TriDot Podcast .146

10 Tactics to Stay Healthy During Race Season

Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot podcast. Now I always love a good countdown show, so when the TriDot director of performance science came to me and said, “How about we do a show where I give people the best ways to stay healthy during race season?” I said, “Absolutely! Let’s make it a countdown!” So here we are with two TriDot experts joining us to talk through 10 tactics for staying healthy during race season. Joining us for this is Dr. B.J. Leeper. B.J. graduated from The University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine with a Doctorate in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science. He is a Board Certified Orthopaedic Specialist, a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, and a USA Triathlon Level I coach. He specializes in comprehensive movement testing and is an avid triathlete himself with over 50 tris under his belt. B.J. now serves full-time as TriDot’s director of performance science. B.J., thanks for the awesome suggestion for today's show.

Dr. B.J. Leeper: Yeah, thanks Andrew. It’ll be fun to talk about it. A lot of times in triathlon we talk about it’s not just about making it to the finish line, but getting to the starting line and that’s what this topic definitely alludes to. So it’ll be exciting to talk about.

Andrew: Also joining us for this to kind of weigh in with a coach perspective is Coach John Mayfield. John is a USAT Level II and Ironman U certified coach who leads TriDot’s athlete services, ambassador, and coaching programs. He has coached hundreds of athletes ranging from first-timers to Kona qualifiers and professional triathletes. John has been using TriDot since 2010 and coaching with TriDot since 2012. John thanks for joining us today!

John Mayfield: Absolutely! Always good to be on with B.J. I’ve been learning from B.J. for upwards a decade now. Always good stuff, things I can use, things I can implement into my coaching so looking forward to hearing more from B.J.

Andrew: I do want to say here at the top of the show Coach John Mayfield is usually on one of our professional Yeti microphones to sound nice and crisp and clear in his audio. John Mayfield today is on his AirPods because he– if you remember a few shows back from the time that we’re doing this show, I mentioned in the warm up question that my dream would be to have my podcast microphone be signed by Mike Riley and Bob Babbitt. Well John, Joanna Nami heard that and John took his own Yeti microphone to Ironman Des Moines and had Mike Riley sign it. He then mailed his Yeti microphone to Bob Babbitt who then signed it and mailed it to me. So all of a sudden one day I got a UPS package on the door with a Yeti microphone signed by Bob Babbitt and Mike Riley that is now sitting on my desk in my house. So until we get John a new Yeti microphone, today he is on his AirPods. Still sounds pretty good, but just wanted to throw that out there for folks who are used to the beautiful, deep, booming, sultry voice of John Mayfield on the show. So thanks for that John.

John: I don’t know about all that, but those guys were so gracious in doing that. When I reached out to them they were both like, “Absolutely! Let's do it!” and yeah. I mean, it’s a pretty light ask for them to sign it.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: But I could tell they were excited about it. I sent him a clip of the podcast and they listened to it and yeah, they were super excited to do that. So appreciate those guys. As always, as you mention they’re the storytellers of our sport and such good guys that are involved and they care about people and they were so excited to do that. So that was fun so I don’t always love or warm-up questions, but I’ve got to say that that one is now my favorite warm up question.

Andrew: Well, I'm Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always we'll roll through our warm up question, settle in for our main set topic, and then wind things down with our cool down.

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Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

Andrew: There are some tri items that we have to replace fairly often, but then there are some others that can last quite a long time. The longer you are a triathlete, the more your gear becomes a hodgepodge of what is brand new and what is old but still good to rock ‘n’ roll. B.J., John for a warm question today just from your time in the sport triathlon, what piece of gear that you still actively use as a triathlete is the oldest? John Mayfield I'll go to you here.

John: See as I mentioned don’t I always love the warm up questions not because they're not great. I love that other people have to answer them, but I always struggle to come up with good answers for them. I’ve been racking my brain and even looking around my pain cave here…

Andrew: Sure.

John: …and thinking what’s old? I think I’m kind of at this state of my triathlon career where I had a lot of stuff that I like maxed out the life of and that was like two years ago.

Andrew: Okay.

John: So I have a like a whole bunch of stuff…

Andrew: That’s brand new.

John: …that I’ve replaced in probably the last two years. Because I was there. Like, everything was done. I’m not always the one to get the newest fanciest thing. I’m more so like it’s eventually going to break and I’ll replace it then. So one thing that came to mind and this was my oldest thing for a long, long time was my old Garmin Edge 500 bike computer.

Andrew: Okay.

John: I got that like pretty much early on, as soon as I got into the sport, and I used that thing for probably 10 years. There were a lot of bike computers that had come in with new functionally like touchscreens and maps and all sorts of things and I had just the basic power, speed. It was new enough to have power on it, but it was super old-school, but it worked and then just one day it didn’t work anymore so I upgraded that. My cycling shoes I used for years, one just because they’re just so darn expensive and they were literally like falling apart to where like I had to buy them. So that was probably like a year ago I got some new shoes. Then my bike.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: I rode my last bike for probably eight years and I ride quite a bit. I do quite a bit of indoor training and that’s got to be like a three to one ratio wear and tear on the bike just with all of the sweat and stuff that end up on it. But yeah, so I don’t really have anything that's all that old now, but over the years I’ve had some stuff that has served well.

Andrew: We could probably say that your Specialized Shiv that you just replaced with your new Argon 18, it's still actively in use because now…

John: It is.

Andrew: …it’s your trainer bike.

John: Yep. So that’s probably it. I looking like the pedals on it, I think– I don’t know,  those pedals may be even older than the bike. There’s probably some accessories around too.

Andrew: Sure.

John: Maybe my rear hydration that’s on my current bike. I did pull that off the old bike. So it’s several years old. I’ve got a lot of stuff that’s several years old, but I had some stuff that was like way back in the day.

Andrew: Okay! Dr. B.J. Leeper, what is the answer for you?

B.J.: Yeah, this is a good one because I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this. I started this sport about 2007 just right before my first son was born and I immediately got a CycleOps Fluid Trainer.

Andrew: Okay.

