High-Intensity Interval Training is all the rage at the moment and for good reason, there are so many sporting, performance and health benefits to be had from this type of training. But it isn't all just about all-out sprints and going till you blow but using HIIT Training strategically and learning the different types of HIIT training and how to integrate them into your sporting and fitness goals. Dr. Paul Laursen has a Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology, is an author of the bestselling book "The Science and Application of HIIT Training" alongside co-author Dr. Michael Bucheit. He is an Endurance coach, high-performance consultant and has helped many of the world's top athletes get the best out of their bodies. He is an Adjunct Professor of Exercise at Auckland's AUT and was formerly the head of Physiology of High-Performance Sport NZ and resides at the nexus between research and applied sports science. He is an expert and goes into in this episode HIIT training types, Heart Rate Variability and how to use it gauge your training and health, Thermoregulation and Artificial Intelligence in training. He has don 17 Ironmans himself and uses his experiences both as a top-level athlete and scientist to help his athletes. He has two websites www.hiitscience.com where he offers a course in HIIT training for coaches and exercise scientists and his book and www.paullaursen.com. He is the co-founder of the Floe Bottle (www.floebottle.com) - which delivers ice slurries via a specially designed bottle for athletes training and racing in extreme temperatures. Ultramarathon running Pros & Cons Timestamp:
7:13 why is HIIT Important across all sports?
10:53 how do slow-twitch fibers have in endurance muscles
12:29 the 5 HIIT training weapons
16:03 how far should we go with HIIT training?
18:32 Are other sports (except for running/swimming/rowing considered as HIIT?
20:17 what type of training is best for ultra running?
22:10 Is There a Danger in overtraining? and is there a way of returning to balance?
27:40 ways to reach balance and lowering stress
33:27 About HRV + HRV app (HRV for training)
38:40 The Flow Bottle
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Transcript of the Podcast:
Speaker 1: (00:00)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com.
Speaker 2: (00:12)
Hi people, and welcome to pushing the limits. Before we get under the under way with today's guest, Dr. Paul Laursen, who I'm going to be introducing in a moment, I just want to remind you to please, if you enjoy the show, give us a rating or review on iTunes. It really, really helps the show get exposure, share it with your friends and your networks. We do a lot of amazing interviews with incredible people and the value that you get out of the show is really, I think, awesome. Some slightly biased well with the time investment. We'd also like to invite you to come and check us out on our website at lisatamati.com And check out our programs. Now we have three flagship programs. We have our online run training system running hot. And this is all about helping you develop your running skills and taking you to the next level.
Speaker 2: (01:03)
It's how to run faster, how to run further and longer without burning out, without injuries. It's about what even level that you're all with you just starting out in your running career or with you're doing, you know, 101 hundred miler. We'd love to help you there. The other program that we have is called mindset. You now, this is my online mental toughness and emotional resilience equals that you can do, which is all about developing that mental game, getting stronger in your mind, developing leadership qualities helping you be more resilient to cope with all the stresses that life throws at you and how to reframe your mind stronger for whatever challenges you are facing. And then the third flagship program that we have is epigenetic testing. Now, epigenetics is a pretty new area of study. This is an incredible program that we're having huge results with, with our, with our clients.
Speaker 2: (02:00)
And it's basically personalizing your health and fitness program to you and your genes and how they're expressing right now. So you'll get information from this about Zachary, what foods to eat and what ones to avoid. More importantly what times of the day you should be eating, how many meals they should be having, what work environment you do well and what social environment, what dominant hormones you have, what a body type you have, whole lot of information that will really help you take your training to the next level without being generic. And it's all specifically made for you and what you're doing right now. So check out all those programs at lisatamati.com now today's show, I have Dr. Paul Laursen. Now Dr. Paul is one of the world's leading scientists and hit training that's high intensity interval training. He's a exercise physiologist, the manager of high sport in New Zealand at AUT and is an adjunct professor of exercise physiology at a UT in Oakland.
Speaker 2: (03:07)
He resides at the nexus between research and applied sports science and physiology and he's a real expert on HIIT training on HIV, on Sumo regulation and on using AI for training. So it's really interesting interview. I'm sure you're going to get a lot out of it now without further ado, over to the show. Well, hi everyone. Listen to how many here at pushing the limits. Once again, thank you so much for your loyalty and coming back to the show every week. I really, really appreciate it. I'm super, super excited. I've been studying all yesterday and I've got one of the, one of the world's leading experts and head science and exercise physiology on the show today. I'm Dr. Paul Laursen, so thank you very much, Dr. Paul for being on the show. Welcome to the pushing the limits. Oh, thank you for having me. Listen. Honored to be here. It's so exciting. Dr Post's setting in Canada but he also knows New Zealand very well because he was the head of exercise physiology over here. Yeah. and you were here for two Olympic cycles training our Olympic athletes.
