Ben answers: Well Scott, I got to tell you I hate tracks with a passion. Never liked them. Didn’t like them in high school, didn’t like them in college. Never enjoyed tracks. Get bored to death on them. And I have started incorporating kind of a double whammy type of interval training session that gives me two different advantages. The first is I will go to a park, just as part of a 10, 15 minute warm up jog and when I get to that park, I will do anywhere from 10 to 20 sprint intervals where I’m just walking between each one. Yeah, you can still listen to your mp3 player when you’re sprinting and you can still hang out, have fun, bring a buddy along, race him, whatever. But usually I’ll do 10 sprint repeats that are around 100 yards in length, all the way up to 20 sprint repeats that are around 50 yards in length. So we’re only talking about 10 to 15 minutes total in terms of amount of work. But it’s hard. And so that’s allowing me to get my fast-twitch muscle activation in, to get some of that hormonal activation in that doesn’t come from a nice easy jog but what I also do is I do it on grass and I do it barefoot. And the economy and the efficiency that you will feel when you put your shoes back on and head back home after you’ve done 10 to 20 barefoot repeat sprints is going to blow your mind. There’s a lot of research out there that shows that barefoot running is really biomechanically favorable for the human body. It keeps us more in that forward center of gravity pose and it actually makes us use muscles that shoes don’t allow us to use. Muscles that are a little bit more springy in terms of the ways we bound off of the ground. So that is my suggestion. That is what I do. I have a blast with it. It’s fun, just running around in your bare feet in a park. What can be better than that? I don’t know. I’m sure some of you are going to say something like ice cream. But yeah, that’s what I would recommend in terms of your sprint intervals. I’ll do ten 100 meters all the way to 20 of 50 meters and just basically take about 10 to 15 minutes. So it ends up being about a 45 minute workout by the time you count 15 minute jog and then 10 to 15 minutes of jog and 15 minute jog home. So hope that helps Scott.
Mindy asks: I have a friend who wants to start Shape21, however, she is nursing a 5 month old baby. What do you recommend for her as far as calories needed and supplements taken?
Ben answers: So, just to clarify – the Shape21 – that’s the book, DVD that I mentioned earlier. It was not necessarily specifically written for breastfeeding women, however most of the nutrients in it are going to support any human body in just about any state but there are some things you need to realize if you are
pregnant. The first is that you’re going to have increased calcium needs when pregnant or breastfeeding and there are lots of sources of calcium that aren’t dairy sources but realize that the entire idea behind Shape21 is that it’s designed to remove food allergies from your diet and actually put your cells in their optimum fat burning state by making sure that they’re not being exposed to anything they don’t like. So cow’s milk and dairy products are worked out of that plan in favor of things like rice milk, almond milk and goat’s milk. Some of the other ways that you can get calcium in is you can take for example any of the hummus recipes or for example the guacamole recipes in that book and you can include a little bit of goat cheese with them to increase calcium intake. A canned fish like a salmon or a mackerel – those actually contain bones that become soft during their processing. Excellent sources of calcium. Whereas in Shape21, in some of the recipes, it calls for one of the more hypoallergenic meats – lamb, to be consumed with some of the salads and some of the dishes. You could instead substitute a canned fish for that lamb. Now whole grains and whole grain flours – those are high in calcium. Shape21 has a high amount of quinoa in it which is a great whole grain, pretty easy to find these days. You can get it at Costco and a lot of commercial grocery stores and that’s going to be something that’s already giving you calcium. That’s in that plan. Green leafy vegetables, spinach, bok choy, kale, broccoli,, all those are present in Shape21 as well and those would be something that you’d want to include in the diet. Almonds and walnuts are very high in calcium. Those also are already included in the diet. So I would say that in terms of increasing calcium intake in Shape21, that the only thing that I would add is maybe a little bit of extra goat’s milk or goat’s cheese and then some canned fish substitutes. You could add to any of the places in the manual where I’m having you make yourself a trail mix or eat seeds – to actually add sesame seeds – which are also high in calcium. Tofu and soy cheese are pretty high in calcium but you got to be careful with the phyto-estrogens in those and the phytic acid. A lot of lime processed corn – Mexican tortillas – those are also pretty high in calcium. But again the whole idea behind Shape21 is that we’re trying to control the glycemic index of it, just a little bit. Now the other thing, interestingly, that can give you a good amount of calcium can be algae, like sea vegetables, fermented foods like miso and a lot of seasoning. And there is as one of the supplements that I include in Shape21 that you actually are given this special discount code for in Shape21. It’s got a high amount of sea vegetable extract in it. It’s that EnerPrime
