Nick Sanders 0:00
In this week's episode, I get to talk with Phil Weigel, the co owner of CrossFit CLE. And Cara Barton, an occupational therapist with us at Fit for function in Cleveland. And we talked a little bit about Phil's journey in CrossFit in endurance sports. So Phil's been in the CrossFit game for some time has competed at a very high level, but recently has taken up endurance sports as a challenge in so we talk about some of his integration of CrossFit training with endurance training, where those similarities and differences interact, and then how he is trying to maximize his training. So a lot of great topics here, whether you're into CrossFit, or endurance sports, as well as the specificity of training and kind of the challenges that come with that. So hope you enjoy this week's episode of the fit for tomorrow podcast. My belief on programming is do hard work, and varied enough that you don't get hurt. Like it doesn't need to be magical. That's probably the truth.
Phil Weigel 0:57
So people people don't, you
Nick Sanders 1:02
know, I was actually listening to one this morning I'm programming was for hypertrophy, and going to fail it was the conversation was how close to failure do you go. And the guy's argument was that if you stay two to four reps shy of failure, you won't get the fatigue that you would get if you went to failure. And so your recovery will be quicker. So that was his recommendation. It was kind of interesting.
Phil Weigel 1:26
Yeah. But isn't that also relative? Because what if what if the set to failure is a set of seven reps or a set of 72? Reps? I mean, that we're talking about very different degrees that those two reps are measuring if you're young boy, you're doing them?
Nick Sanders 1:39
So the view he suggested I can't Dr. Israel something I can't think of his name. He suggested roughly, yeah, maybe? rep range between five and 35, and 30. So under five would be pure strength, right? Like, yeah, which makes sense. It's gonna be a strength neural thing. And then his argument with you went above 30, or 40, is you're just doing all those reps to get to a point where you'll fatigue. So it's a waste of time, kind of, so to speak.
Phil Weigel 2:09
Yeah, then you become an endurance athlete, right? Because more than 30 reps is endurance.
Nick Sanders 2:16
I mean, it's interesting.
Phil Weigel 2:17
No, I mean, it's, but my my point is, like, if I'm measuring a set of seven being complete fatigue, or set of 27, being completely team, then those two reps mean a lot different in those scenarios, right? Because doing two more reps with what I can only do for seven and doing two more reps with what I can do for 27 is a very different loading a very different strain.
Nick Sanders 2:43
Right, so if the conversation was hypertrophy, what's better?
Phil Weigel 2:47
Um, I, I've never really done much hypertrophy work, but everything that I've heard and read, especially from from the people who've been on top of the bodybuilding world, is that kind of like 15 to 25 reps. Yeah, so I will say that does sound like it's very much in that ballpark.
Nick Sanders 3:06
Yeah, these guys are body body builder people. Yes, there. Yes. Five seems way
Phil Weigel 3:11
low. But um, yeah, 15 to 25 reps and going to complete failure is what is what? Well, what the people who stand on the best of that business, say, but they also aren't used to the tip. So
Nick Sanders 3:27
that's the that's the rub. Right?
Phil Weigel 3:30
Yeah. Yeah. Does that make sense if you're arguing the repeatability and the recovery of it? Because without that increase in testosterone, your recovery is a different animal.
Nick Sanders 3:40
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.
Phil Weigel 3:44
Well, send me send me a link to that. I want to I want to
Nick Sanders 3:48
it was pretty, I mean, it was actually pretty interesting. Yeah. Like I said, they're coming from a bodybuilding Perspective Perspective.
Phil Weigel 3:53
And that's the thing like that's so specific, when you're talking about hype per trophy, have specific muscle groups and how you have to isolate them and do that. This is general fitness, I mean, move around very your stuff, do it at the highest intensity that's reasonable and safe, and recover reasonably, and you get better and you stay fit, and you stay. Well, it's not rocket science.
Nick Sanders 4:17
different beast. Yeah. I wonder if you could combine the theories, like could you do a day or three, you know, two days a week of functional fitness two days a week of bodybuilding? And would that maximize your progress so that you get a little bit of both worlds? Or would it be a disaster because you don't get enough progress on either side?
Unknown Speaker 4:40
I think a lot I feel like a lot of CrossFit gyms actually do that.
Phil Weigel 4:44
I think it has it's a lot.
Unknown Speaker 4:47
Oh, I should say a group of them do.
Phil Weigel 4:51
Yeah, it's definitely got a lot more popular in the competition scene. But there's also the note that in the competition scene, there's a a lot more vanity a lot more Instagram posting. So you got to have big biceps. Well, the likes.
Unknown Speaker 5:05
Yes and no, I think a lot of people like a lot of your members join CrossFit because they want to
Phil Weigel 5:10
look better. Yeah, yeah, but and
Unknown Speaker 5:12
therefore gyms are starting to program that way and a lot of
Phil Weigel 5:15
using standard gyms you're seeing it more
Unknown Speaker 5:17
in CrossFit gyms to the standard. Yeah, yeah. So even a lot of the big CrossFit programmers are coming out with like, mayhem, they're coming out with bodybuilding programming now.
Phil Weigel 5:31
Yeah. Competition based platform. Yeah. Yeah, where you're gonna get the people who want to be on Instagram.
Nick Sanders 5:39
So do you think it's you think it's aesthetics? Or do you think it's like, functional,
Phil Weigel 5:45
now there's there is functionality, but to a fairly limited degree. From what I've found with working with people, you don't need to get bigger to get stronger. Most of the time, muscles are just poorly conditioned to do any work. And you can very quickly get them to adapt the cardiovascular strain. And to work with that they're their new constraints around oxygen on you're under stress and load. And also you can at the same time, just stepping into the weight zone, you can you can increase the capacity to move large loads without without making a huge change in muscle size.
Nick Sanders 6:20
Yeah, I agree with you, I don't think hypertrophy to some degree, I'm sure it does. But by and large
Phil Weigel 6:26
degree, like, if I'm pounds, I got to get bigger. But I don't want to squat 500 pounds, I'm okay, squat 360 and being able to run and do the other thing. So once you get into that I got to be bigger to do a thing. Well, you're gonna lose in other aspects. And for most people, it's more of I need to change the other parts of my body than I need to make my muscles be big. Right. You know, that's most of what fitness seems to be from people coming in. Yeah. And I experience.
