E19 | Dr. Marc Bubbs: Performance Strategies for Nutrition, Sleep, & Stress

[0:00:01 Speaker 0] Welcome to the Team Behind the Team podcast. I’m your host, Don? T May. This is the monthly show focused on building conversations around the team based model approach to ethics, performance, strength and conditioning, sports medicine, sports science, mental health and wellness and sports nutrition. Hello and welcome back to the Team Behind the Team podcast. I’m your host, Don? T Maybe and we have got a super awesome episode for you today, but before we get to today’s guest, I’ve got my trusty co host in the house today. Coach Mike Henson. How are you doing? Coach Hansen?

[0:00:42 Speaker 2] I’m doing great. Uh currently we’re recording this in like February’s, we have some winter sports and conference play and it’s kind of an exciting time here around the 40 acres.

[0:00:52 Speaker 0] That’s right. And we just came out of Snowmageddon here in Austin and we all survived that, That was interesting. And uh so we are back to normal temperatures here, so glad that’s happening. So we made it through it uh attention. If you’ll do the honor of introducing R. S. We’ll get right into the show. So go ahead, introduce our special guest today.

[0:01:10 Speaker 2] Yeah, absolutely. Um so joining us today is dr Mark Bugs, who is currently a consultant performance nutritionist for Canada basketball and alter. He’s the author of the relatively new book coming on about two years here in a few months, the book peak, which I’m sure will reference here in a bit. He hosts his own podcast, the performance nutrition podcast, and has worn many hats as an author, speaker, sport, dietician strength coach and more. Without further ado, I’ll pass the mic back to coach made and we can kick up our dialogue dr Mark bubs

[0:01:45 Speaker 0] dr Mark bob’s welcome to the show. How are you doing today? I’m

[0:01:48 Speaker 1] doing well, I’m doing well if you like. The Snowmageddon was you know, you guys know him from Canada. So very topical with getting the weather. How did you guys enjoy that little deep freeze?

[0:01:58 Speaker 0] We uh we Texans don’t fare well

[0:02:00 Speaker 1] in not really prepared for it, right? It’s not really prepared for it.

[0:02:05 Speaker 0] Well you I think my daughter worked at when the stories here at H E B. The stories that grocery stores completely just empty from everybody buying everything. So you thought it was the end of the world? It’s funny.

[0:02:18 Speaker 1] Yeah. Well, I guess I guess you guys know it’s always gonna warm up in texas so you got to just ride it out right?

[0:02:23 Speaker 0] Alright, alright. It turned the corner quick and and thank the good Lord. It did. So we’re good now, but super excited to have you on the show. We appreciate your time today.

[0:02:30 Speaker 1] Yeah, Donny Michael. We appreciate you guys had me on

[0:02:33 Speaker 0] who. I’ll kick us off. in. The first question I have is doctor bulbs. Can you share insight into where you are professionally kind of your your path, how you got there and in any current projects, maybe you’re you’re working on kind of those three things kind of where you’re at professionally, how you got there and anything you’re doing now currently that that should be willing to share.

[0:02:56 Speaker 1] Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, I’m a performance nutritionist. They work as the performance nutrition lead for Canada basketball. So our our Olympic team, but all the way down to our our 13 year olds are cadets. And so we we build out programs for the young athletes all the way up to the senior team. And I also consult so I consulting with different sports and you know, supporting about a dozen plus individual athletes for Tokyo coming up here. Hopefully fingers crossed in 2021. And of course uh you know consult with team sport athletes as well. And I also work in general population, you know helping people lose weight improve their blood sugars, that type of thing. And you know, for me over the years having kind of a lens of trying to support health and athlete health is is really one of the deeper philosophies for me because it’s been an area where we see now in sport, you know just keeping athletes healthy, keeping them available to play, preventing them from getting run down and sick and tired um is actually a performance enhancer. And so That’s been sort of the angle in which you know, maybe 10 years ago I started to do more and more work with athletes and with team Canada and and you know in team sports I mean just just keeping guys and gals healthy enough to be to be able to practice and to be able to play in every game is a big deal, especially today with all the load management and everything else and so yeah that’s kind of the lens that I come from and of course you know um using a food first approach to nutrition but also when we’re dealing with elite athletes that targeted supplementation where we need it and again just keeping those athletes as healthy as you can.

[0:04:36 Speaker 0] That’s good stuff. Anything anything you’re working on right now.

[0:04:40 Speaker 1] Yeah I mean now it’s consulting with the you know we got some individual players throughout the NBA season and then the lead up to Tokyo’s this obviously pretty full on with a lot of track and field athletes are getting them ready to go and actually just finishing up the next book which is a smaller, you know, it’s a shorter version of, of peak. Um and so yeah, so those are the those are the projects that are keeping me busy at the moment.

[0:05:06 Speaker 0] Awesome thank you.

[0:05:07 Speaker 2] I think it’s that that lens of kind of like you’re saying where you wear many hats and you come, you work with athletes, you work on, you know, whether it’s sport related, health related et cetera. I think that’s why we were so eager to host you because you highlight facets of performance that can be shrugged off by quite a few people. Yet there are a critical piece to the performance puzzle if you will. Um So in your book peak, you right? Um quite a bit about recovery and the recovery hierarchy using penfolds recovery pyramid to illustrate that. And you have a great quote in that book saying, recovery tools and strategies are great, but you’re putting the cart before the horse if your recovery emphasis is focused on strategies, um which is an awesome quote by the way, But could you illustrate pimples recovery pyramid for our listeners and then expand on the principles of that?

