The Heart of Endurance: Mastering Performance with the MAF Method with Phil Maffetone

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding.

And I'm claire fudge.

And this is the tribe athlon podcast.

Because we have fat calories we burn, and we have sugar calories we burn, and if we don't burn a lot of fat calories, they go into storage and our aerobic system suffers as a result. So, so that's a biochemical example of over training and mental emotional stress, depression, anxiety, loss of interest in competing, loss of interest in training. These are, I mean, that's an epidemic in all sports.

That was Phil Maffetone and this episode is the heart of endurance. Mastering performance with the math Method. In this episode, we're honored to sit down with a legend that is Dr. Phil Maffetone, a pioneer in the realm of endurance training and holistic health. With over four decades of experience, Phil Maffetone has carved a niche in developing the math method, which stands for maximum aerobic function, an approach that has revolutionized training in countless endurance athletes, especially triathletes like Mark Allen. His holistic lens doesn't just focus on physical training. It embraces the interconnectedness of diet, mental well being, and overall health in athletic performance. Deep dive with us as we explore the foundation principles of math, the delicate balance between aerobic and anaerobic training, and the profound role of the heart rate in determining one's aerobic threshold. Phil also shares invaluable insights on the impact of dietary choices on endurance, the signs of overtraining, and the benefits of cross training. And on the back of his book, Be Sharp, we even dive into the topic of how music improves our mental health. From discussing the longevity benefits of the math method to answering queries that we wanted to throw at him, like, for example, the choice of training footwear, this episode promises a comprehensive look into the mind of a maestro. Whether you're an athlete or just someone keen on optimizing your health, Phil's wisdom is an absolute treasure trove. So I know that you're going to love this episode with the legend that is Dr. Phil Maffetone. I just wanted to drop in a quick note here to say after the interview with Phil, Claire and I chat about how this is the last episode of this particular chapter, this particular series of the podcast, and in fact, the last episode of it being called the Tribeathlon Podcast. We are launching a new name under a new title, slightly new look, slightly new focus, but with the same amazing endurance athlete being interviewed regularly. So listen to Clare and I's outro after the interview with Phil to learn more. How would you like to Grow your business whilst working less and enjoying your work life more. Well, that's how we help people at the Trusted team. We do that through workshops which happen in person and online. We do that through regular online learning that you can just do from your desk at lunchtime. And we do it through in person events that make fun tax deductible things like golf days, dinners, wine tasting, all of that fun stuff. They help you build stronger relationships and enjoy work more. So if you want to know how we can help you grow your business and improve your work life balance balance. Go to thetrusted team to find out when our next free taster event or free webinar is so that you can find out how we can help you grow your business and get your work life balance back. That's thetrusted team. Come join us at one of our events.

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So Phil, welcome to the Tribe Athlon podcast. Your name is a name that has been like. I mean, I've been doing triathlons for about six years and I. Your name was mentioned very, very early on in that six year process. And so it's a name that has, has been synonymous for me with, with this, with this sport. So to kick things off, tell us a bit about how you found your way into the world of endurance sport and, and you know, tell us, tell us how you ended up here.

Thanks, Charlie. I think I was thrown into it. I don't, I don't really know how to answer that. It was probably during my college days when I started understanding about holistic health and coming from a sports background, it was sort of all one thing. It was not, you know, you're an athlete today and then tomorrow you're an academic and then the next day you're doing whatever. It's all one big thing. And so when I got interested more in sports and, and started studying exercise physiology and biofeedback and all of that stuff, it, I looked at it as all one big thing and started working. And of course I worked at myself and did some competition, but not much in school, especially in professional school because there was no time for that kind of stuff. But I started helping amateur athletes. And then I, I met someone who's a pro athlete and was able to work with him and, and help and you know, it just seemed like a natural part of my evolution in, in, in life really. And then when I got out and, and opened my own clinic, the running boom in the 70s, the running boom was booming and, and there were a lot of athletes who were hurt and I saw a lot of them and it gave me an opportunity to put everything together. And it was kind of odd for most athletes because, you know, when you have a knee problem, you treat the knee well, not if you come to see me because I want to talk about your training, I want to talk about your nutrition, I want to look at your feet because that could be the cause of the knee problem. So, you know, I just, I just kind of got into it that way and it's grown, continues to grow and it's certainly been a lot of fun.

And I remember right from the off hearing about the work that you did with Mark Allen. Was it, was that sort of a key? I mean, is that the professional you were talking about or is there was. Was that a, you know, tell me a bit about how you really became known and maybe lead that on. I'm going to ask you a bit about the, the, the math method, but was that Mark Allen work kind of a big jump up for you or was it just another pro in a long line?

It was just another pro in a long line. And it was early in Mark's career. Mark hadn't really made much of a name for himself. He won a couple of small races and the big guys in front of him, Molina and, and the big three, they will call, you know, he couldn't, he just couldn't catch them. But, but you know, by that point in my career, the early is. I think it was 83, I had, I had drifted into virtually all sports. I, I was in soccer, American football motorsports, track and field and, and so it was crazy because I was seeing of course a lot of runners and then triathlon was fairly new and I saw my first triathlete, I think in 78. And I thought, wow, this is a, this is an amazing sport. What a perfect way to cross train. Because I would always emphasize cross training. Runners were very reluctant to, to do anything else. And most, most athletes in the sports that I got into were very reluctant to, to do anything, but I had race car drivers running and I had runners cycling and you know, football players swimming. I mean, it was, it was all part of what I did, along with all the other stuff. So when I saw Mark, actually Mark. Mark came to one of my lectures in San Diego and Paul and Newby Frazier had just come over from South Africa looking to figure out this sport and, and a bunch of other athletes and I started working with them. And I think with Mark it was. Mark's a very intelligent person and I think with Mark it was. He. He thought there was something about what I was doing that could give him the edge. And, and, but more importantly, when I first saw Mark, he had a, he had a, an injury and, and I was able to, to correct it very quickly. And he, he. He went to a race and won and I think that got his attention and, and he was able to tolerate the strange things that I was doing until he experienced more and got. It got better and better for him after that. And Mark was one of the guys that was so much fun to work with because he didn't. He. He. He. He had a great mind as, as people know. And his great mind was. Was able to comprehend the, the philosophical stuff that is very much a big part of my, My, my approach. And we're, we're still in touch today. We, you know, we, we talked the other day and Mark's now playing guitars.

So you've got lots to talk. Come back to the music piece. But, but I agree with what, I mean, what you say about Mark is. So Mark was the person that introduced on this. Me on this podcast to the AI coaching platform that is tried out that he now uses. And you know, for somebody that's been in the sport, I mean, it's ironic given that he.

There's.

