The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

Episode 207: Bullet Proof Your Fatigue Resistance with Dr. Gabriele Gallo, PhD

• CTS • Season 4 • Episode 207

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IN THIS EPISODE

  • Durability and Fatigue Resistance Testing Protocols
  • Does everyone benefit from durability training?
  • Independence of VO2 and durability
  • Training development for shorter distance athlete
  • Durability for long gravel, road, and MTB racers
  • Emerging research on training strategies 

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GUEST
Gabriele Gallo earned his PhD in sports science and also recognized that scientific literature - including his own research - is complicated for non-scientists to read and comprehend. As a result, he created the Knowledge Is Watt Substack and Instagram account. He has dedicated himself to translating scientific papers into more easily digestible content to be read, understood and easily applied by all athletes and coaches.

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Speaker 1:

From the team at CTS. This is the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast, our show dedicated to answering your training questions and providing actionable advice to help you improve your performance even if you're strapped for time. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford, and I'm one of the over 50 professional coaches who make up the team at CTS. In each episode, I draw on our team's collective knowledge, other coaches and experts in the field to provide you with the practical ways to get the most out of your training and ultimately become the best cyclist that you can be. Now on to our show. Now onto our show. Welcome back, time Crunch fans. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford.

Speaker 1:

Last week, we talked about the importance of knowing and training at Fat Max, as well as other training zones, and how that plays a big role in improving fatigue resistance. In my previous solo episode about fatigue resistance training, I told our listeners that just because you have a high FTP or VO2 max, that doesn't guarantee that you will have high fatigue resistance. You actually need to train it. In fact, these traditional performance markers like FTP and VO2 max are independent of any fatigue resistant marker. Ftp and VO2max are independent of any fatigue resistant marker. That may be a bit confusing to some. So let's discuss why this is and how this may influence your training decisions, either as a coach or a self-coached athlete. I'm back with Dr Gabriella Gallo. Founder of the Knowledge is what project Dr Gallo. Welcome back to the show.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Adam. Hi all, and it's nice to be here again with you and your listeners.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this conversation for sure. So for our listeners who may be joining us in this middle of the mini-series, I'll remind everybody to go back and listen to last week's episode on peak fat oxidation and fat max, as it dovetails into our conversation today. Additionally, you'll hear more about Dr Gallo's story, about why he started producing the content that he does on X, Twitter, Instagram and Substack. So let's get going and dive into today's topics. Fatigue resistance it's pretty buzzy. Can you remind us what it is, Dr Gallo?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's just. I think the term itself is self-explaining. It's just, you can see it from a physiological point of view or from a performance point of view, but it's just to be able to decrease as less as possible your physiological parameters, such VO2max or threshold or performance, during prolonged exercise. So let's say, prolonged exercise, of course, is not 20 minutes, 30 minutes, but I would say at least two hours, three hours or something like this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And durability? That's another kind of like buzzy term. Is there a difference between fatigue resistance and durability? Do we all, did we just like talk about it the same? Is there any distinction in your brain?

Speaker 2:

The same thing. So if you are more resistant to fatigue, you are more durable. So it's just a matter of terms. But I think the focus is here is just to be able to perform to your maximum after a prolonged exercise.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's it, and in that previous episode we might talk about it today. But that prolonged exercise it's, you know, a couple hours, like we talked about, and I would say a couple hours at certain high aerobic rates which we can correlate to kilojoule expenditure, before you have to do a high intensity effort. When I'm working with my athletes, I usually identify specifically what that kind of long, like a prolonged duration, may be at certain work rates or rates of kilojoule expenditure, and then I'll test their intensity at max in order to see how durable an athlete is from the research and stuff that you're seeing. Athlete is from the research, um, and stuff that you're seeing. Dr gallo, would you agree with a general concept of, yes, there is a certain amount of kilojoules and then we test and then we see durability?