[0:05:59 Speaker 1] 100%. Yeah. I mean, Lachlan Penfold is a tremendous coach and performance lead from Australia. Um the national rugby League, one of their big teams, I think it’s a Melbourne Tigers are called. There were perennial favorites and and winners and you know, he spent a lot of time there and he actually came over to the US for a little while and worked for Golden State Warriors in the NBA. And uh you know, just being able to talk to him. It was interesting to see some of the things that resonate when we talk about athlete recovery Because this idea and we see it now in the last 10 years of research around, you know, sleep science has exploded in the last decade. You know, even nutrition, I mean, 20 years ago. Mhm. There wasn’t a lot of thought around nutrition. I mean, teams didn’t have sport dietitians or performance nutritionists. It was a very different environment. And so this whole recovery piece and interesting to see things through Laughlin lens as well of of sleep obviously being fundamental to recovery because if we don’t sleep enough, it’s just such an uphill battle to be able to recover effectively and the other pieces of that, the bottom of that pyramid, if you will being nutrition one, but also mental emotional stress being another one. And I think that’s one that we don’t inherently think of all the time. And I think it’s a big one for young athletes, like high school athletes, collegiate athletes, it’s big for adults or professional athletes as well. But at that age, I mean we we know that there’s heavy demands from athletic standpoint, especially schools like the university of texas, but then all those other demands and that athletes life, all the other things that are going on, that actually adds into that whole training load if you will. And so I think that’s where some of the art of the practice comes, because as coaches, you guys have got to be able to sort of tease out and feel out how that athletes doing. You know, are they having to stay up late to be able to to study for a test or an exam? Are they coping well um with their new, you know, if you’re a freshman and so all those things start to matter. And I think that’s where, you know, we see that part of the practice, whether it’s coaching from an SNC standpoint or performance nutritionist or dietitian, that we can actually make some real tangible gains of it if we try to keep our finger on the pulse of those three buckets, their nutrition sleep and that mental emotional stress.

[0:08:19 Speaker 2] Absolutely. Um and I think we want to try to tap into each of those three buckets today, we can kind of start with nutrition, but just with a broad question again, you can kind of take it where you want, but how do athletes, diets, whether there is sufficient or not directly affect their performance and are their athletes who are more affected by a poor diet than others?

[0:08:43 Speaker 1] Yeah, I think when you’re younger you can get away with things and things aren’t as obvious and then, which makes it more challenging for the high school coach of the collegiate coach because you know, there’s more of a buffer if you will, although, you know, you’re still going to be impacted. I think one of the big things when we talk about just, I mean recovery of course, but even just adaptation to training is being able to achieve enough energy in the diet. And one of the things that we tend to see and don’t get me wrong, I mean, protein intake isn’t tremendously important. Um and it’s definitely one of those things you want to establish in athletes, but once we get, like if it’s a team sport athlete, let’s say there’s a lot of acceleration and deceleration and the amount of Energy required to even go through a two hour basketball, soccer, football practice, you know, is so high that if we’re consuming More like 1.6 g per kilogram bodyweight of protein, it’s really the sweet spot at that point, because we want you to be in a caloric excess. But because the messaging and I find this one more with them with mail, collegiate or younger athletes and female. But I can go both ways. Is that heavy emphasis on protein. And now once we start pushing protein up higher, we can start to feel more satiated, more full. And now all of a sudden we’re not eating as many calories in the meal. Right? And so I think we’ve got to make sure that, you know, if we’re after adaptations, if we have to recovery, you know, the biggest signal, if you will, and we talk about signal to noise in the book, but like the biggest signal is total energy intake. And so we’ve got to make sure that that’s that that’s being accounted for. And, you know, it’s tough with student athletes, right, They’re busy, they’re here and they’re all day long. And so I think for coaches it’s always good to be checking in and seeing, you know, is your athlete getting to breakfast every day? Are they having that snack mid morning? Is the lunch always on point? Like, just that meal frequency is a big one for me, because if we can keep athletes eating in that certain pattern all the time, whether it’s 567 meals a day, it gets harder to knock it off calories in, you know what I mean? Like if you’re missing snacks are missing meals, that caloric drop gets pretty steep pretty quick

[0:10:59 Speaker 2] for sure. Um you you kind of mentioned like young versus old, male versus female um what are like some of the differences in what may be a recommended diet and again, there’s a ton of variables to this, but say for an endurance athlete versus a more power, explosive athlete.

[0:11:18 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean, I think the macronutrients swing the pendulum swings the most on is going to be carbohydrates because, you know, depending on the sport or the demands of the session or the Or what you’re trying to achieve in that session, you might only have a gram per kilo of carbohydrate or two g per kilo Um, for the day, even on the lower end, maybe three. But then you get into an endurance athlete, you know, you’re getting into 789 10 g per kilogram of carbohydrate, which is a massive amount. And so, you know, it does become really important to, you know, to know who you’re dealing with and to know what level they’re at because sometimes you see this more recreational, what we tend to fuel recreational elite endurance athletes a bit too much like their professional and it’s easy to over fuel, right? If we put too many simple sugars into the system, you know, blood sugars start climbing um you know, quite a bit as we’re exercising and then we’re gonna hit that, you know, we’re gonna bonk effectively, right? We’re gonna have that real steep decline and glucose levels, we’re gonna get hypoglycemic and it’s just gonna be, you know, exercising through mud really. And so that’s kind of a key one as well when we can sometimes the messaging can get a little too, I don’t know if myopic is kind of a better word, but like we’re so focused on making sure we hit a certain number of carbs per day that we’re not using again our eyes or ears to be able to see how the athletes experiencing that. You know, are they having energy highs and lows? Do they feel really tired after meals? Because we do need to still personalize it because there is such a big window there for the carbs

[0:12:59 Speaker 2] for sure. Um you mentioned this a little bit earlier, but you were talking about availability and how important that is and there’s that kind of timeless adage in sport where the best ability is availability. Yeah. So from a nutritional lens or diet lens, how does nutrition play a role again, whether it’s immunity or again, we talked about caloric excess, like how does nutrition play a role in having athletes feel fresh and stay healthy?

