Running Economy + Cycling Efficiency with Ryan Worn

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivalo Coaching, Gerard Donnelly. Ryan Warne is an exercise scientist with a PhD focusing predominantly on the topics of exercise efficiency and fatigue. And that's the exact, exact topic we're going to be talking about in today's episodes, economy and efficiency. But what makes Ryan so valuable in his knowledge is he is also an athlete himself. He started cycling at a young age, progressed through the junior rakes to a national level competitor as a track cyclist. And more importantly and specifically, Ryan also switched to longer endurance riding and longer running, including now preparing for a marathon. And this insight into the different types of training from short distance track cycling to endurance riding and running, plus his knowledge of everything sports science, makes it a really, really valuable episode. And we absolutely enjoyed this one because Ryan had some brilliant things to say. And it became one of our longer episodes because there was just so much to dive into. And one of the things we want to say off the bat is that we really talk about some pretty crazy specifics in this episode about efficiency and economy. And we get right into the sports science, which Ryan just gives some really, really clear explanations that make it understandable for the layperson like us. But off air, once we finished the episode, we joked about the fact that while all this stuff is important, the most important thing for any endurance athlete, and especially any age grouper, is consistency. And that will trump anything you talk about in this episode. And that's not to devalue anything we talk about. We just want to make that point that before you get caught up in the latest super shoe or the latest technology to improve your economy, make sure you're training properly first and then you can have some fun with this stuff. And it really is fun to think about and to look at and to understand in yourself because you can get the most out of yourself when you, when you look at this topic of efficiency and economy. And we loved it, didn't we, Dad?

I think it's a great summary you just gave us then, Jordan. And really we delve into some really nitty gritty things that are, you know, 0.2%, half a percent, 1% contributors to improved performance. And at the end of the day, that is what we're trying to extract on our podcast is for the everyday average athlete to not only have a good training program and be consistent in their training. And if they've ticked those boxes, then these are really good add ons that can actually make you another 1% better than you were last week if you just listen to the advice that's being given. And we do cover a lot of stuff that's kind of technical, but one of the things that Ryan does say is remember everything that's done in the lab may not relate to you exactly. Just because these are the rules in the lab that we've come out with. This is what we recommend may not relate to you. So you need to actually practice some of the stuff that we're talking about in the real world and see if it affects or improves or makes you worse than you were. So these are things that I think is a really good conversation. We do cover a lot of really technical topics about running in bike efficiency and economy. And I think there's a lot to be learned here. But remember, it's got to be relatable to you. And at the end of the day, that's what this podcast is all about.

Let's get into the episode. It's a really good one. Hope you enjoy it. Brian, just first off the bat, a very big welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining us.

No problem. Thank you for having me on. It's, it's an exciting opportunity for me. It's, I've listened to, to a lot of the, your podcast episodes in the, in the past and being a bit of a buff of all things cycling, running, triathlon and sports science. It, it's a good fit. I think it's a great mix.

We, we've talked to you a little bit. We had a great conversation with you last week and we can't wait to see what this conversation will hold up. Before we get into the nitty gritty of sports science, we want to talk about some of the recent athletic events. We don't normally do this with the guests, but we're just talking off air about how good some of the common Earth game results were, specifically ollie horn the 1500 and Peter Bowles silver in the 800. So yeah, let's get into it. And you just said something really interesting before we hit record and that was you were puzzled by PeterBowl's tactic and there's you cannot take away a Silver at the Commonwealth Games. That is unbelievable. But he probably had a chance at gold. So let us know your thoughts. What puzzled you about his tactics?

Yeah, well, I mean, as you said, the most important thing is, you know, Silver's at combo Games is still a medal. It's certainly something that I could not achieve. But to be quite honest, I was a bit puzzled by how he raced it. I mean, for a guy who's capable of mid to high 144 pace for the 800, I think. I think that strategy to sit and kick was probably not nest didn't really play into his hand so much. I think he probably could have won that race had he kind of progressively ramped up a bit rather than let it. Let it, you know, pan out as it did.

What were your thoughts, dad?

Yeah, no, I kind of agree with Ryan. I really would rather him sit right on the shoulder and not have to chase the gap down. I think that was the mistake down the back straight, letting a gap go, you know, you can't give a. They're all talented, aren't they? Everybody in that race. You know, from it. If you look at it from a cycling point of view and do an analogy with running, if you're in a sprint situation as a cyclist and you have got no headwind and you give someone who can sprint equally as fast as you, if you give them a bike or two bike lengths head start, you have to ride one or two kilometers an hour faster than a guy who can match you. So you're not going to beat him. So I think they should take a little bit of thought process, you know, from, from that point of view. Well, don't give someone 5 meters head start and expect to run them down when they're still equally as good as you at the finish. Maybe Inger Britzen can, can do that or, you know, or Ollie Hoare can do that.

Yeah, good segue.

But certainly, I think, I agree he could have won that race had his tactics been. And boy, did we want him to win that race. And I suppose all of Australia was. But, but tactics are so important in, in these events and you just can't give people that much head start. That's my opinion.

Yeah. And it's one of the great conundrums of championship ra. Like you look at the 1500 Ollie horror on. I mean, he's a fantastic 1500 meter runner, but he wasn't the fastest in that field. I mean, Jake Whiteman won the world championships. Tim. Tim Cherriot's got a faster PB than all of them, but the way that race panned out was. Was perfect. I mean, it's stark contrast to most of the diamond leagues. You see, you know, the pace go out really early and often in the past it's been Stewie McSwain driving that pace and I always watch it and I'm puzzled as I'm going, guys, why are you driving through at this pace? The guy that's, that's the fastest in the race is sitting back in the mid pack like, like what you, you kind of playing it into his hand, letting him sit and kick. Um, but I guess that's the, that's the, you know, the nuance to championships racing. It's, it's not just about dosing and delivering, you know, a per kilometer pace or power. It's about knowing how to read the situation and when to respond. And from my perspective, what makes that really interesting is that as a sports scientist, you can't just say X power wins the race or X pace wins the race, because it's just not true. There's so much that goes into that mix.

He said it in his post race interview. He was in a really good position coming into the straight, but being a good position there doesn't always equal a good result. And he said, I just had the legs in the last hundred. And that was quite a contrast to his world Champs result where he didn't even qualify for the final. He actually just didn't have the legs in the last hundred. So you're exactly right, Ryan. So many things need to come into place to equate to a gold medal win. And it happened for him.

Yep.

What are you gonna say, dad?

Yeah, I don't know what I was.

Gonna say.

