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This is episode 437 with applied sports scientist, former science coordinator for the Houston Texans, running and strength coach and 257 marathoner, Jonah Rosner.
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Today I'm speaking with Jonah Rosner, a former applied sports scientist for the National Football League.
At the time, he was one of the youngest sports scientists in NFL history.
He spent the last 10 years working with athletes and teams from all major American pro team sports.
He's a running coach and a certified strength and conditioning specialist and he previously partnered with Nike to run the Nike running performance lab in New York City.
Jonah was also the sports scientist on hand during a fitness retreat I attended last year where I had my VO2 max measured.
I think it was the first time in 16 years that I had had my VO2 max measured.
And if you're curious, you can go see the test in the video on Strength Running's YouTube channel.
Today, we are myth-busting.
We're talking about the latest science on heat training, developing better running economy, heart rate zones and why beginners should probably not worry too much about Zone 2 overpronation, electrolytes and more.
Without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Jonah Rosner.
Here we go.
Jonah, back on the podcast.
Thanks, Jonah, for being here.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Excited to be back.
All right.
So for round two, I thought it would be super fun to get you on the podcast to talk a little bit about some contentious issues, some myths that might exist in the running community, things that we think work but maybe actually don't work quite as well as we thought.
And, with your background in sports science and your experience working with such a wide variety of athletes, I thought you'd be such a good person to talk to about these issues.
And in no uncertain, no certain order.
Here we're going to talk about everything from heat training versus altitude.
We're talking about running form, zone training, sodium and electrolytes.
We're going to talk a little bit about pronation and some other topics.
So thanks for being here, Jonah. yeah, excited to get going and cover such a wide range.
Well, let's start with hot tubs versus altitude, because heat training is certainly having a moment right now.
I think a lot of runners are thinking seriously about incorporating heat training into their training in some way.
And as someone who lives in Denver, Colorado, I'm exposed to altitude all the time.
I have certainly experienced altitude making my running slower.
Not sure if I've experienced it making it better, but Let's talk a little bit about how, if you want some of the benefits of altitude, you don't even really need to go to altitude, do you?
Yeah, I mean there's definitely been a lot of work recently out there over the past year, that's examining altitude versus heat and essentially saying if heat training can give us similar benefits to altitude or provide a similar stimulus.
So if we think about altitude historically, where we look at the main adaptation you get from altitude is when you go to altitude.
Essentially, what happens is your body makes up for lack of better terms, for the lack of oxygen in the air, by increasing your body's ability to carry oxygen in the blood or deliver oxygen to the muscles.
And that typically happens by improving the amount or increasing the amount of red blood cells or the hemoglobin, so that your oxygen carrying cells in the blood
So essentially over the course of four to five weeks, what can happen is at altitude, your body will...
Since the lack of oxygen in the air, it will increase the amount of red blood cell production or your hemoglobin.
So you have the ability to carry more oxygen to your muscles to kind of make up for that.
But historically, one of the issues we've seen with altitude is a few different things.
Number one is you actually get a lot of variety in the responses.
Not everyone responds well to altitude.
Not everyone may get those adaptations and we see some variability there.
And the other thing is exactly like you mentioned if you go to altitude, it's pretty hard to run fast at altitude without feeling crappy.
So you can make the argument that essentially, you're running less fast, you're getting less stimulus from the lack of quality you can accumulate at altitude.
So you can't run as hard, so it's not going to be as big of a stimulus.
And so because of that, and also because altitude for some people is very hard to get to, a lot of people have been interested in heat training.
And historically, we can think about heat training.
A lot of people just do heat acclimatization record or just short term heat training before an event at heat.
And that's just to prepare themselves for performing at heat because we want to.
Before you go run really hot, you want to make sure your body's ready for that.
So in the short term, we know that when you're exposed to heat, for example, over 10 to 14 days of constant exposure we typically say two weeks of constant exposure five times a week you get some of these shorter term adaptations, which is like the increase in sweat rate.
So you start sweating more to cool yourself off.
You tend to hold on to more sodium.
You sweat faster, you increase blood plasma volume, so you get more blood in your body.