[0:13:27 Speaker 1] I mean it’s it’s fundamental and it’s you know, if we continue on the conversation from carbohydrates, it’s like if we don’t get enough carbohydrate in the diet, then immune function will start to be impacted. We’ll start to be more prone to colds and flues and those colds and flues might last a little bit longer than they normally would. And this can become challenging for a lot of not even just young athletes but professional athletes as well. Is that if you hear a lot of things in the media and social media and your friends around just being lean or the diets that help people to get leaner. You know, athletes are humans too and this is where we realize that they’re you know, they’re susceptible to the same sort of um some of the desires of wanting to lean out or get leaner or c abs or whatever it might be. And now all of a sudden they start changing their diet. And so if we start reducing carbohydrate we can start then being impacting immune function. So we’ll be more susceptible and protein of course plays a role there as well. And so again, if we want to, if we do want to be athlete health first, if you want to really drive that, then making sure that those key pillars are accounted for, right, you know, that your athletes achieving the daily total of protein that you want, and they’re dividing that through the day. And similarly with the carbohydrates were, we’ve got an amount, we’re trying to achieve, we’re dividing that through the day, and we might be including more simple sugars right before, during or right after exercise to be able to kind of get up to the amounts if we have a football player or somebody needs a lot of calories, But but those things do become, you know, pretty important. And, you know, this is where these loops start to interconnect, and you know, if you don’t sleep enough. And this was a hallmark study done by Sheldon Cohen in the, in the early 90s, you know, they actually inoculated the subjects with uh, cold virus. And if you got less than seven hours of sleep, then you’re actually three times more likely to get sick, right? If you’ve got less than six hours of sleep, you were 4.5 times more likely. And so, you know, when we think of the reality sometimes of a student athlete, you know, days can be long, there’s a lot of demands. There’s this, all the studying and the tests. And so, you know, that gets back into this whole, if we’re looking at that recovery pyramid that we talked about, Penfolds pyramid, we think, well, my athlete might be missing meals. So now we’re not getting enough carbohydrate or protein. Perhaps our athletes not sleeping enough. So now we’re going to have an impact on immunity and all those things tie into potentially more mental emotional stress because we’re, you know, it’s end of season, it’s exams and so, you know, again, just kind of talking to your athlete that little conversation that you have, that five minutes during the warm up, that’s more casual, or the little breaks in between can be pretty important because you’re gonna tease in a lot of information on kind of what’s going on in that athletes life. And I think that’s where we can then, because sometimes in those one to ones with the nutritionist, you know, athletes are so wired to perform, they don’t want to necessarily let in or let out that there not eating at a certain time or missing a certain meal, but when they’re at the athletic therapist table, when they’re getting massage, when they’re with the S. And C. It’s a bit more relaxed environment and now all of a sudden sometimes we pick up on things that we might not have. And so I think that’s where you know when you have a good cohesive team you can all communicate together and and that’s where you can sometimes just put the you know put the warning light on the dashboard there and say okay we need to have a conversation with so and so athlete because I think that they’re not getting enough sleep and anything that opens the door so that we can start to tease out some of those potential problems before they actually become you know real problems.

[0:17:13 Speaker 0] It’s good stuff. Doctor dr brooks appreciate you sharing that. I had a question here. This one’s a little bit more probably pertinent to college athletics. We do deal with this. But with social media it seems like there, well, I suppose kind of experts everywhere now and it can be tough for athletes and coaches to decipher what’s fallacy and what’s really fact. So question for you is how can athletes and coaches? No, if the information they’re getting is sound?

[0:17:43 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean that’s a tough one, right? It’s uh, it’s a real challenge. And that was one of the themes of when I wrote peak was around just like all these elite coaches and performers in the book are all the ones that don’t have a lot of followers on instagram because they’re too busy working performance. And so that’s not to say that there aren’t lots with high numbers of followers, but you know, it does make it tricky, right? Like how do we, and and even more so for the athletes, because it’s easy to get down some of the rabbit holes around just again, sort of physique or what things might look like. Um and so I think it starts with just building relationships, right? Like even in, in a medical situation, a doctor’s visit, you know, and I give some talks for GPS and dogs, it’s like, you know, why is that client or patient taking advice from their sister or brother or girlfriend or whoever and not the expert or the person they’re coming to, Right? And when you think about it, because they have a relationship with them, there’s a level of trust. And so I think that’s what we need to build out and I’m sure you guys do a great job, you know, university of texas, but it’s like as we build out this relationship and we build the trust with the athletes, then there’s that comfort level to know that. All right. I know Donnie’s always got my back. I know coach Hansen’s always going to be giving me the best advice. So I’ve got a question about caffeine or this supplement or that stuff, I’m going to go, going to go right by them, right? I think ultimately that’s that we’ve got to build that trust so that athletes will want to bring things internally too to the collection of experts that you have versus, you know, kind of going off on their own and, you know, to be fair, but that’s a challenge not only collegiate sport, but professional sport as well. If there’s not that kind of trust and cohesion, it’s very easy for athletes who then say, well, I’m going to follow this or this because I feel it’s best and now it could be problematic, right? Because it might not actually be an evidence based strategy and I mean, could be open ourselves up to problems down the road.