Into, into what we're talking about, but now the con you did right? Look, the message that I've tried to get across, you and I. Jordan, a lot of our podcasting is the data is so important, but it's not going to be the determining factor of the result in racing. Time trialing is a completely different story because you are one up against yourself and the clock. Whereas in a running race or in a criterion bike race or road race, you definitely have to take into consideration other factors. And how many times have we seen the best bike rider in. I'm talking World Tour pro racing or B grade club racing? The best bike rider doesn't always win. I mean, the, the guy with the best bike rider wins. By the way, the guy with the best power. The guy with the best power doesn't necessarily win. And you know, that's exactly what Ryan said. You know, just because there's guys who've who, who can run a 328 for 1500, that doesn't guarantee they're going to win unless they actually Actually tactically run the better race than the guys. Championship races are always inadvertently run slower. Like that was quite impressive and that's why it was a 1500 meter race for the ages because it was a 330 and you ran a championship race is 1 in 334 or 335. And it's a tactical thing and ends up. Guys don't want to risk anything because it's the biggest race of their career. Common Games or the World Championships or the Olympic Games, they're the biggest races. I mean I'm not been Commonwealth Games up with, with Olympics and World Championships, but it's still a, it's a, it's a championship event that means a lot to, you know, to a lot of people. And, and that's the day you want to perform and, and if you don't get everything right on that day, you're going to come off second best. And it's, you can't just rely on pure ability. It has to be, you know, the smartest bike rider will win every race and he's got to have everything. He's got to have good power, good race tactics and the ability to make good decisions as quick as he can and react to things that are happening. And you know, in an 800 or a 1500, Jesus. Some decisions you have to make, you know, is this person in form who's just gone to the front and pushing it. Is this pace too hard? And we see Inger Britzen do this all the time. He, he's in a 1500, he starts back to the back third and lets McSwain, you know, take off and run his pace and they end up coming together at the end. And you know, each person's got to back their own method of what they think they can get the best outcome with. And you know, we know that Inger Britzen's a more methodical style of runner and funnily enough, Whiteman in the World Championships, if I can go on a run here, you know, cut him off completely in that last 150 and through ingeBritson's race standard tactic, which was go to the front and just run the legs off the runners. And that threw him. It not only threw his stride out because he got cut off, but he actually then had to come back round Whiteman if he wanted to win and he couldn't do it. And, and that's an example of someone taking away someone else's race strategy, which was brilliant by Whiteman. And, and you know, you got to take your hat off to him, that was execution 101 and it caught him a world title, which he probably would never in his wildest dreams thought that he could be the world champion at this stage when there's so many good runners in that race.

Yeah. You know, I read a lot of stoic philosophy and it reminds me of that, of that quote by Seneca, which is success happens when opportunity meets preparation. And I think there's to go on a tangent to training. Like it shows the importance of. Certainly from my philosophy, one of the most critical things you can do in training is less so in a specific preparation block eight weeks out from an event. But in general is trained. Train a lot. Train broad bases, like are you hitting your sprint sprint efforts, your VO2 efforts, your strength efforts, your endurance efforts. Because the reality is you don't know what is going to win a race. And I mean, again, talking about 1500s in championship racing, like at the world's just gone by the, you know, the women's 1500 opening lap was 56 seconds and that's like, that's phenomenally fast. That's 800 meter pace. Yeah. And it's not something you typically say, faster. Yeah, yeah.

You have so many valuable things to say on this, Ryan. And so we want to get into your expertise and your topics on training. Last special mention I wanted to say from the comm Games was Abby Caldwell's bronze medal in the 1500. I thought that was unbelievably impressive when she was up against, you know, the two other Aussie women in that 1500 meter final were two finalists at the Olympics. And Abby Caldwell got her shot and took it and got a bronze medal, which was absolutely phenomenal.

Yeah, well, well, my last shout out, I, I would say just Stenson for me, that's like, that's such a performance to come back from, you know, from injury and having to do cross training on the elliptical after a kid to, to then come back and run 225 in Perth and then, and then win the comp games. That's, that's something really special and really special that, you know, three out of the top five Aussie women in their mid-30s to early-40s who are also all mums. That's, that's pretty cool to see, I think.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Let's get into the nitty gritty and the topic of today and your absolute specialty, Ryan, and that is sports science. And the first question we normally ask our guests is on their specialty and that is, what does sports science mean to you?

That's a great question. You've caught me off guard a bit. I've never actually been asked that. But I mean, to me, sports science, if I was to sum it up in one word, it would be optimization, as we kind of hinted at. There's so many things that go into the recipe to make the right meal, or in this case, so many things that go into making the right athlete. And it's difficult to know what is going to make someone better, what is going to make someone improve their performance, make them become more robust, make them become less injury prone. And every person is unique in what gives them those abilities. And so for me, sports science is about teasing out what makes someone the way they are. Are they good because they have a high VO2 max? Do they lack. Do they lack explosive strength? Maybe. Maybe it's something less physical. Maybe they don't have the psychological resilience to deal with the pain that's experienced in a half marathon. Maybe they are really shocking at understanding their own emotions. And so their overall training load becomes too high because they can't regulate their stress. And so it's taking all of those elements of science, physiological, tactical and perceptual, and then trying to integrate them and optimize someone to make them better at what they do.

What a great answer. I could not have wished for someone to say something like that. As an answer that summarizes everything that we kind of are trying to achieve, isn't it? We're trying to optimize, get the best out of ourselves. And boy, that takes some doing, doesn't it? There's so many facets that are involved in what you've just said.

There are. And one of the. So I think I've had this fortunate experience being both an academic who works in sports science, but also an athlete for many years and a coach for many years. And understanding that, a lot of academics really frustrate me because the answer when you put a question to them is it depends on you say, what about this physiological mechanism or this test? And they'll give you this kind of gray answer. And for the academic literature, a gray answer is great, but you can't say to an athlete you're coaching well, your functional threshold power is somewhere between 250 and 350 because it's useless. Right? They might be training way too easy or way too hard. And so for coaches, it's oftentimes you're living right at the bleeding edge of sports science. I guess you have to take it and try and implement it and see what Works oftentimes before science catches up.

There's been a lot of examples of that. And I've loved to hear some of the really good, effective sports scientists and exercise physiologists who have had experience themselves in coaching or in personal experience from actually being an athlete. And they are definitely saying that, that, you know, a lot of the greatest learnings that we have are from what worked for an athlete to win a, to win a time trial or a world title or. And then they go backwards and see what did they do in that program. And, and then we kind of formulate an opinion that, oh, these sessions worked. And I know it's individual for this athlete, but that seems to be a better way. And even we talked to Dr. Louise, Professor Louise Burke on nutrition. She was saying a similar thing with her expertise in nutrition was, you know, what some of the best performances that athletes have had. We looked at how their nutrition was on race day and what their lead up and what they consumed, you know, in the six week period and their most hardest training period. And they learned more about that than saying this is what you should do and try that and see what happens.

And I mean that she's, she's a great example of someone who has often debunked things that have not worked. I mean, there are examples of when sports science is slow to catch up. But her work in nutrition has largely debunked the idea of this low carb diet. But it took athletes and sports people, there's five years of trying with low carb diets with exogenous ketones and whatever before the science caught up. And I mean, it was a lot of her work that showed that that type of diet actually impaired anaerobic metabolism. But that's an example of where science has proven it wrong. But I mean, the flip side of that coin, that perhaps the most famous example is that the high jump, the Fosbury flop, I mean, Dick Fosbury came through with that technique. And it took two years for everyone else to move from the western roll into the Fosbury flop. And it took science another 10 to say why was a better technique. Doesn't matter if you jump high, if you clear the bar, then you know that it's obviously working, isn't it?

