Art of Prevention
Our mission is to decrease the prevalence of preventable injuries and athletes therein optimizing performance by decreasing the time that our athletes spend benched due to injury. We are going to distill information and practices from experts in the field of injury prevention. High level coaches and top performing athletes. We believe this information should be accessible to everyone so that we can reduce the rates of preventable injuries.
Art of Prevention
Eight Yards to 26.2 miles: Jake Aleck (Part 2) on Endurance Training and Qualifying for the Boston Marathon
When Jake Aleck transitioned from a stronghold in powerlifting to conquering the marathon circuit, he shattered the mold of athletic specialization. Our latest podcast episode features this chiropractor-turned-endurance-athlete, whose whimsical leap into a Triathlon ignited his enduring passion for long-distance running. With a place in the revered Boston Marathon and a heart for community, Jake's narrative is not just about personal triumph but also a blueprint for those daring to redefine their athletic identity.
Embark on a journey that defies conventional wisdom, as we unpack the synergy between strength training and marathon running. Jake dispels the myth that endurance athletes should avoid heavy lifting, advocating for exercises that bolster running efficiency while keeping bulk at bay. His insights on sustainable training, including the merits of time-based workouts and integrated cross-training, offer a wellspring of knowledge for runners aiming to elevate their performance and dodge injuries.
As we wrap, discover how the high-altitude trials of Leadville racing, the nuances of nutrition, and the invigorating effects of cold plunges interplay with an athlete's development. Jake's story is also a testament to the power of community in crafting a successful athletic journey, whether you're a budding runner or an elite competitor. Tune in and be inspired to tackle new challenges head-on, transforming your regimen and possibly, your life.
If you have listened to this podcast for any length of time you know that strength training is crucial for runners. However a major obstacle for many runners is not know what to do once they get to the weight room. This PDF seeks to change that. It will arm you with the tools you need to effectively strength train to get the most out of your runs.
use code PODCAST for a 20% discount at checkout at artofprevention.org/runners
Hello everyone and welcome to yet another episode of the Art of Prevention podcast, and today coming back for part two is Jake Alec, and in the last podcast I recommend everyone start out with part one, or if you're more of an endurance athlete, then starting out with part two will do you just fine. But in part one we discussed controlling the controllables how we can leverage consistency to maximize our performance as well as maximize and reach our genetic potentials to talking more about endurance, running, training and specifically how Jake managed to transition from an athlete that never ran more than eight yards at a time to qualifying for the Boston Marathon and hitting 26.2 at a pretty dang fast pace, especially for somebody with a lot of muscle mass on him still. So, jake, I'm going to let you take it away now and tell us about why you had this drive to become an endurance athlete. I mean, for the longest time you've been putting up huge numbers in the weight room doing CrossFit, just crushing workouts, things like that. What made you want to transition over to running a marathon?
Speaker 2:So it all started in chiropractic school Every clinician can understand this. In PT in Cairo, I mean, shoot any anyone that's gone through the rigors of you know graduate level classes and I had to figure out that I had to like put myself through grueling training to mentally get through school. So I lived downtown at the time I was in Tri-1. I was in the middle of this report that we were writing up and then, right next to the Web page I was on, it said Chicago Triathlon. And I'm like, well, I have never swam for more than like at our lake house, like jumping onto tubes, biking Uh, we do some of that with football training and running. Well, we've just did that, you know, south of a hundred yards, and definitely not quite often. But I'm on the gridiron Right. So I was like, well, let's, let's try that. It's in a, it's in a month. Right, signed up for that.
Speaker 2:And literally the day that I clicked, signed up, my building I lived at had a had an outdoor um flat pool at it. So I was like, okay, I got goggles here, I'm gonna go down there, I'll just give a shot, go down there. And I swim eight, eight, like down, back, two down, back, four down. I do that eight times. So literally eight down backs or down back, four times. Essentially. Essentially I, my heart rate was just like like bouncing and I'm like, okay, all right, let me do my math here. Like how many times do I have to do that in this triathlon? And it was like 67. I'm like, oh my God, and I have 35 days, so I put myself on like I'm swimming every single day and I'm just going to do like intervals and like gradually.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't until like day 29 or 30 where I actually did the 67 nonstop, didn't put my feet on the ground and I just got out of there and I was just like let's go Cause. Like I was like all right, I just you've realized how bad you are at something and what I have to do to get to that point. So, uh, that was like my kickstart into anything endurance like, because you know, prior to that you know five K's for, for charities on the weekends we would, you know, volunteer for. But that got it going. And then I got the endurance bug and just trying to, you know, I did think I did about three triathlons, two Olympic, one sprint and then kind of got into the world half marathons, marathons marathons Amazing and then for some reason that drive kind of pushed you to doing well and you qualified for Boston.
