Building Fatigue Resistance

There are many ways we can create a boost in fitness by learning to run with fatigued legs. To do this, I often program workouts that include hills with tempo runs or short intervals with tempo runs to create a boost in fitness or to simulate race conditions. The time of year I tend to program this most often is in early spring, 12 to 16 weeks out from a goal race, and near goal races.

Hill / Tempo Session Example

2 to 6 x 20 seconds to 1-minute hill sprints. Recovery is a walk or jog down taking at least 1 minute to 90 seconds for full recovery.

After the hills, jog 3 minute to a flat location to start your tempo run.

Run 10 to 20 minutes at threshold.

After the tempo, jog 3 min back to your hill location.

2 to 6 x 20 seconds to 1-minute hill sprints. Recovery is a walk or jog down taking at least 1 minute to 90 seconds for full recovery.

The short sprint hill session utilizes our fast twitch muscle fibers. We are turning on the recruitment of our fast twitch muscle fibers. These fast twitch muscle fibers stay turned on when we move into the tempo. Here is what is happening physiologically: Fast twitch muscle fibers consist of Type 2a and 2b. Type 2b recruitment last less than a minute. Then what happens is that Type 2a needs to handle more of the aerobic work. These muscle fibers last up 30 minutes. We become more efficient by recruiting more of the Type 2 muscle fibers in our training.

Short Intervals / Tempo Session Example

4 to 8 x 200 meters at mile pace with 1-minute recovery.

After the 200s, jog 3 minutes

Run 10 to 20 minutes at threshold.

After the tempo, jog 3 minutes

4 to 8 x 200 meters at mile pace with 1-minute recovery.

Like the hill/tempo session, this workout accomplishes the same goal of turning on our fast twitch muscles and recruiting more fast twitch muscle fibers overall.

I tend to program the hill/tempo session early in the training cycle. The short intervals/tempo session is something I like to program three to six weeks out from a 3km to half marathon distance race.

Knowing your Threshold for Swimming as a Triathlete

If you are an endurance athlete, then you are familiar with functional threshold as it pertains to the bike and lactate threshold for the run. It is the maximum all out pace that you can sustain for an hour. The same concept is applicable to swimming and important if you’re a triathlete.

Critical Swim Speed (CSS) is used to measure your swimming functional threshold. The information I am summarizing here is from TriDot and SwimSmooth, and some research articles which I will point you to.

As endurance athlete, the most important thing is to understand pacing. Knowing your threshold pace in all disciplines of the triathlon allows for intelligent programming. Workouts can be designed with the purpose of increasing the threshold pace over time. Specific training can then be outlined which includes workouts at this threshold pace, faster (anaerobic) and easier (aerobic). Further, testing and tracking your threshold race improvement lets you know you’re getting more fit.

In running, it was Arthur Lydiard who discovered that high volume training at moderate intensities leads to increased speeds in athletes from 800m to the marathon. The same theory exists in swimming and cycling. If an athlete trains fast and short all the time, improvement is going to be minimal or not at all. Regardless of how fast you want to go, you need to train moderate intensities at longer intervals. We still include speed sessions in the training.

Determining your Critical Swim Speed (CSS) / Threshold

The there two alternative tests or methods you can conduct to determine your threshold in swimming.

Test 1 - Critical Swim Speed (CSS) Test:

The test is two-time trial swims consisting of 400- and 200-meter swims with full recovery in between.

You can then go to this handy calculator and which will calculate your CSS value.

http://www.swimsmooth.com/improve/intermediate/swim-smooth-css-calculator

Or you can use the following formula:

Critical speed = (Distance of longer test swim – distance of shorter test swim) divided by (Time of longer test swim – time of shorter test swim)

Test 2 – Functional Threshold Pace Test:

This method of calculating threshold is to perform a 30-minute swim as fast as your can and record how far you covered. To calculate the equivalent to the one -hour effort, multiply by two and subtract 2.5 percent.