Speaker 3: (04:15)
That's right. Yeah. I was there for the Rio or, yeah, the London and the Rio Olympic cycles and I was leading the physiology team at that point in time, so, Oh wow. Great times. Awesome memories based at the millennium Institute on the North shore in Oakland. And you know, words have a hard time kind of describing this, like what a great time in life. That was for my whole family and stuff and so much learning along the way as well. That really forms where I'm at today with hit signs and some of the other stuff that we'll talk.
Speaker 2: (04:52)
Yeah, because you're really at the cutting age between your, you yourself are a very experienced iron man triathlete. So you have experience actually as an athlete as well as being a professor and exercise physiology and having all these experience with Olympic athletes. That must, you know, it's an incredible combination. Can you drop a few names of people that you perhaps worked with an ORC and that'd be interesting to, to, to know.
Speaker 3: (05:21)
Well I mean, you know, I don't know if I can really name drop too much. Like it's not, I think the cool thing about being a physiologist is that you, you sit in the background and you work with people and you work with all the top coaches and the top athletes, but you really just need to, yeah. You just kind of be the quiet person in the back. And I mean anyone in that you can just about anyone in that Olympics, those two Olympic cycles, you touch their program and see the, through the coaches support. It's a big end. Like it's, and again, I'm just one cog in the wheel of the high-performance system, so it's just, and it's a whole, it's all about team and yeah. So but yeah, no lots, lots of other, lots of big names, but they're not big on dropping.
Speaker 2: (06:15)
Fair enough. Fair enough. So Dr. Paul today I want to go into some of your areas, especially special day. So a lot of my audience, not all of them, but a lot of my audience are runners. And many of them are ultra marathon runners. And I'd like to we're going to get into the science of, of hit training. So high intensity interval training for those listening and how the supplies and maybe something in, in the sport, like, like marathon running or long distance running and, and what sort of benefits we can gain from it. So can you tell us a little bit about band and then I would like to go later on to heart rate variability and or those sort of good things as well. But let's start with training. So you've written the book on her, on her training what does the title the signs and application of her training. Can you tell us a little bit about why is it training so important across so many sports?
Speaker 3: (07:14)
Yeah, it's, it's a, it's super important. And, and when you look at a sport like ultra distance running, you would think it may be almost has no place, but in fact your listeners can get massive gains by implementing such type of training in their, in their programming. And you know, well, let's maybe ask the question why, why would someone who's doing a, you know, a hundred K ultra possibly benefit from hit? And the, I, I guess they're, they're really, I mean, we should also define what hit is like high intensity interval training specifically is defined as repeated bouts of high intensity exercise that are performed above your threshold. So that threshold kind of pace going to be above that by by default for it to be called kit, but not even moderate intensity sustained efforts. We're actually talking like above your your threshold. In other words, it's, you can't sustain the exercise for too long before you have to stop and take a breath.
Speaker 3: (08:19)
If you were to hold the exercise intensity up there, you would, you know, you need to ultimately fatigue. So if you're doing this repeatedly, you're actually you're listening some effects in your physiology that you're not going to be getting from just your steady state exercise, your long distance training. And some of these key ones are recruitment of your fast Twitch muscle fibers. So you get to, you know, you get to build on those fast Twitch muscle fibers. You, you know, you have to use those by default to perform such exercise. And that creates the adaptations you want, especially as an ultra distance runner. You want to create those faster Twitch muscle fibers, make them more slow Twitch like, or fatigue resistant and oxidative. And you do that by if it's, if the stimulus is repeated, you wind up actually doing that. So and then the second one relates.
Speaker 3: (09:15)
So that's the peripheral component. The second component really relates to the central component. And I am like, I'm pointing to my, when I'm saying central component, I'm really pointing to my, my heart, my cardiac cardiac apparatus. So the VIN trip, the ventricles of the heart wind up stretching out further filling up further. And by default they actually push more blood out to your stroke volume, winds up, increasing your cardiac output winds up increasing. So you and you and you get more so than chicken as stretch, more so than if you were just gonna do a steady state long exercise. So by supplementing his exercise into an ultra distance program, not all, but just that, you know, intermittently in the week your listeners will get you know, a real, real good bang for their buck.