There's been a debate. There's been a bit of, a bit of banter on social media between him and Tim Don about whether Mark's sort of over the, you know, over the what? Can't remember what the term is, but you know, whether he's kind of past it. And yet ironically, he's dealing with the, the, the most futuristic training plan designer that there is on the market, I think. Yeah. And so he's obviously very open to this sort of stuff. Is there, is there any other athletes that you can really single out as people that you've worked with that have seen such a marked success or that you just kind of most enjoyed working with?

Gosh, a lot of them in in motorsports, in, in cycling. I, I mean, yes, and I, I just, you know, Mark's the one people attach me to because he, he would, you know, he's got the six Ironman races, which is only the tip of the iceberg. People don't realize how incredible an athlete he, he was from a competitive standpoint. All those nice wins and he won, I think he won 20 professional races in a row. And we, we talked about this. You know, he was never going to jump into a, a low key race just to make some money. They were all competitive events and, and when he got into the sport, it was the, it was the beginning of the competitiveness in that sport because a lot of cyclists were saying, hey, I'm a great cyclist. I could really wipe up everybody on the bike and hold on. And you know, and so there was a lot of competition and you know, but yeah, all the sports. I got to the point somewhere along the way by, probably by, by the early 90s where I, I decided and it was very busy and I, I sort of was getting a little burnt out and I, I decided I've got to cut back. And there are certain people on, on who come to me for help and I'm, I'm not going to take, take on them as a, as an athlete because they, it's sort of like I want to work with somebody who's really interested in doing it right, not try to make a splash. And I would often joke, and it's not really a joke if you want to have a great race over train and do it by the calendar so that you're starting to over train right at the time you're going to race and you'll probably run your best, but you'll be retiring after that and, and that's what people wanted to do. How could I, I gotta, I've gotta do well in this race. I'll do anything to, to, you know. Well, there have been movies written about that. I'm willing to sacrifice my soul for a little more speed and that's what, that's what people do. And I'm not willing to work with those, with those athletes or, or I've worked with a lot of other people, CEOs and politicians and.

But it certainly, it certainly must have been an absolutely incredible career. I mean, you're probably best known for the math method, aren't you? For those people that are listening to this, that don't understand anything about. Can you give us a kind of summary of what, what that, that methodology is all about?

Sure. Maf stands for maximum aerobic function. And it's a way of developing the body's health and fitness, which are really one thing. Health, of course, is where all the systems of the body, the muscle system, the hormones, the digestive system, the brain and nervous system, they're all working in some kind of balance, some kind of harmony. And fitness is the ability to perform, to physically perform in particular and especially in sports. And so the fittest athlete typically will win the race on that day. But we need both health and fitness. And if we don't have it, we get into a situation which is very common, was very common and is still very common today, where athletes become more and more fit, but less and less healthy. And we see it when there's an injury. We see it in people who become exhausted and over trained. We see it unfortunately, in athletes who die at young ages. And in triathlon, we've seen that way too many times in marathon running in all the sports. And that's a, that's an extreme example of someone who's very fit but unhealthy because you don't die at age 40 or 50 if you're not unhealthy. So that's what the approach is. That's the sort of, the philosophy of it and all the, the details are all in there to encourage that balance of health and fitness. And for an athlete, the goal is to perform your, your personal best and continue year after year after year and retire at your own. You know, when, when, when you, you, you don't want to do it anymore. Not because you're so burned out.

And within that system. Sorry, go and Clay, you've got a question.

I was going to ask whether, with where, where you started. You know, you talked about seeing athletes maybe that were injured and then that sort of developed. Did, did your system, I'm calling it a system. Maybe it's a framework. Was that developed because. Because of all the different things that you were doing. So in terms of seeing athletes maybe that were injured but wanting to perform better, is that how your framework or the way that you work with athletes developed, how the math principle developed?

I think so. I think you're right again. It just sort of happened. And I had way back as a student, this, all these different ideas which, you know, makes you crazy and. But then suddenly you realize that they're all one big thing. It's, it's a holistic concept, so they're not all separate entities. And so I wanted to practice nutrition and back, you know, in the 70s, that was a Really a new thing I wanted to do biofeedback. And that was, that just wasn't done much. It was done by NASA and it was a new field of endeavor to measure the brain, the brain waves and then get muscles responding to the brain, all that kind of stuff. And again, it was all together. And the difficult part was answered by the assessment process whereby you spend a lot of time talking to the athlete. I want to know about the athlete. I want to know exactly what they're thinking, exactly what they're eating, exactly their attitude about training and racing. And I want to, I want to understand them really well. And then I could say, well, okay, here's what I think we need to do this, that and that because you're an individual athlete, you're unique from everyone else I've ever worked with. And I want to individualize this approach for, for you. And we can measure along the way to make sure we're, we're on the right pace and make sure we're doing the right things. And if it doesn't work, then we sort of go back and reassess and figure out where we might have gone wrong. But it, yeah, just, you know, there, there's a lot of logic to it. So it just came together logically. And there's a philosophy which is quite a logical thing that is all kind of tied in there.

And one of the most famous parts of your methodology is all relating to heart rate, isn't it? And the balance between aerobic and anaerobic training. Can you explain why? You know, and I know when you've first written about this, you know, that would have been quite some time ago. What do you think the current, you know, is there any. What would your current advice be to triathletes training around or anyone, runners, swimmers, cyclists around that balance between aerobic and anaerobic. And how should they look at that nowadays?

The same way as I looked at it decades ago. I've fine tuned and tweaked my approach year by year from the beginning and will continue doing that. And that's based on. That was based a lot on my experience and it's also based on research, some of which I've done. But the aerobic system was for me was, was a big, big part of it all because when I studied exercise physiology, the aerobic system was sort of an aside. Nobody ever talked about that. There was still in sports back back then, in the 70s, a macho, if I could make up that term. There was a machoness about sports and exercise physiology Attracted a lot of macho approaches in, in terms of, you know, everything's gonna be hard, you've got to get strong, you've got to be fast. And. And then there was this aerobic system way over there somewhere that they would kind of casually mention in class. Oh, yeah, there's this aerobic system that, you know, does this, that and that. And I'm thinking, well, well, wait a minute. That's very important for health. And initially, when I started delving into what the aerobic system does and how do we develop it, I thought it was, it was going to be my health program separate from sports. And then I realized that this is, this is our endurance system. This is how we burn fat for energy and prevent us from accumulating body fat and how we get unlimited energy and how we get more and more endurance and how we can get aerobic. I coined this phrase, aerobic speed. The more we build our aerobic system, the faster we get as, as an endurance athlete. And the, the aerobic system was important for, for power athletes as well, for track and field athletes, because those aerobic system, those. So the aerobic system is the metabolic part where we burn fat and also the physical part where there are aerobic muscle fibers. And in a chicken, just to give people some background, in a chicken there's light meat and dark meat. The light meat is the anaerobic white fiber. The dark meat is the aerobic fibers, While in the human, those muscle fibers are mixed in the muscle. So what aerobic muscles do for everybody but power athletes in particular is they support the muscles that are next door. So there's an anaerobic muscle next to the aerobic fiber. And the aerobic muscle has a lot of blood supply and a lot of oxygen, and the anaerobic fiber doesn't. So it shares some of that and it's a great plus. The aerobic muscle fibers support our joints all day long. And so if we don't have good support, we risk getting injured even with normal training if the aerobic system isn't working well.