Determining your Pace Zones

Now you can calculate the rest of your pacing from Zone 1 to Zone 5: recovery, endurance, tempo, V02 and anaerobic sprints. These swim paces should be used mainly for pool training purposes. T-pace, in the chart below, is the pace calculated from the test you conducted.

Zone 1 (recovery) - T-pace plus 17 seconds or slower

Zone 2 (endurance) - T-pace plus 7 seconds to T-pace plus 17 seconds

Zone 3 (tempo) – T-pace plus 2 seconds to T-pace plus 7 seconds

Zone 4 (threshold) - T-pace minus 2 seconds to T-pace plus 2 seconds

Zone 5 (anaerobic) - 0:00 to T-pace minus 2 seconds

Endurance Training

Design you week such that part of your week is spent training below threshold pace, some part at threshold pace, and some part above threshold pace.

Ironman

Individuals who can complete the 3.8-kilometer swim in under an hour are training to race a solid tempo effort. Those that are longer than an hour will be aiming to race closer to an endurance pace. In training, both groups will need to train at both paces.

Example workouts:

Tempo sets – 50 minutes or 2.5 kilometers of swimming. A main set would be 12x200 with 30 seconds rest.

Endurance sets – 3 to 4 km in length. For example, 4 x 1km with 15 to 30 seconds rest.

Half Ironman

Most triathletes complete the 1.9-kilometer swim in under an hour. This means training is about preparing for a tempo effort. Those completing the distance in under 40 minutes, race pace is in between a tempo and threshold effort.

Example workouts:

Tempo sets – progressively increase sets to 2.5 kilometers.

Endurance – 2.5 to 3 km.

Types of workouts

Threshold

Warm-up

300 easy

6x50 drills

200 pull

4x50 descend on 40/45/50/55/60 seconds

Main Set

4x100 at threshold with 10 seconds rest

200 at threshold with 15 seconds rest

4x100 at threshold with 10 seconds rest

300 at threshold with 20 seconds rest

4x100 at threshold with 10 seconds rest

400 at threshold

Cool-down

200 easy

Speed

Warm-up

200 easy

200 as 25 drill / 25 swim / 25 kick on back / 25 swim

4x50 on 40/45/50/55/60 seconds as:

#1 25 fast / 25 easy

#2 25 easy / 25 fast

#3 fast

#4 easy

4x75 build on 60/65/70/75/80 seconds

Main set

4x100 @ T-2 seconds on a send off that gets you 4 to 6 seconds rest

4x100 @ T-3 seconds on a send off that gets you 8 to 10 seconds rest

4x100 @ T-4 seconds on a send off that gets you 12 to 14 seconds rest

4x100 @ T-5 seconds on a send off that gets you 16 to 18 seconds rest

4x100 @ T-6 seconds on a send off that gets you 20 to 22 seconds rest

Cool-down

200 easy

Endurance

Boring, but you will become faster.

All sets and intervals have 20 seconds rest between.

4x400 @ T+6 seconds / 100

3x400 @ T+5 seconds /100

2x400 @ T+4 seconds /100

400 @ T+3 seconds /100

Supporting Research

Here are some worthwhile links:

http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbme/v13n3/en_v13n3a13.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11842355

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11519417_Validity_and_Reliability_of_Critical_Speed_Critical_Stroke_Rate_and_Anaerobic_Capacity_in_Relation_to_Front_Crawl_Swimming_Performances

http://www.gotri.ie/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/USA-Swimming-Age-Group-Training-Paces.pdf

https://youtu.be/wooLaOhLg6U

My Journey with Rheumatoid Arthritis

I decided to share my story around living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as several people have contacted me recently to talk about the disease as they have been recently diagnosed. It is a topic I really do not talk about much. I tend to be a person of action and try to limit my excuses in life.

RA is a very misunderstood disease and people really do not understand the magnitude of the disease. When I say I have RA, the most common question I get is, where do you have it? Let me take some time to talk about the disease and my journey with it.

