Barbell Shrugged - 145- Strength Training for Runners & Run Training for Strength Athletes w/ Nate Helming

Episode Date: October 8, 2014

On this week’s show, we take on a fresh new topic, at least for us - Running. That’s right, heel striking, to Pose or not to Pose, the importance of strength training for endurance athletes, we get into a little bit of everything. As you might guess, heavy barbells are no less beneficial to road warriors, even ultra-marathon wacko’s! We recently got a chance to chat with Nate Helming in between talks at the National Endurance Sports Summit in Princeton, New Jersey. Nate coaches out of San Francisco Crossfit, right alongside some of the best coaches on the fitness scene today. That list includes Kelly Starrett, Diane Fu, and Carl Paoli. He also shares his expertise on The Run Experience, a cool online training resource for runners. Maybe the guy’s just a little unassuming at first, but before our conversation I had no idea he was so skilled and polished as a coach and thinker. More to the point, his talks and running workshops at the Summit were interesting, well-paced and high-value for the audience. You have to take note of folk’s like this when you meet them, because that kind of pace and polish doesn't come cheap. These are skills you have to earn the hard way, over many years and endless repetitions. Nate’s central thesis is that a strong runner is a better runner, which is, of course, right up our alley. But it’s not a straight forward idea, at least not as much as you would guess. If asked, Nate will tell you that he doesn’t exactly know what it means to “run strong.” He just knows that more runners have to start acknowledging the health and performance benefits of heavy barbell training. You cannot push strength so hard that it becomes a competing training focus that’s clear. But you have to train with the intent of lifting more and more weight. You have to squat, pull, and push because it’s inherent functional. It teaches you just how you should produce force…quickly, efficiently. That translates to reduced injury risk and improved performance out on the road. Right, so that much is clear. If you want to improve your running, make sure you are constantly working on your mechanics under progressively heavy barbells. But the line is hard to draw. How much strength is enough? Well, it’s hard to say. There is a line, but something tell’s me that Nate has only begun experimenting with his methods. He will continue to surprise I’m sure as more of his data ripens, and he accumulates more coaching experience. So much for runners making their way towards the barbell, but what about the other way around? What do/should strength, and power athletes learn from the running world. Which of Nate’s methods might apply to you? Again, it’s hard to say. He does have one clear bit of advice for the strong amongst us who want to improve their running skills. “Be patient. Have some respect.” Anyone who has suffered for a decade or more in pursuit of barbell glory know’s that the skill of strength takes years and years to cultivate. Your body must be built up over time to serve that function. Think of endless little waves of construction work, new bundles of muscle proteins piled high and turned over constantly, year after year. Consider your adapted structure, your fascia and skeleton. Be in awe of what your fine-tuned and lightening quick, nervous system can do. The same is true of amazing runners and their earned form and adaptations. You don't know the work that's been put in. Consider optimal pose, the adapted foot and endless bands and chains of road forged connective tissue. These legs are likely slow and of the slow-twitch variety, but never kid yourself. To run at the highest levels is to suffer, immensely, daily. Don’t underestimate that strength. And more importantly still, don’t underestimate the benefits that would come to you if you would only work on your running, modestly at first and with respect. I must say, none of this is news to me. Nate is preaching to the choir. I've learned an endurance lesson before. Some twelve years ago I made my first visit to Columbus, Ohio to train with Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell. I had no business making the trip. At the time, I only had about $200 bucks in my checking account, just enough to pay for a week’s rent at the shittiest local motel you ever saw. But that was fine by me. One, there was a Waffle House located conveniently between my slum and the gym. The waffles and egg’s were cheap, the coffee and syrup, plentiful. But that was just my problem. I was a complete fat ass! I don’t mind saying so. I had built a life around this culture. “To be as strong as possible, do what is necessary. Grind you bones, stuff your face!” By the time, I made it to Westside I was over 350 pounds in bodyweight. Louie told me exactly what Nate would say today, had I been in similar form. We didn’t talk about advanced programming ideas, not at the start at least. And no, we didn’t talk about the latest tricks Louie was working on with his chain and band resistance methods. It was none of that. Louie’s first and best advice for me was to get in shape.“Hey listen, dude. You know, lifting heavy weights is just like fighting…Am I right? You wouldn’t dare jump in the ring with a known killer, would you? No, not now! You gotta get in shape first! You gotta suffer for a while. There are a lot of repetitions that need to take place before you earn the right to fight the champ. So that’s you. You want to lift record weights? You gotta get yourself in proper shape first.”Starting from that day forward I made hard sled dragging and sprinting a key component of my training, and it certainly paid off. The more time I spent conditioning myself, the stronger and more explosive I became. Even though, I was lifting maximum loads all the time for the better part of twelve years, I never wore down. I never had a serious injury. I owe that to Louie’s advice. I just wish I would have taken it earlier! Nate, I won't be experimenting with powerlifting and running anytime soon, but maybe we can hook up soon and share some training ideas. Who know's, maybe there's a runner inside me still.Cheers, Chris Moore

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we're going to interview Nate Helmig, running philosopher. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Crazy. You remind ourselves of the method of... Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe. I'm here with Doug Larson, Christopher Moore, CTP behind the camera, hanging out at Princeton University.

I can't believe they let us have this classroom. It is legit. We are hanging out with the Nate Helming of, I don't know. What's up? You're at San Francisco CrossFit. San Francisco CrossFit. Teaching people how to run, how to get strong, all that kind of stuff. And he likes cocaine.

We've talked about that. I probably shouldn't say it on the show, but that's what he said. You had all the gets of cocaine. Earliest performance enhancing drugs right there. I had this and I was like, oh. I had to get a scone. I was getting that coffee. And they had some beautiful scones out.

And I try to not eat that kind of stuff. But then you made a comment when you walked in. What did you say? So I was saying just in the, in the late nineties, we were talking about car backloading. You said you've never seen a gluten. You never met a gluten. Oh yeah. I never met a gluten. I didn't like. A beautiful way to put it. Yeah. All right. So go back to the story you were telling about. The story, the story we were telling, um, we were listening to some power lifters who really started to use different ways of loading up glycogen and depleting glycogen and eating later on and how that could really change

from a performance standpoint. And in the endurance world for forever, it's always been carbohydrates all the time because that's what we burn on. Pasta, bowls of pasta. It's the best fuel. And like the goos, they used to, you know, tell you to take them every 20 minutes. And I always felt like at the time it was like a little sniff of cocaine or something. You're like, whew, you know, you have it and then you crash right down and you got to go up again. That's why you got to keep the entire eight ball with you all night long. I would. That's right.