[0:19:44 Speaker 0] Yeah, I think just to kind of a little deeper on that, like we I know I’ve ran into this, you know, with different athletes um wanting to do just like vegan only, but be high performers. You know, we’ve I’ve seen with the athletes that they won’t eat, they won’t eat proteins, you know, or basically, and they, you know, you try to you try to work with an athlete like that and then they’re always injured or dealing with some kind of chronic inflammation or injury. You know, how how would you, you know, how would you those hard situations document how have you kind of navigated and worked with maybe an athlete that’s not as open?

[0:20:24 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean that’s that’s a really good one. And that’s, you know what diets become popular. Um you know, it gets challenging or a certain documentary comes out and everybody’s on board. Um And so, you know with that, I think A study just came out showing that if we do get to that 1.6 g per kilogram per day of protein, we can get a lot, we can almost offset any of the differences between animal and vegetable protein. That study was done in novice athletes, you know, like just collegiate students. So whether that transfer is totally to elite athletes, this is, you know, there’s probably a little bit of unknown there. But I think the biggest thing is to come back to your principles. So that’s what I mean by, you know, is your athlete achieving x amount of protein. Are they achieving X amount of carbohydrate? Um because that’s those are the things that will start to shift typically with more of a plant based approach. We do see proteins start to come down a little bit and, you know, we do get a little bit more concerned with any athlete that needs to have that struggles with lower iron status. So, if you think of some of the female athletes, then we’ve got a really be proactive with figuring out how we’re gonna address that. Because, you know, even iron supplementation is very slow and very, you know, oftentimes doesn’t work, it’s ineffective that really moving that iron status. So I think again, it’s it’s it’s almost like putting it back on the athlete. Like rather than I think sometimes we defer to trying to like, once we have this moment of a little bit of conflict, we almost want to explain, you know, to the to the athlete why they should do we want to appeal to the rational part of the brain and, you know, our performance, uh, Mental performance coach at Canada basketball. You know, he’s quick to point out that, you know, humans don’t make decisions based off of rationality. I mean, 90 of the decisions we make are based off of emotion, whether we realize it or not. And so I think we need to sort of flip it on its head and maybe just put it back on the athlete to say, hey, that’s interesting. You’re following so such and such a diet. Like can you tell me a bit more about, you know, why you’re doing that or how it’s helping you? Because once we know why someone’s doing it, then it’s easier for us to over the weeks and maybe, you know, hopefully days or weeks to sort of unpack things and maybe show them that there’s a, an additional strategy we need to add because they’re doing X diet, you know what I mean? Rather than if we lose, if we break that that relationship off the bat by being bit too adversarial, um, it’s tough and of course the better relationship you have with your athlete, the more you can be really straightforward if you think it is a really bad strategy, but if it’s a newer athlete or whatnot, you know, you’ve got to, you’ve got a tiptoe around that conversation little bit.

[0:23:09 Speaker 0] That’s a good point. I think you’re definitely the most that I’ve seen that the emotional piece with an athlete because it makes them feel good. At least they believe it makes them feel better. Uh, it’s kind of sometimes irrational. That’s definitely true.

[0:23:24 Speaker 1] Oh yeah, the belief and especially around, like if they see another athlete or professional athletes doing it, then the belief is really high, right? They have this big, big belief and that’s where yeah, you just got to take your time and kind of work around the argument versus coming out ahead on because otherwise, yeah, it can be tough

[0:23:41 Speaker 0] without had a one more question and then Micah Take the next one. But it’s not uncommon in ethics for females to kind of lose their menstrual cycle.

[0:23:53 Speaker 1] Right?

[0:23:53 Speaker 0] What impact does that have? Both on their health and their performance? Again, just talking about females and I worked with females and, and occasionally you’ll see that. So what would be your kind of thoughts on that? Doctor Bubs?

[0:24:08 Speaker 1] That’s a really interesting area. Um and as a dad with three daughters, it’s a, it’s an area, I mean, I work with, you know, even olympic female athletes, but it’s interesting, you know, the research in that area, let’s even say 10 years ago, 20 years ago, it was just common commonly thought that if you’re an elite, let’s say, even endurance athlete, you’re gonna lose your menstrual cycle if you’re female. And over the years we see more and more research I’m done specifically in women and um and dr Susan Kleiner is a great resource for this. She’s uh you know, works in a sport dietician and very, very well known. Um you know, she points out a lot of research now that we see showing that if you maintain menses, you actually perform better and if we get back to this idea of athlete health, right? Well, we know that a regular menstrual cycle is reflective of typically a better overall health. And so for a female athlete, it’s almost, you know, even brighter warning light on the dashboard of your car, letting you know that something’s off, right. It’s the training, is that the training load? Is that the nutrition is that the sleep like there? If you’re you have an irregular menses or your your missing periods, then that’s the that’s the starting point for the conversation around. Okay, let’s go back to the nutrition and see if we’re getting everything we need. Are we getting enough protein? Are we getting enough? Total energy, Which typically is the one that gets sacrifice because sometimes these sports athletes need to be lean as well, right? And there can be a fear of carbohydrate intake, you know, these days and maintaining leanness. And and this is where again, like appealing to different sides. But if we think about elite physique, competitors who are female, you know, the leanest of the lien, they’re consuming, you know, 3.5, 2, 4 g of carbohydrates per kilogram bodyweight. So there’s a lot of carbohydrate, right? Um and then we have these elite athletes who are whether it’s track and field or soccer or whatever else, and they’re consuming two g per kilo per day. And again, a lot of that’s just infiltrated beliefs from people around them and people in general population, if they are overweight than adopting a lower carb diets, not a bad strategy, right? But it’s that context piece that’s so key, right? If like, as soon as you change the context and you go from general population overweight to elite female athletes, you know, the solutions are going to be different. And so, you know, another example of just being able to kind of layer in nudge up the caloric intake, whether it’s, you know, putting more rice or pasta to just get the density of the carbs up, um whether it’s throwing in a bit more another meal or snack. But those are some of the things you want to think about, because if you do have an athlete that’s um you know, the menstrual cycles being interrupted, then that’s a signal to to start to explore all those other areas.

