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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

Habits To Heal The Body: Truth About Exercise, Burnout, Muscle & Preventing Injuries -Stephen Seiler

Whether your fitness goal is completing an Ironman race, jogging a 5K, or simply tackling the stairs without getting out of breath, today’s guest has some surprising news on how you can get there quicker, by putting in less – yes, less…

Dr. Rangan ChatterjeehostStephen Seilerguest
Jan 31, 20242h 12mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 2:46

    What everyday people can learn from elite athletes: sustainability and the “long game”

    1. RC

      Stephen, you have spent a few decades now studying the world's best athletes. Is there anything that the man on the street can learn from them? And if so, what is it?

    2. SS

      Oh, that's a great question. And the short answer is absolutely there's something we can learn from them. And then the question is, well, why? They train so much more. But because they train so much more, because they have such clear performance goals, they have learned the art of the long game. They've learned because they're in it over years. You know, the career of an endurance athlete is years of development. So they have to figure out, all right, how do I sus- create a sustainable program-

    3. RC

      Mm

    4. SS

      ... that helps me to reach the highest levels of adaptation, the highest levels of performance, and stay healthy? Well, that's kind of what we all are trying to do-

    5. RC

      Mm

    6. SS

      ... is how do we develop a sustainable activity proc- lifestyle where exercise is part of it, eating is part of it, sleep is part of it, our work is part of it, but it's sustainable. The stress levels are manageable. And so we've learned from them, and you can also use the, the ana- uh, analogy of the Formula One, uh, racing circuit.

    7. RC

      Mm.

    8. SS

      These big automo- automobile companies, they spend millions having a Formula One team, and they don't do it out of altruism or wanting to provide the viewers of TV with some extra fun. They do it because it is an innovation arena for them. And five years after they've developed anti-lock brakes or the buttons on the-

    9. RC

      Mm

    10. SS

      ... the, the steering wheel, where do they end up? In the family car.

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. SS

      Because it scales down. But no Formula One race car has ever been built by taking the family car and saying, "Well, let's scale it up." Does that make sense?

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. SS

      So, [laughs] so the s- the elite performances scale down because they've had to learn how the body works when it's under high demands, and then we can move down. Now, we're not gonna train as much, but we can learn from how they're managing stress, how they're using intensity and duration and frequency, 'cause those are the levers we have in training.

    15. RC

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    16. SS

      How often I train, how long I go, and how hard I go.

    17. RC

      Yeah.

    18. SS

      So we have these levers that we can adjust and, and kind of play with to, to find a sustainable combination.

    19. RC

      Yeah.

    20. SS

      Well, that's what they do.

  2. 2:46 – 7:30

    Endurance beyond sport: routines, training frequency, and the burnout parallel

    1. RC

      Yeah. I mean, one of the things you have learnt from them is that 80% of their training is at low intensities.

    2. SS

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      I really want you to speak to that. Before you do, though, I think there's a, a wider point here about endurance I was thinking about this morning-

    4. SS

      Mm

    5. RC

      ... before you arrived in the studio. I was thinking, well, life is a game of endurance, right?

    6. SS

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RC

      These guys are endurance athletes, right? They're training for a marathon or-

    8. SS

      Mm

    9. RC

      ... you know, the Tour de France, whatever it might be.

    10. SS

      Yeah.

    11. RC

      But we want to endure in our own lives. Anything good comes from endurance. Our relationships come from the long game.

    12. SS

      Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

    13. RC

      Our work performance comes from the long game, right? So being able to learn these principles of sustainability and endurance actually seem very relevant to all of us.

    14. SS

      Oh, yeah. That's a great point. And, and you-- w- we've talked a little bit about some of our heroes, like Kipchoga and Kilian Jornet and, and so forth, and that, what they share is they share that they have routines. They develop sustainable routines that allow them to be both father, mother, athlete, and so forth. So that's one aspect.

    15. RC

      Mm.

    16. SS

      And they, they have to... You know, they're not different from the rest of us in that regard. These super athletes, they also have to think. So yes, they... it's all about long game. Uh, I often, if I'm giving a lecture, I'll say, "All right, how many times are you gonna train this year?" And that number is going to be, if, if they're regular recreational athletes, it can range from 150 for the three-day-a-week athlete to 600 for a high, high, high-performance triathlete.

    17. RC

      This is hours a year.

    18. SS

      No, 600 training sessions.

    19. RC

      Okay.

    20. SS

      600 times, 500 times they will walk out the door with kit on and-

    21. RC

      Mm-hmm

    22. SS

      ... execute a training session. So that in itself is an endurance process. It's, you have to have a sustainable routine, right? Just getting out the door 400 times, you know, in the year, more than once a day on average for most-

    23. RC

      Yeah

    24. SS

      ... high-performance athletes, that in itself is, [laughs] it's long game.

    25. RC

      Yeah.

    26. SS

      You know, it has to be sustainable.

    27. RC

      What's so fascinating about that, Stephen, is if we think about that outside the athletic arena, if we think about the workforce across the world, we know that rates of burnout are on the rise.

    28. SS

      Yeah.

    29. RC

      There was a report published recently that 88% of the UK workforce has experienced some degree of burnout over the past two years.

    30. SS

      Mm.

  3. 7:30 – 9:29

    The 80/20 observation and why it appears across sports

    1. RC

      Well, let's talk about this 80:20 rule that you discovered when observing these elite athletes.

    2. SS

      Right.