Speaker 2:Have you run Boston yet, or no, so Boston's in just over one month from today. Last year we ran the Virginia beach and week cause. There's a handful of people in town here that were kind of like our runners circle, which I'm just going to put this out here. Runners are their own type of people. Can we agree? Yeah, oh my gosh, we can agree, all right. So that's actually one of my passion of.
Speaker 2:When I opened up my clinic down here, I was like, okay, I understand, like gait, I understand all like the mechanics and everything about running, but I'm never going to get a runner in here unless I show them that I can be one of them. Right, join, join, join the club, right? So when I was like, all right, well, you know, I'll run with a handful of people that I hear that you know do long runs, and I got to know them and they're like hey, we're doing this race, you want to do this race with us? Okay, I'll do this race. And then I started giving myself goals and then the three hour time limit was such like an elite level time that I think it's like less than 3% of marathoners or something crazy that not many people can achieve. So I was like, all right, well, let's make that the goal. So then into my programming world. I said, all right, we're signing up.
Speaker 2:For last it was last March, it was like two days after my birthday. It was the Yingling Shamrock Shuffle, or Yingling Shamrock shuffle or Yingling yeah Shamrock marathon in in Virginia beach. It was like March 20th last year and I just ate. 18 weeks, you know, I've ran, I read a handful of different marathon books, advanced marathoning being one, the Hanson method being two. There's what's? Hal Higdon's programs I've seen a couple of times. So I've kind of like, took all their you know principles that they commonly overlap with and just made my own program and just said, okay, if I, this is the end result, how do we start with that? 18 weeks prior to and I achieved the goal of two hours 59 minutes and 58 seconds. So two seconds short of three hours, with a gnarly, gnarly headwind in the last five miles of the race. Uh, so that that was then, and then now we're training for boston.
Speaker 1:Now did you kick it in at the end, or was it just like let the cards fall where they may? So?
Speaker 2:there was a pacer and by time we got to like the back part of the race where there's a five mile. You get over a bridge and you get five miles on this boardwalk and, uh, the pacer looked at me. He goes like what do you need? I go sub three because he was a pack track that our initial pacer at mile 10 like just couldn't hang and like was gone. At like mile eight I saw this guy and I'm like there's no way this guy is hanging on for 26 miles so he just like drifted. And then just after the half marathon some random guy came in holding the three hour stick and he's like hey guys, what time you guys at? I'm like this dude's our pacer. He doesn't even know what time we're at right now. So by time we're running with all these nine, ten people. They're all chatting. My wife always laughed at it. She was like man, all these guys are talking, like it's walking the park. You're just sitting there, just trucking right behind everyone. And then we go over this back part where there's like pretty much no one can see, and then we go back over the bridge and it's me and this tall guy, the one pacer. It's just him and I and he's like what do we got to get you at? I'm like sub three.
Speaker 2:I looked down at my watch and I saw we had five miles left. If I miles left, if I wasn't at a hundred percent effort for the last five miles, there was zero chance. I was making like I told myself don't look at the watch. I look at the watch. I know that I'm like not at a hundred percent, just go. But the worst part is you know how long five miles can take. Oh my god, yeah, you know. So it's not like, hey, 10 yards 100. It's like no, 28 minutes 100. And I'm like but we, we're able to get it done.
Speaker 1:So that's amazing. And one of the things that to me is incredible because my running career was plagued by injury is that you were able to transition from strength and power athlete to big time endurance training. I mean, you told me just now you're in the thick of Boston training and you ran, you're in the midst of like a 70 mile week or something like that, right, which is pretty. I mean, that's a respectable amount of mileage for one week, with full-time clinic and having a wife and dogs and shit like that to take care of as well.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, Nick, what do you always tell runners that come into your clinic that typically they're not doing in their training or haven't done in their entire life?
Speaker 1:One of the biggest things is strength training you know.
Speaker 2:So that was my foundation for 22 years of life. So automatically there. When people ask me, hey, how many strength days are you doing? I'm automatically going to be a little bit less in frequency of doing that than what they should be doing at zero amount of strength training right.