[0:27:07 Speaker 0] Thank you, sir. Thank you doc.

[0:27:10 Speaker 2] No, that that was awesome. Doctor Doctor Bubs. Um one thing you had said a few minutes back was you talked about kind of the importance of establishing trust and that seems like a common theme, whether we’re interviewing people with kind of uh sports diet, dietetics, hat, strength conditioning, sports psychology, etcetera. Is that trust is kind of that bridge that connects the athlete to coach. It’s, it’s seemingly like a way that you can kind of combat that fallacy that’s appealing to a celebrity or a documentary or whatever the latest diet that is. So I just thought it was awesome that you brought that up because again, it seems like a recurring theme that if you want to get buying from anyone or have influence um with them, you have to establish that trust.

[0:27:56 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean it’s a really good point and it’s still today. I mean classically, if we talk about nutrition standpoint, like, you know, the nutritionist or sport dietician is going to see an athlete kind of once a month and or once every so many weeks and it’s going to be in an appointment style setting. Um and it’s really hard to build trust that way because it’s a very sort of medicalized type visit. Whereas when you look at the interactions when an athlete with the strength coach and athlete on the training table and athletes, you know, getting taped up. Those are very different interactions. And so, you know, when I’m with Canada basketball, trying to do as much work as I can in those other places, rather than having to feel like it’s a sit down athletes across the table for me and it’s, you know, those obviously happened, but it’s amazing how we can tease out so much great information by just being in the essence, being in the gym, being around the training table and then, you know, even as a practitioner, you can layer in that one piece of information. You know, I think sometimes we always feel all their athletes, let’s give them eight things to do. Well, you know, at the end of the month will be doing eight things poorly or not at all, right? Like let’s give them one thing to do, let’s do that. Well let’s ingrain it, make it a habit and then it’s taken care of that athletes going to do that for the rest of the season and then we can move on. You know, if we have that kind of longer term look and just, you know, and I think this is where sometimes the SNC had help because you have your annual plan and already you’re looking really long term, whereas I think, you know, sometimes with nutrition we can get a little bit too acute Rather than saying, Hey, I got 8, 9, 10 months, what do I want to layer in over that time?

[0:29:32 Speaker 2] Sure. Kind of more of like a proactive approach versus reactive

[0:29:36 Speaker 1] 100%

[0:29:38 Speaker 2] yeah. Uh and then shifting gears here a little bit is we had kind of talked about here, especially at the collegiate level, is that athletes, it seems like they are, most of them struggle with sleep, right? And sleep is um it’s one of those things where I think in your book, you had quoted someone saying it’s not negotiable, like that’s how important and crucial sleep is to performance. And it seems like there’s an infinite number of, of detriment, insufficient sleep. Um, even wrote that there’s virtually no area of health and escape by lack of sleep. So could you speak more to that as far as um kind of how insufficient sleep influences our health and performance and maybe specific, um, outcomes that happen when we do um lacks sleep, I guess.

[0:30:24 Speaker 1] Yeah, it’s a really interesting one because, you know, today we’re getting into this situation where we are, we’ll tell you a recent study came out of collegiate athletes, collegiate students rather, and the terms called noma phobia, which is basically if you don’t have your phone near you, you feel anxiety. And they said, Okay, well, how many, what percentage of the student population experienced this in the evening if they’re about to go to bed and they don’t have their phone and it was, you know, 80-90%. Uh huh. And so we’ve ingrained now, you know, we’re used to having this device if you’re, you know, of a certain age. And so it’s like, okay, now, how are we going to do this? Because we know that taking the phone away is good to get rid of the blue light, the stimulation and everything else. But if it’s triggering this level of anxiety, that’s that’s causing an even greater response, well that’s even worse, right? So which direction to be going? And we know to your point, I mean, You know, we’ve been walking around upright for 200,000 years and we haven’t evolved out of the need to sleep. And it’s been the same, you know, throughout evolution um as best the sleep experts can tell us. And so we do need that at least seven hours. And for athletes, you know, experts like dr Sherry ma who you know you mentioned there about that sleeps a non negotiable um you know, we’re looking for eight hours and that’s not easy to get in one shot all the time. Um So things like little naps can be helpful, right? You know, if you’re an early riser then you nap for half an hour more towards between one and two p.m. And if you’re a or 2 30 if you’re a late riser then you can nap between 2 30 or four and trying not to nap past four o’clock. Typically the recommendation but So adding to your total sleep time is going to be key for recovery and key for performance. Because we see on both metrics that it helps you run faster, helps him better three um accuracy, better. First of accuracy. I mean all the metrics that we see um but that piece around the evening is one that you can is the one we got to start to unpack. Like how do we how do we then say okay you can use your phone in the evening but at this time we’re gonna put it away in a half hour before bed and we’re gonna do some light stretching or we’re going to you know watch a show on the tv and not your laptop. You know these types of things that we can start to again just create these patterns that we get used to rather than unfortunately the pattern that we see which is basically, you know, athletes in bed scrolling through their phone um you know, which is which is setting the wrong the wrong pattern and unfortunately, you know, impairs sleep quality and recovery

[0:33:02 Speaker 2] for sure. And even even kind of adding to that is like I like I know it’s tough when athletes have practices that are scheduled early or I even have a few athletes who have pretty late um tutoring sessions, you know, it’s for me, I’ve found that it’s more of trying to educate them on a number of different strategies that could seemingly help them and then kind of seeing which strategies they gravitate towards or kind of which ones work for them specifically. And then from there we kind of move forward trying to move that needle that you were talking about just a little bit.