Find coaching detail. He's like, I've never actually done cocaine, so I don't even know what you're talking about. I don't know. Hypothetical. What's an eight ball? Mike's like, I've never actually done cocaine. So I don't know. I don't know. Hypothetical. That's an eight ball. Mike's like, neither have I. This is hypothetical.

Well, so triathletes are basically carrying the nutritional eight ball with them on their bikes. And I talked to this a hundred miles. He's running 160 miles right now as we speak. And he ingested 25 to 30 goose in that time period. Yeah. That's the package of those,

those things. Yeah. Those, yes. The goo packs, the goo packs, 30, Jesus.

I don't even know what's the, what, how many grams of sugar in each one of those? There's a lot. It's probably like 20 or 30 depending on the size. There's a lot of, a lot of our pack with caffeine to caffeine, every kind of sugars.

And those things. I remember being, I ran a marathon man i ran a marathon we ran a marathon and we had like we were like we like almost zero training leading up this marathon we're like oh we're just gonna do it and we signed up on a bet dare whatever you want to call it we did go running three times we ran three times leading up to this over a month period i get it uh actually i i went, I went to, uh, Brian McKenzie's endurance seminar. He wasn't there, but it was someone else was running at the CrossFit

endurance seminar. And I was there like six weeks before I was like, yeah, I gotta, I gotta prepare for this marathon. And they were like, Oh, there's like, he's laughing. I was like, I know, trust me. I'm not, I'm not, you know, I know that I'm know, I know that there's no real preparation I can do. But, you know, whatever. That's not why I wasn't there to prepare for that. But they kind of laughed and was like, yeah, six weeks away. Really? No, I haven't done any running. And the certification weekend that that weekend, my lower legs got sore. I was like, if that weekend made me sore, I'm going to be messed up on that marathon. So we ran a couple of times. And then it was funny because I was chugging like I mean sometimes you take those carbs in it does make you feel better but uh we definitely I don't I can't speak for

everybody but I know for myself I uh lack of carbohydrate was not my limiting factor and I'd be willing to bet that most endurance athletes, especially non-elite level endurance athletes, the lack of peri-race nutrition is not their limiting factor. Shh, don't tell them that. Is there a myth here to be busted? Am I sniffing on a myth here? Quite possibly.

Anyways, we were talking about, you talked about car backloading. We were, and we were just talking about how this was something that I heard from the weightlifting world and never really used it in the endurance world. And I'm reading this article of this woman who wins this race called the Western States 100, which is like the Super Bowl of a hundred mile runs. It's the original race in the Sierras. And the way this race started is the first a hundred mile runs. It's the original race in the Sierras. And the way this race started as the first a hundred mile run race ever. And it actually used to be a horse race that like cowboys with horses would go through. Oh, I got to speak a little closer. There we go.

There you go. And you're actually off to the side of it a little bit too. Oh, there we go. Right in the middle. I got to square myself up to this thing. There we go. So they would do this race with their horses and this guy's horse, like lost a horseshoe broke down very early on. And the story is this cowboy ran the rest of the route that these horses were supposed to run. And that was the Genesis of this whole race. Like a modern day marathon. Yeah. So they win and they get these like big old belt buckles. That's the big thing. That's the most awesome award you could ever win for a 100-mile race is a giant cowboy belt buckle. You said how that race emerged.

Down in your talk just a minute ago, you referenced also how the number 26.2 came about for marathons. And talk about how we need to challenge. Everybody thinks it's a sacred thing. Must've been scientifically dialed in a sacred distance that was marked off by whoever the Greek gentleman was who dropped dead and how the story goes. You got to tell that story, man. I'd never heard it. Yeah, it's cool. You know, it's, it's sometimes we get focused on these distances and they've been around for so long. And I started to tell the story because right now CrossFit is this thing that exists and we're starting to see some rigidity in how we train and approach it. But at one point it didn't exist.

And with the marathon, it didn't exist either. Before the competition. Before the competition. Before it was formalized. Before it was formalized, sure. And if you read a little history on the marathon, it's really fascinating. In the late 19th century, they were bringing back the modern Olympics. And they wanted this marathon event.

They thought it just signified so much about what the Olympics stood for and bringing countries together and this hard work and perseverance and sacrifice. And so they're like, we need this epic distance for people to do. And it was based after this famous story of this soldier who travels from this town of Marathon to Athens and gives news that they had won the battle and he drops dead right there. And people are thinking, this is the most epic distance ever. You could have dropped dead, Michael. I felt like I might have. Yeah. If they do this and they die. And so at first they wanted to retrace this route.

But what this is where it gets interesting. Historically, they actually don't know where the dude went. They're like, well, we think he went around this mountain. And around that mountain is approximately 23 miles, 22 miles. Or he could have run a marathon to die. That's right. Or he could have gone over the mountains and that would have only been about 17 or 18 miles, but we think he went around.

So we'll kind of do that distance. And the first 10 years, the race was only 23, 24 miles. And it eventually kept getting a little bit longer. And it got to the point where it's about responsible for this. Who's responsible for this? I'm angry because the last two miles of that marathon were terrible. It's getting longer and longer. So eventually got to the point where it's 26 miles. And it had been that way for a while. But they were doing the London Olympics.

And they wanted the race to finish in front of the king and queen, in front of Buckingham Palace. So that's where that.2 came from. Isn't that cool, man? Wow. I always think, oh, it's's 26.2 miles a guy must have run. What in the world? Dude, I thought that was completely based off of the whole marathon that happened. I just made that up, actually.