The watery content of the blood.
And that again helps delivers more blood to the muscles, potentially more oxygen and resting cold temperature.
Heart rate goes down.
So you get some of these short-term adaptations.
But people have been looking recently what happens if we do heat for several weeks, for example four to five weeks, similar to what you would say at altitude.
Do we get some of those actual hemoglobin adaptations or the adaptations where you actually increase the actual red blood cells that deliver oxygen?
So People have described it before as like a cereal or milk situation where we can think of like milk as the actual plasma volume or the watery part of your blood, and then the actual cereal in the blood or the actual red blood cells are kind of like the cereal that actually deliver the oxygen.
So in the short term, you probably just increase a lot of that watery content of the blood.
So the plasma volume, and then when you're there for longer at heat, you may accumulate more like the actual red blood cells.
And so we're going on here.
But what we've seen historically from a lot of the research, When you do heat training for that four to five weeks, a lot of the research now has been five weeks, five times per week for that five weeks with some kind of heat exposure, for typically 45 minutes to an hour of heat training, whether it's in a heat chamber, you're wearing a heat suit, active heat training, so you're exercising.
Why actually, being exposed to heat, you do tend to get a lot of those similar increases, and also the hemoglobin or the red blood cells that you would get from altitude as well.
So active heat training.
And so that's pretty cool.
But now recently, and we did think that passive heat training.
So when we talk about heat training, those active and passive.
Passive heat training is when you're exposed to heat but not actually exercising at the same time.
And so those are things like sauna, hot tub, hot baths, things like that.
But a recent paper just like that that actually did the passive heat training for the five times per week for five weeks.
So that other protocol, the first one, that wasn't really active and it actually showed similar gains in hemoglobin mass.
So that red blood cell carrying capacity, but some other cool changes in regards to like, the size or the stroke volume or your heart's ability to pump blood with each beat, which was cool.
And we haven't really liked that before.
So that was a lot.
But that's just kind of like a rough summary of heat versus altitude.
And some cool things that that study showed about heat that we don't see with altitude is there was an elite runners.
So we definitely know that the elite runners responded to that most a small sample size.
So we definitely have to take that as a limitation.
But number two because it was passive heat training and they did it after their training each day.
It didn't actually really take away from the training.
So they did a lot of like perceptual questionnaires.
What they found is the athletes didn't report extra fatigue or tiredness or anything that they felt was really hurting them.
The main quality of the training which we know at Altitude doing high quality training at Altitude is hard.
So that was one of the cool things.
And another thing is heat's probably just a little easier to manipulate than Altitude, because you don't have to do it all the time.
Like if you live at Altitude, you live at Altitude.
And we also know that heat may be easier to maintain some adaptations.
So after you do these longer heat blocks for the five weeks of five sessions per week, then you can dial it back a little bit and put it more in maintenance, which may be three times per week or something where we may be able to maintain the heat adaptation.
But there's just...
A bit to go, but it's definitely super cool where it might be a little bit easier to manipulate and more accessible for individuals.
Yeah, runners have been saying for decades that heat and humidity is the poor man's altitude.
And I've fielded some interesting questions from athletes recently asking if they should come out to Colorado for a certain period of time to help get some benefits of altitude.
And I always tend to say that it's...
It's not this panacea that's going to make you into a better runner because, like you said, it's hard to train hard up at altitude.
And I think this hints at a really important truth about training that isn't really about hot tubs and their benefits of heat training here, but performance matters.
So if you're doing all your training at 10000 feet altitude and your zones are all in line and your heart rate is exactly where you want it to be, but you're running significantly slower, then you're not actually training as well as you could for whatever event that you're training at.
You actually have to do some of that specific work at the right speeds to get the adaptations that you're looking for.
And that's why yeah, that methodology of lift high, train low became popular, where athletes would live at altitude and then they would like drive down to not altitude, to perform like the race.
Specific sessions.
Yeah, and that's probably the gold standard of using altitude, so that you're actually able to perform at the level that you would at sea level.
But other times of the day you're getting the benefits of altitude.