[0:33:38 Speaker 1] Yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, I guess in the summer in texas when it’s 120 degrees, it might not seem like the best, uh, you know, a hot shower, hot bath when you finish that off in the evening, you come out and then you start to rapidly cool and that triggers, you know, melatonin and some of these sleep pathways and so, you know, from a behavior standpoint, that can tend to be sort of an easy one to throw in there because it’s not, you know, it’s enjoyable, it’s it’s not too arduous to do and it’s it’s going to elicit some of the benefits that we’re looking for. So, yeah, to your point, anything that we can start to just nudge people towards that will build out the habits that we’re looking for, because it’s weird to think that from a performance standpoint, if all you did was just improve sleep from 6.5 to 8 hours in your athletes. I mean, you know, that’s a pretty powerful, pretty powerful increase

[0:34:27 Speaker 2] for sure. Um, does that, does that change as far as again, we talked about kind of some sleep strategies there when you throw in traveling for, for athletes of any age.

[0:34:39 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean, traveling is, you know, depending on how far you’re going, if you’re going east or west, um you know, it’s always easier to adapt when we’re going west and tougher when we’re going east, but, you know, getting into these patterns and so, you know, if you do land somewhere new, you want to try to get outside and get exposure to light in the morning to help set those circadian rhythms when you eat your breakfast and when you exercise in the morning all helps. And if you’re a caffeine or coffee drinker or tea drinker, then that also helps to to set that new normal. Um I guess the challenge for a lot of college athletes are not there for very long. So, you know, that’s a question for the performance staff of whether we want them to even adapt to the new, The new time zone. Um so I think one of the things is if you do have a good sleep routine, so again, whether it’s 30 minutes before bed or an hour before bed, just a nice little series of things that you do. You know, you put your phone away, maybe you do some light stretching, maybe you read and then you go to bed or maybe there’s this, you know, stretching and then shower and then some some sequence that you do that starts to prepare your body and eventually your brain gets the signal, you know, like Pavlov’s dog. Okay. When these sequence of events happens, we end up in bed and it’s it’s time to decompress. Then the nice part is is just doing those initial sequences, just doing the light stretching, starting to read, going in the showers, you’re already the body is then getting that cue that okay, it’s time to it’s time to wind down. And so when you’re traveling and that can be really helpful because you’re using those same cues to to send those signals.

[0:36:16 Speaker 0] Dr bubs. I had a question. Have you ever used any sleep technology just on monitoring that? Is that if you ever use that and find any benefit from it?

[0:36:24 Speaker 1] Yeah, we have used different ones. I mean, we used a lot of the aura ring over the last few years, um and, you know, various other tools. It’s one of those things where I think we’ve got to be a little bit mindful, even particularly with younger athletes because you know, it can induce problems as well as solve problems and so, you know, if someone’s going to get a bit of anxiety because their sleep score isn’t the greatest, then we’ve got to be mindful of how we’re judging that. And so I think that’s where maybe there’s value and objective metrics and certain athletes, but I think there’s still a lot of value asleep with just subjective like what time are you in bed? Do you fall asleep quickly? Once you fall asleep? Do you stay asleep all night or do you wake up for the night? And you know, when you wake up, you wake up refreshed, you know, just just knowing that, like, can you fall asleep, told you stay asleep through the night and when you wake up, how do you feel that gives you some pretty good information to go by and you know, I’m sure we collegiate athletes, it’s always like, how do I feel, I feel tired, right? But trying to gauge that level of tiredness and, And that’s when you can start to make some of those connections to the athlete, right? Like that energy drinks are having at three. p.m. to be up for training. Well, maybe that’s not the best idea. Or maybe, you know, maybe we only use that on game days or certain things that we’re trying to because otherwise, you know, now that’s why the, but athlete might be a little bit edgy or you know, I can’t fall asleep, that type of thing

[0:37:58 Speaker 0] since Yeah, it’s uh funny you said something there. I know I’ve definitely witnesses, but yeah, data collection, especially if our athletes see it, that can definitely cause anxiety or even just psychologically mess with them in their heads. So you gotta be careful for sure.

[0:38:15 Speaker 1] Yeah, because we feel like we’re being assessed right? And I think when you’re elite athlete, you’re always used to wanting to perform well and you’re used to performing well. And so I think that can be, you know, it’s it’s an interesting one. Um because I know that, you know, when you show an athlete, you know, the research they’ve done, where you show an athlete they recovered probably they run slower even though it’s not true. You know, you’re fibbing the data and that they’ve shown that they recovered great, then they run faster. So we really got to be be careful of how we’re communicating and yeah, why we’re collecting certain pieces of data, like what is it helping us to solve?

[0:38:48 Speaker 0] I’m gonna shift gears again a little bit right here topic. So just thinking and talking about stress management here athletes, especially in the collegiate level, um they have stressors all around them between training and school, the relationships, social pressure. Um What would you recommend to coaches and athletes regarding how to monitor and relieved uh excess or uh unwanted stress?