That's a pretty elaborate story anyone had ever told about a thing. Pretty elaborate story to make up, dude. Appreciate it. But I think it illustrates a really cool point is that somebody goes what are we doing we could do this thing they just make an assumption they they just make a guess it seems right and they tinker when they play with it people forget where it started and pretty soon it gets cemented and the only way it could possibly be done a rule a training uh you know this mythosis just these pillars that cannot be contested meanwhile you witness things like i've seen guys who really fit

in crossfit turn around do things that were also really powerful and forceful. And I would have assumed it wasn't possible. And now I'm seeing it from my face that this was a great move. I've seen crash in front of me. Somebody assumed that you couldn't be both. And it got cemented into sports science books and research studies. And it became an assumption that it limited the way everybody could train from that point on. Do you guys know the story of the four minute mile? Sir Roger Bannister? Tell it again, man. We do, but there's a lot of people who probably don't. Go ahead. Well, early on before they were approaching this four minute mark, people kept hitting this wall and they couldn't go beyond it. And it got to the point that scientists came out and they're like, well, we've measured the length of people's femurs and their stride rate. And it's mechanically impossible for a

human being to run that far that fast. And I've got the scientific data right here. And eventually Robert Bannister, Roger Bannister pushed through and literally like a year or two later, 13 people went underneath four minutes. So it's always interesting to see that we think it can't be done and then someone does it. And then all of a sudden that raises our standards. I rarely hear that talked about in the fitness world. It's always talked about business conferences. Like see,

once you think it's possible, then it's okay. Then like everyone will move forward. Like it'll bring psychologically everyone into the realm of possibility. So you can create a new business or a new technology or whatever. But I never hear it talked about in fitness for some reason. Have you seen the greatest video? One of the best that CrossFit put out was the violent agreement video.

Did you see that one? It was Lou Simmons and Dr. Romanoff. And Greg was in between pitching questions between them. The premise is endurance and strength have nothing to do with each other. That's the premise. But when they start talking, they realize that what makes you good at one thing, that essence ties into everything else. And in running, Romanoff and Louis both said, he told the four-minute mile story.

He's like, now, with no special physiology or genetic makeup, you can achieve that because we know that it is possible. You won't die. And the idea, he goes, what explains that? Programming, new data? Mindset explains that. Once you know you can do it, then you will do it. And, of course, Louis told the famous John Livingston Siegel

perfect speed story he told on our show. He's like, yeah, oh, yeah. I used to be so strong. I saw a guy pull me. He's like, fuck that shit. And I said, I read a book about a Siegel. And it turns out that now I recognize that if you want to be really strong and explosive, you've got to get around those people

and just know that it's possible. Same thing goes for running. Perfect speed. So we're really good about just jumping into stories with people that we already know and not really introducing the audience to them at all so for everyone has no idea who you are you know who are you what's your background where do you live like who your friends like just tell us who you are for sure um i work at uh san francisco crossfit i've been there for four or five years um i am an endurance coach, so I work with a lot of runners and triathletes, and it's why I'm here at the National Endurance Sports Summit here at Princeton University.

So same gym as K-Star and Carl Pauly and Diane Fu. That's right. You're the running coach at that gym. I am, yeah. I'm one of the running guys there and I guess really the running guy at this point. And I've gotten to work with, you know, Carl and Diane closely.

Carl and I break dance together. That's how we really became friends. I'm going to come up to San Francisco one day and get a session with you guys. It's extremely terrible, but I'd like to give it a shot. Yeah. The journey begins with one step, Michael.

Yeah. And I got into Sam's CrossFit. If you had asked me earlier when I was healthy of the triathlete, I would have basically been like, no fucking way. Am I ever going to go to this place? Because these guys are big, they've got huge tattoos and they lift really weird shit. And they put two people on a bar for heavy deadlift and they walk around with these slosh pipes. And I'm like, I have no business with this. I'm this like, you know, my legs are shaved. I'm super clean. I'm this like skinny, fast dude. It's like, I have no business with this. I'm this like, you know, my legs are shaved. I'm super clean. I'm this like skinny, fast dude.

It's like, why do I want to hang out with these big burly guys in this dirty, filthy parking lot? And now five years later. And now you have hair on your legs and tattoos. Is that what's going on? No tattoos yet, but I do have a beard. Didn't have the beard before. Say yeah, like you're planning on getting one. We can figure it out, I think.

We can figure it out tonight. We can figure that out. We'll get some drinks. You'll wake up tomorrow with a tattoo. You've got a great scene in San Francisco now because you have also Mark and Jesse Burdick. Mark Smiley-Bell and Jesse Burdick can come over and share. What is some of the most novel application

of some of the newer paddling methodologies that are being transplanted? Like Jesse and Mark are very good about taking what does work and can be applied across and applying that too. I guess you've had a lot of success also listening to those guys. You guys have a great little petri dish of experimentation there when it comes to this. Yeah, you know, it really is. And it really opened up my eyes because for the longest time I was this athlete that lived in this endurance lane. And I was just giving this talk earlier just before coming up here saying, it's like, I read all the endurance coaches books and I read the magazines and I wore the clothes and I just did what everyone told me to do. Which are the right clothes to make me fast?

A lot of spandex. Okay. Got it. I got some tattoo spandex. We'll make it happen. The great exchange. Great dynamics. No, we can whittle the beard, but the audience does not like it when Michael shapes his beard. It looks like a 12 year old. Many tears are shed. So it's been really great for me to work with these guys and really athletically, you know, open my eyes a little bit. And I've just realized that for so long as endurance athletes, our physical standards for ourselves have been held so low that we're barely basically asked to just walk, let alone squat or do anything. And there's so much fear that's involved. And I really think that's why CrossFit

and in all honesty, CrossFit endurance hasn't really been very well received in the endurance world or hasn't caught on much than small pockets is because of that message and that fear. The standards in the endurance community for overall strength and athleticism is low, but they're just focusing on endurance. Is that what you just said? Pretty much. And, and, you know, I'm working with an Olympic level cyclist and I bring her in and she can't do three pushups. Why do you think that fear exists? They don't want to get hurt, right?

They're scared of getting hurt or bulky or slow down. Yeah, it's very, you know, reasonable to not want to get hurt, right? And so a lot of it is just a generational thing. They're listening to their coaches and they've paid a lot of money to listen to the best endurance coaches. And these guys aren't talking about it. Right. And the reason why they're not talking about it is because they never learned it themselves.

They never got a chance to be in that Petri dish. They only hung out with, you know, their own kind. I mean, I hear it all the time. People go, well, the best guys don't do that. So why should I, you know? Exactly. That's another big thing. We can start to see that, you know, the best athletes will do things in a certain way.

