New podcast with Dr. Chris Minson is live!
Some takeaways I found particularly interesting from this episode:
- Chris’s more detailed approach to heat training is likely what the top pro teams are following, but really stands in contrast to what a lot of non-professionals do. Makes you wonder how much athletes are missing out on due to excessive heat.
- I’m curious to see studies come out on these new fabrics from companies like Surpas.
- Interesting to hear that slurry gels may not merit as much focus as just making sure we can sweat better.
Hope you enjoyed this one!
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Maybe I missed it cause I was listening while riding. But he didn’t seem to say much about specific heat training protocols that you could implement.
He said you could easily over do it without measuring cause your RPE lags behind core temp. But nothing about how hot it should be, what’s a good rule of thumb, etc.
I also wish Jonathan had pressed him more about the carbon monoxide inhalation for simulating altitude. He mentioned that it can potentially have similar effects as altitude but it would have been interesting to hear him be asked directly if it was something that he was doing with athletes.
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I wonder how much bodyfat affects your ability to deal with heat. I had very big goals this year for Downieville and surpassed my power goals, but didn’t even touch my bodyfat goals of going from 20% down to 14%. I felt super good for the first 20 minutes until we turned onto the exposed double track and within 5 minutes the wheels completely came off.
Looking at the temperature data from the Wahoo the temperature jumped up 12 degrees once we got into the sun and I can’t help but wonder how much better I would’ve handled the heat at a lower bodyfat (not to mention gone at least 5 minutes faster on that climb).
I felt the same way. Felt very light on specifics.
Generally, leaner smaller people have less surface area to cool and are supposed to do better in the heat. But as always, there exceptions (I am one of those). Despite being on the smaller side and going to college and competing in the Central Valley (CA), I never took well to the heat. Others it didn’t seem to bother them as much. Kinda makes me wonder if there is a genetic component as well.
There’s always a genetic component!
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See the GCN post from today about heat training specifics… was this a key to Pogi’s success? https://youtu.be/ohbrGmtGwsU?si=IRSX2n19C1TWDVnv
You had mentioned maybe double checking about whether the sodium in sodium citrate could be processed like sodium chloride. Very curious about the answer to this. I have a follow up on that as sodium citrate isn’t easily available to the consumer. I’ve been using a mixture of citric acid and baking soda. I know this can make sodium citrate (in solution, 28g baking soda (aluminum free):25g citric acid). Don’t really care about making sodium citrate specifically, but am curious if doing this is an effective way to deliver sodium. I’ve been doing it this way for a while and I (and others) seem to like the mix (usually 2:1 malto to fructose or 1:1 for a “spicy ride” mix). Anyway, curious about people’s thoughts on this … for what it’s worth I use 30g each of baking soda and citric acid per kg of CHO.
Where do you live? In the US you can buy this from any number of retailers (amazon, walmart, etc).
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