[0:39:19 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean it’s a great question because it’s like technology opens us up to more stressors because we’re we don’t escape the social pressures, right if the athletes always on their phone. Um but at the same time the phones, how they communicate with friends and that’s how they get a few laughs and that type of thing. So finding the right balance there is really key. Um I think an easy one is just getting out in nature a little bit more, which can sound kind of cheesy, but it’s like just being around trees, being around grass, go by, you know, go for a walk and uh the wooded area, get by the water, like all of those things dramatically reduce cortisol levels, reduce stress levels. Um And it’s enjoyable to write. So this is kind of one where for for different athletes and I’ve had, you know, in working with with S and C. Coaches with some of the best athletes in the world, that’s been the suggestions to bring down some of these higher stress loads and they’ve worked pretty well. So I wouldn’t, you know, that’s that’s a really nice one to be able to kind of included. Hey, go for a walk with a friend, go for a, you know, light jog or you know, up this hill or mountain or whatever. Um That’s a really nice way because you’re getting connection to someone you’re getting outdoors and when you’re doing it, typically you’re not on your phone, so you’re hitting three, you know, we’re away from the technology as well. So, you know, those types of things that can help kind of relax, decompress and and get outside of the thinking brain. I think you’re pretty uh can be pretty effective.

[0:40:49 Speaker 0] Yeah, that’s a that’s a good point. I think. Two and during this covid time we’re in obviously, or I think I’ll be able to be out on campus during their all their rooms or, you know, little cubbies indoors and they’re not getting the light exposure and the interaction that you would have just casual from class to class and from building the building. And so that’s something that we’ve noticed. It’s been a challenge to have to manage and find ways to to mitigate some of that. So it’s been it’s been tough.

[0:41:16 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean, you’re dead on. I mean the pandemics really highlighted just how much we need movements. Just daily movement in human connection and being outside because everybody is just feeling more just you know, almost like pressure in the system, right? It’s just we’re all a bit edgier. We’re not it’s not the same and that’s that human contact piece just as you mentioned, that’s getting outside piece. So yeah, it’s a, it’s a challenge.

[0:41:37 Speaker 0] I’ve even, I’ve even noticed personally doctor bulbs that when it’s sunny and I can get outdoors. I just, my moody like improved significantly personally. And I just have noticed that more this this year during the pandemic than ever. So

[0:41:51 Speaker 1] I’ll tell you what Donny, I’m the same. We actually moved down to the coast here. We’re by the water. And I tell you what, like since the pandemic just getting down to the water to see this big expanse, I mean, it’s almost unbelievable how much it just relaxes, just brings everything down a notch and that, that really blew me away because even, you know, you’re reading about the benefits and you do it, but then you really experience something that you think, okay, this is a, this is definitely having a big impact.

[0:42:15 Speaker 0] Good stuff.

[0:42:16 Speaker 2] That’s good to hear is one thing I try to tell our athletes is like on the weekends, when they, when they leave either a Friday or Saturday lift is I’m always yelling at them like go for a walk this weekend. It’s like, you know, get outside, don’t just sit inside of the scroll. Like you kind of spoke to how, if that’s a pretty common thing now nowadays, especially with 18-22 year olds. And then another piece is, is we try to make sure it’s depending on the situation of as to where they’re going next in their daily schedule. But we try to belly breathe for at least a few minutes at the end of every session. And part of that, you know, is all the research on, you know, belly breathing and breath work. But another part is again just relaxing and trying to unplug for a little bit longer. Um kind of like you said, that takes them away from their phones.

[0:43:02 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean that stuff is awesome because if you do it all the time after practices or after lifts, subconsciously the athletes learning it right, and they don’t feel like they’re, you know, it doesn’t feel as, as as intense as learning, you know, in a really formal setting. But now all of a sudden they have that skill set, right? So the fact that you’ve done it after practice after lifting now when they’re at home, they’re more inclined to like yeah, lie down and do some deep breathing or maybe if they go for a walk, Lie down on the grass or under a tree and do the same thing. So I think it’s a great, great tool because even that five or 10 minutes, which might seem really short, you know, it creates that skill set and that individual and now they’ve got those tools.

[0:43:44 Speaker 2] Yeah. And you know, another thing I’ve seen um with regards to unplugging versus thing plugged in is is we are fortunate to work directly underneath with some transparent windows are sports medicine department, but I’ve gone up there and I’ve seen athletes where you know what they’re using norma tech compression pants? I’ve seen athletes, both 12 are essentially falling asleep, which I’m never upset about with our student athletes, but also just continue scrolling, you know, and then that’s where I start to second guess is like are you really getting much recovery and if, you know, maybe physiologically depending on what you’re doing. But psychologically it’s like, I don’t know if you’re necessarily in a parasympathetic state or if you’re just worrying about how many likes you just got.

[0:44:27 Speaker 1] That’s a really good one because I know from team to team in various sports, like performance staffs, there’s kind of like a bit of a split between, hey, let’s just let this guy gal do their thing on their phone and the other groups that are like, no, no, no, let’s we want to keep this time. Like let’s put the phones over there and set that norm and let’s just chat. Let’s just have, you know, whether it’s therapist of the athlete or with, you know, the other athlete or the other table and have some of that, you know, just communication that when I was in university, that’s all you did because you didn’t, you know the phones, the phones weren’t as good then, but now now as you said, otherwise you just, once you get into that phone it’s tough to stuff to lock out for

[0:45:03 Speaker 2] sure. Well we’re getting pretty close to wrapping up here. So we just have a couple of questions left. What are the resources that you would recommend for any coaches or athletes to explore more on fueling? Um for performance and recovery?