Nick Sanders 6:56
Yeah, I'm curious about it from the metabolic side. Like, I've been doing a ton of reading on the insulin resistance stuff. And they're, they're talking about taking muscles to failure to get into that mitochondrial activation and that kind of stuff. So that's, that's what's led me down this kind of looking at it. Are there metabolic for somebody with metabolic dysfunction? Are there benefits? Like if you have insulin resistance, if you are overweight, if you're doing that kind of stuff? What's the difference between the
Phil Weigel 7:26
two? Do you have to do some very specific study on that to understand that? Well,
Nick Sanders 7:31
that's yeah, I'm interested.
Phil Weigel 7:32
That'd be fascinating to do.
Unknown Speaker 7:34
Chances are somebody who falls in that group is not doing it. They're not in the gym. So doing a little bit of exercise is going to be beneficial.
Nick Sanders 7:48
Oh, yeah. I mean, anything. anything's gonna work. But if you
Phil Weigel 7:53
like, is it more optimal? Yeah. Yeah. Can you can you to make it perfect?
Nick Sanders 7:58
Yeah, tis the season for the random person to walk in that's never been in the gym and tries the gym. what's the, what's the workout for them? That's like, I think if you're skipping the functional fitness side, that's a disservice. Right? If you're just doing a body build split? Yeah. But if there's advantages to improve the way they utilize energy, it's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I would
Phil Weigel 8:23
have to understand those pathways to a much greater degree to have a lot of confidence, putting that as a as a block in the program. Yeah. Because right now, I know that strength training works, not specifically hydrogen, or hypertrophy training, but training to optimize the amount of force that a muscle can put out. So it's shorter sets, longer rest between, you know, seven sets of three or five with three minute breaks between them enough time to recover and really move heavy loads, but not go to complete failure. Once you start going to complete failure on a regular basis, then you also start accruing a lot of risk as far as how you move the joint itself, right? If I if I do back squats to failure, that's that's not a good idea. The leg press to failure is a different thing. But I don't have a leg press machine
Nick Sanders 9:09
right now.
Phil Weigel 9:12
So that's another place where I'd have to be careful about what we use on it.
Nick Sanders 9:17
Yeah. And then what's the weekly consequence of taking a back squat the failure like that's gonna shoot, your your systems can be fried for seven days.
Phil Weigel 9:26
The CNS for sure, that's what I mean. Yeah. And that's where I think we're talking about different things, bodybuilders isolate. They do a single muscle group for a specific purpose. We're using the whole thing, right? And power clean. I can't tell you what it uses all of you, if you do it, right. Right. It's just it's too complex to say, let's isolate and fail at this. And, yeah, I just think the functionality of a broad movement is a little bit a little bit too big for that type of isolation. Sal training, but it would be really interesting to see if it actually makes a noticeable change in how the metabolic pathways followed.
Nick Sanders 10:06
Yeah, the the theory, I believe, and I don't, I don't I don't have this fully understood as well. But the theory is that there's non insulin specific glucose receptors in the muscle and exercise, specifically things that activate the mitochondria trigger that. So the the lower intensity stuff, you can start to absorb glucose without needing insulin. So even somebody that is having issues with insulin production or insulin resistance can still get glucose out of their bloodstream, effectively. So they're using these the exercise to basically replace insulin sensitivity.
Phil Weigel 10:42
And that, that sounds Yeah, that sounds really fascinating. It's, it's true, but also, but also that sounds like a combined nutritionists and like approach for three people to be doing at once with a single client. Yeah. Trying to make somebody.
Unknown Speaker 11:02
And Nick, you're saying that's only at lower intensity?
Nick Sanders 11:06
I think they're, I think most of the stuff I've done is there, it's the cardio is done in what they call like zone to cardio, so we're not putting you're not getting lactate accumulation. And then the resistance training. You know, the research is all over the place, but the people talking about it, are talking about taking the muscle towards a failure state with longer reps and stuff.
Phil Weigel 11:30
But not more than 36
Nick Sanders 11:33
Yeah, this is a different company. This was this was had nothing to do with insulin. This was just guys talking about hypertrophy. But oh, the bodybuilder guys, we're not talking about insulin. I'm I found the body builder, guys, because I'm looking at this rep to failure stuff.
Phil Weigel 11:51
But the rep to failure stuff has potential benefit on a metabolic.
Nick Sanders 11:55
Yeah, that's yeah, that's my that's my that's personal curiosity. That's not
Phil Weigel 12:00
well, and so I wonder how do you have to reach full failure? Because if you look at people doing CrossFit workouts, you get close all the time. Right? Right. So I don't I wonder where that line is. Because built into that intensity, if I give you 40, handstand push ups, you hit a wall at 25. And now you're trickling your way through, but you still have that ridiculously high heart rate, you're building a ton of fatigue in those muscles. And, and you're, you're still working through that, that kind of near failures out. So I wonder, I wonder what kind of turnover method that has.
Nick Sanders 12:35
Right? So I mean, if you're just looking at it from an energy metabolism standpoint, is there a difference between a seven minute you know, AMRAP, that smokes, you compare it to an hour in the kind of doing bodybuilding splits? What's the difference? Obviously, I think you're talking different energy systems. But what would happen from insulin, blood glucose, that kind of stuff.
Phil Weigel 13:02
We need to get somebody all stuck up with with constant monitors, so we can just
Nick Sanders 13:08
Yeah, I wore one for a while. I had one a couple months. But the problem? Yeah, the problem is that it doesn't tell you what your insulin is doing.
Phil Weigel 13:20
I know. So just as glucose, right.
Nick Sanders 13:23
But what you don't know is how much insulin you're dumping to maintain that glucose? Yeah.
Phil Weigel 13:28
Is what your responses to the glucose, right.
Nick Sanders 13:32
I learned is I don't have diabetes, right. I don't have diabetes. I can keep it. I can keep it here. Okay, good. And I don't know if I'm on the path, right. I don't know where you're at on the path to diabetes. So it's interesting.