Speaker 2:Because that's been my base for such a long time. So when it comes into the amount of mileage I can get in right now it's it is a lot, but it's to the sacrifice that I don't need as much strength training as that. I would actually recommend Dave or Donna, if they're in front of me, if there's someone that has gotten none in, because they truly need that balance in order to get through those miles. For me, if I get two strength days in a week, I'm fine with that, because that's just keeping me at that neurological aspect to just maximize what strength I have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm glad that you brought that up, because that's been a real passion project of mine is is convincing, literally like just convincing runners like strength training is going to improve your capacity, it's going to improve your resilience and all of your connective tissues that you're using. It's not going to be a huge detractor from your training and really will just benefit you, especially if it's done right. So what kind of things will you have your runners do in the weight room to improve their capacity so then they're more resilient when they are logging in the miles?
Speaker 2:well we always have the conversation of. I'll ask them and just because I know what people's common answer is, is what, how many rep ranges should you do as a endurance athlete? And they'll be like endurance 15 to 20. I'm going to say where'd you hear that? Right, because again you always take the picture of like, all right, you know, where did you hear that? You know? And you don't want to shame the person because you know they said something that you know.
Speaker 2:Maybe their biggest mentor in the world or you know the textbook they're reading at home says but, like we talked when we last chatted, it's actually the adverse of that.
Speaker 2:We would have to be maybe at a high level eight reps at the highest, but more within that four to six range of just getting hard efforts done on very basic exercises that look like they can be done anywhere anytime. Realistically, even in the sports that I train with here in the high school level, a lot of them are foundational movements of split squatting, normal squats, goblet squats, walking lunges, normal pushing patterns, farmer's carry I mean things that Dan John talks about. You know, this past weekend at partner seminars when we were there, all those foundational movements that just hey, we're going to load you up in a heavy way where you're not many, you're not going to do many reps of it, because we want it to be a true strength training dose to you, not a hypertrophy dose where it's kind of more of that middle of the range. And again coined endurance because, yeah, a lot of blood's going to the muscle when you're doing it 15 or 20 times, but we just need you training in a hard effort.
Speaker 1:I completely agree and the the big irony to me, which I didn't I didn't really know about, is that a lot of runners be, oh, I need to do 12 to 15 repetitions for endurance, right, but the irony there is that's like more like hypertrophy type training. What are runners totally afraid of hypertrophy? And oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get so big, and it's like, yeah, I've now been strength training for a couple of years and let me know what you guys are doing.
Speaker 2:He's still wearing mediums, everybody. He's still wearing mediums.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. The size has not like happened. I mean, I'll tell you this story because it's just so embarrassing. I was doing single leg leg presses in the gym working out with my girlfriend and she's like looking at the weights that I'm putting on, she goes wow, Nick, your legs are a lot stronger than they look.
Speaker 2:I'm like what you know what. To us that's an absolute compliment. But you kind of feel the subtle dig there Like she kind of threw in and twisted it a little bit.
Speaker 1:She's the nicest person in the world. But I was like Caitlin, are you kidding me right now? Like you know that that's like not a nice thing to say to a guy. You know like tell me the opposite, or something he was so honest.
Speaker 2:He was so honest. No, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:But that's one of those things where we can have amazing improvements in strength and for a runner that's going to translate to amazing improvements in running economy and not have huge gains in mass or in weight. So you'll actually feel lighter, You'll run faster. And the translation of running economy, like it doesn't just make your race faster, it makes every single high intensity training effort that you do easier and more effective as well. So I'm just such a huge proponent of strength training and you already had that foundation for strength training. Now, how did you then start the running process? Like, how did you go from you know only strength training to building up your mileage in a consistent fashion, in a way that you did not actually get hurt?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean I got obsessed with that at that point. I was working with more middle-aged folks when it comes into their training aspect of things and we we get into the science and the principles of just repeatability, sustainability, right, and just being able to repeat work day in or week after, week after and just gradually get a little bit better. And in the world of endurance, I mean that's truly that zone two, or I really like Phil Maffetone's work of that 180 minus your age and heart rate number to really find what's that work capacity that you can do, that you can really spend a lot of time in. And just the biggest thing was finding that heart rate zone that essentially that hey, if I wanted to work out for an hour and a half today, or I wanted to work out for 30 minutes today, I want to work out for 45. You can repeat this thing, cause it's at that heart rate, that's that aerobic base number.
