Mike (00:02.031)
Coach Mike here this week. I have a sports nutritionist, Craig David on with us. Craig and I have been friends for a long time. He helped me with a couple of Ironman races and a lot of my athletes through D3 Multisport. He actually used to own a Max Muscle here in Boulder. And it's great to have you on, Greg. Thanks for coming on.

Craig (00:21.806)
Hey Mike, you bet man, it's fun to be here. I've listened to several of your past episodes and still love following the D3 team and crew and seeing what's going on. So yeah, it's cool to jump back in and chat.

Mike (00:38.287)
That's awesome. And you know, I mean, we're always talking nutrition and sending texts back and forth or just conversations on rides or when we're strength training and all that stuff. You know, it's always at the forefront of how we think and, you know, beyond sleep, it's probably the most important thing in terms of performance besides the actual, you know, getting the workouts in which we assume people do. Yeah, what's like, let's just go back a little bit. Like what's your background in, I believe you went to CSU and you got a.

Craig (01:01.23)
Yeah.

Mike (01:06.991)
nutrition degree from there. Is that right?

Craig (01:09.87)
Yeah, yeah, you bet. Good memory. Yeah. So way back, it's been a couple of decades at this point. But yeah, attended CSU, actually dual majored in both human physiology and nutrition. So yeah, it was kind of the programs allowed you to pair it up. But yeah, it was one of those things where you found the personal passion in it, right? And just the, what I always...

Mike (01:33.807)
Yeah, what a great combo.

Craig (01:36.654)
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I just also, and I still have an appreciation for, but I really came to learn it then and how quickly the body can change with nutrition, you know, manipulation, right? Or positive influence.

And so that's kind of what really like geared me into it. Um, yeah, jumping into, you know, the, the realm with sports nutrition and supplementation with max muscle and. Dabbling in some triathlon and trail running and powerlifting and now mountain biking. So the evolution continues.

Mike (02:11.631)
Yeah, that's awesome. Right, right. So back, so back on back to CSU, when you were there, you had Professor Cordain, who actually wrote the first paleo book, right? So that's, was he, what kind of professor was he? Was he interesting? Did he give you things to think about and start thinking about, you know, more natural foods versus what, you know, I mean, mid seventies, we started adding all this crap into our foods, right? And I'm sure this is a guy who was anti process stuff and probably more.

Craig (02:28.718)
Yeah.

Mike (02:40.719)
Go eat a chicken and an avocado and have an apple, right? There you go. I love it. I love it.

Craig (02:43.406)
There you go. Everybody had one of those in class. Chicken, rotisserie chicken and avocado. Yeah, you know, again, just like thinking back to those times, you're right. He never like really pushed the book and per se like, hey, if you're not going paleo, you're not doing it right.

But yeah, it's your point about whole foods, right? I think that was very much his holistic approach to like at the core of nutrition, it's about managing, you know, your micro nutrients, all the vitamins and minerals that we get from foods, which we are missing, right? And in a real big way in the typical diet and balancing that out with kind of our macro needs, right? Our carbohydrates.

fats and our proteins. So I think that was honestly to give him credit, right, is understanding back to that power of nutrition and just the swift influence it has, right, from the basics of cardiovascular disease to inflammation.

all the way into how does that then set you up for this idea of performing better, right? In sport and life. But yeah, I think he had a real good perspective of just slowing down and like really understanding, you know, you kind of are what you eat, right? The power of food. So yeah, certainly phenomenal lessons and great springboard.

Mike (04:09.967)
Yeah, it's interesting. I heard a great quote yesterday and it was, you are consistently what you are or you are consistently what you're inconsistent at. Right? So if you're the person who says I'm going to eat well and then you don't do it, then that's really what you are. Right? So you're inconsistent at eating well. So I thought that was pretty interesting. So going back to the macronutrients and micronutrients, you know, you've obviously worked with a lot of hundreds, maybe thousands of endurance athletes. Do you feel like...

Craig (04:20.718)
Sure.

Craig (04:25.934)
Yeah, there you go.

