A Deep Dive On Continuous Glucose Monitoring For Performance
Topics Covered In This Episode:
- What is continuous glucose monitoring?
- The use cases for continuous glucose monitoring
- How your blood glucose fluctuates throughout the day
- Learning how different foods can affect glucose levels and performance
- How a warmup can affect glucose levels
- The questions that still need to be answered about glucose levels and performance
About SuperSapiens:
Supersapiens is an Atlanta-based sports technology company focused on improving athletic performance. Their mission is to provide athletes with actionable and personalized Insights on real-time biometric data, starting with glucose. Supersapiens empowers athletes to train smarter, sustain peak performance, and optimize for overall health.
Learn More About SuperSapiens:
Website: https://www.supersapiens.com/en-EN/
Facebook: https://facebook.com/supersapiensinc
Instagram: https://instagram.com/supersapiensinc
Twitter: https://twitter.com/supersapiensinc
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Supersapiens_performance_technology/videos
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform
Thanks To This Week’s Sponsor:
This episode of the TrainRight Podcast is brought to you by Stages Cycling, the industry leader in accurate, reliable and proven power meters and training devices.
Stages Cycling offers the widest range of power meter makes and models to fit any bike, any drivetrain and any rider, all manufactured in their Boulder, Colorado facility. They’ve expanded their offerings to include the Stages Dash line of innovative and intuitive GPS cycling computers covering a full range of training and workout-specific features to make your workouts go as smooth as possible.
And now, Stages is applying its decade of indoor cycling studio expertise to the new StagesBike smart trainer. Check out their latest at www.stagescycling.com
Episode Transcription:
Please note that this is an automated transcription and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio for clarification.
Speaker 1 (00:00:06):
[inaudible]
Adam Pulford (00:00:07):
Today on the show, we have a combination of a data scientist in elite level coach and a former elite level athlete, all with unique skillsets that are helping to build a new agile human performance company. Worldwide. This is a smart try UNE of people that I was able to learn a tremendous amount from earlier this year, while serving on a panel of coaches to get up to speed on this new training tool. And now I want to share all of this knowledge they have with you, our listeners, before we get into the meat of that knowledge, let’s first start with a bit more of who our guests are today. Fetty, do you want to introduce yourself?
Speaker 3 (00:00:46):
Sure. Thanks Adam. Um, I’m fitter and thanks a lot for the opportunity to talk here and share what we are doing in, in, in super savings to, to bridge a CGM into, uh, perspective or within their tool, uh, to optimize their performance. Uh, so I’m, um, divided view of science in super sapiens. I’m with the company since the beginning of the journey. Um, my background is mainly, uh, a sport science and exercise physiology. So I’ve been doing research in the last 10 years, uh, on, uh, human performance, especially during endurance activities. And now what I’m doing here is I’m investigating how we can use, uh, the super sapiens, uh, biosensor within the athletic context to, uh, perhaps optimize their performance, uh, on a daily basis. And I mean, my journey is a combination of, uh, investigating what is available from an evidence perspective. So what we know, uh, from the science behind glucose, how athletes are using it and how we can, um, investigate at the field with experiments to bridge new knowledge into our kind of context.
Adam Pulford (00:02:08):
Awesome. Yeah. And as you, as y’all can, can hear, we’re going to, we’re going to be learning a lot from, uh, fed as well as the other two guests, uh, today. So, uh, Bobby, can you tell us a bit more about yourself?
Speaker 3 (00:02:21):
Yes. My name is Bobby Julich. I was a professional cyclist for 16 years, moved into the coaching aspect of things. And, and recently, um, about nine months ago, maybe 10 months ago, got exposed to the super sapiens platform during, uh, the pandemic when there wasn’t much going on and myself and another sport science buddy were just kind of having those virtual cocktail hours and kind of talking about new and emerging tech. And this kind of came on our radar and it’s funny, um, that both of us are, are now actually working for the company. Um, you know, coaching was a big part of my life and always will be. And I always feel that there’s no such thing as a bad coach because that person is actually sacrificing their time for someone else. But you know, you, you have to think outside the box sometimes.
Speaker 3 (00:03:14):
And this is definitely thinking out of the box. I mean, I don’t have any, um, fancy abbreviations or letters after my name. Um, I went straight from, you know, straight into the professional sports, straight into coaching. So I’m learning something every every day. And that’s what I love about this platform is one-on-one, doesn’t always equal two, and you’re not the same person today that you were a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. So having this insight, um, into your blood glucose levels has been just a mind blow for me. So, um, I’m, I’m absolutely proud to be associated with this company, but also I’m not hesitant at all to say that I am not an expert in any way, shape or form, but I am just all ears and 100% behind what we’re doing here.
Adam Pulford (00:04:08):
Yeah, Bobby, you are an expert in taking the science and that application side and in delivering it to the athletes. So, um, I just wanted listeners to know that well established coach and a good friend over many years. And then, uh, Brad, tell us more about you.
Speaker 3 (00:04:26):
Uh, my name is Brad Huff. Uh, I’m lucky enough that my entire kind of career was focused on cycling. I was able to be a professional cyclist for 13 years and my education was around that. I was able to get a nutrition degree. I was able to actually work at Carmichael training systems for a small period of time and, um, really build my knowledge towards my goal of becoming a professional cyclist. And I’m really lucky that over those 13 years as a professional, I got to work with incredible people, um, at CTS, um, with Allen Lim, you know, to just build the knowledge that I have, and I’m able to carry that now into super sapiens, um, through that direct experience that I learned on every detail on my life, because as an athlete, I wasn’t born with a giant [inaudible] and, uh, you know, I, wasn’t a tour de France level athlete as Bobby Julich here. So, you know, I had to do every little thing to get there. And, um, that has really enabled me to have more experience and more ideas of the real world athlete and what they go through and here at super sapiens, learning every bit of lifestyle of stress, um, every, um, you know, implement that you put into life to have optimization is effecting your glucose. And so that’s really an incredible way that I’m able to share that.
Adam Pulford (00:05:40):
That’s great. That’s great. And for our listeners, I mean, you can tell there’s, there’s a lot of, lot of robust knowledge going on here. And again, thank you to you all for taking time out of your busy schedule. You guys just came off a huge, um, uh, company-wide meeting to, to join us here. And the final thing is this is my first time I’ve ever interviewed three people at once. So we’ll see how much we have to edit, but, uh, you know, w we’ll cover all the good stuff and, and, uh, get people learning along the way. So to start things off, I’ll turn to you, Bobby, can you tell us more about what super sapiens is? How did, how did it start and the overall vision of the company?
Speaker 3 (00:06:19):
Yeah, super sapiens is a continuous glucose monitoring device. Um, Paul, uh, I’m sorry, Phil Sutherland, our, our CEO and founder. Um, he was a type one diabetic from seven years, seven months old. And you know, this, this, this has been part of his life for a long time. Um, I’m not diabetic, so I never really thought about blood glucose levels and the importance of that. But, um, you know, Phil started the team team type one, uh, that is now team Novo Nordisk. And, um, very recently in the last year or so two years, he said, Hey, you know, why, why is this technology only used for people living with diabetes? Wouldn’t this be transferable to people, uh, in endurance sports and overall health and fitness, and the company has started, and yes, we are a startup. Um, there’s no doubt about that. We have an incredible team of people, and basically what we’re just doing is trying to empower activity.