It's happening right now. We're seeing training groups around the world and this is the beauty of social media and how connected the world is. You get really good access into what different training groups are doing. You know, we talk heaps on this podcast about what the Norwegians are doing, but we get to also see what Australian training groups are doing, middle distance training groups and international training groups. You see a lot of the different training groups in America, the Bamboo and track club, and they really, they break down their sessions. They're giving so much info. You're seeing which groups are adopting certain methods and which ones are slow to catch up and what the results are from the athletes on the world stage. And that's really exciting to see, but it is interesting to see. Yeah. What's what people are slow to adapt to it and who's taking advantage of the most cutting edge stuff and, and being willing to implement it and risk, risk it on their athletes early.

Yeah, what, what teams are taking pork burritos? Hey.

For those that don't know, that's a reference to an athlete that got done from the Bauman Track Club and she tried to claim that, yeah, the drug, drugs were in the pork burritos, which was just. Everyone just absolutely dragged her through the mud for it because it was such a pathetic excuse. Anyway, moving on, Ryan, to your, to your expertise and you did a PhD basically in efficiency. Efficiency and economy. And you can explain a bit more detail specifically what it was on. But can you start by defining those terms, what they mean specifically efficiency and economy and why they're so important?

Yeah, well, economy, we'll start with economy so it's the easier term to come to terms with. That's terrible segue, easier to get your head around. So economy is just the oxygen costs for a given workload. So if you're running at 4 minute pace, do you consume 200 mils of oxygen per kilometer? Or if you're riding at, you know, 300 watts again, are you consuming 200, 200 mils of oxygen per kilometer of distance? So that, that's just any, it's, it's most likened to fuel economy of a car. Like what, how much fuel does your car consume? Is it kind of uneconomical and it's 10 liters per 100k or is it super economical and it's, it's 4.8 per 1. And that's what we're referring to with economy. And efficiency is a related concept. They're not quite the same. And so efficiency is predominantly used in cycling and it's when we have a mismatch between external work and internal cost. And so if I was riding my bike at 300 watts, then that's the amount of external work at the crank. I'm producing 300 watts of work. But what we know when we record the oxygen cost is that it's roughly four times more total energy expenditure than there is for external work. And that's why we say humans have efficiency of around 20 to 25%. And so when someone's riding, riding along, if they were, if they were riding, so typically for, to work out mechanical efficiency, we get them to ride for about, about 500. Sorry, about. About five minutes at 100 watts or thereabouts. Yeah. Not 500 watts. And then if, if you get into rider, whatever wattage it is, let's say five minutes, 100 watts. And then you're converting that to, to a known amount of energy expenditure because 1 watt is, is 1 joule per second. So it's easy to understand, but it's one joule per second. And so five minutes at 100 watts will give us 30,000 joules. But we know that's external work, but we actually expend more than that. And so if we recorded oxygen consumption for that whole time, so via metabolic analysis, so we put a mask on the person and they're riding at that work rate, then we can see how much oxygen they expire in liters per minute. And then by breaking that down and looking at the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled versus oxygen inhaled, that will tell us about a, how difficult that person is exercising. If they're closer to this ratio of one, it tells us they're burning more carbohydrates. And if they're closer to kind of 0.6, 0.7, they're burning more fatty acids. And so from that, we can then work out what's called an energetic equivalent, which is in kilocalories. And so if a person was riding along at 100 watts and they average 1.5 liters a minute, VO2 for that whole time, then for that five minutes, they would have expired seven and a half liters of oxygen. And then if we said that their RER was roughly one, which it kind of, you know, practically, it doesn't differ that much from 0.9 to 1. So they're, they're burning predominantly carbohydrates, then you'd say they're burning five, five kilocalories. And, and so 7.5 liters of oxygen times five kilocalories is, is 37 and a half kilo kilocalories. And then what we do is convert that, that to joules, which works out to 157,000 joules. And so, so the point of it is you have someone who's expending 30,000 joules of mechanical work and nearly 160,000 of metabolic work. And so that works out at roughly 19% efficiency. And so that's what we mean when we're talking about efficiency. It's how much total metabolic cost was required to perform that given external work. And the reason there's a mismatch is because most of that external work is lost in heat. We have to cool the body, we have to sweat, we have to breathe at increased rates. And so efficiency becomes a much more complicated thing to measure. But it's also an easier thing to manipulate, keep going down that path.

What do you mean by that in terms of why it's so easy to manipulate?

Well, I'm going to come back to running for that reason. And running is a simpler sport, not easier, certainly not easy. But it's a simpler sport to win than cycling, especially distance running. And the reason I say that is because the interface is you, your shoe and the ground. And sure, we can differ performance a little bit, whether you're in the latest AlphaFly or the Endorphin Pro 3 versus a pair of Hocker Cliftons. Like, you might have a little bit of wiggle room there and changing efficiency, but it's not a lot, really. What dictates your running abilities is A, stride length and B, stride rate. Stride length, you can only stride so far because it's determined by how long your limbs are. And if you break in front of the body. So if your heels strike in front of the body, you over stride, then that's actually driving you backwards. The reaction force is behind you, so it slows you down, so you can't stride too long. And you also can't stride too fast, because once you start to get above a certain rate, it's practically impossible. And again, sure, you see differences in that. You might have a really tall, lean runner that might be at 170 strides a minute, and you might have someone at the opposite end of that spectrum, like Charlotte Perdue, who's at 200 strides a minute. But it's narrowly controlled, and there's not a lot of wiggle room within that. There might be a stride length that you can go from 1 to 1.4 meters. And maybe your stride rate or your cadence can go from 170 to 190. But in cycling, there's so much more you can do about that. You have the ability to. To change gears from, you know, 34 inside ring to a 52 outside ring to a back cog of whatever it is, 23 down to 10 or 11, you have all those gears you can manipulate, you have crank length, which you can manipulate, which might favor someone who can produce more torque. And then you have the aerodynamic consideration as well. And in running, yes, aerodynamics matters to an extent, particularly if you're running into a headwind, but far less so than in cycling, because aerodynamics is that quadratic equation. So if I double my speed, then it becomes four times harder, but if I double that speed again, then it's actually 16 times more effort. And so the cost of moving at higher and higher speeds is greater and greater and greater. And so there's so much that goes into that mixture of winning cycling, and we see that all the time. If, if you are on flat ground with a runner, generally the runner that has the best economy and is the fittest will win. And that's not, not necessarily the case with cycling. It's about, you know, who was able to push the biggest gear, who was able to draft the best, who was able to time their attack, attack the best. Because once you break away from a rider, they're having to chase into the, into the wind as well, so that, you know, they lose that advantage. And so there's a lot more of those variables that go into the mix in terms of determining cycling performance than there is so for running performance and some of those things that we can manipulate.

Okay, so one of the things I want to pick up on, Ryan, is that we can't control that the body has to dissipate heat. So, but a very general sentence would be, so if I was able to cope with heat in any conditions, would that make me give me a better advantage to someone else who's not able to dissipate the accumulation of heat that's building up as you sweat, et cetera? Is that an area that we're not really doing enough in?