Mike (04:39.631)
There was a good knowledge there when you worked with them and they were, I know triathletes in general of super want to absorb every morsel of information they can. Did you feel like they knew what they were missing or you kind of had to point out like, hey, look, we're missing all these BCAAs and all kinds of things that, you know, this will ramp up your performance by just taking in, you know, a supplement, right?

Craig (04:49.902)
Yeah, I would say so.

Craig (05:04.462)
Sure, sure. That's a really good question. I haven't really thought of it in that context. Thinking back, I would say it was a mixed bag, right? I think there's a lot of people that understand the information or at least know it, right? But then implementation and timing, which was a large part of what I worked on in that.

piece of my career is timing can really be critical, right? Whether that's going into training, coming out of it throughout the day, et cetera. I mean, your body's managing all these different metabolic processes at different times. So I think that was probably the biggest thing I recall is timing not being as...

at the forefront of all this information, right? Because we, you know, at least nowadays it's, you can buy any supplement of the sun, you can go grocery shopping, but then it's like, okay, what do you do now? Right? And I think that's where a lot of people like, well, do I eat the celery and peanut butter before workout or?

Is that a better afternoon snack and all those sorts of like easy things, but yeah, it can be confusing if you don't understand how those macronutrients work in our system. Um, so I think that's probably the biggest thing we focused on was breaking down, you know, the roles of the macronutrients and how they further enhance again, in this case, right? Whatever the sport is.

Mike (06:23.567)
It's a great, it's a great.

Craig (06:37.742)
speeding up recovery and so on. Hopefully that answers that question.

Mike (06:43.407)
Yeah, no, that's good. So that's a great point. So let's just say we have an endurance athlete. Typically they're gonna do two workouts a day. Sometimes it's five days a week, sometimes six days a week, you know, a morning swim, afternoon run, or whatever it is, a lift in the morning and a bike ride in the afternoon. How, you know, what is your feeling on, okay, so I do my swim at six, I'm done at seven.

What is my timeframe in there to get some nutrients in so I'm actually going to help replenish all that glycogen I just lost? Because you hear all different kinds of things. You hear an hour, you hear 30 minutes, you hear 20 minutes. If you don't do 19 minutes and 59 seconds, you're totally hosed if you don't have something in your system. I mean, it's all kind of crazy, but what's your experience with that and what has been the best time for that absorption?

Craig (07:20.654)
Hahaha

Craig (07:28.846)
Yeah, phenomenal question, right? And you're, yeah, I think there's been a lot of people that have like really tried to figure that out with, you know, thumb pricks and ear pricks in a moving car, like on a bike trying to figure out, you know, what, uh, what hormones are circulating when, right?

From my experience, I think I always try to go down or back to and simplify it on the level of like, okay, what's happening post -workout? Well, your heart rate's been up, your blood pressure's been up. That also means cortisol has been really high because it's been breaking down all this energy. So...

Yeah, within 19 minutes, right, depending on the workout, is your body coming back to baseline? It may or may not be, right? Again, it just, it's very dependent. Based on my experience, you know, both personally, but you know, if you look at all the research, like those hormones don't just flip immediately. And that's, that's a progression, right? It didn't take you, or excuse me, it takes you time to go from zone one to zone four, right? There's, there's a progression there in your workout.

and how your body gets revved up and is ultimately most efficient. So that process also has to come back down. I think understanding the role of cortisol and insulin both, without insulin, you're not gonna recover, right? You're not gonna have the glycogen reload. So.

In terms of timing, I think all the way up into an hour, you're doing really good, right? Everybody's body responds differently. Some people just don't have the stomach for it after some intense workouts. So you've got to think about that. You've got to think about hydration level. You know, we all know that the gut's going to absorb better when there's more, a more equal balance of fluid and food.

Craig (09:22.958)
So to answer your question directly, I think if you're within an hour, you're doing really good. Obviously, I would say probably the shorter, the better. Um, but you're safe there, right? Your, your body's not going to all of a sudden start breaking down muscle just because you've had to wait, you know, a little bit, right? If you're an athlete in the morning, you're probably getting ready for your day. Let's face it, life still happens. So, um,

But yeah, that's where your recovery protocol obviously helps simplify that as well, so you don't have to think about it as much. But...