I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in November 2002. I woke one morning, and my thumbs were three times their normal size, and my feet and ankles were massively swollen. It felt like my whole body was in a cast. I went into emergency and was told that I had rheumatoid arthritis. Of course, I had no clue about RA and how my life was about to change. I found it puzzling as I had just transitioned to a master runner and was running very well. I thought that they were wrong. Even upon going to see a specialist, I questioned whether it was a mistake.

RA is an autoimmune disease. Your body’s immune system goes amiss and begins to attack your body’s own tissue. It attacks the lining of your joints. It attacks symmetrically, meaning that it affects the joints on both sides of the body. The synovial fluid and associated connective tissue cells proliferate, forming a pannus (cloth-like layer), which causes the joint capsule to become thickened and destroys the articular cartilage. In advanced stages, opposing joint surfaces can become fused. RA also impacts the eyes, heart, lungs, kidneys, skin, blood vessels, and respiratory system. People with RA usually have a low number of red blood cells.

The protocol for someone diagnosed with RA is brutal. I had to start with taking drugs such as Methotrexate (cancer drug), Hydroxychloroquine (malaria drug), Prednisone (steroid), and Thalidomide. These drugs are brutal. If none of these drugs work, then one can move on to be eligible for Disease Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Drugs (DMARDs) such as Etanercept (Enbrel). The protocol for me took 18 months. Let me explain eligible. DMARDs such as Etanercept (Enbrel) are not covered by health care and in most cases by private insurance. The cost of the drug is $1700 for four prefilled syringes injected once a week. Yes, a cost of $1700 per month!

In the first six months, post my diagnosis, I was not able to exercise at all due to the inflammation. I could not even wear shoes because my feet and ankles were so swollen. Further, I could not use a pen or pencil because of the inflammation in my hands and thumbs. Normal tasks were very hard for the first 18 months of living with RA. I went from being a healthy, very fit and strong woman to being weak. It literally happened overnight. There were days that the pain was so bad that all I could do was lay in bed. I felt I had no control over what was happening to me. I am a person who needs to control what is going on in my life. My own description of myself is that I am fearless, action oriented, determined, full of grit, and persistent. I am not afraid of failure and will take what I have learned from failure and move on.

I knew I had to push the system and gain back my ability to exercise and move. I was depressed and in pain all the time. For me, RA was like a death sentence. Like most things in my life, I took on the disease head on. I persisted, fought, and challenged the protocol. At that time, I had a young RA Doctor, who was progressive. With her help I was able to get approved for Etanercept (Enbrel) within 18 months, and by two weeks my inflammation began to subside, and I was able to start movement again. I thought the drug was a miracle drug!

At first, my expectation was that I could just resume running and biking at the level I had left off prior to the diagnosis. That was not the case. My body was different, and I had to figure out what my body was capable of with RA. Each day with RA is different and presents different challenge. RA goes in and out of remission and each day you are in remission is a gift.

What does living the RA feel/look like? It is a life of constant stiffness, soreness, muscle cramps, and fatigue. My muscles are tight, I have limited mobility in my shoulders and spine, and some days my knees and feet hurt so much I struggle to get up and down the stairs first thing in the morning and after hard training efforts. I tire more easily, and I have limited energy when it comes to endurance or hard intensity workouts. I do have good days where I can push hard. However, the recovery process is longer, and I require more sleep even compared to when I was a full-time athlete. There are days where I need 10 to 12 hours of sleep. It used to be that I would feel frustrated with having to sleep so much. It made me feel like I was lazy or inadequate. I have learned to accept that I need the sleep to help my body repair. Inflammation is debilitating, and the body needs rest.

People often ask me why I continue to push my body so much if it causes additional soreness. Training and fitness has been part of my life since I was a young child. I am goal oriented, need to have processes and plans, and most importantly, striving to be my best has been an outlet for me. This article is about my struggle with RA. However, I need to share that I am also a cancer survivor. I took up running when I was diagnosed with cancer. I started with only being able to run one block. Every day I added a block. Running was how I coped. It was the only time where I was alone with my own thoughts and it is what provided me the strength to fight for another day. Post my first bout with cancer, I went on to be a very good runner. My approach to fighting and living with RA is the same as it was with battling cancer. After two years with RA, I went on to train and compete in two Ironman events. I even got my running back to a decent level.

