Ever wonder if the dietary guidelines for athletes are realistic or just theoretical ideals? Dr. Singleton and Tony debate the practicality of standardized nutrition recommendations, especially for endurance athletes and fighters. Michelle emphasizes the critical need to track elite athletes' actual food intake to offer accurate advice, while Tony questions whether some guidelines are even feasible. This segment sheds light on the significant gap between theory and practice, urging ongoing research and tailored approaches to better serve athletes' unique needs.
About our special guest:
Michelle Singleton serves as Lecturer of Exercise and Sport Science at Coastal Carolina University. Early in her career, Michelle gained valuable practical experiences as a certified athletic trainer, personal trainer, and fitness center manager while concurrently earning her Master’s degree in Nutrition and Human Performance. The satisfaction of serving as an adjunct faculty member led Michelle to shift her career focus to full-time teaching in Fall 2020. Over the last four years, Michelle has received several recognitions, nominations, and awards for teaching and service. She is involved in numerous research projects and service opportunities and, most recently, Michelle completed her Ph.D. in Health Sciences with a focus in Human and Sport Performance in May 2024.
Ever wonder if the dietary guidelines for athletes are realistic or just theoretical ideals? Dr. Singleton and Tony debate the practicality of standardized nutrition recommendations, especially for endurance athletes and fighters. Michelle emphasizes the critical need to track elite athletes' actual food intake to offer accurate advice, while Tony questions whether some guidelines are even feasible. This segment sheds light on the significant gap between theory and practice, urging ongoing research and tailored approaches to better serve athletes' unique needs.
About our special guest:
Michelle Singleton serves as Lecturer of Exercise and Sport Science at Coastal Carolina University. Early in her career, Michelle gained valuable practical experiences as a certified athletic trainer, personal trainer, and fitness center manager while concurrently earning her Master’s degree in Nutrition and Human Performance. The satisfaction of serving as an adjunct faculty member led Michelle to shift her career focus to full-time teaching in Fall 2020. Over the last four years, Michelle has received several recognitions, nominations, and awards for teaching and service. She is involved in numerous research projects and service opportunities and, most recently, Michelle completed her Ph.D. in Health Sciences with a focus in Human and Sport Performance in May 2024.
Welcome to the Sports Science News. I'm your host, dr Jose Antonio, with my co-host, dr Tony Ricci. You can find our podcast on Spotify, youtube, apple Podcasts and some of you listen to Rumble, so you can find us there. Our special guest today is Dr Michelle Singleton. She serves as a lecturer of exercise and sports science at Coastal Carolina University. Actually been there once Early in her career, michelle gained valuable practical experiences as a certified athletic trainer, personal trainer and fitness center manager, while concurrently earning her master's degree in nutrition and human performance. Her research interests revolve around a variety of human performance topics, including sports nutrition, education, interventions, dietary and recovery strategies, falling exercise and injury and Tony will love this psychosocial aspects of sport related injuries, as well as psychological interventions. Love it, michelle. You just got your PhD when, Like super recent.
Speaker 3:April of 2024. Congrats.
Speaker 1:Great job, super, new, super. So what's it feel like when people you know you go from Michelle to?
Speaker 3:Nevers like hey, Dr Singleton. I feel like the coolest person in the room. I sleep a lot more, so that's the best part of it to be honest with you.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, phd can like wear you down, wear you down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've felt that over the last few years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, by the way, for those of you who are listening and not watching, Michelle has a super cool shirt tie-dyed shirt from the recent ISSN Bonita Springs Conference. You know what? Before we get to the conference, Tony and I, we need to promote what's coming up in November, Tony.
Speaker 2:We have our Fight, the Official ISSN Fight Science Seminar right Yep, and this will be, I think, our second.
Speaker 1:Yeah, second one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we don't do it annually, but it does occur once every two to three years. Fortunately, I'll be there with you all Dr Jamie Tartar, dr Antonio, of course, Dr Peacock. Julius Thomas will be joining us, world champion boxer and kickboxer Chris Algieri. Cassandra Evans will also be there, who's done a lot of work of recent with us in the mixed martial art field right and both writing and her research. So, and we will be up here in boca, am I?
Speaker 1:correct. Actually we'll be in at nova south, I'm sorry, this year at nova last time we were at uh ihp.
Speaker 2:Yes, we will be at the nova uh southeastern fight science lab yeah.
Speaker 1:so uh, michelle, if you can make it down, I mean, I'll try my best, all right. I'll have enough friends Get there as soon as.
Speaker 3:I can.
Speaker 1:If you want to hang out with the cool kids, come down. If you don't, and you just want to hang out with the nerds over in Carolina, well, that's your calling.
Speaker 3:You know, it's funny Whenever I call myself cool in front of my students they tell me very fast that cool people don't tell themselves that they're cool.
Speaker 2:That's kind of a line. What is that? It's almost the Walter Payton line when you're good, you tell people. When you're great, people tell you. Kind of that type of thing. I like that.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's absolutely true. That's absolutely true. Okay, let's talk a little bit about science, and you had a recently published paper, actually in one of the top journals it's top 5% in sports sciences the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. Let's see, you're the lead author, is Singleton at all Differences in perceived energy and macronutrient requirements across divisions in NCAA athletes. And you can go into details. But the one question I had which I thought was kind of interesting was you found sex differences between male and female athletes in terms of questions they can answer correctly and that men actually answered better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:Were you shocked.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were shocked by that. Absolutely, the female athletes would have destroyed it.
Speaker 1:So tell us a little bit about this project.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So this, honestly, is kind of what kickstarted my dissertation, all the research I've done since. So Dr Chad Kirksey is on this and he was my dissertation committee chair, so he and I worked really closely on all these different projects that we've done. But when it came to meeting him I still had like two years left until I was even at the proposal stage of my dissertation. We were brainstorming ideas and we were talking about sport nutrition knowledge, how it could be impactful for an intervention and kind of going that route, and we were originally talking about that for my dissertation. But I was like I can't, just I'm not going to just wait two years to do anything Like why don't we do this now? And I build off of it as we go.