Yeah, I think there's still a lot left to be explored in heat tolerance, particularly heat acclimation. But yes, in better, in general, general, if you're better able to tolerate heat, then, then you'll perform better because you will not overheat and your sweat rate will, will be lower, which means that you won't, you know, won't run the risk of dehydration as, as well. And the other thing, of course, is that you're, you're going to have less, less metabolic drift. And so what I mean by metabolic drift is, is for a given work rate over time, if, if, if you run at 5 minute k pace and you're continually, continually running at that pace, over time, even though pace stays exactly the same on level ground, your heart rate and oxygen consumption will still keep going up and up and up. And in heat, that's amplified many times. And so the ability to tolerate that heat will certainly be advantageous. And a great practical example of that is Paula Radcliffe. She for a long time had the, had the women's world marathon record before that was recently taken off her in 2019 in the, in the super shoe era. But she was notoriously poor performer in the heat. You know, she would be able to run a218,219 performance in London, and then you chucked her on a warm circuit and she might drift out to 225, 230. And so her ability to tolerate that heat, being from that Caucasian background, was much poorer.

What is the utilization of measuring it? And then, yeah, how do we go about improving it?

I mean, the purpose of measuring it. I mean, it's the purpose of all testing. Why do you test? To know where you are and to know if when you train, you've improved or not. And I mean, I don't think enough athletes test enough in general, across all types of tests, we agree, but in general, there are things we do really well, particularly in cycling, like critical power and functional threshold power. We tend to do a pretty good job of recording. But things like VO2 max, lactate, inflection point less so. And things like economy, really not at all, which I find a little bit bizarre. And particularly in running, like I said, there are many more variables that can determine cycling success than there are in running. And beyond the half or even beyond the 10k, the importance of VO2, so the ability to uptake and utilize oxygen at maximal work rates is less and less important. And what becomes critically important is how can you move at increasing or at fast work rates, high paces, and consume the least oxygen available. Who can consume the least oxygen for a given pace and that person will ultimately win. If you and I, Jordan, both have a VO2 max of, of 85 and we're both running at 4 minute K pace, and you're only using half of that total amount to move at that pace, and I'm using 75% of my oxygen uptake to move at that pace, then my wiggle room is much less. We know that people can only operate at about 80, 85% VO2 max for a marathon, and so I might only be able to kick down to 355. But if you're sitting at 45, 50%, then maybe you can kick down to 3:15 pace. And so what we really want to do is identify what someone's economy is. And it's actually quite easy to test. And all it involves is running on a treadmill at a given work rate, which is usually about the same pace as your kind of half marathon pace, or what we call VENTILATORY THRESHOLD1, which occurs about the same time as lactate threshold. So it's about that last aerobic point. So think about it as kind of your hour power. And we record economy at that pace and we see what it is and see whether it's. Are you having average economy of a Caucasian athlete around 220mils per kilo per kilometer, or is it exceptional economy right down at the kind of East African athletes down at the 180mils per kilo per km. But the point is, even once you get that, you then need to think about ways in which you can optimize that economy. Because, because just knowing it's, you know, it's not enough. And I, and I think about this with VO2 all the time. Athletes come in and we'll do a VO2 test and they'll score whatever they do, 68 and great. It's a nice number to have. But so what, what does it mean? How does it influence your training? How does it influence your recovery, your race strategy? And so you have to understand why you're testing that economy. And for me, in running especially, there's two reasons. One is shoes. There are so many shoes out on the market at the moment, so you could, you know, you could be having what's widely considered the most economical and kind of the Alpha fly, you know, next percent or maybe even the Vapor fly. But take, take your pick. You know, is it the, the New Balance, the RC Elite or, or is it the Saucony indoor speed? Yeah, yeah, six meterspeed. Yeah. And there's so many of them that, that claim to, to be more economical, but the reality is that it, there's so much that depends on the runner. And for me, I've have the ability to test all of that and I have done so. I've looked at what's my economy in the soccer Endorphin Pro, the Endorphin speed, the alphafly, the Vaporfly, and the New Balance were the most economical for me, more so than Asics or anything. And so for me to just say, okay, well, Alpha flies are the most economical was wrong. And not only are they them, were they actually the third most economical shoe for me, but they also, my rate of perceived exertion was higher in those. So generally, we know that the shoe that gives you the lowest rate of perceived exertion. Sorry, rating of perceived exertion. So how hard you're going out of. Of 10 usually correlates really well with economy. So essentially, what feels the easiest often is the easiest. And for me, it was definitely not the alpha fly. But the other thing you can do is kind of the intervention you look at, what can you manipulate in terms of your training to improve your running economy? And I don't think there's a whole lot of point in manipulating any of those things unless you first know what your economy is. Otherwise, it's a moving target and you might be doing something that wastes your time.

Yeah, I have a few questions on that. First one is, was your feeling accurate to the results? So did you feel like the New Balance was easier or you couldn't tell the difference between the three before the test?

I've never run in a shoe more comfortable than the New Balance. I think they're extremely soft and extremely forgiving shoe. And so, I mean, that perceived comfort was already there, and I'm not that surprised that they were the most economical for me. However, that said, and this is about coming into what makes the, you know, what makes a performance, you know, a winning one. I. I would never choose that shoe for a 5 or a 10k race. I would have the vapor fly on my foot every day of the week because it gives me back more spring for every step. And. And I know that as well because I've tested that. And I'll see that, you know, my stride length and con is less and my. My contact time is less when I'm using the vaporfly at race pace than any other shoe. Which means that if my contact time is less and my stride length is shorter, it means that when I stride out, I'm actually going faster than I am in any other shoe. And so understanding how all of these things relate is really, really critical. But one of the great challenges with, with economy is that when we test economy, I'm testing it for you on 1km in a relatively tight set of conditions. But there is no guarantee that your body is going to respond the same way. A kilometer 30 in a marathon, when your hips start to drop and you're feeling fatigued and you're dehydrated. And so it becomes really important to not only test the economy in a variety of conditions, but also use your own metrics in training to help derive that. If, if, you know, you're on, on a Sunday run and, and you're 30 kilometers deep. You know, you're training for the, the Melbourne marathon, let's say, and you know you're running in your, you're running in your Asics, you know, your, your Asics Metaspeed sky, let's say on one week and you're going at 5 minute K pace and your heart rate is 1, 142 beats per minute and your, your power maybe, maybe you've got a stride power meter or a chorus or a garment or something, maybe Your power is 270 watts. And then the next week you come and you do. So your training's been relatively similar, you've had the same thing for breakfast, relatively similar weather conditions, et cetera. So it's somewhat repeata and you're running at the same place at the same time of day and the only thing that's changed is the shoe. And you've put on, you know, you've put on the latest Adidas and all of a sudden your heart rate's gone to 162 and your power's gone to 300 watts for the given pace. The same pace, then that represents a decline. You're having to work harder, you're having to produce more, more power and a higher heart rate for a given pace. And so that represents kind of a field reflection of economy, if you will. Sure, it's not as accurate as a lab, but you can't just stop and hop on a treadmill at 30k and have your VO2 tested either.