I know this main study that compared altitude to hot tub benefits.
I know this was specifically on hot tubs, but if someone has a sauna, would you say that the benefits would be similar, or is this very specific to hot tubs itself?
Great question.
First, I definitely have to shout out the author.
It was Elliot Jenkins and colleagues.
So definitely check out his work.
So he brings up an excellent point in the paper, and that's an excellent point.
The main adaptations that are probably going to drive this are definitely the heat.
So when your body's exposed to heat, it rises your core temperature and you have to keep your core temperature elevated for whatever that 45, 60 minutes, maybe a little longer, to get some of these heat adaptations.
And those are probably going to be the main driver.
And so you would get that from a sauna and the hot tub, right?
Because you're probably going to raise your core temperature.
But the authors do bring up a great point.
And when you do talk to people anecdotally comparing sauna to the hot tub, they often do say the hot baths are harder.
So there may be more of like a perceptual core temperature response which may drive further heat adaptations.
But when you're submerged in water?
They brought up this excellent point where we don't know if this is for sure, but you get this hydrostatic pressure response.
So there's pressure exerting on the body.
And one of the key adaptations that they found in the paper that we haven't looked at historically or there's not a ton of evidence for, is that increase in stroke volume or the heart size.
So essentially what they did and they actually scanned the heart to see this is that the heart stroke volume went up.
So the heart, the amount of blood it pumped with each beat increased by around 10 milliliters.
And that's important, because if your heart can pump out more blood with each beat, That means you're going to deliver more blood to the muscles, or the working muscles, with each beat.
So your heart rate could stay lower.
Your VO2 max potentially could go up.
Stroke volume and VO2 max are often correlated.
So that's important.
But the hydrostatic pressure, or the pressure that was acting on the body, may actually lead to some of those potential adaptations between with the increased stroke volume and plasma volume.
And you want to get that from the sauna because it's not that hydrostatic, that water pressure acting on the body in a sauna.
So that's the one potential difference.
And because they didn't compare to a sauna, we can't say for sure.
But the main thing is, the main adaptation is probably the heat and you potentially would get that from the sauna.
Yeah, and I would have to assume too that because water is a better conductor of heat, you might increase your core body temperature a little bit higher and also maybe get up to that temperature faster.
So 20 minutes in a hot tub is probably worth a little bit more than 20 minutes in a sauna.
It's a great point.
For most of the heat researchers I've talked to, they say something similar, where you just tend to get a more higher core temperature response from the hot bath and potentially that hydrostatic pressure as well.
So it may just be a better overall heat stimulus.
Now, Jonah, I don't own a hot tub, but could I do this in a regular bathtub with some hot water?
Do I have to invest $8,000 in a hot tub outside?
It's really just about the temperature.
So if you can get the bathtub hot enough, in this study, it was 40 degrees Celsius to start.
And they use, like you and I being strength guys, that term progressive overload.
So when you get stronger, you tend to lift more weight.
This really cool part of this study was Elliot decided to apply progressive overload to So once individuals' perception felt like they adapted to the heat, or they did it for a week or two, they actually made the water even hotter from 40 degrees Celsius, went on hotter and hotter to keep progressively overloaded and increase the heat stimulus.
So you could deal with a hot bath, just keep getting hotter.
Diabolical.
I love that the study authors did that.
You know, applying progressive overload even to the heat of the water.
Yeah, a progressive overload hot tub.
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Jonah, let's switch gears and talk a little bit about running form.
You posted something recently that was a little bit controversial.
You said, here's what I did to improve my form while running 100 mile weeks.
I did nothing at all.
I just ran 100 mile weeks.
Tell me a little bit about the thinking behind that, because I know it seems a little glib, but there's some real data behind what you're saying.
Yeah, that probably was a little bit clickbait.
So sorry for that.
I try not to be too clickbait.
But yeah, I think there's a few nuances here to address.
When you look at distance running separate from sprinting, because I think sprinting is a little different here.
We have some pretty good literature.
