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Mikael Eriksson: Separating Evidence from Hype in Endurance Sports
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Listeners to the podcast get $50 off the purchase price of the Cool Bottle before DEC 31! Use code COOL2024.
Coach and podcaster Mikael Eriksson joins Michael to explore into the world of endurance sports and the constant influx of new training methods, technologies, and nutritional advice. We discuss how to navigate the overwhelming amount of information and separate the useful from everything else.
- The Impact of Social Media: Social media can be a double-edged sword. While it can be a great source of information, it's also a breeding ground for misinformation and oversimplification.
- Evaluating Information Sources: Consider the credibility of the source, the depth of the information, and the potential bias.
- The Importance of Context: A training method that works for one athlete may not work for another. Consider factors like training level, age, and specific goals.
- The Role of Anecdotal Evidence: While anecdotal evidence can be helpful, it's important to weigh it against evidence-based research.
- Mikael’s rubric for evaluating utility: A step-by-step guide to making sure the intervention or technology is useful for you.
Resources:
- Mikael's podcast: That Triathlon Show
- Newsletters: David Lipman's substack, Manuel Sola's substack
- Instagram: bradstulberg, stevemagness, knowledgeiswatt, ylmsportscience, gudiol (in Swedish)
- Podcasts: The Physical Performance Show, The Training Science podcast, On Coaching, The Triathlon Hour
- Books: The Nature of Training, Antifragile, Peak Performance, Science of Running, Factfulness
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Special Offer
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey folks, so before we get into today's chat with podcaster and coach Michael Erickson, two quick announcements. The first is that the cool bottle, uh, which you've hopefully heard about and hopefully visited the website, uh, to take a peek at, uh, we're going to give you a $50 off until the end of the year. So until December 31st, use code cool 2024. So C-O-O-L 2024, uh, for $50 off your order.
00:00:30
Speaker
And the second has to do with the interview itself. um I sort of put Michael on the spot when we were chatting about his favorite resources ah for triathlon and and endurance sport information more broadly. And what he did kindly was after we were all wrapped up, he actually sent me his list. So he sent me some newsletters, Instagram channels, ah podcasts, and books. And ah rather than listen to them all here, I'm going to put them all in the show notes. So if you want to know how one of the most, I would say, well-informed coaches and podcasters out there ah gets at least some of his information, ah this is your answer. All right, on with the show.
00:01:19
Speaker
Hi, everyone.
Meet the Hosts and Guest: Michael Erickson
00:01:20
Speaker
I'm Andrew. And I'm Michael. And you're listening to the Endurance Innovation Podcast.
00:01:37
Speaker
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Endurance Innovation. Joining me this week is Michael Erickson, who is the host of the excellent That Triathlon Show and owner of Scientific Triathlon. and Michael, I believe this is your third appearance on Endurance Innovation. Yeah, it sounds about right. Thank you for having me back again. It's a pleasure.
00:01:58
Speaker
it's always It's always fun to have you on because I think I've i said this in a past episode in the pre-hiatus days where I kind of think of you as the kind of like the walking meta-analysis of all of the endurance research that's out there because you do such a great job on your podcast of ah inviting all of these really smart folks ah to to speak to a variety of topics and then you kind of synthesize a lot of that information and make it a lot more digestible for for the everyday folks. So you're always high up on my list of of people to ask about on a very wide ah breadth of topics in our sport.
00:02:36
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. and And I guess it's a little bit related to the topics that we're going to talk about today. So so yeah, hopefully we can give a ah good episode to listeners. Yeah, absolutely. it was It was a little bit of a teaser head segue, Michael. Yes, I won't. I won't lie. So the reason that I asked um Michael to join me today was um I was ah doom scrolling on Instagram and ah Instagram while ah feeds me a mix of endurance sport information and dogs, which is great because I really like
Reliability of Endurance Information on Social Media
00:03:06
Speaker
dogs. So that makes that's that's good for a laugh.
00:03:08
Speaker
But the endurance sport information is sometimes okay, sometimes good, and sometimes like total garbage, to be honest. And I you know i started thinking about like, who who can I talk to about this? Who can who can really give me a ah good high level overview, but also let us dive deeply into all of the all of the information that's out there and really how to parse some of the ah some of the good from the bad. And Michael, you were immediately the person who jumped to mind.
00:03:37
Speaker
Yeah. Um, no, uh, that's the topic that I'm really fascinated by. And, and I also have some, uh, especially particularly in the Swedish, uh, media, there is one, one guy who I'm thinking of. He's really good at at that kind of thing. So I learned a lot from him and that's probably not really helpful for most of your listeners, but yeah yoo good if there are Swedish listeners, he's somebody that I've learned a lot from when when it comes to kind of yeah parsing, good information from bad information. And, uh, and that's.
00:04:07
Speaker
ah one one a source of, I guess, where where I've tried to become better at it, become more proficient at it. And it's for everybody, I think it's always a ah work in progress in progress also, just because the how information um reaches us changes and changes quicker and quicker with different social media platforms and so on. but sure But yeah, I think there are some some overarching principles that that remain pretty constant that we can yeah we can discuss and that they can always be helpful. Yeah. So again, like big picture, kind of well we'll start big and we'll maybe zoom in a little bit, but big picture is you know anyone who has been in the sport for any length of time can appreciate the fact that there are ah innovations on all fronts um you know in terms of training methodologies you hear about. you know The Norwegian method is pretty hot right now.
00:04:57
Speaker
on the philosophy of training of of how you know how you would approach it. Obviously, technology and you know we shameless plug here, I've recently released ah a piece of kit that we think is going to make a real difference in the cool bottle and and cooling on the bike.
00:05:13
Speaker
So there are tech technology technological innovations. There's ah um listeners to our show. Obviously, you'll know that we talk a lot about cooling, but ah also aerodynamics. There's a brand new um ah head unit from Wahoo that directly well that has ah an aero sensor built into the head unit as a first.
00:05:31
Speaker
we're trying to get them on the show so wahoo if you're listening come and talk to us um so there's just so much new stuff coming up and ah and the ah it's very easy if you are plugged into that you know that flow that that fire hose of information i would say it's very easy to get lost and to you know maybe make some decisions that are that are less optimal. So why don't we start there? um Let's start with the you know the flow of information. So the the input that often comes from, let's say, from social media. ah Michael, do you consume that stuff? Do you look for for the the the diamonds in that rough, or do you skip that altogether?