Speaker 3:And Dr Andrew Jagum had just released a couple publications at Sport Nutrition Knowledge Aspects and then just Perceptions of Energy and Macronutrient Intake. So we collaborated with him and we're like why don't we look at this across divisions? Cause the research was kind of um limited when it came to looking at division one, division two and division three. Um, and ideally what we were thinking is that D1 athletes would probably score the highest Cause typically they're the ones with the most resources available to them, Whereas our D2, D3 athletes have less available to them typically, and D1 athletes scored the least on this poor nutrition knowledge and they did the worst on all aspects. They perceived their energy macronutrient intake the worst compared to the other divisions, which was really interesting and not what we anticipated to find, and we're kind of going back and forth Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Well, I keep telling the story but just seeing that part and Tony, I want your thoughts I'm thinking maybe D1 athletes because they're more talented that they don't really give a shit about nutrition and they're like you know what, I'm already good. What difference does it make, whereas D2, d3 athletes have to try harder? So that's just pure speculation, tony. What do you think I?
Speaker 2:was thinking the same thing. I'll defer to Michelle you know on what her thoughts and position are or conclusions on that, but certainly I think that would have been an immediate thought in my eyes, you know, very gifted. There are people that have to work their way into the D1 level, but they've been able to get away with, very often a lot more than athletes who struggled and clawed to get into a D2 or maybe D3 school, you know, or were even trying to go D1 and fell just short but took a lot of necessary steps in order to do that. But I leave that to you, Michelle. That's my thought as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was thinking similar. You know, to be honest with you and too, like when it comes to d1, you do have more resources, so you're kind of used to I play my sport. I have all these other people who are going to fill in the gaps for me versus other divisions. It's kind of like no, I got to kind of take this on by myself big point you know, um I even think of like just strength conditioning.
Speaker 3:not all d2, d3 schools have a strength coach for every single sport, so sometimes it's they do things on their own. They're shared between people where the higher level you get.
Speaker 3:You get all these specific individuals for you essentially. So I kind of thought it had a lot to do with now, as a D1 athlete. I'm going to focus, do what I am going to do on the field. I'm going to let everyone else kind of tell me what I need to do in all the other areas D2 and D3, they're also set up more for an academic base where you just play sports versus D1 athletes, like you're saying. I mean, they're highly gifted athletes and a lot of times they're here to play their sport and just getting an education is, you know, a second to that, which is great, because some of them, you know they want to go pro, so that's their focus.
Speaker 1:How did you access the d1 athletes? Because isn't coastal carolina d2? Oh, it's d1. Yeah, you know what's interesting about when I look at some of these, this type of survey work, and you have to define, and this is where it gets tricky. You have to define what is proper energy intake, uh, protein intake, et cetera, et cetera, and I want Tony's thoughts on this. So daily energy intake values were calculated using a recommended relative energy intake value of 40, 50, and 60 kcals per kg per day for low, moderate and high. And before Tony answers, I'll tell you this I don't know a single person who does 50 or 60 Kcals per kg, like nobody. Even forget college athletes, even endurance athletes. I don't know any and in fact I'm not sure any do 40. So this is where it gets tricky, where you have recommendations, and Tony and I have talked about the carb recommendations and we'll get to that later. We know what the literature says, but I know people who win races who don't do any of this stuff.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:So how do you reconcile that?
Speaker 3:You're asking me or him? You know what?
Speaker 1:Let's go with Tony first, and then we'll see what we see what michelle says well, I will just say this I mean I, I agree with you.
Speaker 2:Uh, joey, on the total intake. I mean, as I think about it now, if I'm going, I weigh an unfortunate number, but that would put me uh, hey, tony, how much you weigh?
Speaker 1:how many kilos? Uh, 97, okay, so at the high end, tony, you're eating 5,820.
Speaker 2:Yes, Right, right.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'd have to be. I would think even if I was, you know, trying out for the USA Olympic team and had three sessions daily, I wouldn't require that. But I don't know how you reconcile, to be honest, some of the literature that espouses that, and it's the same in many sports. Right, you know, we have scientific principles and guidelines that we recommend, but we have to adjust them over and over Just quickly, and I'll close and let Michelle go to it. That was one of a great challenge on a current position stand. We're working on it. That was one of a great challenge on a current position stand we're working on. We have scientific guidelines on how to lose weight, how to optimize your weight for a fight sport, how to cut weight. The problem is, almost no one follows those guidelines, so hence we have to address what they are doing with scientific practices instead of telling them what to do with scientific practices.
Speaker 1:But it begs the question, and, michelle, we'll let you get in, but it begs the question are the guidelines wrong? That's really the question, and me personally, I actually think they're wrong. I mean, or they're. It's hard to say, is it? We're trying to, you know, give everyone these guidelines that fit supposedly well, endurance athletes have to get five to 10 grams per kilo of carbs, and I'm like I don't know anyone who does that and I know people who win. So, michelle, your thoughts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good point and at least for this it was more of okay. Let's see what they think they're hitting and if they're even hitting it Cause. Another limitation in my opinion, especially with this, is it's all subjective and you know, we did all this based off the information they gave us, which could have been incorrect. Um, or they think they weigh more than they actually do, they weigh less, whatever, and that's going to skew calculations too. But I think that also comes down to the fact, like, if we're going to kind of go against, well, these calculations are wrong. This is what we should be doing. We need to go back to, we need to track what all these elite athletes are doing and see where they're at and then go from there. But then we have to track food intake.