Unknown Speaker 13:46
Can you put Josh through some testing once he gets his insulin pump prefilled as a guest, so how much insulin like you'd be taking in a day. I wonder if we just stopped paying less and less and see if you saw a lot at the end of the
Nick Sanders 14:03
day, did I talk to you about that, that I talked about that cycling podcast this sayin? No, he he has a cycling group. They're all type one diabetics. Oh, and one guy on that group. I think his insulin is down to next to nothing. He does three hours of zone two a day. And he's just able to maximize that non insulin dependent uptake.
Unknown Speaker 14:24
What I was going to kind of add him because I know for Josh, if he starts doing it say like he takes like a bit off of working out he started doing CrossFit again, his like his blood sugar's will start dropping at you know, I'd say like just I didn't know the night you know, the day. It takes about a week or so to start regulating. Again, if he goes and does more of bodybuilding splits. We did that. Was that fall or so? We were doing that about four times a week. That didn't happen, which was really interesting.
Nick Sanders 14:59
Thanks. They talked about that mechanism on that podcast and I don't remember the details.
Phil Weigel 15:05
Is it just because the muscle glycogen is so depleted and used to dump back in it doesn't middle the night? It has something
Nick Sanders 15:11
to do with that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's something that I can't remember exactly how it the details on it
Unknown Speaker 15:21
and actually kept so to this week, he started adding in dirt and stuff back in. Let's see Monday. He just swam for half hour and during swimming, he's budgeted to drop, but did not drop after, after the storm at night,
Nick Sanders 15:37
she go up, does he go up during a CrossFit style workout? Like this he relaxed enough glycogen that his blood sugar goes up during CrossFit.
Unknown Speaker 15:48
No, so not Not that I'm aware of,
Nick Sanders 15:52
I think to what Phil was saying, if I remember correctly, the argument was the high intensity stuff, you mobilize a lot of glucose, and then you have to inject insulin to get that glucose back down. But it's too much because you got the sensitivity thing going on and then it tanks
Unknown Speaker 16:07
now typically he's tanking. Yeah, I was something
Nick Sanders 16:11
along those lines. I can't remember the exact Yeah, but
Unknown Speaker 16:15
yesterday he biked? You know I shouldn't take a look at his heart rate. My guess would be zone two. Because he did it for an hour. He's not able to say that at anything above zone two. Um, he didn't his blood sugar state very constitute today. And in tomorrow's running, I believe for an hour. Same thing. He won't be able to do that more than two. So we'll see. We'll see what happens.
Nick Sanders 16:42
Yeah. Just curiosity.
Unknown Speaker 16:45
Yeah. Oh, goodness. But in the podcast is gonna see shut off.
Nick Sanders 16:54
Any excuse? That picture that we that that picture you posted? NRT one that got posted of Kara cup in your legs and your shirts off? Like if we're working on if that was a lab leg lab? Why was your shirt off?
Unknown Speaker 17:21
Take your shirt off, I guess we'll take a look at it.
Nick Sanders 17:26
I was trying to figure that out. I was like, why is
Unknown Speaker 17:30
good for the gram. That day? My shoes were off for some reason. Uncomfortable?
Nick Sanders 17:39
Yeah. So if we just switched that to overtraining, like, I guess the question, if we're talking about energy systems, right from this metabolic stuff anyway. Yeah. How do you coordinate your endurance work with CrossFit work?
Phil Weigel 17:57
poorly. For the most part, I've found that I just kind of segment them out. And I am either doing one pretty pretty consistently, or I'm doing the other. Um, so currently, I'm trying to mesh the two a little bit more effectively, because I want to maintain general fitness a little bit better this year, as I still keep building that endurance space. But it, I get caught up in how much time I have to spend on my feet, especially because my events are our long distance rocks. And there's no substitute for having 40 pounds on your back and just having those foot strikes. And that's the biggest issue for me in racing is I'm gonna pound my feet against that pavement or the dirt, whatever the surface is for just hours and hours and hours. And if my joints aren't conditioned for that impact, then I've miserable time very quickly. And it's it's just incredibly hard to grit your way through a race when all of your joints hurt within the first couple hours. So for me, it's getting in a lot of longer distance rocks. For instance, in preparation for for a 50th While I was prepping for 100 miler, and I ended up stopping at 50 this year. In preparation for that I worked my way like, Excuse me, I worked my way all the way up to a marathon with 40 pounds on my back. And in that week that I did that marathon. I also did another three days over 10 miles. So in a week I rocked I rocked more than the equivalent of what I ended up racing. I think I was at like 75 miles that week. And realistically, I wanted to be at 100 miles that week, to be better prep to go into 100 mile race. But you think about the time that takes I'm averaging 13 to 15 miles an hour depending on terrain. I mean, you go for a marathon at that face, you're looking at five to six hours. And it's just I had a lot of trouble getting in my volume on my feet and being able to do anything else. So this year, I'm Trying to figure out how do I train my my big sets my endurance days where I have to do two to seven hours of endurance, steady sort of work and also do my high intensity days and I'm doing a better job at it but it's just I have to I have to make a deliberate effort to do it. i Right now I'm kind of scheduling a day with Darrell where where I do conditioning with him. So like yesterday we did Hance or two days ago, we did handstand push ups and then high intensity workout for 15 minutes.
Nick Sanders 20:36
Then when I got home net con style,
Phil Weigel 20:39
yeah, yeah, well, ball shots for Reeboks overs, nothing too heavy, but a lot of intensity for a 15 minute window. And then when I got home, I did a hero workout 45 minute, just steady grind of bodyweight movement, lower intensity, a lot more duration and repetition. So I got in kind of both sides of the spectrum to a minor degree. Because I didn't do a giant weightlifting day, I didn't pick up a bunch of really heavy stuff. And I also didn't do a four hour window. So I got a little bit of both. And that's kind of how I'm trying to balance it right now. If I have a day where I have to do a lot of one thing, I'm probably not going to do much of the other if at all. Um, or I'm going to have days where I have kind of a light balance of the two.