    3. RC

      And I also very much appreciate that you say that you didn't create this.

    4. SS

      No, no.

    5. RC

      Right? You coined the term maybe-

    6. SS

      Yeah

    7. RC

      ... but you didn't create this. You simply observed what the very best were doing.

    8. SS

      That's right. That's exactly right. I, I use the term polarize. I probably read some book on astronomy at the time or something and, and was influenced by it [laughs] you know. But they were-- It was the athletes and the coaches because they're experimental, you know. When you have a very clear outcome that you have to achieve, run faster in the, for 10,000 meters, that gives you a quite clear, uh, outcome, and you say, "All right, if I train more high intensity, does that help? If I train longer duration, does that tend to help?" So this, the 80:20 has evolved in the crucible of having very clear performance outcomes that you have to achieve.

    9. RC

      Mm.

    10. SS

      Right? You have to run faster than 27 minutes to be world-class in the 10,000 meters now, for example, you know, or you, or you're just probably just not gonna win an Olympic gold. So, so they have these clear outcomes, and it's a kind of a Darwinian process. They can try more intervals. They can try more volume. They can try training three times a day, and then they're slowly, their coaches and, you know, through experience, they're going to settle in on, uh, a methodology. And what we saw was is that, hmm, interesting. The rowers and the runners and the cyclists who really don't talk to each other, they've all landed on, uh, basically the same, same, uh, distribution. And in my mind, that suggested, okay, there must be some universality here.

    11. RC

      Mm.

    12. SS

      Some universal truth, a self-organizing process. And, and that's-

    13. RC

      Yeah

    14. SS

      ... what got me really, uh, excited about it.

  4. 9:29 – 12:01

    Why too much hard training backfires: “making the cake vs eating the cake”

    1. RC

      So let's talk about that 80% low intensity, right?

    2. SS

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      Because I believe that if you're not familiar with this research, if you haven't been following your work or-

    4. SS

      Mm

    5. RC

      ... Inigo San-Millán's work or, you know, other researchers in this field, you may assume that if you want to be really fast at running, let's say, that you need to practice being fast at running.

    6. SS

      Running really fast. [laughs]

    7. RC

      Yeah. So every time-

    8. SS

      Yeah, yeah

    9. RC

      ... you go out, you need to be running fast because that's how you get faster.

    10. SS

      Right.

    11. RC

      But I think what your research is showing is that that's absolutely not necessarily the case.

    12. SS

      No. You know, in Norwegian, they have this expression that you're, you're either making the cake or you're eating the cake, which sounds kinda strange, but i- in this context. But the point of it is, is making the cake is doing the work that s- that stimulates adaptations, and it's a long process. Eating the cake, you can't eat more cake than you have, and they, they, they balance this and say these high-intensity sessions, these hard workouts are costly. Yes, they, they're in-- they're important, but you can't do too many of them, and they have to be balanced against your base, your, your basic capacity. So they have figured out that, for example, um, in Norway, they're very good in cross-country skiing, right?

    13. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    14. SS

      And they will say that we need to train about 100 times a year hard, including races. That's their rule of thumb. Now you say, "Well, 100 times a year, that's a lot." Yeah, but they train 500 times a year.

    15. RC

      Wow.

    16. SS

      So, but they have a rule of thumb that if we're gonna need to keep our athletes healthy enough, and they're getting out the door often enough, that they're gonna end up accumulating 100 hard sessions with a background of 400 more that are low intensity. So that's just their rule of thumb, and it says something about the key is gonna be what? Stay healthy. Don't get hurt. Because if you don't stay healthy, you're not gonna be able to achieve that frequency of training, right? So that's the s- starting point is, is, hey, we gotta be able to get out there every day. We n- And the only way to get out there every day is it, it's gotta be sustainable.

    17. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    18. SS

      And if we do too much hard, high intensity, the recovery times get longer, the risk of injury gets higher, and on average, it doesn't pay off.

  5. 12:01 – 15:04

    HIIT popularity, research bias, and why stressed people can break down

    1. RC

      We'll get into defining these intensity zones in just a moment. Before we do that- I wanna ask you about high-intensity or HIIT training, because over the past few years, HIIT training has become all the rage. And so what I have seen in clinical practice over the years is people who are super stressed at work-

    2. SS

      Mm

    3. RC

      ... have a lot of stress in their home life, a lot of responsibilities, children, parents, whatever it might be-

    4. SS

      Mm

    5. RC

      ... and they hear how good HIIT training is for mitochondrial function, for the aging process-

    6. SS

      Mm

    7. RC

      ... for metabolic health, whatever it might be. They go, "Right, I don't have much time, so when I have 20 minutes, I'm gonna go hard for those 20 minutes."

    8. SS

      Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

    9. RC

      Right? So they could easily... Let's say they, they train three times a week.

    10. SS

      Mm.

    11. RC

      I have seen people, I've seen patients over the years who will literally do all of their three sessions super, super hard-

    12. SS

      Mm

    13. RC

      ... and I see them getting sick, I see them breaking down, I see them getting injured, and I also see them struggling to lose weight because they don't realize the impact that chronic stress, chronic unmanaged stress, has on their ability to lose weight.

    14. SS

      Right.

    15. RC

      So I wonder if you have any comments on that-

    16. SS

      No

    17. RC

      ... and whether you think that's a problem.

