👋 Hey. Welcome to issue #60 of The Everyday Athlete Newsletter.
Here are my 3 favourite ideas, learns and resources to help you improve your performance this week (4 min read):
🔍 Be careful everything you read online
Dr Tim Spector is a Professor of Genetic Epidemiology, scientific co-founder at Zoe, and researcher/author on microbiome, nutrition & genomics.
Two weeks ago he was on the DOAC podcast (that millions listen to) claiming:
“Protein is massively hyped. Most people are having nearly twice as much protein in their diets as they need, and most of it will be converted to sugars and fat.”
It’s got a lot of backlash. And fairly. It seems Tim has spun us one of the great yarns.
He’s clearly not an idiot. So who knows his agenda... But there’s absolutely no science to back up what he’s saying.
Countless randomised control trials, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews show the benefits of high-protein diets.
(for every type of person – young, old, male, female, trained, untrained, all over the world)
Here's a handful:
See protein isn’t typically used as an energy source.
When we eat it, it’s converted into amino acids (used for muscle protein synthesis).
Some of these amino acids can be converted into glucose.
But it’s rare.
Typically only when we’re doing long endurance exercise. Which would be burned as fuel (not stored as fat).
So it’s theoretically possible for excess protein to be stored as fat. But the body prefers to use carbs and fats. Protein’s job is mostly tissue repair and growth. The excess usually goes down the loo.
On top of that, protein has a high satiety effect – eating it makes us feel full. Neurons in our gut detect amino acids and send signals to the brain to suppress hunger.
If you’re eating a truckload of pastas and grains (that have carbs and proteins) to hit your protein targets, there might be a problem. But the problem is the excess carb not the protein.
So I still think protein is the biggest nutritional lever we can pull for our health and performance.
Anyway, just a nudge to take everything with a grain of salt. Even from some of the most trusted sources. This newsletter included. If something doesn’t sound right, have a dig around.
🏃 Kelvin Kiptum vs Average Joe
Hamish and Andy talk about wanting to see Olympic events with an average joe in one lane. To really see how impressive they are.
And there’d be no better comparison than with Kelvin Kiptum’s marathon world record in Chicago last week.
2 hours 35 seconds (averaging 2:51/km).
The average joe would do well to run this pace for a 400m lap (1 min 8 secs).
Kelvin ran over 100 laps at this pace.
Best part... he's only 23.
💥 The signal is rarely the cause
I'm back running after a couple months off.
Few flat runs, no problem.
Took on a hill, drama.
The next day I woke up with:
- 💥 Lower back pain (which I hadn’t had in months)
- 🍑 SUPER tight glute medius muscles
Related?
Apparently so.
See, turns out there’s a common culprit with back pain (which about 4 million Aussies have).
The sciatic nerve.
It runs up along the back of our legs connecting to the lower spine.
And when it gets compressed or irritated, we can get lower back pain.
Which is usually from tight glute muscles. Specifically the Glute Medius, Piriformis, and Quadratus Lumborum (QL).
Aha.
So my hypothesis:
- 🏃 The hills overworked my hips and lower back muscles (particularly glute meds which were weak from lack of use)
- 🦵 Which tightened them up in response
- 🔨 Which compressed my sciatic nerve
- 💥 Which flared up my back pain
Time to test it:
- Attack the Glute Medius by rolling it on a hockey/trigger ball (1 min each side)
- Attack the Piriformis with a 90:90 stretch (2x 30 secs each side)
- Attack the QL with windmills (10x reps each side)
And in 5 minutes I instantly freed up 90% of my back pain.
The glutes are one of the body’s powerhouses. Don’t forget to treat them like superstars after they’ve gone to work.
(note: if you're glute medius muscles are often sore from training, worth strengthening them with 7-way hips a couple times a week)
That's it!
Have a great weekend 🤙
Matt
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The Everyday Athlete Newsletter is not a licensed health service and is not a substitute for professional health advice, treatment or assessment. The information given in this email is general in nature, written for a specific audience. If you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional.
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