00:06:11
Speaker
It depends. Right now, I am i find that sometimes i i don't I guess I don't really consume much in terms of like actually trying to educate myself on social media. However, I do consume social media. I recognize the doom scroll. Right now, I am logged out and I find that logging myself out then that often helps me stay out of social media for ah for a few weeks or a month or so. and and That's always a good time. and then sometimes sometimes I need to log in again, I need to post something and then yeah if I don't log myself out again, then yeah, just it's not that i I try to educate myself there so much, but it's more that I guess I end up wasting a lot of time there or too much time for my liking. But yeah, the flow of information and how to consume it, I think
00:06:58
Speaker
um Yeah, like, I don't know, we have like, in terms of a sub point there, we could discuss like, how do you how do you figure out on social media or wherever, like different sorts of different media, or even like people that you might know in person, people in your training group that that come with information? Like, how do you How do you figure out what is good who provides good information, who provides bad information, and who is misinformed, who is well informed? That was going to be my follow-up question. It's like, okay, so obviously, you social media, I think we can agree is probably not the most well not not not the best ah curated from a from a ah ah you yeah utility and viability perspective. They're they're there to keep you
00:07:43
Speaker
glued to their screens. um But then how do you select those sources of information? and And maybe you can share a personal example of what you do or what you found effective for you know folks you work with.
Evaluating Information Sources in Endurance Sports
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah. and And there are some good accounts on social media. good like I think A key thing for me is that I think it's very hard with short form content to provide a good nuanced, balanced perspective on on any topic, no matter how good you are. like yeah so I would always prefer long form content, so that can be air point podcasts or blogs or longer YouTube videos, not YouTube shorts, Instagram, and Twitter,
00:08:19
Speaker
It's pretty hard to be to to provide like the level of nuance and the level of perspective that is needed to really actually get something useful out of um any topic, any any kind of information, even though Twitter used to be great with lots of active like really good people active on there. so You could have good conversations with that. Instagram, I think, is yeah just about getting attention, but there are still some good ah accounts, there is now Knowledge is What, which is a pretty good account that summarizes some research and ah YLM Sports Science has been around for a long time. Same thing, there are infographics about sports science. So so it's good information. However, it it is generally like just a summary of what a research study said, so it doesn't really
00:09:08
Speaker
and And that is very limited information. Like you might say, the world is published research. Yes, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't know the context of the the rest of of the but picture. But I think that yeah you you can follow good accounts like those, and that can give you some some good information. but But what's really important with social media, I think, is to avoid the misinformation, because that's yeah that's a big pitfall. And ah generally, ah Most people don't get an extremely big social media following by presenting balanced and nuanced views on things, unfortunately. it's And citing their references, yep. Yeah. So the biggest accounts, the very biggest accounts, I'm not talking necessarily in terms of in a niche like Treflon, but in general, and the the very big accounts are often ill-informed or alternatively motivated. um Yes. So so that's that's one thing one thing to look at.
00:10:05
Speaker
ah A few other, I would say, I have some on some notes about what are the things to look for, for whether a person is kind of trustworthy or has credibility. ah First of all, do they have good credentials to talk about the topic they're talking about? b Because you can have, like I don't know, medical doctors talking about politics. That's not to say that they can't know about politics, but that's not necessarily what they're You need to have some you need to check what the credibility level is, but also just because you have credentials, you being a medical doctor doesn't mean that you don't spread misinformation or somebody being a well-educated coach with a background in sports science and having coaching certifications, that doesn't mean that they don't spread misinformation. so it's not That doesn't guarantee anything, but that's a good first step to look for at least. Makes sense. um Then the second and probably most important point I would say is looking at the actual content. Is the content detailed, nuanced? Does it provide a full perspective? Does it provide pros and cons or different things? Or is it oversimplified and sensationalized? that would Obviously, the latter would more imply
00:11:13
Speaker
some level of misinformation, um similar to if there are very big claims being made for it, like lose 10 kilos in in a month or things like that, or a clickbait, that's a clickbait and a big claim in in one. So so those are often go hand in hand with misinformation.
00:11:34
Speaker
um If the the person or the account, the entity, are they polarizing and antagonistic? I think this is a pretty big thing because that's also something that it drives engagement and it drives views and clicks, I guess, to And yeah, it's I think it's human nature in in some way. But but that's not um that's not a sign of a well-informed person necessarily or credibility. like It's more a sign of somebody just trying to get get attention to be polarizing and
00:12:09
Speaker
and antagonistic. And then the final thing is to, I would say, is if you see somebody posting something and you you're wondering if that is the veracity of that statement is can be trusted or not, then you can look at previous content that they posted and see if that seems trustworthy. And for example,
00:12:29
Speaker
If I posted a year ago about how you can treat depression by shining light into your ears, which is that that is a claim that some companies have made in the past based on extremely ah poor poorly conducted research.
00:12:44
Speaker
then But if i if I post that claim, then that probably also disqualifies me from now posting about how to treat COVID-19 or whatever. so Or it doesn't disqualify me, but it makes it less likely that I'm a well-informed source of information. Let's put it that way. so i think that you yeah you can look at the bigger picture of what what else is the account posting, because it's pretty easy, especially in the world of fitness and and health and so on. Everybody can post things that are generally good to that, yeah, you need to eat fruits and vegetables, you need to sleep, those sorts of things. so But then you can have these kind of wacky statements thrown in every fourth or fifth post that are really out there and extremely misinformed.
00:13:27
Speaker
and And then people can think that, well, this must be a credible account because they're kind of posting all the right things. So this kind of strange thing maybe also holds true, but but that's not really necessarily the case. So but yeah, you can kind of need to dig a bit deeper maybe with with what the the other statements that a person or an account has made before are to really be able to verify if they are.