    18. SS

      Oh, we could go all day on this, but... And I'm part of the problem in the sense that-

    19. RC

      [laughs]

    20. SS

      ... I am a sports scientist, and traditionally for all those decades that you say that I've worked, [laughs] you know, what do we do? We bring people into the laboratory-

    21. RC

      Mm-hmm

    22. SS

      ... and we train them. And interval training is more fun to do as a research project than saying, "Well, come on in and you're gonna train for two hours, low steady state- [laughs]

    23. RC

      [laughs]

    24. SS

      ... and we're gonna measure what's happening," you know? So there is a tendency for sports science to, we also wanna do things that are kind of more exciting.

    25. RC

      Yeah.

    26. SS

      And it's more exciting to watch somebody crumble during an interval session than it is to [laughs] watch them, you know, say, "Ah, this is cool," because most of what's going on for the athlete out in the forest is they're just kind of going, doing their thing-

    27. RC

      Yeah

    28. SS

      ... or the cyclist. So we have contributed to the problem-

    29. RC

      Mm

    30. SS

      ... in the sense that interval training is more popular to do s- research on, it's easier to get published-

  6. 15:04 – 19:28

    Defining the green zone: practical markers for low intensity

    1. RC

      So let's go back to this 80% then at low intensity. What does low intensity mean?

    2. SS

      Yeah, in layman's terms, if someone says, "Well, where do, where do I need to be in this so-called low intensity?" Which I often... I use colors, 'cause, you know, I'm just a simple guy, and green is, you know, green, yellow, red is what I've tended to, to say. All right. So green zone training, if they take off running, and af- it takes a few minutes to kind of come up to speed. Y- your body warms up literally. Uh, but, uh, s- from about 15 minutes into that run that's gonna last, say, an hour, the heart rate should stabilize. It shouldn't just keep drifting up, up, up. It should flatten out. And they should come into a routine where they're just like, they're able to think about other stuff.

    3. RC

      Mm.

    4. SS

      They're able to be distracted by the flowers and the trees and the bees around them. They're not having to concentrate to maintain-

    5. RC

      Mm

    6. SS

      ... that intensity. They should also find that they can talk with a friend. Now, they, you know, you don't need to run a long conversation all the time you're running. Uh, that would maybe be stressful, too, but you can. That's saying something about the ventilation going on, that you can share sentences with somebody running beside you and say, "Well, did you see the game last night?" Or, or, and so forth. So that's another working person's kind of measure. And when they're finished with that one hour of running, they kind of just, "Let's go eat. Is dinner ready?"

    7. RC

      So they're still hungry.

    8. SS

      They're ready to go straight to the dinner table, usually. And, and, and you say, "Well, what in the heck does that have to do with anything?" Well, it's an, an indirect indicator of whether or not they've turned on what we call that sympathetic stress response. Because in that classic fight or flight stress response, what happens when we have to run from the tiger, our body says, "Send mu- send blood to the muscles, take it away from the stomach." R- right?

    9. RC

      Mm.

    10. SS

      We've got to shift our reserves. So appetite and things like that are reduced for a period after a high-stress workout. You can't, you can't even look at food for the first hour-

    11. RC

      Mm

    12. SS

      ... after a really tough interval session, right? But if you've been doing that easy three-hour bike ride or easy run for an hour or 90 minutes, you can go straight to the dinner table because you haven't turned on that big stress response. That's a nice indicator. Uh, but it's one. It... So flat heart rate, can talk together, uh, and, and can go straight to the dinner table after.

    13. RC

      You mentioned flat heart rate. Not everyone, of course, measures their heart rate-

    14. SS

      Mm

    15. RC

      ... when they're training. So in terms of something that's really practical for people, you're saying a lot of this low-intensity work is, is being done so that whilst you're doing it, if you were with someone else, you could have a conversation with them.

    16. SS

      Yeah.

    17. RC

      Yeah? So I think some people call that the talk test maybe.

    18. SS

      The talk test. Now, the talk test is not perfect, but it's, uh, often n- no one Tool. No one measure is perfect, but when we put it together, there are some people that will manage to be able to talk when they're working too hard-

    19. RC

      Yeah

    20. SS

      ... 'cause they, they're just good at it, you know? [laughs]

    21. RC

      Yeah.

    22. SS

      And others don't wanna talk at all. So, but that is a nice test that we can add, and so you don't have to measure heart rate, but it can be nice to do sometimes. You don't have to measure lactate, uh, but it can be a, a, a wake-up call.

    23. RC

      Yeah.

    24. SS

      You can find out, "Huh, I'm training. I'm going harder than I thought I was," right? So all of these are tools in the toolbox that we can use.

    25. RC

      So people who are interested in health and wellbeing may have come across this concept of zone 2 training online-

    26. SS

      Yeah

    27. RC

      ... or in podcasts over the past few years.

    28. SS

      Yeah.

    29. RC

      Right? And there's many ways of defining [laughs] these zones, right?

    30. SS

      Right.

  7. 19:28 – 30:00

    The three-zone model: lactate, thresholds, and why zones feel different

    1. RC

      ... similarities. So can we start off with the three-zone model-

    2. SS

      Yeah

    3. RC

      ... which I think is the one that most of the research has been done on.

    4. SS

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      You have just outlined, I think, zone 1, which is that low-intensity zone. What's the difference between that then and zone 2, which in this model is medium intensity, and zone 3, which is high intensity? Could you maybe explain?