And so how can an athlete improve their aerobic system?

Well, as it is with the aerobic system, it develops with easy activity, with easy physical activity, and it develops when we encourage a better fat burning metabolism. And so the diet, that's where the diet really comes in. And if we train that, if we, if we train at a higher intensity, we're going to enlist more anaerobic muscle fibers and more anaerobic metabolism. So the game is to train at a level that encourages the aerobic muscles to develop and encourages more fat burning and less sugar burning. And that's where the heart monitor and the heart, the heart rate as a guide comes in and the heart, all the heart related things that I did in the beginning was all based on biofeedback. It was a biofeedback, one of the many biofeedback techniques I used to, and I originally thought actually that, and this was before wireless heart monitors even came out. I used an old fashioned hospital heart monitor they used for cardiac patients and I had one of them in my office and I would use it on the athletes who would come in and we'd go to the track and I'd put it on them and I run with them typically or I watch them analyze their gait and I, I ask them what their heart rate, heart rate was and I compare heart rate with gait and then heart rate with their breathing, all kinds of things. That's, that's classic biofeedback. And so, you know, it was one of the, one of the, many tools I used the, the heart rate and.

Specifically for somebody getting into the world of endurance sport, what would you tell them in terms of, you know, what, how would they, how should, what, what should they be looking at in their heart rate? And also how often should they be training aerobically versus anaerobically?

Yeah, I, I would. You know, we live in a society that's very unhealthy. We live in a no pain, no gain society where more is better and faster is better. And we want to, we want to get stronger right away. We want to get faster right away. No pain, no gain is, is, is really a way to, to kill yourself sometimes. And so how do we, how do we get out of that attitude? Well, one of the ways is through biofeedback and one of the ways we could use biofeedback is monitoring the heart rate during exercise. So if you really want to know the status of your aerobic system, get a heart monitor, figure out your aerobic level of training, which we could talk about in a minute. There's a simple formula that could get you started and, and go out for your normal run and, but don't exceed that aerobic heart rate, that maf heart rate. And many people get depressed when they do that because, because they have to run so slow or walk, as I.

Did the first time I tried it, or walk.

Mark, Mark Allen had to walk the hills when he, you know, I, I remember with Mark, we were running around the track at the University of San Diego on their track. And we're running and he's got this old, you know, cardiac heart monitor on. And I said, okay, you're going to be running at this heart rate. I don't, it doesn't matter what your pace is. It. What matters is the heart rate. You don't want to exceed that. And I can hear the beep. So I kind of know where your heart rate is. And if I ask you what it is, just look down, you'll see the, the number on the little window there. And, and so we're, we're literally jogging at an 8:20 or 8:30 pace. And, and he's just looking like, what is this all about? I said, well, this is the status of your aerobic system. This is, this is where you should start training. And he said, well, it's two minutes a mile fast, slower than I normally train. I said, well, that's why you're having trouble. And so he wanted to use the monitor that evening for a run where he lived, which was a little hilly and he had to walk the, the hills because. Not an unusual thing in, in every sport, beginners and advanced and, you know, rarely do we see people who have trained right and are running at the correct pace. I've seen that a couple of times, not very often. Greta Weitz was the, the best. She, you know, I put a heart monitor on her and I explained what we're going to do and I said, well, let's start with your usual pace. Let's see how different that is. And it was, it was exactly right on. She was so intuitive in her, in her training. But that's, that, that's a rarity in this society. That's a, that's a rarity. So that'll tell you where your aerobic system is. And, and if it's painfully slow, it means you've got a terrible aerobic system and you need to build that up to be healthier, to get your health and fitness more balanced exclusively without doing any fast training, because the aerobic system is very sensitive. If we try to do muscle building, weightlifting, or if we try to do our track workouts, the aerobic system may not develop very well.

How often in the beginning. So if you were starting out, how many weeks are you looking at? I mean, do you do it on weeks or is it in response to what your heart rate does? How long would you be doing the aerobic work without bringing any anaerobic work in? And forgive me if I'm wrong, but you said also strength and conditioning, so not to do that as well. So how, what, what kind of time period are we looking at?

Yeah, not to do fatiguing strength workouts, we can come back to what strength is, but it's not bulking up because that doesn't necessarily strengthen you. So yes, no traditional weightlifting, no anaerobic, no competition for a period of time to allow your aerobic system to build. How long that period is depends on how bad your aerobic system is and how quickly you can build it up. And a lot of that depends on your diet and stress in general. And we can talk about stress because all of this that we're talking about is stress. When your aerobic system is poorly functioning, that's a big stress for the body. So for, for many people it could take three months to build the aerobic system. Sometimes it takes four months. If you've over trained and you're really burnt out, it could take six months. But the key is that during those weeks and months you get faster and faster at the same aerobic heart rate and, and what happens over time. And a lot of athletes have, have, have done this to me. They complain how slow they have to run. I can't do this. They call me like in the middle of the night. Are you sure? This, it's like, yes, we're sure. And, and then as the months go by, they, they say, hey, I can't go this fast. I'm going too fast now. So that's the game is you want to let your aerobic system build up and develop a good solid base before you add some of the stress workouts, the track workouts, the, the competition, the, the weight training, the, the, the, you know, that kind of stuff. And that's a, that's essential. And then you can combine them. And then after your racing season, you go back to this period of strictly aerobic training, which would be your off season generally. And then you, you, you, you develop a cycle based on, depending for a competitive, for a professional athlete, we can usually, we know the races, we know the calendar and we can plan that for, for an amateur athlete, unfortunately there are races all year long. So you, you need to make your own schedule, which is nice because you can, you can plan better. You could build your aerobic system without worrying about, you know, the world championships or the Olympics or whatever and kind of do it your way and specifically what number.

So somebody's just bought their first heart rate monitor and they're going out to try and build up their endurance. What specifically how do you do the calculations around the numbers? So you know what you should be targeting?