When you look at the motor control research you talk to some of the experts that When a beginner just starts running more and they progress that in a safe way, so they're slowly progressing in the training load and the intensity over time they tend to in the research just naturally find a form that is probably very close to the most efficient form for them just by running more over a few years.
And that's because often your body, just in distance running and in the motor control research, by being exposed to running, it will just self-optimize to the most efficient form for you.
And by that, we mean running economy.
So you'll just be as efficient as you possibly can when running.
And it makes sense.
If you go out for run after run, your body is probably going to try to become as efficient as possible as that.
So it wastes the least amount of energy.
And we have good research that essentially just shows that when, over time, you just allow an individual to run more and more, they tend to self-optimize and find the best running pattern for them that actually, when they measure it in a lab, makes them the most efficient as they possibly can.
So it minimizes running economy the most, which is interesting.
And often people don't like that because they want to say there's like a perfect way to run.
But even if you look at some of the recent reviews some experts in this area like Bas Verhoeven and Izzy Moore, like even elite runners, are We don't really see a huge difference in efficiency if someone is a forefoot striker, a rearfoot striker, a midfoot striker.
They just tend to run differently, but they can all be very efficient.
Yeah, my perspective on this is that, you know, the best way to give yourself the best possible form is to make sure that your training is just structured really well.
Because if you're running a decent amount of mileage and progressively overloading gradually over time, You're running some kind of sprints.
You're doing some kind of hill work.
Maybe you're doing drills.
You're lifting weights.
All of these things actually improve your running economy.
And so you're going to get good, efficient running economy just by the training that you're doing.
And so over time, you know, I'm a big fan of just focusing on solid sound training instead.
But I can't really count the number of times someone's messaged me asking for some kind of form analysis.
And I always come down to.
I'm not going to do this because I feel like I would have the same three pieces of advice posture, cadence and where your foot is landing in relation to the rest of your body.
Are you wildly overstriding?
Is your cadence wildly too low?
Is your posture just giving off a ton of red flags?
Those are things that I think we can address.
But You know it really makes me nervous when there's a lot of, you know, so-called form experts out there trying to very fine tune very specific movements.
That I think is just getting way too far into the weeds.
I agree.
And I think those are a few key points to big up when you look at the research here.
Number one is that when you do expose people to variability like you alluded to running at different speeds, strength training, different movement patterns related to running that variability can help your body just find the best form for you.
So that's super important.
And the other thing that's very important to think about is, over time, as you run more and more in your specific way that you are naturally running and there's no pain associated with that, And then a lot of time, your tissues, like in the lower body, your leg muscles, the tendons, the bones, have become adapted to deal with the stress and the way you run.
So different running will load tissues in different ways.
So you've been running runway for a very long time.
Your tissues, your muscles, tendons, and bones are very used to being loaded in that way.
And they like it.
But if all of a sudden you go and change your form, then these tissues are being loaded in a way they're not used to.
And then they get exposed to this mechanical loading.
In a way, they're not used to, and that's probably one of the factors that can increase injury risk.
So actually we see that changing form suddenly, when your body doesn't want to naturally, can actually be an increased risk factor for injury.
Studies have also shown too, that experienced runners who change their form, naturally trying to get better running economy, actually result in lower running economy, precisely because of that reason.
You're changing something that really isn't broken in the first place and moving away from what your body just prefers.
Exactly.
That happens with any of the skill acquisition research.
When you're learning a new movement pattern and you're changing your form, Your body is trying to kind of figure it out.
So it starts creating all these muscle contractions that aren't efficient.
And you're actually contracting muscles too much or, in a way co-contractions, in a way that's not efficient, which will actually make you.
It will hurt your running economy, exactly like you said.
Let's open up another can of worms and talk about Zone 2.
So you also have a perspective that new runners should really not worry at all about Zone 2, because it's certainly taken on a life of its own, especially with all the longevity content out there.
Talking about the importance of Zone 2 and doing several Zone 2 efforts per week.
But for distance runners Zone 2 is not as kind of specific to our goals.
As someone who might just be interested in longevity,
So, from the new runner perspective, from the beginner perspective, why is it not always a good idea to, like religiously, try to stay in zone two?