    6. SS

      Yeah. And, and this is unfortunate, you know, because, but we, we need a terminology. We've got to agree. We need a shared mental model-

    7. RC

      Yeah

    8. SS

      ... as we often talk about. If we're gonna say zone 2, then we need to know what's zone 1 and 3 and 4 and so forth. So, uh, yes, in the physiology world, when we publish, we typically use three zones because there are two demarcations, two physiological events that we're able to measure in the laboratory or even in the field now. What are we doing? We're slowly increasing the pace or the power-

    9. RC

      Mm-hmm

    10. SS

      ... on a bike or during running, where we have really good control of that. And then, say, every five minutes, we're taking a blood lactate measurement. We're, we're noting the heart rate. We're asking them what their perceived exertion is, the Borg scale. So we're doing what we call an incremental test, and then we're trying to find this point where flat, suddenly there's a break. There is a inflection in blood lactate, an inflection in breathing, in ventilation volume. The body is transitioning from one state to another.

    11. RC

      I, I've done these tests, uh, one whilst running a year ago, more recently on a bike at the local university, and it's really interesting. Yes, it's great to have all the measurements-

    12. SS

      Right

    13. RC

      ... and you have a technician, you know, doing your blood lactate every five minutes or whatever it might be. But it's that scale of, uh, RPE, rate of perceived exertion.

    14. SS

      Mm.

    15. RC

      You can tell when, you know, you're going up gradually in pace.

    16. SS

      Mm.

    17. RC

      And there's suddenly a pace where you know significantly that you're working harder-

    18. SS

      Right

    19. RC

      ... even though it might just be a smidging-

    20. SS

      Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah

    21. RC

      ... smidging faster. You kinda know.

    22. SS

      Yeah. And for those who are familiar with Borg scale, which was invented by a Swedish psychologist-

    23. RC

      Mm

    24. SS

      ... Gunnar Borg, it went from 6 to 20 in the original scale-

    25. RC

      Yeah

    26. SS

      ... which sounds kinda silly. Uh, but it was because 6 corresponded to a 60 heart rate, resting heart rate-

    27. RC

      Oh

    28. SS

      ... and 20 corresponded to 200, a, a, a max heart rate.

    29. RC

      I always wondered why it was that. I always thought it was peculiar.

    30. SS

      It was just kind of a scaling based on heart rate.

  8. 30:00 – 34:41

    Yellow and red zones in practice: time limits, focus shift, and interval structure

    1. SS

      It's, they should be able to stay there for many minutes, for one thing. So it should... And you say, "Well, that's not very useful, many minutes." [laughs] But we don't always agree on exactly how many, but it'll be something like you should at least be able to stay there for 40, 30, 40 minutes. And, and, and often a, a cyclist well-trained would be able to be in that zone for a couple of hours

    2. RC

      Okay. Th- so this is really interesting. So in terms of paces, uh, the green zone, the low intensity zone, the zone which you would say we should spend most of our time in-

    3. SS

      Mm

    4. RC

      ... it feels relatively easy. We can have a conversation, and we can probably go on there for hours-

    5. SS

      Yeah

    6. RC

      ... two, three, four hours if we had to.

    7. SS

      Yeah, I mean, for, for most of us running, you're not gonna wanna run three hours, you know? But that's not because so much the intensity, but you just, it's so much ballistic. It's, you know, just a lot of pounding on the body.

    8. RC

      Could, could, could that be like walking up a gentle incline?

    9. SS

      Yeah.

    10. RC

      And-

    11. SS

      Yeah

    12. RC

      ... but you could do it... Like, people might know if they hike, um, if they go out for the day with their friends or, you know-

    13. SS

      Yeah

    14. RC

      ... often a family will go after Sunday lunch for a walk out in nature, let's say.

    15. SS

      Absolutely.

    16. RC

      That's-

    17. SS

      And purposeful. You know, they're kinda... You know, they're not gonna just every five minutes stop, you know? But they would be holding a, a kind of a steady, good walking pace.

    18. RC

      And they're, and they're chatting and talking about their weekend-

    19. SS

      Yeah, yeah

    20. RC

      ... or that, that's kind of that low intensity where you want them to be.

    21. SS

      Yeah.

    22. RC

      But then you, when you go up a notch, you can only really maintain that unless you're a trained elite cyclist. A- and I guess, you know, this is a rule of thumb rather than-

    23. SS

      Yeah

    24. RC

      ... an absolute, but you can only really maintain it for about 40 minutes, maybe an hour, something like that.

    25. SS

      Something like that, yeah.

    26. RC

      And then it's too much for you.

    27. SS

      Then you're starting-

    28. RC

      You would have to slow down

    29. SS

      ... yeah, your heart rate's, it's getting tougher and tougher because now it's not a steady state. We like to use that term. That green zone is what we call steady state. Things are pretty flat, but when you're in that yellow zone, it's slowly feeling harder and harder. The body's having to mobilize more and more because you're running out of glycogen, muscle fibers are getting fatigued, and so forth. So it's, it's, it's a non-sustainable intensity-

    30. RC

      Mm-hmm

  9. 34:41 – 38:05

    Stress, recovery, and why many people train too hard too often

    1. RC

      Now, why is it a problem if people are doing the majority of their workouts in the yellow or red, as I believe most people are?