Speaker 1:And then you run into a different problem. Some would say well, elite athletes can get away with a lot of stuff that the average athlete can't. So, for instance, carb and we've talked about this a lot, tony, carb recommendations. They were calculated using four, six and eight grams per kilo per day. At least it didn't go up to 10 grams per kilo, because who the hell, I mean, you're eating like 10 pounds of rice every day. So even I'll be honest, even at the low end I know Louise Burke has data and she always suggests at the low end, five grams per kilo and I don't know, I don't know any endurance athletes that actually do that. And Tony works with a lot of fighters who their energy expenditure is ungodly high, even probably it might even be higher than endurance athletes. Tony might want to correct me if I'm wrong there, but I don't think they're getting four. They're not. Maybe I think there may be three grams per kilo of carbs. What do you think, tony? I grams per kilo of carbs. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Tony, I would think four might be the maximum, and that's for those that adhere closely to good dietary practices. Some do, but even again, if you have a middleweight, just quickly that weighs in camp, let's say 210 pounds, and then you're going at five kilograms well're gonna you're gonna be dealing with about 450 grams in carbs, so you're around 17, 1800, 1900 calories in carbs alone. That would be rare to see a top mma athlete adhere to that practice yeah yeah, thoughts michelle I think I just keep going back to.
Speaker 3:If you're going to say I think this is too high versus too low, whatever it is, I think you're going to have to just go back and start actually tracking and going through that process, because otherwise we're just going to speculate well, this is the ranges we need to be at, but then if we make it lower, what if that's too low? I think if you're going to make the appropriate recommendation for each low, moderate and high activity aspect, you're going to have to do a lot more work are you saying we don't want to do any work?
Speaker 1:is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1:you may be okay, and then my favorite protein recommendation. Um, so let's see recommendations. They were calculated based on, I guess it would be low, moderate, high, 1.4, and then 1.6, and then 1.8 grams per kilo per day and, as you well know, I actually recommend much higher than that. So again, we're dealing with and here's the funny part I know what the literature says, but even I don't follow the literature and I help write the literature. So so, even though and this is where it's tricky when we're writing the MMA position paper, it's sort of like we know the literature, but this is what we do, which is different than the literature for the position paper on protein, which I'm sure you read at least like 10 times right before going to bed, michelle, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, when I found out you were involved, it's I mean I it's every five seconds, yeah it's actually framed.
Speaker 2:I see it behind Michelle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is it is Every time Michelle eats steak she reads the protein position paper, which you know is very good.
Speaker 1:But um but so I think at the high end most will end around 1.8, actually about 1.8, 1.9, 2.0. And I recommend as the bottom 2.2 grams per kilo. So if you, let's say, you have a sort of a well-read athlete and they say you know what I want to be in your study, but I think your recommendations are wrong, how do you address that with the athlete? They're like you know what I'm doing, two to three grams per kilo per day.
Speaker 3:See, now I'm more. How do you address if you're saying I played a role in writing these recommendations, but I don't follow them and I don't have athletes follow them? So what is your backing behind that, where it's like I had a part in these recommendations but I'm doing something different? So what do we change?
Speaker 1:That's a good question and this is where this is where I hate the word consensus, and we and people use this a lot in consensus. Well, the consensus says that you know, anything above 1.6 grams per kilo, you're not gaining any lean body mass. And the problem with the consensus is that you're getting a group of people to some agree, some disagree, but we're like, okay, it's good enough for most people. We're not going to fight over. You know these numbers, you know some might say maybe 1.8, some might say 2.2. So that's the problem with consensus. It's sort of like not everyone's happy but not everyone's upset. I actually base it on my own data, to be honest, and also also what I recommend athletes to do. I never tell athletes to go 1.8 grams per kilo.
Speaker 3:I always say well, it's kind of low.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you hit it, okay, but it should be higher and so okay. So why do I recommend that? Well, if they were doing poorly, then I'd say, okay, we need to change the recommendations. But if they're doing well, I'd say you know what, at this point maybe there's not enough RCT data on protein intake, but I'm not going to wait for a randomized controlled trial or forget that. I'm not going to wait for a randomized controlled trial or forget that. I'm not going to wait for 20 randomized controlled trials to give advice. And this is where it's sort of the. There's the art and science of nutrition recommendations. Um, and I use a lot of art, I use some science, but I'm like you know what? I'm not married to this. It's sort of uh, michelle, you're probably too young. Do you remember when we used to look at paper maps?
Speaker 3:Yes, you do, I do. I have one in my car just in case you have a paper map.
Speaker 2:You never know what if my phone dies or something Like a Rand McNally type.
Speaker 3:Just like a normal map I can pull out. Oh wow, very cool, I'm sophisticated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like those. It's good to be able to rate those Good job. Wow, very cool, I'm sophisticated. Yeah, I like those.
Speaker 3:It's good to be able to, to write those Good job. Yeah, thank you. I mean, if I'm on the side of the road, my phone's dead. I mean, great, I have a charger, but you never know.
Speaker 1:Good point. Well, I'm not sure how we got to the paper mapping. Ok. So to me it's like you have a roadmap to get to somewhere, but there are multiple ways to get to it. Sure, and when you're talking about scientific consensus, the scientific consensus would be this is quote, the best road to get to your destination. I'm thinking, you know what, I'm taking a different road.
Speaker 3:Sure so.
Speaker 1:So what do you think?
Speaker 3:No, I like that answer especially too, because when you take into account one, everyone is different. Their sports are different, everyone's activity loads are different, positions are different. You know, I do a lot of research with our soccer teams and the biggest example I even give in my classes when I teach this kind of stuff is you have a goalie and a midfielder, two different positions that don't do the same thing, you know, and they're playing the same sport, but doesn't mean they have the same requirements. So no, I think that is good, a good way to describe it. So, a roadmap, but you're tailoring it to the individual.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, In fact I like the goalie and midfielder example, even with strength and conditioning. A lot of people don't realize it is totally different. They're a different species.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, literally they. They do nothing remotely the same no, not at all right, the. The movement is different, the duration of activity is different, the mental skills necessary attention span differs. Everything, yes, yeah yeah and then on the same sport, on the same field exactly right.