Well, I used to do that manually myself. I would evaluate the athlete in my office, then we'd go to the track, or we'd be on the road, on a bike or depending on their sport. And then I would evaluate them with a heart monitor on. I could see their gait gets a little worse if their heart rate's a little higher. So then we back it up and then we come up with, okay, I think your, your aerobic heart rate is 142. And so feel what it's like to, to run around the track at a 142 heart rate. And that's how I want you to train. And then when the, when the wireless heart monitors came out, everybody got them. It made it much easier. But I was asked about how could I do this? At a lecture. Somebody asked me the question, how could I figure out my own heart rate? And I didn't have an answer and I was a little embarrassed. So I went back and started figuring out how there's gotta be a formula. I knew about the 220 formula, which I used in the very beginning, and it was a disaster. And so what I developed is something called the 180 formula. And the 180 formula allows an individual to individualize the process. So they consider their health and all these health factors, they consider their fitness and fitness factors. And it's all over the Internet. People can look up the, the 180 formula and plug themselves into it and they'll come up with that 142 heart rate. It's really quite simple. That simple. And then the question is, do we know for sure that it's 142? Should it be 144, 146 or should it be 138? And the bottom line is if you don't get faster and faster at 142, something is wrong. And, and it could be the diet, but it often is that you're, you picked too high a number. You basically, you weren't honest in your evaluation. And I can't imagine it says in one spot, it says if you're, if you have excess body fat, subtract an additional five. And nobody wants to admit they have excess body fat. So they're not going to. So you know, it's, I had a, I had a guy who said to me, yeah, I think you're right, I'm using too high a number. I thought, you know, this is like a 45 year old guy. He said, I Thought because I was a track runner in high school that I wouldn't have to subtract an extra, you know, whatever. So we have all these, you know, these rationales for why we, we should be running faster.

That doesn't sound like a triathlete at all.

How did, how did you come up with the formula itself? Because you talked about, Obviously, the, the 220 formula. How did you come up with those questions and relate it to heart rate and what that should be?

Well, the questions were, that was what I was going through in my mind when I was working with individual athletes. Oh, this person has a history of getting injured a lot. And then what I would find out from going to the track is that, oh, well, they're going to need a lower heart rate. And it was really just putting it all together. And then I didn't have, I didn't yet have, you know, where do we start? Where would a, would an athlete start? And it just, it just. The 180 came to me one day and it was like, hey, stupid, just 180 minus the age that'll get started. And I plugged in the numbers and then I went back and looked at athletes that I had calculated by, you know, the clinical approach, which took a couple of hours or more until they all, it all correlated. And I tweaked it a little bit over the years. You know, back, back in the early 80s, we didn't have a lot of athletes with excess body fat. The, the, the over fat pandemic was just starting to explode at that point. And it hadn't really hit the athletic community until probably the mid-80s. You started seeing athletes who were accumulating body fat because of what they ate. But, but, so I would tweak it. I added the over fat factor. I added chronic overtraining versus acute over training. I added some things to the 220 formula or the 180 formula that make it more complete today than it was, you know, even, even in the 90s.

Brilliant. And you mentioned, you've mentioned overtraining a few times. How do, how does an athlete identify when they're overtraining? What does, what does overtraining look like? How does it manifest?

Well, in order to answer that, we need to ask about stress. What is stress? Overtraining is a stress syndrome. Well, what is stress? Stress can be physical, it can be biochemical, like a metabolic problem, and it can be mental, emotional. So over training is whenever we have a physical problem, a biochemical problem, or mental emotional problem that creeps into the picture during training. And those would be abnormal things. A knee injury would be a classic overtraining symptom. Building excess body fat would be a classic biochemical symptom or sign. And people think, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just train more because if I train more, I'll burn, I'll burn more calories. Well, that's the, the, the myth of the calorie, the, the calories in, calories out equation. That's not what it's about. When people say, well, I burn more calories, I ask calories of what? And now they're confused because we have fat calories we burn and we have sugar calories we burn. And if we don't burn a lot of fat calories, they go into storage and our aerobic system suffers as a result. So that's a biochemical example of over training and mental emotional stress, depression, anxiety, loss of interest in competing, loss of interest in training. These are, I mean, that's an epidemic in all sports. Very, very common problem. You literally change the neurotransmitters in the brain when you over train. And so, but what is even easier, well, what's just as easy to observe is that you stop getting faster at the same heart rate during your aerobic training and you stop, you stop competing as well. Your, your 10k times get worse. Your, your standings, your age group standings in a triathlon, which is the best indicator, you know, start to go, you start going down the list. Especially at the end of a triathlon, you're, you're, your run performance tends to get worse because with over training, our endurance diminishes. And so by the time we get to the end of the race, we perform less effectively. And those are, those are. Over training is a, it's, it's, you know, I, I would say 70, easily 70% of athletes across the board are over trained. And we can have early over training where it's not noticeable. In fact, if, if you, if you do a race and you, you suddenly burst out of nowhere to have a wildly great performance, that's a sign of over training because your sympathetic system is wound up. You're pushing yourself so much in training now. You get to your race, you're like, it's like being jacked up on caffeine. You're, you're crazy and you're stronger for the moment, but then you collapse after that. And if you happen to have a good race there, you're going to perform really well. And a lot of you see it, a lot of athletes you know, have these great races, great performances, whether it's tennis or whatever sport you're in, it's the same pattern. They do really well because they're hitting this peak, but they're going to crash after that. And so they get injured, they get depressed, they get exhausted, and often are never heard from again. It's really quite sad.

And with your system and the way that you work, are you suggesting that by, by and again, correct me if I'm wrong, by doing more of the low aerobic work, I mean low heart rate aerobic work, that you'd be less likely to overtrain? Is that because you're doing less anaerobic work?

When. Yes, that's, that's true. But when you build a good aerobic base, your foundation, you're less likely to over train. When you go back to your track workouts and, and competition, unless you overdo the competition, then you keep suppressing your aerob. In endurance sports, in the endurance world, we rely on our aerobic systems. We don't rely very much on our anaerobic. How often do you get on your toes in a triathlon and sprint? You think you're doing it in the last mile or so, but you're kidding yourself. You're not really sprinting, you're just running as fast as you could. Some people can sprint. Sprinter, former sprinters can sprint. At the end of a triathlon, they look cool and they like to do it. But, but nine, you know, 95% of our effort in a triathlon is aerobic. If you look at the, the, you know, the VO2 max performance relationships, the associations with triathlons, they're not very high, 75, 80% of VO2 max. So it's our aerobic system. And in fact, I've worked with a lot of athletes who only build their aerobic system for that period of base building for maybe four, five, six months. And then I really often encourage them to jump into a race and they would say the same thing, how could I race? I haven't done my track work, how am I going to know how? Blah, blah, the brain knows what it's doing. You just leave things alone, let your brain turn on and take you through the race. And a lot of them run personal bests. I've seen it in 5Ks, 10Ks marathons. I've seen incredible performances in a triathlon. Mike Pig was that way. He would spend months and months doing aerobic training and then he would go and perform really well. In fact, the first time I worked with Mike, he Was pretty burned out. And I think we did six months or maybe more of aerobic training and he was supposed to go to this big race and he said, I, I can't go, I haven't done anything. But, you know, this easy training. I said, well, it's not easy because you've been getting faster and faster. You, you know, you took two minutes off your, per mile, off your run time. You took a massive amount of speed on your, on your bike now at the same heart rate, blob. And you know, so, you know, he had to be convinced to go. And it was the first time mark Allen was second in, in 20. That was, that was the, the, that was the string of wins Mark lost. And Mike was the winner from that, from that, from that aerobic training, only buildup of six or seven months. So some people like being on the track, some people hate it. If you hate being on the track, don't ever go near it, don't even look at it. You know, we have this problem in endurance sports where way back during the running boom, it started where a lot of coaches from track and field had opportunities to train these endurance athletes. With all these, there were a lot of athletes, especially professionals in the marathon. And these track and field coaches came over and they brought with them their work ethic, which was interval training. And so interval training became a major, I mean, people do intervals all year round. It's insane.

