Thanks for joining me today for another podcast. This is Tridoc 7 on Triathlon Training Tips Nutrition, sports nutrition, supplements and more.  So, you contacted me and asked if I had an insight or thought on the foot strike debate.

Actually there is no proven evidence scientifically that one is better than the other. Based on biomechanics and engineering principles it does make some sense that if your pounding your heel into the ground will result in losing forward momentum.

So one of the concepts is proper timing of foot placement as it contacts the ground. There is some data that shows that foot striking, more with mid-foot decreases the amount of energy transfer into the ground and therefore translates into forward momentum. The reality of it is there’s no currently no research that proves that either type of running, either mid-foot or heel striking is better and so it is depends on YOU. That’s probably not the answer you want but that’s really the reality of what the science has found thus far.

We know from a medical standpoint that if you run with shoes and you strike the mid-foot the amount of shock transfer to the knees is decreased, but this force has to go somewhere.

This is going to show up with increase stress in the plantar fascia.  If you have never had plantar fasciitis you don’t want it, it can be severe it can take months to resolve.  That will really impact your training and racing season.

The other issue that shows up often in athletes that are new to modifying their foot strike, is increased force translated to the Achilles tendons.

Achilles tendonitis results from inflammation.  Felt as soreness or stiffness, this is also a slow problem to recover from.

If you’re planning and trying a different style and changing your running form through modification of foot strike, do it gradually and you may able to avoid some injuries and  some conditions that will hamper your training and racing season.

That  being said I wanted to focus this episode on sports nutrition.   I will tell you about some supplements and some  herbal hacks that have been shown  to improve performance particularly in triathletes  and endurance athletes.

I’m working on the final touches on the free guide that you can download from the website. Basically it covers the secrets of sports supplements from the literature.

I’ll be sharing which supplements and herbal products have been documented to improve performance and which are simply wasting your money.

And so I think the first guide who will probably cover five or seven supplements and herbal products and we will just go on from there.

To SIGN up for the free guide just head the website at tridoc7.com and click on the bar on the right side, sign up for free newsletter and I’ll get you a copy  as soon as it’s off the press.

So for the remaining part of the podcast I’ll cover the general guidelines for triathletes and endurance athletes.  The focus on  caloric intake, carbohydrates, some vitamins and the aspectsof herbal products.  I’ll also cover minerals.

I know that some of this material is pretty dry, so I’ll try to spice it up and we will move pretty fast.

One of the key things to start with is the basic of the energy intake. People often want to know how much energy they need to consume on their training?   That’s a little bit difficult question to answer, there is some highly specific test that can be done if you have extra money to spend at a specialized testing facility.

Here are the general recommendations by the International Society Sports Medicine, so if you’re exercising maybe 3 times a week for about 40 minutes a day, that your training regimen, you can get by with 1800 to 2000 kilo calories a day and so that is basically 25-35 kilo calories per kilogram per day for somebody who weighs 50-80 kilograms. A pound is a basically a 2.2 kilograms so you can do the math there.

For high intensity training, a longer race, marathon or whatever, you will obviously need more calories. That’s pretty evident that based on sports data that intense exercise can burn up to 1200 kilo calories in hour. So just take into consideration that an average person consuming about 2500 Kcalories a day can burn through half of their fuel source during one hour of intense exercise. And so for people who are exercising  5- 6 times a week with high volumes of training, sometimes 2-6 hours per day, will need tons of calories to support that level of exercise.

For a 100 kg athlete, 15-18 Kcalories per kilogram per day, depending on what you’re doing.

The cycling literature shows that for example Tour deFrance athletes can consume and burn off essentially 12,000 Kcalories per day.  Just think about that for a minute!  That is a boat load of food so it’s important  to maintain a level of energy intake and fuel in your body.

It is well documented in Medical Sports Literature, that if your energy deficient, this is going lead to a weight loss showing up as  muscle mass loss,  weakness,  physical illness and burn out.

It is clearly evident that  strenuous exercise produces some inflammatory mediators which can suppress the immune system. I’m trying to avoid throwing in medical jargon,  but in reality is when athletes push to the limits they create inflammation in the body and multiple systems are affected. The athlete becomes prone to illness and injury.   That is why recovery is so important, and part of recovery is nutrition and so just keep that in mind.

The best source of  fuel essentials is whole food, not processed but whole foods. Depending on how much exercise and duration, some may need to supplement on top of that.

Good quality supplements are key but knowing what supplements to use, which are beneficial versus the one that are just wasting your money is important and we will get to that in a bit.

One way to ensure adequate energy intake is to eat frequently: 4 to 6 a day with snacks. That’s probably the easiest way to get the amount of calories in your body when training for more that in an hour a day and so it’s pretty clear that a you need to reframe your eating philosophy.

So for those who are skeptical think of this way:  What do you think of produces more heat and energy? The fire that burns hot only three times a day and burns out in between or a fire that just has a constant moderate burn level throughout the day?

The latter produces more heat and energy over the couse of every day.

Obviously pumping in some food and energy in to your body at low level constant burn will increase your metabolism and increase your energy production. Your body will learn to become more efficient in converting the nutrients that you put into it viable energy sources such as glycogen.

Protein is often underestimated and under utilize by triathletes and I covered this on my previous podcast episode and videos (on youtube) but essentially just shoot for at least 1.5 to 1.8 grams per kilogram per day of a quality protein source.

We will cover in the next episode the different protein sources, amino acids and essential acids and so on, but that’s the topic for another day.

Fat, eat fat to lose fat, that’s  really a controversial adage in some peoples minds but the data is clearly there. We know the higher fat diets maintains mental concentration vs. low fat diets.

For athletes attempting to decrease body fat, the goal should be about 1.5 to 1 gram per kilogram per day of fat and so if you’re looking to a maintain some steady weight …..rest to be transcribed…