Speaker 1:Explain to the audience why it's different, because a lot of people view it as soccer is soccer, or? I guess if you're in the uk, football is football. You know that's the british people, uh, and canadians, I guess. So explain tony and michelle why the goalkeeper, or goalie is, especially from a strength and conditioning standpoint, is so much different than the midfielder.
Speaker 3:Well, the biggest thing with a midfielder, they're constantly moving Like they're running that field the whole time. Where a goalie? I mean, depending on the game, if it's a really good game and it's back and forth, sure they're going to get a little bit more action, but they're pretty standstill until the ball is finally in the court. And there's some games too where if they're playing a really terrible team, they don't do much, they're just kind of hanging out, just ready if they need to be ready. I mean, it's no different than a kicker in football versus a different position like a running back or a tight end.
Speaker 2:So yeah, same sport but completely different role that someone's going to play and a completely different asset to the team yeah, and, and very often too you can correct me if I'm wrong here myself, because I don't I know the sport generally but, um, structurally a different, very often a different species. The midi is usually a little smaller, not always, but usually the keepers are very big human beings, right? They're often six, five, six, six, really big human beings, right, they're often six, five, six, six, really big human beings with, if they're not a 2A type fiber, they better be, or they better train to become one, because they need to explode. First step, power, jumping power. Two to three steps, left or right. So certainly you're. You know, not only are you dealing with that, but the actual adaptations within themselves to the positions are significantly different too, and, and probably the geno and phenotype that excels at each of those positions differs quite a bit oh, a thousand percent, I mean, even when you think about jumping and soccer, you're anyone who's going to be really jumping.
Speaker 3:A ton is going to be the goalie right especially with those, those quick movements that they do. Versus your midfielders, they're usually a lot smaller and stasher and they're fast because they're trying to get up and down the field as quick as possible when a goalie their typical build's not going to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:I have a. I have a hypothetical question. I ask this of my sports nutrition class pretty much every semester, in terms of training, even though it's sports nutrition, I still talk about training, because you can't separate the sport from nutrition. So I ask this and it's always interesting to hear what soccer players, but also just non-soccer players if you're training the goalie Actually you could say if you're training a softball or baseball pitcher do you have them do any cardio Before? If you want to hear my answer, I'll tell it first, but I want to hear your answer, tony, then you, michelle, do you do any cardio? And yours is your answer. Mr A, oh, hell, fucking. No. No, it's pure speed, speed, pure explosion, pure power.
Speaker 1:Doing cardio does again, we're talking about performance does zero, the, the, the adaptations to regular aerobic training have nothing to do with the power and speed of pitching, the power and speed of being a goalkeeper, however. However, almost everyone in my class is like well, yeah, you do cardio. Well, for general fitness. I'm like we're not talking about fitness, we're talking about playing a specific position in a sport that's highly skilled, zero, in fact. I'll even ask the question should sumo wrestlers do cardio? No, hell, no, they might lose weight. They might lose weight. Now, what's interesting is, my position, apparently, is in the minority, which I'm thinking. Does anyone understand energy systems? I mean, has anyone watched sumo wrestling? It lasts two to three seconds. They're like, well, they got to be. No, they have to be very explosive and very powerful for two to three seconds and that's it. So, michelle, I can tell you recommend cardio. I can tell by your face.
Speaker 3:Now that's different. I don't think they need the same. I think it's going to be a lessened aspect to it, but I think to an extent you still need some type of cardio aspect in their training. I don't think it should be a ton, I don't think that's an emphasis, but there is to an extent that you might have to use a little bit more endurance aspects in a game you just never know, and you need to be relatively in shape. I'm going to assume that a goalie in soccer, especially at more of an elite level, is going to be a little bit more well-rounded than a sumo wrestler, but that's just my opinion when it comes to the athleticism but.
Speaker 3:I also don't know much about sumo wrestling.
Speaker 2:To be a little bit more lateral movement ability than the sumo wrestling. Yeah, very sagittal plane, right, you know I? I would say this potentially um is active rest maybe. I mean I understand that I'm I'm excluding the potential benefits of low intensity cardio that may improve recovery long term because of vascularization, whatever it is. You know, angiogenesis, I it's just we don't want to do damage again, not damage but train the fibers that are going to lead to explosion, right, adversely, by doing a lot of high intensity cardio or even too much long sustained duration.
Speaker 2:So I would say, if they had a month off, maybe some low intensity putting them in a pool or, you know, if they knew how to swim, I don't think there's any disadvantage to maybe four weeks of a base effort because I think the adaptation of the fibers necessary for being explosive back when you, once you get back into that training, well, you know that potential will be advanced again. But I think if they're to do it off season, very low intensity. I know you said fitness doesn't matter too much, joey, I don't know, maybe general health there may be some role in recovery to optimize in your cardiovascular system. So maybe a four week window in the off season if you want to call it general prep and then I would it would start to diminish as the season progressed. That would be my approach.
Speaker 1:What I've heard from athletes who are pure speed, pure power athletes is they do it because they feel better, and that's actually the reason, like you know what, I just kind of feel better, so that's why I do it. But once they start training specifically for the sport, they pretty much eliminate most, if not all of it, like that's right if you're doing a shot or the discus or the javelin, you got to be powerful.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, yeah, no amount of cardio is going to make you powerful, right, but this, again, this is where it's the art and science of training. You know, we have the art and science of nutrition, the art and science of training.
Speaker 2:So, um, it's just one of those fun theoretical questions I like to throw out there yeah, it is, and it is theoretical and it's often argued about and, and the one thing is, you don't want to test it because you don't want to jump, you don't want to potentially jeopardize the individual performance by putting them through that cardiovascular conditioning program. You know.
Speaker 1:I want Michelle to do that. I want you to get the goal, the goalie of your soccer team, and say you know what? We're going to make sure you run the fastest 5K ever, and then let's see how they play soccer, play goalie.
Speaker 3:I'll run the idea by them and let you know what they say.
Speaker 1:They'll be like what happened to Michelle she's recommending weird stuff. Okay, I want to talk about this because I think Tony's a big fan of this, using imagery.