Speaker 2:

yeah, yeah, I think that, uh, if you want to test durability in a accurate way, you have to standardize that. Standardized, uh, not a lot of things, but a few things. So, as you said, a very common way to classify durability is just using kilojoules or kilojoules per kilogram, benchmarks of works done and then see the decrease of performance between after kilojoule spans and the rested state. But I think that, as we all know, these kilojoules can be completed in very different ways. So let's say that we want to use I don't know 3000 kilojoules as benchmark, and you can complete these kilojoules with a very long ride at low intensity. But you can complete these kilojoules with a very long ride at low intensity, but you can complete these kilojoules also with a shorter ride at a higher intensity.

Speaker 2:

And some latest researches are showing that you cannot use interchangeably the two protocols to test your durability. So specifically, durability, so performance is more compromised if you perform the same kilojoules with high intensity work compared to lower intensity work and longer duration. So one thing is that I would suggest to design your own durability testing protocol, not using only kilojoules, but a specific duration and intensity, and for intensity I would say not absolute intensity, so, for example, not something like two hours at 180 watts, but stick with relative intensity. So, for example, two hours at 90% of your forced threshold. So forced lactate or ventilatory threshold. Because the thing is that if you stick with absolute power in the protocol, in the fatiguing protocol, if you improve your forced threshold, then the protocol is not the same anymore. You are riding easily in the fatiguing protocol between rested state and after prolonged work.

Speaker 2:

So this is the fourth, the first advice about uh, about the the protocol. And I think one other thing is also to standardize nutrition during the the test. So we know that if we I think we said this in the last episode that carbs availability is linked to durability. So if you ingest carbs during the fatiguing protocol, you are likely to score better in the test at the end of the fatiguing protocol. So just also standardized the amount of carbs that you are ingesting during the fatiguing protocol. So just also standardized the amount of carbs that you are ingesting during the fatiguing protocol. So let's say, I don't know 46 grams per hour, but stick with the same if you are testing many times durability.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's beautifully stated and as it should be from a doctor in physiology and research. Um, in in my last podcast I did talk about generally using about 85 to 90% for uh for that intensity parameter, a couple hours, then testing um the the durability. So I think, like what you just said, dr Gallo, like that was a perfect summary and probably better than I described it in any other time of my life. So, uh, for anybody who wants to do those protocols, just listen to what Dr Gallo said about that and I think that, um, to improve your performance, especially when you are racing greater than two hours, people do need to start tuning into this, rather than just high FTP and high VO two. However, what I want to do is kind of pivot a little bit, because we're so hot, we're so like pushing fatigue resistance training, but to think about it in a different way, in an unbiased way. Question to you, dr Yalo does everyone need this? Can anyone, or can everyone benefit from durability?

Speaker 2:

Ah yeah, of course that's true. It is a very good question to stay focused on what is more important and what is less important.

Speaker 2:

So I think that generally, even if durability is very interesting and important for people who is competing in very long duration competitions, it's only one of many things because, of course, if you have the highest durability possible, but your FTP or VO2max or lactate threshold is 30% lower than your opponent, even if the competition is four hours, it's very difficult for you to race against him.

Speaker 2:

So, for example, to exaggerate this concept, let's say I don't know, but let's say that the Tour de France champion decreased his performance about 10% after four hours in Zone 2, and you have the same performance after. Let's say you that you have 150 watts less at FTP compared to the reference champ. Even if you have the same performance level after many hours of exercise, you are not going to win against him. So just to understand the the real importance of durability and it's not all we start with traditional uh model like ftp, vo2 max and thresholds, and then is the I don't know what is the english term, but like the like, we in italy we have a say, we have a common term that is like above on the cake, the last part of the cake.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like the cherry on top of the cake, or the roof of the house, or the beak of the pyramid.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, this is one thing for the big picture, and the other thing, of course, is that durability importance is related to the duration of your competition. So let's say that if you're competing in competitions that last, let's say less than one hour and a half, durability is likely to be not so important. And on the opposite, if you're competing in long competition, let's say above two hours, durability is important. And also I will say, of course, that longer the duration, bigger the importance of durability.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So for our listeners who say they never race longer than 90 minutes and that could be like a cross-country mountain bike race, and maybe they're doing short tracks that are 20 to 30 minutes long, maybe they're doing criteriums that are 45 to 60 minutes long this concept of durability doesn't really apply to them, does it? From a performance standpoint?