multivitamin. And that’s in Shape21. So that one that’s in there, you’d be fine to take. Now there are a couple of other supplements that you get a discount on in that book that I would actually not take if you’re breastfeeding, specifically the ThermoFactor. That contains something called Advantra-Z which is basically a bitter orange extract and it steps up your body’s fat burning process but because it is an herb that has an effect on the central nervous system in a similar way that caffeine does, I would not take it, in the same way that you shouldn’t be drinking coffee when you’re breastfeeding. And then the other one that I wouldn’t take while you’re breastfeeding is the Lean Factor. It contains something called gugolsterins in it and those support healthy cholesterol levels, cardiovascular health. They help to step up the productivity of your thyroid gland so they can assist with increasing metabolism but again I haven’t seen any safety or long-term studies in breastfeeding mothers with those. So that’s another one that I would avoid in the Shape21 book, and the other supplements that are in there are fine. The other thing to focus on is making sure that you’re getting adequate vitamin D supplementation especially if you’re breastfeeding because it can really help with absorbing calcium into your bones. So making sure that you’re spending enough time out in the sun or that you are consuming for example vitamin D supplements or pre-natal that contains a vitamin D supplement. And then the final thing is realize that your caloric needs when you’re breastfeeding are going to go up by about 300 to 500 calories a day. Now Shape21 gives you caloric ranges that you can use as you go through the program. Choose the higher caloric ranges if you’re breastfeeding, for sure. So, good question Mindy.
Scott asks: Hey Ben, I don’t know how new it is, but at this weekend’s race, they were handing out Aquagenus water. What are your thoughts on it?
Ben answers: Scott, Aquaenus water is basically water that has minerals in it. So in our special topic today, Dr. Cohen was talking about magnesium intake, calcium intake. Even mineral intake. He briefly talked about some of the smaller minerals and these would be the tiny little minerals – I had an interview on it sometime back with a woman named Ambaya – you can go back and listen to that podcast. But essentially all these teeny tiny minerals are sometimes things that we’re not getting from our soils because of modern agricultural products. There are supplements out there that contain these tiny
minerals, and the water – the Aquagenus water – actually contains those. The question is it’s a little bit pricey. Are you going to buy 20 packs of that water and use it during the week while you’re riding your bike or you’re out training and every time you’re drinking in your car, you suck down a bottle of it? It gets a little spendy. What I do is since I talked to that Ambaya lady during that interview, I actually have this little dropper bottle that I keep in my fridge and I add it – when I get up in the morning I have a glass of water. I add five drops of that to a glass of water and that’s actually the full mineral profile. I guarantee it’s way more financially viable than buying the Aquagenus water bottles, but that’s what the Aquagenus is. It is minerals and yeah minerals will work for the reasons you heard today in the special interview in the podcast. Go to www.bengreenfieldfitness.com and Google “Ambaya” and you’re going to come across that mineral source that I use in my water in the mornings.
Todd asks: I’ve been listening to your podcasts for a few weeks now and have really been enjoying them. I heard about you through trainingpeaks.com. I heard from one of your podcasts about mixing sea salt and some other seasonings to plain almonds but am having trouble finding it. Do you have any ideas on what to mix to flavor plain whole almonds?
Ben answers: I’ve been known to mix sea salt powder, ginger powder,
garlic powder, cayenne pepper, turmeric, curry powders with
almonds in little zip lock bags and shake them up. So you
have quite a few choices out there. I’m going to give you a
recipe Todd that actually combines a whole bunch of stuff
that you can do to make your almonds taste better. So what
you do is you take about two cups of whole almonds or as
many as you want really. You put those into a pan like a
sauce pan and then you put about a quarter cup of soy sauce
in there, about a tablespoon of brown sugar – if you really
want to keep it lower in calories, use Stevia – use about a
quarter teaspoon of brown ginger or a few shakes of brown
ginger, a few shakes of garlic powder, a few shakes of
cayenne pepper and then sprinkle that lightly with a couple
of teaspoons of an olive oil. And then what you’re going to do
is just bring the entire mixture to kind of a light boil, or just
heat it up. It’s about five minutes that you heat it up. Once
you’ve heated it up, throw them on a cookie sheet and bake
for about 8 minutes or so at right around 250, maximum