Speaker 2:So anytime that would go for a jog on the lake front or I'd go for like cause really, during Cairo school. That's where I got into this stuff and that was my mental, brain, brain escape of studying and just getting out of the, the, the, the weeds of, uh, just doing school stuff. Yeah, so I would just go out and run and especially during the spring summertime it's Chicago is one of the greatest cities for that so I would get out and do that, and then it would always be at that pace. And then people would be like, hey, we got this half marathon coming up. Or one of my uh, my friends and mentors had to sign up for, um, the heavy half in leadville which, uh, you know, in colorado, there, like was an absolute, the hardest thing I've ever done in my life oh, you came out to leadville and ran oh yeah, the heavy half man, that's literally 45 minutes from where I am right now.
Speaker 2:The thing about this is when we were like, oh my gosh, we got to the start line Well, this is even a couple of days beforehand where our Uber um would pick us up and uh, I guess my, my mentor and I were out there and he was uh, I think low fifties at the time, but a super uh, he was a chiropractor and he ran all the time and but he just was there just to kind of do it. He wasn't like a crazy pace guy. And uh, the uber driver was like, oh, like what are you guys out here for? And we're like, oh, the blood bill heavy half. He's like, oh, what's, what's your goal time? And uh, dr rola for aaron said he's like, yeah, I'm gonna try to finish like around four, four hours. He's like no shot, you'll be less than seven.
Speaker 2:We get out of the car. He's like, are you kidding me? Like that guy like what, what did I do to him? Just like to like, just put that shut on me. And then so we're just going through the day. He was just pissing that uber driver the whole day. And then we get to the starting line. You know, we take our pre-race picture. We're walking up there and we just coming from chicago, a nice flat land. We get to the start line and everyone around us has walking sticks and we're like, oh my god, I got.
Speaker 2:This guy might have been right, like these guys are prepared to actually like climb up this thing and we're looking at each other like, oh boy, I mean the steepness of how steep that that trail was, I mean it was. I couldn't. There was times I wanted to stop, so bad. But I just knew it was a point to point race. So I was like I just have to see that guy start passing me down and it took I don't know. I don't know what my time was, but I remember when I crossed they said I was the first person from the Midwest to finish, which they kind of took it as a compliment because flat land versus, you know, training in altitude and steepness up there. So but yeah, that so small stuff like that that we just signed up with, and it was just really to get my head off the school, because, whether it's seminars and signing up for races and going somewhere doing that, that just allowed you to chuck through that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean honestly Leadville, that's a different ball game even from the altitude of like Denver. Um, because the there it's a's a non-linear relationship with the decrease in the partial pressure of oxygen, so like it's literally like an exponential decline in your ability to consume oxygen. That, coupled with all of that crazy terrain that's very characteristic of Leadville races, really adds a lot of challenge to those kinds of races.
Speaker 2:So the day before the race we were like, well, we got to, we got to get ourselves used to this, so let's just take a CrossFit class. Oh, my God, no, we took a CrossFit workout just to say, all right, let's get our lungs used to it. I mean, it was just, it was just so funny like the way we did this and you know. But in the end you look back and see all the photos and videos are like it was just worth it, you know yeah, and what has that build-up looked like?
Speaker 1:are there some lessons that you've learned with your training and running programs, specifically over time, throughout this process of running multiple half marathons, a couple of marathons now, and now you're training for the big one being boston?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think the biggest thing is find your starting dose right. Everyone says I'm not a runner, or running is too hard, or running is miserable I mean, I couldn't tell you how many people come in here and a clinic basis for, like, hey, this orthopedic or this PT or this chiro told me I should never run, it's not healthy for me or my knees just can't take it. I'm like one, I take a, I take a breath and I'm like all right, you know, we'll go see and see how you move and see how everything happens. But more often than not they just didn't have someone they can talk to to get them going to at approachable pace, right? So for me, I'll have people do intervals through their yin yang all the way through until they get to a point where they, hey, now I can put together, you know, running for six minutes at a time. You know I'll have them do 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, and repeat that eight, 10, 16, 20 times. Okay, now we're going to build a 45, 45. So like that one-to-one ratio of walk to jog and then that gradually gets them to all right, let's learn about heart rate, like.
Speaker 2:I encourage people to get these running watches anytime we can.
Speaker 2:Because when you learn and I just love the method of 180 minus your age and just never letting your heart rate get higher than that, or if someone is kind of you know, you know doesn't want to do the technology right, I just have them do the nose only breathing, hey, you're going to only breathe through your nose at that pace and typically if they're, if they're a nuanced, newer runner, that will keep them underneath that heart rate and it just slows them down.