Speaker 2:Yes, my favorite.
Speaker 1:Tony talks a lot about this in terms of well, the fight sports a lot, you've got to do a lot of imagery. So you had this paper in the Journal of Sport Rehabilitation use of imagery to improve self-efficacy of rehabilitation capabilities in athletes falling with sport-related injury. Could you explain sort of the nature of this paper to us?
Speaker 3:Could you explain sort of the nature of this paper to us? Yeah, so the biggest aspect was just using imagery as a psychological tool during the rehabilitation processes and different types of imagery, because there's different kinds but at the end of the day, there's only so much research when it comes to, yes, this, doing exactly this, is going to progress us appropriately through rehab and in my opinion, that happens for a wide variety of reasons, but one because every individual is different. Imagery and different kinds can help people in different ways. Some people are very skeptical of those types of things, but I think it's super powerful and super helpful. But the whole point was to justify like these skills are important and they get left out a lot.
Speaker 3:Especially, I can speak from an athletic training perspective. I know my areas of AT. My scope when it comes to just going through school is only so much sports psych. If it wasn't for my advanced degrees and what I've been involved in, I wouldn't know near as much. But they play a huge role. But me coming out of undergrad with a bachelor's in athletic training, I would have never thought to be like, well, let me work on imagery with this particular athlete within their ACL rehabilitation, right. So it's really trying to emphasize like this is something that we need to really start looking at, if we haven't already.
Speaker 1:So walk us through an example of how you bring up the ACL. How about something that's super common like a hamstring pull, and it impedes their ability to run and do sprints. So explain how you would walk an athlete through it.
Speaker 3:Just the imagery part, yes, yeah. So I mean you can do, like I said, different types of imagery. But a lot of people that I've found, that I've worked with, they'll use imagery in the sense of they try to envision themselves completing a task or they envision themselves getting through different exercises within rehab to ideally have that final goal. I'm back on the field, I'm feeling good, I can do this. But then you can also have a type of imagery when you're actually visualizing, say, your muscle fiber is recovering and you're going through this process and day by day you're advancing and you're getting better and using that mental aspect to ideally increase your rehab time and hopefully to get you back sooner, versus having this mental block where you might be physically better but mentally you're not ready to go back yet.
Speaker 1:So are you actually walking them through this like do this, do this, do this? And they're just replaying this in their head.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and that's where it's like. It's very subjective too, because it's up to the individual and I've had athletes who, you know, they live and breathe by these types of techniques and others are like, they're like, oh, it's cool, but it's not something they think about. All they think about is let me do this exercise, let me get through rehab and I'm going to get on the field. But I've worked with some athletes where, you know, big injuries happen at the same exact time on the same exact game and one person progresses faster than another person and a lot of it has to do with just mentally they're not there and they're not ready for it because it's a lot. So it's just an additional skill to kind of start using and say, okay, well, maybe let's envision this, let's kind of picture us where our end goal is Now. Let's picture each step of the way end goal is now.
Speaker 2:Let's picture each step of the way, don't need thoughts. No, it's fantastic. Um, you know imagery so tough, it's subjective, it's hard to quantify. But I think to michelle's point too. I see it from a rehabilitative perspective as mental priming and to some extent physical priming, keeping the individual evolved in the sport when they're not in the sport. And it sounds crazy, but we and I wish we had the tools at Nova or anywhere, but it's a million dollars. But you know, if you look at fMRI, you will see pre-supplementary and motor cortex activation that is relatively comparable. When imagery is done in a multisensory model, right, a multisensory application, the same parts of the brain are going to light up when imaging. Let's say I'm throwing a right hand, okay, and I'm going through that punch. Now, if I know how to image the mechanics, if I can see it, feel it, hear it, I'm going to light up comfortable parts of the supplementary premotor and motor cortex as if I'm actually throwing that punch and, moreover, I'm going to get EMG activity in the associated muscle groups. So in many ways, from an athletic performance perspective, I would argue that those who are really great athletes, maybe they have great motor imagery and mental imagery capacity or they're so good they don't need it. But I would imagine someone like the Tom Brady that wasn't born physically gifted can incessantly be on the field, even if he's in a movie theater and he is imaging throwing, when to throw, how to throw, where the receiver is feeling his foot when he's doing it. Because a lot again, just quickly what we know. And even to Michelle's point, you don't learn while you're doing. You learn when you're done doing and the brain figures out what you did while you're sleeping. No different than motor, you know, than the muscle recovery which most of it is going on during rest. My point to that is if Michelle has her client at 9pm thinking about or visualizing themselves being fully active on that leg that just had surgery, right, that at least keeps the brain primed, it keeps neural activation to that area and then when you go to bed on that there may actually be some benefits. So this is something really hard to quantify. It will be considered pseudoscience by many pure practitioners of research, but it's invaluable and I know it has its origins more so in rehab, where Michelle has done some research with it, than it even does in augmenting performance. We took some of rehab's work and now we use it in sports psychology.
Speaker 2:But you can learn. I tell this to my fighters all day. You have all day to learn. You don't just learn when coach told you for the last hour and a half what to do. Now you go home and go figure out how to learn, and go figure out what coach and you image your way through that Every step. What did you feel? Where do I need to be? So it's really really imagery to me is fascinating and everybody to Michelle's point too I'll just finish here has a different capacity to do it. Not everyone can do it really well and we have motor imaging questionnaires, that kind of look at one's ability to create multisensory, you know, olfactory, right, tactile, touch, visual, of course. What's their ability to do that? If they have a high ability, they may have a high ability to practice their sport 10 hours a day without the repetitive stress injuries that occur from actually practicing their sport two hours a day.
Speaker 1:Is there a simple way to test this? Like, for instance, if you want to teach, get a group of people who don't know how to juggle three tennis balls and you're like you know what you have who don't know how to juggle three tennis balls and you're like you know what. You have two weeks to learn how to juggle three tennis balls and they both practice physically, but one group has to visualize it. I mean someone has to have done this somewhere, right? I mean I don't know, this isn't my field. I'm just asking the question, michelle.