Yeah, I think it's a great point.
I think a lot of the longevity research has proposed this idea that easy running or zone two endurance leads to like specific adaptations that you don't get from high intensity training.
And you need to run very easy to get specific mitochondria adaptations, cardiac adaptations.
But I think if you actually look at the literature, that probably isn't exactly true.
We're actually for a lot of these.
Higher intensity training can create a more potent stimulus for mitochondria cardiac adaptations.
I think when we look at the literature now, the most reported variable for becoming a successful runner or improving your running performance or a lot of these adaptations that need to improve running performance, is just consistent running over time.
And it doesn't have to be zone two.
It doesn't have to be high intensity every day.
But the main thing that leads to success in running is consistent running over time and and being able to probably accumulate a good amount of running volume.
So the real magic of Zone 2 versus higher intensity, or just easy running versus higher intensity, is when you run easy you and I can both tell anyone this you feel a lot better the next day than if I go out and run as hard as I possibly can until I can't run anymore.
So it causes a lot less fatigue.
It causes a lot less muscle damage.
So the real main magic of it is it'll let you bounce back so you can be consistent over time.
So capping your heart rate at a certain amount to say, I need to stay below this heart rate to get these specific adaptations.
You probably don't need to worry too much about that.
What you need to worry about is, On days you want to run easy, keeping the easy run easy enough so you feel okay the next day.
So if it's a little faster and you still know you're going to feel okay the next day, so you can bounce back and run again that week, that's all that really matters.
You don't have to keep your heart rate below a certain intensity.
And in fact doing some higher intensity training in your week, It's probably going to create some pretty strong adaptations to make you a better runner.
And also like marathons, 10Ks, 5Ks, they all take place above your easy zone too.
And we know in training specificity is very important.
So actually, if you want to become better at those paces, you need to run at those paces is going to be the best way to get better at them.
And that's going to be higher intensity running running as well.
So long story short is, you don't need to worry about staying in zone 2 when you first start running.
You'll get a lot of those good adaptations from the higher intensity training as well.
You'll probably get a better adaptation, but you just want to make sure at times you're going easy enough so you feel good enough to maintain consistent running throughout the week.
Yeah, you know, Jonah.
It's really interesting because it very much tracks with my college track and cross country experience where I don't think we talked about a single zone for my entire four years at Connecticut College.
However, we also didn't really limit our easy running to a certain heart rate or a certain pace.
We used the rule that you just described Run as fast as you can while still being able to do the workout tomorrow.
So you need to still work as hard as you possibly can, but keep it easy enough where you can still do the workout tomorrow.
You still have a double session tomorrow.
We've got a race coming up on Saturday.
Let's not overdo it.
But that also doesn't mean for a college athlete let's not go run this 10 miles at 12 minute mile pace, because that's just too slow.
Yeah, it might not be doing anything for you if you've been training for a while.
And I thought you brought up a good point.
The way I like to monitor my easy running is go off fields.
Like I want it to be a four or five out of 10 rather than looking at my heart rate.
And some days my easy run pace changes.
If it's a day after a super hard session and I'm a little beat up, it might be a little slower that day.
But I've had a few easier days than the easy around that day might be a little faster.
And that's okay.
Because, from a perception standpoint, they all feel easy enough where I know I'll recover by the next day.
And there's no such thing as magic zones like or in such a zone to backer.
Right now, like a lot of the zones overlap and create similar adaptations where they are matter, based on the context.
If there's anything I could wave a magic wand and just disappear from the running community, it might be zone training.
Exactly.
I agree.
The other thing that you hinted at about zone two is that it's easy enough where it allows you to be consistent.
And my perspective on this is that a lot of people don't really fully take into account is that the magic of Zone 2, if there is any magic, is the fact that it allows you to do a lot of it.
So if you're someone who is adamant about staying in Zone 2, but then again you're only running say, 15 miles a week, I would say well, we're really not getting too many of the adaptations that we want as endurance athletes.
So we either need to increase the volume of that zone two running or increase other zones into the training system so that we're getting those adaptations that we want.