Nick Sanders 21:21
How's your how's your body handling that, like,
Phil Weigel 21:23
at first terribly the first couple of CrossFit workouts are just are just brutal, because the conditioning of my muscles currently, especially my legs is small range of motion. If you think about running, it is not a very big especially well, rucking hiking more or less, it's really small steps. I'm not doing big giant strides. There's no deep hip range of motion, right? It's it's pretty limited range of motion. So then when I go to do a wall ball shot, or some back squats, I can tell that my muscles are not used to going through that range with load and I get really sore. For the first two weeks of doing something like that. Before before my body is okay with doing the high intensity and those aggressive reps. Um, I never really have a problem with the endurance with the long steady stuff, except for if I haven't done any of it and then I go right into it and do 10 miler, I'll feel the pain in the joints. Um, but muscle wise endurance doesn't bother me at all. The longer stuff doesn't it's it's just joint discomfort. That kind of goes through the like to when when we do long stuff on the bike, man, you gotta sometimes you just have a bad day and and stuffs going wrong with your back but mostly bike. Mostly that's because I dead lifted heavy.
Unknown Speaker 22:47
But they decided to cross it for the first time a week before 100 mile race all time and I listened to his back hurting.
Phil Weigel 22:58
I felt that I was pretty well recovered. I felt fine. But then I got on the bike and things for two step. Um, but typically I was different for both Oh, yeah, yes. Yeah, cuz I definitely was missing range of motion and the muscles felt okay, but they would have still been fatigued, because I've lifted pretty heavy three days earlier. And I hadn't been doing a lot of heavy deadlift. And so I mean, that was a specific mistake that I made before a race. But very often in bike races, it'll come down to whether or not my knees are okay with continuing to put out that amount of a strain for another hour. And if I've been biking enough there, okay, if I haven't, then it's kind of like that. That rucking idea where you got all those foot strikes, you have to be conditioned to take that impact again and again.
Nick Sanders 23:46
And when you say knees, you're talking like it feels like joint joint pain. I'm like in the knee joint.
Phil Weigel 23:52
It's a tracking issue. I think I ended up going a little bit. I flare out a little bit with my left knee. So my same left knee nonsense. Yeah, yeah, yep, exactly. The IT bands tighten that pulls it out and the VMO gets pissed off because it's fighting it the other way. And, and then I ended up with a hot knee, and it develops in different spots. Most the time, it's kind of on that inside of that patellar shelf, or not tiller. tibial shelf, kind of inside that patella or to the medial side of the patella, if you will, um, I don't necessarily get paid on the outside of the knee. But the the inside of that left knee is still always a little bit of a thorn in my side.
Nick Sanders 24:38
Yeah, I've been. Again, I've been watching more content in the body butter side. And the one thing that I think's interesting is they do a lot of different angled lifts right to try to target get different parts of the muscle to take the force right. And I think it brings up like you see this knees over toes guy on YouTube talking about Changing the positions and all this kind of stuff. And it brings up an interesting question or theoretical thought, like, we spent so much time. from a performance standpoint, like when you squat or your deadlift, you want your back in this position, your knee and this position your foot in this position, because that's the best position to do the lift. Yeah. Does it make us the most durable? Like, could you spend time training, training that knee in or knee out with a controlled environment, controlled force, all that kind of stuff, to make those different angles stronger? So that when you when you start to fatigue, you don't end up in a bad spot?
Phil Weigel 25:35
So I think definitely, yes, um, and one of the ways that we kind of go about that, and in our program with CrossFit is to use more free weight, right to add to add the ability of the weight to change directions that you have to work to stabilize it. So we're not necessarily approaching a press from a new angle, but we're adding, we're adding some instability to the press to force muscles to adapt to do a better job of holding it, right. So like doing a bottoms up, kettlebell press is significantly harder in terms of the stabilization than doing a standard dumbbell press. Right? So we try to work that in a little bit. But it's definitely not as we're not targeting a specific angle of a muscle in order to do a specific bit of hypertrophy. But I think that has a lot of benefit for the rehab setting. I think it's just a little bit too specific for the general program that we have.
Nick Sanders 26:33
Right? Yeah. I mean, I've been looking at it from our right on the rehab side of Yeah, look, if your VMO is that weak, we got to, you know, we got to put you in positions where maybe it gets stronger, and then also figure out what's happened at the hip or the foot that you're never going to that spot in the first place. Like I think, you know, that. Obviously, it opens a whole can of worms. Yeah. But I mean, it's interesting, right? It's an interesting type of if somebody so like, say they've been walking a certain way for, you know, 10 years. And you correct that hip position, but there's so much atrophy in the quarter, it's not weak, or the motor patterns, not there. How do you actually get them to utilize that new pattern? Right? Do you actually need specific hypertrophy work to get it?
Phil Weigel 27:20
I think so. Yeah. Interesting. Thoughts? Yes, the discrepancy is big enough, then I'd say yeah, definitely.
Nick Sanders 27:27
You know, because we can see, obviously, with manual therapy and stuff, you see these changes of, you know, your knee goes this far now goes, you know, twice as far. But can Yeah, what do you need to hold that? Like, is it how do you make that stay? And so that you actually have the ability to, to utilize that range of motion? And do what's, what's the, I think, is in the PT world, it's always like, Oh, do three sets of 10? Or do a couple of sets to it gets a little tired? Like, what is the actual conditioning range? Like, can we get better at training that range of motion? Because like you're saying, with a bike, it's so specific, like, not there's, there's, there's less carryover between movements than I would like to believe. You know, I mean, like being being a hell of a crossfitter isn't gonna necessarily translate to the, to some degree, it's gonna translate to the bike, but you're not gonna be the best cyclist, right? Like, it's the specificity. It's so one.
Phil Weigel 28:25
For one, you'll be way too heavy.
Nick Sanders 28:29
Right? I mean, like, crazy. So the next thing like I think this is to tie into kind of what you're doing with CrossFit in the bike. How? How do you pick? What is your goal for the year? And then how do you train that way? So I guess where I'm trying to lead this to is specializing in a performance thing versus just general fitness.
Phil Weigel 28:57
So you're asking me a question that leads me into things that I'm going to do rather than things that I have done, because for the last two years, I've really just approached this as general base building. That's in part that's part of what Murph became doing it for a year was just building a base of being ready to to do monotonous things, and not have a problem with them. Also built a base of a lot of running with weight, a lot of push ups, pull ups and squats, just, you know, functional movements that humans need to do. You got to be able to run and climb up the tree and that kind of leads you into being able to do a lot of that stuff. Um, this year, I have a lot of bike races that that were set up for. So take care and I ride a tandem bike and we've got 125 miler that has 14,000 feet of elevation in it. And that is going to be the hardest bike thing I've ever done. That's a lot.