I try to live each day to its fullest. I have good and bad days. I make exercise my priority. It is my coping mechanism. I continue to attack things head on and try new activities to get me out of my comfort zone. I refuse to give up on enjoying what I love. Being fit and strong is part of my identity. I will remain active, battle all challenges that come my way, and continue to live a life having physical and mental grit.

My belief is that everyone has a story. Mine is not special. My hope is that my story helps others to find courage to battle obstacles in their own life.

Female Athlete Hydration and Fueling - Review of the Book ROAR

I have been reading the book ROAR by Dr. Stacy Sims. It is amazing read and geared specifically to women. I am on my second time through. There is just so much good information, and how the book is structured takes some time to understand. The book was recommended in a course I took that highlighted some new thoughts on hydration and nutrition. To be honest, it took a bit to get my head around the difference between absorption and fueling. It is a concept that most nutritionists do not differentiate between (at least to my knowledge). Sims drives home the saying, “food in your pocket and hydration in your bottle.” Sims does an amazing jog of explaining how the female body works. She dives deep into how hormones impact the female athlete during the menstrual cycle, pre-and post menopause and pregnancy. She provides prescriptive guidelines on hydration and fueling to help the female athlete throughout the different stages of her hormonal journey. I do not provide information on fueling and hydration in this article as it is very in depth. I encourage you to read the book.

As a former elite female athlete, I understand the struggles that female athletes are challenged with when it comes to hormones and performance. When I competed, the literature and research available specific to the female was limited. Much like Sims, I was frustrated with coaches suggesting to get on the pill to control my menstrual cycle. It did not make sense to me given how the pill can elevate estrogen and progesterone.

As a coach, I have finally found a resource that can help me better coach my female athletes in areas of hydration and fueling for training and racing. The concepts of fueling and hydration that Sims provide are not foreign. What Sims does extremely well is connecting the dots between the female hormonal cycle and what has to change in hydration and fueling during training and racing.

My goal for this article is to summarize some of the key points from the book. Every female athlete and coach of females should read this book. I don’t recall much of my high school biology class (except that my teacher sat at the back of the class and picked his nose) but Sims refreshes this for us.

Human Biology Refresher

• The largest muscle fibers in a female body are endurance fibers (Type 1).
• Essential body fat for females is 12 percent and for 4 percent for males.
• Females pump out 30 percent less oxygenated blood than males.
• Males have 6 percent more red blood cells and 10 to 15 percent more hemoglobin (molecule that carries oxygen in red blood cells).
• Female VO2 is 15 to 25 percent lower than men.
• It takes longer for females to sweat and this impacts heat tolerance.
• Females rely more on fat whereas males rely more on carbs. This is important to understand when it comes to the menstrual cycle and pre-and post menopause. Understanding the shifts in estrogen and progesterone levels and how to manage this is the main theme in the book.
• Females are more likely to sweat out excess sodium and eat into their muscles for energy.
• The metabolism of a female drops back to normal within three hours post exercise compared 21 hours for a male.

Key Concepts From the Book

• Performance levels are highest once your period starts and days five to 11 following your period (Follicular phase). Estrogen levels surge on day 12.
• Five days before menstruation, estrogen and progesterone reach peak levels (Luteal phase). Why is this important to know? Estrogen reduces carbohydrate burning ability so when estrogen surges it will have an impact on high intensity performance. Female athletes will feel unfit and unable to push hard. High levels of progesterone promotes catabolism. It increases the breakdown of muscle tissue and makes it more difficult to access amino acids. Key message here is that one-third of muscle tissue is composed of the amino acids leucine, isoleucine and valine. Leucine triggers muscle repair and growth.
• Estrogen and progesterone are elevated during the luteal phase (days 14 to 28 of the cycle), and peak five days before menstruation. During this time blood plasma can drop up to 8 percent. This can impact hydration and cooling during exercise. Plasma volume is the amount of fluid in our blood. When it is low our blood is thicker, less blood is pumped out, and exercise will feel harder. Progesterone elevates core temperature, and this means higher loss of sodium.
• From ages 35 to 50 estrogen declines by 35 to 50 percent and progesterone by 75 percent. In addition, there is relatively higher estrogen levels compared to progesterone.
• Wake up call – postmenopausal females have a hard time metabolizing fructose in processed foods (for example, gels). Further, synthesis of protein changes and there is a higher rate of protein breakdown. Also, sweat rate is lower, and the ability to feel thirst declines. There is also a decreased insulin sensitivity. Insulin instructs the body what to do with blood glucose. Insulin communicates to our cells to take up blood glucose to use as fuel or store as glycogen. Decreased insulin sensitivity results in higher amounts of glucose left in circulation and eventually stored as fat.