So if you are someone who's really adamant about zone two, just understand that you need a lot of it to get those good adaptations.
I think it's a great point.
I think the thing that I come down to often is the thing that really probably creates adaptation is overall training load.
And you could get training load from a lot of volumes, so a lot of easy work or intensity.
And those two things kind of combine together to create this training load.
And if you're someone who only has a few hours in a week, you probably are going to have to pull that intensity dial a little more, because you just don't have time to do a lot of volume.
And so you're going to do more intensity and you're going to have more time to recover because you're not running as often.
But if you have tons and tons of hours in a week, you're probably going to focus more on volume just because you have the time to do a lot of volume.
And if you did all of that in intensity you're going to create so much fatigue.
You can't be consistent.
Yeah, 100%.
Okay, I promise this is the last question on zones.
And then we will forever move on from zone questions.
Should we trust the heart rate zones that are given to us by our watch?
Because I know that my my chorus gives me all kinds of all kinds of zones.
And I don't personally pay attention to them.
I don't think they're accurate.
But overall, what is your perspective on the watches zones that they give us?
I mean, to be honest, I don't do a ton of heart rate based training anymore.
Just I'll say that.
But in regards to the heart, the Zodiac watch gives you.
So the way most of these watches, or some of these devices, calculate your heart rate, to start, is they use some of these generalized equations that use a one size principle for all, which probably is inaccurate.
So it may get your maximum heart rate from like a test you've done, or predict your maximum heart rate based on your age, based on some of these equations.
And then it sets your different training zones based on a percentage of that maximum heart rate.
Typically, it's probably the most common way they do it.
And so I would say whatever, like your second threshold is 80, 85% of maximum heart rate.
Your first is like 60 to 70%.
And that's how we give you training zones based on the prediction percentage of max heart rate.
But the issue we have is we know that there's a lot of variability there.
One runner's threshold, the second threshold may be at a different percentage of their maximum heart rate, based on training age, genetic factors, where another runner's zone may occur at a different percentage of the maximum heart rate.
So they're predicting it based on percentage of maximum heart rate.
And there's just a lot of variability where a lot of runner's zones occur at different percentage of maximum heart rates.
So it's essentially just guessing and applying like a generalized rule where there's just so much individualized variability that it's probably not going to be a great way to go about it.
Great.
Let's just leave that one there.
I don't even want to go too far into the weeds on the algorithms that your watch gives you, because it's not always not usually the best kind of information for you.
Let's talk about something that I grew up thinking a lot about that...
Runners today don't really think about too much.
It's not really present in the conversation nearly as much as it was 25 years ago when I was first starting to run.
And this is the idea of pronation and under pronation and over pronation.
And there was this definite idea that over pronation leads to injuries, right?
What is your thoughts on that statement?
Yeah, I'm not a physical therapist per se, so I'm not going to comment on a lot of injury rehab stuff.
But I will say, if I'm talking to some of those researchers and the literature nowadays is we've definitely moved away from thinking overpronation is a main cause of injury.
Where a lot of the research where they look at people who overpronate versus whatever normal pronation or whatever you want to call it, that there's no increased risk factor for injury?
And it essentially comes back to what we talked about earlier with running form where, based on your biomechanical structure, you might run a certain way.
And for you, that way may be pronating more.
And over time, as you've just run more, those tissues that are getting stressed from overpronation will just essentially get used to running that way.
And they'll build up tolerance.
So they're able to handle the demand of running with more pronation or less pronation.
And it's not a risk factor.
Where the main thing that potentially could be a risk factor is if you actually try to change the way you pronate or run and then you start loading tissues in a way they're not used to.
And all of a sudden, that tissue capacity, where a tissue's capacity exceeds the load, exceeds that core tissue capacity.
That's when there's a risk for injury.
So, all of a sudden, the tissues will be exposed to all these forces in a way that they haven't been exposed to historically.
There'll be a huge spike in load because you try to change the way you pronate, which could potentially be a risk factor.
So, as long as you've built up gradually the way you run, if you over pronate or pronate a little less, it doesn't really seem to be a risk factor.