This comes back to your original point where you spoke about implementation at the start of this podcast, because we spoke about this previously in one of our conversations where what happens in the lab doesn't always equate to what's happening in the field. And that is a limitation of sports science. And, and, and something you have to consider that is just such a perfect example. And it's, it's so hard to test because how are you going to put someone in controlled, repeatable conditions and of how they're going to feel at kilometer 30, like you said, I mean that's your example you gave is the best case scenario, but it's still, there's still so many variables in that. And even the week later you might stuff up the execution, you might go out in the first 20k harder than you did the week before. I know you said running at 5 minute K pace, but, but maybe you've stuffed it up and you've accidentally done a couple of Ks at 450. And that's impacted the results of the test.

So I wanted to ask, of course.

What was the method you used for figuring out that you balance? What's the specific method of testing? Are you running a kilometer at that half marathon pace? And then what's the method of testing for the 5 and 10k paces? It's just running your goal 5 and 10k pace.

Well, I mean, economy's almost always recorded at around that ventilatory threshold, which is, which occurs around, somewhere around, around that half marathon pace. And, and that's where I recorded the economy for, for the shoes that I had. So I had a, a counterbalance design. So I, I took the, the shoes I was gonna going to run in. There's eight different pairs and seven of them which were kind of performance shoes. So they had some sort of super foam, a Pebax or a Zoom X type foam compared to a control shoe. And then I ran them in an order and then I came back later in the week and reversed that order and did it again. So to kind of average that out, but in each at that pace. Yeah, one kilometer in each. Yeah, yeah. And then made sure I had five minutes of passive rest time between that. And as I was saying earlier, one of the important considerations though is that, that the faster you go so down kind of below 10k performance, the less important economy is. And it's more about who has a higher VO2 max and the ability to produce more power. And so I think economies, I personally probably wouldn't bother testing it if you were a 5 and 10k athlete. I think there would be more fruitful things you can measure like VO2 max, but certainly for athletes running half marathon to marathon and, or triathletes who are, you know, maybe if you're only doing a half ironman, sure you're only running a half marathon, but you're running it off the back of a 90k ride and a 1.8 swim as well. So you have to be able to do that. Yes.

So Ryan, what was the variance in results between the shoes? How big was the percentage of difference in economy?

Yeah, well, for me, the New Balance, I always forget the name of them. The RC Elite V2. I tell you what, on a sideways rant, whoever's doing New Balance marketing, give your shoes some great names like the Endorphin or the Invincible or the Alpha Flight. Don't just call them 1080, V12 or something. Anyway, if you listen, New Balance. So they were, they improve my efficiency by about 3%. The alpha flies by about 2% and the vapor flies by about 1 1/2 percent.

But what was the control shoe like?

The Nike Infinity React, if you know that one. So it's just a kind of React foam. But I also ran in some Saucony endorphin speeds and the Nike Invincibles. Now I know the Invincibles are a bit of a heavy issue, but they use that Zoom X foam or Peba Pebax foam, which is all the same type. It all comes out of the same few factories. And the same with the Saucony endorphin speed, which has a nylon plate as well. But when I compared all of those shoes against the carbon plated shoes, all of the carbon plated shoes, irrespective of the of the brand, improve my economy economy by at least 1%. So for me, having a carbon plate did improve economy. And then New Balance were the most economical for me. But to go a bit more on the kind of the science of it, economy's so complex and there's things we know that affect economy that we can't control. For instance, pelvis width, height, length of limbs, amount of mass at your calves. So having much lighter calves, which is very common of the kind of Ethiopian Kenyan athletes, having longer legs in proportion with your torso, for instance, those things greatly improve economy. But again, there are. So what if you're dealing with a triathlete that has bigger calves and you can't say, hey, why don't you go down to your local plastic surgery and get rid of your calf taken off to improve your economy. And so they're the kind of things we can't change, but what we can change is our overall body mass. So mass, the more mass you carry, the worse your economy will be. Now, you can't just say, I need to get as light as I can, because ultimately if you keep reducing weight and calories, you're going to run into some sort of relative energy deficiency syndrome problems. But also like excess weight, very, very negatively affects economy. And we know that 100 gram at the feet, so 50 grams on each foot reduces running economy by about 1%. So lighter shoes are more economical, as are comfortable shoes. And for every kilo of excess body mass, it adds about two to three seconds, depending on the study. You look at that to threshold pace. So if your threshold pace is whatever it is, 330, and you add two kilos, then that's becoming 336, 334 to 336. And so weight is very, very detrimental to running economy. Likewise, Though we can improve our training. So training will positively improve running economy.

I'm struggling to understand what's actually happening in the shoe and why different shoes are creating different economical outputs for you. So why the alphafly wasn't as economical for you as it would be for someone else.

Yeah, so it's all to do with that interface. And this is one of the great challenges in terms of economy and understanding around economy in sports science at the moment. So, so that original 4% shoe, which is where that number comes from, an improved economy on average by 4%. But in some people it improved. That was the average. So the range was 8. So for some people their economy hardly changed, so less than a percent. Other people improved by 8%. Now if you were to take two runners and you said to one runner, we can give you an alpha fly and you might get get half a percent better, but the guy next to you is going to get 8% better, then I think that really affects results and running in a way that I don't think is very fair. It no longer becomes about brute physiology, it's about who adapts the best to a particular running shoe. And the reason people react differently is because everyone's running technique is different. So everyone will strike in a different spot. They might be a forefoot or a midfooter, a heel striker, they might have a different rate of pronation, they might have a different kind of toe in, toe out angle. Maybe their center of mass is in a different spot to someone else when they strike the ground. I'm sure as you know, if you run in a shoe with a 4 mil offset, like a hocker, it feels very different to a Nike with a 9 mil drop. And so all of those things go into making someone's technique and likewise they go into affecting someone's economy. And so there is no one right super shoe for you. The bad part about that advice is most people can't afford to just go and buy the, the top 10 super shoes and try them. Yeah. And with that advice I would say if you are lucky enough to go into certain running shops, the running company is a great example of this. And you know, you know already that you, that you tend to like a shoe. Let's say you respond really well to old school flat style races and you say, okay, well that, you know, I'm going to go for an alpha fly because it's got, got 4 mil drop as opposed to a Vaporfly which has 8 mil drop. And then maybe you try both of those on. And while you're running, you're having your own live rating of perceived comfort. Which one feels more comfortable? If you can wear a heart rate monitor and run for a couple of minutes, look at your watch, which one's reducing your heart rate for a given pace. And I realize that's not always easy to do, but I guess the flip side of that is, you know, if you are serious about your sport, you know, maybe, maybe you do, you do buy a couple of different shoes and see what, what is going to help you perform the most. But that's the reason why there's so much variance in all of those shoes. Because each shoe will have, have a different weight, it will have a different amount of foam, it will have the, the plate higher or lower in the shoe. Maybe it's got a narrower plate, maybe it's got a, like that. The Adidas has a, you know, a three, three rod system rather than a whole, whole plate. And so that interaction of all of those things will make it right for some people, but not others. But in general, in general, what the things that are true. More, more padded shoes. So shoes with more foam tend to be more economical and they increase perceived comfort. So having a shoe that, you know, takes it right up to that world athletics limit. Now I think it's. What is it, 39 mil? 30 mil?

