Mike Graffeo 🇺🇸

@JonathanWosen @statnews @jaspar If you’d like to do a follow-up on these impacts, I’d suggest looking at how this has affected the PhD application process in the life sciences and psychology. Positions dramatically reduced, students looking at multiple years before they can get a position. It’s a disaster

One of many, many jarring statistics from our @statnews survey of NIH-funded researchers: Among scientists who'd sought outside money to fill funding gaps, 63% said they didn't get enough support to sustain their work. Chart by @jaspar

@bbculp Yeah, the price point on the Evo SL makes it insane

@michaelgraffeo Megablast pretty neat too but I paid $99 for these not $225

Wish I could go back and tell my 20-year-old self—who was running in Newtons—that everything will be OK and these shoe designers will figure it out.

@feelthebyrn1 Bought my first power meter in 2009. Learned that I was a dumbass on the bike. Took lots of practice to be slightly less dumb. I can blow myself up on the bike way too easily, and won’t have a felt sense of overdoing it until it’s far too late. I think we need to be taught RPE

@michaelgraffeo Works great if you have HRmax of 200 Bek's not far off It's the norm to grossly underestimate intensity in the lab with short intervals - new environment, we're excited...

Energy and Exercise I've been writing about this a lot since the start of the year. Here's a snapshot from Bek's recent bike test from Elias' lab in Helsinki Don't get wrapped up in the exact numbers - it's the concept I want to get across Have a look at the step that result in low 140s bpm (horizontal axis). At that point, you see Bek's total energy burn is 647 kcal per hour (vertical axis). At the next step, Bek's total burn increases to 732 kcal/hr - that's an increase of 85 kcal per hour, ~13% However, his fatox shuts down so his carb burn increases by more than 200 kcal per hour, ~44% For the technically minded, his lactate went from 2.6 to 3.9 mmol. This slight increase in burn/effort results in the exercise becoming far more costly - this effort will strongly stimulate appetite I have good friends who do a lot of training 3-4 mmol and wonder why they don't make progress on body composition. This is part of what's going on. For Bek, the increased effort does not feel taxing. It's ~40 beats below max and, initially, feels like the top of Zone 2. Bek scored it 11 on the Borg Scale (which goes up to 20).

@BStulberg When are we going to stop glorifying Nike? They marketed Kara to women while docking her pay for being pregnant. They market their support for para athletes while making them pay for two shoes. They’ve still never apologized for supporting Alberto. They’re horrible.

You’re never out until you’re out. Sometimes you just have to keep pushing. What an extraordinary story: Nathan Martin came from way behind to win the Los Angeles Marathon by a single stride. He’s 36 years old. He’s an amateur runner whose full time job is substitute teacher. Martin trailed from the start. Kenya's Michael Kamau pulled away at Mile 10 and held a lead of more than a minute for most of the race. Martin just kept pushing. In the final mile, he closed the gap. In the final stride, he won. After the race, Martin said: "You can't always win but you can always push. I always challenge myself to push regardless of whether there's somebody to chase or I'm all by myself because I want to know I finished giving everything that I had." Martin doesn't have a Nike contract or a full-time training setup. He's a substitute teacher and high school cross-country coach in Jackson, Michigan. He just showed up and did the work. He loved the sport and the process of training and making progress. "Never give up. Never assume what you're supposed to be good at. Always test yourself,” he says. Sometimes you win the race simply because you kept showing up. Because you put yourself in a position to win over and over again and eventually the chips fell your way. What’s true in running is true in life. As I write in "The Way of Excellence," the things you work on also work on you. What you learn in your craft—discipline, resilience, consistency, composure, playing the long game—carries into everything else you do.

@worldtriathlon 5E is looking pretty fascinating!

It’s a 10 hour flight 💺 #Triathlon

@Alan_Couzens Being able to roll out of bed and be on a bike, treadmill, or lifting in minutes has been an enormous boost to my consistency and my enjoyment of it all. Add a projector and 100” screen for Zwift to go to the next level. Can’t recommend enough.

This 👇 Nothing would get me back to the inconvenient, unhygienic, crowded, posey "look at me" BS of your regular commercial gym. No better investment in your long-term health & fitness than building out your home gym. 💪

@stevemagness I once ran a 5k in jeans because the parking lot for the Planche des Belles Filles was 5k from the race course, and I didn’t want to miss the GC contenders. 14 years later, I still think about the chafing.

The only time I've ever worked out in jeans: When I was injured and my high school coach decided that aqua jogging (w/ no float) in the water with jeans would be a better workout... Take that for what it's worth... I did run a 4:21 mile as a freshman off that training though

In the past few days, I've had people get offended that I... -said a 2:46 marathon wasn't elite but a serious amateur. -called 9+ minute pace jogging. -recommended that people don't need to carry a water bottle on shorter runs. Social media makes us hyper reactive to everything.

@Hybridathlete It feels important to say that there’s nothing wrong with carrying water for a 20 min run. The “you don’t need to” advice is intended to make life easier. If someone wants to carry 70oz for a 20’ run, good on them, go do you, no judgement, no gatekeeping

It appears that explaining that most people, in most condidtions, don't need to carry water with them when running for short durations is now considered "gatekeeping."

@TobiTheRunner @stevemagness Remind me, how have your athletes fared against Steve’s?

@michaelgraffeo @stevemagness You're a bloody joke. If that were the case, only accomplished coaches would coach in any sport in the world. Imagine Pep Guardiola would not have been fit to coach Lionel Messi. Weak logic.