B.J.: And I am proud, but also slightly embarrassed to admit that I’m surrounded by tech gurus like each and every day, but I’m still rocking that old dumb trainer and it just works. I haven’t bit the bullet and upgraded to the new Smart Trainer yet.

Andrew: So 15 years old at this point, that trainer.

B.J.: It’s still going. Here in Montana, needless to say, I’m indoors on it a lot especially in the winter time. So it just just works and I’m still using it.

Andrew: For me it is my Bontrager bike pump. I think it was a $50 bike pump that I bought and literally, it was the day before my first triathlon. I was in Bicycle Inc in Hurst, Texas buying my first road bike for my very first sprint triathlon happening the next day.  I didn’t have anything so I bought the helmet, I bought the cycling shoes, I bought the bike, and I bought a bike pump. I’ve since upgraded my helmet. I’ve since switched to a triathlon bike. I’ve since switched to nicer tri shoes. So the one thing from my very first purchase as a cyclist that is still actively being used is that $50 bike pump and it’s still kicking. It still pumps the air. I haven’t had a  need to replace it and don’t foresee a need to replace it. It’s got a lot of fun stickers on it now.  Anytime I do a race and have an extra helmet sticker, or number sticker I’ll put it on the bike pump and it’s got a lot of tri stickers on it. So that’s what this answer is for me. I’m excited to see– I know we got some new triathletes in the audience, we have some older, more veteran seasoned triathletes in the audience. So I’m excited to hear from you guys. What is the oldest item that is still actively in your rotation as a piece of tri gear? Make sure you’re part of the  I AM TriDot Facebook group. We’re going to throw this out to you guys and see what y’all have to say.

Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

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Andrew: There is no day like race day and part of the fun in being a triathlete is scouting for your next race and planning out your season. But what good is having those races on the schedule if we can’t keep our body healthy for race day? And the deeper you get into season the more your body is going back-and-forth with race prep, tapers, races, recoveries, and another race build. Good thing Dr. B.J. Leeper and Coach John Mayfield are here to give us 10 tactics for staying healthy during race season. So B.J. the tactics we are going to hear from you today, these are specific to taking care of our body right? I mean because there’s a lot to taking care of our bodies. There’s nutrition properly, there’s proper sleep, there’s proper mental health modalities. So in your PT language what are we focusing on exactly with these 10 tactics today?

B.J.: Yeah, so there’s a lot here and I think the first thing to do is kind of preface this conversation with a couple things and you know it brings me back to my time in Kansas City when I was working in an outpatient orthopedic and sports medicine clinic there. We worked with a lot of athletes and high profile athletes and I remember one specific conversation. I was at a conference, we were working with several members of the sporting KC team; so the major league soccer team in town and part of their medical staff was at this conference and our conversation was basically talking about how when their athletes were in performance season they’re not really doing things to “fix” their athletes. They’re really just trying to manage them. So mitigate potential injury risk that could take them out of being able to perform, but as far as correcting potential dysfunctions that they were observing they knew that during the midst of season heavy training, heavy performance, they weren’t really going to fix things. They were just trying to manage and protect their athletes and not let them get into this “dysfunction” within how their bodies were moving. So we know that that is definitely individualized. Today we want to talk about some specific tactics, but knowing that obviously it’s individualized for each athlete and again we’re talking about managing the body during race season. So again that’s kind of the overall thought process of how we discuss this. But then the other thought is defining what’s tactic versus what’s a strategy? Again like talking about how we have to consider this an individualized approach although we’re going to go through top 10 tactics which are not obviously part of the big strategy, we’re talking about them is standalone, but the reality is a strategy is a treatment paradigm or an action plan that’s athlete specific. When we talk about tactics we’re talking about those individualized steps or those individual steps that can take you there. So just taking these tactics out of context of an overall strategy you’ve got to take that with a grain of salt. Because what can work for one person doesn't always work for another person. So with talking these tactics we’re specifically, like you eluded to Andrew, we’re going to be talking kind of from the physical therapy side of things or mechanical tactics to keeping your bodies right during race season as a triathlete. So there’s the obvious things with keeping your body healthy during race season, which we’re not going to address and those are pillars like nutrition and sleep. Those are obviously huge things so we’re going to assume those are given and that we’re addressing those as athletes but in general, we’re going  to talk more about like the changing tires, checking oil, getting everything in alignment. We’ll just assume for this conversation you’re already putting the proper gas in the tank and tucking your car in the garage at night you know. So yeah, that’s kind of a preface of what we’re gonna be discussing here.

Andrew: Before I have B.J. start unloading his 10 tactics, you know the training design within TriDot already does quite a bit to build us up, to taper us off, and recover us kind of around our race schedule. You know what B.J. is giving us today are tactics for taking care of our body within that TriDot training cycle. Tell us a bit about how TriDot already ebbs and flows our training stress around races to keep us healthy.

John: So this kind of goes in line with some of those things that B.J. was referring to; the things that we’re making assumptions about, because having proper training prescription is critical in this. There is a reason why triathletes have such a high occurrence of injury is because most triathletes are not doing the right training right. They are doing generic training. They’re following someone else’s training. They’re not having training that’s individualized, optimized for them. So it’s critical to have the proper amount of volume, the proper amount of intensity, the proper intensity for you, the proper intensity given the environment you’re training in. There are numerous variables that go into determining what you should be doing and what you shouldn’t be doing. And as a repetitive use sport we have a high risk of injury. So we are doing the same things over and over and over the same motions for hours and hours and hours on end every day, every week for months at a time. As race day approaches we generally are doing this more, especially those who are racing long course, the volume is increasing as race day approaches. So you’re doing more. You're pounding the ground more. You’re using those joints more and more; bone impact, muscular impact, all of those things. There’s  more opportunity for things to go wrong. So part of reducing your injury risk is, again, doing optimized training that is created specifically for you. Not for someone else, not for someone with a different body type or a different capacity, different absorption rate of training. So it’s kind of one of those things as B.J. talked about, it’s almost an assumption that you have to talk about, you’re doing training that’s specific for you. You’re doing the right training. You're taking your medicine, not something that’s been prescribed for someone else in hopes that you’ll be cured. But all those are taken into consideration through TriDot’s optimization process. So you’ll know exactly how much volume is appropriate for you, how much intensity is appropriate, what intensity. It’s all adjusted for the environment that you’re training in. So you are getting that truly optimized training that’s created specifically for you. And one of the claims that we have been making for years and years and years is that TriDot training is going to reduce your injury risk. We’ve seen that over and over. It’s been documented through our Preseason Project and other research initiatives. The athletes that train with TriDot have a significantly lower occurrence of injury and that really goes back to the optimized training. Now kind of the caveat here is we cannot, unfortunately, remove the risk of injury. We cannot remove the occurrence of injury because, again, we’re still in triathlon. We’re still swimming, cycling, and running for several hours every week and given that we are going to have injuries at certain times. There are going to be things that happen to our body. We’re going to put wear on our body and if there’s too much of that or if something happens in an unfortunate way, an injury can occur. So we don’t, unfortunately, have the ability to remove the risk of injury, but we do reduce significantly the risk of injury and that’s really where we transition over into these ten things too. What are the things that we can further mitigate that risk? Obviously doing the right training is a huge component of that, but we are still using our joints and muscles and bones a heck of a lot and in doing so what can we then do to further enhance our training or enhance our recovery and reduce the risk of further injury?