You know, the best athlete who just won the Ironman in 86 hopped on his foot left, his left foot 50 times and drank banana milkshakes. And everyone's like, holy shit, banana milkshakes are amazing. And this is going to be the transformative process. A lot of potassium, good for muscle cramping. But we start to see these things and, you know, just like the marathon story, you know, Ironman and triathlon is really not that far ahead of CrossFit. It's only ahead of 20 years. And it's only been in the Olympics since 2000. So they don't have that many rotations in there. And before it didn't exist and everyone had all this freedom to train how they wanted to and try really dumb, dumb stuff. How's the Ironman different than other triathlons?

So the Ironman is in a lot of people's minds, the pinnacle of triathlon. It's where really started and gained traction. And that is the ultra distance of swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and then running a full marathon. And, you know, I was one of the faster individuals out there when I was younger and it still took me like nine and a half hours to do it. So imagine that you woke up in a 7am and you're racing and right now it's three o'clock. You've already beat Chris. He didn't even wake up at 7am. Yeah. Aren't the world records only somewhere in the eights though? Like nine and a half hours is a really good time. Is that correct? Nine and a half is not bad.

Right. And then as you get to the pro level, these guys are racing eight and a half, eight hours, and they're starting to go further down. And just like the four minute mile, people are starting to ask the question, can we break the two hour mark in the marathon? Because right now the world record is like 203, 40 or 50 or something like that. My God. Crazy. I can't even imagine. This makes me nauseous. What minute miles is that?

203 is like a 444, something like that. So you're holding sub five. Yep. For a couple hours. So you're running, you're running like 58 second quarters for a marathon i don't even know if i can do that for a single quarter it's hard oh wait no no that's not right that's one that's for four minute mile that would be like 110 112 pace which is still very fast 44 be a 111 yeah this is there we go go go to the track one time and just run around one

time and run it in a minute and 11 seconds. And then think about doing that a hundred times in a row. Yeah, it's funny. I used to listen to this triathlon coach and he would joke and he'd say, anyone can run the speed of an Olympic level athlete. You just maybe only be able to do it for like 10 meters. Right. I still can't get there.

I can't match it. No, we'll have them. But, uh, the mindset thing is really intense. Like for what, like, I assume like it's the Kenyans and these, these, these gangster, their whole life and their whole essence of being the whole culture is all rooted in, uh, crushing this event. Like what else have you found your investigation then besides just what they do has made this difference? What makes this possible? So this is what's interesting about when you bring the Kenyans and the Ethiopians, and this is like a big comparison with the Americans. And I was listening in to you guys earlier today with Carl Pauli talking about equipment. And if I don't have the right equipment, I get a little fussy and I'm the same.

I was working at a hotel gym. It had like a shitty pull-up bar. I'm like, fuck it. I'm not doing pull-ups. This is not like my home gym and dumbbells are like lumpy. And I'm like, this sucks. I hate lumpy dumbbells. But runners, I don't know either. But runners in these countries are doing it because this is their get out of poverty ticket.

That's why they ran so much. And Haley Gebersalassie, which is one of the most famous endurance runners now, he's been world champion in everything, I believe from 10,000 meters all the way up to the full marathon and blown everyone away, setting new world records all the time, even at an older age. You know, he's like, Hey, you know, I had to run everywhere. This is what I did. It's like my kids now they get driven to school in a Mercedes. You know, they've got the genetics, but chances are they don't have that grit and that drive to train the way I did because this was my ticket out. It's too nice. Well, the entire culture to the whole tire culture in the, the essence of what they hold dear for the last half. When, when did the Kenyans really start

pushing the running? You know, that's a really good question because it really seems like the last five to ten years everyone's talking about them and they're a lot more dominant but you know i feel like chances are they've been they've been out there for because there's also everything then there's the economics of it then there's uh once one guy can master that sport and he gets out and he shows that we have something here folks we can train in this in a way that we're really driving ourselves we can achieve this once that first kenyan guy shows that we could be something special then everybody else starts believing it and then one or two generations down when there's the genetics there's also just the cultural, like the epigenetic factors,

all are coming together where you are now a Kenyan cow who gets born. And now there's just more than just how we train and what we need to do for us to have our shot at a new life. There's also the culture of it. Demands that we take pride, we bring up as battle acts. It's like a tribe in Scotland who can really slay with claymores for centuries and centuries. It's a trade. You know, it's a really, it's a really good, um, it's a really good point. And I remember reading this book about the life of Lance Armstrong and how we got through different places. And, you know, early on there was this guy who was his investor. He's out of California and he invested in this

first American cycling team. And his goal was like, I want to win the tour to France. And he was working with this Polish coach who was this genius for cycling training. And he was just starting to train young Lance Armstrong and some other guys. And he really said it this way. And he's like, trying to win the Tour de France with the American team is like getting a French baseball team to win the World Series. It's not going to happen. But later on, he's pushed American cycling so far that now American cyclists believe that they can win. And it's really started to do that. So I agree with you there. All right. Let's take a break real quick. When we come back, I'd like to find out exactly what you would prescribe for nutrition. Oh shit. Let's make it happen. Oh yeah. This is Andrea Ager, and you're listening to Barbell Shrug.

For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Barbell Shrug is brought to you by you. To learn more about how you can support the show, go to barbellshrug.com and sign up for the newsletter.

Go. And we're back with Mr. Nate Helming. It's not doctor, is it? No, not doctor. Not yet. We'll call you doctor. One day. There's no standards here. This is what we're going to do. Nate Helming. It's not doctor, is it? No, not doctor. Not yet. We'll call you doctor. One day.

There's no standards here. This is what we're going to do. We're going to start a university. We're going to start a university. We'll give you your doctorate. Problem solved. I'll take the barbell shrug degree. All right.

Yeah, I actually do want to dig in like nutrition and supplements because, you know, we were talking about car backloading for endurance athletes a little bit. You know, it was traditionally done with strength athletes, uh, or it was made popular with strength athletes. Um, and you were kind of saying like people may be eating way too many goos and, and maybe some of these, uh, little packaged, uh, nutritional things for when you train or work out and when you race. Yeah. There's getting to be some interesting things. And I kind of learned and researched into this a little bit a while ago. And one of the things for most of our sports is that when I'm in the CrossFit gym, I don't really need to eat in the middle of a session.

And in fact, it's probably going to make things worse. And most team sports, they just maybe drink a little water or Gatorade, but they don't really have to eat because the time domains are so short. And when you start doing these races that are one hours, two hours, four hours, 12 hours, right? You need to start to eat some things. And this is where there's been a lot of experimentation over the years with, oh, eating a lot of goose, a lot of carbohydrates. We need to keep those glycogen stores topped off. So we're always going to burn that way.