Yeah, something, something around there. I thought it was 30.

Yeah, yeah, maybe it's 30 mil. Taking it up to that kind of maximum and getting the lightest shoe that you can, that, that fits within that range and then trying for perceived comfort is probably the best way to, to go about it just on that.

So just for the, the average person who has got the advice that. Well, not the advice, the information now that there are certain shoes that have more value to performance than other shoes and your particular action as a runner is going to prevent you from being in the 8% and put you more in the half a percent improvement totally because of your running style. Would you be advocating to anybody out there that they should consider, even though they might have been running for 10 years, changing something about their actual running style to enable the running shoe to get more value in economy for them? Is that something you would consider or even suggest? Or is that just a waste of time?

And how would you even go about that?

Yeah, the answer is a really complex one. And what we know is that when we try to manipulate.

Are you saying it depends? Is that an answer?

No, no, that's an asterisk. It depends. I'll try and come back to some practical advice. When we change technique in cycling and running, it decreases efficiency acutely. And there's been many, many studies on this. I mean, perhaps the most famous one in run the pose running technique, just kind of where you hold yourself in a proud, upright posture. And the idea was that it would reduce running economy. Sorry, improve running economy. And it actually didn't reduce running economy. So by people changing their technique, there was an increased amount of neuromuscular control required to run in that certain way. So you're recruiting different muscles, which meant that there is a cost associated with that oxygen consumption increased. And the same is true for cycling when, when you take cyclists and instruct them to pedal in another way. Whether you say, I want you to pedal in a circular technique or you know, you'll hear something like scrape the mud off the bottom of your shoe when you're coming through the bottom of the stroke, or pull up through the upstroke and. Or when you get people to ride with biofeedback so they can see live where they're producing force, or on what's called independent cranks, where there's a cl, the cranks, the left and right are independent of the other, so you have to pull through on the upstroke. All of those things reduce economy acutely. And so the thing that, that is the most economical is preferred technique. Now where the trick comes into that is in the studies. So if, if I was to get you to run in a different way and assess your economy, I am absolutely certain that your economy would be decreased because you become really good at what you do. And if you had an athlete that was a heel striker out in front of their body, but they've been running that way for 10 years, then as soon as you got them to strike underneath their center of mass, their economy would decrease. And it's because they've got so economical at running the way they, they always have, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the right way to run. And then there might be some gains to be had by improving their technique. And so there are very few longitudinal studies that look at technique and interventions over time, but there are a couple and they do show small changes in economy in terms of technique. There are kind of non negotiables, I guess. So first up, I think pursuing a better running economy at low speeds probably doesn't matter. Same for cycling. I mean, if Jared and I are riding together at 100 watts and he's more economical than me, so what, we can both ride together at 100 watts for eight hours, it doesn't matter. What matters is when we're both going at 300, 350 watts. And likewise for running. So I, I think my advice would be try to implement changes to technique at pace. And again, coming back to running is a great example of that. One of the things that's most correlated to running economy is what's called the radius of gyration or the moment of inertia, which basically means when let's say my right foot was striking the ground, how close my left heel and ankle are coming to flicking me into the butt cheek. So whether you're kind of carrying through that opposite leg, which you see that all the time in 800-1500 meter runners, they've got that really high turnover and their angular range of their foot, their heels right up near their glute. And so what that means is they have a shorter lever that they're swinging through on the opposing leg. And if that lever's shorter, then it requires less torque to move it through that range. And if there's less torque, then there's less muscle recruited, which means it's easier to do, there's less oxygen required to do so. And so having improvement in what I call the non negotiables is really critical. And they are, if you're running at pace, you don't want to be heel striking in front of you. That's a definite no. No, you don't want to have large pelvic drop on each side or not be running in a straight line. So if your pelvis is dropping side to side, then you probably need to look at strengthening your glutes. And if you cannot adopt a good range where your heel comes through quite high and you're shuffling the cliff young shuffle, then that, that also is not advantageous. But related to that are the other things you can do to improve economy, which principally is strength training. Strength training is perhaps the most important thing you could do to improve economy.

Why is that? Is it because it's increasing your range of motion? And you just spoke about the range. Is that a flexibility thing, a strength thing? What's. What is that?

Yeah, strength is, is flexibility is so. And its relationship with economy is really confusing. And so in general, if you lack flexibility in the hip and knee, then you won't be able to achieve those ranges that will give you good economy. But if you have too much flexibility and you kind of get bogged down in your stroke, or your hips aren't stable, then you're having to recruit additional muscle to stabilize you to be economical. And so in general, people that are less flexible tend to have better running economy. But the caveat is they're less flexible laterally, so maybe their glute meds are quite tight. The other thing that's much, much more important is having great ankle stiffness. And that's arguably the most important thing. So every time we hit, hit the ground or just before we hit the ground actually there's, there's a pre activation of muscles or your muscles will act, activate really slightly and then you'll contact the ground and you'll get what's called this stretch reflex mechanism, which is, which is really a safety mechanism. It's where our muscles contract quite, quite rapidly to prevent them from overstretching and getting damaged. It's kind of the whole prem of plyometric training. Now related to that is musculo tenderness, stiffness. And so if you have a really stiff tendon, then your energy is, your energy return is much greater. And a great practical example of that from the animal kingdom is the kangaroo. You look at their foot and their leg, they have this enormous tendon tendon which allows them to have incredible energy store and release. And so they can hop along at 70km an hour with hardly any energy expense. Now in humans, of course, we don't have an Achilles tendon that long. Interestingly, Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes have longer tendons than Caucasian athletes. And they also have lower rotating mass. So they're getting more from every step they, they put into the ground. But we can manipulate our 10 and stiffness quite easily. And the best way to do that is through strength training and plyometric training. And for strength training, I'm talking about kind of heavier strength training like three to five repetitions. That'll improve neuromuscular efficiency. So the signal to the muscle, but also some form of power training supply metric training trying to minimize ground contact time. So lots of repeated jumping maneuvers to maximize muscular tendonous stiffness.

What you've just said is pretty mind blowing. I don't know. Yeah, there's a lot there, isn't there dad? That kind of opens up a whole new world of training for athletes that a lot of endurance athletes would not touch.