Speaker 2:

yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree. Let's say, to exaggerate this, like for track cycling, for most of discipline of track cycling, durability is not important at all. So it's something that it is intuitive to understand. It's important only for long duration competition.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would say I mean just from a metabolic health standpoint, the stuff that we talked about in the previous episode. There's some health benefits that go on with that, but from a performance standpoint, that's really what we're talking about with these shorter term races. You know listeners that are racing 90 minutes or less double down on FTP and VO2 max for ultimate performance. That's the message here. However, it's a curiosity, or it's a curious point, to say that you know FTP, vo2 are independent from durability. So question to you, dr Yellow, why is that and you kind of alluded to it before where saying that you could actually improve FTP but then your durability may go down? So could you talk about the inner workings of how these independent factors work out?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that is one very interesting thing from a physiological point of view. Interesting thing from a physiological point of view. Let's say that at this, at this time in two thousand and twenty four, we have something like, let's say, about 10 studies about physiological determinants of durability and only one showed a correlation between I, ftp or V2 Max and higher durability, while the other nine showed no correlation at all between higher durability and the higher V2max or FTP, as you said. So we can say that there is no different, let's say, physiological mechanism behind VO2max and FTP and durability. So in my understanding, the main determinant of VO2max and FTP and thresholds are the ability to produce energy with the aerobic pathways, so so much energy as possible in the unit of time, so as much as power as possible using mitochondria, using hemoglobin, using stroke volume, so using all the aerobic system. And this is independent from the, let's say, from the metabolic pathway that you are using, because you can use both fats and you can use carbs.

Speaker 2:

So this is, I think, generally the aerobic fitness is the main determinant of view to max, ftp and thresholds. On the other hand, we saw in the last episode that usually some studies show that durability is linked to preserve muscle glycogen. So carbs availability. So at least theoretically, being able to use as fats as possible to produce energy instead of carbs can benefit muscle glycogen sparing and carbs sparing. So to make a resume, let's say general aerobic pathways are more linked to VO2max FTP, while the ability to use less muscle glycogen as possible and to preserve its level is more linked to durability. So it's like aerobic fitness against different substrate utilization and muscle glycogen saving.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so what's really important to recognize from that information for the listeners that were the crit racers, the cross country mountain bike racers, the track racers if there are any that listen to this podcast Awesome, welcome. You don't, you still have to do your zone to training Right, like, because this is still a very aerobic sport, you don't. You don't get a, you don't get to just do intensity all of the time. That's not what we're saying here. However, in the way of like testing, durability, substrate utilization, all this kind of preachy stuff that we were doing in in in part one and probably a little bit in part three, um, it, it doesn't. It doesn't as much so apply, but you still need to make your aerobic engine as possible, as high as possible, and that's really what vo2 and ftp are.

Speaker 1:

But it comes it comes down to your, your training strategies. So, knowing the fact that you probably don't have to deal with durability as much, you still need to do aerobic training. You still need to do progressive overload. You still need to do ftp work.

Speaker 2:

You still need to do vo2 max work, anything you want to add to that yeah, yeah, because of course, uh in uh, peak fat oxidation and fat max usually occurs in zone two, and so zone two can be linked to an improved durability. But many other things are occurring in while you are training in zone two. So you are stimulating your mitochondria, you are stimulating your cardiovascular system. So it's just a way to stimulate for a long time all your aerobic systems without accumulating the stress and the strain linked to high-intensity training.

Speaker 1:

So, for those athletes that are doing shorter-term races 90 minutes or less what is some of the best methods of ensuring that they are improving their, their FTP as high as possible, their VO2 max as high as possible? Are we still using carbohydrate, uh, intakes in order to do that? And, um, what would you say about just the training development side of things for that shorter duration performance athlete?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that we always have to have a look at the big picture. So general principles are not very different, because also a hot topic in endurance sports science is training specificity. So it's not like if you are performing zone two training, you are just improving on very long efforts and if you are performing only high intensity training, you are just improving your short duration efforts. So for aerobic adaptations, uh, there is also a italian, italian, italian term that is uh, um, always led to rome, yeah okay, yep, okay, always led to rome that, uh, with different signaling pathways, but high volume, low intensity training and lower volume, higher intensity training if aerobic.