Speaker 2: (10:09)
Yeah, no, I as an, as a young athlete before I knew what the hell I was doing at all, I used to do just miles and miles of slow, long distance running. I had no speed genetically speaking, you know, I wasn't right. Didn't have a great Theo to max or anything like that. And so for years, especially in ultra distance, it was very much a sort of a pioneering time if you like, you know, 20 something years ago and we had no idea of anything or at least not my circles. I just go out and just run long and slow because that's what we were going to be doing in the race long. And so and of course I could get to the finish line of those races, but it wasn't the most efficient style of training as I now know. But it was, it took me a bit of a stretch to get my head around why, you know, if I'm all about the slow Twitch fibers, I'm all about the endurance.
Speaker 2: (10:58)
What possible benefit can I do by recruiting my fast Twitch fibers? And I'm sure I've got very few left. I don't know if you can lose them all when you're doing journeys training. So how do the fast switch fibers actually benefit you later in a, in a, in a longer race, for example? You know, why is it not just all about the slow Twitch fibers I get, I get the cardio output side of things. You're going to be fed, you know, Hy-Vee, [inaudible] and so on. But from the flow Twitch fibers don't ant they the most important thing for an endurance runner.
Speaker 3: (11:34)
Yeah, they would definitely be the most important thing. However the more fast of the larger motor units you know, it's a bit of a continuum. It's, you know, it's hard to say whether a one is actually fast versus slow. So the key thing is actually the like, like you want to be able to these larger motor units like the the fast Twitch fibers, and when you do, they're more powerful right there. They're actually bigger. And these more, these bigger and more powerful motor units when they're contracting, they're going to be able to propel you a lot faster than your slower ones. So your pace will be able to be increased. Your pace on the Hills will be a lot better. You just have, you, you'll just feel a lot more energy ultimately. So you'll be able to,
Speaker 2: (12:23)
Yeah, a sustain a higher pace even over the longer, along with us sensors. Now there are different types of training. Do you, have, you talked about the five training weapons, I think you call them. Let's look at that because you know you know, for the average person, hit training just means, you know, perhaps sprinting and then backing off and sprinting again. What are some of the variables and some of those different types of pet training that we can do?
Speaker 3: (12:51)
Yep. So the two key variables and the most influential ones are the intensity of the workout and the duration of the work boat. Those are the two key ones, right. And then we can also look at the recovery interval as well. The intensity and the duration of the recovery interval. But let's just focus on you know, if we break the intensities up, the first one we usually start with is our long interval. And this would be just above your are just, sorry, just at, pardon me, your VO two max exercise intensity if and if you know where that might might be. Right. So that might be sitting on a, you know, repeated one K efforts on the track would be typically if you're going to do, you know you know, six of those that's typically around your BX max and exercise intensity or you know, you're, you're starting your 1500 meter to 3000 meter run pace on the track, all that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: (13:46)
So, but yeah, so you're kind of repeating those four, a two to five minutes repeated, repeated bouts of that for two to five minutes at that pace. And that's typically, or that's considered your a long interval. And that's the first of the five questions that you referred to. Second weapon is the short interval. The short interval aren't done. It just a marginally higher exercise intensity that we've done in a long interval, you know and these might be on the track, might be like, Nope, 100 or 200 or 300 meter repeats, something like that with the equivalent. Usually equivalent rest intervals is recovery too. So I've done a little bit harder, not much, just a little bit more harder than the long interval with with, with some sh with equivalent short rests. So these are typically in the 10, second to 62nd range duration and 10 seconds to 62nd range of recovery.
Speaker 3: (14:43)
Got, there's your long interval, there's your short interval, and then the, the other three. Let's let so the next one is you, you referred to it. Do I all out? But yeah, the next two are all out maximal sprints. Tobacco, like intervals for the sprint interval training. Those are the long sprints or really short and sharp all out short sprints for repeated sprint interval sprinting. And we'll try it. So I'm sorry, repeated sprint training, R, R, S. T. and then the last one is not used too much in the the ultra distance context, I would think. But it's game-based interval training. So there's a good, there's a good team sport base of of people in New Zealand with the rugby and the football. All those various different sports. And if you're in a team sport, you're definitely using game-based animal training. They're typically, they're like, you're actually in putting the ball into play as you do an interval
Speaker 2: (15:41)
And making it a bit more fun and very short sort of sharp bursts of, of, of activity.
Speaker 3: (15:46)
So, and the coach will actually do that and they'll kind of almost trick their players into getting the, the, the work the work done. So yeah, they create, create fun, but it's also very sports-specific too. So you can see why it's so successful in the team sport contents.
