Article on human endurance

TheBigBean

I found this vaguely interesting

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48527798

Sort of implies a cyclist is better off turning up with a bit of fat at the start of a GT.

ugo.santalucia

Seems like a lot of balooney...

mididoctors

Just need to train your BMR then?

pblakeney

Something is dodgy in that report. One marathon is 15.6x, so @ 30,000 calories?
Written by a runner?

Alejandrosdog

PBlakeney wrote:

Something is dodgy in that report. One marathon is 15.6x, so @ 30,000 calories?
Written by a runner?

change marathon for a one off enormous event like an ultra Ironman or something, less the more marathons you do, the tour is consequtive blasting days and peaking on mountain stages so less and the daily trudge to the pole is even less.

There are no new revelations here but it was an interesting summary. I’d like to see the whole paper. The link between sustainable repeatable extreme daily efforts and nutrition seems obvious to anyone but for food scientists the opportunity is to identify methods to make food absorption better.

Nice IV bag of performance anyone? Perhaps blood bags add more than just oxygen carrying potential.

bobmcstuff

PBlakeney wrote:

Something is dodgy in that report. One marathon is 15.6x, so @ 30,000 calories?
Written by a runner?

Presumably it's only 15.6x for the duration of the run? I.e. about 4500 calories depending on how fast you are. Seems more reasonable to me.

pblakeney

Double post.

pblakeney

bobmcstuff wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

Something is dodgy in that report. One marathon is 15.6x, so @ 30,000 calories?
Written by a runner?

Presumably it's only 15.6x for the duration of the run? I.e. about 4500 calories depending on how fast you are. Seems more reasonable to me.

Makes more sense. Burn brighter, but shorter.

TheBigBean

Alejandrosdog wrote:

.. the opportunity is to identify methods to make food absorption better.

This was my other thought. Presumably the body can absorb different foods at different rates, so this could be optimised.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean wrote:

Alejandrosdog wrote:

.. the opportunity is to identify methods to make food absorption better.

This was my other thought. Presumably the body can absorb different foods at different rates, so this could be optimised.

This pretty much is what gel makers have been doing for a while - adding certain amounts of protein to improve absorption.

Ultimately I think the next area of athletic improvement is examining the gut and what diets improve its efficiency.

keef66

I read that a couple of days ago. Makes perfect sense to if you think about it.

I'm sure there will continue to be progress in terms of optimising and possibly personalising nutrition for individual athletes / particular events.

More intriguing is the prospect of manipulating the gut microbiome to improve the efficiency of digestion and nutrient release / uptake. Maybe even improve tolerance to stress.

Once you've done all that and reached the physiological limit of nutrient absorbtion via the gut, the only way I can see of getting more into the body is intravenously, transdermally or possibly via inhalation. None of those sound particularly nice, but I'm sure it will be happening

gsk82

Rick Chasey wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Alejandrosdog wrote:

.. the opportunity is to identify methods to make food absorption better.

This was my other thought. Presumably the body can absorb different foods at different rates, so this could be optimised.

This pretty much is what gel makers have been doing for a while - adding certain amounts of protein to improve absorption.

Ultimately I think the next area of athletic improvement is examining the gut and what diets improve its efficiency.

I think it was David Epstein's book that had a section about the mind blocking the body from reaching its full potential. It sounds like that could be really big if someone could develop a way to overcome it.

He gave the example of someone getting an electric shock and been thrown across a room. It's actually the persons own body that throws them across the room. But in normal circumstances, the body wouldn't be allowed to put out that much force

StillGoing

TheBigBean wrote:

I found this vaguely interesting

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48527798

Sort of implies a cyclist is better off turning up with a bit of fat at the start of a GT.

Applicants that tended to do well on SF selection started off with a bit of timber. The racing snakes run out of reserves as the process goes through the weeks and months.

FocusZing

gsk82 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Alejandrosdog wrote:

.. the opportunity is to identify methods to make food absorption better.

This was my other thought. Presumably the body can absorb different foods at different rates, so this could be optimised.

This pretty much is what gel makers have been doing for a while - adding certain amounts of protein to improve absorption.

Ultimately I think the next area of athletic improvement is examining the gut and what diets improve its efficiency.

I think it was David Epstein's book that had a section about the mind blocking the body from reaching its full potential. It sounds like that could be really big if someone could develop a way to overcome it.

He gave the example of someone getting an electric shock and been thrown across a room. It's actually the persons own body that throws them across the room. But in normal circumstances, the body wouldn't be allowed to put out that much force

Expect Team Ineos are already doing this, I bet if the Dawg was tasered he wouldn't budge an inch!

FocusZing

A few years back Ketones were all the buzz with regards Sky.

kingstongraham

gsk82 wrote:

I think it was David Epstein's book that had a section about the mind blocking the body from reaching its full potential. It sounds like that could be really big if someone could develop a way to overcome it.

He gave the example of someone getting an electric shock and been thrown across a room. It's actually the persons own body that throws them across the room. But in normal circumstances, the body wouldn't be allowed to put out that much force

That's a really interesting thought.

DeVlaeminck

KingstonGraham wrote:

gsk82 wrote:

I think it was David Epstein's book that had a section about the mind blocking the body from reaching its full potential. It sounds like that could be really big if someone could develop a way to overcome it.