Read the book

This book is a handbook for female athletes and coaches of female athletes. The book teaches you about the female body and provides exact details on hydration and fueling during exercise and through the different stages of the female hormonal phases.

My Own Advice

To maintain and improve bone density and lean muscle, heavy resistance training is needed. I felt that even though the book does go into exercises and some strength training, it does not stress the need for heavy resistance training. My suggestion around types of exercises are centered around things we need to be able to do in our everyday life. We need to be able to lift, carry, pull and push. In addition, everything we do requires grip strength. Throw away the biceps curls and start working on functional exercises which focus on the anterior and posterior chain. I also suggest adding exercises that help with balance, and this should be part of every routine regardless of age.

• Deadlifts
• Farmer’s Carries
• Sled push and pull
• Standing or walking with a sandbag on your shoulders
• Squats with weight
• Walking Lunges with weight
• Push ups
• Pull ups and body holds

Goals and Pursuits

2018, the year that for the first time in my life, I have made a list of things I want to knock off. I have never been a person who has had a bucket list or a list of goals. Weird, I know as most people would describe me as goal oriented and results focused. However, I have always just approached life by experiencing, and wanting to see how far I could push myself. I try to approach my life in a way that is right for me. As such, I rarely share my pursuits with others. I tend to just do and then share if I am asked. Why? My pursuits are simply mine and I do not feel I need approval to follow through on what I want to do. This is likely why two things I read, in the last couple of days, have me pondering. I felt they were worth sharing.

Amelia Boone's Blog https://goo.gl/DLwpax. Boone is an OCR racer but she is also an interesting person to read about. Here are some of what she stated in her recent blog.

“It’s a difficult thing for any athlete to fall off the podium, to no longer be the one that everyone fears, and to feel like your best days are behind you. I won’t lie – it’s an extremely humbling process, and one that I’m still working through. But by racing through these emotions and these fears, I learned something else: there’s great freedom in it as well. Freedom in realizing your expectations are only constructs you create in your own head. Freedom is learning that the world keeps spinning regardless of what that finish time says.”

Boone goes on to say,

“true joy and true gratitude does not come from the victory – it comes from the pursuit of the achievement. The happiness from victory is there, of course, but it’s fleeting.

Because you know what? Winning is never going to be enough. I spent years winning race after race, and wondering why I still wasn’t happy. Why, the more I won, the less fulfilled I felt.

I was missing the point all along – I was failing to embrace the things that truly brought me happiness, that truly brought me joy: the pursuit, and the sharing of that pursuit with others.”

Pete Hitzeman from Breaking Muscle talks about goal setting. What I really enjoyed is how he reworked the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely) approach to goal setting from the corporate world to that of the athletic world. Here is what he had to say about SMART goals.

“Scary as hell. There should be elements of your goal that threaten your physical being, your ego or both.

Meaningful to you personally. They should be something that pulls at your heartstrings for one reason or another. That reason doesn’t have to make sense to anybody else, either. More on that later.

Above your current level of ability. This might seem obvious, but more than a few people set goals that they are already capable of accomplishing right now, or with very little work. For a goal to create a process and improve your habits, it needs to be something that will take months or years of work.