And you've, you've mentioned over fat, the over fat pandemic. I think you described it as maybe. I've heard you say that elsewhere. What do you think the role of good nutrition is in the, in the life of a triathlete? I know there, and I have spoken about this before and often, you know, people are far more keen to spend money on a new bike or something, you know, just throw money at the problem, but not put that same amount of effort into their nutrition. What are your, what are your thoughts on the importance of nutrition for, for a successful athlete?

Well, as, as I knew early on, the diet our ancestors, our earliest ancestors ate is the best human diet. As research is showing, some of which I've done. Diet is more important than the training part because the diet dictates how you're going to metabolize your energy during training. So if your diet says let's burn more fat, you're going to develop your aerobic system much quicker, much easier and have more endurance and get faster and faster at the same heart rate, even though you haven't trained fast yet because of your diet. If you don't have a good diet, even if you're doing all the right things in training, it really isn't going to take you very far because you don't become a fat burner and you require that fat burning mechanism to get you through a race to get your aerobic system building and become more efficient. So the diet is really more important than the training and certainly more important than your bike. And in particular, the dietary component that's most devastating to, to endurance athletes is the same devastating ingredient as everybody else in every other human and that's refined carbohydrates. So sugar, processed grains, which is virtually all grains in the marketplace today. And that has been the most common cuisine in, in sports nutrition. The, the, so you have to think where the, where did that idea come from? Well, as you're growing up, as the running boom is booming, as triathlons are born, as, as athletes start reading the, the related magazines to find out, you know, what do I do? I've never done a triathlon, I've never heard of it. And now there's a, a magazine triathlete magazine. Oh, let me see what, what they're recommending to eat. Well, they're recommending you eat junk food. Oh, and by the way, there's a lot of junk food advertisement in the magazine. So this, and in running it's, it was even worse to the point where athletes would come to me and I tell them they have to stop eating junk food. And they just couldn't understand that and it was really a hard sell. So that's the bottom line with nutrition. Get rid of the junk food. And if it's 80% of your diet, you don't just wipe out 80% of your diet. You get rid of the junk food however much it is in your diet and you add back the healthy foods, you add back more of the vegetables, more of the fruits, more of the, the protein sources, eggs and cheese and meats and, and fats. You know, humans, humans had a higher fat, moderate protein, very low carbohydrate diet for millions of years and it wasn't until the agricultural revolution and, and really the, the, the mechanical ability to take the, the things that were grown and turn it into processed food, which is only a few thousand years old when that became the, the, the human diet, sugar in particular.

Now have you, I'm guessing that you've got some follow up thoughts or questions on this because I know this is a subject that comes up on the podcast.

Yeah, I think it's, I think it's interesting, isn't it, where sports nutrition has gone over the years. And I mean, what are your thoughts? You've obviously worked with lots and lots of athletes, and you talk right at the beginning about, I think, I can't remember what you said actually right at the beginning, but about an athlete being an individual and with, you know, when you look at things like diet, what are your thoughts on an individualized approach? Because as an athlete, we have different needs and obviously with different lifestyle pools and things like that. There's a lot of things aren't there in the media about what we should and shouldn't eat. Lots of new research. So how, how do you work individually with an athlete? Because for some athletes, that's a huge change away from their current thinking, away from maybe their family's way of eating. So how do you work with an, with an individual in terms of changing nutrition as part of all those pieces?

It's a good question. It's an important question. The first thing you do is you remove unnatural things from somebody's diet because there's no. And there's a scientific consensus, there's a clinical consensus about never eating junk food. And if somebody, if a scientist says, well, I think junk food is okay, guaranteed he or she is working in the industry. So we have to get rid of information that comes from the industry, which we're bombarded with every day by the media. Articles are planted in the media. The media gets advertising from junk food companies. I mean, when was the last time you saw an ad in a running magazine for eggs? You know, it just doesn't happen. So we get rid of the unnatural stuff first. So that's the junk food. Refined, refined foods, sugar, you get rid of it and then you start adding things back that you are attracted to, not emotionally, or that you're not emotionally unattracted to. You know, don't tell me you're, you're, you, you can eat red meat, but white meat is okay? Well, what's the difference? Isn't that like when you're a kid, you, you can't eat a sandwich unless your mother cuts off the crust. And you know, of course that offends people. And I mean, sometimes you have to make a really strong point. This is, this is your health. And do you want, do you really want to become the best athlete you could be and continue doing that until as long as you want? If you want to be in the 100 to 109 age group when you get there, why, why, why couldn't you be and the diet plays such a big role, so we, we, we first get rid of the junk food and then we start adding things in and we, we monitor. I encourage the athlete to monitor their eating with signs and symptoms they may get. Are they tired after a meal? That's a classic carbohydrate problem. Do they have energy at the end of the day? Do they, do they, does their pace at the end of an hour run go way, way down? Because they, they don't quite have enough energy to maintain a good pace. Your pace would normally come down a little bit because of normal aerobic muscle fatigue, but if, if fat burning is not really great, but it's good enough to slowly build your aerobic system. But an hour into a run, you slow way down. That could indicate you're not eating enough, enough fat. Muscle soreness, strength is a great example. Endurance athletes tend to be weak. And if you're weak, it's easy to measure. You can measure it with a hand grip, which reflects full body strength, or you can measure it with a standing jump, measuring the height of your jump, which a lot of gyms I see are, are doing, because there's some really cool equipment that does it automatically, a mat with a sensor and stuff. Runners in particular are a breed of athletes who are so weak, especially when, when you, you, you get out of your early 20s and you, you hit 30 and now you're 5K is, you know, you, you got too much competition, so you move up to 10K. Now those athletes, they don't, they start losing strength. And by 30 and 40, athletes often are weak. And so if you're weak, your protein needs are often too low. So we need to get more protein into the diet. And, you know, the, the human brain. Every animal, every wild animal on earth knows how to eat, except for humans. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty wild. I'm pretty sensitive to what I'm eating. I'm pretty intuitive about what I want. And people should learn that instinct, that intuition and, you know, we should be able to sit down to a meal and when we've had enough, we stop eating, not when our plate is empty, that kind of thing. So that's all, as you say, Clara, the individualization process. And so the athletes I work with and the ones who respond the best are the ones who do this on their own. And Mark Allen was a great example. He would, he would do it and figure out how to do it. And, you know, over the years, you know, I'd hear him say, Yeah, I can't do this anymore like I used to. So I've modified it by doing that. Perfect. I keep changing my, my, you know, my lifestyle habits. Not dramatically anymore, but year by year because as we age, our needs change and we have to, we have to keep up with them.