    2. SS

      Yeah. Well, because these, these intensities activate that sympathetic stress response, and lots of research shows, uh, you know, it's a... That stress response activation can happen because of work demands. It can happen because of a, a terrible life experience. There's many things that activate the stress response-

    3. RC

      Mm

    4. SS

      ... so, you know, just so we're clear. But in training, we activate it, and what it tells us is the recovery time from that workout will be longer. And now, let's calibrate. As humans, we're on a kind of a 24-hour cycle, right? We eat, we sleep, we work, w- we repeat, and it's 24 hours. So if I'm gonna do hundreds of training sessions-

    5. RC

      Mm

    6. SS

      ... or 150, three times a week, then on average, I need to recover so that I can wake up every day kind of back at the start.

    7. RC

      Mm.

    8. SS

      Right? I need to be f- You know, the car needs to be recharged.

    9. RC

      Mm.

    10. SS

      If you can imagine that you couldn't charge your car overnight, it, it wasn't enough time, and every day you walk out to the car and it's, it was at 90, and now it's, you walk out and it's at 80, and now it's at 70%. Pretty s- Eventually, you get to the point where, darn it, I don't have enough battery power, right?

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. SS

      Well, it's the same thing with recovery. So on average, we need to be kind of fully recovering in 24 hours. Now, we can, we can have days where we push extra. We can have the day where we do the high in- high-intensity interval session. But if we do it every day- We're gonna go into a deficit

    13. RC

      Mm-hmm

    14. SS

      We're not gonna be able to recover. So we have to, that's where this 80:20 comes in, is that we, on average, are keeping our recovery clock sustainable.

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. SS

      Yes, sometimes we're taking a little extra out of the bank, but we're able to put it back over the coming days.

    17. RC

      Yeah, the stress load of training and exercise is something that I don't think gets enough attention. I really don't. We know that exercise is a great way of managing stress-

    18. SS

      Mm

    19. RC

      ... as well. It helps us-

    20. SS

      True

    21. RC

      ... become more resilient to stress, but at the same time, it kind of depends on, you know, how much are we doing, what's the intensity-

    22. SS

      Yeah

    23. RC

      ... how long is it going on, for all that kind of stuff.

    24. SS

      Mm.

    25. RC

      And from what you're saying, Stephen, if we think about these three zones, green, easy, yellow, medium, red, hard-

    26. SS

      Yep

    27. RC

      ... most of us are doing too much in yellow and red. We can almost make this a two-zone model as well, couldn't we, if we're looking at it just through the lens of stress?

    28. SS

      I've said exactly the same thing. So you and I should be on the same team here. We're, y-

    29. RC

      Yeah

    30. SS

      ... that's exactly right.

  10. 38:05 – 52:19

    Ego, pacing discipline, and adapting intensity to real life (parkrun example)

    1. RC

      And so I think almost this two-zone model is actually rather beautiful for people because it's like, okay, I'll give you an example. I'll give you a really practical example of this. In the UK, and I know in many countries around the world, there's something called parkrun. I talk about parkrun-

    2. SS

      Yeah, yep

    3. RC

      ... all the time on this show because, A, I love it, B, I think it's something that a lot of my audience do regularly, right?

    4. SS

      Mm.

    5. RC

      Which is a 5K every Saturday morning in community.

    6. SS

      Right.

    7. RC

      Some people try and race it. Some people walk it.

    8. SS

      Mm.

    9. RC

      But you have hundreds of people in villages and towns across the UK getting together in a local park-

    10. SS

      Mm

    11. RC

      ... completing 5K. The fastest will do it in, I don't know, 13, 14 minutes. There'll be a tail walker doing it in an hour.

    12. SS

      Yeah.

    13. RC

      It's, it's wonderful, right?

    14. SS

      Yeah.

    15. RC

      What I see happening, and I used to fall into this trap, was on a Saturday morning, you turn up at 9:00, and you're looking at the watch. You're trying to PB every week.

    16. SS

      Right.

    17. RC

      Right? You're trying to get the fastest time you can.

    18. SS

      Right.

    19. RC

      And I think many people do this, particularly many people in middle age who are working hard in the week-

    20. SS

      Yeah

    21. RC

      ... and it's their way of starting the weekend, and they're racing the clock every Saturday morning. Now, I'm in my mid-40s, Stephen, and I reflect on this and think, you can't say this as a, as a rule for everyone, but I think most people that I see or I have seen in practice would benefit from saying, "You know what? I'm gonna try and PB once a month."

    22. SS

      Yeah.

    23. RC

      Right?

    24. SS

      Yeah.

    25. RC

      On some Saturday mornings, because I've been traveling this week for work, I haven't slept so well, the kids have had lots of after-school engagements, whatever it might be, I'm pretty knackered, so I'm gonna go and do my parkrun because I love it. But instead of going for, I don't know, 25 minutes, today you know what? I'm gonna take it easy and do it in 30 minutes.

    26. SS

      Mm.

    27. RC

      I don't think people, particularly in the West, do that very well. I think ego-

    28. SS

      Mm

    29. RC

      ... gets in the way. I think we're conditioned to thinking that every time we need to PB and we need to push.

    30. SS

      Mm.

  11. 52:19 – 58:56

    Building fitness from scratch: frequency first, then duration, then intensity

    1. RC

      Perhaps this is a good time to talk about your model of frequency, duration-

    2. SS

      Yeah

    3. RC

      ... and intensity. And perhaps we should do it through the lens of someone who's relatively untrained and unfit-

    4. SS

      Mm

    5. RC

      ... who says, "Dr. Seiler, um, I've not taken my fitness seriously for years.

    6. SS

      Mm.

    7. RC

      I'm in my 40s.

    8. SS

      Mm.

    9. RC

      I keep hearing people say how important physical activity is.