Mike (09:54.287)
And do you feel like there's a certain number? So if I'm a 90 kilogram athlete, am I going for two grams, one gram, you know, and that recovery workout? Am I looking for, you know, they always say, you know, the whey protein, the scoops are always 20 grams or 30 grams of scoop. And that seems to be the average number. But if you're a lighter athlete, right? So if I'm a 120 pound female, maybe I don't need 30 grams of protein. Maybe I'm fine with 15 or 20, right?

Craig (10:12.718)
Yeah.

Sure.

Mike (10:24.367)
So is there a set number that says, you know, if I weigh X, it's 1 .2 per grams of body weight or something like that. Like, what's that number? Would you?

Craig (10:24.686)
Sure, sure.

Craig (10:32.11)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, another really good question, right? Variable to a degree, but I think, yeah, whether it's the lighter female to the heavier male or anywhere in between, yeah, if you look at your body weight times, you know, 0 .7, 0 .8, you know, all the way up to 0 .9, if you're really like, say, an intense training block.

then again, you're doing really good. And we always would just advise in the past, like whatever that number is, just try to spread it out evenly, right? There's no sense in jamming it all in, in one or two meals, because the body's still, it's just not gonna be efficient, right? When it comes to processing.

So yeah, if that's, let's just say that works out to be 20 grams, you know, in four or five meals, then yeah, if you're getting that 15 to 20 grams, you know, post -workout, then great, right? You give your body time to really manage it and just stay, I think more than anything, consistency, right? The body is a machine and it's always operating, whether it's trying to down -regulate from a day or up -regulate for a workout, it's smart, right? I think it's smarter than we give it credit for.

Mike (11:43.343)
Yeah, you mentioned consistency and I'll say when I worked with you, the one thing you talked to me about was just because it's a recovery workout doesn't mean I cut back calories, which from a common sense standpoint or a logical standpoint, I think about, but it's probably, you know, anti counterintuitive to what we think, right? So if you had someone who's let's say they're training 15 hours a week, they're averaging two hours a day. Would you say.

Craig (12:03.694)
Sir.

Mike (12:11.535)
that they're better off taking in those 3000 calories every day, or you still believe in the fact that it shouldn't be 1500 one day and 3500 the next and 2000 the next and back up to 3000. So you're more of the mindset that it should be even across the board. I mean, obviously a heavier day, you're probably gonna eat a little more, but you're not gonna go from 3000 to 8000 unless you're doing some super, super long event. But that range of...

Craig (12:32.398)
sure.

Craig (12:37.486)
Totally.

Mike (12:39.695)
2500 to 4000 is probably where, you know, that 150 to 180 pound athlete probably lives, you know, training 15 hours a week, right? So what's the reason, you know, for keeping the calories consistent across the board? Just so the body is consistent with breaking it down or is there another reason?

Craig (12:48.43)
You bet.

Craig (12:58.382)
I think that's really part of it, right? And I think the other school of thought that I kind of tended to subscribe to is the fact that, yeah, our basal, right, our baseline metabolic rate is relatively stable. Let's think back to the bike ride last week, 42 miles and four hours. I think it burned, what, 2 ,600 calories?

Craig (13:26.638)
The ability to obviously take in that much food in that timeframe is pretty minimal. But did we eat some extra to make up from that? Sure. But in terms of cutting that off or just not cutting it off, but taking in less the next day, you're really putting your body in a potential situation of a deficit because of everything that happened prior the day before, right?

And one thing we always talked about is like recovery cycles. So, you know, if you train hard on Friday, you're really not truly. Your system's not truly rebalancing until, you know, 24, even 48 hours later. So if you're down regulating calories, when your body's trying to rebuild again, I think this is where you see athletes get caught up in those cycles of.

Well, I didn't train that hard, but I don't have any energy, right? And, or I went out and hit it really hard and I recovered fine, but I'm not sleeping and you know, the injury is not subsiding, right? I'm not making progress. Well, it's, it's still part of that without that recovery cycle. It doesn't matter. Right? So I think.

