Why the gut is the second brain * Simon Ward and Bella Lindemann

I’m excited to introduce this week’s guest, Bella Lindemann, who is a specialist in functional diagnostic nutrition and whose area of expertise is the gut, and specifically those individuals who have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and associated complaints.

The gut is often referred to as the second brain. As humans, we give the gut a lot of credit for the way we think and act and it crops up time and again in phrases that we probably don’t even realise we are using, such as “I have a gut feeling” and “trust your gut”.  Everything you eat or drink goes through the gastro intestinal (GI) tract, which is like a garden hose filled with bacteria, good and bad. In fact, this ecosystem is known as the microbiome. As well as digestion, these bacteria have a huge influence on the immune system and consequently our health.  Many of you have probably experienced an upset stomach after a spicy meal or over consumption of alcohol.  And many triathletes, including myself, have endured a wide range of gut issues, especially in longer distance events.

This is a fascinating podcast and may well answer many of your gut related questions. If it doesn’t, please let me know so that we can get Bella back on for another show to answer your specific queries. Topics we chat about in this show include:

• Common gut issues and why they occur
• The importance of eating a diverse range of fruits and vegetables (see my challenge HERE)
• Yet another expert suggests avoiding refined sugars and processed foods
• Grape polyphenols and why a daily glass of red wine might be a good thing
• Runners tummy and how to overcome the problem
• Should you take pre or probiotics on a regular basis?
• Does IBS really exist and is there a cure?
• Why you get GI problems during long distance triathlons
• The ‘Clean 15’ and ‘The Dirty Dozen’
• Bella’s top 5 tips for a healthy gut

To find out more about Bella and her services, please use the links below

Website - The Functional Gut Health Clinic

Facebook - www.facebook.com/bellalindemann/ 

Links to other topics we discussed

"No Guts, No Glory” The Outside magazine article on the American Gut project

The British Gut Project

Blog post - Leaky Gut and food sensitivities

Blog post - everything you need to know about IBS

Blog post - all you need to know about Constipation

To find out more about Simon’s SWAT programme, please click HERE 

Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes

Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here

For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com

Dave Scott opens up about depression, rinsing cottage cheese, and Simon’s new hairstyle * Simon Ward and Dave Scott

The word “legend” is used too frequently these days, like describing the pizza delivery guy who arrives when you’re hungry.  However, in the case of this week’s guest, calling him a legend is absolutely the right word.  Dave Scott is “The Man”! He’s won the Ironman World Championships no less than 6 times and in its early days he was dominant. He retired and then made a comeback at the age of 40, finishing second behind rising star Greg Welch. Since his last Ironman in 2001, Dave has carved out a career as a triathlon coach (advising other Ironman World champions such as Craig Alexander and Chrissie Wellington) and motivational speaker.

When I first started in triathlon, there were no coaches but I did manage to find a triathlon book, Dave Scott Triathlon Training, which I still have to this day. In fact, I managed to get it autographed by Dave when we met for the first time at the Eilat triathlon in 1989.

Dave is a forthright character and isn’t afraid to voice his opinion.  When you listen to this conversation you’ll get real insight to one of the greatest Ironman triathletes ever, including:

• How depression sometimes meant Dave struggled to even start his sessions
• Following the low fat/high carb Pritikin diet and why Dave did a 180 and adopted a Keto diet
• Rinsing cottage cheese to get rid of the fat
• When you have been an Ironman world champion and you develop heart problems
• Dave Scott on strength training for triathletes
• Why Ironman have done a good job during the COVID19 pandemic
• PTO and why it’s a great opportunity for professional triathlon

If you would like to follow Dave you can find him on all of the social media channels listed below. 

The best place to find him is his website https://davescottinc.com/ where you can sign up for his regular newsletter

Twitter https://twitter.com/davescott6x

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/davescott6x/

YouTube  https://www.youtube.com/user/davescottinc/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/davescott3/

Dave and I chatted about many topics and made references to other resources.

These are the books Dave has been inspired by

The Perfect Mile - The race to break the four minute mile

Thinking Fast & Slow - Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize

The 3 year swim club - The untold story of “sugar ditch” kids in Maui and their quest for Olympic glory

Road to Valour - Gino Bartali: Tour de France legend and WW2 hero

To find out more about Simon’s SWAT programme, please click HERE 

Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes

Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here

For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com

I have some questions about polarised training * Simon Ward and Dr. Stephen Seiler part 2

Dr. Stephen Seiler is back and this week he is answering listeners questions including:

• A dumbed down recap of polarised training
• Enjoying your training and 4 other key benefits of polarised training
• How to use the Karvonen method (heart rate reserve) to find the right HR zones without testing in the lab
• How does strength training fit with polarised training?
• Time crunched athletes - Should I ignore polarised and just train hard all the time?
• How to gauge your effort without a HR monitor  - understanding breathing patterns
• Should I use the polarised approach to training all year round?
• Does age affect the benefits of polarised training?
• You can follow Stephen Seiler on these social media channels