    10. SS

      Mm.

    11. RC

      I think I need a goal. I've signed up for a 10K race-

    12. SS

      Mm

    13. RC

      ... in one year's time.

    14. SS

      Yeah.

    15. RC

      What would you advise I do?"

    16. SS

      All right. Well, the first thing, we'd have a conversation, and I'd say, "Okay, I want you... You and I are gonna negotiate a contract, and my contract negotiation with you is how many times per week are you with... Given your work situation, your family life, you're coaching kids, whatever it is, how many times per week are you going to commit to to get out the door? Off the sofa, put on the kit, get out the door. Let's, let's the first thing we're gonna talk about." And they're gonna say, "Ah, you know, I've got this, but I will commit to three days a week." "All right. Fantastic. Let's get started." And so then I'm gonna say, "Now, for the next six weeks, the only thing I care about as your coach is that you maintain your contract with yourself and with me that you're gonna get out the door three times a week. I'm not even worried about what you do. You know, jog 20 minutes. Do whatever you can, but the main success criteria is you have a- been able to mobilize, find time, make the... You know, the kids are taken care of. They're fed. You have time to get out the door."

    17. RC

      So this is frequency.

    18. SS

      That's frequency.

    19. RC

      So this is for you the most important thing.

    20. SS

      It's the starting point.

    21. RC

      It's the starting point. You start with frequency first.

    22. SS

      Absolutely, because now what are we doing? We're building a ritual, a routine, a habit, call it what you will.

    23. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    24. SS

      But it is what we see from Kipchoge. It is what you see from Kilian Jornet. They're getting out the door every day, and so we're gonna get out the door first.

    25. RC

      Mm.

    26. SS

      And we're gonna... And, and after a few weeks, I suspect it usually happens that if, if they manage to stay true to that contract, they're gonna say, "You know what? I'm doing it. I'm getting out the door-

    27. RC

      Yeah

    28. SS

      ... three times a week. It feels pretty good." All right. And, and how does it feel if you miss a session? "Ah, it doesn't feel so good," 'cause it, you know, it's gotten to be a habit. Good. All right. Check box one. Check. Okay? Now, they may say, "You know what? I think I wanna go four." But that's another question. But, but even with just three, I'm gonna say, "All right, let's move forward."

    29. RC

      Mm.

    30. SS

      "Let's go ahead and see if we can stretch one or two of those sessions a little longer."

  12. 58:56 – 1:15:03

    Durability inside easy training: heart rate drift, sleep effects, and signal-to-stress ratio

    1. RC

      Okay. So the difference between a half-hour brisk walk and a one-hour brisk walk is really interesting because we can think about frequency and duration. We can also think a little bit about intensity, I guess, because depending on your level of fitness, the first half-hour may not feel the same as the second half-hour.

    2. SS

      Oh, yeah. For sure.

    3. RC

      So although you're still in the green zone-

    4. SS

      Right

    5. RC

      ... like if you were to split it into two things, like a zone one and a zone two, for example-

    6. SS

      Yeah, yeah

    7. RC

      ... it's like you maybe, the first hour was in zone one.

    8. SS

      Yeah.

    9. RC

      The second one, I think, from what I can tell from your work, as a function of the fact that you're going longer, it means that actually now relatively the intensity is a bit more because you're having to sustain that workload for longer.

    10. SS

      Yeah. It's a great point. And, and, and if we summarize what you're getting at, is I would say that ultimately there is no such thing as a steady state. You know, steady state meaning-

    11. RC

      Mm

    12. SS

      ... just flat. So yes, even for Kipchoge, best marathoner in, in history, even for him, the third hour of running at, you know, a pretty high pace is more taxing, more challenging than that first hour was at the same pace, even for him. And even for him, if we took off at some world record pace or so- in the marathon, there would be a point where it felt easy here, but now it's unsustainable.

    13. RC

      So for that per-

    14. SS

      And, and all of it's at pretty close to his green zone. Pretty close. You know, so the point is, yes, you're exactly right, is, is that as we stretch these workouts within the green zone, we do tap into fatigue. They will, if they get... You know, a cyclist that does a four-hour ride, that, that fourth hour is w- very different than the first hour.

    15. RC

      Yeah. It's the term heart rate drift that you-

    16. SS

      Yeah

    17. RC

      ... that you talk about. 'Cause I see this, um... I don't really cycle much. I haven't really cycled much-

    18. SS

      Mm

    19. RC

      ... but I'm trying to get into it on my indoor bike Over the past, I don't know, six months or so, I've been-

    20. SS

      Mm

    21. RC

      ... I've been increasing it. And let's say you're at 150 watts, for example.

    22. SS

      Mm.

    23. RC

      So a power setting on your bike, and you're at some kind of relaxed cadence, let's say.

    24. SS

      Mm.

    25. RC

      Your heart rate can be at a certain level, and you think, "Yeah, I'm in the green zone."

    26. SS

      This is easy.

    27. RC

      Right? This is easy.

    28. SS

      Feeling good.

    29. RC

      No problem.

    30. SS

      Yeah.

  13. 1:15:03 – 1:25:27

    Stress bucket and flexible planning: why context matters more than perfect adherence

    1. RC

      I saw some of your, um, presentations on your YouTube channel, which is just fantastic and a, a wonderful resource for people if they want to learn more about all of this kind of stuff. You shared in one of your videos a paper that I think showed that when we are experiencing high levels of stress-

    2. SS

      Mm

    3. RC

      ... whether it's from training or from workload or kids or-

    4. SS

      Right

    5. RC

      ... to-do lists, whatever it might be, your response to training is impaired.