Speaker 2: (16:02)
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you said, you said trick them into it because you know, we, when I hear training I hear, Oh no. And I like personally when I have to go, I've got a head session on today, it's like, Oh no, here we go. You know how, how do you overcome that sort of a feeling of like, because you know, should you be going to the point of, of absolute exhaustion and throwing up in the bucket somewhere during these sessions? Or is that going too far? Like, you know and it is another question too. Is training only in relation to running like cardiovascular or a bike or can you do say a tobacco session net counts as a hit training session? So it can be weights relate related or is it only sort of cycling and
Speaker 3: (16:54)
I'm running? Sure. So let's start with your first question there, which is basically around the whole, you know, does it have to do, have to go to the weld? Does it have to be no pain, no gain? And that is a really important question that you asked Lisa because it's absolutely not, the shouldn't hit equipment hit training was never originally designed for that. It you should like, it should not be no pain, no gain. Like, that's not if you've taken it to where it's too painful, like that's, you've taken it too, too far and it's ultimately not, not very effective for almost like a longevity type type sort of thing. So you, the key thing that we find with training, those who are most successful in training are those who backup session after session. Consistency of training is key. And if you are going to the well and you're killing yourself and you're not able to perform the next day because you to be trained too hard in a hit session or for whatever year you're slowing down the progression compared to what you could actually, she had you had, you punched a little bit back and then repeated that repeated some sort of a session the next day.
Speaker 3: (18:10)
So that's the first question. It's not about no pain, no gain. It's not about going to the, well, always leave a session like you could have done one more. So the first rule remind me of your second question. Second question was, is it only cardio is hit training only in relation to say cycling and running is yes, no cardio, you know, activities also tobacco and or CrossFit, you know, those sort of things counted as hit training. Yeah, bit of a debatable one. So from a purest standpoint, it's typically we're talking about a, you know, a, a mode of exercise like cycling, running, rowing, swimming, a whole body type exercise. However, there's lots of ways to skin the cat as we love to say. And you know, there's a lot we see this being done throughout team sports and exercise and fitness industries, CrossFit, etc.
Speaker 3: (19:09)
And the, you know, there's, there's certainly way, loads of different ways to kind of do that. So I guess it's kinda yes and kind of no on that question. It just really depends on the camp that you're sitting in. Here's to our own. Yeah. And also like, I mean also depends probably on like what you're trying to. So if you're a time crunched individual that has to sit in an office and work most of the day, you know, you might like a cross fit type exercise where it's hitting lots of different things like circuit training, that might be all you can kind of get in in the day. And that might be really practical to your context. So it's super, super. If we're going to take the professional athlete, we don't recommend it because the professional athlete context, typically we can just be a little bit more precise with the, with the training and we don't have to be super setting everything and going back and forth.
Speaker 3: (20:05)
That will differ and that will differ across you know, beliefs and strategies of, of different conditioners. That's just what Martin and I kind of feel with our, with what we, what it is that we do. So it's very specific to the sport hat that you're doing. So you would train a soccer player different than you would train to note for a marathon runner or an iron man triathlete. What are some of the typical training? I mean, not typical training sessions. Probably a hard one to answer, but if you had an athlete coming to you that doing a hundred K, what type of trainings would you prescribe to them as a typical part of the week? Yep. So if
Speaker 3: (20:48)
I was training an ultra runner, I would probably train them very similar to a, you know, a marathoner and I would train them, you know, they would they would have lots of elements of the long slow distance type training in it, but they would fit in terms of the hid sessions. There would likely be a short interval session in there. So like 30 on 30 off, you know, set point in certain sets of 30 on 30 off, say like you know, seven 30 on 30 off and then followed by five minutes easy. And then repeat that. So you're actually listening of the OT response and you're again recruiting those fast Twitch muscle fibers. I might have a long interval in there, a few long intervals at a couple of different moments in the, in the training program. I would be implementing Hill training in there. Most definitely because so many ultras actually have have a Hill requirement. Plus that would be kind of a, as a strength endurance element that we wanted their, both that benefit that you get both on the uphill climbing as well as the downhill. So I think those would be the key. Those would be the key elements in addition to some moderate intensity, pace, pace work and lots of lots of long distance work in there.
Speaker 2: (22:07)
Yeah. And that's sort of what we sort of, you know, adhere to, to generally. So I want to ask you what are the dangers like? I just, you know, selfishly asking for personal reasons now I've done obviously, you know, loving long time of doing stupid amount of running. And in the beginning, you know, just doing huge, huge mileage and now I'm totally not into huge monitor meant more the, you know, bearing everything up and the five pillars, we call them, say, you know, your strength training in mobility, your, you run sessions of varying types your nutrition and your mental game as well. But I've run into problems with burnout and adrenal exhaustion and the HPA access, you know, in the gutter, basically cortisol, not while I'm like at a stage now where the cortisol is just not, not producing at all. It's just like more day is have. And I think I've done too many we're long staff and the, the head stuff as well. Is your danger in doing too much overtraining and can you come back from that very complicated your way back for me?