You can follow Stephen Seiler on these social media channels

YouTube - sportscientist

Twitter - StephenSeiler

Facebook - stephen.seiler

To find out more about Simon’s SWAT programme, please click HERE 

Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes

Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here

For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com

Being inexhaustibly curious about polarised training * Simon Ward and Dr. Stephen Seiler

Stephen Seiler is one of my most popular podcast guests EVER.  I first interviewed Dr. Seiler in January and soon realised I had so much more to ask him.  In our first podcast he broke the endurance record (for this podcast) as we chatted for over 2 hours.  We were determined not to do that this time, but he’s just such an interesting character that we chatted for almost 2.5 hours. Rather than give you just one show to listen to, you now have two.  In the first episode we dive deeper into the polarised training debate, and in Part 2 Dr. Seiler answers listeners questions.  In this conversation we chat about:

• Being inexhaustibly curious
• Sustainable training for attainable endurance goals
• Online experiments during lockdown
• The real life experiment of training your daughter to be a great middle distance runner
• Ageing and how this affects recovery between reps and between sessions
• How to design your weekly training blocks
• Why younger athletes try to squeeze in too much training

You can follow Stephen Seiler on these social media channels

YouTube - sportscientist

Twitter - StephenSeiler

Facebook - stephen.seiler

To find out more about Simon’s SWAT programme, please click HERE 

Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes

Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here

For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com

Sleep - Listener’s questions answered * Simon Ward and Nick Littlehales

In this second part of the podcast Nick answers questions sent in by listeners and members of our Facebook ‘tribe’ including:

• Waking up in the middle of the night and why it’s normal
• Should I be napping during the day?
• The best time to get “deep & REM sleep”
• How many hours sleep should I get each day?
• Sleeping well the night before a big race
• Caffeine and sleep
• Does training late in the evening affect my sleep, and what should I do?

To find out more about Nick Littlehales please visit the following social media channels:

Website - sportsleepcoach.com

Twitter - @sportssleepcoach

Instagram - _sportsleepcoach

The unconventional wisdom about sleep - Nick Littlehales TedX talk in YouTube

“Sleep” - The book by Nick Littlehales

To find out more about Simon’s SWAT programme, please click HERE 

Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes

Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here

For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com

Some simple truths about nutrition * Simon Ward and Adam Feit

Sleep, the best training tool you have * Simon Ward and Nick Littlehales

Nick Littlehales was one of my very first guests on the podcast almost 3 years ago (If you're interested in listening to that episode to hear how much the podcasts have changed, please go HERE).  Knowledge and information about sleep has also moved on, hence the reason for inviting Nick back onto the show.  If you’re at all interested in improving your human and athletic performance, you should know sleep is a critical part of this. Forget compression garments, protein shakes and massage. Sleep is hands down the #1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and probably right through to #10 the best way to help your body recover. Best of all, it's FREE!  You should be making more of this super-recovery tool.

This is the first of a two-part conversation.  In part 1 Nick and I chat about the importance of sleep and Nick takes us through his 7 step Key Sleep Recovery Indicators (KSRI’s) as well as:

• Owls vs Larks and why it’s important to know your "sleep chronotype”
• How what you do when you wake up can set you up for a good night’s sleep
• Compressed Recovery Periods and how to get yours each day
• The importance of sunlight for good sleep
• Post- and pre-sleep routines and how they affect your sleep
• Why your mum was right about sleep

To find out more about Nick Littlehales please visit the following social media channels

Website - sportsleepcoach.com

Twitter - @sportssleepcoach

Instagram - _sportsleepcoach

The unconventional wisdom about sleep - Nick Littlehales TedX talk in YouTube

“Sleep” - The book by Nick Littlehales

To find out more about Simon’s SWAT programme, please click HERE 

Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes

Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here

For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com

Ironman training with Dan Plews * Simon Ward and Dan Plews

In this week’s episode I’m joined again by my old friend and still the fastest Yorkshireman in Kona, Dr Dan Plews.  Recently I’ve been studying Dan’s new EndureIQ course - LDT102 - all about how to train effectively for long distance triathlons.

Not only has Dan walked the walk at Kona (8:24, which is the fastest ever age grouper in Kona, making him AG world champion in 2017), he has also done extensive research into the low carb/high fat nutrition approach for endurance athletes and used his knowledge of working with Olympic rowers and elite triathletes to write the course.