Speaker 3 (00:07:24):
And everyone is an individual. We know that once you get one of these sensors on you realize that something that you eat may spike you and your buddy may eat the same thing, and it won’t spike him. So it’s, it’s very individualized. And I think that’s so key because as an athlete, as a coach for so long, we had these fueling protocols. And now, you know, w when you look back there, they’re very, very close, but they’re always those people, those, those outliers outside of the bell curve that may not respond to the same nutrition that we have historically, unfortunately, um, kind of copied and pasted throughout the years. So this just gives a really good insight into your body’s metabolism and, you know, really keeps track of glucose, which is, you know, we can say a lot of things, but glucose equals energy in the, in the short short of it.
Adam Pulford (00:08:19):
Yeah. Yeah. Straight up. That’s a great overview and kind of segues into my next question for FedEx. Can you tell us more about blood glucose? How is CGM works and overall way why our listeners should want to know about this?
Speaker 3 (00:08:40):
Yeah, sure. So CGM is basically a sensor. So it’s a piece of, it’s a device that do measure interstitial glucose concentration through a filament that is inserted under the skin. And it does save the amount of sugar that is circulating within this liquid. And it’s called interstitial liquid interstitial fluid that basically surrounds every cell of the human body. Why there, why do we measure it there? Because it’s a very convenient location. And also because we know that it’s the, the medium for which glucose has to move from the blood to the cell of the active muscles, but also over the brain over the concrete. So wherever in the, in, in the body, and we do measure it, um, over, over the Dr. So the, our, our obligation is on the arm. Uh, the sensor sticks on the skin for 14 days. That’s the life span of the sensor, and it’s St uh, the glucose concentration, uh, over, um, it turns to meet a signal to a, to a phone when application is super sapiens.
Speaker 3 (00:09:52):
Um, it measures glucose every minute. So you have a minute by minute, uh, acquisition frequency, uh, over the life span of the sensor. So 14 days, um, the sensor works through an enzymatic process. It basically convert the amount of sugar in the liquid, um, into, uh, an electric signal, the higher the signal, the higher, the concentration of sugar in the fluid. So that’s the basic principle behind it. So the technology is in place since 20 years. I think one of the first CGM has been developed in 1999, uh, when it becomes a kind of a very wide used in the monitoring of diabetes. So we have around 20 years of experience down to, uh, to the sensor itself and how to, how to use it, how to improve it. And over time, the sensor went through a lot of, uh, studies down to, um, application reliability, validity, accuracy, but also technical improvement, like, uh, the hardware.
Speaker 3 (00:10:57):
So now we have very light saints or very small sensors while previously, same sort of where, like the size of a bag. So now you can, you can not even feel it when it’s on, when it’s on, it gets applied on, on, on your arm. Um, oh, so down to accuracy in reading and also delay between what we kind of sensed in the blood and what we sense in the interstitial fluid, new algorithms now make their readings much more reliable and much more precise. Um, so over time we had this chance to test it out. And now what we can do is to, to, to, to use it with confidentially, uh, within a different context, since the sensor were developed in the space of a diabetes management. But yeah, the same sort that we do use now in super sapiens is a spore device is not a medical device and is not intended for people need to manage diabetes is intended for add yet selected population. So people that are active and would like to optimize their performance down to controlling and visualize that glucose within the body.
Adam Pulford (00:12:08):
Yeah, that’s, that’s good. I would not want a giant bag strapped to my arm when I’m trying to ride my bike. So I’m glad I’m glad things have evolved. Um, you covered basically.
Speaker 3 (00:12:19):
Yeah. I mean, if you, from a technological perspective, uh, thanks to these devices, our capacity to investigate the internal Neela of the human body has advanced dramatically. Uh, so we will have more knowledge in the future, more analytes in the future, but thanks to this device, we will advance a lot what we know, uh, behind how the body works during exercise. Okay.
Adam Pulford (00:12:45):
Gotcha. So for our listeners who don’t really know anything about blood glucose, um, could you just go like overview, high level of maybe what a blue blood glucose trend, or maybe a number is while we’re just at rest versus training and maybe what intensity or general stress would do to your blood glucose?
Speaker 3 (00:13:11):
So usually, um, I mean, glucose is always present in this inclination because it’s vital for the body to maintain energy kind of control and production. Uh, and the majority of the tissues and cells can use glucose for surviving. Some cells can only use glucose for survival. So that’s why it is so important as a, as a nutrient within our body.
Adam Pulford (00:13:36):
I guess, what type of cells, if you don’t mind me interrupting, what type of cells only use glucose for,
Speaker 3 (00:13:41):
If, for example, a drain metabolism do rely only on glucose, uh, also red blood cells. Uh, they do rely on glucose. Um, and obviously if you can see there, uh, within the exercise context, uh, above a certain intensity, uh, we know that the only, um, available molecule to produce energy that quick is, uh, glucose. So it becomes essential above a certain exercise intensity that it’s a bit individual that threshold. And we know it as the common anaerobic threshold or respiratory compensation point, but this is why it becomes so important from the kind of energy management perspective. Um, uh, and, uh, I mean, uh, normally on average, uh, people can, I mean, glucose is sit around, uh, around 100 milligrams per deciliter or between 90 and 1 0 5. That’s a bit subjective. So there is quite a degree of variability between individuals. So if you monitor your glucose level over 24 hours, you will probably see that your average is within this range.
Speaker 3 (00:14:50):
So between 80 and 1 0 5, um, why? Well, because the body has a lot of counter regulatory mechanisms to keep your glucose within this range, because we know that, uh, kind of going below or going above the range will have some consequences. As we see, for example, in diabetes, where you lose some of these counterregulatory mechanisms and your body’s not capable anymore to keep your blood glucose within this range. However, I mean, since, uh, some years ago, we thought that, uh, glucose in a, in a, in a, in a person without diabetes was almost a flat line, uh, over time. But when you start measuring, uh, glucose, minute by minute, you do see that glucose do fluctuate quite a lot over your day. So it’s not really true that it’s a flat line, but it has also massive excursions, um, in, in active people. So we now have athletes that are able to maintain very high level of glucose for quite a lot of time during exercise or spiking through 200, uh, or down to 50 55 is quite common, um, is not, uh, is not dangerous.
Speaker 3 (00:16:04):
It’s not a problem. So our body is capable of controlling it, but over time, if you keep exposing your body to high degrees of fluctuation or high numbers or low numbers, you might end up developing some metabolic consequences. And this is one of the reasons why you, you would like to control it and to learn how your body is normally behaving down to, or after a meal or during exercise or over your recovery phase overnight, just to kind of develop a fingerprint of who you are from a metabolic perspective and see if you can benefit from optimizing it.
Adam Pulford (00:16:42):
Yeah. So, I mean, this is, this is that window into the body to have more awareness about how your body’s actually functioning, right?
Speaker 3 (00:16:50):
Yeah, that’s correct. That’s correct. And we do have, uh, you do see a lot of subjectivity, so people do control glucose. Somebody else’s is in different ways, just because, um, even though homeostasis is, is kind of a whole common set of mechanisms within the body, within a person, a healthy person, I would say, then people do control glucose, something else that is slightly different because that it’s down to a lot of factors, um, that have affect glucose in the circulation also at your capacity to quick to quickly control for it. It’s, uh, it’s individual, um, degrees of fluctuation over time. Easy. So yeah, there is a lot of subjectivity. This is also why having visibility is almost mandatory. If you want to learn how your body, how your unique body is controlling it.
Adam Pulford (00:17:52):
Oh yeah. And you’re saying visibility into what that blood glucose number is. That’s the visibility that you’re talking about, right. FedEx.