Andrew: Nope, great perspective there John. Perfect. That nails it there. Alright B.J., let’s get to the good stuff! What is tactic #1 for keeping our body healthy during race season?

B.J.: Yeah so these are in no particular order and just to kind of set the stage, when we’re talking about all these tactics, like we said before, it’s specific modalities, specific resets. And when we talk about resets, it’s really all of these are centered towards getting you back to your proper homeostasis with regard to your autonomic nervous system. So when we talk about the autonomic nervous system. There’s really two states an athlete can have and any individual really can have it. It’s either you’re in your sympathetic system, which is like your fighter flight system, that’s the system you’re using when you’re performing and racing or you’re in your parasympathetic system, which is your rest and digest system. That’s when you’re at rest, your muscles should be at rest. So a lot of these things, these tactics, stem from trying to address that situation where the dysfunction comes when– Like I’ve got an athlete coming into my clinic and he’s feeling discomfort, I put him on the table, he’s lying flat on his back and yet I can see he’s still holding hip flexor tone. Like his muscles are on. They’re tight. Lights are on, but nobody’s home we always say. So these resets are designed, a lot of these that we’re going to discuss, are designed to flip that light switch off and help the body recover that proper state of homeostasis because then we can recover more properly. We can perform better. So there’s kind of a paradigm that all these will go into which is called the 3 R paradigm which is reset, reinforce, reload. So as we start down this list I’m going to kind of give you that category of is this a reset. Is this helping us turn the light switch off in certain ways? Is this a reinforcement, meaning maybe it’s a stretch or pattern that helps again reinforce that reset. So we turn the light switch off, but how do we keep it that way? How do we stay mobile in a functional way and then reloading which is kind of priming the pump, activating the right muscles so that those resets and reinforcements stick. Because if we turn something off, we can’t just assume it’s going to stay that way. You know, we have to retrain the body in certain ways to reinforce that pattern. Without getting too carried away think reset, reinforce, reload when we’re talking these tactics.

Andrew: And I will B.J., add in for you; going through 10 tactics, right, like we’re going to hit kind of the core, the ethos of each of these. You know, there will likely be future episodes with you where we dive real deep on some of these individually. So don’t think that what you’re hearing from B.J. today is the depth knowledge on these tactics. It’s just him kind of giving us an overview of the things that we can do. A lot of our audience is in the middle of a race season right now. My apologies to our friends on the other side of the world who listen to the podcast who are in their off-season. Hopefully this comes in handy for you in a few months. But this is B.J. just kind of giving us an overview of these 10 tactics. So B.J., tactic #1.

B.J.: Yeah, so having settled that, we’ll run through these pretty quick because like you said, each and every one of these tactics is truly a podcast episode…

Andrew: Could be an hour conversation. Yeah.

B.J.: …in itself. So the #1 tactic; and again these are in no particular order. But the #1 tactic is breathing. Breathing is our most critical reset which seems like a no-brainer, but breathing is so much more powerful than many of us are aware. Breathing has a lot to do with how we control our blood pH. So by releasing carbon dioxide, which is mildly acidic and a big waste product of the body, you know very often we become stressed and we tend to shallow breathe or stay what’s called apical breathing where our lungs become hyper inflated. We don’t release all of that stagnant air with that CO2 out of our body and by holding that in, it can definitely give us issues with a lower blood pH or acidic focus there. So if we can do focused breathing and it doesn’t have to be rocket science. There’s a lot of exercise paradigms that have been built around breathing because now there’s such a focus and a shift towards this; we realize it’s important in our industry, but it really doesn’t have to be rocket science. I mean yoga has been around for however many years and yoga centers around this and there’s a lot of principles from yoga that are beneficial just simply because it focuses on breathing. So the more we can do focused breathing, bring our homeostasis back to where it needs to be. Again getting us back into more of that parasympathetic state or rest and digest state, we can bring our blood pH up making it a little more alkaline which is where it’s designed to be just on that side. So some practical tips for this there’s a lot of different techniques. Again box breathing, 4-7-8 breathing which is yogaesc. Basically it’s thinking in through the nose, out through the mouth. If you want more details Google 4-7-8 breathing or box breathing, but again the focus is getting full exhalation, getting deep inhalation and just taking time out to relax.

John: So I know Coach Jo is going to be excited to hear box breathing brought up on another podcast. That was one thing she talked about just a couple weeks ago on the podcast when we were dealing with the pre-race anxiety and that was one of her top things to recommend was the box breathing specifically and using that as a tactic to deal with those pre-race nerves.

Andrew: I was curious B.J. as you were talking. You reference 4-7-8 breathing and I was like I wonder– I mean 478 sounds like an area code right? I wondered what 478 is the area code for. So shout out to any of our listeners in the Macon, Georgia or the central Georgia area. Warner Robins, Dublin, Eastman, Hawkinsville, Milledgeville, Swainsboro, Wadley, Perry. That is what Wikipedia tells me the 478 area code covers. So shout out to them. But B.J., great tip there. I was going to ask you what that means for us as triathletes. Like, what does it mean to improve and be mindful breathing, but you gave us some practical tips right there. So that is perfect. So let’s move on, B.J., to tactic #2 for staying healthy during the race season.