Speaker 2:You know, keep people slow down and I always give them runs for the amount of time, not distance. Because when you give people a run of time, now it's whether I run my hardest or run very easy. I'm running for 30 minutes, versus if you give someone a five mile distance, now of course their last mile they're going to be like screw this, I want to get this done with. There goes the intensity. Now my my right heels were bugging me because I was the first time I ran that fast and you know however many months. So when you give people time as their dosage, that gives them just a much better ability to slow down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and your body has no idea what a freaking mile is. You know, like your body knows time on feet and that, coupled with intensity Like that's the true measure of a volume of a run is the amount of time that it takes, and then you've also got the measure of intensity, and then you've got other factors to account for as well. But I think, going with time so many runners get super OCD with I've got to run this many miles per week and things like that and it's like those measures are just not the most important things that we need to look at. We need to look at time on your feet, we need to look at intensity, whether that be the pace that you're running or your heart rate staying within that zone or staying within your predetermined intensity, and then we need to go from there. I think that's yeah.
Speaker 2:About this, like so when I have someone that says, hey, my first, I want to train for a marathon, and if it's someone that it's a little bit of a stretch for them with what their time is, what you know they have available to, and they'll say, well, how do you think I should start? And I'll go okay, debbie, you know you want to run a marathon and you know, four months, I go. What's your goal? Time? Cause I've always think like someone should have some sort of a goal to attain, because that's how every good program is made is, hey, what's a perceived goal? And you know, gradually, make your way there. And she'll say, all right, I want to run it in just under five hours, I go, okay.
Speaker 2:So your first week of training is, for two days out of the week, be on your feet for five straight hours. And she's like what? I'm like just stand, be on your feet for five straight hours. She's like what do you mean? That's like super easy, I go. You don't understand. In four months you're going to want to run for five straight hours. When's the last time you've been standing on your feet for five straight hours as a desk or however you know? And she's like, honestly, it's been a while I go, that's why it's training. You know what I mean. Just be on your feet for five straight hours and you'll let me know how sore you are, you know. So when you strip it back to that level and you just say, okay, this is where you're starting, and people are like, oh my God, I got my two days in, I did my five, okay, great, now this is how you're going to compound that. And then people are super surprised where they're at months and weeks going forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that keys into something that we talked about in the part one is keying into consistency. It's not what you can do today, debbie. We can go out and we can thrash you and then you'll feel terrible and then never want to speak to me again If I give you this hard workout that you think you need to do today. We need to start with something that's manageable. Oh, you want to run for five hours? Can you just stand up and walk around for five hours? That's such a big thing is we need to bridge the gap between where you are right this second and today to running that five hour marathon. That's such a crucial component and something that I wish I had.
Speaker 1:You know, like when I started college, I had these huge goals right, being all American, be on the you know which. I never got any of those, by the way, and you know I would just start out with like, oh well, I just need to hang with these guys in their workouts and I would just absolutely obliterate myself in training, and then, when race day would come around on the weekend, I would get crushed because I was just spilling out all of my motivation, all my physiological capacity in the week leading up to the races and then I get to the races and I'm just gassed, you know yeah, um, and a lot of that point.
Speaker 2:That exact, exact point is like, if I look down on my marathon week right now, literally two of the workouts I kind of get queasy about out of the six yeah, like two of the ones are like man, like it's that's gonna be brutal, but the four other ones it's just like I gotta run for an hour at like an easy pace, like it's not scary at all in the workout. You know so a lot of times when people are like, yeah, I'm just gonna run until it starts hurting, it's just like well that if you do that, keep doing that, eventually your whole day's gonna hurt, right because of your heel, knee or whatever heck it is. So I think to what you've figured out as, as years gone on, it's like getting the, the small doses in that allows you to build that base up. So now, all right, I do. I do want to train for something that's worthwhile. Well, now you actually have something to go off of, versus this up and down, up and down, and then you had no net gain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one thing I'm curious about with you is do you utilize cross-training tactics for your training right now, or is it all just running and then a little bit of strength training?
Speaker 2:So I always utilize the tools that with my day. That just makes me the best way to get training in. So right now I have both a Peloton bike at home and I have a treadmill at home. So on my days that. So I made a six day per week running program, with one day being off. I'll have one of my easy run days. I think I have four of those easier days in there.