Speaker 3:I mean there's definitely studies looking at different aspects when it comes to having some type of you down to person to person, sport to sport, position to position, because everyone is truly going to be different. So I think that's going to be a really difficult thing, even looking at all the studies that have been done, to really try and put into words, saying okay, yes, this is the most beneficial tool ever, versus some people say it's great, then other people were like no, it didn't really help a lot. But most research say I mean, it's positive, it's not negative by anything. That's the best part. So it's not like if I introduced imagery or goal setting or a different type of skill, it's going to be detrimental. It's not, if anything, okay, it didn't work for this athlete, but it it it could for somebody else. Um, so I think that's the beauty behind it, but I do think it's it's a negative aspect where it is really difficult to kind of quantify.
Speaker 1:No, I like it. It's uh, you know, one of my philosophies with you know, the use of sports supplements is is this if it helps or has a neutral effect, you should try it because it might help. Or the worst that could happen is nothing happened, so, which is fine too. So, yeah, I can't. There's not a downside to it. I can see there might be an upside. And and to tony's, your point at your point you mentioned tom brady. I've always thought, well, there are guys who, like you say, image this stuff or study film, all that's right and that's a part of it and right. And you know, I always think, okay, I don't know if you remember Jamarcus Russell, he was a quarterback, he might have been number one pick. He could, like, throw like 90 yards without blinking.
Speaker 1:Super talented but never studied film right. And then you have the Tom Brady's of the world who you know. I think Tony could outrun him right now when he was at the Combine. I think Tony could outrun him right now when he, when he was at the combine, just just studying using his brain to, like you know, understand the field which you know. And I would imagine fighters do that too. There's gotta be. Fighters are like okay, I'm not as physically gifted but I, if I figure out the, the cause, everyone has patterns. If I figure out their patterns, cause everyone, when, everyone, when people are in and correct me, tony, when fighters are in trouble, they often revert back to what they're most comfortable with, like, if they're in trouble and they're wrestlers, they're like okay, I just need to wrestle. So there's got to be ways to use imagery to see okay, I know his or her tendencies and I'm going to try to take advantage of it. What do you think of that, tony?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely I or there could be, you know preparing yourself not only to take advantage of their weaknesses, but you could image them attacking you with their strengths and by rehearsing. So one thing that's a problem in sport and I think Michelle could elaborate on this better Unfamiliarity is a problem. Unfamiliarity is a delay in reaction time, right, unfamiliarity, having to think too much. So this is why somebody like Tom Brady prepares so much. There's nothing that can happen that he doesn't know what's going to happen. He's already seen it or he's already imaged it. So to your point, joey, absolutely you can take motor imagery and go okay, boom, he drops his hands after every kick. Wham, boom, I'm going to see a right hand. Conversely, man, this guy shoots all the time and I prefer not to go to the ground. Okay, well, I can lie in bed. Boom, see that shot, feel that shot, feel my body, feel the sprawl, feel myself relocating and in a lightning bolt too, it is priming the body. So there's less unfamiliarity, if you will, in the event, and that's kind of what imagery does it puts you. This is why, right, the special operations have done what they're going to do 9,348 times before they do it once, because now there's nothing, almost nothing that can happen that is unfamiliar to them, and then you reach automaticity and that response becomes more automatic. So I think that it could be used in many, many contexts.
Speaker 2:I'll just share one thing and then let sorry, michelle, you should be speaking. This is fine, yeah, anyway. But here's just quickly. The PetLab model of imagery is pretty simple, right, they called PetLab, it's P-E-T-T-L-E-P. And what do you want to do? You want to be able to create a physical environment for P. See it, feel it, hear it. Is it a crowd? Is it a stadium? Right, it's physical. Feel that. Then you have E for environment. What is it like? Is it loud? What's the vision like? What am I hearing? What's the distance of where I'll be performing the task? What am I going to do? Okay, I'm Tom Brady. It's first and goal. I'm at this stadium. There's going to be a bunch of orange jerseys behind me because I'm in Denver. This is all real.
Speaker 2:He'll predict going through all that, the timing, what play is it going to be? How long do we have the learning part of it? What do I need to know in this circumstance? Emotion, how will I feel? Calm, relaxed and perspective, creating the whole thing and how successful I'm going to be during it. Those are very, very general examples, but the pet lab model is just something that teaches us where in how imagery can be put into sport and and you always, like I said, want to have many senses and when Michelle does that in rehab or studies that with a patient or an athlete, hey, I want to feel that leg operating again full speed. You don't do the exercises, but you see yourself sprinting just like you did before the ACL injury. You see yourself jumping, you feel yourself jumping, you hear the landing, you smell the grass. This multi-sensory imagery can really help expedite either skill acquisition, in my view, or recovery, if used properly or I don't want to say properly, because everybody's different, like michelle said, they may image different, but used effectively for that person.
Speaker 1:I want michelle gory comment remind me to tell you about some mental imagery I do. That's a little crazy, but go on. Sorry, Michelle.
Speaker 3:No, you're good, that sounds fun too. But no, I agree a hundred percent, you can use it in so many different ways. Obviously, with this specific paper we were looking at rehabilitation aspects, but that completely translates into okay, I'm not injured, I'm just trying to get better, or I'm trying to win this next game. So I mean, it's completely usable and it can be used in so many different ways. The person on this paper, dr Jamie Dietrich she was also on my dissertation committee, so her and I work really closely together here. But she has a massive sports psych background and we talk about all the time with. You know different players on different teams, like think, a kicker in football. You know people kind of give them a rep of, like, well, they only do so much on a game field. You know they only, they only kick a ball, that's it. They come out every now and then. That is a really high pressure situation.
Speaker 2:The most high pressure and I.
Speaker 3:I talked to a lot of football kickers and they use imagery so much because they have to visualize what's going to happen Otherwise if they mess up everything. Everyone always blames the kicker. Oh my God, we you know.