Nick Sanders 30:01
Did you guys do 100? Earlier this year?
Phil Weigel 30:03
We did 100. But it was fun. Wow. Yeah, it was up in Michigan. This is in central Ohio. And it's just hills. It's just rolly little hills, and a lot of them for
Unknown Speaker 30:13
taking off work that week, I think I'm already gonna be injured.
Phil Weigel 30:18
So far this year, I'd say I have some more specific. Some more specific things like I know that race is going to be incredibly difficult, and I have to prepare more diligently on a bike. So has
Nick Sanders 30:30
Kara's not going to prepare more.
Phil Weigel 30:34
More than him more prepared. But, yeah. I think it'd be safe to say I come in with a better level of general fitness. Okay. And then between the two of us, we both have plenty of problems on the day. It's gonna go south, at some point when you're on a bike for I mean, that brace I'm thinking that's probably going to be close to 15 hours for us. Yeah, probably. And yeah, so think about it, think about just sitting now said I don't want to be in a car for hours. Yeah. Now sitting on uncomfortable saddle and pedaling up and down hills. So
Unknown Speaker 31:13
we have to agree on the same cadence. So we had to like to end like, it's a lot easier on your own. Like, as you can mess around and stand up, you can do all sorts of stuff. But we have to come to some sort of central agreement on what we're
Phil Weigel 31:25
doing. So so this year, I am going to be scheduling out a day a week, where I'm specifically training a bike for longer periods to most of it, honestly, it's just getting my pedal, right. If I if I don't pedal, right, then I'm going to have knee problems. If I'm not used to sitting on the saddle, I'm going to have growing problems. And that's going to lead to knee problems and back problems. So just kind of giving yourself enough exposure to the thing to at least get through it in a functional manner, and not limp across that finish line. And that's, that's such a big race, Nick, I think that that's my goal is to is to cross that line. Well, rather than to do what I I know how to do, because I can I've done it plenty of times. But I'm getting tired of limpin across the finish line, because because I just I just went for it. And I thought, yeah, it's probably true. And I do have enough fitness to get through this. And it's gonna become a grid issue, rather than can I perform well. And I'm trying to kind of turn that page over and work on being better prepared to perform at specific things. And in this case, I think it really just comes down to me being on the on a bike about four hours a week, because traditionally I'm on a bike maybe 30 minutes a week. And that's and that's just me.
Nick Sanders 32:48
That's little less, that's less than I thought you were gonna say, well, and that's what would somebody just training cycling? Like,
Unknown Speaker 32:57
only ride a bike? Yeah, but
Nick Sanders 32:58
how many hours a week are they putting in? They're putting in
Phil Weigel 33:01
four to nine. We know people who ride bikes nine hours a week?
Nick Sanders 33:06
Yeah, man. Well, I was thinking maybe more than that.
Phil Weigel 33:10
Yeah, some people like our cycling teammates, because we are on a cycle, who actually cycle all the time. They basically just live on their bikes, if they're doing any conditioning and Spike base, they might do a tiny bit of of lifting or body movements to try to have them stronger core, and little things that go into helping them on the bike, but 90% of their times on the bike.
Unknown Speaker 33:34
Yeah, in the wintertime, you'll see more cyclists maybe twice a week do some sort of squatting or kettlebell slash core work. But as soon as a slightly gets warmer out, they're stopping mat again,
Phil Weigel 33:47
so and neither of us is trying to be the best cyclists right? We're we're trying to get through what are really aggressive races on a tandem bike. And, and just have a good time doing it basically, because it's, it's a miserable thing that you can enjoy yourself if you don't do it. But but a lot of the people who are competing and cycling, they're competing, it's kind of different than how we're approaching these events. And also the same with how I rough like, I'm doing a 50 mile race against people who are 80 pounds lighter than me and not carrying 25 pounds on the bat. I'm not competing against them. I'm out there to try to do my thing which is complete a large task with high difficulty and high monotony in a respectable time or whatever it is for that of that we just need a time cap. I mean, some sometimes I literally set my ruck wait to see if I can finish a race or get cut.
Unknown Speaker 34:48
We just signed up for our first race for this year that which has been that
Phil Weigel 34:53
April and April
Unknown Speaker 34:55
end of April, and hopes and we actually If we could bring it to bring the tandem there, the response that that guy gave is as long as well as many others that have done it and many other organizers have respond to us the past is a well, you'll you can totally bring it but you're definitely gonna be the first candidate to come out and do this. Got it?
Phil Weigel 35:19
Everyone thinks they're not wrong.
Nick Sanders 35:23
Yeah. I don't know how or why you've decided to do that. But
Unknown Speaker 35:28
it's interesting that we almost had
Phil Weigel 35:31
misery loves
Unknown Speaker 35:36
when we went out the berry bay in the 62 miler division there was actually what was 14
Phil Weigel 35:42
tandems like more than that, but there was a lot there was a lot of
Unknown Speaker 35:45
tandem so it was it was just a funny amount of tandems. Really Yeah. But then of course, we emailed the guys and we did the Seven Mile Yeah, I guess so.
Phil Weigel 35:59
But we can do it, we
Nick Sanders 36:04
might as well be the first to last.
Phil Weigel 36:09
I think that answered your question more or less.
Unknown Speaker 36:12
I know personally, I'm like Phil's I typically ride my bike more than he does I at this point in my life because I would say in prior years and I think this is more this part is more of a personality trait of I would become a little bit more focused on one specific sport so I would do that sport more often. Whereas now I am trying to blend cycling and weightlifting better so ideally I would I'm most have not signed up yet but I plan on lifting at the American open in March. But then I it with that in mind, I need to be also ready by June to go do top bottom which is the 125 miler. But then all we also then have that race at the end of April. So personally, I typically alternate, like if I'm, you know, weightlifting Monday, Wednesday, Friday, then I'm on my bike. I'm Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, but of course life happens too. So a lot of times independent devil up on Saturday, but I'll wait list first before I go ride my bike. So that because I'd rather be tired going into a bike ride than tire going into weightlifting because at the end of the day, I'm going to be tired during the race I still need to be able to ride my bike.
Nick Sanders 37:41
I mean, you couldn't be two different extremes of the energy demands like weightlifting versus cycling. Like two totally separate challenges. Did you guys do that on purpose? No, like from a preparedness stand like a general fitness preparedness.