B.J.: Yeah, tactic #2 also falls in the reset category again of helping us turn things off; turning that light switch off on certain muscles that are over utilized or overworked and they just need that reset. So the category #2 is massage. So massage involves, obvious thinking of massage of the hands on treatment, but it also kind of envelopes what’s become very popular on the market now with percussion and vibration tools. Talking about vibration foam rollers, vibration guns. There’s a lot of different things on the market and really that whole focus on this tactic is that perception drives experience. So the bottom line, like you can get into some of the research, what’s there and what’s not there, but the bottom line is some of these tactics like massage just feel good and that’s what it takes to get us back into our parasympathetic state. So we don’t have to overthink it in is this increasing blood flow? Is this clearing inflammatory cell markers? Yes. Maybe. We’re not sure. Massage actually has some of the better research behind it, although it’s limited, but the bottom line is if you perceive that it feels good, it’s relaxing and you can find yourself getting back to that parasympathetic state or a more restful state, it’s going be a great tactic for you. Again a lot of these tactics or these tools on the market are driven more by marketing than science, but in my own anecdotal evidence being in the clinic for the past 17 years is that they really do simply work. And just to get more practical, I’m not endorsed by Hyperice, but I really like Hyperice products a lot. I’ve just vetted a lot of different products in the clinic and these are the ones we keep coming back to. But the Hyperice vibration foam rollers work really well. Foam rolling seems to be another staple that kind of falls into this category and it’s definitely a valuable reset. Sidenote on foam rolling, it’s not always a more is better approach. A lot of times people think they just have to completely kill themselves and not that it’s not uncomfortable at times, but you’re never truly lengthening tissue when you’re foam rolling there studies on rolling your IT band that to actually deform or change that tissue 1% difference in length it would take up to 2000 pounds of force.

Andrew: No kidding.

B.J.: So nobody’s truly administering that through a foam roller. What foam rolling is truly doing is, is it’s inhibiting tone. It’s again bringing us back into that parasympathetic state. So a little bit can go a long way here. Again, I love Hyperice products. I use the Hypervolt vibration gun made by Hyperice.

Andrew: Which John and I both have, I believe.

B.J.: Yeah, it’s obviously been very popular on the market. It’s a little more quiet. It’s a little more durable. Again, I’ve used these day in and day out in the clinic and they last. They hold up very well and they just seem to work. So it’s kind of what I’ve stuck too, but there’s a lot of different tools on the market that do the job. Again, it’s just finding something in that category with the massage tactic that feels good and if it’s feeling good and it’s feeling like you’re more released, relaxed following, you’re on the right track.

Andrew: I will say too B.J., John and I both have a Hyperice gun that we both use frequently. I definitely enjoy it. I don’t have a vibrating percussive foam roller and that is very intriguing to add into the repertoire. My newest pick up, I’ve really been enjoying– our friends at Medi-Dyne that sell 2Toms products that we talked about just a bit ago, they also have added recovery products and I got their little trio kind of massaging balls. There’s like a spiky one, there’s a softer round one, it’s got a couple of different shapes, and man those are really great either leaning against the wall or laying on the floor or just rolling feet or legs over them. Those little balls have really been great for me to kind of get in some spots that my foam roller can’t. I’ve been enjoying them. So definitely when you go to Medi-Dyne.com and check out 2Toms products, make sure you also look at their line of– They have a variety of foam rollers and different canes and sticks to help you get in all those nooks and crannies and kind of apply massage to those spots, which I know Dr. B.J. Leeper endorses. So B.J., tactic #3.

B.J.: Yeah, and another reset in this same category, and just remember as we’re talking about these resets a lot of people will get in that mode of massage, foam rolling, even this next tactic that we’re going to discuss that that is your fix. That is your solution. But I always tell my athletes I work with that the reset even though it gets the most press it feels sometimes the best, once it’s been performed the reset will never fix you. The reset is a step. Again it’s one of those tactics that’s part of that overall strategy, but if you’re only hitting the reset button and you’re never reinforcing or reloading that reset, it will never fix you. You’ll have to continue that reset for the rest of your life and some people are okay with that. Like, hey, let me schedule my weekly massage and I’ll just keep doing that and that’s fine, but just know that the disclaimer is the reset does not fix you. It’s not the be all, end all.

Andrew: Interesting.

B.J.: But it is a valuable part obviously. So #3 in the category resets is compression boots. So compression again, another modality that it’s a slight cousin to massage because in my opinion, the reason that compression boots really work is because they’re giving that manual input that again can be an inhibitory and quite honestly this might be a spoiler alert, there’s not a lot of research with compression boots. But if you want my honest opinion of why they work, I honestly think it’s no more than just the simple fact that it makes you slow down. You put them on, you get off your feet, and for those 15 to 20 minutes, you have to stop and take a break and maybe breathe a little bit.

Andrew: Yeah. So true.

B.J.: So in my opinion, like hey, if you need to drop a grand to force yourself to take a 15 to 20 minute break every other day.

Andrew: Worth it.

B.J.: Honestly, if that’s what it takes, I’d say it’s money well spent because it is an important part or it can be that important tactic for a lot of people. So again, it’s in that category of massage to a certain degree.

Andrew: Just pour a glass of wine, kick back in your recovery boots, throw on the TriDot podcast and have yourself a Thursday evening, right?

B.J.: Yeah. I could sell you some restraints for about the same price. If you wanna pay me a thousand bucks to do that; just to force you to sit down and chill. But, no, they do feel great. Again, perception drives experience. If they feel great to you and everybody dials in their specific pressure, they can be very effective. But everyone’s like well, what kind should I get? What pressure should I use? Again, it’s totally a feel thing and there’s different types of brands. Again I’m a big fan of, in the clinic I’ve used Normatec a lot. We’ve used a lot of different systems in the clinic and we’ve landed with Normatec. Which again, I’m going to sound like a Hyperice rep because Hyperice just acquired Normatec a couple years ago, but again they just work. They hold up. We’ve used them every single day, multiple times a day and they still withstand the test time. So shout out to Normatec. I feel like they are some of the best on the market, but there’s a lot of systems that do the trick.