Speaker 3: (23:34)
Yeah. I mean I think the body always wants to get back and heal itself and return to homeostasis and balance. Right. So, so, and I think you know, the answer to the first question, you certainly can burn out food too much, too much yet. And that is a, so you may have seen the article in the film afternoon and I wrote on the unhealthy athlete and that's really around the old you know, burnout thing with fit but unhealthy. Healthy. Yeah. So it's made its rounds around rounds around the world and, and yeah, that's one of the ones that, yeah, I mean I even saw that a lot in the high performance sport context, whether it was just too much intensity in certain programs and we do see this, this burnout that actually occurs. And yeah, it really, really, it's just, it just requires a period of rest and provides a, usually a well let me back up a bit and just say that, you know, there's stress comes in many different forms and it's often not just the high intensity interval training that's contributing to that.
Speaker 3: (24:37)
A lot of times it's a bunch of different stressors that are coming into play and creating a perfect storm ultimately. So we've got, you know, nutrition can be a stress in itself if it's inappropriate for the individual. A lack of sleep is a huge stressor. Psychosocial stresses that we all experience through our human existence, going to life. So all of these things create and then add exercise into that as well. If any of those are creating too much of a stress, but we're all, it affects what you mentioned, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal access, the HPA axis, which is basically our integrator in the brain between the nervous system and the endocrine system. And it, it it's there to help protect us. At least it was, and now I can can sabotage. That's right.
Speaker 3: (25:29)
And, and yeah, and then also we can see we can reach the point where it's you know, it's almost done a little bit too much and we're not able to return to create, to you know, create the hormonal profile that we need to have control our moods and, and these sorts of things. Right. But at the end of the day, it requires rest and recovery. One of the, one of the little tricks that I like to use, or I sometimes when that happens, is a floating, and I'm not sure if floating is taken off in New Zealand has around flotation tanks.
Speaker 3: (26:10)
It's a great means of of resetting and returning the body to homeostasis. What immune, it's not like you're going to get there on one single float, but it's like a series of floats can reset the sleep and then it can, and then the body can kind of come back into rhythm. You really need to get back into that circadian rhythm again and getting, yeah, so, so what you're saying, and it's something that we talk about a lot and now coaching is you've got a bucket of stress and it, you, if you were sticking in mental stress,
Speaker 2: (26:44)
Work, stress can stress whatever wrong photos and then your bucket sets here fall and then you've stopped putting in training loads that and when you're not a professional athlete, you just, you know, busy executive or something with three kids, then you're going to overfill the bucket and then you've got to tip over. And that's when they sorts of things can start to happen. And and on that point we could get onto the heart rate variability in a moment. But yeah, it is, it is quite a struggle. What we're seeing a lot of with the people that we're coaching is where we touch a lot of Sonata elite athletes as much as probably 80% woman and their thirties, forties and 50s who are having hormonal changes as well as going through, you know, but trying to still stay at the top end of the of their game, wherever they're at. And that can be quite a tricky tight rope walk as well. Have you got any experience or any advice for, for say, a woman approaching those changes, menopausal years, period, menopause in regards to the training that can help them get through that period if you like.
Speaker 3: (28:00)
You know, I don't I don't have any great advice that's you know, it doesn't really add on what I just kinda mentioned. Like you've got to, so those changes are going to be happening. That's a natural physiological occurrence. Can't get away from that. And your management of those issues is going to relate to your own context. You're going to do the best you can. But some of these strategies such as really checking in with your diet, you know you know, potentially there's a lot of individuals that have, I think they've gotten the diet right, but maybe it could actually be better not issues. That's a real telltale sign that something's a little bit off. You get some help with that. Cause that could be, you know, two things that are, that are kind of going awry in the, in the diet or in the, in the stressors.