Unknown Speaker 37:57
Like are you asking did I pick cycling and weightlifting on purpose? Yeah, I was like 14 Because
Phil Weigel 38:02
she's afraid of CrossFit.
Unknown Speaker 38:07
Like I don't really know I, um, I been riding bikes for a while it's private, I don't know what nine years now. Sort of writing college Yeah, I used to only race road and after collegiate cycling ended. i That's when I first started cross because I was finishing up my clinical rotations and I needed to meet somebody in small town West Virginia where they had placed me so I joined my first CrossFit gym. And I really it's I think it was a newbie mindset like I had a great engine because I had you know, been doing GLEDE cycling I could do any CrossFit workout for a long period of time that was you know ahead of my I was generally stronger than most females my age because I you know, did weight lift a lot came from a personal training background. And I found sort of a I'd never had done something like Olympic weightlifting before. So in that CrossFit gym had an a weightlifting club, and I dropped in for the first time I was I really like this. This is very new to me. So you
Phil Weigel 39:32
were you were attracted to the opposite.
Unknown Speaker 39:36
Sorry. Yeah, I was. I like the difficulty of it. Because it was something I'd never done before I'd come from more of like the bodybuilding mindset of you know, Dan would get back and buy smart ready legs then I'm going to do chest and tries. Yeah, I never just you know, I never had tried to do a snatch before. Yeah.
Nick Sanders 39:58
The skill of the Lift is fun, right? Because it's so not like you're learning a new thing. Yeah, like that skill acquisition piece. But from a training standpoint, like, there can't be any Olympic weightlifters that ride a bike as much as you guys and vice versa.
Unknown Speaker 40:13
Yeah, I definitely when I first started doing weightlifting, I stopped riding my bike as often and focus much more on weightlifting. And at that point, I was weightlifting five times a week. And part of that was also I was moving around a lot at that point in my life. So I moved to Cleveland, back to West Virginia, and went back to Cleveland did when when I moved up to Cleveland, didn't know a whole lot of folks who were into bikes and until I met Phil, and, and he had just started getting into bikes.
Nick Sanders 40:48
So now you're on a tandem. Now we're on tandem bikes.
Unknown Speaker 40:52
I knew one, for sure. Yeah, a team that I used to be on in West Virginia, there just so happened to be a teammate that lived in Canton. So when I moved up, like we had reconnected, and we would ride but say, you know, we don't we felt like we lived down the street from each other. So we couldn't ride all the time together. But
Nick Sanders 41:12
do you think are the advantages of both? Like, do you what advantages do you think you find in your cycling because of the your weightlifting background and CrossFit background? And then vice versa? You know, the other way around? Do you think there's advantages to your cycling on your CrossFit performance? Or do you think it's two separate?
Unknown Speaker 41:30
There's definitely strength advantages. I, I found, I think, a much bigger part of it is more of a mental strength component. What I mean, so and I find this more with, you know, maybe more probably more often cyclocross. But also even in gravels, like if you're doing a more difficult climb of the the mental side of things of being able to finish it, and that wrapping your mind about over around that. Because there's nothing there's nothing, nothing easy about, you know, trading for weightlifting, you know, most of weightlifting is a mental game as well.
Phil Weigel 42:17
So you're saying that the extreme exertion you're experienced in in maximal effort lifting gives you confidence when you have a minor exertion that lasts a long time? Yes. Okay.
Nick Sanders 42:28
Do you think that's physiologic? Like? I would see, like, I think CrossFitters are probably very good at recovering quickly. Like clearing lactate, like you're gonna build lactate during those intense bursts. And then yeah, you have to get good at clearing that and recovering for the next piece of the workout. That has to carry over to the bike when I mean, especially with pushing certainly, yes. So I think
Phil Weigel 42:55
certainly can i think i think i think the most effective place that I see it is in cyclocross, because he Well, my personal performance, I can see how it carries over I'm, I'm okay. It's like cross because it's a short window, it's a it's an hour long sport on the long end. So that is a that is an area where I can do intervals for an hour and have an extremely high intensity. And like he said, I have pretty good adaptation to clear lactic acid because of how we work because of the high intensity interval sets, the high volume sets that take you to very close to fatigue and give a lot of that lactic acid dumped to the muscles. And you have to work through that as you continue to do work. So that that blends really well, for cyclocross, in my experience. I haven't found that I'm good. At the really once we start talking like five 610 hour races, then I don't think that the carryover is as great. I think it's much more dependent on how much time you've spent at 140 beats a minute, tapping it out for five hours. It's about the about that kind of accumulated conditioning to the strain that you're going to be working with for a long period of time. Yeah, because the tendency is the fly out the gate, right? I mean, I'm used to, I'm used to CrossFit workouts where it's, you start hot and you stay hot, and it's a seven minute workout? Well, you don't want to start a seven hour race like that, you have to have a much more deliberate approach. And you have to have a plan for how hard you're pushing it so that you can maintain that push. That's something you only get to understand through experience. And you get really humbled your first couple of events because you don't understand your pacing, and you go out and you just blow yourself up and on that.
Unknown Speaker 44:44
Yes, yes, you have. Yeah, I think a lot of it is knowing that you're about to be uncomfortable for the next, you know, 910 hours and just being okay
Phil Weigel 44:54
with it. And in that part, I don't know how much CrossFit helps with that. I think I think you're Just kind of generally good at that better than a lot of people are. I'm not at work specifically on being better at it. Right? I mean, doing doing more for a year and trying to work myself into a state of making that normal rather than monotonous. Was was a large part and exercise and being okay with another five hours on the bike. Yeah, being okay, tapping it out, even though you're uncomfortable, and you want to stop, and you probably should, but you're not going to. Um, so I don't know how much of that is from CrossFit. I don't think that made me mentally weak. But I think I've done a lot more effective job with a different discipline to build that mental stick to itiveness. And that grip.