00:13:50
Speaker
informed or not, but of course that is hard because you are also not an expert in that topic necessarily. That's that's why that you're there, right? like that Yeah, we're we're talking to to the folks who are who are trying to get the you know the correct information that helps them train or you know get the right thing to make them experience their sport better. Yeah.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah it's it no it's it's really difficult for that reason. because And it's it's also like a lot of the big accounts of people that are successfully, I guess, spreading misinformation. If
Gaining Insights Through Dialogues and Media
00:14:18
Speaker
we put it bluntly, they there many of them do it in a way that seems very sophisticated. Or you could say that it is sophisticated. It looks polished, it looks sciency and it's very easy to believe. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I just want to emphasize something that you you mentioned that the you know the the big social media platforms, their business model is to keep your attention for as long as possible. so they're going to
00:14:44
Speaker
emphasize those those posts or those videos that get attention, get clicks, get engagement and de-emphasize the perhaps the more rigorous and ultimately more useful but perhaps less eye-catching posts of of folks who have who have real information. So let's let's leave let's put social media aside. let's I think we we we both agree and I don't think we'll get much pushback that social media is not where you should be doing your your robust research into anything, including our sport, of course. So then what's your what's your go-to if you're if you know for for sure if you have some idea something that you want to research and learn about? there we can We can talk about that later. you can If you have a specific topic, you can investigate it. But what if you're looking for sort of general information or something that I like to do is I want to you know i i don't know what I don't know, ah you know kind of a trivial statement.
00:15:41
Speaker
But there are certain sources that I have that I go to for almost like inspiration to open open new avenues in my ways of thinking, but I want that source to be trustworthy. what to What's your go-to for that kind of stuff?
00:15:55
Speaker
Oh, that's a good question. Um, I haven't really thought about that. I think, I think, I know I threw, I threw you a curve ball. I didn't put that in the, in the questions in our email. I think, I think, I think a lot of that comes through conversations with coaches and athletes. I mean, that's having a podcast where I interview coaches and athletes, coaches especially.
00:16:14
Speaker
may means that that is a ah very good avenue for doing that. I am also a big podcast listener in general, so I listen to other podcasts and sometimes you hear very interesting things there or ah less prolific a YouTube watcher, but every once in a while I ah watch something on YouTube and see something interesting there. So reading books, not necessarily triathlon related, but Yeah, I think just for broad for creativity, for broad ideas, books are really good, I would say. So yeah, but but I yeah, still conversations, whether they be in person or online, virtually, with coaches and athletes, that would probably be the main one. And it can be conversations with athletes that I coach myself that they come with ideas, they or they've heard something. So um those those and of course, with the other coaches within scientific triathlon, we have
00:17:10
Speaker
regular meetings where we chat and ah and the WhatsApp group and everything. So so those are some of the biggest um yeah the biggest avenues for for me forgetting those sorts of new ideas and and then maybe deciding to dig deeper into into a topic.
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think that very much resonates with with kind of my experience I I do like the the podcast Avenue I think there's there's a few few shows out there yours yours of course included that that open up ideas for me and then there's a few columnists I read too and like the the press the the endurance press like I get a lot from ah Alex Hutchinson does a really good digest email for outside like ah so many of my ideas i should be ah you know if we if this if this podcast made any money I should be paying him royalties because so many of my ideas for shows or for like you know something that sparked an idea for a show that may be evolved
00:18:04
Speaker
Uh, come from the, the articles that he posts. Um, so he's, he's a really good one for me. But, uh, what you said about conversations that totally, totally rings bells because, um, I think when you have that kind of dialogue and this is why I also really like running a podcast and this is, uh, we.
00:18:21
Speaker
listeners, we probably would have released this by now. We had a chat with, or I had a chat with Bjorn Kafka of Aerotune. And I always really liked talking to him because that that guy is always working on something new and something different. And I always learned so much from from those conversations. So yeah, running a podcast is definitely, it's kind of a niche way to do it, but I think it's ah it's a really it's a really fun way to do it.
00:18:45
Speaker
Yeah, what you meant what you mentioned before we started recording for from your conversation with Bjorn about trail runners running 25 hours a week. that's That's, for example, something that but in obviously in triathlon we're time limited with training for three sports, but but also I do think that there is this like that they there are There are different schools of thought, but a pretty big school of thought is to not run very much because it yeah comes ah ah when it comes with a larger injury risk, and it does come with a larger injury risk. That doesn't mean that you can't run quite a lot, and and it's it's all contextual, right? But that is a great example of how like that sort of idea that might seem very extreme from a triathlon perspective can open your mind to the possibilities and and make you think a bit differently about things.
00:19:34
Speaker
hundred percent And even Bjorn, like the the the way that he was really surprised by it himself, he was just relating an anecdote. it was he was ah He was approached by an elite female trail runner who wanted to work with him. And when he was you know ah trying to understand what her training volume was, she she told him how much she was running. And he was like, this is impossible. like yeah I can't believe these numbers. And then, he of course, you know obviously, she was running that much, and she was being healthy about it. um so yeah And that was, you know to your point earlier, these these new kind of new ways of understanding our our world come from, a lot of times come from conversations with with our you know coaches, athletes and peers.
00:20:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. that was ah That's great. I think maybe what I'll ask you to do is, and you can list some of them now and we can put them in the show notes. But if you have any go-tos for for reliable sources of information, for for podcasts or channels, I know you mentioned a couple of Instagram channels. Again, I'm putting you on the spot because I didn't ask you this in the email. So if you want to think about it and then send me an email that I can add to the ah the show notes, we can do it that way too.
00:20:41
Speaker
Yeah, i think Alex Hutchinson that you already mentioned is is great. um i I try to look for different podcasts where athletes or coaches are interviewed. and The Triathlon Hour has has a lot of good stuff there.