Speaker 3 (00:18:01):
Yeah, that’s correct. Even though if we, I mean, we do not refer to it as blood glucose because it’s not correct is interstitial glucose. Um, because it’s just a different compartment, even if they do kind of goes together, especially when the situation is stable, so away from foods and meals. Um, but yeah, it’s, uh, it’s visibility down to your glucose levels.
Adam Pulford (00:18:25):
Gotcha. Gotcha. Um, no good. Thank you for that overview. Fitty, that’s super helpful. And I, and I think our listeners are starting to get a better understanding of what blood glucose monitoring can look like. Um, Brad, I’m going to turn to you for this, these next set of questions, and we’ll frame it up to where we talked a lot about this in our three months of super sapiens college, if you will. Um, and it’s also available on the website, but you know, super sapiens and you guys there call it the system prime perform recover. Can you speak to how you would use that system or how an athlete that you’ve been working with out in the field uses that general concept to help them perform better in their sport or live better in life, or, um, become more aware of how they interact with food?
Speaker 3 (00:19:22):
A big thing for athletes is they only think about the activity. You know, a lot of when we, when we started, we were just focused on high intensity activities, the perform aspect of it. But through research, through the understanding of the data we’ve collected with, you know, athletes from the Olympic gold medal level, to someone running a 5k or a marathon that it’s, it’s your daily life, that really impacts how your glucose will respond in an activity. So in that priming state is understanding, you know, those, those parameters that we’ve known through textbooks of, you know, four hours before you’re supposed to have, you know, um, six grams per kilogram of, of carbohydrate intake, you know, or whatever number that you find is best for you. We’re actually seeing that it’s very individualized, you know, someone that thinks they’re eating the perfect meal, um, one hour, one hour before they head out the door is actually impairing the way that their glucose we’re responding in activity, which will limit the availability of glucose in a high, high intensity activity.
Speaker 3 (00:20:22):
And so as we blend the prime perform and recover, each athlete is able to really do a trial and error of their favorite meals, their pre-read meal, or their just general diet that they take in. And is, is that causing extreme variable, variability, too close to a workout, um, leaving more circulating insulin, um, in their, in their bloodstream causing a drop in blood glucose in the perform state or in the activity of their, of their choosing. Um, so they have heavier legs. They have a little bit more mental, mental frustration of getting through the workout or getting through the warmup. And, you know, a lot of us have known in cycling or in any type of activity that man, it just takes me 20 minutes to really get moving or 30 minutes to just get my legs back underneath me. And we’re kind of seeing, that’s really effected by the priming or the time before that nutrition, before an activity.
Speaker 3 (00:21:13):
Um, and then in recovery, ensuring that you are allowing yourself to go through the natural response of glucose after you eat, you know, you have your recovery shake, you know, you’re two to one, you’re three to one, four to one re um, protein recovery. However you choose you feel is best for you. Knowing that that’s a, that’s a response that’s naturally been happening in our bodies for, you know, since we were, you know, evolved. And now we have this window into the body and a lot of athletes are saying, oh my gosh, my book, my glucose is going to 200 after I worked out doing my recovery shake, is this good? It’s like, actually, yes, this is part of the process part of getting your recent size, having more glycogen replenishment in the body so that you’re preparing for the next day. So every day in this athlete, the prime performer recover is, is ever evolving.
Speaker 3 (00:21:55):
And as, as Bobby was saying that every day is a little different and we’re able to pull in, was there a life stress? Did you have impaired sleep? You know, was there things that were taking your, your thought pattern off of what am I going to eat later in the day? And you’re making poor choices and you can see how that affects the next day’s workout or that workout that you’re in. And so we’re really evolving. We’re actually understanding more of each athlete. And, um, we really ask each athlete to take time to learn their body, you know, give themselves time. Don’t feel like you’re going to be perfect right out of the box, because even FedEx with his years of, of research underneath him and use case with Novo, Nordisk is still evolving and learning each day and helping another athlete kind of understand why this, this specific food impacted them negatively or positively. And so it is really an enjoyable process to help each person get more out of every day. And that prime, poor performing recover.
Adam Pulford (00:22:50):
No, that’s, that’s awesome. Really good recap on that. And that, that prime is, um, like topping off the tank before a training session, how far in advance, like what’s a timeline on that bread?
Speaker 3 (00:23:03):
Well, um, it goes out from the night before, um, you know, a lot of athletes kind of wake up early and they do, they do workouts and we’re seeing that, you know, a lot of athletes, oh, I have a glass of orange juice, or I have a bagel right before I head out the door to do this ride. And they’re actually kind of shooting themselves in the foot on a glucose response. Um, in the activity we’re finding that, you know, sometimes athletes are better to actually go in fast and then start fueling in the warmup and they’ll have a better glucose response. They’ll have better, better feeling in their legs, better, better mental acuity. You know, they’ll be able to complete the workout with a better kind of overall feeling and glucose response and completing the goal of the workout. Even if it’s a 30 minute run or a two hour session smash session with your buddies. So in that priming, it’s always different, you know, because it’s the timing of people getting out the door is always different. And so we’re enabling athletes to start thinking about the 24 hour period or the two day period or three-day period leading into this goal workout or just consistent training.
Adam Pulford (00:24:01):
Yeah. So, so it’s a longer timescale of priming in addition to breakfast or the, the, the meal beforehand. Yeah. Okay. And then performance, we’ll go ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:24:14):
I’m sure. FedEx has the grants for kilogram, like memorized in his head and he could give some of that actually.
Adam Pulford (00:24:21):
Oh, I’ve got fed Akita for some grants per kilogram here in a bit. So yeah, he’ll, he’ll have to be on the edge of his seat and fill them perform, but that’s just that his warmup to cool down. And, and that’s, it is that we’re talking about in all the good stuff in between. That’s what you’re talking about for the perform.
Speaker 3 (00:24:40):
Yes. Yeah. You know, a lot of athletes kind of negate negate the warmup, and that can actually impact how your glucose response is, um, in the activity, you know, causing, causing too much of a stress in that middle initial period, not allowing the cells to kind of like, or the body to warm up properly and release glucose in a, in a fluid manner. They can see a drop, um, if they don’t allow that, because you can go into more of an anaerobic state, um, quicker. Um, and so wait, wait,
Adam Pulford (00:25:07):
You’re saying don’t sprint out of the parking lot.
Speaker 3 (00:25:10):
Well, you know, sometimes you’re late and you got to catch up. Um, so maybe some breathing exercises in the car when you’re driving to meet your buddies might help that fight or flight response as you’re getting there. So, um, but yeah, warm-up is always preferred.
Adam Pulford (00:25:27):
Uh, and then the recover, I mean, this is a, this recovery window we’ve talked about for years. Um, when is this window, Brad? Is it like as soon as you clip out, is it an hour afterwards? When is that recovery time period?
Speaker 3 (00:25:40):
Well, uh, the sooner the better for sure. Uh, you know, but it depends on the length of the workout, the intensity of the workout, you know, if you’re doing a one-hour smash session, um, and you don’t have a training, you know, a hard training ride for a couple of days while you can, you can kind of like get home, get, take a shower, you know, get cleaned up, get dressed, and then, you know, maybe have your recovery shake or a sandwich as you run out the door an hour later, you know, and you’ll still have benefits of that. Um, so the recovery period, yes, you want to get the grams of carbohydrates back in the body protein in there to help with, with kind of the overall replenishment of glycogen stores for the next workout. But as every athlete we’re telling them like, well, just depends on your life. What’s going on. Like, if you could do the recovery shake yeah. Do it. You’re going to feel better. You’re going to have better glucose response throughout the rest of the day. Um, less stress hormones created. And, um, yeah, the recovery is always individualized. Um, you know, I prefer, you know, I’d love to have peanut butter and banana instead of always going to like your typical like recovery shake that you’re shaken up in the, you know, in the blender. So, um, yeah.