Dan really is the man, and as ever it’s a great pleasure to catch up with him as we discuss:

• Why polarised training works
• The role of volume and intensity in developing fitness, and when to prioritise them
• Mitochondria and why they are so important to endurance athletes
• The benefits of training twice per day and why double run days really work
• Training intensity distribution and how it changes as you get closer to race day
• How and why short duration (<60s) HIT workouts are beneficial for Ironman triathletes

In the show we also discussed the following:

Dan’s cartoon character Johnny Bravo. Watch the video HERE

Favourite book - Lifespan: Why we age and why we dont have to by David Sinclair

Signature tune - Not Many by Scribe 

Measuring HRV HRV4Training & The Whoop

You can find out more about the Endure IQ courses click HERE

You can follow Dan at the following places

Twitter https://twitter.com/theplews1

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/theplews/

And some great blog posts at the "Plews and Prof" website HERE

To find out more about Simon’s SWAT programme, please click HERE 

Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes

Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here

For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com

Exercise as Medicine * Simon Ward and Alan Couzens

On this week’s High Performance Human podcast, I feel like a successful fisherman who has landed a catch after a long chase.  Today's guest, Alan Couzens, has been on my target list for several months now since chatting with one of the athletes he works with, Owen Martin (podcast 125). I have actually known of Alan for many years now since his involvement with Gordo Byrn and his GordoWorld blog. He posts regularly on Twitter and he is one of the coaches/physiologists that I would recommend you follow if you want to find trustworthy training advice.

Alan has an interesting and varied journey to his current residence in Boulder, Colorado.  Starting out as a swimmer in a small outback town in New South Wales, Australia and from there to university in Sydney and on to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra. Back to Sydney to work as a swim coach and then onto the US where he teamed up with the aforementioned Gordo Byrn and the setting up of a sports science lab in Boulder. And now his current position as a highly respected sports physiologist working with endurance athletes in cycling and triathlon.

Another highly informative discussion which probably deserves at least 2-3 listens to pick up all of the information covered, such as:

• Why ‘exercise is medicine’, and Alan’s 7 Core principles which you can find HERE
• AIS and why it was the first Western attempt to mimic the Eastern Bloc training venues
• Alex Popov swimming - mastering the process and focussing on rhythm, range and relaxation
• It’s the little things that matter - living at AIS and immersion into elite performance and culture
• Eastern Bloc vs Western style coaching and why there are actually more similarities than differences
• Eastern Bloc athlete development culture
• Different again from AIS - working with Doug Frost and Ian Thorpe
• Getting it done - Finding a way, or making one

LINKS

If you want to follow Alan the best place is Twitter and his website

Alan’s latest obsession is Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and you can find out more about this at his site

HumanGo.com

Alan’s “walk on” music…Pork and Beans by Weezer

We also chatted about several books including:

Deep Medicine by Eric Topol.  If you are interested you can hear the author Eric Tool speak about this subject on video HERE

Alan’s current favourite book Running with the Kenyans by Adharanand Finn

Alan spent time observing the great Russian swimmer Alexander Popov. If you’ve never seen him swim here are some videos- Popov Technique Popov Slow Motion, Popov Training

We also talked about Ian Thorpe and for students of swimming, here is a link to Ian Thorpe swimming technique

In this video you can listen to a great presentation by Gordo Byrn on the Business of Coaching

To find out more about Simon’s SWAT programme, please click HERE 

Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes

Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here

For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com

Make time, or make excuses * Simon Ward and High Performing Human and IM Dan Williams

In this week’s podcast we return to the theme of High Performing Humans as I chat with a friend and triathlete I used to coach, Dan Williams. Dan entered the triathlon world a few years ago and was drawn to the challenge of Ironman, despite the fact that he could hardly swim. We both laugh about the fact that when I first met Dan at the pool my first words were, “You’ve got a bit of work to do then!”  Fortunately, hard work is something Dan isn’t afraid of and since that first meeting, his triathlon progress has been rapid.  At the same time, he was working his way up the business ladder.  When we met he was Sales Director for Orean Personal Care, the company for whom he is now Managing Director.

Dan has two small boys (Bear and Rain) with his now ex-wife, and as you can imagine he has a lot going on in his life.  However, as you’ll hear during our conversation, he is incredibly mindful of keeping his life balance so that he can be a good father to Bear and Rain, be effective at work, and achieve his triathlon goals.  With only 24 hours in the day, this requires careful attention to make sure everything stays on target instead of crashing to the ground.

• Make time or make excuses
• The value of daily meditation
• How to recognise when life is getting out of balance
• What's the worst that can happen - Why you should throw caution to the wind when you are young
• How to make marriage separation work
• Not compromising on spending time with your children, and how that adds discipline to your working hours
• The 5am club, and Dan’s morning routine
• Being nominated as one of the Top 50 most ambitious business leaders of 2019
• Having a daily plan and why you should have one

LINKS

We talked about a LOT of books including

Simon Sinek - Leaders Eat Last

Titan - John D. Rockefeller

Podcast with Admiral Scott Jones

William McRaven - “Make your bed” video

Living with a Seal - Jesse Itzler

The best places to follow Dan is via his Instagram page just_being_dan and also on Linkedin 

Dan also has a podcast which he started during lockdown to share the experiences of other entrepreneurs.

It’s called The Pocket mentors and you can find it here iTunes

To find out more about Simon’s SWAT programme, please click HERE 

Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes

Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here

For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com