Speaker 3:So those are good examples too, like they try to visualize themselves kicking it, making that field goal, doing what they need to do. But it's very beneficial and I think it could be beneficial in actual performance. It could be beneficial in rehabilitation. It can be beneficial in just things you do day to day. I mean even thinking of it now, like I never thought about before. I visualize myself like finally finishing my PhD. When I first started Was I anywhere close? No, but I did have a goal.
Speaker 3:But you visualize I visualized it and it's here, so it worked at some capacity, you know, because it motivates you.
Speaker 2:I mean it means visualized it and it's here, so it worked at some capacity, you know, because it motivates you. I mean, you've been something as simple as another right motivational imagery. And just quickly I'll let you say joey, acting as imagery. Yeah, russell crowe got the script for gladiator six months before so he could act like maximus decimus meridius, walk like, talk like him, think he was in Rome. It's imagery we bringing to life something through the mind that isn't existing, without any virtual activity or environment at that time.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, someone asked me because I told them there's alligators in our backyard right there's a small one we call himimmy, but there's other alligators. And and they're like well, aren't you scared of alligators? And I said well, no, because I usually run into just small ones and when you paddle to them, they, they go away, you know. And they're like okay, well, what about the one percent where it's a big alligator? Um? And I said, well, believe it or not, this is what I do when I paddle, and this sounds crazy. But so, let's say, I collide with with a large alligator and it grabs me so I'm here I am.
Speaker 1:I do this stupid visualization. Okay, what do I do? Okay, grabs my leg and, as tony and you guys know, it does the death roll. It's okay. I'm visualizing myself underwater spinning. Okay, I I got to grab my dive knife and then, while I'm spinning and sucking water, I got to figure out how to put that knife in the alligator. Will it work? I don't know, tony, I'm afraid of that. 1%.
Speaker 2:Well, I will tell you this you're better prepared from the person who hasn't envisioned that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think that's crazy at all.
Speaker 2:I think that at all.
Speaker 3:No, that makes complete sense that you're doing that.
Speaker 1:And then I wonder is it better if they grab my arm or my leg? Because if they grab the arm, I could you know, I got the knife and I'm like this they grab the leg I have. I have a hard time reaching them, you know.
Speaker 2:You do, you do, and you got to get them right behind the back of the skull. It's not a big area that you have available, by the way, so you better start stabbing things accurately, joey, yeah.
Speaker 3:Start working on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah so so, tony, if you don't hear you, know from me for like a month.
Speaker 1:I don't know what happened, so they're like where is he? We're supposed to be collecting data today. The alligator got him. Okay. Hey, we don't have much time. So, michelle, tell us about any new cool projects. You're doing anything specifically, maybe in sports nutrition or supplements, or anything fun, yeah.
Speaker 3:So, like I said, for the first paper, we talked about the differences in knowledge and perceptions. I built off of that since then. So the whole point the last few years I've been focusing on developing a sport nutrition education intervention to ideally fix the sport nutrition knowledge issue. But then you run into this whole situation Okay, if I can increase knowledge, that's great, but does that even do anything? No, one's behavior typically changes just because they got smarter. In an area, you know, like no different, where I have a pretty good concept of nutrition, doesn't mean I'm going to eat the best every single day of my life, um. So we kind of started going that direction. So we have had different things. Looking at sport nutrition knowledge education interventions, um, resting, metabolic rate, body composition, um, and then dietary behaviors is like our next big avenue that we're also looking at.
Speaker 1:Can I ask you a pragmatic question? What do you guys Tony will laugh what do you guys use to assess resting metabolic rate? What machine?
Speaker 3:We have a Parvo.
Speaker 2:Well, we will laugh because we're in the process of trying to put ours back together, but it's not a young one.
Speaker 3:How old is it?
Speaker 1:12.
Speaker 3:It's probably older than you I knew you were gonna say that you know what. We have two now um. One of them is actually older than me and the new one is it's very fresh, it's like six months old oh, okay, the one older than you is working, still that effective yeah, so good and good and we compare Everything's the same the usage of it. Obviously there's a lot more work to do with the old one than the new one, but yeah so, but we just got the new one, literally like halfway through this semester.
Speaker 2:Barvo as well. Michelle, yeah, self-calibrated Yep. No more syringes, no.
Speaker 3:Thank you. It's beautiful, it's the most amazing thing in the world.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Tony, we the one machine that we really need. It just fricking, breaks down all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not. You know, I was about 13, 14 years old and certainly it's fixable, but it's not easy to get new parts these days.
Speaker 3:No, and it's a pain to fix too. Something feels like it's always breaking or going wrong.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, that research area is really neat and valuable, right? Because I love what you said. Most of the country generally knows what decent eating is. I'm not saying they're experts, but they know if they go to a McDonald's, a Big Mac is worse than a chicken sandwich, right, and the iced tea is even with sugar is better than a shake. But that doesn't mean we're going to do it. And so to your point, we need to find, you know, how do we apply the education and how do a lot of intervention studies, and it's really cool and rewarding for sure, but it's the same thing, where it's like OK, if the results aren't great, we still need to fix this issue, otherwise it's never going to be fixed.
Speaker 3:Like our first data we presented on at ISSN last year, we did an education intervention and we're finishing the manuscript for this now. We looked at resting metabolic rate and body comp over the course of a season for soccer players and D1 sports. So usually you would think over the course of a season someone's body comp will go down, whatever. No, it went up. They went up tremendously significantly, which was insane because we're like we implemented this intervention and they ended up gaining a ton of weight. What are the odds of that?
Speaker 1:They gained body fat mass. Yes. During the season, did you not?
Speaker 3:come to my poster last year.
Speaker 1:That hurts me a little bit. I showed up with Tony, but you paid more attention to Tony than I.
Speaker 2:I could have recited it. I found it so interesting. I specifically remember it, Michelle.