Interesting too, Jordan. From what you were saying, Ryan, I totally agree with my observations of looking at different styles of running styles over the journey. And I've always been intrigued as to why the older athlete, no matter how good they were as a younger athlete, end up shuffling. And I've always wondered whether, how do we keep that type of training where you're doing that plyometrics where eccentric concentric contraction, really rapid sort of style of exercising, skipping, jumping up on boxes, landing, you know, and. And recoiling type of exercises where we keep the strength in our tendons so that we do have that good flexibility, or not flexibility, that good power to propel ourselves forward, which is what we're trying to do. And I look at photos and I just remember photos that my parents showed me when I was, you know, doing under nine, little laughs. And my running style, my heel is in contact with my glute and I remember my heel hitting my glute a lot when I was running fast and thinking this is a really weird. I must be really weird at running because my legs would hit and also they would hit on the way past each other. And when I look at some of the really good little kid runners, they have this great style that we lose and they're really fast when they're really little. And then they progressively get slower because their body tends to tighten up or something happens where we don't practice that freedom we had as an 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 year old. You look at some of the video footage of little kids running around the park, they've got brilliant styles, great economy. It's not costing them anything in energy or effort. Yet as we get older that our economy is horrible and it's taxing to us and it becomes a shuffle.

Yeah, I think there's probably some cultural parts to that as well. I know a lot of athletes I've worked with and a lot of the runners I talk to as they've got older, there's this natural evolution toward running half and full marathons. Even if there used to be 8 and 1500 runners on the track. And I think inherent with that is if you're going to be running long distances, there's a lot more low volume, slower pace training and that doesn't reinforce that technique we were just talking about. And so the importance of having a wide base of training incorporating lots of short, sharp efforts and drills becomes quite important, I would think.

What about coming back to. There's two factors you talked about with contact time of the ground, but more specifically stride length and stride rate. Is it worth trying to manipulate them in a certain direction to improve yourself? Or is it a case of individually? 170rpm, cadence wise is better for me, but it wouldn't be better for you. You'd be better at 160 or 180.

I would not bother changing it. As long as you're not not breaking out in front of the body. So if your stride length was 140, sorry, your stride rate was 140 and your stride length was 1.4 meters and you are 168 centimeters tall, then yeah, I think that's a real problem because you're probably taking giant steps and he was striking out in front of you. But if you're in those kind of normal parameters, so 160 to 160, 1, 80 stride rate and somewhere between 1 to 1.3 meters stride length at pace height dependent, of course, then I wouldn't bother with that. And it's again coming to cycling. Cycling is really interesting that the studies on cadence and crank length, it hardly changes efficiency. So if you get someone to cycle, whether they ride from 70 to 110, again doesn't change their gross efficiency. If you put them on cranks from 145 up to 205, won't change their gross efficiency. Now we'll change aspects related to that. So if you put someone on a longer crank, for instance, then it's a longer lever, they produce more torque, so muscular force has to go up, but simultaneously the rate of contraction goes down. And so there's this kind of, kind of trade off. And so what you see is it's really frustrating answer to give as someone that deals in this space. But the best cadence in both cycling and running is what we call freely chosen cadence, what people tend to adapt to. And again, the studies on this in cycling, the cadence that represents the most comfortable for a given workload is the most economical.

Yeah, it's another interesting one. And I've certainly experimented with crank length and cadence and the only method that I can measure it against is how does it affect my average speed on a bike and my perceived feel of effort. And maybe looking at my heart rate variation, and definitely from coaching many thousands of athletes, if I give them a certain 5 minute effort at 300 watts, if I ask them to do it at 95 RPM compared to 70, there would be a completely different heart rate response. It would be lower.

Yeah, yeah. But the point is, I guess that, that each of those athletes will have their set point, their freely chosen cadence. So if you took the athlete that was at 300 watts at 90 and then made them ride at 70, then that's foreign to them. But if you took the 6 foot 2 guy that used to play rugby who naturally mashes around at 60, 70 RPM and said, all right, you're going to ride at 100 now I mean he's going to be pedaling in squares and not be able to do that. And so every person will have that, that, that kind of cadence that that is, is best for them. And what we know from, from cycling in terms of, in terms of pedaling technique now, like again all, all the pedaling technique interventions where you tell people to pull up through the upstroke or down the bottom tends, tends to reduce economy. What, what's better is to try to get, get people to produce more force during the downstroke and longer application of force during the downstroke. And there's a couple of papers in the last decade that have, that have shown that strength training allows people to produce peg talk earlier in the downstroke, meaning that they can produce it longer in the downstream. And so in terms of cycling technique, I would tell someone, try and focus on your pushing down and don't, don't really worry about anything else because pulling up, when you do pull up through that pedal stroke, you're recruiting really small muscles, hip flexor muscles that are quite weak in comparison to your gluten, knee extensor muscles. And so that will reduce economy. And like I said, there's so much that goes into that mix of, of winning cycling in terms of gears, in terms of crank lengths, all of those things. And now I said that crank length doesn't really affect economy and it doesn't on average, but there's always that, it depends that we were joking about earlier. I mean in the past, Australia's greatest ever. Well, no longer greatest ever. One of our greatest track sprint cyclists, Shane Perkins was, he was struggling to break the 10 second barrier on 165 mil cranks. And then at the time the sports science advisor at the VOS put him onto 167.5 millimeter cranks and he went under 10 seconds first time ever. And that two and a half mil difference, you know, that according to academic papers shouldn't make, make any difference, but, but clearly it did something about that longer lever length may have worked well with his force profile. You know, he's an incredibly strong athlete, rather velocity dominant athlete, so he's able to produce more force on that longer crank. And I guess it comes back to that, what we're saying earlier, like a large part of this in terms of technique and economy and efficiency really is experimentation and not only data collection in the lab, but if you can record a lot of that data in your own training, which cyclists, I mean, I can't think of a sport that's more data friendly than cycling when we have power, cadence, heart rate, speed, torque, effectiveness, all of these things. And running to a lesser extent, but you've still got heart rate, pace, cadence, those sort of things. Tinker with the variables and see what works for you and have some ownership in your training. Like you guys promoting programs is great and I'm sure what you do is 99 times out of 100. Right. But one time out of 100 it might not be right and it's up for the athlete to go. You know what? I think this might be a worthwhile intervention for me or maybe I should try this shoe or whatever it is, you know, I guess, yeah, have some ownership in the training as well.

I think the guidance that you get from the data is really helpful. And I love the fact that you started off by really trying to get the message across that what happens in reality doesn't always necessarily match up with what's tested in the lab. And the lab testing is good for the general person but there's so many variables in that and what happens out in the field is kind of more accurate it for individuals. And you know, just the example I suppose we were talking about five minutes ago was pedaling efficiency, pedaling technique, pedaling circles. And I know for a fact that if I'm going to just be a quad dominant pedaler as an endurance rider that's going to ride 180k Ironman, I am going to run terribly. I need to be able to spread my load across the hamstrings, the glutes, the hip flexors, the quads, not just just rely on my quad dominance. Even though the lab's testing me and saying that that is the most efficient way in an economical way. But field testing tells me that's actually not going to be very helpful to be able to run in a triathlon.