    6. SS

      That's right.

    7. RC

      Like, it can be delayed.

    8. SS

      That's right.

    9. RC

      Or maybe you don't get the full benefits?

    10. SS

      Yeah. So again, we go back to this, it's, you know, it's, again, I didn't invent it, but this idea of a stress bucket that, you know, evol- in an evolutionary sense, our bodies and our brains don't distinguish between the stress of an interval session and the stress of getting the kids to soccer practice and the stress of a stupid boss who's unreasonable in their demands, you know? But it all contributes to cortisol. It all contributes to stress responses, and it goes into that bucket. And so that's kind of what we're- where we're at. And when, when athletes, scholar, uh, scholastic athletes, for example, you know, let's imagine, uh, Oxford rowers or something. When they've got exams, then that coach needs to be aware that, okay, their tolerance for training is gonna go a bit down because they're, you know, they're taking exams. They're more stressed. So we're gonna factor that in to the training.

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. SS

      We're gonna give them some days off. We're gonna ease up because once we get past the exam period, they're gonna feel this, this resurgence in energy, and we- we'll be fine. So, so good coaches at, in school settings particularly understand this, but also in the clubs. It, it, it then would require that Ran- Rangan, you, you tell your coach, "Hey, you know what? Right now, [laughs] I am really under the gun. So I think I need to bring down the expectations on the training side." Okay. You know?

    13. RC

      This is great for any teachers who are listening, right? Just that little bit that you just mentioned there. If there's any, and I know there are, which is why I'm bringing this up-

    14. SS

      Yeah

    15. RC

      ... teachers and exercise teachers or, you know, PE, physical education teachers at school, that's really interesting. Let's say you're in a high school-

    16. SS

      Yeah

    17. RC

      ... and you train the football team or the tennis team or the whatever team it might be.

    18. SS

      Mm.

    19. RC

      If it's exam time, and your kids are therefore probably doing a bit of extra homework, maybe-

    20. SS

      Hopefully. [laughs]

    21. RC

      [laughs] Yeah. Feeling under more stress, maybe not sleeping as well, whatever it might be-

    22. SS

      Yeah

    23. RC

      ... a really great coach would be taking that into consideration and going, "You know what? We need to ease off-

    24. SS

      Yeah, yeah

    25. RC

      ... in training." Now when they come and do their tennis practice or their football practice or their cricket practice, whatever it might be-

    26. SS

      Yeah

    27. RC

      ... now we really want to be focusing, to use your model, on the green area because actually we want this not to add to the stress load.

    28. SS

      Right.

    29. RC

      We want it to help them dissipate the stress that they've got in their life, right?

    30. SS

      And that's a coach that's thinking long game. You know, they're, they're, they're thinking, "I want these kids to be really good in June or in March."

  14. 1:25:27 – 1:50:27

    Wearables and HRV: useful insight vs metric obsession

    1. RC

      I once heard you say, Stephen, that the heart is a stress-ometer.

    2. SS

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      I wonder if you could expand, what do you mean by that, and is there a way of measuring that?

    4. SS

      Right. Well, when I teach, when I teach our students, I say, "Look, you can, you can see the heart is in, in four ways. It's a pump, it's an electrical device, it's a muscle, and it's a stress m- measurement device." So, so we can have these four perspectives. The stress measurement device is because of the nervous system activation of the heart. You have these two nerves. One is kind of... It's basically accelerator, brakes-

    5. RC

      Mm

    6. SS

      ... basically. Sympathetic nerve is an accelerator. The parasympathetic or vagus nerve is, is brakes, slowing down the heart. And so constant- But in this particular case, the brake, the, there's always a little bit of brake and a little bit of accelerator, unlike when you're driving a car, hopefully. [laughs] So, uh, so there's a balance. All right? So in that regard, there are as- things we can measure within heart rate, such as-

    7. RC

      Mm

    8. SS

      ... heart rate variability, that offer a kind of a window into that balance and how it is. What's the state of that balance between sympathetic fight or flight and parasympathetic rest and recover? So in that regard, heart rate variability has tapped into this y- idea of the heart rate offering us information as a stress measure, a stress-ometer.

    9. RC

      You're not talking about our pulse, like 72 beats per minute or 68 beats per minute?

    10. SS

      Well, to a certain extent, but, but more, there's even more information between the beats in what's called the... The heart rate variability just means that between each beat there's a certain amount of time-

    11. RC

      Mm

    12. SS

      ... and it's not 100% regular. It's, there's some variability.

    13. RC

      And you want the, the variability?

    14. SS

      Yeah. Interestingly enough, when the, when the heart is being stimulated primarily sympath- parasympathetically, it tends to have more variability. So this variability is a, an indicator of that all systems are in a state of fairly low stress and, and ready to, ready to respond.

    15. RC

      So, so really simply, our heart rate vari- our heart rate variability, or HRV for short-

    16. SS

      Mm

    17. RC

      ... generally speaking, we want it higher rather than lower.

    18. SS

      Yeah.

    19. RC

      Higher means there's a lot of beat-to-beat variability, which means we're generally gonna be in a low-stress state.

    20. SS

      Right.

    21. RC

      If there's not much variability, i.e. if it's beating like a metronome-

    22. SS

      That's not good

    23. RC

      ... that's not good.