Speaker 3:Totally. But yeah. So this year we did it different, where we implemented an education intervention, just changed the intervention a little bit, did body comp, resting metabolic rate. But this time we also gave them just general recommendations they should hit based off the calculations we had. Their knowledge actually did not change whatsoever, but they maintained their body comp all season with giving them these recommendations to hit. So we saw a difference there and that's what we presented this ISSN last week. So it's been, it's. I mean there's a lot of growth with it, like there needs to be a lot more to go. But it's the same standpoint where, okay, knowledge isn't everything, it's what we're going to do.
Speaker 2:Right, right. And I just want to say quickly that's really valuable because those changes in body composition may not only mean a difference in performance, but it may mean the difference in staying healthy through the whole season.
Speaker 3:Right, right.
Speaker 2:Being stronger, and that's that's really good work. I'm interested to look at it further, so I'm glad you're doing it.
Speaker 1:Do you guys have a DEXA in your lab?
Speaker 3:No, we don't. Oh yeah, the interesting to follow, follow.
Speaker 1:At least look at bone mineral density and female athletes over a season yeah um, yeah, we, um, we actually did.
Speaker 1:We haven't I don't know, I don't think I've written a manuscript yet, but we actually followed the swim team over the course of a season and, as you know, the training volume of collegiate swimmers is crazy high. They may actually train more hours than any other college athlete. That's my guess. And here's what's interesting there was no nutrition intervention or anything. We just followed them and collectively they all lost weight and fat mass. But we also did a just for fun, salivary cortisol pre-post and at the end of the season super stressed pre post and at the end of the season super stressed, competing in, you know, ncaa championships. Cortisol was, it was elevated significantly, but yet they lost body fat and, and so we were trying to show that there's a dissociation between measures of cortisol and and body composition vis-a-vis fat mass and in sweat. You know, if you wet, put it away, if you exercise enough, you're gonna lose weight or lose fat. Yeah, and certainly swimmers do that. So I thought it was interesting, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, it is especially a big endurance sport like that. Well, I guess, depending on what they're exactly doing, but over the course of the season usually they are very depleted and they're exhausted for a reason.
Speaker 3:But yes, like that's why this season, when we saw those results, I was like the knowledge that does stink, like Like that's why this season, when we saw those results, I was like the knowledge that does stink. Like ideally we wanted the intervention to increase it, but if they were actually able to maintain everything, the resting metabolic rate was completely maintained, like no changes. That's what we want I mean ideally.
Speaker 2:Well, you did a great job by moving them from increasing body fat to stabilizing. Now, future methodologies and interventions may be able to improve it Right. So this is really good stuff.
Speaker 1:Now, since we have maybe a couple of minutes left since we just got back from the ISSN conference, I want to hear your personal philosophy vis-a-vis sports nutrition and or supplement advice. How do you approach that with athletes?
Speaker 3:Oh, like my biggest piece of advice.
Speaker 1:Or just general your general philosophy, when people say, hey, michelle, how much should I eat Protein? Should I take creatine? You know? Should I, you know, have 500 grams of sugar before I play soccer? You know stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, that's tough. I guess my biggest philosophy is first, start with just a general diet. You need to know what you're eating and you need to have a well-rounded diet, ideally, and then you can build from there. So kind of like you were saying, all these different recommendations are, you know, less or more than what you would ever recommend, but at the end of the day, starting point and then we build right, because everyone's different and every sport's different. But I would definitely make sure we have a well-rounded diet. You need carbs, you need proteins, you need fats, you need it all. And then just building from it I guess would be my biggest.
Speaker 1:What about on the supplement side? I'm sure you get those questions a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, supplements we do get a lot. I'm not the biggest in the sense of a big supplement researcher, by any means, but that goes back to I need to know what your diet is and I need to see what you do need to supplement or what do we need to enhance. You know, and that's going to start with, I need to know a basis first and then building off of it, depending on what you're trying to do.
Speaker 1:Well, that's great advice. Where can people find you if they want to, if they want to look you up?
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, I'm famous, so I'm on. I'm on Instagram, I'm on.
Speaker 2:I don't Instagram Michelle.
Speaker 3:What's the name? Hold on, let me make sure I have it right so I don't say the wrong thing. It's Michelle Singleton, but with two N's, because someone stole that from me.
Speaker 2:Oh man I know.
Speaker 3:So there's an additional N because I didn't want to do a number. I wanted most people to know can't you do, michelle singleton, phd yeah, I could probably do that now should I change that as we're on this thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you should do that and then we'll, yeah everybody, everybody got that michelle singleton phd.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's easier to find you. Yeah, see, I give good advice, sometimes rarely that's debatable.
Speaker 3:All right, that's my username account.
Speaker 1:Michelle singleton, phd are you on twitter or x?
Speaker 3:um, you know, I think I am, but I don't ever use it. I think I am. Well, I'm not gonna lie. This is I'm the weirdest millennial. I guess my students teach me everything. Um, because you have the generation below me and I didn't know twitter was still a thing or whatever it is now and they're like everyone. Everyone does that and I was like like really X, whatever, I didn't know, okay, and then they told me, like this last year, that it's a widely used thing still.
Speaker 2:I like Instagram and.
Speaker 3:TikTok.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay good, because you got you're putting out some really good information and research, so I definitely want to keep up on it too. So so instagram for sure, and tiktok man, yeah, I'll get.
Speaker 1:Uh, I'll get my my twitter slash x going all right guys yeah, because I'm on that probably more than instagram, so do that what I feel like you're on instagram a lot. Don't lie I'm a sniper. I go in and out really fast.
Speaker 3:That's hilarious. All right, hold on, I'm going to change my name on X.
Speaker 1:X to Michelle.
Speaker 3:Singleton PhD as well.
Speaker 1:No, God forbid. There's someone with the exact name of the PhD.
Speaker 3:No chance. No, there's only one of me.
Speaker 1:Well, Michelle, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for coming on the Sports Science Street. We had a lot of fun.