Rare. Here’s the tricky part. It doesn’t have to be something that’s rare to everybody, but it should at least be a rare occurrence in your life. Lots of people run marathons, and a few crazies do it regularly. But if it’s something that you may only be able to accomplish once in your life, it’s a rare goal.

Tribe-focused. Your goal should be something that causes you to surround yourself with likeminded people. This can be at a gym, or with a running team, or at a Thursday night dodgeball league. No, online tribes don’t count. You need to be around other actual people.”

My advice to anyone (including myself) is to always reach in pursuits, avoid judgement by others, be eager to constantly learn and explore, and limit time with negative people. I feel that this makes us not only better human beings, but also great athletes.

Training systems

Understanding the relationship between the intensity of a training session and its optimal duration is poorly understood. Endurance athletes derive energy from three different energy systems. This means that an endurance athlete needs to train all three.

Muscles are fuelled by different energy systems. The systems are:
- The creatine phosphate system
- The lactate system
- The aerobic system

When we train we want to target these energy systems in a way that reflects the demand of the the event we are training for.

Simplified, the three training zones are:
- Zone 1- aerobic, easy, recovery, long slow distance. I can keep going and going. Heart rate is under 80% but better around 70-75% of maximum. Energy system used is aerobic system.
- Zone 2 - Threshold training. Moderately hard. Heart rate is 80-85% of maximum. Energy system is aerobic system with use from the lactate system. 
- Zone 3 - Very high intensity, race pace. Training is very hard. Heart rate is over 85% of maximum. Energy system used is lactate with use from the creatine phosphate system.

Knowing when and how to train these systems based on the event we are training for is when improvement in performance is made. In addition, it is important to understand how much time is spent training in these zones based on the distance of event we are training for.

Tips on choosing a coach

Looking for a running coach? Here are some tips:

1. Certifications. Look for a coach who has National Coaching Certifications from National Governing bodies at greater than the first level. 

2. Experience both in length and breadth. A coach who has been coaching for several years will have been exposed to lots of different athletes and will have learned what is needed for different levels of athletes with varying training years. In addition, a coach who coaches track, cross country, road and trail in all distances brings a lot to the table.

3. INTERVIEW COACHES and ask:
How they structure training? How often can you contact them? How would they approach helping you reach your goals? Do they plan your race schedule or does the athlete have the reigns on this?

4. Ask to meet current athletes. I always encourage new folks to come out for a couple of practices, if they are local to my area.

5. Ask for the names of a couple of athletes they have coached in the past, and also a couple from who they currently coach. Make connection with these athletes and ask for their view on the coach.

6. Look for results. A coach who has a reputation for improving performance of athletes is only part of an equation. The other part of the equation is the length of time athletes have been with a coach. A good coach has the ability to keep athletes accountable and responsible. In other words, they ensure that the athlete understands that training is a process of learning and adapting. It is not the same thing over and over again. A good coach knows when and how to move the training process along so that the athlete makes strides every year.

7. Make sure that the price that a coach charges is justifiable. The experience level must match the price being asked. Look for someone who is a professional and not a hobbyist. There are a lot of online coaches with pretty websites; however, that does not mean that they have adequate experience coaching. Do your homework by going through #1 to #6.

8. Experience as an athlete adds to the toolbox a coach has but it is not experience as a coach. A good coach was mentored by other coaches. Ask the person who their mentors were. I had some amazing mentors both as an athlete and a coach. I owe a lot to those people.

Weighing in with Whey Protein

Lately, I have been asked questions around post exercise recovery nutrition and nutrition for getting lean and for weight maintenance.  I am going to discuss whey protein and its benefits. 

What is Whey Protein

Most of us grew up on drinking milk.  Milk is comprised of two types of proteins - 80% casein and 20% whey proteins.  Whey is the liquid by-product of milk that separates during the manufacturing process.  Following pasteurisation, the whey clumps and is extracted. 

Whey protein can be way too confusing.  If you walked into a sport supplement store you would notice that, there are many whey protein products.  Here is a summary that provides the highlights:

1.       Whey protein concentrate consists of around 80% protein.  It contains naturally occurring carbohydrates and fats.  This make it a calorie dense supplement (i.e. contains high levels of calories per serving).  It contains some lactose.