Speaker 2:I'll either just run on those days or I'll do a bike instead. For that A lot of times that run would take, just because I know my heart rate will be at an equal pace for that or perceived effort. So I'll use the PowerZone Endurance Program on Peloton which is kind of based off of your training level and that's we'll keep me at that same dosage but just a different, you know, muscular feel. And then when I do my strength training it's legit a strength lift. And then during my time of two to three minutes in between I'll hop on my air bike that I got.
Speaker 2:So I got one of those rogue echo bikes and then I'll just maintain a nose only breathing pace during my, my, my recovery Cause. Then now my heart's moving but I'm not like just sitting there and doing nothing like a power lifter, but yet I can still go back into my, my heavy weight set and repeat a good um strength effort. So I've found, like that's been my, my happy medium of keeping cross training a thing, but yet not like saying I'm going to follow this program 100%. It's just. This is what my, my, my system allows me to do best.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. So you're combining your strength training with your aerobic cross training kind of feels right. I think that's great and I think a lot of runners will really love that, because they'll go and think that they wasted their day. With strength training, where you can combine those workouts, it's going to be more efficient as well as more effective and getting blood flow to that musculature, helping clear out all of those metabolites from the harder workouts that you're doing, so that then you can be more ready for the subsequent hard workouts later that week or the next day, et cetera.
Speaker 2:The biggest thing that I would say is put that pace to it, like so it's gotta be. If I'm going to do an air bike like my, my control is nose only breathing, like I'm not literally staring at my heart rate and saying I want to keep it at a certain rate. I'm just like can I keep it at my nose, only breathing, and I'll use my rower as that as to?
Speaker 1:or and I don't typically use my treadmill in between strength lifts.
Speaker 2:I'll just do a non-impact rower or air bike and it's again for that two to three minutes, because that's our ideal time time range for you know, strength to recover and repeat another high effort set.
Speaker 1:How did your nutrition change, getting into more endurance type? I know that you're really big in your nutrition and you also give a lot of your clients a ton of nutritional advice to enhance their performance. So how did that change for you?
Speaker 2:which ends up being like a six, 29, um minute per mile pace. I know that my heart rate is going to be high at that and with the higher heart rate, um, training and performance that I'm gonna have to do at that end result like carbohydrates, is your fuel source for high output training, right? Or high intense training? So, um, that's why CrossFitters typically on on on, uh, on a diet style like they're going to eat more carbs, because a lot of times they're CrossFit workouts are a little bit higher intense, you know. So for me, with running, I'm eating.
Speaker 2:I don't track it right now, just because I've tracked for so long in my life that I can look at a plate of food and be like that's 30 grams of protein, that's, you know, 200 grams of carbs.
Speaker 2:Like in college my buddies would actually like put bets on all right, how close can I get to a calorie amount when they would track it on their apps and uh, so I'm like right now I'd say we're on 450 to probably 475, 500 grams of carbs per day, uh, on a training day.
Speaker 2:And then my fats are pretty, pretty lower in numbers because, as carbohydrate allotment goes higher, I want to keep my fats relatively, um, relatively tame and I try to shoot for half of my body weight in grams for that. So right now I weigh about 168. So half of that in in in grams of fat and then my body weight and protein per day. So calorically again you could do those numbers. You know, sometimes if I go out to eat and I and I'm having a little bit more bread at the table, I mean that number may be a little bit higher, but roughly it's a lot of carbs throughout, many meals throughout the day, and that's just what I have felt I can get the most out of myself training. And then I have, like these, gatorade powder drinks all day, throughout the day, because it gives me 20 grams at a time when I do it.
Speaker 1:And then I go to bed and I can repeat my workout put the next day. So I hope Brett and Taylor don't listen to this and hear that you're eating bread or anything like that, cause I know.
Speaker 2:Carbosis. Me and Brett always text each other. I'll send them a meal and I'll just go carbosis. But you know, the best thing about them too, is like they understand. Like what's the goal? You know what I mean. Like, yeah, if I had an autoimmune problem to, to gluten and stuff, like I would be shoveling a bunch of rice down my throat. But I don't have that problem and my wife makes fun of me all the time. I actually she's jealous Cause I have like a steel steel stomach where nothing really gives me issues. So I can really eat anything and as long as it's giving me the performance benefit, like I'll have it. You know? Um, so right now, for the next five weeks, I all food. All food is fuel right now.
