in order to work out how hard someone's working.

And I think that's where a lot of the confusion comes from.

So lactate will go alongside with fatigue as we work hard, but it's probably not actually the cause of fatigue, and it's other things that will rise with lactate.

So just to give a quick rundown, what happens is when I'm working really hard, I'm doing a track workout, and you do get that burning feeling, your body has to use s- a source of carbohydrates, so the carbs you eat, as a source of fuel, but it can't... doesn't have enough time to also use oxygen or some of these other sources of energy when it combines with carbohydrates that are more sustainable.

And so because of that, as I work at very high t- intensities, I create lactate, but I also create other what we call metabolic byproducts.

But all you have to think about is I create other things inside the muscle, typically those hydrogen ions-

this is gonna have meaningful performance gains.

And I think a lot of sports nutritionists who know more than me, and researchers definitely aren't sold either.

But why don't we start with your view on the traditional ways to grow muscles and also get stronger, and then we'll get into blood flow restriction.

Yeah.

Sounds like a great place to start.

You've had some great experts on this area.

I know you've had Stu Phillips on and some others, so hopefully I live up to all the great literature they put out.

In regards to the typical strength training modalities we think about and muscle growth, over the years, there's been a lot of things proposed about what leads to actual muscle growth, hypertrophy.

We'll just talk about hypertrophy to start.

Do you see improvements in VO2 max, for instance, by using BFR?

Jonah, I'd love f- I'd love for you to jump in and just explain what ketones are, how to use them, are there any benefits to them, and will they help runners in the long term, short term run stronger, faster, and further?

Amazing.

Um, yeah, so we'll get started right out of the gate.

In regards to what ketones are, ketones are this energy-producing molecule that your body produces, your liver produces on its own, typically when an individual's in a very low carbohydrate state, such as when someone fasts for a long period of time or when they're on a ketogenic diet.

And from an evolutionary standpoint, it probably was pretty beneficial as an alternative energy source for the body when we didn't have access to a lot of carbage, carbohydrates or fuel for whatever reason.

Um, and so the thought was now that potentially if someone goes on a ketogenic diet or we give someone a ketone supplement, we give them an extra energy source by elevating their blood ketone levels, and it theoretically would, could that enhance endurance performance.

And so now we see all these things that are exogenous ketone supplements, and the goal of those is to raise someone's ketone levels without actually being on a ketone diet or fasting diet.

Run pain-free with me at Dynamic Runner.

Yeah.

One point I do wanna address you brought up earlier is, um, it's a question I've been getting a lot, and I'm definitely not an expert in this area, but I feel like I know enough to be dangerous, and there are some experts who I'm talking to, which is, um, do we need to worry about with, like, high carbohydrate fueling if it has diminishing, um, or negative effects on our health as endurance athletes, is probably the right way to word it.

And a lot of it comes back to this idea that it's gonna lead to things like pre-diabetes or dysregulate, like, blood glucose and things that are signs of diabetes.

Um, and I think the one thing I will say, based on my understanding, just to clear it up, again, not an expert in this area, but from talking to experts, is it's about the energy intake versus energy output and that balance with a lot of these metabolic diseases.

And we can think of it kind of like a sink, where, like, if you're a high volume endurance athlete, you have a high level of energy output, and when you have high levels of energy output, then you have high carbohydrate demands typically, and you're gonna use a lot of those carbohydrates.

We get into danger from a pre-diabetic standpoint when you have high levels of energy intake but not energy output.

So intake is much higher than output, and that's when you start to accumulate fat mass.

They're trying to like minimize it.