2.       Whey protein isolate consists of 85% to 95% protein.  This type of whey has undergone further purification to minimize the macronutrients (see side bar) and enhance the protein content.  As such, it has less lactose and fat.  This process removes micronutrients (see side bar) and subfractions (see side bar) that aid in boosting our immune system. 

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Side bar for those of you who missed out nutrition courses in high school and hated math and biology:

There are three macronutrients required by humans: carbohydrates (sugar), lipids (fats), and proteins.  Each of these macronutrients provides energy in the form of calories. For example:

• In carbohydrates, there are 4 calories per gram
• In proteins, there are 4 calories per gram
• In lipids, there are 9 calories per gram

Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals.

Subfractions are smaller amino acids and peptides.

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3.       Whey protein hydrolysate can be a concentrate or an isolate in which some of chemical bonds in the whey have been broken after being exposed to heat, acids or enzymes.  This process allows for the whey to be absorbed more rapidly in the stomach compared to the other whey proteins.  It causes a 28 to 43% greater spike in insulin levels than isolate.

Benefits of Whey Protein

There are numerous studies which have found that whey protein maximizes lean body mass and fat free mass gain.   It also has been proven to improve upper and lower body strength.  Here are the benefits of whey protein:

• As a recovery drink, it is rapidly digested and absorbed. 
• It contains the amino acid leucine which is responsible for muscle building.
• It aids in body fat reduction or weight management while at the same time conserves or increases muscle mass.  Power to weight ratio improvements are the result.

What is the right amount of Whey Protein?

• 20g of whey protein is the magic number.
• For high volumes of training 20g of whey protein and 40g to 60g of carbohydrates.  This helps recovery by replenishing muscle glycogen.

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BIG and IMPORTANT Side bar

Glycolysis is the breakdown of carbohydrates. It lasts from roughly ten seconds into physical activity up to about two to three minutes. The energy for glycolysis comes from glucose, or our stored form of glucose called glycogen.  Glycogen is stored in muscle tissue and the liver.  The average person holds about 1,500-2,000 calories of stored glycogen.  The liver contains about 100g of stored glycogen and muscle tissue contains about 400g of stored glycogen.

The liver is responsible for controlling blood sugar between meals. Our muscles main responsibility is to move bones.  This allows us to do all the locomotive tasks associated with daily living.

Glycolysis is an anaerobic metabolic pathway.  Carbohydrates are the only macronutrient that can be synthesized into usable ATP under anaerobic conditions.  We need to make sure we take in enough carbohydrates to fuel glycolysis during activity and to keep our glycogen stores full.  A reduction in muscle glycogen is associated with fatigue.

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What is my recovery routine?

I personally use a combination of:

• Whey Protein Islolate (I use ON Gold Standard).  A serving size provides 24g protein, 3g of carbohydrates 1g of fat and 120 calories.
• Skratch Recovery Mix.  A serving size provides 36g carbohydrates, 7g protein, 3.5g of fat and 200 calories.

Within 90 minutes of this, I consume a meal or snack which is also a combination of carbohydrates and protein.  If for some reason a meal is not possible within the 90 minutes, I consume another of the same mixture described.

If I am trying to reduce my weight or get lean, I will use a hydrolysed whey protein with less carbohydrates.  I will shoot for 20g protein and 20g carbohydrates.

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Micellar Casein Protein and Recovery

This article was about whey protein, but don't discount the value of micellar casein protein.  The video does an amazing job of describing muscle protein synthesis (MPS) and muscle protein breakdown (MPB).  For athletes, pre-sleep protein is essential.  Ingesting micellar casein protein one to two hours before sleep is beneficial for recovery.  The dosage recommended is 50g.  Watch the video.

I have read a lot of different articles on casein, and to be honest, as a supplement there are several differing opinions.  Grade and processing is a big factor.  I think I will stick to whole casein as found in raw milk, milk protein concentrate and aged cheese.