Adam Pulford (00:26:43):
Gotcha. Okay. So prime perform, recover. Um, good, uh, good extrapolation of what that is. I’m, I’m reminded of a, of a priming story that Bobby shared on one of our super sapiens calls and kind of speaks to that individuality or the individualness of, uh, leading up to a training session, Bali. It was something like you had a normal breakfast and you’re getting these low blood glucose responses and you switched to something else. Can you, can you give us an example of that or what that story was?
Speaker 3 (00:27:17):
Um, I removed the one that I, I told you about was just the different, um, timing of what I was eating before I was doing the exact same effort. So the first time I kind of was a little bit, uh, late, um, had eaten earlier, but was not really primed to perfection. And, um, maybe started over fueling too, too early and actually had just as bad, uh, sensations being almost like hyperglycemic compared to being hypoglycemic. And then, um, because remember, I want to go back to that warmup a warmup in the past, the way that I looked at it, we kind of looked at it as cardiovascular warmup and a muscular warmup, but now there’s the metabolic warmup. So like, like you said, sprinting out of the parking lot. Was it your cardio? Was it your muscular or was it your, you, you just didn’t have the glycolytic system clicking over quite yet.
Speaker 3 (00:28:17):
So when, when you’re, when you’re going to do that interval, uh, or that test, that, that I shared with you guys at super sapiens university, um, you know, I don’t really think I was really metabolically warmed up before I tried that effort. And then, you know, maybe over fueled and, and the, the sensations weren’t the best, but like, that’s, that’s what it is now. It’s almost a totally new way of thinking about, am I ready for this hard workout? Because like, when you’re just rolling with your buddies or go into a weekend ride, you’re just going downhill the whole time, you know? And then you start with your friends and, you know, the pace kicks up. That’s kind of like a warm-up and you’re already thinking about fueling and stuff, but like thinking about, um, like a time trial, the reason why we give, uh, athletes such a regimented warm-up schedule, um, really, you know, myself, at least admittedly not really knowing what that was about as far as from the metabolic standpoint, but like, you always wonder when you want to be, as soon as you take that first pedal stroke off the time trial ramp or off the start line, you want to be ready to go.
Speaker 3 (00:29:33):
But so often we feel like, oh my gosh, I’m not there yet, you know, and you take a couple minutes to warm up, but that’s all time that you’ve lost. So, you know, for me getting, getting that fueling, correct. And, um, doing these little tests, because like we said, everyone is individualized. And if you’re going out for a world’s best, like we have some Olympic champions, or if it’s a personal best, or if it’s a daily best, you want to kind of give yourself the best opportunity to succeed, to succeed in whatever workout that is.
Adam Pulford (00:30:08):
Got it. Yeah. That makes, that makes a lot of sense. And it makes me also want to go a little deeper into that, that priming, um, portion of what super sapiens talked about and alternate Fetty for this one, just for some specifics of priming the tank in particular, getting your body to pre, to store glycogen for, um, an energy source later on. Can you talk about the, the on hours and off hours targeting of blood glucose, that the super sapiens app helps you to identify for yourself and how that works with actually perhaps storing glycogen into the body and where the glycogen is actually stored?
Speaker 3 (00:30:54):
So, sure. Um, so we know that the glycogen is the, is the only four or the only storage of glucose within the body. We have around half a kilo of glycogen stored in our muscle and around a hundred to 200 grams of glycogen stored within our liver. Plus we have some circulating glucose in the, in the, in the blood that will be around four to five grams. Um, so, uh, it, since glucose is a thin it a month, uh, of, uh, of molecules within the body, we need to replenish it. Um, we also know that, um, depleting glycogen levels is one of the major, um, kind of though, related to fatigue development, simply because glycogen is very efficient in terms of energy production capability, but also in terms of energy rate production. So when you produce energy from glycogen, your body can produce it very, very quickly.
Speaker 3 (00:31:54):
So that’s why you need to keep replenishing glycogen and then sort of survive, reducing it, right? Cause your levels will induce fatigue development. However, and this is what is really interesting down to, uh, managing glucose concentration, uh, within the bladder. The interstitial interstitial fluid is that we now know that after a certain amount of exercise duration, the body will rely more and more on, uh, glucose coming from the blood for producing energy. Eh, Y even if you feed with exogenous carbohydrate, why simply because your muscle glycogen stores during exercise will get depleted, even if you feed with carbohydrate, and that’s the point where your body needs to switch, um, on workers that come in front, the circulation to sustain energy production in the muscles and from available studies. We know that for example, at the beginning of exercise, your glucose coming in from the blood will produce a very small portion of the energy expenditure.
Speaker 3 (00:33:02):
But on the contrary, after 19 minutes of exercise, everything you that is circulating in the system is going to be oxygen oxidizing the muscle for energy production. So after roughly two hours of exercise at glucose come in from the circulation is, um, kind of, uh, contributing up to 60% of the energy production, uh, in the muscle. So it becomes more and more important as exercise progress and as intensity will increase. Um, and back to your question down to, uh, to glycogen, I mean, um, we know that, uh, through carbohydrate feeding one can, um, kind of level the lab, their glycogen stores, um, after 48 hours of consistent carbohydrate intake from studies, we know that if you intake around between eight to 10 grams per kilogram of body weight of carbohydrates over this time period, you will pretty sure that your glycogen stores will be food.
Speaker 3 (00:34:09):
And we also know that after an overnight fasting period and a couple of hours of moderate intensity exercise, your glycogen stores will be empty. So this is where you will need to pay more and more attention to controlling glucose come in from the circulation. And this is where it becomes more and more relevant during exercise. Um, and down to priming. I mean, we do know it’s still, it’s still difficult to relate. Uh, what is happening in the circulation to your glycogen levels? We didn’t have enough knowledge in that direction. We are working with some institutions like some universities to better understand what is the association within a laboratory condition between your glucose level and your glycogen stores, and what is the trigger for develop development. And whether you can perhaps use glucose levels as a proxy of glycogen stores, but this is where the product is getting very, very interesting, because most of the time where we talk about glucose, we didn’t have enough knowledge.
Speaker 3 (00:35:18):
Um, in, in, in outside of the diabetes, that’d be the context, and this is where we need to develop the knowledge that we didn’t have you, for example, start to learn something behind heart rate and heart rate monitoring during activities. You have a lot of material to read. We have more than a hundred of research to base our learning and our assumption, uh, on, on the country, down to glucose metabolism. And we know that the basics. So from a physiological perspective, we know what, what glucose is, what the role of glucose during exercise, before exercise, after exercise. But we didn’t know a lot about how the body control it in the circulation. And what is the relationship between performance, uh, fatigue, uh, attention or focus in your, um, kind of cyclical eating glucose level. This is where we are playing or trying to play a big role in understanding from the data we get on a daily basis from our athletes, talking with our athletes at keep, keep searching for available Nita tour that might be dig. And there are a lot of, uh, years, uh, but also working with universities to develop new knowledge. Um, we did open, uh, several partnerships with institutions across the globe to investigate in control condition. What exactly is the role of glucose levels during different activities?
Adam Pulford (00:36:46):
Oh, that’s, that’s exciting. Um, that’s, uh, I’ll be super keen to hear how that goes. You throw out some numbers for priming the eight to 10 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight, um, 24 to 48 hours before to make sure all the glycogen should be replenishing going on. Um, and if you take some of that in conjunction with, uh, Brad and Bobby were seen with, um, knowing how this, this food, this carbohydrate interacts with your body, to be sure not to super spike too high or spike or drop below super sapiens calls that the off hours targeting. Correct?