Speaker 3: (28:57)
And then, you know, things like in meditation it's so much easier to say that harder to do, but if people can find a meditation practice that helps, that is, that is one, another way that you can kind of reset the HPA axis. Almost forced meditation is this look flood tank kind of, lot of people can't have, they can't even imagine getting into one of these isolation tanks because they think like they're just so claustrophobic and anxious about it. And that is again, a telltale sign that they could be an issue there. Right. If he can't do that, that's another, yeah. That, that anxiety might be elevated. Stress might be elevated in that individual too. So, and where do you start with us? You know, I don't know. You just take one step at a time, fix one little thing, make one step towards becoming a, you know, lowering that stress in your life. Yeah. Because there's no, there's never a blanket solution for every individual. And look, in my experience, the menopause process is very, it's quite variable. It's, you know, it's, it's all, it's weird on one morning and then it's fine the next moment. And then, yeah.
Speaker 2: (30:21)
Big conscious self proponent to be a good general Rowando. I'm not expecting the eighth all the time of yourself. But yeah, I think that the message, and I know I'm a very big proponent of meditation or deep breathing exercises and things like the Wim Hoff meets ed or those sort of areas that can help sort of stimulate that parasympathetic nervous system and calm the body down so that it is
Speaker 3: (30:45)
Not completely in fight or flight all the time. Having seen things. Yeah. Can I add one other big one is, you know, we're, we're both using it right now as we speak and some of the listener because they're listening to us likely on some sort of technology device, but it's, technology is a real big elephant in the room too. We haven't had that in the past. And that is another thing that really affects our stress levels as being glued, you know, to our, to our phones and to our computers and iPads and all these various different things. You know, it's become integrated and part of our life. But that's another big factor that we can, that can really make a difference. And that's probably why, you know, ultras are so appealing to people because their phone and need there need a little bit of technology behind when they go.
Speaker 3: (31:40)
They can just get away from it for a certain amount of time. And if you're feeling that way, like I know you, I know I do. So you've got, you know, there's, there's a, there's a little bit of magic that's probably within that whole you know need that we kind of need to appreciate. So last year I went on a big big paddle trip, but the family, and it was in a place in British Columbia where there's no technology and it's like, yeah, it's public. It was called the Bower and lakes. It's a series of, you know, 11 lakes and your poor through it. And there's just no point in taking any technology cause there's nothing out there. So you just, you live in when you're camping or that many days. And I just, you know, I can't tell you how incredible that was a whole reset of the, of the HPA axis for me. I just like, you know, it's back to nature and stuff. So doing more ultras.
Speaker 2: (32:40)
Yeah. I think, I think that's something that I'm miss. Cause I've stopped doing ultra marathons the last three years. I had a mum who got sick and I hate to, you know, drop everything and rehabilitate here. And I miss that singularity of thought and that, those hours of clearing the mind every day. And that's something that really is missing, especially when you're, you know, like, like yourself running businesses and folly. You know, always high-performance everything. And it can really be a load on the whole body that I think is actually worse than the load of ultra Raleigh. If I could go back to the simple days when all I had to worry about was the finish line getting to the finish line, it was a whole lot simpler than all that stuff that we have typically in our life and our crazy world now have coming at us. On their point. I wanted to start talking just briefly about HIV heart rate variability and how you use this to judge. What is it first status. Cause a lot of people still haven't really heard what heart rate variability is and how it works and how they can use it in their training. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 3: (33:49)
Sure. So heart rate variability is what the word kind of described. So it's variation of the heartbeat. And a lot of times when we, when we just start out and we just think of heart rate in itself, we think of it more of a less like a clock or like a metronome. And it just goes tick tock, tick tock, you know, if you're to, you know, listen to your heart, that's what you would think. But in actual fact, there's a lot of variation that's going on beat to beat. So it's like, it's actually going tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. And that variation, what scientists have discovered is that that variation in those beads actually means something when it's more like the clock or the metronome and it's just, it's right on time. You're using what's called your sympathetic system or your fight or flight.
Speaker 3: (34:41)
Okay. So your stress would be high. And when it's really a lot more variable, I'm going all over the place. Well that's more associated with the parasympathetic system, the rest and digest system being relaxed or recovery like when you're sleeping. So what's what's happening now is there's, we've, we've gotten very innovative means being able to get, get a hold of the area of this heart rate variability. And that's why people are hearing a lot more about this. If I certainly measure this in my own athletes and they can because they can do it. So simply now, and this was a, we had, we had the honor of being a part of this innovation and development and validation of it, the AUT lab in millennium. And we verified this HRV for training, not the HIV for training actually uses the iPhone camera. I'm not sure if you're familiar with this, but basically you can measure you can measure your heart rate variability just using like the, the phone, like a phone camera so you can actually use and you can actually like get a measure of your heart rate variability just on your, on your oxygen.