But we've realized is that, you know, our glycogen stores topped off. So we're always going to burn that way. But we've realized is that, you know, our glycogen stores are finite, you know, what is it? 1600 to 2000 calories for, you know, an average male. And they're going way past that in these longer events. And we're realizing that they're actually burning a lot of fat as well. And the way I like to think about it, it's sort of like a hybrid car. You know, you're doing things where you're cruising on the highway, you're electric, and you have to accelerate and go up a hill. Then you start to get a little, you know, into that glycogen store sort of system. And so how do I get this really good hybrid car going? If I'm just punching the accelerator and feeding it gas all the time, the electric engine is never going to kick in.

Right. And this is where athletes start to deal with stomach cramping and vomiting and throwing up later on in the race. So they've gone on and then they figured out, well, we actually need to train our body more to burn fat a little bit better. So some coaches, this guy named Bob Sibihar, he's out, he works with the Olympic Training Center a lot. He started to periodize nutrition. And he said that we need to periodize our nutrition, the way we eat, concurrent with the way we train. And a lot of that has to do with how much fat, how much protein, how much carbohydrate on the plate. And I can start to train myself to be more metabolically efficient. So that way I'm not doing the carb thing all the time. Would you suggest during higher intensity exercise, consuming more carbohydrate and then during higher intensity exercise consuming more carbohydrate

and then during lower intensity exercise, longer duration, you'd go with a higher fat? Yes, pretty much. You know, I feel like that's a thing. And, you know, sometimes I go for a long run right now. You know, my goal is I'll go get a drip coffee and a nice little donut after my trail run once a week. I don't really care on the nutrition side. I think the cream-filled donuts make me recover a little faster. I don't know. Psychologically anyway.

Some of it is that same basic relationship between like in the periodization intensity versus volume here. You flip flop between these two things in the same way, kind of pairs the same way as the work you're doing with the barbell. It really does. And it starts to, I feel like it starts to take care of itself just based on what we crave. And, you know, my philosophy is, you know, if we listen to what our body wants to a certain degree, we can learn a lot. And a lot of times I used to know that if I was really craving a lot of sweets, you know, chances are I actually hadn't had enough fat that day, for example, and I actually needed to up that and eat a little bit more. And when I started to cycle and mountain bike race,

I actually started to eat a lot higher fat diet and I didn't have to eat the goose as much anymore. And actually what I could do was just, I could do these hard tempo sessions for two and a half, three hours, and I'd maybe eat one to 200 calories and I was fine. And then I would eat a good meal afterwards, but I wasn't forcing this stuff down my throat the way I used to. It takes the burden away so you can actually train better. What were you eating during your nine hour Ironman? Like how did that go? If there was an in and out on the course, I would kind of, you know, take the bike through there and get a little cheeseburger or something like that. That was always a goal. But in all seriousness, I would kind of, you know, take the bike through there and get a little cheeseburger or something like that. That was always a goal.

But in all seriousness, I would eat things that were probably a little bit more protein and fat related on, especially early on in the bike. Oh, man, I feel like I'm exhausting my little scientific resources here. But go pseudoscience. Go pseudoscience. I like the bro science. That's where I'm really, really comfortable. I think most of us are with the, with the Ironman stuff. The longer we go blood that is used to digest things is shunted away from the gut. And it does so for two reasons. One, just as we start to work harder, we need the, the oxygen delivery to our working muscles.

But the other side is, is our body temperature goes up, we need blood circulating under the skin peripherally to cool us down. So the further we go, that's pretty good. Yeah. You nailed it. I blacked out for a second. I woke up and I made a point. I woke up and I made a point. Do I have that degree? So we go that far and then later and on into the race, our stomach just becomes less tolerant and accepting. So I really feel like the swim, you can't eat anything, right?

You're swimming. No burgers. No, no, no in and out on the swim. Unfortunately, especially 30 minutes before. I know. Although Hawaii does have a paddle swim up espresso bar. Sounds like you guys are limited by your mindset. I'm living in the wrong place, man.

You guys have limited your mindset. You don't believe you can eat a hamburger while you swim. That's your problem. That's the problem. No one's tried yet. No one's tried. I'll try. That's a limited view, man. The four minute swimming miles around the corner. No one's getting to the espresso bar and just stopping the race right there and just be like, you guys want to go surf? Do you guys want to do this? Start floating on my back. You know, it's funny. So early on in the bike, you have this opportunity to kind of make up some of the calories you lost in the swim and try to eat a little bit more solid food. And then later on, you kind of taper off. You let that empty because you can have a lot sloshing around

and still ride pretty well. But as soon as you have to run, you just feel this in every triathlete. Definitely experience that, you know, the sloshing while running. Every time you've ever ran. Pretty much. Not in a race. You might not be all that healthy. You can go to the doctor.

I have a sloshing sensation. I've only, I've done two sprint tries. That's awesome. Yeah, they were both a lot of fun. I wouldn't recommend doing longer than that.

I mean, if you want to get into it, sprint tries are the way to go because it's fun. I mean, you're going to do it in about an hour. It's not like,'s not an all-day event uh have you done one or you did well you have my famous bike crash the bike crash one yeah doug doug i can't tell you

what to google but there's a youtube video of me fucking coming up coming up a big hill it's an off-road my front tire comes off and then it lands and right when it lands my front tire comes off and i just fucking plow face first. He could have been dead. I'll put that, I'll bed that in the show notes. Did you roll? Your gymnastic skills come in? Did you roll right on?

No, he was just like. He didn't know he was falling until he's already hit the ground. He comes back. I'm at the finish line, I think, or I saw him later that day. And he goes, no, I saw him at the finish line. He's like, oh, I fucking wrecked. He's a little banged up. I'm like, oh man, he ate it.

And he described the wreck. I was like, it's probably not as epic as he says it was. Whatever. The next day, email goes out. Like, I don't know who this guy is, but I had my camera set up on the course. Sure enough, like it's the, it's the most ideal shot. Here comes Doug up. Wheel keeps going.

Forks go in the ground. He flips over. I'm like, oh my God, he ate it hard. I don't know how he didn't break a bone. I borrowed someone's bike and I didn't check it out at all. I just rode it real quick and was like, that feels good. I was just doing it for fun. I didn't train for it.