Speaker 3 (00:37:26):
Yeah, that’s correct. Okay.
Adam Pulford (00:37:28):
So during the perform time period, um, this is where you want higher blood glucose levels to occur. And in order to get there, I liken it to, um, a time in zone for power or heart rate, and you can get visibility or to see what that blood glucose number is, why you’re training, uh, how do, how can an athlete get their blood glucose up into that time zone for the on hours and what would be a typical recommended dosage of carbohydrate for that fitting?
Speaker 3 (00:38:04):
Yeah, always can see their debt. Um, the relevance of, uh, glucose, uh, circulating Lucas to implants in performance is down to duration and intensity, but also your intake before the exercise. So considering these three factors is very important to contextualize why you need to control glucose levels during exercise. And we also need to keep in mind that, uh, concentration drives, uh, utilization of glucose. So the higher your group concentration during exercise the higher, it will be the glucose uptake within the cells. Um, so this is where the concept of your glucose performance zone actually was blurred because what you should do is trying to increase your glucose level to ensure a proper availability of glucose and to drive uptake in the muscle. But at the moment, we didn’t have enough and all of it’s down to a certain threshold. So this is where people need to experiment.
Speaker 3 (00:39:06):
And this is where we are starting to investigate whether exists, uh, an individual specific glucose threshold. It will promote a better feeling and a better performance. Uh, but nevertheless, we know that one of the main aim for an oscillator would be to increase the circulating glucose levels, uh, at least to maintain glucose flux to the muscle and glucose uptake into them. Also, especially as I was saying before, after one to one and a half hour of moderate to high intensity exercises. And historically, um, we, we know that, I mean, we, we followed that the maximum amount of glucose that one can intake would be around 60 grand per hour. Uh, but now thanks to, uh, science development. We know that you can actually increase more by combining different molecules, like glucose with fruits, for example. And we also have some, um, empirical evidences down to very high intake of glucose above 100 times per minute.
Speaker 3 (00:40:10):
Um, and this is where a question arises, uh, on which I mean, is it all oxidized? So is it all about increasing absorption? Uh, how can you make sure that everything you do digest will be oxidizing the muscle? And this is where it gets very difficult to, uh, to measure because it requires a lab controlled environment. Uh, but nevertheless, we know that at very high intensity of exercise, uh, your body is or can be able to metabolize up to five trumps per minute of carbohydrate. And that’s a lot, it’s almost, it’s above 200 grams travel and do something you will never be capable of ingesting. Uh, but the more you ingest, the less, you will rely on your glycogen stores that you need to prevent over time. So, and this is where athletes, but also companies in sport, a kind of supplements company are, are, uh, developing, uh, studies on how to increase our capacity to ingest carbohydrate.
Speaker 3 (00:41:13):
Uh, and, and there are some very interesting emerging concept behind our capacity to train our system, to digest, absorb transport, and utilize carbohydrates and ask her, you can, drip was one of the, uh, the pirate department of people behind the concept. So your, uh, your body is, is, uh, adaptable. So you can really train your system to do that. Just more to absorb more by a progressive, uh, intake. So by actually, uh, training, uh, a training process of increasing your capacity to process and absorb carbohydrates, uh, but the standard recommendation is, are steely between 60 and 90 grams per hour to avoid, um, guestroom testing, uh, uh, discomfort or, or downside symptoms. Okay.
Adam Pulford (00:42:03):
Gotcha. Gotcha. Bobby, we’ll turn to you for, for this one, um, with, you know, being an elite athlete, going to the coaching side, and now being on this, uh, human performance, uh, team has all of this changed. Anything that your doing in, in coaching your athletes from a fueling or, or a prescription of training side of things, or did it not change and just validate what you do. Tell us more about how you actually use those.
Speaker 3 (00:42:34):
Okay, let me say, first of all, you know, the protocol that we’ve used, you know, in the world tour for a long time is very, very close. But my, my struggle, as I think if you’re a coached athlete or a self coached athlete, um, you want to succeed. So what happens, you know, you, you build the motor, you know, and then you put on, you know, fancy wheels and, you know, nice new paint job. And then as a coach on race day, you throw those keys to the athlete or to the director. Sportif and just hope that you don’t, you know, that it comes back in one piece. So you built that motor, you’ve done everything that you could. And then on, on race day, you have to trust the athlete. And when they succeed, it’s like, Hey, everything worked right. That was fantastic. But when they don’t succeed, um, a lot of the times it’s like, Hey, I wasn’t fit enough or this or that.
Speaker 3 (00:43:32):
And so often for me, my first question to that athlete is how did you fuel during the effort I fueled fine. I fueled fine. I couldn’t eat any more. I couldn’t drink anymore. And you have to take their word for it. So then you question and you go back to the training and you, you know, cause that’s something that you can control and you’re like, wait a second. No, but like, this was right. And now with this device, um, it takes that out of it because you can actually see, Hey, you know, where you fueled correctly in, in, in definite terms rather than just, you know, the opinion, because we all know once we get into competition, um, our thought process I’m coming sometimes goes out the window. We start to focus on other things before we know it, an hour has passed and we were supposed to be hidden our fueling strategy.
Speaker 3 (00:44:23):
And we forgot to do that because the intensity was too high or the stress was too high. And now it’s, you can actually show them, listen, this is where you were before you kind of, um, forgot to fuel. And this is where you were towards the end. So listen, we can’t change that result, but we can make that we can make those little tweaks to our fueling strategy or prioritize our fueling strategy strategy regardless of, you know, the, the, the conditions of the race or the stress of the race. So for me, it is really changed a lot because confidence in an athlete is everything. And, you know, they put in all the hard work, you know, as a coach, it’s easy, you just prescribe, but the athletes have to go out there and do it. And when they’re fueled, right, they enjoy it more, they succeed.
Speaker 3 (00:45:12):
And that just cats that just becomes just a, an upward trend of positive things that are going to happen when they go out, regardless if they’re fit or not fit enough to do the effort that you prescribed for them, maybe sometimes thousands of miles away. Um, and they’re not fueled and they fail. Then it’s just a cascading problem. That’s going to affect the relationship. Uh, the confidence in the athlete first and foremost, the relationship with the coach and ultimately the overall enjoyment of the, of the sport. So fueling has become my obsession. Um, I think everyone that, that is exposed to this technology will realize that there are a lot of improvements to be made. You know, marginal games has been a word for over a decade now that people have been used, you know, with different wheels or different clothing or this and that this isn’t a marginal gain.
Speaker 3 (00:46:05):
This is a semi maximum gain for most people, um, for pro pro uh, worlds for athletes, maybe not because they’ve been kind of taught these protocols over time, but for the, the weekend warrior for the amateur athlete, I think they’re really going to benefit from the insight and knowledge that they learn themselves or have a coach help them through. And that to me is, is the beauty of this is we’re just trying to make each individual athlete a better version of themselves from a fueling standpoint. And you know, that every w we say this quite often, uh, every person with a goal is an athlete. So if your goal is to win the tour de France, the goal is to, you know, finish your weekend ride. Or your goal is just to do better than you did before on, on swift or Peloton. Fueling is so often that variable that we forget about. So to me, that’s, that’s where it’s at. That’s, that’s, that’s my passion. And that’s the focus. Um, even just as much as the training intensity and duration is the proper fueling, um, you know, during, on and off hours.