Speaker 3: (36:02)
Oh, well this is teeny of HIV for training. And we verify this and lab with against CCGs standard ECG. It uses various different, you know artificial intelligent means of, of just a, a stab wishing the, the HIV and it's even better than using a polar chest strap. We discovered HIV training so they can, people can get that in the app store and, and, and there's also a coaching version too. So I use the coaching version a bunch. All my athletes are on that. We can just see how easy this is. So I was right or wrong. I do sleep with my my iPhone beside my bed and I wake up in the morning. Yeah, very, very first thing I'll do is I'll take this measurement of the HIV and that just automatically logs on to the HIV for training, I guess server and then your coach or yourself can actually look at that and he can actually get your score and yeah, you don't actually even look at what, you know, a single measure you don't usually look at like a single measure, but you looking at the trend and that measure over tolerance.
Speaker 3: (37:19)
And that's very useful, especially if you're under a heavy training load or stresses are getting in the way. So all the stress stuff that we were talking about before, it can be quantified using the HRV for training or at least it's on marker. Right. So that's, that's a really exciting, I mean, we use a very simple analog version, which is like a, a wellness check sheet that sort of give us people who are writing a one to 10 on the hydration, their sleep and Nagel go their stress levels, all that sort of thing. But this is a much simpler way to just get that one figure. But there is a little bit of is it isn't just saying, Oh, today it's dropped before I'm not healthy or something's going on. You do have to look at the train lines and not reading too much into any single ratings, isn't it? So when you're saying I have a three or four days, there's something going on, that's when you get more maybe it's time to back off and have a, have a bit of a recovery period before you go and see a Nick session. So that's definitely a super exciting app. I'll be downloading it today. Everybody go and grab that. That's tip tip of the white, that one. So, and this is something that's very simple that we can really measure that if we're going into over-training or
Speaker 2: (38:36)
Getting sick or anything that's going on inside the body, it's a very quick way of, of giving us that measurement. So that's, that's super exciting. Now I wanted to go onto your flow bottle, but we, you have designed the flow bottle, which is like a slushie. And I said to Dr. Paul before I got on the recording, I wish I'd had that in this Valley or in the sorrow when I was running. So how does this work and why is so Summa regulation is another area that you're an expert in. Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: (39:12)
Yeah, sure. So this has a cool story that again goes back to New Zealand. And so when I first arrived in New Zealand and I was coming from Australia, I'd just done my PhD and been a professor over in Australia, working a lot with the Australian Institute of sport. And there were a couple of hot games that we were preparing for. I think one was Atlanta, another one was Athens. And yeah. And so pre-cooling was one of my areas that I did a lot of work on figuring out how we could cool the body beforehand. And one of the first things that my, I guess the leaders at HBS and Zed said when I first arrived is, you know, do something innovative Paul and figure out, you know, make sense, be creative and make us something that we, you know, our athletes can kind of use to to win on the world stage.
Speaker 3: (39:58)
So, but my head, you know, put my head on and got to work and I came up with this because I knew the power of, I slushie the coolest I from my work in Australia. I said, wouldn't it be cool if we could actually use ice slushie when we're exercising? And I said, Oh, perfect, easy. We'll just we'll, let's get a water bottle and we'll, we'll put ice slushie in it. There were no water bottles at the time that would allow for the expulsion of a slushie when you were exercising. So that's when we went to the, there's this innovation project with the engineers and the university of Canterbury down in Christchurch. So we got into their program, they took it on and a bunch of fourth year engineering students made the flow bottle, which is basically a, you know, they figured out, they did all these, did various different experiments to figure out how they were going to design a bottle to be able to cause for the, the the ice to ice slushy to kind of get out of that, keep it cold.
Speaker 3: (41:02)
And they came up with a prototype bottle. They did an amazing job. And then a company by the name of procreates a Graham Brewster, his company out of, out of Auckland North shore. He and his team made a beautiful, what I believe is a beautiful design of a silicone version of this one. You know, a Silicon from your other nets and other sorts of gay, it's been kind of keeps it like it's solid, but it's still like you can kind of you know, push it to to laugh that slushy to come. And they made beautiful design in terms of the nozzle and, and now, now we have the, the flow bottle. Yeah, it's being used by number of different countries in the, the Olympics. You might've heard that the Tokyo games, it's just going to be absolutely in terms of the key. So it's already been used in the test event. We've seen some very great photos, New Zealand team mates using that and that's been just absolutely awesome. And and yeah, the so it's, it's, it's pretty exciting. So it's available for anyone to use and especially your listeners most to be in New Zealand can, can can access that pretty easily through, through the flip bottle website. And and actually, you know hitting up procreate for some for some bottles.