If an athlete can really understand, okay, where's my kind of balance point? And if I have a smaller, call it standard deviation from there, then ultimately they're still gonna win, right? Cause they've got a very consistent flow of nutrients that their body really needs. So.

Mike (15:03.087)
Yeah, it makes sense. So you talk about, you know, 2 ,400 calories last week on a long ride, four hours, gravel, you know, not super fast into the wind, a little bit of warmer weather than we're used to all that. So, you know, out of those 2 ,400 calories, I mean, obviously you can't replace all of them anyway, but they weren't all glycogen either, right? So there's a huge piece of that that's fat and that comes into play as well.

Craig (15:31.15)
It does. Say that last part again real quick.

Mike (15:33.519)
Yeah, so I'm just saying that the, you know, you burn 2 ,400 calories, but it wasn't all glycogen, right? Like a big piece of that has to be fat. A big percentage of that, maybe 60 % to a point, right? Until we're pushing really hard up hills and kind of going a bit, not anaerobic, but high end aerobic, obviously, more of that tempo. So some of that's fat, right? So what's that?

Craig (15:42.766)
Sure.

Craig (15:51.182)
you but yeah, yeah, you would hope so, right? I mean, I think, yeah, as long as you're, I would say, absolutely, as long as you're in those zones, right? That are really gonna optimize your body's ability to burn fat. Yeah, and that's the other balance too, right? Is definitely not overeating while training, because then we get obviously, we get the stress, but I think there's something to be said about...

and this is something I'm still learning as a aging athlete, but there's certainly something to be said about just allowing your body to burn its own calories, right? And knowing that it's okay, like you want to stay hydrated, keep the electrolytes in, but if it's a recovery ride or a, let's call it 90 minutes or less ride, you probably don't need to slam, you know.

200 calories or 300 calories before you go out and do that workout again assuming you've got some training under your belt and there's some Know -how there. I think we can as we get older there's certainly a way to Help our bodies do that easier

Mike (16:59.919)
You know, so let's just switch gears for a second. So we talked about endurance athletes, but let's take that endurance athlete, let's put them in the gym. And they're going to do, let's say they're going to do a heavy day of, you know, deadlifts and squats and bench press and, you know, some heavier weight that that's, you know, certainly more stressful, maybe as stressful as running 400s on the track, but in a different way, right? It's because lifting is completely anaerobic, right? There's nothing aerobic about lifting weights. That contraction is always anaerobic. So...

Craig (17:17.87)
Mm -mm.

Mike (17:29.295)
If I'm in the gym for 30 minutes, am I gonna refuel differently or am I looking to increase that protein for that recovery? And does the timing matter or is it still the same or I'm good for an hour? What are your thoughts on that?

Craig (17:46.19)
I think that really comes down to like the end goal, right? Are we, you know, maintaining, right? Are we trying to add a little lean mass in the off season? I think timing, yeah. If you're in that 20 minutes to an hour afterwards, again, your body still has to go through those changes. If it's, I think here's the interesting thing, right? We saw with leaner athletes, right? They have a harder time maintaining muscle or can, right? If the volume's high.

So therefore, well, their nutrient mix, right, their protein content, you know, per kilogram or per pound may actually need to be higher. You know, somebody like myself, I have to be really careful, like, you know, lifting because yeah, I can just kind of really bulk up, but then it adds the fat as well. So for me, it's more, it's a higher protein and a, you know, lower carbohydrate.

But if you're going to double up workouts that day, it may actually be, you know, your baseline protein, but a higher carbohydrates really ensure that glycogen is there. So I think those are all, you know, and I know you guys focus on that well as really, you know, for the athletes listening in, like getting really familiar with how your body.

feels, right, and how it's dealing with your recovery nutrition, you know, are you eating before bed and training in the morning, whatever that looks like, but really getting in tune with that, I think is one big thing we saw in the past that if people just slow down just a bit, you know, feel it out and communicate it with you, right? Like this is how I felt in this training session when I...

had a peanut butter and jelly before bed. Maybe they had the best workout ever. Then that tells you a couple of things, right? They were probably super low on glycogen previously. And maybe they just didn't have a good sleep cycle. There's all kinds of things, but.