Not to mention the fact that I'm not really sure how you define normal pronation or over pronation.
Like, where's the line?
How do we differentiate between the two?
Yeah, exactly.
So I think that's why you've seen a lot of people move away from like the pronation related shoes as well.
Yeah well, that's another interesting side of things where, if you go back 25 years ago and you see all the different types of shoes, they were almost neatly divided between neutral, stability and motion control shoes.
And there's some interesting studies done.
I remember Peter Larson, in his book Tread Lightly talked about how the only specific model of shoe that was shown to legitimately cause injury worthy motion control shoes.
Yeah, so you know, if you, you know, quote unquote over pronate and think that you need one of these very bulky shoes that tries to correct your pronation, which is a very normal shock absorbing feature of your body, by the way um it's, it's probably going to lead you to get injured because it's it's preventing you from moving the way that your body wants you to move, exactly.
All right, let's talk a little bit about electrolytes and sodium.
I am fascinated by this because there's just so many ideas about what electrolytes do that aren't really connected from what they actually do for people.
So let's first talk about electrolytes and cramps.
I think it's pretty much a given among runners that if they cramp in a marathon, they're going to blame low electrolytes or low sodium.
But that's typically not the case.
Why are runners cramping in races?
And is it the electrolytes?
Yeah, that's a good question.
This is based on... Alan McCubbin just wrote a great review on this.
He's a great researcher.
He's done a lot of electrolytes and hydration in general.
But There was a study a long time ago that essentially showed that there might be some relationship between heat, electrolyte loss and cramping.
But since then, it's been disproven.
And essentially, now that we know that, what causes cramps and races or things in general, it's a lot of factors.
So like anything, it's multifactorial and a lot of things matter.
But the main thing is probably related to neuromuscular fatigue. or just overall fatigue.
So essentially, as your muscle and your body gets more fatigued over time, there potentially is going to be this misfiring is the wrong word but as the muscle fatigues, it's just going to be more prone to cramp.
So the reason that a lot of cramping happens, like at mile 20, mile 21, mile 22, that's when you're the most fatigued, you're experiencing all this neuromuscular damage, muscular damage and neuromuscular fatigue.
And when your body's fatigued, you might get that mismatch between the brain signal what's happening at the muscular lever.
And there's a lot of things that contribute.
So pretty much anything that contributes to fatigue potentially could contribute to cramps, whether that's extra heat, stress you're not used to muscle damage, lack of carbohydrate intake, lack of fueling.
So maybe even hydration can play a role there as well.
But the main thing is going to be probably muscle damage and muscle fatigue.
When I'm working with one of my clients on this problem, I usually describe it as especially when it comes to the marathon, you either aren't prepared for the distance,
So maybe you did a training plan where your long run only got up to 16 miles and then, at mile 19 or 20, you're cramping.
You know, I'm going to go on a limb and just say, well, you're not prepared for the distance itself.
Now, the other big reason is you weren't prepared for the pace.
So maybe you are prepared for the marathon distance and you're very well trained, but maybe you went out too fast and you're writing checks that your body can't cash.
And then at mile 21 or 22, you start cramping.
It's more because, well, you were running your 21 mile race pace and not your marathon race pace.
Yeah.
The question for you is about that. different types of cramps, right?
So when a runner cramps at mile 22 of a marathon, that's different than the runner cramping maybe in the final 100 meters of a mile when they're trying to run max intensity.
Are there different reasons why those two cramps occur?
Because I think there's a different physiological kind of state that those runners are living in at those times where the fatigue isn't nearly as high in a middle distance race.
So I'm curious if there's any data behind that.
This actually isn't my area of expertise, so I wouldn't know.
But obviously, fatigue is also something that's pretty complex.
So there's different types of fatigue.
You could get fatigue at the nervous system level, so central fatigue.
You could get fatigue at the actual muscular level, whether that's actually glycogen depletion, so you're running low on glycogen at the muscular level, it could cause fatigue.
We get things related to the actual signal from the brain to the muscle, that electrical signal between the brain and muscle at the Muscle level.