    24. SS

      Right.

    25. RC

      Which is slightly counterintuitive-

    26. SS

      I know

    27. RC

      ... but it's important that people get that.

    28. SS

      It's, yeah.

    29. RC

      So I, like you, follow Marco Altini on Twitter.

    30. SS

      Yeah, yeah.

  15. 1:50:27 – 2:07:53

    Aging, strength, and five priorities: mobility, extension, glutes, adaptation, and leaving reps in reserve

    1. RC

      Does the 80:20 rule apply across all ages, do you think?

    2. SS

      Hmm.

    3. RC

      Or for example, could we make the case that if it's, if the goal is health as opposed to performance-

    4. SS

      Hmm

    5. RC

      ... which I think sometimes requires a slightly different approach if the goal is health as opposed to performance, maybe not always, but sometimes. But if the goal is health, let's say you're in your 60s or your 70s-

    6. SS

      Hmm

    7. RC

      ... do you need to be doing any intensity, or do you think most of your health benefits will come from frequency and duration?

    8. SS

      Oh, great question, and I'm gonna change the question on you-

    9. RC

      Please do

    10. SS

      ... or change the parameters because I'm gonna s- I'm gonna suggest that performance equals health, particularly at 70, in the sense that if I can perform the tasks of carrying my groceries up two flights of stairs, if I can perform the task of getting across the street during the g- when the light turns green, you know, that's a performance level that I need to have to in- experience a quality of life-

    11. RC

      Hmm

    12. SS

      ... that I need. So as we get older, you could almost say that performance equals l- health, whereas when we're younger, we have this big health reserve, so it-

    13. RC

      Mm-hmm

    14. SS

      ... you know, we can, we can perform, and we can say, "Uh, health is not an issue." But I- I'm feeling that as I'm... In fact, I saw a sign in your wonderful little town where it said, "We have apartments for the over 55s."

    15. RC

      [laughs]

    16. SS

      So I've now been put in a category, uh, based presumably on my-

    17. RC

      [laughs]

    18. SS

      ... very limited function, you know, [laughs] at 55.

    19. RC

      [laughs]

    20. SS

      So I was like, "Okay, you know, that felt off-putting," you know? But anyway, but it's probably true th- there we-- a lot of people my age, 58, already their functional capacity is such that they're looking to escape having to use stairs, for example, or something. So maybe the apartments are all first level, first floor flats or whatever. But it's a w- a vicious cycle.

    21. RC

      It f- it speeds up the decline-

    22. SS

      [laughs]

    23. RC

      ... because if you stop using stairs-

    24. SS

      Yeah

    25. RC

      ... because you're finding it hard, guess what?

    26. SS

      So what we should do is-

    27. RC

      You know

    28. SS

      ... make all of the over 55s have to be on the third floor with no elevator.

    29. RC

      [laughs]

    30. SS

      And then they would, that would be the most health-sustaining thing we could do for them, is say, "You're gonna have to go up three flights of stairs every time you wanna-- you forget your car keys," you know? And so, but we don't. We do the opposite.

  16. 2:07:53 – 2:12:32

    Closing takeaways for two audiences: the weekend warrior and the sedentary beginner

    1. RC

      I think this 80:20 philosophy has got such widespread application. So at the end of this conversation, I would like you to speak to two different people. For that individual who fancies themselves as, as a bit of a weekend warrior, you know, they work hard in the week, they've got kids-

    2. SS

      Mm

    3. RC

      ... but they like to push themselves. They like to do the park run. They like to do 10Ks every few Sundays when there's a local event on. I know many people like this.

    4. SS

      Mm.

    5. RC

      But they're feeling, you know, tired. They're not getting faster. They wish they could run faster or be injured less.

    6. SS

      Mm.

    7. RC

      What would your final words of advice be for that individual?

    8. SS

      I, I would say to them, just put a little bit of trust in me for six weeks and, and follow this guidance that we're gonna reduce the number of hard sessions, and you're gonna trans- you know, if you're doing two or three times a week, probably three times a week, they're going pretty hard, I'm gonna say, can you let me have two of those? You keep one really hard. Give me two, and I want them to go into this, you know-

    9. RC

      The green zone

    10. SS

      ... green, and we'll stretch them a little bit. Give me six weeks of your time and, you know, as, as an experiment.

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. SS

      And let's see where you're at in six weeks.

    13. RC

      And what do you want them to assess? Is it sleep, energy, performance, all of these things, I'm guessing?

    14. SS

      And they may, it happens surprisingly often, they may say to me in an email, "You know what? I haven't run this fast in 10 years."

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. SS

      And I'm being totally honest with you.

    17. RC

      Yeah.

    18. SS

      I get so many emails that say that, 'cause it, it surprises them so much. I'm running slower in training, and I'm faster-

    19. RC

      Yeah

    20. SS

      ... in the 10K. I don't get this. Well, but it's, but it's true.

    21. RC

      Yeah.

    22. SS

      And, and it, so just give it a six-week try.

    23. RC

      Okay. Great advice for them, and then very, very finally, I'd love you to speak, Stephen, to that individual who knows that they don't move their body as much as they should.

    24. SS

      Mm.

    25. RC

      They listen to this podcast, they read books, they know how important movement is-

    26. SS

      Mm

    27. RC

      ... but they find it hard.

    28. SS

      Mm.

    29. RC

      They feel like they've put on excess weight over the years-

    30. SS

      Mm

Episode duration: 2:12:33

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