Andrew: All right, Dr. B.J. Leeper, what is tactic #4 for staying healthy during race season?

B.J.: So tactic #4 is one of my favorites. This is one I’ve used a lot and it’s dry needling. So I’m sure this will be John’s favorite as well. But dry needling is honestly one of the deepest reset tools we have in our industry.

Andrew: Interesting. It’s not talked about nearly as much as some of the others.

B.J.: Right, and obviously it’s something you have to seek a professional to receive, but it’s something that’s been around for thousands of years. Basically in the United States we’ve adopted it from ancient eastern medicine techniques that have been around for centuries and we’ve in essence westernized them. But basically what dry needling is, is it’s taking a thin monofilament needle that’s just like hair thin, it’s made of stainless steel and it’s nothing like a typical hypodermic needle with a reservoir. So we’re not administering any fluid when we dry needle and honestly, it would take about 20 of them tip to tip to fit on the size of the point of the typical hypodermic needle.

Andrew: Wow.

B.J.: So they’re very thin. A lot of people refer to them as painless needles because very rarely do you feel that insertional pain like you would with a typical needle. But it’s utilized in a treatment paradigm within the physical therapy where we’re trying to reset. Again, flip that light switch off on certain muscles where the lights are on but nobody’s home. We’re hitting specific trigger points potentially in the body where they’re being abnormally utilized and these muscles are very high strung. They’re not at rest when you’re at rest and we’re basically going in and manually for lack of a better analogy, we’re going in and manually flipping those lights off. Technically speaking there’s actually a chemical called acetylcholine which is a neurotransmitter that when needle it can sometimes evoke a twitch response and you clear that chemical from the synapse and then it returns that muscle back to its resting state. The reason I love this tool is that from a practitioner side of things I can get a response with someone’s body in a session of dry needling that may have taken me three sessions of just using my hands.

Andrew: Wow.

B.J.: So it’s very effective. It’s very quick. That reset can happen. Again, it’s not all about that one reset being the be all, end all, but it’s a highly effective reset technique to get your body back online in that normal homeostasis very quickly. So for individuals that aren’t able to achieve that through their self tactics like foam rolling, some of these other manipulation techniques, self mobilization techniques, dry needling can be a huge tool in the toolbox if you can find a practitioner that lines up with you. It’s not for everybody, but it can definitely be a huge tool and a lot of times we’ll stimulate the needle while it’s in the muscle; what’s called intramuscular stimulation like with an electrical current. Like you’ve heard of TENS; transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. We’ll actually hook up TENS or electrical current to the needle as it’s indwelling in the muscle to evoke an even stronger reset response. So it sounds like Frankenstein type of stuff, but honestly I can honestly say, because I’ve used it for years, it’s very, very powerful.

John: So the first time I experienced that, and B.J. said I would be a big fan because I have I guess a fairly well known aversion, would be a mild word, to needles. I don’t like shots. I don’t like hypodermics. I freak out and get clammy if there’s one in the room, but I will say– so the first time I had it, I was having this back, shoulder, neck pain that is just kind of chronic for me. I spend a lot of time at a computer hunched over with terrible posture and that’s probably where it’s coming from and so from time to time it gets bad, I go in for treatments and the first time I was face down on the mat, they were doing the massage and different things and then it was almost just like, “Hey you don’t have an aversion to needles do you?” And I was like, “Well actually, I have a very high aversion to needles.” and next thing I know I’m feeling just these little more like thumps on my back shoulder blade area and it was not a bad experience at all. So I would say for my fellow needle phobes, this is not eliminated from the repertoire of things that you can do. For me, not only was it not a bad experience, it worked. It really helped to loosen up those muscles in my neck and back and I was able to sit comfortably and I was able to ride in aero because like for me it would get so bad that I can’t ride my bike because it becomes painful to hold my head up. So that was great to have that in the arsenal of things to deal with that in addition to the other things like fixing my posture and other things.

Andrew: I just want to know B.J., and this is probably a question for a longer conversation on dry needling, but I’m just curious like, who had that idea to even figure out that a very, very, very tiny, thin needle inserted in a very, very, very specific place in a certain way could reset your entire muscular system? That’s just– like there’s certain foods, right? There’s certain like plants that you can eat, but it’s like who was the first person to think, “Oh, what if we cook this and eat it?” Like, I have that same wondering about dry needling, but that’s probably for a deeper conversation. So we’re going to move on to tactic #5 which is what?

B.J.: Well and this kind of goes in line with dry needling, to a certain extent. And to kind of follow up, not to get too long winded with this, but to follow up your question right there Andrew, a lot of these things we utilize in westernized medicine or in the United States, even with recovery resets like we’re talking, have stemmed from ancient eastern medicine. So with eastern medicine I’m sure a lot of these things started with just trial and error. Let’s try these crazy things and what’s persisted over the course of time, I mean we’re talking about techniques that have been vetted for thousands of years and they’ve stood the test of time in eastern medicine and so there’s probably something to it. Now a lot of these things we have no research whatsoever, solid research, that is truly to say like we know for fact it’s doing this, but it’s anecdotal. We know that it’s been used and it’s withstood  the test of time. So if it’s been vetted for a couple thousand years, you know there’s probably some merit to it and there’s probably some value in it even if we’re not 100% sure what exactly it’s doing.

So this next tactic is in line with that and it’s acupressure. And very recently, or this has kind of been more of a trend recently, on the market you’re seeing a lot with acupressure mats. I was kind of skeptical of this a few years ago, but I’ve actually tried utilizing one personally for the last few months even and been more consistent with it and it just works. So what these mats are, acupressure mats if you’re not familiar with them, it’s like for lack of a better way to describe it, it’s like several hundred evenly small spaced plastic points, think of like a bed of nails made out of plastic Legos.

Andrew: Wow. Cool, cool, cool.