Speaker 1:Uh, until that race is over, yeah, and for those of you who don't know, uh, brett Winchester and Taylor Primer, they have their own podcast, gestalt education, where if you're a clinician and you don't know about that podcast, you need to know about it. Uh, yesterday. So definitely read, look at, look at that stuff. But they're buddies of ours and they're they're awesome guys. So we always like to give them a hard time about carbosis and things like that. Low hanging fruit for that. Yeah, so you're at 70 miles a week. Still train strength training once a week. What are some of the other factors that you that are really helping you? I know you're a big fan of cold plunges, which that's been a little bit controversial with the amount of muscular gains that you can get in terms of hypertrophy with cold plunges, but I know you're a believer and you do it every single morning. How has that changed your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah the biggest thing is, I'd say, sleep, has been number one which we talked about at last podcast is just prioritizing the amount of hours you can get, and that starts with ending your night sooner. That's the hardest part is ending the night sooner and then just waking up early. I always get my training in early in the morning because once my day gets going clinically and coaching wise, like it's just, it's just not going to happen later in the day, so I'll knock that out early. And then, when it comes into my recovery tactics, cold plunge has been huge. Luckily, I've had one at the house for the last handful of years and it's just been something that I haven't married myself to.
Speaker 2:The pre-workout plunge yet, or the post-workout plunge yet, like for me, I really like to finish a run.
Speaker 2:Be done with it, get in the cold plunge, do that shower, get on with my day, because, again, I love the cold plunge for not only the recovery aspect but the brain aspect.
Speaker 2:It puts me at a high, higher than I normally am, which people say is already too high, and when I keep going it's just like it just allows me to just to keep the crazy schedule that I have at a normal amount for me. So, um, that's why I like the whole research of, yeah, blunt hypertrophy. It's like, unless your goal is to stand on stage and, you know, compete for money as your bodybuilder physique, um it, it makes me feel better mentally and it may not make someone feel better mentally. I think those are the people that just haven't tried it or are just married to. Oh, I don't like the positives of cold plunging, but I've never had someone go in mine at my house and get out of it feeling worse than they got in Zero times. Everyone got out of that and they're like dude. I feel incredible, whether you're female, male, whether you're someone that's just got to go to work every day and feel their best, or someone that's competing um at the super bowl.
Speaker 2:Even you know, yeah, coin guy wesley meet, shout out coin guy um and uh, yeah. So that that's, and that's been a project of ours that we're looking into, you know, making it a little bit easier for for athletes in town to utilize one like that. So we may, uh, we may, be knocking on the doors of opening a facility up that has two rooms for two state of the art cold plunges for athletes to use.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and now when I was coming up in the running circles and stuff like that, we would do lower body submersion, but you're doing full body submersion in the cold plunge, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, I'm going, I'm going right up to the neck here and at our you good, yeah, yeah, sorry, no good, so, um, yeah, so when I do mine, I go right up to the neck with it, and then the one at my house is like just big enough where if I dunk my head underneath it like there's a chance that water would go over. So I typically don't do the dunk deal, but, uh, these bigger ones that are available, totally I what. I would recommend that, if someone got in, do the full dunk underneath it, get your face in there, cause there's a whole mammalian I don't know what you're in the name but a mammalian reflex response that people get when the cold reaches their face. And there's another benefit to it. I just think it feels better too, cause then now, when you're totally underneath it and then get back out, you kind of like warm yourself up because your face was under and now it's out.
Speaker 2:Uh, the worst part's over, essentially, um, but yeah, I, it's. It's been incredible. So two, two to three minutes is essentially how I hit it at.
Speaker 2:We go all the way to 40 degrees, with ours.
Speaker 1:Um, my wife does it too and she, she loves it as well. That's amazing, yeah. And then, yeah, we got, we covered the cold plunge. We covered sleep, any other supplement, supplemental stuff. That's changed. Are you still taking creatine and stuff too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so creatine I still take daily. Vitamin D I still take, and then with. So since my like nutrition has been so dialed in, usually I'll I'll be a omega three guy that I'll I'll take through, um, so through pills, but now I just use the cod liver oil, um, just through like a quick shooter in the morning and um, I'll just do that before, before my easy runs, because there's some, you know people in the ketogenic world that say if you kind of have more of a fattier food source in the morning, then your body will trigger that to use as more as your energy source in those easy runs. So since I'm running at more of that aerobic pace again cats out of the bag if that actually works or not, but I just have that for my easy runs and then maybe I'm using more fat oxidation, which should help me again not burn through so many carbs once race day comes.