Nick Sanders 45:48
So So Kara mentioned that she took up weightlifting, because it was new, like it was a new thing. It was whatever is fun. Do you feel do you think you're into this endurance thing? It because it's new, it's different? Or do you think it's, you mentioned building a base? Like, do you think it's building the best human? Or do you think it's like, Hey, this is a new challenge you're trying to take on? Like, where are you at on that? I'm
Phil Weigel 46:13
both. I think I think even more than that, Nick. My idea is that it's old. Um, so yeah, it's a new style of training for me specifically, but it's the oldest thing in the book. I mean, what did humans have to do? Forever, they had to be able to move themselves long distances, they had to adapt to the environment. Sometimes that meant you got to go 40 miles to go find food. And, and I think that's been the biggest draw for me is, is regaining a base level of, of human ability that's kind of been lost by the ease of our world, right? I don't have to, I don't have to run to Cleveland every day, I get in my car, and I drive 35 miles. Well, like that's something I should be capable of doing. If I have to do it. And you ask most people, Hey, can you go move on your feet to Cleveland make it there in X number of hours? The answer's no. They're not prepared mentally, physically, emotionally, none of it.
Unknown Speaker 47:09
I just mean, the timeline on that. Yeah, just
Phil Weigel 47:11
do it. Just do it. So for me a lot of that this pursuit has been to regain that kind of base base ability that humanity got to this point on, we didn't we didn't get to this point. Because we made smartphones, we got to the point where we could make smartphones, because we had survived because of our ability to endure and work. I mean, even even look back 200 years, most people survived on manual labor. That was that was their gig in some way, shape, or form. They're working the land, they were working on the land, they were soldiers, they were I mean, it's just every occupation was built around physical exertion. Finally, five occupations that are currently around and appropriate amount of physical exertion to keep human healthy. It's just our world has changed to such a degree that I think you have to go out and make yourself human. If you want to maintain your ability to do things that your ancestors could.
Nick Sanders 48:10
Yeah, so that's a super interesting topic to me. Like, what does the ideal What do you call it exercise form or whatever? What what do humans need to be able to do to live the longest to be functional have the highest quality of life? Where is that line? What is that? Because you're right, I mean, I don't know if you've ever there's a social media post floating around I think was squat University posted or something. But it was like an army position. A shooting position in the army was like this deep squat, where you're in a sitting in a deep squat with your elbows rested on your knees, that was a shooting position that they trained like that was, you know, this is one of the stable positions you can use. How many people can get into a deep squat and sit there for more than 10 seconds? Yeah, like and it's just the evolution of how we move and now I'm seeing in the rehab world, a 1012 year olds that can't touch their toes can't squat can't do Yeah, that that progression just it's Yeah, a little scary.
Phil Weigel 49:10
It's very scary. I mean, if you just take you take a three year old so you got you got newborn? Newborn Child
Nick Sanders 49:19
new and a two and a half, two. Yep, two and a half bath.
Phil Weigel 49:22
So what's what's her squat look like?
Nick Sanders 49:25
She didn't she wants. Like her movement she can
Phil Weigel 49:29
it nails full freedom. Yeah. For for the problem we make for ourselves. Yeah, right. We have all the capacity, we have all the tools and then we sit down I mean, neglect them, literally, we sit down and neglect them. And then all of a sudden we wonder why our backs hurt when we do. And I think it's I'm taking this to the extreme for sure. I'm not doing it at a healthy level. I'm doing it at an extreme kind of investment. investigatory level I want to see how hard and how far I could push it, but I still think it's it's Reaching back to a base level of health that has just been forgotten about. And granted, I'm overreaching and I'm probably creating some damage through this pursuit. But I think in the long run mentally, it's it's, it's helped me a lot with with things that I don't even know how to explain. I, you just feel sounds way too Zen. But when you've gone when you've gone and you, you push yourself for hours, you can't help but feel kind of Zen after that, like just mentally, physically, emotionally, you're in a different place. Because you you've gone through this effort and gotten out this energy in such a primal way that I don't really even know how to describe it. It's just something I've become very connected to. I mean,
Nick Sanders 50:52
even after short workouts, like you, you feel different, like your brains clear, you know, your thoughts are there. So I can't even you know, I'm not doing five hour workout. So I'm sure it's a totally different beast there.
Phil Weigel 51:04
Well, but it's different between the two. Like if I do a if I do a seven minute high intensity workout. Yeah, I feel something after but it's a very different feeling than what I have going on mentally after a five hour endurance session. And I and I don't I don't I can't tell you what exactly, but it's different. You have to you have to try both. To start to understand what you feel and what you like.
Nick Sanders 51:33
Yeah, I'm gonna have to do some long, longer rocks. That was kind of part of my plan anyway, in the winter, because what else are you gonna do? Right? It's cold outside, but you could throw some clothes on and go for a rock. I wonder how similar. Yeah, I mean, whatever. Like, if I go, if I go fishing for a day, I wonder how similar that feeling is like the clarity of like, like if you're out fishing, and I don't get to do this as often as I used to, but where your deer there all day to where like, you're hungry. You're tired. You don't want to stand out more.
Phil Weigel 52:10
But a lot more.
Nick Sanders 52:11
Good day. Yes. Just a good day. Yeah,
Phil Weigel 52:13
you feel a lot more human when you when you experience those things. I mean, we don't even understand what hunger is anymore, Nick, because eight feet away. There's something easy and already already ready to go in our mouth. Yeah. I mean, it's not it's not something that we experienced, like humans ever had before?
Nick Sanders 52:32
Well, that was I was just gonna say that was the one thing when that glucose, the glucometer, the libre thing? You know, you're like, Oh, I mean, pretty healthy. And this and like you're wearing the things you're paying attention a little bit, right. But the number of spikes per day, if you just if you're at home, like, I don't think even though I wasn't making bad food choices, like it was often, right, that you're getting these little glucose spikes, and you're getting these insulin dumps. And, you know, if you had to work for that food, you wouldn't be getting the frequency
Phil Weigel 53:05
right now. Because it would just be available to
Nick Sanders 53:07
you. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 53:08
there's such a large push of people preaching, like, if you're not eating every three hours, then you're losing your muscles.
Phil Weigel 53:15
Well, then you you, you shouldn't eat every three hours if you're actively on the move and doing a massive amount of
Unknown Speaker 53:22
work. But if you're at your desk, and there's no reason to take a snack break,
Phil Weigel 53:27
right? No, none.