I just borrowed a bike and went out there and did it. This person was a saboteur. Going back to the nutrition stuff, it's interesting because a lot of people like to have the discussion on the metabolism side of things. They're like carbs, protein, fat for these reasons, and now you're talking about hydration issues and not just staying hydrated, but making sure the body can stay cool and things like that.

So those are things that are commonly overlooked. People get so narrowly focused on just the metabolism of things. They're not thinking about like perspiration and all that. Yeah, it's big. And I've gotten to work with Dr. Stacey Sims a little bit and she owns this product Osmo Nutrition. It's fantastic. She's worked with the liquid gas Cannondale pro cycling team. She's consulted with a lot of high teams in the tour de France because these guys are riding so much every day that their stomachs get really fickle. Like I go out and do my one or two hour mountain bike ride and I could drink a beer and ride. I'm going to be fine. But if I'm starting to train at that level again, and you're doing four or five hours,

you just, you get tired, your stomach can't tolerate. And so they really had to figure out what the best stuff helped them. And one of the cool things they actually figured out was that there's like certain carbohydrates that actually like you're basically absorb things hydrationally via osmosis, hence the, their title osmonutrition. And, uh, you have to have the sort of the right salinity for this to actually be pulled into your gut. And like Gatorade, one of the original products out there, um, is actually for a lot of us too salty. So what athletes have to do when they drink Gatorade is that they actually have to pull body water from their self while they're racing into their gut to dilute it, to then pull it back in.

And so a lot of efficient and efficient and a lot of athletes, we get the runs gets, it gets kind of ugly out there, but, uh, it's crazy. But, uh, she tried to figure out and tinker and create this product that was like the ultimate mixture and combination for fluid absorption, which makes a huge difference on GI distress and everything. Yeah. That's cool. Some things I don't consider when I think about, you know, endurance nutrition is GI distress. And I guess if you haven't been out there time after time, I mean, that's something like you have to do probably a dozen or more times. And, you know, you have to be conscious of the food you're eating before, you know, even the night before the morning of and during and all that kind of stuff. And totally, especially in the CrossFit world, when we hear a lot of knock of long,

slow distance and don't go long and don't do this, and you can physiologically prepare for this thing with shorter stuff. Well, maybe that's true. You can physiologically prepare, but if I have a new athlete, they learn so much about being out on their bike for six hours. There's no substitute for it and getting that frigging... Zen out there. Totally saddle sores, finding new inner spaces in your mind that you never saw. They freak you out. Um, it's not just physiology. No, it's not. They're so focused on physiology that they don't don't even think about maybe the psychology and many other aspects. When we ran that marathon,

we only ran three times ahead of time. We ran a six mile, like three or four weeks out and then we ran a 12 mile and then another six mile and then took a week or two off and then and then went just went and ran it and we did some sled sprints that's awesome i mean we had done plenty of sprinting and running 400s and things like that our whole lives basically but but anyway the thing that i wasn't prepared for was once i passed mile 18 that's when my feet started fucking hurting like i felt like yep every mile after that i was starting to limp and my feet started fucking hurting. I felt like every mile after that, I was starting to limp and my feet were breaking down. I had no muscular soreness when we were done. I never felt tired during the race. Like I wasn't trying to get a good time. I was trying

to complete it. But what I wasn't prepared for was afterward, my feet, my feet and my ankles felt like they got beat with a hammer for weeks. Well, it's sort of like you did jump in a hot tub that night instead of icing them. I also iced them, but you did jump in a hot tub that night instead of icing them. I also iced them, but I did jump in a hot tub that night. That's because they're hot chicks in a hot tub. Give them a fucking break. That's funny.

It's funny you said you like... It's a very full hot tub that night. Yeah, it's funny. It's funny you say you weren't sore after that marathon. And it's sort of like if you take a brand new athlete and you try to max them out on a deadlift, chances are they're going to be limited mechanically in some way. And they're going to stop way before that actual max is. And they're not going to be that sore. But for you guys, and Mike, we're talking this morning, you're like, dude, I only deadlift like once a month because I'm like kind of scared of what

I can do to myself. You know, like I can, I can go hard in the paint there. And it's like the marathon. I think I was more like once every six months. I like that. Once every six months. Deadlift heavy. But for most people who want to improve the deadlift, once a month is plenty. Yeah. The more in shape you are, the harder you can go and the more you can really just fucking destroy yourself if you want to. Yes. And it's, I have this conversation with my early athletes all the time.

They're like, oh man, I thought that once I was like in more shape, like in better shape, that the races would be easier. And it's like, no, the better shape you are, the longer longer you can suffer at higher intensity this happens the way of the two people say what's the right program for me when should i switch when is the right time to move from this rep to this rep well the question is are you getting strong enough now to where you are too strong for your own good and that it gets harder and harder to recover from what you've done like you gotta space the workout more and more because now the potential for fatigue is getting higher and it's getting higher when you first start if you're deadlifting a set of 10

with uh you know 135 pounds and a year from now you'll you will do 400 this is not very fatiguing you can do this every day and every time you touch the bar you can add weight to it yeah and if you don't do that you won't ever get strong if you try to do a conjugate style periodization here but it's not so i guess i assume running is the same way where first it's like I can't run enough to really damage myself. I'm going to get there pretty quick. That's going to affect the way I train. I'm afraid to tell new people that they're like, oh, this is so hard. Does it get any better?

I'm like, I'm thinking it actually gets worse, but I'm not going to tell them that because I want them to stay a member of the gym. That's right. It's better. It's better in a way. You get better at tolerating it. And that's why you can go harder. But still, you can make yourself way more tired i was gonna say for the for the all the people that are listening that are normal normal people normal either crossfitters maybe they're even um not crossfitters

they just kind of do crossfit because they want to run you know 5k's better something like that kind of the more beginner style crowd if you just want to run a 5k and get a better time like what are like the good resources out there where someone can get some workouts just to run a 5k that are very CrossFit friendly or, you know, touch on more beginners and less Ironman. For sure. For sure. So I actually have a few products out there myself and I put a, I have a website, therunexperience.com where I put out a lot of videos out. I published with some major running websites on basic strength and conditioning for these guys and some running drills. And I think the running drills and even the strength and conditioning stuff will be great for CrossFitters. Because when I travel and talk to CrossFitters and new people about running,