Right. And that comes back to that one of those earlier points that we said that sometimes sport and coaching is ahead of science. And that's a great example. Another great example of that. That is the new world of gravel racing. I mean our mutual athlete that we both you coach him and I help with his testing. Nick just came back from a, was it 300k gravel race in the States. Sure. If I say that pushing down in the drive phase of the pedal stroke increases his performance, that's great. All the studies say that, that but no study goes more than 40k time trial and that's not even a fifth of the race. So it's not so relevant. And so sometimes it really does take the athlete to kind of have that ownership and the coach as well to go. My gut feeling tells me otherwise. And use what's at hand. Use the data that's at hand to help inform that, that training. But understand that it's not the be all and end all as well. I see so many athletes get sucked into data and a great example is FTP. FTP is okay, it's not a perfect metric. It shouldn't be taken as a perfect metric. And as a sole thing, you got to use it with other things. But it is still useful. But I've worked with athletes in the past that'll say, well, I'm going to go out for my 40k time trial at road nationals at an intensity factor of 1 or 1.05. I'm like, you shouldn't be worrying about an intensity factor based on an FTP we took three months ago. You're in a race situation. There has to be more to your data than that. Yeah, sure, that data is important. And if you're going out, if your FTP is 350 and you got a 40k time trial and for the first five you've averaged 360, sorry, 400 watts, then yeah, you're probably going to have a bad day because you've gone out too hard. But inherent in that is also understanding that data is a guide. But you have to have some intuition. You have to understand what feels right. Do I feel like I can go harder? Do I feel like I can sustain this? Because to me, if an athlete at an event like a national time trial comes out and rides their FTP, then I, I would think that's a failure. I would think I had failed as a coach, that they hadn't improved that on a race day. And when we've trained to improve that, we've had, you know, a taper, we've had strength training, we've had all of these things. And so just having that data there and always trying to chase that number is not necessarily the best thing. There has to be some intuition to it as well.

I want to close this economy loop and try and finish off with a summary of the practical advice you've spoken about. So you spoke about. In terms of running and cycling, one of the biggest things that can help economy is strength, strength training as a runner, being able to increase that range of motion, not striking the heel at a higher pace, although that wouldn't matter as much for half Ironman and Ironman athletes, I'm going to guess. But can you Finish off with some practical application of how to go about improving your economy. Cycling or running?

Yeah. Okay, so we'll go running first. The carbon shoes work. That's, that's simple. If you can get into a carbon plated super foam runner, you're going to run better in general if you, even if you can't get into that, a lighter shoe is better in terms of weight, if you are carrying some extra weight, it doesn't matter if you have a $16,000 Pinarello. If you're carrying 15 kilos too much, that that's going to impact your performance and economy more than your bike will. So excess weight is, is the single greatest detriment to economy in terms of running. If you're striking well outside the center of the mass, so your heels striking a long way in front of your body, then that's going to reduce your economy. If your hips are dropping wildly side to side, likewise, that's going to be reducing your economy. And if at high paces, not so much recovery and base runs, but if at high paces, your shuffling, then you're having to move along a longer lever through that range of range of motion, which will also decrease your economy. Also from a supplement perspective, caffeine, it's great. Caffeine virtually enhances every element of sports performance there is. Economies is one of them. In terms of cycling, this becomes a little more complicated, but freely chosen cadence seems to be best. What you choose as an optimal cadence for you is probably the best cadence for you. Within reason, I would think if it's outside maybe that 70 to 100, then you could probably look for some interventions. Trying to manipulate pedaling technique is not, is not necessarily an advantageous thing for economy. Bike fit, which we haven't even touched on, definitely, definitely affects economy and efficiency. So we know that if your seat height is too high or too low, especially if it's too high, then it's going to greatly reduce economy. Likewise, if the fore and aft position is wrong. So if you're too far forward on the seat, then it's, then it's more likely to place an emphasis on quad muscle recruitment, quad dominance, which will reduce, reduce economy as well. But the biggest thing for economy in cycling is aerodynamic drag. Not so much in the lab, because you're not overcoming aerodynamic drag, but if you can reduce that aerodynamic drag, then that's going to improve how easy it is to move through the wind, which means that there's less oxygen cost because there's less muscle recruitment now. Well, aerodynamics is a complex can of Worms. But, but again in general, if you can be narrower than wider, lower than higher and wear aerodynamic equipment. So, so a teardrop helmet if you're in time trial or triathlon events and an arrow frame then, then you're, you're at an advantage at the rider that doesn't do those things. Same for aero bars and the last thing for both. Strength training is so important. Like I gave a presentation for Cycling Australia or old Cycling Australia now at the start of the year on strength training and it is so overwhelming the positive effects of strength training on economy and performance. And not only is economy improved but, but, but time trials of every duration. So sprints from five second up to, up to time trials on the bike of 180 minutes are all positively improved by strength training. If you're not doing it, you should be doing it.

Brian, that's a brilliant way to finish. I hate to finish here, but we have been going for an hour 20. We really focused on economy today and two other areas. We have spoken a little bit about efficiency but I'd love to do a part two on efficiency and really dive into, dive deeper into that if you think that's applicable. And then I'd love to do a part three on strength training. So yeah, I think we'll be getting you back on and yeah, some, some unbelievable gold nuggets over an hour 20 and it's, they're quite in depth conversations. And when this is all new, especially a lot of this would be new to a lot of listeners who don't come from a sports science background. It is hard to grasp but you just really, I guess the summary is really highlighting there are areas where you can get more out of yourself and, and just understanding that helps you just explore your own training a little bit more in your own body a little bit more. Is that the message you'd like to get across?

Yeah, well, and as we said at the start, it's about optimization and it's optimizing all of those things. Technique and training and comfort and perception and data and feel and all of those things together. And to come back to the cycling efficiency as opposed to economy where economy is oxygen costs for a given pace, efficiency is about how much external work you perform versus the oxygen cost. And so there's so much in that interface that dictates external work. Is it your cadence, is it your crank length, is it your pedaling technique? And because there's so much that goes into that mix, the best thing you can do as an athlete is to look at the Data, look at the information that's available online from good sources like scientific journals. If you type in any, go to Google Scholar, which is where you'll find a lot of that information. And type in running economy, type in cycling efficiency and become your own science experiment, I guess within the bounds of your coach and the people that are working with you. And please don't go down any shady avenues. But as I said earlier, you have to be as much a pilot of your training and accountable for your training, training as anyone.

Fantastic. Really loved the topics that we've touched on and unfortunately there's so much in there that we could, as we said before we started, we could talk all afternoon. But I really appreciate giving your time and your insight and you've got a practical side and the lab side which I really love. And you've tried it on yourself. Exactly what you're telling every athlete out there who's listening to do. You've actually done that to yourself, which is what I love about. It's great having theory, but does it work work in practice? And this is something that we're getting some really good information from you and we really appreciate you coming on and giving us your time. So really awesome. Ryan, thank you very much.

No worries. Great to be on here. Thank you for organizing it.

And who knows Ryan, maybe you've just started a potential own business idea where you can stock up on every size of super shoe from 8 to 12 and get people in and do the economy test.

Yeah, that's right. Maybe I could just try them all on myself. See if I can to get that elusive two hour marathon barrier myself. There.

Now that's it. That's it for this episode. Ryan, thank you very much for joining us. And to everyone listening, it's been a really long one but a good one. We hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you on the next episode. We'll be getting Ryan back on for sure.

Keep on.