And where does, where does the strength and conditioning part sit here? Because you, obviously we're losing, although we can build muscle, we're losing muscle mass after the age of 30, I believe. And you're mentioning there about, you know, athletes are weak. So where do, where are your thoughts in terms of strength and conditioning within your programs? Sit in relation to weakness in athletes.

That's, that's very important. We have, and I would call it a pandemic. By definition, we have a strength, we have a weakness pandemic. In the world today, the number of people who are weak by measurement is, is unbelievably high. And in athletes in particular and in endurance athletes, it's unbelievably high. And, and with aging, it's even worse. And weakness is a, a very unhealthy sign. And I would recommend that people have their strength measured. Don't think that, you know, if you can pick up a certain amount of weight, you're strong because that's deceptive. Go somewhere that has a, a hand grip, a dynamo, it's a hand grip device, and you grip it and it measures the pounds you can grip. That's a standard way of measuring full body strength. And I'm amazed that, that people often can't, I'm amazed at people half my age that, that, that can't, you know, can't grip anywhere near as, as much as I can because I, I, I, I do strength exercises pretty regularly. So there's two kinds of strength exercises. There's building muscle bulk. And muscle bulk doesn't mean strength. Just because we have a lot of muscle doesn't mean we're strong. Look at the, look at the bodybuilders. They have this incredible bulk and they're incredibly weak. Look at, well, look at Olympic weightlifters, competitive lifters. They're relatively lean and they're incredibly strong. They don't want to build bulk because it'll push them up into the next weight category where people tend to be stronger and they want to be in a lower category where they're more competitive. So they get strong in different ways rather than bulking up. And bulking up involves getting fatigued. Bulking up, it involves lifting a weight until the muscle fatigues and come on, you could do one more. One more. Okay. Okay. That's the traditional weightlifting model that is just devastating on the body. If you want to look cool, find other ways to do it. You know, buy some new clothes, get somebody to I it it. It's about health and strength is an important part of health. The other option in getting strong is to lift in a way where you don't fatigue the muscles. How do we do that? Well, in short, and I have a whole book about that, but in short, you're gonna, you're gonna figure out what your maximum. And an athlete can do this. If you're a beginner, I, I recommend getting help. But an athlete can figure out about how much weight can they lift one time, how if there's a barbell on the floor, how much weight can you lift? And just barely get it up to you one time before you, it's too much for you. Now take 80% of that and you should be able to, to do six of those lifts without getting fatigued. So by not getting fatigued, you don't get muscle soreness the next morning, you're not sore and you've already recovered from one night's sleep. With bulking type fatigue exercise, you get sore during and after the workout, you're sore the next morning. It takes you two to three days to recover. And during that three day window, I call it the weakness window, your muscles are actually weak because you fatigued them. Fatigue equals weakness. And during that weakness window, we shouldn't do any exercise. So if you're an endurance athlete and you lift twice a week, you can't do anything else. Obviously that's not going to work. So lifting without fatiguing and you can do that. I, I have a, I have a, you know, a barbell that I, that's 80% of my max. I will lift it up, I'll do six half squats. You don't need to do a full squat. You know, that's a macho thing. We can get just as much benefit from a half squat as a full squat. So I can, I lift that up to my chest, I do six half squats and I put it down. And then I'll, I'll get on my computer and start writing an article or something. I'll, I'll, I'll get a phone call, I'll, whatever. And then as I'm walking past the weight, I'll stop and I'll pick it up and do six squats, put it down. Maybe I do five, six, seven, 10 of those a day. Maybe I Don't do any. But at the end of the week and at the end of the month, I've done a lot of strength training and I haven't fatigued my muscles, so I haven't interfered with my aerobic system. And that's what safe strength training is, is all about.

Brilliant. That's really interesting.

Now I want to.

I want to. I want to zag off in a different direction. Now, I know your latest book is called B Sharp and is more about music than exercise. So explain what that's all about and how that fits into the world of endurance sport as well.

Well, it's about music and movement. So music and exercise, music and sports. We've had music in our head from the beginning. The first humans had music. That's how we communicated. That's how we developed ourselves. That's how we grew our brain into this amazing thing, into a super species, really. Music and movement are, are one. You can't listen to music whether it's physically on, on, you know, coming out of your speakers or your earbuds or if it's in your mind and you're thinking about something. You can't listen to music and not move. Your motor cortex, your, your cerebellum and your motor cortex are, when, when music is played are sending messages to your muscles to start contracting. So music obviously plays an important role in sports, and there's two ways it does that. One is music is, is a very powerful health promoter. So if we can promote our health, if we can get healthier, we're going to be a better athlete because we're going to maintain that balance of health and fitness. And in sports, we have this idea that if we listen to music, when we work out, we're going to work out better. And that's completely wrong. In fact, what the research shows, people say, oh, no, the research shows that it helps us. No, what the research shows is that when we're listening to music and working out, it allows us to push ourselves harder, it allows us to go faster, it allows us to be. To get us out of bed in the morning because we know we're going to go to the gym, we're going to hear music, and, you know, it's. But I've always encouraged athletes to not listen to music during exercise, but to listen to their body, because the brain knows what it's doing. Let your brain do the work and learn about what the body's doing, because the body's always sending messages back into the brain. And now you could evaluate yourself much better. So, and in, in all sports, we, we see this, there may be music playing, but a lot of athletes tune it out. There may be music that the athlete wanted to hear, but then as soon as the competitive component of whatever it is they're doing begins, they're doing it without music. And you see that in diving and in baseball. And so I like athletes to listen to their body, but I like athletes especially to use music to relax, because you've got that stress factor, that physical, biochemical, mental, emotional stress factor that is really what's going to hold you back from reaching your athletic potential. And so if we can spend five minutes listening to one of our favorite songs, lying on the couch, closing our eyes and relaxing, we're going to reduce stress in a significant way. And if we, if we incorporate music in our lives that we want, not music that the industry wants us to hear, which is the big scam today, in the last 30 years, really, we're going to benefit from. Our nervous system is going to benefit, our muscles are going to benefit, and we'll be better athletes. The other important thing, if we took a hundred athletes in any sport, 100 triathletes, and we put them in a room and we, and we had a metronome clicking off the beats, and we said, okay, we want everyone to, to walk in place to the beat. Hit your foot right on the beat. Half of them wouldn't be able to do it. They might not be able to do it right away. Some of them will be able to do it for a minute or so and then get off course. And if you can't be rhythmic in your movements as an athlete, you're, you're terribly inefficient. Your gait is irregular. You're, in fact, your gait is so irregular that in the course of, say, an hour training run or an hour racing, that irregular gait is going to cost you a lot of time. You're going to waste away a lot of energy, which is what costs you the time, and you're going to be vulnerable because you're, you're. Irregular gait means the joints are moving in, in an improper way. You're going to be vulnerable for injuries. And the, and in the book I talk about this, the therapy, if, if that's, and it's an easy thing to test, we, we could all have a free app that gives us a metronome on our phones. Test yourself, turn on the, the, the metronome to, say, 80 beats a minute and see if you can walk in place to the Beats. Okay, now bring it up to 90 and start walking around the house. Bring it to a hundred. 110. Take it on your run. Can you run to the beat right on the beat? A lot of athletes cannot. And that becomes a very, very important therapy. That's, that's classic biofeedback. That will make you a better athlete. And it may only take a week or two. In difficult cases, it could take a month or more. But once you've. Once you've made the connection between the brain and the muscles, you're now a better athlete. By the way, I meant to say, Claire, that with the weightlifting thing, the difference between someone with big muscles and someone with lean muscles, thinner, more leaner muscles, is how can a lean person be stronger than a bulky person? Well, all that happens is the brain enlists more muscle fibers in a lean muscle. And we all know lean people who are very strong, stronger than big, bulky people. We've all heard the, The. I don't know if it's true or not, but the woman whose kid gets caught under the car and the woman lifts the car, well, she's enlisting more muscle fibers because of stress anyway. So that, that's another. There's. There's a lot of things in the book that athletes will benefit from, especially if we're concerned about our brain. And our brain is capable of, unlike our body, getting better and better and better as the years go by. Our brain can fix itself. We can grow new brain cells. We don't have to lose memory. We don't, you know, we should have the best brain on the day we die. And that's. That's what the book is about.