He gave the example of someone getting an electric shock and been thrown across a room. It's actually the persons own body that throws them across the room. But in normal circumstances, the body wouldn't be allowed to put out that much force

That's a really interesting thought.

Is it Tim Noakes wrote about the central limiter theory - basically similar to modern vehicles that have a rev limiter to prevent them damaging the engine.

While since I read it but I seem to remember him arguing hard short intervals could reset the limiter slightly higher. It's also quite motivational to tell yourself it's your mind telling to stop - suppose it's just like Jens Voigt saying "shut up legs".

mididoctors

Dieting is the new black anyway .. nutrition has been growing in importance for a while now.

No_Ta_Doctor

Hold on, in the Giro Breakaway thing with Orla, Wiggins et al they were discussing rest days and one of the things that came up was to make sure you were not over-eating, which seemed to be about not gaining weight.

It's still possible to make a case for not over-eating wrt this paper, but that would be based more around not bloating on a load of food you weren't able to assimilate anyway.

Just as an aside, it's widely recognised that mental health and gut health are strongly linked. The enteric nervous system has 100m neurons, more than the spinal cord. It's possible that focus on psychological health could be a physical marginal gain for food absorption.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases ... connection

bobmcstuff

No tA Doctor wrote:

Hold on, in the Giro Breakaway thing with Orla, Wiggins et al they were discussing rest days and one of the things that came up was to make sure you were not over-eating, which seemed to be about not gaining weight.

It's still possible to make a case for not over-eating wrt this paper, but that would be based more around not bloating on a load of food you weren't able to assimilate anyway.

Just as an aside, it's widely recognised that mental health and gut health are strongly linked. The enteric nervous system has 100m neurons, more than the spinal cord. It's possible that focus on psychological health could be a physical marginal gain for food absorption.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases ... connection

Is that not just because you can only digest so many calories in a day? So if you overeat on the rest day you're going to feel terrible the next day.

photonic69

If you want to know about sports nutrition specifically for cyclists then look no further than the work of Prof James Morton from John Moore's University. His specialist field is nutrition and how the body absorbs the food you eat. He was also Sky's head of nutrition.

Here are a few clips of his research

https://www.sport2health.com/professor-james-morton/

No_Ta_Doctor

bobmcstuff wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Hold on, in the Giro Breakaway thing with Orla, Wiggins et al they were discussing rest days and one of the things that came up was to make sure you were not over-eating, which seemed to be about not gaining weight.

It's still possible to make a case for not over-eating wrt this paper, but that would be based more around not bloating on a load of food you weren't able to assimilate anyway.

Just as an aside, it's widely recognised that mental health and gut health are strongly linked. The enteric nervous system has 100m neurons, more than the spinal cord. It's possible that focus on psychological health could be a physical marginal gain for food absorption.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases ... connection

Is that not just because you can only digest so many calories in a day? So if you overeat on the rest day you're going to feel terrible the next day.

Ahem....

It wasn't what the actual cyclists were saying though. Obviously, cyclists may not actually have the best idea of exactly why they're doing something, probably because they spend the majority of their time cycling, sleeping, or being transported somewhere to cycle.

webboo

bobmcstuff wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Hold on, in the Giro Breakaway thing with Orla, Wiggins et al they were discussing rest days and one of the things that came up was to make sure you were not over-eating, which seemed to be about not gaining weight.

It's still possible to make a case for not over-eating wrt this paper, but that would be based more around not bloating on a load of food you weren't able to assimilate anyway.

Just as an aside, it's widely recognised that mental health and gut health are strongly linked. The enteric nervous system has 100m neurons, more than the spinal cord. It's possible that focus on psychological health could be a physical marginal gain for food absorption.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases ... connection

Is that not just because you can only digest so many calories in a day? So if you overeat on the rest day you're going to feel terrible the next day.

Wiggins talked about this when commenting on the Giro. He said the long slow stages with a sprint at the end were better than a rest day, as you could eat normally( as in normally for a racing day) and you wouldn’t over eat and feel sluggish the next day.

TheBigBean

No tA Doctor wrote:

It wasn't what the actual cyclists were saying though. Obviously, cyclists may not actually have the best idea of exactly why they're doing something, probably because they spend the majority of their time cycling, sleeping, or being transported somewhere to cycle.

This is the problem with sportsmen/sportswomen as pundits. No better example of this than pretty much every football pundit.

shinyhelmut

A bit more detail than the BBC report;

https://www.outsideonline.com/2397917/human-endurance-limit-study

In summary; it’s not quite as simple as the headline.

TheBigBean

ShinyHelmut wrote:

A bit more detail than the BBC report;

https://www.outsideonline.com/2397917/human-endurance-limit-study

In summary; it’s not quite as simple as the headline.

Thanks for posting that. An interesting read.

Pross

Good read that, so in summary it's possible that those who do well in long-term endurance events like a GT are those able to process more calories than the 'limit of endurance' number the study came up with?

No_Ta_Doctor

Pross wrote:

Good read that, so in summary it's possible that those who do well in long-term endurance events like a GT are those able to process more calories than the 'limit of endurance' number the study came up with?

It would certainly be an advantage, yes. But if I understood correctly, the limit was expressed as a multiple of resting calorie burn for the athlete. If energy use during exercise isn't a function of energy use at rest then that could be significant as well.

It was interesting that there was only speculation about what the limiting factor might be - whether gut absorption, something behavioural/mental or even liver function.