Adam Pulford (00:47:22):
Yeah. You touched on some really good stuff there and to expand on it, you know, you said coaches prescribe, and we definitely do. I think that we kind of, as a collective group of coaches, we, we can really, um, get hung up on prescribing, prescribing, prescribing without realizing you first analyze then prescribe properly, right? And then you refine, and we can do that with power meters and heart rate monitors. And then if you were there with the athlete to see how they execute, um, at the certain portions of the race or throughout the duration of the race that helps in the refining process. But,
Speaker 3 (00:48:02):
And remember you mentioned, uh, power meters, power meters. When they first came out, it was basically like a fancy speedometer. No one really knew how to use it. And it took a long time for us coaches, um, to, to learn the little nuances there, the, the little unlocks. And that’s, that’s what we also have to be aware of with super sapiens is that it’s a ultra marathon. It’s not a sprint. You’re not going to figure out every single finite detail in the first week. And I know that goes against what a lot of athletes want is like, give it to me. Now, tell me my number. I’ll stay there. But, you know, that’s, that’s this new kind of phase of coaching is explaining, uh, this very important, uh, skill. I mean, it is a skill and you need to learn just like you learned how to use the heart rate monitor, just how you learned, how to use the, the woop, the aura, the power meter. You need to learn how to use this because it is super individualized. And, you know, with the power meter, it was always definite like a lot was a watt torque times RPM is going to equal the watt, but here sometimes one-on-one, doesn’t equal two, and you need to figure out those little nuances and, um, that that’s, that’s the beauty of this entire,
Adam Pulford (00:49:19):
Yeah, that’s straight to my point is it helps in that refining process, because if you have visibility on the athlete’s fueling throughout the duration of a thing, you can then go back and see it just like somebody doing a time trial. For example, you can see when they burned it too hot, um, spent all their anaerobic capacity or burn too much, um, glycogen and went to anaerobic. Then you bring that down in order to finish stronger, next time of sorts to make it simplistic. And so I think this, this which is with prescribed what you said there was this, like, you need analyze, prescribed, refine, and then repeat. And I think this tool really, really does that well,
Speaker 3 (00:49:59):
A hundred percent,
Adam Pulford (00:50:00):
Yeah. Fed a w I want to talk a little bit about the coaching dashboard, um, just a bit, and for our listeners, this is not a tool that I recommend for anybody listening, nor is it going to be available anytime soon, I may even change names, but fit it. Can you talk a little bit more about how we could extrapolate these blood glucose levels over a long period of time to see better trends in, in helping that refining process?
Speaker 3 (00:50:32):
Yeah, absolutely. So the concept of being able to overlay a glucose data with other variables started, um, when, when I, when I was working in team Novo and what do we needed, uh, the ability to actually visualize the glucose fluctuations with respect to our, for example, getting a ride or heart rate or elevation or distance or whatever kind of variable you do collect on the bike. And then we started also looking at 24 hours data to have a better understanding on what is the relationship between a surgeon training session to our kind of glucose control or our offsets group has controlled. And from there we breached the, uh, the knowledge into, uh, into here into supersedious giving athletes or coaches, actually the possibility to monitor their athletes. [inaudible], uh, remotely and over time at first of all, to start learning how your kind of prescription, whether it’s a training or whether it’s a nutrition schedule or whether it’s recovery is affecting your athlete performance, but also to let the audience know, knows that you are in control as, as your, as their coach, because you want to monitor them.
Speaker 3 (00:51:51):
You want to kind of create these education layer behind talking with your athletes on glucose fluctuations over time, and also doing for auction. So how do you change behavior if you didn’t have visibility over your assets data? And so the coach’s dashboard is the attempt to give coaches visibility over glucose on their assets for their athletes. And now it’s, it’s a, it’s a beta version. So we are testing the product out and coaches will be able to monitor, um, Google athletes. So being able to grouping athletes into different kind of, um, uh, layers or groups, uh, but also to integrate, uh, variables like power, heart rate, steep elevation within the same platform that is going to be a web-based dashboard, and you will have, uh, almost live data. So at the moment, the current capacity is to visualize data. We have a delay of an hour. So your ability is really to look into data closely with your athletes, without the need to log into their app, to look at their data. So you will be really in control and you will visualize events, um, that actually will create them to the app and over the dashboard. So you will start creating association by yourself. Uh, you can download data from there. So being able to do some more advanced analytics, um, down to your own skillset, uh, but this is the next level of the coaching using glucose.
Adam Pulford (00:53:27):
Yeah. So it’s kind of like a training peaks or today’s plan for blood glucose.
Speaker 3 (00:53:32):
Yeah, that’s correct. That’s exactly the, the mission of the dashboard.
Adam Pulford (00:53:36):
Got it. Got it. Cool. Well, looking forward to seeing, hearing and working more with that, um, I know the few athletes that I have, including my own sensor when I’m looking at the coach’s dashboard. I like what I see, but I’ve yet to learn a lot more on that. So, um, but for now, we’ll put that one, we’ll put a pin in that for now, for now.
Speaker 3 (00:53:58):
Yeah. We are, uh, working a lot down to seem to refine the approach to investigating these new metrics is new analyte. That is actually new in the context of, uh, uh, human performance moaning three. So until last year, nobody was even paying attention to the glucose. They didn’t even know what the glucose is, what glucose does, but now the knowledge is spreading and people are start, started studying by themselves. And these collected kind of effort will push forward our current understanding. And, and, and as you said, it’s going to be, uh, like what happened with power meters, for example, or with heart rate. So the world is moving together through the understanding on how to use it. And we now have the duty to simplify the approach to make it relevant when it’s relevant and to make it adjustable when it’s adjustable and informative when it needs to be informative.
Adam Pulford (00:54:55):
Got it. Well, you know, we, we’ve been talking a lot about the uniqueness or the individualized aspect of this, and I’ve done several episodes on the train ride podcast, talking about the individual posts approach to training concepts, finding your own uniqueness of how you react to anaerobic training or aerobic training, uh, strengths and weaknesses, and then so on. And so we’re touching on it here. And I think while human physiology is the same at some level, you know, when you drill deeper, it gets more and more unique. Brad, can you speak to that a little bit more because you’re, you’re out in the field working with these athletes and you’re hearing stories about how they may be changing things or, or not changing things because it’s working, um, using these sensors that just to recap, you put a sensor on your arm, you pair it to your phone, and then you can get visibility on your phone or your training device while you’re, while you’re going to see more insight on what blue blood glucose is doing. So I guess, um, to ask in a very long way, Brad, uh, what are some of the changes that you’re seeing that athletes are making or changes that they may not be making? Because stuff is working
Speaker 3 (00:56:08):
At first using the app. It was a little confusing cause it’s, it is a new metric. It is a new data point that athletes are trying to understand on, well, you know, I felt great on this, on this exercise session, but my, my glucose was a hundred, you know, and I never reached GPC. When now we’ve implemented this score, the glucose score that kind of gives an athlete, a metric of how they actually performed, um, metabolically and fueling wise in an activity, um, that goes, um, pulls in a couple of metrics. Um, it would be their slope, their time and GPC their lows and drops. And so an athlete can really fine tune what actually happened in an activity to know like, am I actually improving? Am I implementing this data that I’m using in the next session and in the next session? So it is analyzing the data, the refinement and the repeating that where athletes are starting to understand, oh, this is how this data is actually enabling me to understand why I felt this way in this activity.