Speaker 2: (42:23)
Oh, got to get one. So what is the website there? So this is tip number two for the, for today's show we get asked a flow bottle from what was the essence
Speaker 3: (42:33)
L O E ball. So we're a bottle so and no flow. FFL OB is like a plan where it's with like a a nice slow, which is but yeah, like a nice, a nice slow like a, you know, like a, like an iceberg and stuff. And then they call like little pieces that are breaking off and hanging out there in the Arctic. The uthe flows. Yeah. So it's, yeah.
Speaker 2: (42:55)
Well something that they will be very beneficial in some of these hot races, especially hot long running races. How does ISIS is the last thing before we wrap up today? So I'm aware of your time. How does when you put ice in your tummy, doesn't it? I've always hated it. It's not good, you know, and we'll stop the digestion and cause trouble. Is that true or what's, what's the go there?
Speaker 3: (43:19)
No, it certainly wouldn't be through the cool temperatures and that can only kind of benefit. So we should actually leave with, with being very clear on the benefits and why I especially actually works from a cooling standpoint. So it works for a couple of different reasons. First of all, it's almost like reverse of the sweating process. So when we sweat and our sweat is actually a BACP rated on our skins, it's the process of the evaporation, the actual state change from a liquid to a gas elicits that energy release, heat energy us. So again, that's a, that's a very important physics kind of principle that allows us to survive in not sweating. But when you can't evaporate your sweat and not flakes, such as in places like Tokyo or Hawaii unity, what are you going to do? Well then you can't really do too much about it.
Speaker 3: (44:12)
You can, a little trick of course is to work the opposite phase chain and you're, you're actually going from a, the same thing happens stuff that happens on you when it's going from a solid to a liquid. So you're putting solid ice into your system and in order to melt that ice, it has to, the ice has to rotate heat, energy away from your body. And it does that in the places that matter as well. When you're ingesting it, it's cooling your neck and the carotid vessels that are going back up to your brain. And same with your essential core. So you're getting it in just the right places that you need it. And yeah, I mean all the sciences on the website, if people are interested and cleaning all of the research papers, it's well documented within the studies. Again, that's why I'm, and that's at this thing cause I was, you know, we did, we did eight years of research in a laboratory to kind of uncover a lot of this stuff works like a hot damn.
Speaker 2: (45:09)
Wow. Cause one of the things that we did say in death Valley or whether it was extreme temperatures was always having ice, little ice bags that we hit on our wrists and up here, a thing around here. But yeah, nobody had one of those back then. So definitely something to watch out for. Now. Dr. Paul, you have a course, a training course for any other, you know, sports and conditioning coaches out there who want to really dive deep into the top in science. Tell us a little bit about that course and about the book that goes along with that and what you are doing now and how people can reach out to you.
Speaker 3: (45:46)
Yeah, for sure. So I am, so my main, I guess main work is with hit science. So it's hits which is H tie it, science.com. Check it, check that out. And there's a course on there that the user can take and it'll teach you all these various different things. So for coaches, they'll find it very useful in terms of getting the prescription and you know, understanding how they can manipulate the sessions appropriately. Same with the book. So the book is published by human kinetics. It's a best seller and that's on Amazon. So again you can reach that through the hit science website as well as links on everywhere. And then otherwise, if you want to find out all the other different things that I'm doing, all my other different projects. Annette Nepal, arson.com, and I'm a, an endurance coach to many of the top endurance athletes in the world, at least in the sport of Ironman triathlon and a bunch of other different,
Speaker 2: (46:49)
You're an amazing coach and an amazing level at the top end of cutting edge science. I, I hope I can do that course and that in the course of the next year I've got another couple of I'm going to get through AP genetics training and a few other things, but I'd hope that I can get there because that's what helped take our athletes definitely to the next level as well. And that would be very interesting for us. So thank you for all this information today. I think there's been some real gems of wisdom for our listeners that they can take away. And yeah, everybody, you've got to do your training no matter what sport you're in. There is an application for this. If you want to find out more, if you want to dive deep into the research, get their book out of science and application or pet training by Dr. Paul Laursen and your colleague's name was Dr Michael Bucheit.
Speaker 2: (47:38)
So you can grab that. I'll put the the links in the show notes. Any last words, Paul, for for anyone out there or anything that you would like to say is the last message to get across? Well, my, just, my last message is that I miss miss New Zealand by the way friends and family back in New Zealand. We are a joint, so we spent enough time in there that we're actually a joint citizenship family heritage as well. And come back. We move back one day. We love, we love it there. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you so much Dr. Paul.
Speaker 1: (48:19)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.