they're like, I don't like it. It's hard. It hurts. It's this big goopy mess. But when you bring them in the gym and you coach and cue them, you've given them a very specific task. And they're like, well, I understand squatting or deadlifting, even if it's very light, because I'm very mentally focused on each rep. And we basically want to take that one rep mindset to the running outside and start to think about their drills that way and their short running that way. And then they can sort of build up. I love that. So they're not thinking mile run, I got to tackle this. I got to tackle a marathon. Like you wouldn't go into the gym and say, I've got to tackle the 500 pound deadlift when I'm at 250. It's too intimidating if I have that

mindset, right? It really is. And I just listened to this guy last week. His name is Jeff Galloway. He invented the run, walk, run methodology in like the early seventies. And he just did intuitively just this thing helped him train some people. And at first I was like, Oh, this guy's dumb. Real athletes don't walk in a marathon. It doesn't count. You know, it was all bro, bro, science critics on lifting. So no rep. Yeah, no rep. Exactly. But then he, he was talking this week and he's like, well, it used to be like five minutes running one minute walking. And I just distilled it down to if I could run 30 seconds, walk 15 seconds, I was actually able to run a Boston marathon qualifying time. And then I'm like, holy shit,

what does that sound like? Basically Tabata style running. And I'm like, we do EMOMs in the gym all the time. So it's like, why don't we take that approach to a running? And I think we can have a lot of success. So the run experience, I have some plans on Kodi app for train your first 5k, train your first 10k where I've got some videos, some basic instruction and very CrossFit friendly workouts. They're like 15 to 30 minutes long each run. How people adapted this strategy, good success so far with this imam style approach to running? You know, I asked him and he just like intuitively played with it and figured it out. And he was this runner who was actually at the Olympic level. He'd made the Olympic team. He had the American

record for the 10 miles, something like 47 minutes and change pretty darn fast. And he started to train a lot of his friends and adults. And he realized that he couldn't treat these normal, regular people like these Olympic athletes. And that's when he introduced the run, walk, run. Yeah. The things that tend to work really well for beginners and even the things that worked well for us 15, 20 years ago, in some cases, we tend to like totally like dismiss those things as in, well, I mean, that's, that is what I did, but that's not what you should do. Even though it worked really well for me back when I was in, in that state where psychologically and, and physically I was a total beginner. And as a total beginner that, you know, this is all theory at the moment, but that technique or that drill or that, that way of

framing how to get better weightlifting, how to get better running worked well for me as a beginner, experts tended to dismiss that stuff. And they tend to frame everything from their current level of expertise, which is what another peer expert might need to hear, but it doesn't connect well with the beginner. So the run, walk, run thing from a beginner's point of view might be like, oh, obviously that's perfect for me. That's so totally intuitive, but an expert's like, no, they don't need to do that because it wouldn't work for me as an expert. Well, what's interesting about this one is it actually scaled up to some pretty expert runners in this case. And, you know, Carl and I talk about what's the most universal way to approach problems.

And, you know, you have every athlete is on the same level of progression or they're on the same progression, just at different levels. So what works for someone who's brand new should also be working for someone at the Olympic level. And, you know, he got a guy going from basically a two 32 down to a two 28 marathon with walking breaks, which to me is kind of insane. I've never, never crossed my mind that you would do that on purpose. I wouldn't either. You know, I think this is the greatest strategy for running I've ever heard. It's not running. This is all about it. We can walk. You've got my full support, Nate. Tell me more.

What if we did run, walk, sit? Walk, run. Chill, coffee, cake, rest, come back tomorrow, run. I don't know if the world's ready for that yet. I think that's very 21st century thinking. I remember hopping in a porta potty. The marathon we ran was in December. It was cold. And around mile eight, I had to drop one. The marathon we ran was in December. It was cold.

And around mile eight, I had to drop one. Yeah. I had to drop one. There was no way around it. Did you go pre? Did you do your pre-morning? Pre-marathon poop?

Six pre's. You know what? I tried to line up the nutrition 48 hours out to make sure that didn't happen and it still happened. And based off of what people told me to do and not to do anyways at mile eight it's cold i do my thing by the time i got off i think i had to do again

at 15 too it was just like oh man uh it's like oh now i gotta get moving again it was terrible terrible terrible you don't want to sit where did you want to sit walking's good sitting too many cheeseburgers was right did you just go shit in the woods like a bear? What'd you do? No, they had port-a-potties on the race. I think we're almost out of time. We got someone coming in to speak here. Oh, yeah, they need this classroom. They gotta go. They need the classroom, yeah.

To teach people who are paying tuition, I imagine. No, it's slated for the Endurance Sports Summit. And yeah, make sure to go to elevateendurance.org just to see what we did do here, because this will post, obviously, yeah, make sure to go to, uh, elevate endurance.org just to see what we're, what, what we did do here. Cause it's a post obviously after this all went down. Uh, and then what did you talk about today? I got to talk about, um, strong running and what it means to be a strong runner. And, uh, I really like this because I don't have that exercise physiology background. In fact, some of my favorite classes in college was philosophy.

Just as valuable, I mean, honestly. Well, I'm starting to realize it more and more in some of our best. Well, no, my point. Let me back up because everybody's like, Chris is an asshole. You are learning to see this problem from a myriad of perspectives. It's obvious that you can garner sports science data you know the science well enough to become a better coach but also you have a varied background that allows you to cast a different perspective take that data and look at running in a whole new way so that was not a

waste of time to study philosophy because it allows you to ask these questions now that was brilliant yeah fuck everybody and so i realized for a long time i I felt like, oh man, I should have this exercise physiology degree and I should go back to school. But then I realized that like, oh man, I actually learned to think pretty good in school and I think good. And, uh, I could, you like that? I could write okay too. And, uh, and then it's like, well, I'm not dumb. It's like, I'm not a dumb guy. And I started to ask these questions and these questions were very simple. And I realized that I was going to all of my heroes in the endurance world and they couldn't answer these simple questions. And then I was like, okay, maybe I'm onto something.