00:20:55
Speaker
um Yeah, that's, that's probably the main one, the triathlon hour, uh, with, with a lot of like long form interviews where, especially I think in the early days, like there were a lot of talk about training on this podcast and maybe, maybe less so now, but, but though, yeah, there's still some really good stuff there. So I enjoyed that pod and, uh, for running, I like Magnus and Marcus, uh, on coaching podcasts. Yeah, it's a great podcast. Yeah.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, i'll I'll think about some other ones and and send send them to you later. Sure. Yeah, don't worry about it. I'm a big fan of ah of Steve Magnus. I actually read a lot of his stuff that he puts out. he's He had a couple of really good books with Brad Stolberg on just like performance and and success, which I sort of like his philosophy. This is a digression, but his philosophy jives with mine of of kind of like really you know focusing on what you can control and and that kind of stuff and and and you know not sweating the little things, focusing on the big stuff and just getting things started. I'm totally butchering it, but yeah, I really like his work as well. yeah So why don't we shift gears a little bit and then ah let's assume that the information that you have found is sound, like it's got some pretty good
00:22:11
Speaker
you know pretty good evidence-based for for you believing it um there's still so much of it out there and then there's you know there's i mentioned the norwegian method earlier there's there's some evidence there's some good evidence for the norwegian method being effective doing a lot of that that threshold work even like doubles of threshold And I'm far from even very knowledgeable with the Norwegian method, to be honest. But there's so many other ways of training. And I know I think you and I have talked about this in the past of like, you know, whether or not you're going to do the pyramidal or polarized training or or just do lots of volume.
Evaluating and Adopting Training Methodologies
00:22:45
Speaker
There's so many ways if we're going to stick to training for now. How do you figure out as an athlete or as a coach, what what are you going to try? what what do you think What do you think is going to work?
00:22:57
Speaker
yeah i think um Yeah, I would start with, if if you break it down into five steps, I would start with just assessing any given, let's say, training intervention, but it could apply to other things, to like a new device, technology of some kind, or a new metric. But but for training intervention, start with like step one, reflecting on it, researching it, researching the background of it a bit more. So if it's something like, first, if you're talking about the training method,
00:23:29
Speaker
doing the research so you understand exactly what it's about and what is the kind of claim mechanism for its effectiveness and and what and what are the claim results, all of that okay background. Then reflecting on it, reflecting on it in the context of what you already know anecdotally from your own training or your own coaching, from others, your friends, your colleagues, your um yeah what you've heard elsewhere, what you've read elsewhere, does it make sense? Is this how a lot of people that train that and do they have good results with it or is it quite the opposite? So so reflecting on on that. Then also step two would even be, I would say,
00:24:12
Speaker
thinking about the history of that training method because things generally, in terms of training interventions at least, there aren't a lot of new things. Things may become a bit more sophisticated and they may look different because you have different data sources, different, more ways of measuring things and more ways of being exact about things. But, but the actual training methods are probably very similar to what has already been done before. So I think that it's good to be knowledgeable about the history of different schools of training in different sports and, and figure, and, and reflecting on that and, uh, how, how effective this method was last time it was around and it was popular. So, so that's, um, yeah, I think that the next time that the whole,
00:24:52
Speaker
low-carb movement counts around. I'm sure that will come around again. we can know that would do well People would go well to go back and reflect on on how it did the first time. ah so ah that's just as Just as one example, yeah same thing with like extreme high-volume training. and like There are lots of things that you can think of, but high-intensity training has been around in many cycles. Threshold training has been around in many cycles.
00:25:19
Speaker
Uh, and so on. So, so there's not a, like a lot of really new things. So, so that's step two and step three is to really like take what you now know now that you have like had this chance to reflect on the current and the past and and the research that you've done.
00:25:35
Speaker
put that into the context that you're going to apply. So if you're an athlete, what is your context? Are you an elite athlete? Are you a junior athlete? Are you ah an age group athlete? Are you an Ironman athlete doing an Ironman in nine hours or in 17 hours, are you a 10K runner? well How fast are you? Are you ah male or female? How old are you? ah What is the climate where you live? like There are all sorts of things that that matter here in the kind contextual setting of where you will apply the training intervention potentially. so If there is a lot of research on a given training method,
00:26:16
Speaker
but it's all done in recreationally trained athletes, but you're a very well-trained professional world-class athlete, then that's not necessarily super relevant. The research might not apply to you because there hasn't been a lot of ah research done in the correct context. and research is definitely not everything. It's actually only a small part, but then you would also look at obviously, well, anecdotally, what do you know other athletes of your level that in the past or now are using that training method and and what does that look like? Does it seem to be effective? Does it make sense for you to do it? So so reflect on how you fit into the puzzle of ah whether this training intervention may be
00:26:58
Speaker
maybe effective, so context context is king. Let's talk a little bit about how you would go about doing that. I think youre it makes perfect sense what you're saying, but if I'm an age group athlete, and let's say I've been around a little while, um and you know I have maybe a small circle of triathlon and friends who who also do the sport that I do,
00:27:19
Speaker
um How do you then do what you just recommended? How do you find out whether or not this this ah this specific kind of training would be appropriate for for somebody of my ability? Which, like I said, makes perfect sense, but who do you talk to? like Where would you get that information? where What are your reliable sources there?