Speaker 3 (00:57:08):
You know, why, why I now have adjusted my fueling protocol in the priming where, you know, I used to be panicked and I, and I, you know, before a big event, I’d slam, I’d slam a jail 30 minutes before, and then I kind of hang out, well, then I would see this, this trend in my, in my glucose that it’s dropping. Whenever I’m wanting to start my warmup or start, start the race. And so these, these insights, um, it doesn’t have to be the huge dashboard that enables someone to really refine it down to a minute by minute, it’s, it’s using this app each day to make themselves better to say, you know what, yesterday, you know, I was panicked. I ate a bagel, I got dressed. I hung out. It was 30 minutes or 15 minutes. And my body metabolically responded with glucose up insulin response brings it down.
Speaker 3 (00:57:54):
And, you know, I kind of had a crappy workout. And so how can I refine that? And so in that priming state, you know, they look at it in the workout, they see the glucose score, they got a 25. You’re like, man, I got a 25, but yet my glucose, you know, in the last 30 minutes made it up to 140 doing this interval. They say, well, why did I get a 25? Why did I get a 36 score? You know, whenever I, you know, I ate, I ate food beforehand. I fueled in the activity. Well, it’s all comes down to the timing of it. And so these athletes taking these insights, creating behavioral changes is what the app intends enables them to have a better time, uh, glucose performance in this activity, in the perform. And so that’s where each athlete has to take the time to actually notice, well, what did I do beforehand?
Speaker 3 (00:58:40):
And what happened in the activity? How did I feel afterwards? And so a lot of athletes are starting to adjust, you know, they’re eating more often they’re instead of going out with just water in their bottles, they’re doing two scoops, two scoops of scratch in there every time or three are bringing that, bringing the super fuel, you know, or whatever, whatever their choice is, you know, and then they’re able to see, oh, I actually had a better performance in the activity when I fueled more often, uh, whenever I was able to pay attention to this with the visibility of a garment, um, linking from via Bluetooth, from the app to the garment or our energy band, seeing that in real time and not waiting to say, oh, I only eat at 30 minutes. I only eat at 45 minutes. And now they’re ahead of the game.
Speaker 3 (00:59:22):
They’re ahead of the instincts and the intuition. They’re able to see this in real time. So there’s never a panic reaction. There’s never over fueling thinking that this is going to prepare them to be better. And so that’s where we’re really seeing the changes in the athletes are having personal best just on a general ride or a general run or in a marathon athletes are taking minutes off their time with this visibility that they’re using in training and implementing it, implementing that in a goal event and seeing the improvements. And that’s where we are hoping to keep evolving the app with the glucose score with enabling more insights in priming and ensuring that they’re paying attention all of this.
Adam Pulford (01:00:00):
Yeah, no, th th th that’s it, um, you’re really helping them change a habit for the better outcome. Right. In changing habits. Changing habits can be really tough. I mean, the psychology of habit formation is, is fascinating. Uh, I think we’ve learned recently. I mean, it’s, it’s no longer, you know, 21 days it’s more like 66 in order to like, make something stick in our lives. Uh, Charles Duhigg writes a good, good book about that. Um, so I think that habit forming and then the why, right? Because they athletes not going to change a habit or do something differently because that’s inefficient, unless they know that it’s going to have a better outcome.
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Right. And well, now they have a data point, you know, whenever you see it visibly instead of just, oh, well I felt this way or why I fueled, I feel I couldn’t have eaten anymore. Well, now we have, you have the point in front of you on the garment or in the app, if you’re on swift and you just pull it up and you’re, and you’re sitting there watching the number, you have this point that says, oh, I actually do feel better when I enable to fuel properly reach, reach 120 milligrams per deciliter and keep it there with the proper fueling or, you know, it’s 45 minutes left to get home on the ride. Oh, I have some food in my pocket or 30 minutes left. And they just, they see the trend of their glucose going down and down. And they’re like, oh, this is what happens. And this is how this impairs, the next day’s workout. And so this is where these athletes are able to make these behavioral changes, finish every workout in a, in a, in an endless energy state and have better goal achievement, you know, feel better, have, have better insights on like, man, that was a great workout. And I actually fueled it well, go figure. Um, and so, yeah, it’s exciting to see their, to see their excitement whenever they come back to us with these, with these insights.
Adam Pulford (01:01:47):
Yeah. I, I’m always willing to point out my shortcomings on this silly show too. And I will say that throughout this process and, and, uh, learning from you all and then texting with Brad and stuff like I’m the typical, I’ve got Marone 90 minutes at lunchtime, you go out and smash it on a quick group ride, come home and get back to work. And I know like you’re late to it and all is so water in the bottles, if you remember that. And, and so I was just going, and then I started wearing the sensor. I’m like, okay, well, let me just start putting that, that scratch in there. Let me start fueling a little bit better in try this time. And, and I was still performing well with water is 90 minutes and less, I’m generally a pretty good eater, but like, what I noticed is I could go, I could repeat day after day after day, and I was not crashing in the afternoon because I was fueling during. So it helped me just to, I think, perform better, be happier and be healthier in the afternoon rather than like overeat or feel puffy, or just be like, you know, on the phone with an athlete in halfway falling asleep sometimes so fully.
Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Yeah. That, and that’s true. And I would love to hear FedEx point on like how that proper fueling and activity actually helps yourself metabolically and cognitive wise later in the day and grow better glucose stability. Cause he’s got a lot of info on that.
Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Yeah. It’s yeah. It’s, it’s, uh, it’s again, a lot about self-experimentation at this stage. Um, so for example, we didn’t know enough, um, between the relationship, um, and then on the relationship between a low glucose levels, for example, and, uh, performance during exercise. But we do have a lot of, uh, anecdotes and stories of people feeling symptoms of low glucose levels during exercise. So there, there is something that is connecting to the, um, inability to perform. So exercise capacity and tolerance when you are no in Reuben’s Meadows. And this is where the available literature is not supporting because we didn’t have any, um, and a form of tests to understand what is this relationship, but also within that any epidemiological study on these relationship. So this is where we need to develop that, to develop the concept, to study the concept and to find the association, if any. Um, but, and this is another example, uh, connected to what Brad was saying. So what is the relationship between your fueling strategy during exercise and your feeling in recovery capacity after exercise? So how is that affecting what is happening after afterward? Because of course the less you fewer the exercise, the more you have to see the last of war to replenish your liver stores or your, your muscle stores. So there is for sure a relationship we just need to better understand it.
Adam Pulford (01:04:41):
Yeah, well, um, the N of one over here loves blood glucose, especially when going hard and it makes me, uh, it makes me feel a heck of a lot better later in the day. So if anything else, super sapiens has helped me conquer that one or at least reminded me to practice what I’m preaching to my athletes.
Speaker 3 (01:05:01):
Yeah. And this is exactly where a science will get developed. And then most, most of the time science start with an observation or with a story from an athlete. And this is where you start developing a concept and then you make it a theory through investigations. So it’s to these feedbacks that we can develop new knowledge and we will develop.
Adam Pulford (01:05:22):
Perfect. Perfect. Okay, Bobby, I’m going to kick it to you for kind of last set of questions, because if our listeners are getting as excited as they think they are about blood glucose and they want to go out and get their sensor and get their phone going and train like a super sapiens, uh, where can they get this? How does that work?
Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
Unfortunately, we are not selling over here in the U S yet. We sell in eight countries over in Europe, um, where they’re able to download the app and get, get on the sensors. Uh, we, we do have a study over here with, with a certain, uh, population of people. Um, but listen, just because you can’t go get the sensor, this technology, in my opinion, uh, I’ll call that, that by my opinion is going to change the world. And I hope super sapiens is the company that does it. I am a hundred percent behind that, but it’s going to be here one way or another. And why not take this time before you can actually get on the sensor? We’ve got an amazing content in on our website, super sapiens.com. We’ve got amazing educational pieces. Why not take this time to read up on it and see if it’s for you and to learn the little nuances of the system.
Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
I mean, man, back in 1999, I wish I would’ve read the manual, the SRM manual because like when I put it on, I had no idea how to use it and really just kind of wasted it for a year or two. So unfortunately it’s not available in north America yet. Um, we are strictly adhering to the FDA approval process. Uh, you may see some other companies out there that, um, may not be doing the same, but we wanted to make sure that we went through that whole process a hundred percent. Um, I wish I could give you an update as tomorrow next month, next year. But, um, I do not have an update of one and it’ll be available over here in the states, but, uh, sooner or later it’s going to be. And I think that you’re going to want to know the basics of this before you get online. So go to our website, read all. You can absorb that content, ask questions to, to, to us, to, to other people, um, you know, using the system. So that you’re really ahead of the game when you can purchase the sensor over here in north America.
Adam Pulford (01:07:48):
Yeah. That’s, that’s good. So move to Europe or be patient guessing that most people aren’t gonna move to Europe. Uh, but to, to Bobby’s point, I mean the, the education is, is paramount. I think, you know, reading about why blood glucose, how the blood glucose works in your body, so that you’re fully up to speed by the time that you’ll be on sensor is good. Um, and
Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
One more, one more thing. Uh, I D I just want to be clear that, you know, being well fueled is not going to throw 20, 30, 40 Watts on your, your FTP or your functional threshold power. What we’re trying to make sure of here is that fueling isn’t the limiting factor. And, um, funny story with Adam was, uh, what was that a month and a half, two months ago, we were doing a gravel race, uh, the Belgium waffle ride, I believe it was, uh, and all of a sudden I’m going up a climb. And I hear this voice behind me and basically says out of nowhere, and this is the first time I’ve heard it. What is your, your blood glucose levels right now? And I was like, I was wearing a super sapiens Jersey and kit. So I thought it was somebody just kinda giving me a hard time and I turned around and, and it was you, uh, Adam, and you will go down in history as being the first person that asked me that in the middle of an event, but I guarantee you won’t be the last. So, um,
Adam Pulford (01:09:19):
Well, no, and that was super fun. That was a time period where my blood glucose was optimized and I was feeling like a champ, but, uh, it was only a short three hours after that. You climbed away from me in the woods and I was just in cramps city hurting real bad on that last hill climb, man.
Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
I wish we would’ve had a, like a documentary series filming us during that because man, you, you were going and I’m sitting there fueling and looking at my live visibility, knowing that, gosh, we have more than half of this to go. Yep. And, um, but sorry that you got the short end of that stick, but I’m sure you learned from it. And that’s what this is all about.
Adam Pulford (01:09:55):
We got the stick for sure. So to bring some context, we were trying to get this, we had a massive group, we were trying to get them to work together. Uh, but it’s a gravel ride and the road tactics were not being deployed as, as we wished, uh, however, I was like, yeah, I’ll do the work. I’m feeling great. Blood glucose right there. Awesome. All good. But again, go back to my blood glucose. What did I say? Glucose,
Speaker 3 (01:10:20):
Not blood glucose, glucose,
Adam Pulford (01:10:21):
Glucose, glucose was going good. And to my habits, again, my 90 minute lunch rides with lack of volume on the weekends really caught up to me at about hour five. Um, so anyway, I, but I hit peak powers. I was going good. Um, all the things and I would say, uh, you know, thanks to the kind of this visibility. I’ve never had a day like that before. Haven’t had one since again, cause I haven’t done something silly like that, but, um, it was, uh, it was awesome and it was good to ride with Bobby for the majority of the day. So, uh, thanks for bringing that up Bobby. Now everybody knows. Um, I guess the last question I have, uh, it was kind of the future forward of super sapiens. I know you guys have inked some deals with iron man and the UCI has said, no, go for now. Any other kind of, um, little, little nuggets of, of future knowledge that you can share with us on this podcast about where you guys are headed.
Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
I’m going to check this one to Brad because he is, uh, one of the head people on our ambassador team. He’s out there at these events. Um, I have not yet gone to an event because I had to renew my passport and um, just got that back. So I’m ready to go. But I think Brad would be the much better person to answer those more. So the biggest thing is in app is the in-app and it’s, it’s the coaching in app. It’s, it’s the, it’s the insights in app. It’s how we’re collecting this data with the individual and kind of individualizing it and giving them those insights of like, Hey, what’s going on here? Like what, why was the spike happening? You know, how, how did you actually prepare yourself for this activity in the priming? And so it’s really what we’re going to be able to do in app. And then it’s endless on the athletes that we’re going to be able to help improve their goals. And their lifestyles is the biggest integration on kind of insight that we hope to have very soon.
Adam Pulford (01:12:17):
Very cool. Very cool. Well, just to, just to recap, I mean, super sapiens is the human performance company that is showcasing, um, the use of CGM with optimizing fueling for before, which they call prime during which they call perform. And then the recovery window thereafter to set you up for an optimal, uh, training regime over all the years to come. And, um, I, I’m just super excited about this company and I I’ve, I’ve been able to be on sensor in and kind of be a fly in the room to hear some of these bigger brains share their knowledge. And now our listeners, you all have had that opportunity as well. So I think, uh, you know, I think we’ve stirred the pot on, on, you know, what is to come out of this company. I look forward to them getting the FDA certification and being here in the U S uh, guys, we’ll turn it over to you. Anything else you want to add onto this, this episode?
Speaker 3 (01:13:26):
Well, I can talk about science for another couple of hours.
Adam Pulford (01:13:31):
Well, I think, uh, well I would listen to you, but, uh, I know that you probably have other things to do and get on with your day. Cause if, if Eddie’s back he’s in Europe, um, Bobby is, is over in, in Arizona, in Bradbury. Oh, South Carolina, sorry, and Greenville. Okay. So we’re spread out all over the place and um, they were able to,
Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
Obviously Bobby’s in Greenville, Bobby’s in Greenville, I’m in the Midwest. Betty’s in Italy and he’s, but he’s got a precious dog that probably wants to go outside for a walk right now. So
Adam Pulford (01:14:04):
Hold on, I’m checking my blood glucose. Cause clearly I’m lacking or something.
Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
I’m not glucose.
Adam Pulford (01:14:09):
What did I say? Blood
Speaker 3 (01:14:11):
Glucose. It’s a glucose because we’re oh yeah. You’re cranking right now. We’re excited.
Adam Pulford (01:14:20):
Real excited.
Speaker 3 (01:14:22):
Look at that stability. One 14.
Adam Pulford (01:14:25):
Yeah. And Bobby, I’ll be the first one to ask you on a podcast. What’s your glucose.
Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
Ooh, yep. 89. Just chilling, chilling, man. When they had, I had that response, you didn’t have a response. See, I have my own podcast, so it doesn’t really spike me, you know? So I’m kinda used to it. That’s true.
Adam Pulford (01:14:49):
That’s very true. I did a breakfast. I will say that I had a late breakfast. You guys, but yeah. Mr. Podcast, like fatigue resistance there in, in the middle of my screen and YouTube lumberjacks on the side, man, I’m telling you, I got lots to learn. Lots to learn. Well, if there’s, if there’s nothing else, guys, uh, I really, again, I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy days. Thank you. Fed a Bobby, Brad. Um, I’ve learned a lot on this episode and I think our listeners have too, uh, and we look forward to getting everybody in the world on sensors soon.
Speaker 3 (01:15:25):
Love it. Thank you, Adam. Thanks for the opportunity.
Adam Pulford (01:15:28):
Thanks guys.