Mike (19:35.471)
Right. Right.

Mike (19:50.319)
Yeah, I always think it's the not enough protein if you're hungry before bed. Like it's always that, especially if you're going for those carbs, like the jelly and the bread and a little bit of peanut butter, obviously there's some protein in there, but I'm always thinking it's people tell me they're eating before bed. I'm like, oh, that's protein, right? That's kind of what I think. So you hit on all these things and question, another question I have for you is in terms of like hydration and water and in two respects, right? One, you know, we have to move nutrients throughout the body. We need the...

Craig (19:54.35)
Sure.

Mike (20:19.119)
water, you need to be hydrated to do that, right? And secondly, you know, what role do you think the hydration plays on a daily basis in terms of recovery? Like, is a dehydrated athlete not going to be able to recover as well as somebody who stays on top of their hydration? Is that an easy answer, yes, or is it could be just depends?

Craig (20:21.134)
Mm -hmm.

Craig (20:28.302)
Hmm.

Craig (20:41.966)
Um, you know, I thought it was a phenomenal question. Uh, I mean, I think I do think the easy answer is sure. Like we're, you know, from a circulation standpoint, right? Let's start there. We know the body is circulating our blood supply roughly six to eight times a day. Um,

you know, if we're athletes training, is it more frequently because we're moving metabolic waste, we're transporting all these other things. So yeah, I think particularly with us athletes that live at, you know, an elevation or a higher elevation above sea level, then yeah, I would say the easy answer is yes, more often than not. And people that have, you know, digestion issues, right? Maybe that's...

something to think about, right, is your ongoing hydration. I know there's people that just don't drink and I get it. I understand that that's a thing. I think it's also harder to like contemplate and explain that from the other side that like, well, why wouldn't you want to drink water? Or, you know, an iced tea or that one I...

Mike (21:37.775)
Mm -hmm.

Craig (22:00.334)
I do have a hard time with because I think it's knowing how fluids impact the body. It is kind of a question mark of, yeah, why wouldn't you want to just be hydrated at an ongoing pace? It's not a great answer to your question, but.

Mike (22:17.199)
Right, no, it makes sense, makes sense. Do you, so just going back to the endurance athlete again, do you feel like there's any one supplement that everybody should be taking, whether it's creatine or some kind of protein source or, we used a lot of glutamine we worked together and you have max muscle. So a lot of different things I think that really helped with recovery.

Craig (22:38.83)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mike (22:42.799)
Is there one thing now that you look at and you say, I gotta have this on a daily basis, it helps me recover, feel stronger.

Craig (22:52.046)
Sure, sure. Absolutely, yeah. Let's remove me for the equation for a second. But yeah, if you look at the core of what the body can produce and what it can't, meaning external sources it has to intake in order to function, your essential fats, your...

Mike (22:57.743)
Yeah, sure.

Craig (23:16.59)
EFAs your fish oils, you know, you can even even do your plant -based Primrose or a joy, etc. That's definitely a key one There's all kinds of cognitive proof right internal GI support our joints right some of the simple the big ones

I'd also go to our amino acids, right? Our body cannot make amino acids, right? It can break down proteins and re -synthesize some of them, but we have to ingest. That's why it's so easy to lose muscle mass is because it's constantly being broken down. So yeah, amino acids are just a simpler form of the protein, you know, hopefully in a higher concentration to speed up that recovery piece.

And then yeah, you mentioned it, glutamine is probably one of my all time favorites. It was explained to me by a sports scientist as being the glue to muscle tissue. Glutamine kind of sits there and stitches things back together. And so yeah, typically people would notice that too from a recovery standpoint. And it's...

Mike (24:28.143)
Mm -hmm.