00:27:37
Speaker
Well, the best thing would be to to have a coach or even get a consultation with a coach because they have that experience with many athletes of in different contexts and they also stay up to date on on these things. So they ah have a fuller picture and an easier time of it of acquiring a full picture because they talk with their colleagues so they have information from other coaches and not just athletes that they coach themselves and and so on. so So that would be the best thing. um Yeah, ah otherwise, I guess, ah you can call it sort of like, you you end up forming more of a picture the more you study the sport. So that might mean reading books, listening to podcasts, again, with all the caveats of the difficulty with um ah with filtering information. But but you do if you do that with a kind of a like
00:28:33
Speaker
with some critical thinking, then then you end up more and more forming a picture of things that have been done, things that have been successful, and things that have been done not so successfully. And and and it's it's a process process that takes a long time. And that is the benefit of a coach, to be honest, that they they have gone through, that they are always going through, that they're spending their whole day doing that. So ah so but But you can do it as a self-coach athlete as well, but but it's not a quick fix, really. It's it's something that you you just have to be a student on the sport, really. Where do you fall on experimentation? Just like you know just trying it? I think that... that's the way to go. and like if When you've done your due diligence, I think you should always do your due lit diligence and don't just jump onto the bag of of something. So think about it before you do it ah with those steps that we talked about. and And then if it seems that, okay, this could be this could be an interesting possibility, then then you experiment with it, then you do a ah trial. And I think the other thing to
00:29:34
Speaker
But one thing to caveat this window is that you're not just comparing any training intervention with with null. You're not comparing it to doing nothing. So and the the risk of any training intervention at a minimum is opportunity cost. and So there might you might not get slower, but you might not get faster. And and in that case, another training method could have made you faster. so you' relatively speaking, or losing out. so so you should probably not You shouldn't assess any training intervention in isolation, but also compared to what you're doing right now, for example, is it better or possibly more effective than what you're doing right now? Or are you weighing two potential different avenues against each other? so And then make an um as informed decision as you can on which has the highest likelihood of of being successful. You will never know that in advance, but you have to kind of
00:30:29
Speaker
do the diligence and then decide ah based on based on what you know and what you can guess and and speculate about. and then And then you do an experiment, so then you just trial. And and then you, I guess the thing, this is not it's not going to be a scientific experiment. It's not going to be well controlled. But still, i I think that as long as you do it with ah with reflection throughout the process. I'm thinking about yeah in advance about where are you supposed to be able to somehow measure the success of this? is it Are there specific workouts where you will be able to see your progress in terms of the power output, the paces, or the external to internal ratio, so pace to heart rate or power to heart rate? Um, those sorts of things, or are you going to actually maybe do some testing before and after, or do you have a race that you have done before and you're going to do it again? And and you can kind of see how you stack up to your previous results. There are lots of ways you could do it. Some are more formal, I guess, and more, um, exact. If you do something like a, like a simple 20 minute test on a bike, for example, it's a pretty easy one and a pretty good test. Uh, but, uh,
00:31:38
Speaker
But you don't have to necessarily do that, but but you have to have an appreciation for the i guess the uncertainty in your result. And the more vague your success metric is, the more uncertainty you are going to have in your result. For sure. feeling feeling better, feeling stronger is is important. it's It's relevant information, but it's it's still yeah you still have so quite some uncertainty in whether the training worked if the only thing you have to go on is that I'm feeling stronger, but you can't really quantify it necessarily. so and and this is some People are very different here because there are some athletes that are super in tune with like
00:32:17
Speaker
their exact powers, they can tell immediately if oh i'm I'm five watts off or more three seconds per kilometer off my normal. And then there are some athletes that feel that they're a bit off, but then you show them the data and they're actually 20 watts stronger than they were. so So this is, you have to know yourself a bit here, but but I think that depending on the athlete feel might be, you're feeling stronger might be valid, but it doesn't apply to everybody. So I would say have some way that you,
00:32:46
Speaker
but you're going to track your progress. And like if you're not going to do formal testing, I would say that your progress in key workouts is ah is a good way to do it. And ah and evaluate, then, of course, whether whether it worked. after Of course, you need to give it, depending on what the intervention is, it might have a shorter or longer timeline. But um But give it the time that it requires to actually have an effect, make sure you do things correctly with recovery and and so on. And and of yeah again, it's not a science experiment. You're not going to control for everything. And and I'm not even going to say that you should only change but one variable at a time because I feel From my coaching perspective, I know fully well that that is completely unrealistic and it's going to lead to ah less optimal training if you are going to limit yourself to that. yeah But you have to you have to appreciate if you changed multiple variables at a time and and to understand the uncertainty that brings to your results, I guess. I couldn't agree more, but and there's also the, I think there's some compounding ah effects where you start training if and if you're legitimately starting to build fitness, some of the other things may start to get easier too. Like I find that
00:33:54
Speaker
you know when when training is going real well my sleep improves right and then better sleep obviously i don't think we need to debate the value of sleep in well in life but in in training specifically uh if my sleep improves and then also i'm more motivated to eat well then those are two incredibly important factors that are you know supporting my training, but it it might not be specific that specific intervention that I've tried. It could be these tangential effects that are actually having more of an effect on on the improvement improvement in fitness.
00:34:28
Speaker
Yeah. and trying And trying a new training method could be a trigger for you to get more motivated. Exactly. Which which makes which also makes you more motivated to eat well, which then influences your sleep. So it's not not the training itself, but actually trying that intervention still had that direct impact. So it's really hard. Yeah. Humans are weird. it's That's why coach like endurance coaching, sword coaching is is so interesting because there's so many little factors that so many levers we we have control over and and they're they're intertwined sometimes.
00:34:57
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Getting back to your answer, I think you would finish, maybe you were about to finish step three and you still had four and five and then I totally interrupted you. Oh yeah. So actually that was step four, experimenting or trialing it. And then reviewing it was step five. And that was basically the um Yeah, having us some kind of ah success metric or way to evaluate the success of it in place that you decide on in advance. And and then I guess yeah and knowing the timeline as well, understanding the timeline of when are you going to to review it. And you might review it and it's inconclusive and you decide, okay, I'm going to do another four weeks and see. But I guess the key thing there is to not be a passive passenger in your training, because I think what can happen quite easily is that ah you see something that looks like a new interesting training method, even though as we talked about, it probably isn't new, but it it it may well very well be interesting. yes and And you jump on that bandwagon, and and you but then
00:36:04
Speaker
It somehow becomes the default, and it becomes automatic, and you just do it without reviewing whether it's working or not until something else comes along that is newer and shinier than you change. But you actually don't know if the thing that you did was working well or not. So so that's the the thing to avoid, really, by by having in place a system that and makes you evaluate our how things are going at at a certain timeline within that implementing that intervention. Yeah, yeah absolutely. so so I took away two things. The first thing is that I should just be more patient as an interviewer and let you go through the ah through your steps and rather than just help ask questions that you were you're going to get to anyway. um but then and Then the second is yeah making sure that you you do monitor it because I'm guilty, because I've been you know self-coached forever basically. and
00:36:56
Speaker
I'm really guilty of just of of just going with the flow, sometimes of of not of avoiding those tests and avoiding those those benchmarks, which are I totally agree with you are are real important. So, very ah point very well taken, Michael.
00:37:10
Speaker
yeah um and i think like i I was thinking about this in terms of technology as well, which I think is the same process, but there are a couple of other things to to consider there.
Assessing New Training Devices and Metrics
00:37:25
Speaker
so um Firstly, on on part two, where I talked about like that ah ah analyzing the history of of an intervention, you might not have a history with ah with a new piece of technology, a new device, yeah but sometimes you do. ah so saddal this so Basically, my point here is that that step two is maybe less important, but it's not ah It's not always unimportant. If you think about something like continuous blood glucose monitoring when super sapiens came along, obviously it was very new to endurance sports. It was yeah you didn't have any historical data of using that necessarily in an endurance sports context outside of of diabetics, but but you had a ton of use cases and application in in the medical field.
