Science Of Ultra

Rebroadcast part 1 of 2 - Sam Cheuvront, PhD & Robert Kenefick, PhD, two of the living legends of performance hydration, bring everything you could want to know about hydration for endurance athletes starting with the basics in this episode.

Major advances in our understanding of human metabolism have been made in recent years, and they’ve been pioneered by Herman Pontzer, PhD. He, and his colleagues, are making discoveries in human metabolism and energy balance that will reshape our approach to human health for many years to come. These are fundamental breakthroughs that are providing explanations for outcomes among energy intake, exercise, and body weight that have confused us for so long. Get his new book on the show page: https://scienceofultra.com/podcasts/145

[Rebroadcast] Our goal is never to get good at suffering. Our goal is to suffer less under the same conditions, not to make running easier but to run with greater ease.

Dr. Baar rejoins us on the show. He was previously on for episode 58. Today we illuminate the central role of connective tissue and associated proteins in transmitting force from muscle, extend that understanding to explain how muscle functions in running (hint: it’s not at all like most people think), and dive into ways that you can optimize your connective tissue health. https://scienceofultra.com/podcasts/143

Kathryn Ackerman, MD, MPH is a sports medicine physician, Associate Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, medical director of the Female Athlete Program at Boston Children's Hospital, Associate Director of the sports endocrine research lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a team physician for USA Rowing. Dr. Ackerman is, herself, a former national team rower. Twitter: @DrKateAckerman https://twitter.com/DrKateAckerman Female Athlete Conference: https://www.femaleathleteconference.com​ https://scienceofultra.com/podcasts/142

Hiking! I'm joined by Ian Sharman for a deep dive into training for hiking in ultras.

How much running and how much overall exercise training should you be doing to prepare yourself for ultra-marathons or other major endurance adventures? Show page: https://scienceofultra.com/podcasts/140

If you only have one training pace, this should be it. https://scienceofultra.com/podcasts/139

Kelly McGonigal, PhD understands the power of mindset and movement better than anyone. Show page: https://scienceofultra.com/podcasts/138  

A primer on the why and how of sleep for endurance athletes with Amy Bender, PhD from the Centre for Sleep. Show page: https://scienceofultra.com/podcasts/137

Mileage is the most important factor in your training, after consistency, no matter your goals. Show page: https://scienceofultra.com/podcasts/136

Two questions answered today. Should you put intervals at the beginning or at the end of the workout? Should progression runs be done by effort or pace?

Herman Pontzer, PhD is an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University interested in how the human body evolved and how our species’ past has shaped our health and physiology today. He studies the ecology, lifestyle, diet and evolutionary history of humans and apes to better understand metabolism and health. As you’ll hear in the interview, we emphasize what hunter-gatherer societies can tell us about the human body because it’s the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers that created the bodies we have. Several years ago, Dr. Pontzer and his colleagues were curious about the total energy expended per day by people living as hunter-gatherers. They discovered that nobody had made the actual, direct measurements. It took them a while to convince funding agencies that this was a good use of research dollars because the reviewers thought ’these are very active people, they’re going to be expending a lot more energy than sedentary people, we have good estimates of that based on activity level, we’re not going to learn anything here’. But Dr. Pontzer and is colleagues persisted, got the funding, and did the direct measurements. They discovered that the Hadza people of Tanzania expend the same number of calories per day as sedentary people in the United States and other modern societies despite being much more active. Show page: https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/134

Andrew Skurka & Joe McConaughy join me to talk about training and psychology for ultra distance events. Show page: https://scienceofultra.com/podcasts/133

Let's talk about failure, success, and learning.