Speaker 2:

So I don't, I don't, I'm not speaking about 50 second sprints, but I'm speaking about, for example, six per four minutes intervals, or 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, and these kind of things. But these two ways can lead to stimulate aerobic adaptations like increasing mitochondria, increasing stroke volume and all the aerobic benefits that derive from endurance training adaptation. So just not stick with training specificity, but include all the training methods in your program and just periodize it. Of course, if your competition is shorter, you can just have more focus on higher intensity efforts, and the opposite if your competition is longer. But the principles, like in the micro cycle, in the micro cycle, in periodization, just have to be the same. So just not reversing everything, to be as specific as possible yeah, that's, that's, that's it.

Speaker 1:

I mean, the longer I coach, the more, I'd say, the more boring it seems to look like in the way of like a progression and in the workouts and all this kind of stuff. But the like, the more fascinating it is because it's like yeah, like like this is how, this is the road, that these are the roads that lead to rome, right?

Speaker 1:

don't don't over complicate it yeah, yeah, and so I think, yeah, for those athletes that again, like um, you know, short-term athletes really focus on, uh, getting aerobic base, increasing FTP, increasing VO two max. I think that's wildly important. Then you go race your bike and um, and have those metrics be your guide as we swing back to, like the, the gravel racers, that are the four to six hours genre of things, maybe 10 hours, who knows how long they go. That's where durability really applies here, and I think to shift it now a little bit more, dr Gallo, as they're coming into their form, or, you know, maybe the six weeks leading up to an event should they be. I mean, I guess the question is, should they not be focused on their VO2 max in their FTP, or is it all durability for them?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that. So are you asking me something like, if they have to do something like a reverse periodization? Something like this so just before high intensity and then high volume, something like this right intensity and then I volume, something like this right. So yeah, I, I think that there is no research that, uh, try to answer. This question is a very interesting one, um, but I think that, yeah, in some way they can try to be more specific in the last, let's say, six week, eight weeks, before the competition, but not just to completely reverse the periodization.

Speaker 2:

So let's say that, if you are, I think that for every kind of competition, classic periodization, so just volume based training before and then higher intensity and intensity then is the best. Research showed this for competition lasting from 30 minutes and one hour and a half or something like this, but I think it's a general concept that can be used for every kind of competition. The only difference could be something like for longer competition races like gravel, in the last part, your intensity maybe could be zone 3 or lower zone 4 compared to a zone 5 or zone 6 for, let's say, I don't know, road cycling or for sprinters in road cycling. So just lower the intensity of the pre-competition period, but just not reverse. Complete the periodization so that you do a reverse periodization. So I would just stick with the same periodization, but just lowering the intensity, longer effort and the longer duration of training.

Speaker 1:

In the last weeks yeah, agreed with that, that's it. That's what I do, as well as my, in my coaching practice. And I would say if you've been training well, in a progressive overload kind of traditional periodization concept, and you're coming in, you're a gravel racer that's going, you know, six, eight hours, whatever. And if you're, durability is, let's just say, a 5% decrease in your 20 minute power after two, 2,500 kilojoules, something like that. And if you raise your FTP in the six weeks leading in, that is not a bad thing because you will have more on the upper end of things, but in theory, upper end of things, but in theory.