B.J.: So it’s literally this mat of small plastic points where you lie on it, stand on it, do different things on it, where these plastic points kind of gently dig into your skin and it forces that reset. It goes along these meridians in the body where, again like needling, you’re trying to attack a tissue that lights are on, nobody’s home. It can get you back into your parasympathetic state. A lot of times at first it’s a little bit intense and you breathe through it and then all of a sudden you enter into this parasympathetic reset. So there’s different forms on the market. I think one of the first in the United States was called the Shakti Mat and I actually have one made by ProsourceFit, but lying on these 10 to 15 minutes right before bed– it gives you an opportunity to then focus on your breathing as you’re doing it. I’ve actually noticed my recovery, my sleep is much more improved when I have time to do that. Again, highly valuable technique that’s not very expensive. It’s a small tool and again, it’s something you can use daily. You don’t need a provider to administer like dry needling. It works along those same kind of concepts, but it’s obviously more superficial. It takes some time to get used to at first. You sometimes have to start with like a thin T-shirt on or if you’re doing it with your feet, thin socks and then gradually get accustomed to it. You get the ability to relax a little bit better. You can go just bare skin on the mats but yeah, I absolutely love mine. I’ve been using it for a while, prescribing it for a while. So it’s a great tactic.

John: So B.J., this is one I was less familiar with so as you started talking, I looked it up and kind of ironically the top two listed on Amazon are Shakti and ProsourceFit. So is it just spending time on the mat or is it something more like a foam roller where we need to be doing something or is it just spend the time on there allowing it to do it’s thing?

B.J.: Yeah, it’s very passive. So it is allowing that input and then allowing yourself to literally breathe through it and focus relaxation. So there is a part of it that’s conscious relaxation. I always joke with patients, like just relax harder and when you say those cues is almost keys them up and they’re like, “oh no.” Triathletes we’re often wired like we’ve got to do something. A lot of this, what we’re talking about is what you don’t do. What your muscles are not doing. So how do you get them in that state? Again, the acupressure mat is just another tool like that. Maybe it’s like what we talked about with compression boots. Maybe it’s the simple fact that you’re taking a break, you’re focused on breathing, you’re focused on doing something that’s different than the typical stressors of your life. But I do think there’s something a little more to it. It’s again, similar concept, it’s not rocket science. It’s literally just evoking a different stimulus to the brain and then your brain has to decide, oh what am I going to do with this stimulus? Then again, a lot of times it can flip the light switch off on those peripheral muscles and just get you into a deeper state. But if you tense up with it and you hold your breath and you’re not able to reset, relax through that, it may not be a good tactic for you. Just like if you’re really averse to needles and the thought of being needled and being in that situation is very stressful, it may not be the right reset for you, but if you can kind of coach yourself through it, give your body a different stimulus that it’s not used to, it often can be very powerful.

John: So I don’t think my laptop will work with this one, so maybe that’s a better one for me. So yeah, and 30 bucks, I think we’re going to see an uptick and there are lots of fun colors to select from on Amazon.

B.J.: Absolutely.

John: So go get you a–

Andrew: They do not look comfortable and that almost makes me want to try it even more honestly. I feel like after this recording I’ll be purchasing one of those and I’ll be purchasing a vibrating foam roller just to try both of those out. So moving us on to tactic #6 for staying healthy during the race season.

B.J.: Yeah, so these next three tactics we’ll kind of roll through. These are all in the category of reinforcement and most people would consider them like in the stretching bucket. But tactic #6 is thoracic spine mobility; or what we often refer to as T-spine mobility. That’s your mid back. We just finished up camp a couple months ago. We were screening about 60 or 70 of our TriDot ambassadors and with our movement screening, kind of research data collection, we were finding that a lot of our triathletes– and I kind of knew this going into it, but we’ve validated it– that a lot of our triathletes have poor trunk rotation and rolling patterns where we lose that mobility through our thoracic spine, which is one of the primary areas that we move with rotation. Obviously considering the sport triathlon, we’re hunched over aero, we’re running, we’re driven in this sagittal plane of pattern, which is front to back, and if we lose this ability to rotate it affects how we breathe, it affects our posture, it affects how we we pull with our arm pulling through the water. So it can definitely put the parking brake on our bodies and inhibit our performance. So one of my favorite techniques or favorite drills for this is called the open book. If you’re not familiar with it, you can Google it, YouTube it. Open book focuses on focused thoracic spine mobility, breathing, and then also another great stretch, catch-all stretch that attacks this area is called the Bretzel stretch. This was actually characterized by Brett Jones, who is kind of a very well-known kettlebell instructor. He worked with Pavel, which is another big name in the kettlebell industry. I think Brett Jones is now with a company called StrongFirst. But it’s another great drill. The Bretzel, they patterned it after his name, but it’s another drill where you get rotation, you get hip mobility all in the same time. It’s kind of one of those catchall stretches that helps you focus and again if you’re not able to breathe through it, you’ve got to coach yourself through the breathing. Because if you’re holding your breath, you know you’re still in your sympathetic state. So that’s another great one that checks a lot of boxes and again attacking our T-spine mobility is another big tactic.

Andrew: Like you said, we kind of roll through tactics 6, 7, and 8 because they all kind of go hand in hand along the same lines, but I will say this about thoracic spine mobility. At the time we’re publishing this podcast, a few weeks ago we had triathlon legend and TriDot coach Mark Allan in town, here in the Dallas area, and we were filming some strength exercises with Mark and it was a really cool shot because he was in town for a few days. We were filming some stuff at the pool. We were filming some stuff with TriDot coach John Mayfield was running Mark’s teleprompter and I was running a few cameras. TriDot’s own Matt Bach was running a camera. We had TriDot coach Elizabeth James, TriDot coach Joanna Nami, TriDot coach Jeff Raines, and Jake Booher, the son of TriDot founder Jeff Booher, all on camera as athletes doing some strength exercises. And basically it’s all of the strength exercises within TriDot. If you sign onto TriDot with the new Mark Allen Edition, when you have your swim drills, your run drills, your bike drills, your strength drills come across your daily workout, it is Coach Mark Allen on the screen coaching you through how to do those drills. And B.J. you collaborated with Mark on the strength portions. All of the drills that are on there for strength were approved by you. The scripts were approved by you to make sure we’re coaching people on how to do those things correctly from a physical therapy standpoint. But I say all that to say, when it comes to thoracic spine mobility, I almost made the joke– I did make the joke halfway through the shoot that we should’ve had a drinking game where every time Mark had to say the word thoracic, we all did a shot because it seemed like every eight drills Mark had to say thoracic. It’s a word that you don’t hear outside of the PT strength lingo so it definitely stands out. I’m just having flashbacks of that video shoot here as you’re talking about thoracic spine mobility because that word was just thrown around on that set so often. So anyway, with that story and anecdote, on to tactic #7.

