On Wednesday, March 25, 2009, Brian Frank, founder of Hammer Nutrition gave a talk on nutrition at Breakaway Performance in San Francisco. Here are the notes I took. As you’ll see from the notes, not what you would have expected. I have been using Hammer Heed, Perpeteum, Gels, and Endurolytes since 2006 so I decided to test out Brian’s no breakfast thing before races and my morning bathroom breaks dropped from 4 down to 1 or 2 - and I thought it was just nerves! I also have less stomach issues during races as well. Sorry if some of my notes don’t make sense, next time I’ll bring a voice recorder!

• Brian
  • holistic family (all natural, no wheat)
  • competitive swimmer at Long Beach
  • 180° turn from what you’ve heard -> less is best!
    • most problems from excess consumption!
• Avoid Over Consumption
  • liver 1 gram carb/min -> glycogen
    • 280 calories/hour max
    • 165 lb. male -> 220-240/hour on bike (75% when running)
  • if you’ve had too much… it’s too late! (it can’t go anywhere)
  • fluid also over consumed (especially when hot)
    • perspiration rates almost irrelevant (we aren’t camels)
    • max of about 24-28 ounces/hour (regardless of heat) or it goes to the bladder
    • drink > 1/2 body weight (80 - 128 ounces for average male)
    • slowly increase daily water intake
  • if you max your fluid -> slow down, don’t drink more
  • when it’s 50-60°, only 10-12 ounces of water/hour
  • electrolytes, not just salt!
    • salt problematic due to daily habits
    • salty sweaters are salty eaters!
    • body doesn’t store sodium -> no sodium loading!
    • 8-12 grams/day -> average American and athlete
    • 1200-1800 mg/day -> ideal average American
    • 2400 - 3 grams/day -> ideal athlete
    • too much salt is toxic -> just as much for athletes!
    • cramping occurs after electrolyte imbalance
    • sustainable dietary habits -> not everyone could care less about food!
      • reduce processed foods (read labels for sodium)
      • reduce restaurants (sodium in the sauces)
    • 300-400mg at most / hour of sodium during exercise in heat
    • you want a proportionate amount of vitamins and minerals
    • if you have cramps… 1-3 endurolytes and all good in 5 minutes
• Post Workout Recovery
  • 3 hour window starts after you finish a workout
    • 30 min (60 grams carbs) -> 12 hours to be 95%
    • 3 hours (60 grams carbs) -> 36 hours to be 95%
  • replace glycogen stores
  • 3:1 carb/protein ratio
    • 30 grams carbs / 10 grams protein
    • 120 calories carbs / 40 calories protein
  • glutamine -> immune system
• Pre-Race/Workout Meal
  • 60-90 minutes before is NOT good!
    • digestion while exercising -> blood in stomach and extremeties
  • it takes 3 hours to digest a normal meal, so eat no closer than 3 hours before racing
  • if you work until 5:30pm and workout right after, eat lunch at 2:30pm
  • never sacrifice sleep for a meal!
  • don’t over do it the night before -> eat until satied and don’t eat fiber!
  • low fiber in the morning… 300-400 calories… no oatmeal!
  • 5 minutes before the start have a gel (hormones like insulin elevated)
  • on race morning, hormones (insulin) is up, body stops burning fat!
    • need to normalize insulin levels to burn more fatty acids, even at race pace
  • 800-1000 calories/hour can be burned at high intensities
  • consuming sugar/food between 3 hours and 5 minutes before raises insulin so you burn glycogen and not fatty acid
  • simple sugars flash and crash -> once the insulin is out of the pancreas and into the body it’s gone (3 hours to spike and rebound)
    • habitual high sugar intake -> diabetes
  • top anabolic agents
  • 1. testosterone
  • 2. human growth hormone
  • 3. insulin
  • breakfast -> carbs, little protein, almost no fat (300-400 calories)
    • half bagel, cup low fat yogurt, few strawberries
    • brown rice, steamed veggies, raw almonds
    • pasta w/ little olive oil, turkey breast/chicken
  • glycogen you use overnight not worth topping off by risking insulin levels increasing, so don;t eat after 3 hours before race start
  • once you start exercising… it all changes!
    • during exercise fuel passes isotonically
    • not sitting in your stomach for 3 hours -> turns into glycogen quicker
  • people adapt to caffeine… so don;t have more caffein that you normally do
    • but you don’t get ergogenic benefits if already adapted!
• Products
  • 10% naturally occurring sugars or less of total product
  • Hammer Gel, Heed <= 2 hours (body doesn’t cannibalize protein)
  • Perpeteum > 2 hours (need supplemental protein… otherwise burns lean muscle!)
  • body burns fat last (avacados, raw nuts, salmon, hemp seed -> good oils)
  • Perpeteum -> meal replacement
  • you can do 48 hours of all liquid!
  • honey-like fructose goes to blood, not liver -> that’s bad!
  • bars -> post workout, snacks, not specifically for during but you can
  • Endurolytes in capsules (dispenser) or powder
  • Race Cap Supreme is the ultimate performance enhancing supplement (koki-lo)
    • take 1 every 1-2 hours
    • liebernan & bigum -> 54 nutrients in perfect blend
  • Premium Insurance Caps -> balanced diet is a myth!
    • supplements fill in the pot holes
    • no way you can get 100% RDA top 9 nutrients completely from food w/ balanced carbs/protein/fat
    • not an option… it’s essential!
    • 7 capsules/day with 2 hours exercise/day
    • tablet vitamins -> expensive stools, people poop vitamins!

At Track Attack workouts, we do monthly time-trial testing to track each runner’s progress, but what about lactate threshold? Or anaerobic threshold or ventilatory threshold? And what exactly do each of these terms mean?

Anaerobic threshold (AT) and lactate threshold (LT) are pretty much synonymous, although lactate threshold is the more accurate term, since it is blood lactate level that determines this threshold value. LT is the point at which your body produces lactate faster than it can take it up, and therefore a rapid accumulation of lactate in the blood occurs. It is a useful number for endurance athletes to determine training heart rate zones and to predict racing performance. Usually, LT occurs right after ventilatory threshold (VT), which is the point at which breathing rate goes from increasing linearly to increasing exponentially. VT is not used very often, so LT is the preferred benchmark.

The best way to measure LT is to draw blood periodically during a graded exercise test and actually record blood lactate levels as they rise in accordance with heart rate. However, there are some ways to approximate lactate threshold on the track, but these methods are not quite as accurate and they do require some logistical planning on the coach’s part as well as some pacing experience on the runner’s part.

One example of measuring LT on the track is to do a 30-minute threshold run. Wearing heart rate monitors, the athletes run for 30-minutes at race pace, which should be the highest-intensity sustainable pace for that entire duration. Sustainable pace means speed is constant and heart rate does not fluctuate by more than ~5 beats per minute. During the 30-minute run, runners can call out their heart rate for coaches to record every minute. Most likely this will require two coaches on opposite sides of the track to record heart rate. After the test, coaches then average the heart rate values for the last 20 minutes, and that heart rate is the runner’s LT.

There are a couple reasons why this test only provides an estimate: (1) It takes a lot of experience for most runners to pace themselves at a constant speed while keeping their heart rate within that 5-beat range at the highest intensity that they can maintain. (2) Cardiovascular drift due to gradual dehydration during the 30-minutes causes heart rate to creep up, even if the runners can pace themselves perfectly.

So this method provides merely an estimate, but it is probably the best way to measure lactate threshold on the track without the hassle of drawing blood.