Speaker 1:

I guess if you don't test your durability with a higher FTP, all of your data will suggest that your durability has decreased. So you would have to, in theory, test again to be sure of. But the way that training impulses work and, um, how physiology works, I would say you're not going to lose that technically, that durability, cause we know that you can still produce that power after 2,500 kilojoules late in the game. And if you're weaving your training accordingly and then you come into form, I think it's all going to be there for you. So I would not worry necessarily about raising FTP coming into a competition like that. But I would kind of stay away from uh, you know sprinty stuff and stuff that's going to like pull up your anaerobic uh battery, if you want to call it that, as you're coming into and that just leads to good periodization and training, because that's the specificity of the gravel race event. You know, more ftp, more durability, less sprinty anaerobic stuff more durability, less sprinty, anaerobic stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I completely agree and I think it's a, it's a if I it makes sense as a, as approach. And another thing that I was thinking, uh, is that we I have a paper about training strategies on this kind of things that is not already online, so we just perform the research. Yeah, and we submitted to the, to the journal, but it's not still published and maybe it could be interesting for for the listeners. It is just we. We took two groups, so let's say uh, a and b and uh, they trained for four weeks and, uh, the two groups were matched for total training volume and time spent in zones.

Speaker 2:

So globally the training was the same, but the things that differed was that group let's say, first group performed high intensity training at the end of low intensity training, high volume sessions.

Speaker 2:

So let's say they perform one hour HIIT sessions after three hours of training, before the fourth threshold, while the other group perform high intensity training and low intensity training and high volume in different days.

Speaker 2:

So I don't know if it makes sense, but so let's say fourth group perform on Tuesday and Thursday a four hours ride with the last hour, uh, with the uh intervals, while the second group performs, for example, tuesday, one hour intensity session, uh, wednesday four hours, low intensity, low intensity, low intensity session. Thursday, again the same session of Tuesday and on Friday, the same session on Thursday. So just two different approaches to combine. And what we saw it is not still published is that there is something like a little bit of training specificity so that the group that combine high intensity and high volume within the same training session improve a little bit more performance after prolonged exercise, so durability, while the other group that performed high intensity training and high duration training in separate sessions improved more in parameters at rest in state, like FTP and thresholds A little bit. It's not like a completely different adaptation, but a little bit of training specificity in the timing of high intensity training could be also adapted to your goal competition.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, also adapted to your goal competition, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, I mean, that's perfect, because that was one of my points in the practical takeaway is, as we start to wrap up this episode was, you know, you first have to identify what the performance determinants are of your race and your sport.

Speaker 1:

You need to identify your strengths and weaknesses right by testing yourself and kind of knowing yourself. Train your weaknesses further out from the race specificity as it leads into the race. But what I was going to say is, if you determine that durability is not going to be part of your training strategy, you want to train yourself in a rested state meaning not fatigued state for the, the higher quality or higher intensity interval training, zone four and above threshold FTP work, vo two max work in order to get the most training adaptation so that your FTP and your VO two max will be the highest as you go into those races that are, anywhere between you know, super short to 90 minutes in duration. It makes no sense to train in a fatigue state for athletes that are racing that short. Those are the practical takeaways and I'm super stoked to hear that your latest research also validates that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, exactly it is. What you just said is the same direction of the finding of this latest research that is not still online, but we are finger crossed that will be online in the next months. And, of course, if you are training for short term competition, just focus more on training quality, performing high intensity sessions and high intensity intervals at rested state, while if you are competing for longer duration, focus just more on volume and also perform some kind of intervals at the end of long rides, so especially for road cycling races, because you know that the effort is stochastic. Well, for example, in in Ironman, yeah, durability is important, but the, the the pace is steady. So you, you, you can just focus on perform long sessions, while in road cycling, the the pacing is, is stochastic, is variable. So, uh, you are needed to perform high intensity, maximal efforts at the end of a race, so at the end of four hours, and so you can just try to replicate the same in training that's it.

Speaker 1:

That's it. I couldn't agree more, so Dr Gello will leave it there for today. It's been a pleasure. Once again, thank you for taking time to share your knowledge with us yeah, thank you, adam, and thank you to all your listeners thanks for joining us on the time crunch cyclist podcast.

Speaker 1:

We hope you enjoyed the show. If you want even more actionable training advice, head over to trainrightcom backslash newsletter and subscribe to our free weekly publication. Each week you'll get in-depth training content that goes beyond what we cover here on the podcast. That'll help you take your training to the next level. That's all for now. Until next time, train hard, train smart, train right.

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