Nick Sanders 53:29
Yeah, and I think some of that gets lumped right back into that performance versus health. Right? Like, you know, if you're trying to push to certain levels than your nutrition is gonna look a little different than if you're just hanging out at home. Right? Like, it's so yeah, but the conversation gets so blended because x bodybuilder that's in the gym for six hours eats every three hours. Well, yeah, but and then
Phil Weigel 53:52
that's the person who's on YouTube that everybody saw the video of his like, oh, well, I
Nick Sanders 53:56
got it. That's what he does. Yeah, that's what he does. That's what I'm gonna do. It also
Phil Weigel 54:00
shoots up test and is doing nine hours a day. Yeah, it's we're talking about different animals and different ideas.
Nick Sanders 54:10
I think the Standard American Diet recommendations aren't like three meals a day plus one or two snacks. Like, that's still you're consuming food four or five times a day. Yeah, it's pretty Yeah. Like, if you're not training.
Phil Weigel 54:25
Oh, yeah, if you're not training, an American diet is a great way to end up with diabetes. Right, there's the way the way that that has been has been constructed naked, it really is set up to people in a place where they have to rely on the medical system to keep them alive at that
Unknown Speaker 54:39
point. Yeah, that and the standard American diet of breakfast, lunch and dinner, massive fortunes on top of it. So there's no reason to have this one or two snacks in between.
Nick Sanders 54:49
Yeah, right. So kind of getting back to our roots makes it makes a ton of sense. And I've been doing the little more fasting and it's it's certainly an interesting thing, like you think you're like, Oh, I'm going to be starving. And that might be true for a day or two. But
Phil Weigel 55:04
you get a couple of days in and you get to this state of mental clarity. So this is an interesting thing. Because it's something I played around with as I was prepping for my race this last summer, the burning river. And I played around with doing long distance fasted rocks, so I would hide 24 hours plus, okay, so I I'd be I mean, you know, that point, I'm not carrying muscle glycogen. I'm I've depleted that for sure. And now I'm down to running on what my body can process as I run, I did a 20 mile ruck, without any without any food in my system, didn't carry any food, didn't eat any food. I just drank water and electrolytes. And after doing electrolytes, yeah, always electrolytes because I sweat a stupid amount. Um, but the end of that rock, I started to get to the point where I could feel things kind of starting to backfire on me. And I think I ended up blocking the last mile of it kind of as a cooldown and kind of as an Oh, shit. That was that was four hours, I was 24 hours and 20 minutes to do 20 miles with like, 45 pounds on my back. So that that pursuit, though I can tell you an hour into that I was in the zone, this mental zone. And I did not come out of it until I got to that last mile. And I assessed and knew I had to change what I was doing. But I was in the state of kind of like mental clarity and awareness that you can't find unless you exert like that, or unless you're fast and really doing both. I've never been in a state that was quite like that before. I've been in strange states fasting, and I've been in strange states pushing endurance. But I haven't I haven't had that unique combination of the two is it was a very unusual, clarity and high that I had for
Unknown Speaker 56:52
a long time when you're doing now kind of heart rate or sustaining. So that
Phil Weigel 56:56
was I was trying to stay under 160 beats a minute and over 135. So I guess that's zone three. But when you're talking about when talking about prepping do something for 18 hours, you don't want to touchstone for Yeah, once you start doing that, then you start at least I have found that if I start knocking on zone four, I end up with some hard physiological stops that come up. And I every time I've done that, and it's been longer than a six hour events. I have to keep myself that 160 165 beats a minute.
Unknown Speaker 57:34
Otherwise, there's definitely major nutritional differences between whether you're training at zone one versus zone two. Yeah, yeah. As you go up. Yeah, that's going to change. Yeah. I wouldn't recommend doing sprint intervals that way.
Phil Weigel 57:49
No, and I wouldn't have I would have very unproductive sprint session. Yeah, that fasted, but I had a phenomenally productive and during session, which you would think the opposite, right? You eat well, not necessarily opposite, but you would think that you shouldn't go do and you probably shouldn't go do a self supported 20 mile ruck fast. But I'm
Unknown Speaker 58:09
not recommending this people
Phil Weigel 58:14
and yeah, I actually I was carrying food I did have a backup. So if I didn't have a real hard bonk I did have some some glucose I can toss in. Yeah. But but it was like you don't know how that is going to go and what it does to you physically or mentally until you do it. And and it's just you got to go out and accept the discomfort and just just do it. And even just doing it you have to be okay with it lasting three more hours because it took me the first hour to even get into that zone. And then I had the opportunity to use it and play with it for the next three hours. And that was the really cool part. But that takes commitment. It takes commitment and and want to be in that place where you get to find things out about yourself. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 58:58
I hate to cut us off right now because this is a topic I actually really do enjoy. But unfortunately like I need to go to somebody.
Nick Sanders 59:06
You have to do real work. Oh, yeah, you got
Unknown Speaker 59:09
it. Yeah, I haven't heard the door slam because he's just heard the door. He's typically always at least five minutes late. But
Nick Sanders 59:24
anyway, well, this was good. Well, we'll, we'll cut this off. We'll edit this out. And I'll do a little like, Intro since we didn't do one I'll do like I'll just do a screenshot talking about like our history and background stuff. And then I'll go right into us just kind of rambling. Yeah. And I'll put I'll talk about like the clips. We never really picked the topic.
Phil Weigel 59:48
was good though. And yeah, like general fitness. I mean, I would love to also come back Nick and talk about specifically overtraining and yeah, how I've, I've worked on that. Um, But But yeah, this was I think just kind of, yeah,
Nick Sanders 1:00:04
I think this is we're gonna, yeah, hit some different topics.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:08
I knew part two on this one. I mean, honestly Thursday's are a great is a great time for all of us to jump on. So let's just plan to meet next Thursday, next Thursday, same time,
Nick Sanders 1:00:19
I'm gonna post this one like I'm gonna put it out. And then we want to do another one where we just literally talk if we let's plan it out, let's make an outline so that we don't use otherwise. The three of us are just gonna ramble about whatever topic Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:33
yeah, cuz we can believe I do you have a 9am person next Thursday, but we'll figure it out. At 930. We'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll get something.
Nick Sanders 1:00:44
Cool. All right. I'll put this one out and then we'll go from there. Awesome. All right, guys. Have a good day.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:50
All right. I'll talk to ya. Yep.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