So what does it mean to be strong as a runner? That was kind of the thing. I already shouted out something at your talk. I'm not going to shout again. To be continued. Can you pose some of those questions real quick? Like, yeah, I want to wait until I'm like, okay, so we're going to get out of here. Yeah, for sure. Of course. So, you know, one of the things is, you know, we know we used the term strength all the time and sometimes like, well, physiological, you know, capacity and, you know, like the firing of a certain muscle or whatever. But there's also

this collective term we use like, oh yeah, you know, you looked really strong today. You know, it's like, you look strong in the field. And it's like, what does that mean? Qualitative, right? It's like, did they not give up? You know, did they not slow down? You kept going through those port-a-johns and you kept killing that marathon. It's like, that was strong. And it's like, well, what kind of strength are we talking about? Maybe that's like a mental component. But then the other thing is like, well, you were really strong runners. Like, well, does that mean you're fast? So, if you're a fast runner, are you strong? Can you be a fast runner, not strong? And then you're like, well, where else do we use this strength? We use it in the gym. Okay,

this guy can squat a lot of weight. He's really strong. Does that mean he's a fast runner? It's like, well, not necessarily. So, then, can I then say as a runner, like, oh, well, if I squat more weight, that's going to make my mile time drop linearly at the same time. It's like, well, it's sloppy. And in the endurance world, they haven't really answered satisfactorily to me what strength training should do. And it's because people aren't asking these questions. They're not focusing on the philosophy. They're just focused on the hard science. What are the scientific data? What does this say? What's the anatomical muscle that's firing in this thing? Your transverse abdominis is weak and your glute medius is weak. Your IT band is unstable because

of this. So you need to do little exercises to tee this up. But there's this lack of big picture. I think that, to me, when you say strong running, I think of like what, to me, it's like when you look at a runner, and you can also look at a weightlifter who's disqualitative, definitely strong, it should look beautiful and impossibly simple and like you could do it. You should watch a runner, and if they're moving smoothly and uniformly and, quote, beautifully, that's probably the best indicator to you instantly that mechanically they are moving as they should and that they're not wasting effort zigzagging around

or folding at certain key joints. Beauty transitions into stability and durability and persistence, the ability to do those things. Yeah, and then they're not only efficient mechanically, but they're also efficient physiologically as well. And this is interesting with a lot of running debates and issues. Are we born to run? Are we not? Is the pose method the best way to run? Sometimes they've done physiological tests on these guys running in different ways. And they said, oh, well, the pose isn't as good or running barefoot isn't as good because, you know, we got you hooked up to, you know, the little oxygen mask and we can see that

you're burning at a higher level. And you're on a treadmill more than likely. Yeah. When you do these things, but then we have to go back to the next level. It's like, well, if I take anyone and teach them a new way to squat or new way to swing a golf club, they're not going to be as efficient at it at first, but maybe mechanically it still is the better way. You got to get better before you can get, or you got to get worse before you can get better. There's a little bit of a trough, a learning curve before you can get better. Totally. Right. And we kind of see that with running too.

And it's just always kind of interesting to sort of look at this and it becomes much more messy than just saying, oh, heel striking is good or heel striking is bad. I don't know, just set bad. There are no set rules. There's no right or wrong. We're not getting kicked out of here yet, so I actually want to talk about pose running real quick. So pose running is like the dominant by far form of running in the CrossFit world,

but there's other forms of running out there, even though they're basically never talked about in the CrossFit world at all. So can you maybe talk about, I don't even know if you know all the answers to this stuff, what are the other forms of running that really should be in the conversation that aren't? And then what are the pros and cons of pose running? You know, is it just good for flat ground? Is it good for sprinting as a whole? What about running up here? What about running stairs? Like, well, there's all these other things that are never really talked about. Yeah. This is one of my favorite subjects actually. And I've,

I've read the pose running book and actually the way I got into pose was through something called Chi running. And it's a guy named Danny dryer and he's from ring County and he actually studied with Romanoff for a long time. And then he basically took the tenants of pose and put like an Eastern philosophical spin on it. What is it? Soft as cotton,

hard as steel, something like that. Sounds awesome. Sounds awesome. You just tell me Soft as cotton, hard as steel, something like that. Sounds awesome. You just tell me what it is and I'll say, yeah, sounds good, man. And so, you know, the way that I see it is this, is that in a lot of respects, running is running. It's hard to run in a certain trademarked way, but what they did, which I think was fantastic was, are we still going here? Oh, we are getting kicked out. Are we getting kicked out?

We defend your right to make this point. So I'll make this point real quick. We have to go? We can keep going? No, we got to wrap it up. So I'll make this real quick. So basically Romanoff figured out a way to teach running to adults. And what he did was focused on certain tenets of running that I think has been a great way to make running accessible to a lot of people.

But he just chose a few things in terms of a whole spectrum that he could have focused on. And in the CrossFit world, we focused on things so much, falling, pulling. It has to look like this, that we're ignoring other aspects of our running that's right in front of our face. Like what does sprinting look like? What is running up a hill? I don't just pull, I also push. this that we're ignoring other aspects of our running that's right in front of our face. Like what does sprinting look like? What is running up a hill? I don't just pull, I also push. Why do I focus on falling so much? If falling is just a cue to displace my center of mass over my base of support to create movement, I also do that when I squat. When I pull up, do I say I fall when I squat? When I walk, it's the same thing. The only way I can

create movement is if I displace my center of mass in some way. So even if I'm like the middle of the night, I'm just using the bathroom and I'm rubbing my eyes and I'm exhausted, I'm just kind of stumbling through, I'm falling. So sometimes for me, for example, when pose coaches hammer falling down their athletes, it's like, well, they're moving forward. So by definition, they actually are falling. So for me, it's kind of like this cue that's like, you know, we don't really need to use all that much. And I'm really appreciative for everything that Romanoff has done and what he's created. And I think it's really fantastic. I'm the next generation of coaches. And I really feel like it's my job to really interact with his material and challenge

it. And that's the best way that I can respect it. Yes. Best way you can honor his work. Honor his work. And then I can start to push forward and see like, what are the problems that I'm seeing with this stuff and how can I move that forward? Yeah. And I'll challenge, trying to challenge him just to prove him wrong in every case.

You're just trying to help innovate and help move the whole field forward. All right. So where we find you on Instagram? Instagram at Nate Helming, Instagram and Twitter. Excellent. And website? TheR at Nate Helming. Instagram and Twitter. Excellent. And website? TheRunningExperience.com. We got a kick-ass email newsletter.

Sign up for that shit. Nice, nice. And don't forget to go to barbellstrug.com as well. Sign up for that newsletter. But make sure to go over to Nate's first and knock that out. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, guys. Cheers, Nate.