00:38:12
Speaker
so So even if something is new to the field where it's currently being used, it doesn't mean that it's completely new. ah so So you can and should, I think, analyze that also from that kind of step to analyzing the history point of view when when that exists and try to figure out where it is this coming from. Because quite quite often, technologies that come into our sport are not new technologies. They're just new applications of of technology that already exists or or slight variations of something that already exists. sure And the other thing that I i think is really important is a already in step one when it comes to new technology, with including devices and also metrics, is to understand four key concepts, relevance, validity, accuracy, and precision. ah So relevance means
00:39:00
Speaker
is this actually important to measure? Does it help us with the problem at hand? And let's say the problem at hand, what what is the device trying to solve? But let's say it's training better in some some way. Does it actually help or recovering better? So and that that's that's a pretty ah relevant one today because there are a lot of wearables now that claim to help you with recovery.
00:39:19
Speaker
but But they do measure things, but do they actually help you with something? So with anything so the relevance there is is an important one to assess. Validity means does the device measure what it says it does? yeah ah so And that's not always the case. For example, running power meters, they don't measure running power. nope they as They estimate it by measuring other things. They use accelerometers. They measure ah speed in three dimensions and and they know your weight and and then they calculate an estimation of of running power, but it's not really running power. That's right. Yeah. They have a model that they've they they validated in a lab to some extent across some some you know some subset of runners and then they try to map that model onto what you're doing. Yeah, for sure. It's it's definitely not a direct measurement. But there's even disagreement there between whether the power is metabolic power or ah mechanical power. and And I think, for example, Stride is a big one. And and they have claimed that their power is metabolic power. It's not mechanical power. ah So then you could argue that how is metabolic power related to things like injury prevention, which is also part of their product or their analysis, because that would be more related to the mechanical power. For sure. Yeah, that's that's all force. Yeah, absolutely.
00:40:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, so validity does no device measure what it says it does. Accuracy is how accurately does it measure it? So let's say power meter. Um, my power meter shows that I'm doing 300 Watts, but, but actually I'm doing 350, of course. by I have a severely under reading power meter as we all as we all do. of course My power meter, especially lately has been very, very under reading my, uh, my actual power. Yep.
00:40:57
Speaker
Yeah. So that, that is accuracy and precision is, but at least it shows 300 Watts every time. So, so I can still train with it. repeatability And I think that, yeah, yeah. So I think that of these four accuracy is maybe the least important to some extent, uh, at least when it comes to something that you use in day-to-day training, but something being precise is very important. And of course that it is, uh, relevant is, uh, just is.
00:41:23
Speaker
if you If it's not relevant, you're not going to use it. so and but also then exactly wi bob yeah But also if it's not precise, you can't use it, even if you would want to. yeah um Validity is like a little bit like running power. I i think it's not valid as running power. It doesn't mean that it's not potentially a useful metric. I'm not a huge fan, but I'm also not saying that it's useless. so so the just the fact that it's not really measuring exactly power doesn't mean that it can't have some some use. I think it's quite useful for pacing on ah very like hilly courses on uneven terrain, as long as the ground is the same if we're talking about- does not work well on trails famously. yeah no No, absolutely not. so so Those four four factors, understanding relevance, valid validity, accuracy, and precision, those are super important when it comes to that first step of assessing a new technology or a new metric. Michael, I couldn't agree more. I think that's like, I usually boil mine down to like two steps, but they're, they're combining with your, your four, your four checks. And I, I couldn't agree more. And the the thing that I always think about is, uh, is, um, uh, one of our favorite topics on our show is, is arrow meters, right? And they sometimes they fail all four. Sometimes sometimes they're, sometimes they're not accurate and sometimes they're not repeatable and sometimes they're or or precise.
00:42:45
Speaker
And sometimes they are they are those things, but you don't really you can't really know exactly what to do with them, like these are the validity piece is missing unless you have quite a bit of knowledge or quite a bit of time to invest in in in the investigation. um And I think it's i think that is those are very, very important questions to ask, and I think that we don't We actually don't ask them enough when we when we, you know, I'm the guiltiest of all because I get really excited about new technology and I want to buy it and try it and then and then realize that it really doesn't do anything for me.
00:43:19
Speaker
Yeah, no, i think I think it's super important because it it will help you save save some money, to be honest, if you do these things, like do this do this analysis, figure it out before, if it if it could make sense. Some of the things, obviously, you won't necessarily know. You can't necessarily know if if a device is unreliable, like it's not measuring things consistently, so it fails that precision part because it Yeah, that that's something that is the manufacturer probably claimed that is precise, like they they wouldn't say it if it wasn't. So so that part you can't know, but but the relevance and the validity, those are things that at least that you can figure out beforehand. And to some extent, you can
00:44:00
Speaker
maybe have some idea of the accuracy part, even if you understand a bit about the methods by how they measure certain things. and But it will probably in some cases require quite a lot of extensive knowledge about different topics, either physics or biology or or medicine or or various things, engineering ah to figure that out. But but at least some some of that you can figure out before you actually buy a device. so Absolutely. Yeah, i think I think it is very tricky, especially the more kind of the more ah you know the deeper that that we get into you know advanced devices and also now AI assisting with all sorts of analysis. right So you end up with all these black box sort of you know interpretation algorithms that tell that that that take the raw data and then spit out some kind of output that you're supposed to make sense of, um I think ah then being able to tease out how accurate they are becomes even more complicated because you actually have no idea what it's doing. Like Stride, you you don't know what it's doing. You kind of you kind of know what it's doing ah very roughly, but it's that the actual algorithm is you know proprietary and you don't really know.
00:45:06
Speaker
yeah precise like how they go but Yeah, exactly we had we had Antoine on ah we who we talked about it a little bit earlier when we're talking about the omia said then but he also did the study of the the core sensor right and it's like I so i still use mine, but he was ah He was talking about how it's it's not it's it's similar to stride in the sense that it doesn't measure core temperature because it's not Inside your body right like it's measuring skin temperature and and heat flux and then from skin skin temperature and heat flux again They've built a model that then models what your core body temperature is doing when your skin temperature is doing this and your skin flux is doing this and your heart rate because they're actually they use heart rate as well.