B.J.: Yeah, #7 in the same line of thinking is hip mobility again for the same reasons we mentioned before with T-spine mobility. We tend to lose hip mobility in triathlon because we get so sagittally plane driven and a syndrome we see quite often in the triathlon world is called lower crossed syndrome which basically means that the front of your hips and your hip flexors get very tight, your lower back, your paraspinals get very tight and this cross chain patterning that‘s dysfunctional with this lower cross syndrome is the exact opposite pattern that you want to have. So the natural pattern we want to have lies within our king and queen, which is the glutes and your core. So think of this diagonal across your pelvis where the king and the queen, your glutes in your core, are the primary your body needs to be utilizing. Then all of a sudden those become inhibited and you get out of position and the exact opposite diagonal takes over; your lower back and your hip flexors. So we know that this is an issue. So as a tactic for reinforcing the correct patterns, we need to think about addressing these areas. So there’s a lot of different hip flexor, hip external rotator stretches on the market. You can Google a lot of them again. The Bretzel stretch that I was referencing earlier catches a lot of this, but the focus needs to be on putting yourself in the position to attack these muscles through some light contract relax stretching. Remember it’s not a grip it and rip it philosophy. It’s light, maybe 3 x 30 second holds where you’re focused on your breathing because if you’re holding your breath, you’re probably creating more tension than releasing. So if we can kind of hone in on the hips, it’s a huge factor.

Andrew: Dr. B.J. Leeper tactic #8.

B.J.: #8, another reinforcement pattern along the same lines is ankle mobility. So ankle mobility is another thing we screened at the ambassador camp with a lot of our triathletes where we see a lot of dysfunction there because you know obviously, with triathlon we’re doing a lot of running. If we don’t maintain fundamental ankle mobility and primarily we’re talking about the mobility of what’s called dorsiflexion, which is thinking in the foot it’s bringing your toes towards your nose. So the ability to translate your tibia or your lower leg over your foot, that ankle mobility is critical because if you don’t have that proper mobility, if there’s stiffness there, it’s like a pipeline. Your brain is trying to communicate to the muscles in your lower limb to propel you forward, to push you forward, and if there’s stiffness in the ankle your brain says “nope, wait. I’m not going to communicate normally to those muscles. We’re going to put the parking brake on” and you become inhibited in your capacity to actually move more efficiently becomes diminished. So this can lead to foot problems, shin splints, issues all the way up into the hip and back. So we need to clear ankles as another huge tactic.

Andrew: It reminds me B.J., when we talked on the podcast before about how when you have an injury, you know, where you feel injured, where you are having the pain and discomfort isn’t necessarily the spot that originates that injury. So like you’re saying, if you have stiff ankles, that can cause injuries all the way up to your lower back and the problem isn’t in your back, the problem is in your ankle and you only find that out through a screening. So it’s really fascinating. I want to let people know our next episode with you, at the time this podcast is coming out, we are a month or so away from our next TriDot staff get together and at our next TriDot staff get together, B.J., you’re going to do a functional movement screening on all of us as staff. I know you’re going to find some stuff wrong with my thoracic spine mobility, my hip mobility, and my ankle mobility. I am excited to quantify it and then we’re going to do a podcast episode where myself and some of our staff are on an episode with you just talking about what we learned from the process of being screened. So I’m really pumped for that. All three of those tactics you just gave us, really important parts of the body to pay attention to and to keep healthy. Moving us along. We have two left. Tactic #9, what is it B.J.?

B.J.: Yeah #9 and actually #10 are kind of two practical tactics that I think if you can keep these as part of your routine, I think you can check a lot of boxes. Like you alluded to Andrew, we’re going to screen our entire staff because screening is in essence the foundation of how we need to direct some of these tactics because within the sport of triathlon, very often we’re trying to cash checks that our body can’t cover. So we’re literally trying to just check fundamental movement capacity with our bodies to make sure that what we’re putting on top of that is not going to blow us up with all of our training. So #9 is a practical way and I know we have a lot of listeners that are involved with this tactic, but it’s yoga and really yoga is another form of reinforcement. Again, it focuses on breathing. It’s got that specificity and your exploring movements that you’re not naturally getting in the course of your normal swim, bike, and run training. So again, yoga can check a lot of those boxes and reinforce those fundamental patterns we need. Most specifically– and there’s a lot of different poses and I’m not a yoga expert by any means, but literally there’s a toe touch pattern we look at a lot in my world as far as screening goes. If you’ve been around yoga long enough, you know that the sun salutation, for example, is a big move where it looks like that. You’re reaching to the floor and then you’re moving your spine through a myriad of progression and if you can’t perform sun salutation through that normal natural flow, and if you don’t know what that is just again Google it, but if you can’t go through that natural progression of the sun salutation without feeling like your head is going to explode because you’re holding your breath, there’s your number one tactic right there.

Andrew: Wow.

B.J.: You don’t have to be a rocket science individual to know like, hey, you’ve got to explore that your body needs to be able to own it. It’s a very fundamental pattern and that becomes your exercise. Like that could become your only tactic you focus on you’ll check a lot of boxes just by going through that three to five minutes daily focusing on some breathing with it. It’s a huge tactic that I think it’s overlooked.