I mean you get all these things happening within the muscle that cause fatigue as well.
So there could be potential just differences between the overall fatigue cost.
Typically when we're running at higher intensities.
We do say that the fatigue is mostly more localized in the muscle from like that hydrogen ion accumulation, different metabolic accumulation that causes some of that burning sensation.
And then lower intensity running.
We could say maybe more central or the brain related, or a combination of the two.
So it could just be related to the different elements that cause fatigue, but definitely not my area of expertise.
And for the cramping situation is different.
I definitely would probably, based on my understanding, come back that it's just some element of muscle damage and fatigue and your body not being prepared for the advances, as you said.
Such an interesting difference between the two.
I need to look into that a little bit more because I'd love to figure that out.
Let's talk about something that you recently mentioned in a post that you made that I've legitimately never heard of, which is sodium loading in the week before a race.
I didn't know that runners did this.
I just think some people, the few days before they race, they start taking a ton of electrolytes.
It doesn't really matter because your body just like pees or sweats it out.
Yeah, so apparently this is not a good thing, right?
Yeah, I mean, I think if you look and I don't want to hurt any of our sponsors here, but like a lot of the literature that comes out recently, where it's just like daily electrolyte supplementation may not actually have as big of a role as we thought, where we get a lot of sodium from just our daily Western diet and mostly to the role that we need.
But obviously there's a lot of use cases for electrolytes as well where they could potentially be helpful.
But essentially, like runners, were historically load up a day or two before the race on extra electrolytes, thinking that similar to like carbohydrates, where people are carb load before a race right.
Because you will store more of those carbohydrates, typically as muscle glycogen, and you have more of a muscle glycogen fuel.
Take on race day, which is important.
And so the thinking was well, can I store electrolytes so that I have more electrolytes on race day, especially if it's going to be a hot race?
And what we see is now that electrolytes, especially from like a kidney level, will filter through the body pretty quickly.
So typically, you don't need to take extra electrolytes unless you're within four hours of the race.
So instead of taking them for a few days before the race, because you'll just pee out the extra electrolytes or sweat more electrolytes, you typically, if you do want to have extra electrolytes before your race, I would just do it four hours before the race.
I think about electrolytes very much like I think about carbohydrates, and that they serve a specific purpose.
Carbs are fuel for exercise.
If you are completely sedentary and eating 600 grams of carbohydrate per day, there's a good chance that you're going to be overweight because you're not really fueling any activity.
Same thing with electrolytes.
They are there to replace what you lose in sweat and urination and everything else.
But if you're not sweating so much or you're not exercising a lot, there's no reason to go overboard with electrolytes.
But it's also really good to know that, Unlike carbohydrates, which you can load up on in the couple days before a major endurance event like a marathon, you can't do that with electrolytes.
So they need to be done very recent, very close to the event, during the event, right after the event.
But you don't necessarily have to sip on electrolytes the entire day, it seems like.
Exactly.
Well Jonah, I really enjoyed this sort of like kind of going through the nuance of some of these topics.
And I feel like it's too easy just to say, zone two is good.
Electrolytes are good.
You know, things are a little bit more complicated than that.
And I really appreciate the complexity of these topics that you shine a light on, which is part of your expertise and what you do for the running community.
So thank you for that.
Where can runners get a little bit more of this type of content from you?
Because I love it.
I first of all, I appreciate all the kind words.
Yeah, I would say, like you mentioned, a good place to follow me is on my Instagram, which is Rosner performance.
So I can provide you the link here.
But also, I would say, the main way where I share more of my free resources, more depth guides, is actually through my newsletter.
Don't forget more into the details like we do here.
And that's a marathon science.
And I'll send you that link as well.
And everyone who enjoys I send you a lot of like free resources on carb loading, training, etc.
So Definitely make sure you get that link, so everyone who joins gets all those free resources as well.
Well, thanks, Jonah.
There'll be links to that in the show notes of this episode as well.
Thanks so much for taking some time.
Yeah, appreciate you having me.
What an episode.
Thank you so much for listening and being part of our community here.
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