00:45:46
Speaker
ah So again, it's a model that is, if it's useful, great. And Antoine's findings were that, yeah, it's it's useful, but it has some limitations in in specific use cases. So um I think that that nuanced approach to these these devices and technologies is probably the best one.
00:46:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, the the core is a great example, because funnily enough, I just ordered mine very recently, and I haven't even received it yet, but but it's on its way. And and it's a device that obviously I've been aware of it for years. And and it's been one that I've consistently been relatively positive quite positive about. like I think it all makes sense, technology-wise. And eventually, I pulled the trigger of buying it. and and And the reason being that I finally, I think, have enough data without actually having bought the device that it seems to be precise. Because I think that it's you know it's an extremely relevant device. And understanding core temperature, especially when you're training for hot races or you're doing some kind of heat prep or racing in the heat can be extremely relevant.
00:46:48
Speaker
The validity, um yeah it's not measuring like you said, it's not measuring what like core temperature directly. It's it's using a model. It's measuring skin temperature and heat flux. But as as I said before, like that part is not as important as the relevance and the precision part to me. Agreed. And ah the accuracy, I understand, is also not ah super great. Like if you compare it to pills, it's going to have an offset. yes But what I've heard from multiple sources that have used it extensively is that it is quite precise. So it does provide a good tool. It's not perfect. And people that have the means, they don't use just that. They also use temperature pills and stuff. so So it's not that it's perfect, but it seems to be good enough that there is an interesting use case there. And and that's made me decide, OK, I'm going to
00:47:35
Speaker
get it I'm going going to figure out how to use it because I do think that there can be a decent amount of value in in that device. so But yeah, I did you apply this exact framework when ah when deciding whether to buy it or not because I didn't want to waste a couple hundred euros yeah on anything. Exactly, right. No, I think, ah yeah, my my understanding of it is exactly the same as yours, that there is there is an offset, but the offset is consistent. And that's really all that matters because, you know, most of the use cases are you do some, you know, you do some heat testing, see where your how your body temperature, how your core temperature reacts to certain stimuli. And then based on that, you you build ah a training program. And that makes a lot of sense as long as you can consistently hit the, you know, as long as you have that repeatability, so you can consistently hit those those thermal stress levels in your training, in your prep.
00:48:22
Speaker
um Okay, awesome. Michael, I'm going to move us on, ah sort of staying within the technology world, but I want to speak specifically to metrics because kind of my, going back to the big picture of my idea for this episode was how do we deal with an overwhelming amount of information and maybe some of the information is poor and some of the information is valid.
00:48:44
Speaker
um And all of our all of these devices that we have, and you know specifically in triathlon watches and head units on our computers on our bike computers, um they can present a dizzying array of of data now. and So in your coaching practice, what do you focus on and what do you ah what do you focus on and what do you think is is less important?
00:49:08
Speaker
Okay, so the preamble here, you can go through the exact same exercise with the metrics as with any piece of technology there, understanding the relevance, validity, accuracy and precision of it, and and then decide based on that whether whether it makes sense to use it.
00:49:24
Speaker
and and And obviously, devices these days, they do capture a lot of metrics automatically. So just because it captures or and some software calculates additional metrics automatically, et cetera. So I'm not saying that you should delete the ones that ah that come through you that you don't like or that don't make sense within this model, but but you need to and understand which metrics you want to focus on because focusing on everything is going to lead that you're pretty bad ah at at everything. like You're not going to do a good job. yeah agree so So you need to figure out which ones which are the ones to focus on. And and I would encourage anybody to get really good at at what you're doing with like within a more like narrow focus with when it comes to these things.
00:50:11
Speaker
and And I think it's pretty simple, which ones make sense. It's heart rate on in all disciplines, even swimming potentially, even though I'm not like making my athletes wear heart rate monitors in the pool, but you can do. Certainly for bike and run, it's important. Pace on the run and and in swimming, speed on the bike, power on the bike, and RP and and other subjective data like workout comments. So that those are the big ones and ah the ones that I think If you are really good at using those, even for a self-coach athletes, writing workout comments, logging your RPE is extremely useful. Like you you can't really evaluate any intervention if you don't do that. I don't see how, because you can look at the data from training and you can see the power to heart rate, but you cannot really know whether heart rate was slower in relation to power because you were tired or because you're getting fitter unless you actually
00:51:11
Speaker
rated an RPE and he wrote a comment about whether he felt good or he felt tired. You're glycogen depleted on a long run and you're yeah if you just can't produce the power anymore. Exactly. so Hang on. I got i i got i got a quick follow-up question. so one um you know Everything you're saying totally jives with my understanding of the world, except for one thing that that's jumped out was You said speed on the bike. So that's one thing that i've yeah I've always told folks to ignore. So I'm very curious to hear why why you think speed on the bike is is is an important metric to track. you have to yeah yeah You always have to look at it in the context of your training, of course, but ah ultimately in a race, like it's not your power that's
00:51:50
Speaker
uh that's determining how fast you or ah like or well your power determines how fast you go in some way but it's not your power that matters that's not what's on the result sheet ah it's the speed so if you're and coming back to the point about some power meters might have an offset If you're consistently pushing extremely good power, but you're going pretty slowly, then that's okay. You can still train to your power, but maybe we need to have the understanding that either we need to figure out what's going on with your speed. Why is it so slow? you Are you very poor aerodynamically? Is there some ah mechanical inefficiencies or like equipment things that need to be sorted? Do you have an exceptionally dirty chain?
00:52:31
Speaker
Except for the dirty chain. yeah how That happened with one of one of the folks I was working with. We had that we had that problem. like And then he he cleaned and lubed his chain, and then he became a superstar. Oh, wow. Relatively speaking.