Andrew: One of my new dreams B.J., I know TriDot Coach Kurt Madden has talked on the podcast fairly recently about how he’s been just lately getting into yoga, and specifically hot yoga is his go to. So one of my dreams right now is to be in San Diego and go attend a hot yoga session with TriDot Coach Kurt Madden. I know TriDot ambassador and Betty Squad member Valerie from the Houston area, one of Coach Joanna Nami’s athletes, House of Royals on Instagram is her Instagram handle and she is very active on there. She’s been posting a lot about going to goat yoga. So whatever form of yoga appeals to you, it has B.J. Leeper’s endorsement of being a tactic for keeping your body healthy during the race season. So B.J. with that, let’s move on to tactic #10. What have we got?

B.J.: Yeah, tactic #10, this enters into the reloading category. So again, we started this segment talking about reset, reinforce, reload. We’ve talked about tactics for both reset and reinforcement, but reloading is one that most people put in the category of strength. But reloading is one of those tactics that will literally make these things stick. So for example you’re tackling your T-spine mobility, you’re tackling your hip mobility. If you don’t do anything different, you’re probably going to go back to that same stiffness you were holding before. So tactic #10 is in the activation drill department, specifically with glute activation drills. So glute activation drills is our 10th tactic and really the focus here is again, when we talked about the king and queen of the body and the pelvis, the king is the glute. The glute is the powerhouse. The glute is a driving force of not only moving us forward when we run, but also stabilizing our pelvis, which is the platform that all of our limbs work off of our core. So once you’ve hit the reset button, reinforced proper fundamental mobility, we have to make sure our glutes are activating properly, especially in the height, the peak of our training intensity for race season. For me with attacking glutes, activating glutes, I’m a huge fan of single leg bridges, where I really like to modify the athletes pattern by making sure they’re like hugging their opposite knee to their chest as they’re performing that single leg bridge on one side so they’re not getting into that lower cross pattern. They’re not getting into their lower back, because the lower back is a big cheat of this proper single leg bridge. You’ve heard me on the podcast before talk about single leg deadlifts. I’m a huge fan of single leg deadlifts. When you’ve earned the right to load, you’ve got adequate hip hinge, you can start loading within a deadlift in a single leg to expose asymmetry using a kettlebell or dumbbell from a modified height, potentially. So single leg deadlifts are a big key for this. Again, this is an entire podcast and itself, but a Turkish get up is another fundamental move within activation reloading that if you can take yourself through a fundamental Turkish get up, and there’s a lot of steps to the Turkish get up to do them correctly. Again, if you’ve not been familiar with the Turkish get up, it’s a lot of movement centered from the kettlebell community, but YouTube it, walk through it, take your time as you go through it, but do it properly. Turkish get ups will check a lot of boxes. So all those tactics, all those drills can help influence glute activity and it’s a huge step. Kind of wrapping a bow on some of these last couple tactics we’ve addressed, if you remember nothing from this conversation, if you just remember the simple tool of a sun salutation followed by a Turkish get up, those are two huge, critical movements that if you did nothing else other than those two movements a few times a week, if your body starts checking the boxes on covering those movements you’re going to be doing yourself a lot of good with regards to keeping your body healthy. So those are kind of practical tips. Again, all these tactics can look very different for different individuals and some people may respond better to some over others, but practically speaking there’s a lot of power in those last two tactics we talked about.

John: So B.J. to wrap up our main set, are these tactics good for everyone? Should we all be doing all of them? Should we incorporate those that seem to work for us? Or how can we best implement these tactics?

B.J.: Yeah, so that’s a great question. I think it kind of goes back to what we started out talking about with tactic versus a strategy. I think ultimately we need a strategy to plug these tactics into. So your strategy is obviously going to be very individualized to you, but I think in general I think we just need to explore different positions. I think the biggest take home from a lot of this is explore different positions that you’re not getting with your natural swim, bike, and run training with triathlon and focus primarily on taking your body to a state of reset and relaxation. If you’re getting your body into your parasympathetic state because you’ve been so keyed up with life, training, racing, all these things, your body needs that baseline. It needs to come back to that natural baseline of your parasympathetic state. So for a lot of us, it’s really just exploration. It’s individual. Some tactics are going to work well for you over others and once you find something, you land on something, stay consistent. We’ve talked all the time with training it’s not about perfection, it’s just about consistency. It’s not about doing all ten of these tactics, it’s simply about finding a few that work well for you and being consistent.

Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.

Elizabeth James: Hello Coach EJ here. Andrew gave me the reins for today’s cool down and I’m really happy that I get to share a little bit with you about the information that B.J. outlined today. Gosh, he just has an expansive wealth of knowledge and I really hope that you found the information today helpful as we all work to stay healthy during the race season. Now not to brag too much, but I was feeling pretty good about the fact that there was only one of B.J.‘s ten tactics that I don’t currently implement and that was number five; that acupuncture mat. I might have to give that a try someday, but right now, no thank you. But every other tactic is part of either my weekly or monthly routine. Now some of the tactics I implement on my own such as getting in the Normatec compression boots and doing either an at home yoga session or attending a class, but a lot of the items he mentioned are ones that I heavily rely on my team to help me with too. I work with a fantastic strength coach who not only designs my gym sessions to increase muscular strength, but each workout starts with mobility and activation drills; things like targeting ankle, hip and thoracic spinal mobility and then that all important glute activation. I’m also a big advocate for regular maintenance work so I seek the help of a massage therapist and chiropractor frequently. This includes some dry needling too. This really helps keep everything moving as it should. To perform your best your body needs to be moving at its best. Now you may not need to implement as many as I currently do, but I’m sure that there are at least one or two things that you could either start or be better about actually doing to keep yourself healthy this season and we all hope that you do stay healthy so that we can see you at a race soon.

Andrew: That’s it for today folks. I want to thank Dr. B.J. Leeper and John Mayfield for talking us through keeping our body healthy during race season. Shout out to our friends at 2Toms and deltaG for partnering with us on today’s episode. Go to Medi-Dyne.com to pick up some 2Toms today and when you do use promo code TRIDOT for 20% off your order. And to experience deltaG Ketones for yourself head to deltaGketones.com to learn more about fueling with ketone esters and to book your free 15 minute consultation. When you place an order there use TRIDOT20 for 20% off your super fueled ketone drinks. We’ll have a new show coming your way soon. Until then, happy training.

Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to tridot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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