Brilliant. Well, I think it's a really interesting subject. Somebody. I raced yesterday, and on the third lap of the, of the bike course, I was actually, I think I was probably singing out loud. I was definitely singing in my head at times. Try and get me over. Get, get me through the line. So I'm really fascinated by that now. One of the things that we do on this podcast is we get the previous guest to ask the next guest a question without knowing who that is. So our previous guest was Blaise Dubois, who is a Canadian guy who helps runners avoid injury. So I think. Clare, have you got Blaze's question?

Yeah. So Blaze's question to you is, what shoes do you train in and why?

Good. Good question. Shoes have been a, A dilemma since. Since they, they. They got away from flat shoes. I want to say the early 80s. I remember running the. Well, that was 1980. I remember running the New York City Marathon? And I was wondering, should I wear this training shoe, which was very flat, or should I wear this racing flat, which is what I would have worn for a 5k? Being a sprinter, I like getting up on my toes. And so by the early 80s, they were starting to make thicker and thicker shoes, and I started seeing more injuries as a result of shoes. And so I've been campaigning and the companies that make the shoes are giving us bad information about what we should have on our feet. The best thing to have on our feet is nothing, and I often have nothing. If I'm on the beach where the sand is, it's relatively flat and hard, or if I'm in a, an area that's safe to run barefoot, I'll do that. But I wear flat, very flat shoes, and I take the insert out, which makes them even flatter. There's no attempt at supporting, quote, unquote, supporting the muscles. We don't need support. We have plenty of support. In fact, if you put on a shoe that has support, we run the risk of weakening the muscles. It's like wearing a knee brace. If you wear a knee brace, your muscles get weaker. Back bracelet, any kind of brace. So the, the shoes I wear now, I'm hardly ever in shoes, but when I wear them, they, they're very flat and. And they don't attempt to do anything other than protect my feet from the junk that you see out there.

Well, I think that answer is going to be music to Blaze's ears. So that is, you're very much on the same. We are singing from the same hymn sheet, I think.

I think so.

And one final tradition on the podcast is that we always ask guests for book recommendations. I know you're the author of many, many books, but what books have you found yourself that aren't your books recommending to other people, Books that you found helpful for yourself, or books that you kind of really have been impacted by?

Oh, dear. I like Paul Larson's book on hit training. So if you build your aerobic system and you still want to train with high intensity activities, my recommendation is to do it right. And Paul's book is. It's sort of a textbook. It's not a simple, it's not a simplistic cookbook. Readers have to think when they read it. And I did provide a chapter about being healthy and fit in that. But Paul goes through the process of hit training to avoid over training and to get the most out of it in a, in a very good way. So I I have to say, I don't read a lot of books. I've read. I've, I've. I've written too many of them and so maybe I've become allergic to them. My reading is all in the. The journal articles. And if I do read a book, it's a textbook. And if I do read a textbook, it's online. There. There's so many books now online that I. I can't remember the last time I actually bought a book.

Brilliant. Well, that's a book that's never. Nobody's ever recommended before. So that's another one to add to the reading list for sure. Phil, it's been absolutely fascinating chatting to you. As soon as Ian mentioned that your name, it was like, that's definitely a name I would love to get on the podcast. So there's loads. I've written loads of notes, loads of great takeaways for me, loads of things I can go research and follow up on. So it's been absolutely brilliant getting, getting you on. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Claire. It's been a lot of fun. I appreciate it. Let me know when, when you, when you release this and I'll. I'll help get the word out.

Fantastic. Thank you so much.

So, Charlie, we are looking at some exciting changes to Tribathlon. So tell me a little bit about what that's going to look like.

Well, I think the Tribathlon podcast was born out of me wanting to launch an app which, to use positive language, the app has proved to be a learning experience rather than a positive experience. I've learned a lot about app development in that time, but we still don't have an app that I think is viable. And in fact, I think in today's landscape, it's no longer viable. So the tribathlon app is no more. And therefore the Tribathon podcast has no. The name of it now has no real. I mean, and I still love the name the Tribathon podcast. But I think gradually, as. As we've talked more and more on this podcast and I've more moved more and more into business coaching. And you've got your sort of your coaching in terms of helping athletes and people in the corporate world from a nutritional point of view, I think we've kind of evolved this podcast into gradually talking more about, well, okay, what can people take from the world of insurance sport now? It might be that they're taking training techniques, but it's also, I think, lessons in life and in business that is really, where we've ended up finding the most, you know, creating the most value, finding the most interest. And so I think now is the time. This is the, this is the end of season five, which is absolutely amazing. I can't believe we've done five seasons of the podcast. I think now is the time to kind of transition this into the business of podcast. Sorry, not the business podcast, the business of endurance podcast.

Amazing.