00:52:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah like you can you can get so much time, especially if you're over an iron man, like that can add up to so much. yeah and so so so you need to so You need to pay attention to that, because if you don't, then if you only pay attention to the power, then you're going to show up on race day with that dirty chain, not understanding why you're so much slower than everybody else, even though your power, you know your power is really good. So it does matter. um I would say I prescribe workouts based on power, mostly power and RP and heart rate, a combination of those, not so much based on speed, although sometimes I do prescribe workouts that are go at kind of a race pace or race power, but tried to really ride a course that kind of simulates the race course and try to go as get as much speed as you can out of the power, focusing on the speed. not really not The power is less important. It should be roughly around where you want to be on average, but but it means like pushing over the hills and and and getting up to speed and all those sorts of things. So so speed can come into things and and paying attention to it in general is important.
00:53:48
Speaker
ah for understanding your performance ah capacity, your performance limiters, where you are, where you can improve. And yeah, that's ah so el least just as important, I think. It's basically with with speed and with power, you have ah a way of assessing your overall efficiency on the bike. Yeah, for sure. And I think, yeah, I'm i'm back on board with speed. I think, yeah, as ah as a means of of looking at at assessing Efficiency and mostly probably between workouts because it's probably not a ton you can do I mean unless you're doing dedicated sort of Chung method Aero testing stuff then then speed within a workout probably isn't isn't telling you a ton um But unless unless you know to your point you're you're assigning a workout where speed is the objective which is an interesting way to do it and sometimes maybe that's
00:54:35
Speaker
Like we were talking about novelty earlier on when we were talking about training interventions, sometimes like workout prescription novelty is fun too. It's just like, hey, you know, today you're going to run based on this metric and not not the metric that you're you're used to running. And let's see what happens. Like yeah run to RPE or or ride to speed and and see how that works.
00:54:53
Speaker
yeah Yeah, exactly. um yeah no but that's That I think is the summary of the metrics. and and There are situations, of course, where other metrics might come into things. Sometimes I do lactate testing. and and ah Let's see now how this core sensor project goes. That could be an interesting one. but But, I mean, those are for sure the like 99% of your gains are going to come from under understand from follow from those metrics that I just listed. And then there are a ton of metrics that people use that I would say are fail one or multiple of the important tests, either relevance or validity. or And maybe that's something that you want to talk about because that could be interesting, for example,
00:55:36
Speaker
like TSS and TSS derived metrics like CTL. For me, they they are relevant, because if you could measure like an all-encompassing training load metric, that would be useful. However, they are not valid, in my opinion, ah because there are so many ways of breaking them. So if you go out and do an extremely stochastic ride, yes you will get an extremely inflated TSS. Or when I go and do um a swim in the pool, but I use my wetsuit in because I'm preparing for a race, then ah that's also going to give me extremely inflated TSS. Of course, the transferability between different disciplines is is extremely poor, so there are just too many limitations to make it valid in any way.
00:56:22
Speaker
deal ah even Even within a single sport like cycling, races are so stochastic and you would have like these NP busting efforts within them that yes that makes it ah not super useful. the only the The only situation where I would see it being useful is if you're a pure cyclist, while your focus is more on, not on road cycling, but maybe something longer and steadier like gravel, something like that, or ultra cycling, then I think that it would be much more valid and then I would consider using it. But for in a triathlon context, I for sure don't. I think that the validity just isn't there. Yeah. I think it's the the interplay between, especially the interplay between the others, between the three sports. I think that's the most challenging of the of the things for the for TSS.
00:57:08
Speaker
But I totally agree with you. You can totally blow it up. It's very easy to do if you're doing some sprint training to to to break the to break their model. Yeah, even even on running, like if you run a very hilly course, it it doesn't even ah like with running power, it it doesn't, in my opinion, at all reflect how much harder a very hilly run is compared to a flat run. as when when using the TSS model. So yeah, I think i think in all and swimming is is terrible because of all the equipment. There's no way of accounting for that. And sure if even 25-meter pool versus 50-meter pool running, different shoes are using super shoes or not. that That's maybe a more minor detail. so And i'm not I'm not going to like be super critical about minor differences there. But I think all in all, like it's just not
00:58:01
Speaker
a valid metric.
Conclusion and Technology Recommendations
00:58:03
Speaker
Since we're talking about this, this was not on my kind of very high-level queue sheet for today, but if you're not using TSS, and I totally agree with you, it's pretty it's a pretty sloppy metric, but if you're not using that, what's your what's your volume metric? um It's volume, and using things like the like three-month rolling average of of volume or six-week rolling average of volume, because I know that intensity is going to be relatively consistent. There are maybe different periods, um but but it's going to be consistently at a level that the athlete can tolerate. but um but But there is going to be intensity, whether it's race pace or
00:58:46
Speaker
threshold or VO2 max or whatever it might be, there is always going to be some intensity in the program. So so within, let's say, a 15-hour week, I know that, okay, like but de I think the intensity just evens out over time. So I think that would involve you. And even you could even look at we, at least in cycling, you could look at kilojoules and that would also show you that the big thing, the the big factor is really volume. So so i I look at volume and and especially things like the the three month rolling average. Interesting. Okay.
00:59:21
Speaker
that's and i mean like Honestly, the the it's the easiest metric to capture. right like it's it's yeah It's the time between you so you press start and you press stop on your on your device. right yeah yeah Awesome. Well, Michael, this is has has been a great chat. i mean It's also really nice to catch up. it's been well It's been more than two years since we've had you on the show, but I know you and I have exchanged emails here and there, but it's always it's always a treat to have these conversations too.
00:59:46
Speaker
kind of bounce some ideas off of you and to get your take on it. So I really ah really appreciate your you taking the time and and sitting down with me today. Yeah, no problem. And by the way, I should say that when when it comes to technology that is interesting and that ticks the boxes, your new bottle is certainly one of them that we discussed before. But it certainly is something that I look forward to. ah Maybe not me personally, but some of my F because I'm looking forward to not spending time on the TT bike next year at all. But but some of my athletes are most likely going to experiment with it next year. So so that's yeah that's one piece of tech that I'm pretty excited about.
01:00:23
Speaker
That's awesome. Well, thank you for that unprompted plug. I really do appreciate it. um Well, we got to get you a bottle or two so that you can you can play around with it, even if it's not for yourself or for the folks at your work. Cool. Well, thank you, Michael. Listeners, thank you very much, as always, for tuning in and spending some time with us. And we hope to see you back next time.