Please don't advise without appropriate context. Imagine running 60 minutes without fluid in 30 degrees Celsius and 92% humidity.

@stevemagness @TobiTheRunner Oh the audacity of a coach with a 22:30 5k pr talking to Steve Magness as if he doesn’t know how to coach. Maybe just google Steve’s background if you don’t know what he’s accomplished both as an athlete and a coach.

@TobiTheRunner That would be called just about every summer run in Houston Tx during my entire life... Even then, you're find if hydrated going in. But I also trust people to understand context. Thus, why I said "most"

@Brady_H Twitter is an excellent venue to get people all spun up arguing about whether their map is the right map, forgetting that they’re all talking about the same territory.

Apparently the big thing on X today was the “debunk” of VO2 max as a longevity metric. Unfortunately, the arguments are flimsy. Point #1: Most studies showing a beneficial association w/ mortality are measuring cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) using metabolic equivalent of task (MET) units, *not* objectively measuring oxygen uptake. This is true. But guess what? Do you know what a MET is? It’s equivalent to 3.5 ml/kg/min oxygen consumption. So take someone’s maximal CRF x 3.5 and you derive (albeit an estimate) of their maximal oxygen consumption. A max CRF test is a VO2 max test without gas exchange data. You’re still measuring maximal aerobic function, and those MET values were derived from somewhere (using gas exchange, most likely). There are also more than a few studies showing higher *objectively* measured VO2 max correlates with lower ACM, among other outcomes. But I digress… Point #2: VO2 max from wearables is not accurate, people should stop obsessing about it, and nobody needs a VO2 max test. Au contraire. The fact that most people are using their (inaccurate) wearable device-estimated fitness level actually strengthens the assertion that it’s probably a good idea to GO GET YOUR VO2 MAX MEASURED IN A LAB! If your maximal CRF/VO2 max is valuable to know (it is, providing risk stratification and, as we’ve seen, predicting ACM risk), then getting an accurate lab-grade assessment for $150 might just one of the best health investments you can make. That actually costs *less* than your smartwatch and takes ~15 minutes. Point #3: (What they don’t discuss) This is equally important for “longevity” but not often discussed in this debate on whether VO2 max is useful. We know that there is a fitness level (maximal oxygen consumption) below which activities of daily living become hard or impossible—it’s about 15 ml/kg/min of oxygen consumption. If you near that frailty threshold, you lose functional independence. We also know generally how fit you want to be at age [X] if you want to perform activity [Y]. And most of us want to DO stuff into old age, not just exist. So if you know that you want to be able to perform an activity requiring 30 ml/kg/min of O2 at age 60, you damn well better have a VO2 max higher than that. And the only way to know that—and to tell if you’re on the right path—is to measure your oxygen consumption. … I do NOT think a laboratory VO2 max test is necessary for everyone. But it’s accessible to many, relatively inexpensive, and valuable if you’re truly invested in health and fitness. I see so many people using their watch-derived VO2 max, which is generally next to useless other than (maybe) identifying trends. I find this whole “let’s debunk aerobic fitness” thing kind of odd. Particularly because the data are generally strong and nobody is *really* benefitting from propagating fitness as a longevity metric (ok, yeah, I wrote a book about it once, but…) And does anyone really believe being aerobically fitter (to a point) will NOT likely improve lifespan or health span to some degree? I find that hard to believe.

@stevemagness @RejectSocialism I said rarely, not never. And you’re right, Mondo is a great example. I think his spending half his year each year there, dating a local, and making the effort to learn the language all makes it feel less like he was bought and more like he made a choice. But that’s vibes

@michaelgraffeo @RejectSocialism Have you ever heard of the most dominant athlete on the planet right now out of any sport? Mondo

Eileen Gu just won 3 medals (1 gold, 2 silvers) in skiing. She also ran cross-country in high school. Her PRs: 5k- 19:18 1600- 5:31

@stevemagness @RejectSocialism Rarely would those other athletes have been our best if they’d stayed

I’m going to be honest. I don’t understand the internet rage over her nationality. Sure China sucks. But in track, we have so many folks who grew up in the US, are citizens and represent all sorts of countries all over the world, from countries in South America to Africa to Asia and everything in between. Sometimes it’s for money, sometimes it’s an easier path. But seldom are they demonized. It’s just part of the sport.

@SteAssent Define difficult, and this whole nonsense argument goes away. Each side currently has a different definition. Arguing about the map, not the territory.

Currently engaged in, "a 4 hour marathon is harder than a 3 hour marathon" chat. Tldr, it isn't. It shouldn't need explaining why it isn't. This is shitting on anyone's times, it's a physiological fact. Ask a 3 hour marathoner to run one in 4 hours, piece of piss. Ask a 4 hour marathon to run one in 3, impossible.

@SteAssent Wow, that’s an awesome resource, thanks for sharing. The point on ADHD and magnesium glycinate has me rethinking a lot…

docs.google.com/document/d/1sc… The updated doc that I use with athletes and teach to other coaches. Also will help with your anxiety/depression and overall well being.

@StephenSeiler Well that is unexpected!

Perhaps I need to use that fancy foam roller I bought years ago more regularly than once a blue moon..... Chronic Self-Myofascial Release in Road Cyclists: Effects on Cardiorespiratory Capacity, Metabolism, and Mechanical Power mdpi.com/3728994

@BuffOriginStory Real Bills fans would know not to criticize Super Bowl performances after losing one 52-17. The Bills lost to the Patriots this season, and would have had to play the AFC championship game in Foxborough. And the Bills O line would have looked just as bad against the Seahawks.

The Worst Super Bowl in NFL History