I like it because, because I think it's like, you know, what can we all take from the world of endurance? We still want the same amazing people on the podcast. We still want to be interviewing people that are some, some inspirational, some more educational, but it also wants to really be kind of with an underlying tone of business as well as life. I think so, yeah. And I'm sure, you know, how do you think that fits in more in terms of what you get out of the podcast?

Yeah, I think, I think the name says it all in terms of the business of endurance. And I think, you know, when I joined Tribathlon, I think with many of those endurance athletes, there are so many parts that even, you know, even months and months ago, I was thinking actually, you know what, by applying those principles of how an elite athlete or somebody in the world of endurance sport, if you could apply that into business, actually thinking about sort of performance and resilience. So I love the idea. And actually we've already interviewed many people that have given us quite a lot in terms of, to think about from a business perspective. So I think this is great and I think it will give us all, like, a greater depth of knowledge. And I've already got some, some questions that we, that I want to ask some of our new guests as well. So I'm really excited about it. I think, I think it will be, it will be great.

I agree. And I think, you know, we've got some really exciting guests lined up for the next season, the first one in particular, which I'm going to keep secret for now, but I think it's just such a brilliant first episode to talk where we can actually talk about business, but about resilience in business, about resilience in family, about resilience in life and resilience in sport. So I think, I think that is just the perfect episode to tee us off. But I think so. Looking back over season five and again, amazing series of guests, loads of learning from me. I, I, I feel like this whole journey has been a massive, massive learning journey for me. What were a couple of, couple of your highlights from season five?

Yeah, we've had, we've had a really great range of actually different athletes in this series I think. And it's, it's. There has actually been some conversations that we've already had around sort of business have, haven't there as well. But I think from an athlete perspective, one that really stands out. And I just love speaking to some of the kind of older school original endurance athletes and one of those would be Karen Smyers that we, that we interviewed. And I just, I just loved actually hearing some of the stories and actually hearing about kind of the true grit. And I guess again that kind of leads us into the world of business as well. But she had some great stories, some great takeaways in terms of her resilience. But, but I know you particularly liked her, her way to taper, didn't you?

The three, two, one. I love the three, two, one table. The three, two, one taper is exactly on my wavelength. Three beers and three nights before. Two beers, two nights before. One beer, one night before. I tend to replace that with red wine as opposed to beer. But for the, obviously for the, all of the antitoxins, antioxidants, that is gone but just brilliant. I loved her approach. I thought she was absolutely brilliant. I agree. And what else? Give me another moment that stands out for you.

I think when we interviewed Katie Zafiris, actually, I think that, that for me, I think in the world of sport in general, we're seeing, I would like to say an explosion in a way of actually female athletes having maybe well, not even a year out, having, having children and coming back into sport and doing amazingly well and the ability to be able to actually be really flexible and move their being able to train as a full time athlete but actually be able to be, be a full time mom and have a family. And I think again, you know, talking to her, she was kind of really sort of talking in the moment of living that and the lessons that she's learning along the way. And I think there's many athletes at the moment that we're seeing professional athletes that are doing extremely well. So I liked, I liked the kind of in the moment nature of that, that she was still learning her kind of finding her feet in that world of sport that she knew before but in a slightly, a slightly different place. So that for me, yeah, I thought was, was brilliant. What about for you? What, who was, who was somebody that sort of really stood out or from a learning perspective for you?

I think there's been so many great things from, from this series. I think the things that stood out for me were the interview with Will and Raya Usher, because I think this is actually a really good example of where we can take the. The Business of Endurance podcast, because how they've adopted AI into the coaching business and how they're using AI to allow them to focus on emotional intelligence and get the AI doing the program building, I think it's just a brilliant example of how we. Business has to go. You know, we have to be looking at ways that we can use AI to get rid of the repetitive and the. The boring parts of the job and allow us to do the human parts of the job better and more effectively. So I love that element of that, and I think that's a classic case of where we need to be taking this podcast and future interviews. I really enjoyed chatting to Ian Adamson. I think that was just that whole world of adventure racing and ninja racing. And, you know, when. Particularly when he was describing that race that was up in Scandinavia, and he's kind of like, he's got the northern lights going above him, he's got killer ways, whales going alongside his kayak, and he's like, am I actually hallucinating or is this just, like, actually really happening? But the. The lessons around, particularly around the importance of actually sleeping longer than the people he was competing against, but using that to be the winner was, I just thought, really, really brilliant. I think Jay Blaise Dubois gave us some great advice in terms of avoiding injury. And, like, Phil Maffetone is a legend of the, of the sport, and it's a name that I've heard mentioned so many times, and there was some. There was some great advice in there, but it was also interesting to see how that advice has, you know, we see it, how it's evolved across, you know, 20, 30.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I, I thought that was. I thought it was really, really good. And, And I. I think that there's. There's some great, great things. And then one final moment is talking to Ian Hamilton about the first time he saw somebody with an outlaw tattoo and just be able to see, you know, at some point, hope, you know, you know, if at some point in my life I will have a business where somebody tattoos the logo onto their skin and then I'll know I have. I've reached another level. So I think. I think that was. That's just really lovely. And, yeah, so I think we've. We've got a great next season lined up, really excited about changing it and changing up and bringing in a Little bit of different, kind of a different feel to it. We've got, like I said, we've got a brilliant, brilliant business owner lined up for episode one, but we've also got some incredibly inspirational stories as well as incredible athletes that we can learn loads from, from a, from a practical perspective point of view lined up. So I think it's going to be great fun.

It's going to be exciting.

Yeah, it is.

More learning, more.

Absolutely, absolutely. And how we can apply that in business, I think is going to be really interesting.

Absolutely, I agree. So that's it. Season five of the Tribe Athlon podcast and the last season as the Tribe Athlone podcast. But don't fret, it's coming back and it'll be even better next time. So look out for the Business of Endurance podcast and look out for season six of, of of this roadshow. It's going to be great fun. If you like what we do at the Tribathlon podcast, you've got to register for Tribe Talk. It's an email that comes out every two weeks, packed full of everything to do with swim, bike and run, but also nutritional help, business coaching and a whole lot more. Whether that's books, videos, TED talks, apps or technologies, it's packed full of ideas that can help improve your sport, your life and your business. So register for it@tribathlon.com and you'll be sure that every two weeks, your inbox is full of some amazing ideas and resources to improve your life. And remember, this episode was brought to you by the Trusted Team and by Fourth Discipline. So if you want to find out more about how the Trusted team can help you grow your business and improve your work life balance, go to thetrusted team. And if you want to find out more about how Fourth Discipline can help take your performance in sport and life to the next level, go to Fourth Discipline. If you enjoyed this podcast, please do review it and share it, because it helps other people find what we think is really valuable learning lessons from amazing athletes. So please do that. You can also find the whole back catalogue@tribathlon.com it.