Craig (24:31.246)
It's again super safe, right? You can't really overdose on it, so to speak. And the other one, I think just more recently that, you know, has had more traction is really the idea of adaptogens, right? And how our body handles stress in its current state, you know, acute versus chronic and the ability to handle a higher level of stress or training load.

while having a more moderated response. Yeah, there's all kinds of those. Lion's Mane, Ashwagandha, and Rhodiola, and et cetera. So those are fascinating. I think they're still in their early stages. But yeah, there's something to be said that if you can decrease your overall stress response, which goes back to cortisol, then guess what? That means more.

access to fuels, right? That means less overall physiological stress on our nervous system. That's a whole nother, that's a, that's a Huberman Lab podcast right there. So.

Mike (25:40.367)
Do you feel like, in terms of the branched -chain amino acids, is there any supplement you recommend that you use that you like?

Craig (25:50.126)
those specifically. I just usually get the plant all regular unflavored BCAs and dump them in their recovery. Yeah, yeah juice something to yeah exactly amino acids in their natural or I should say denatured state are very heavy right that's just the way they are molecularly so yeah they they need to be mixed with something for sure. Yeah.

Mike (25:51.695)
Yeah.

Mike (25:59.087)
Throw it in some juice or something.

Mike (26:15.887)
All right, I'm gonna put you on the spot for three questions. And I know we didn't talk about this, but I'm gonna throw this at you. All right. Favorite interval workout, what is it? Favorite high intensity workout? Endurance workout, not strength training.

Craig (26:19.854)
Okay.

Craig (26:34.382)
Yeah, I'd say recently getting getting ready for Leadville these these ladder workouts, these sprint workouts, these intervals are rocking my world in a good way.

Mike (26:45.423)
Like 30 second, 45 second, minute, minute and a half, two minutes and back down again. Okay.

Craig (26:49.806)
That's the one. As grueling as it is, it's like, okay, I did the first set, let's get the second one. Okay, the third one, this hurts so good, but I'm gonna finish, right? Yeah, there's something about those numbers as they get bigger, you're like, okay, I'm gonna get this one. And yeah, it really, it may be a little, there may be some irony in the fact that I have enjoyed this, so.

Mike (26:58.223)
and you're just hanging on for dear life.

Mike (27:05.263)
Yeah, that's awesome.

Mike (27:12.751)
Well, those are all those short little hills you got to go up, right? 20 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes. All right, favorite exercise in the gym.

Craig (27:18.862)
Totally.

Favorite exercise in the gym. Man, I'm kind of a sucker for a good front squat. I don't know. Yeah, front squat and a deadlift all day long. All day long.

Mike (27:33.999)
So what is it about the front squat? I mean, that weight's in the front, it's super heavy, loading the quads.

Craig (27:39.47)
Yeah, I think it's just like you're totally dialed in, right? You can't think about anything else. Like, yeah, you're, you're balancing up front, you know, the weights in your heels, your cores. Yeah. Oh, totally. Yeah. You can not fake it, man. Yeah.

Mike (27:49.551)
Can't fake it.

Mike (27:54.415)
Awesome, awesome. All right. What's your favorite recovery food?

Craig (27:58.958)
Mmm favorite recovery food

Craig (28:04.942)
Some may give me a hard time about this, but two things. I love to put peanut butter in my recovery shake. I still think there's something to be said for slowing down nutrient absorption with fat.

or I just like peanut butter, one of the two. But also ice cream, ice cream in your recovery shake. I mean, you just get this major glycogen punch and it's when you're depleted, man, and you 20 to 30 minutes after you down that shake, you just feel like you're on top of a mountain, right? Your legs are tingling, but your brain's like in this state of euphoria, like, oh, just have this great workout. And I just satisfied my taste buds like no other.

Mike (28:40.975)
It's awesome.

Craig (28:51.182)
So go, go, yeah.

Mike (28:51.183)
I love it. I love it. All right. Well, this is great. Thanks for coming on and I'm sure we'll have you on again. And maybe we'll check in on the Leadville training at some point and see how that's going. And...

Craig (29:01.294)
Love to, yeah, that's a ride for sure. Literally and figuratively. Cool, thanks for the time, Mike.

Mike (29:04.495)
That's a ride for sure. All right. Well, thanks again. Appreciate it coming on. All right. You bet.

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