[0:45:19 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean, you know, the International Society of Sport nutritionist is a great resource. Um you know, the journal J. SSN is uh all the free papers that you can get to read up on, um you know, great information evidence based on the latest research that’s coming out. So, you know, I think that’s a tremendous resource. I think, you know, podcast more of the podcast that go around now are are great as well. Um because we again, you can get bite size information and in half an hour while you’re on a run or a walk and uh and and coach, if I can throw it in here, we’re starting to launch at athlete evolution courses around performance nutrition. So we’ve got one for performance nutrition for football, and we’ve got some of the best collegiate and NFL performance nutritionist and sport dietician. So we’re trying to contribute to that that whole space where we can get coaches, whether it’s snc um practitioners, coaches, just up skill people, so that, you know, we can to the point we made before, we know what’s evidence based and we know from people who have been boots on the ground where some of the gaps tend to be with athletes.

[0:46:29 Speaker 2] That’s awesome. That’s good. Uh

[0:46:31 Speaker 0] dr bubs just real quick as we kinda close here. I I uh Yeah, $3. You said?

[0:46:38 Speaker 1] I do. Yeah. 7, 4 and two.

[0:46:41 Speaker 0] I got I have four daughters. Minor little

[0:46:44 Speaker 1] look at that,

[0:46:45 Speaker 2] I’ve got

[0:46:45 Speaker 1] okay, one

[0:46:47 Speaker 0] Of the oldest one, she’ll be 20 next week, so I got 2018, 17 in 15,

[0:46:54 Speaker 1] jeez, I might have to call you for some advice in a couple of years, Donnie.

[0:46:57 Speaker 0] So hey, just not, not trying to be too serious, but a little light hearted. Like you’re the nutrition as a dad, how do you navigate that with the ladies? How are you gonna do that doc?

[0:47:08 Speaker 1] That’s a funny one because it’s like, you know, my first, my first daughter, you know, it was like keep her away from sugar. I think her first ice cream was two years old and I still remember her eyes, we’re gonna roll it in the back of her head because it was just like ah this is amazing. Um and my daughter number three is like eat whatever you want, just like just the lack of sleep and everything else. And I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is that these kids are so resilient and so again, it really shows you got to play the long game. I think sometimes with new parents we can get a little bit to delve into exactly what they’re having at this meal for that meal. But like, you know, as long as we get some of the right stuff in, then they need so much fuel anyway and you might be able to hear the background here, but they need so much fuel anyway. That’s not the end of the world. If uh, you know, they’re having this or that as well,

[0:47:54 Speaker 0] that’s great advice. Thanks for sharing it. Uh, last thing really kind of where can our listeners if they want to connect with you or find more content from you? Where should we send them coach?

[0:48:05 Speaker 1] Yeah, if you wanna stay connected, I got a funny last name. So at dr bubs instagram, twitter on social, um if you’re looking for more information around performance nutrition, then, you know, check out athlete evolution dot org. Um and that’s where you’ll find the courses around performance nutrition. Then, you know, my my work website dr bob’s dot com. And so for general health and things like that, you can go there.

[0:48:27 Speaker 0] That’s awesome. We appreciate uh coach and you got any kind of last parting words. Anything else?

[0:48:33 Speaker 2] Uh, no, no daughters for me to speak up. So

[0:48:37 Speaker 1] yeah.

[0:48:38 Speaker 0] Because

[0:48:38 Speaker 1] seven between donor and I think that’s,

[0:48:41 Speaker 2] uh, um, no, I just, we appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day. We know that currently you’re over in London, correct?

[0:48:51 Speaker 1] Yeah,

[0:48:52 Speaker 2] I know it’s probably getting pretty late there, but um, thanks again for joining us. Um, that’s fantastic content and we can’t wait to see kind of the projects that you come out with in the near future,

[0:49:02 Speaker 1] awesome guys, listen, likewise, I appreciate you guys taking the time because I know, you know how much hard work you guys put in and uh, I enjoy keeping tabs on uh, University of texas sports. I’ll be looking forward to see what happens in spring.

[0:49:16 Speaker 0] Yes, sir. And uh, hopefully at some point maybe we connect with you today. Maybe Kobe gets over, we’ll have to try to find a way to get you to Austin person barbecue over here. So

[0:49:27 Speaker 1] yeah, I’ve been to Austin once and then you guys got a pretty nice town there.

[0:49:31 Speaker 0] Yeah, it’s, it’s great. Especially when it’s when Kobe is not going

[0:49:35 Speaker 1] on, you’re exactly right.

[0:49:37 Speaker 0] But uh, well thanks again dr bulbs and it has been a, just a distinct honor and pleasure just to spend some time with you. We, we value you and definitely uh, huge fan of just reading a book right now. I’m going through your book. So we appreciate all your impact you’re making and giving back to us as coaches. We appreciate you.

[0:49:54 Speaker 1] Awesome guys. Thanks so much.

[0:49:57 Speaker 0] Alright, well that’s it for the team Behind the Team podcast. This is dani Mayb coach Mike Hanson and dr Mark bub signing off from Austin, everybody have a great week and we’ll catch you on the next episode. Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this episode of the Team Behind the Team podcast. For future episodes. Go to Itunes, Spotify, google podcast or stitcher. We definitely want to keep having great guests on the show in great content. So if you have a moment, please go to Itunes, leave a rating and review

[0:50:31 Speaker 2] and let us know how we’re doing.

[0:50:33 Speaker 0] I’m Donny Made and thanks so much for tuning in.

[0:50:36 Speaker 1] Mm

[0:50:44 Speaker 2]