Speaker 1:I think for runners, two things that runners will overlook are creatine supplementation as well as protein supplementation. So every runner knows that they need to get more carbohydrates, unless they're in that ketogenic crowd, which that could be a whole other thing, ketogenic crowd, which that can be a whole nother, you know, a whole nother thing. But really runners are tearing up a lot of tissues as far as they're inducing a lot of muscular damage with these sustained efforts, whether that be your tempo runs or your long runs. That is muscular damage that's occurring, and we have to have protein intake commensurate to the amount of muscular damage that we're doing. So runners really need to focus a lot, and one thing that I didn't focus on when I was a runner was getting large amounts of protein commensurate to the amount of muscular damage that we're inducing with our workouts. So I love that you hit on protein. And then creatine also.
Speaker 1:There are way more cells in our body that uptake and utilize creatine than a lot of people think, from our neural system all the way down to there are some studies now looking at the utilization and introduction of creatine to bone cells. So the last words that a runner wants to hear in an office like yours or mine is, you may have a stress fracture and one your creatine and creatine stores within your muscles are going to enhance your strength training gains. So they're going to enhance the effectiveness of your strength training and there is some literature that may suggest that bone cells themselves are responsive to creatine and can actually induce osteoblastic activity to lay down more bone mineral, which to me is like, yeah, like doing this, more, more.
Speaker 2:No brainers to take it, I mean, you know what I mean. So we talked about how, whether you're an athlete or a normal everyday person, you should be supplementing with it and that's just more, more, more fruits of the bag there, right and to to to your point. When you said about the the, the carbohydrate and protein amount like realistically, carbohydrate and protein are anabolic, both of them together Like they're both anabolic and we're trying to put tissue back onto our frame or repair tissue. If you're a runner who's constantly breaking down tissue, the first anabolic thing is to say are you eating enough carbohydrate? And that's why, before I even say like words, like that, I'll just say give me your, give me your normal day for you. And you can just hear through someone's normal day. If they have two meals a day and one of them's fruit snacks and the rest is like dinner, okay, they're wildly low on both of them. If one of them is their high school student and they wake up, they have pop tarts and then at lunch they have the school lunch and then after school they don't have anything and then they practice and they have their mom's dinner before they go to bed and then they have a couple of ice cream, you know, dessert before they go to bed too. All right, they definitely have carbohydrate done. Is it the right sources? No, but they have plenty of those. But there's zero protein in this diet.
Speaker 2:I mean I had a conversation with a softball athlete that she was in the midst of tryouts and she was getting a bunch of reps in when it comes into the cages before tryouts to be her best for tryouts, and her shoulder was darn near like it moved well, joint wise, the tissue.
Speaker 2:There was no trigger points, like everything was rocking and rolling. It was her lead shoulder every time that she would swing and I'm like, all right, let's listen to the nutrition side of things. I mean she probably got 25 at most grams of protein in a day and I'm like, hold on, okay, this is what we're going to build up. I mean she was probably weighed 140 pounds and I said we got to get closer to this higher amount. And when we checked in with her, I mean she actually my shoulder's totally fine, like 100% fine, and it's like all right, you know, so that's why, like, you can do all the fun stuff like man, I'm the soft tissue guy, I'm the KT tape guy. I'm the mobility guy and you can put anyone into that basket when you're like something, something ain't right here. Let's ask the right questions and then boom, hit it. You um, as any sort of athlete, having that protein allotment and carbohydrate amount, I think is crucial.
Speaker 1:Gosh, yeah, and you know I I ended the last episode saying I wish I'd had Jake Alec in my corner when I was in high school, just telling me this kind of stuff. And luckily, now you know we have this platform that we can hopefully shout from the rooftops like, hey, we need to be looking at all these other factors, not just your training load, because you need to just trust your coach with giving you the right amount of training load, but you need to be doing all of these other things, such as getting your sleep, focusing on your sleep, focusing on your macronutrients carbohydrates as well as fats and especially protein and then, if you're doing well with those, look at the quality of your meals, the quality of those macronutrients, and then maybe thinking about supplementation on top of that Only if we've got these basics covered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, create the team right. Like everyone should have a team around them. Like, even if I look at my phone, like I have my guys that I reach out to, that when it comes into my business device that I need to just reach out to, and when something hits the fan, like all right, what do I do? I have my, my buddies that whenever I need a good laugh out of like I reach out to. Like everyone has their own team of like things that they need.
Speaker 2:But when you're a growing athlete, and especially in grade school, high school, like it's it's not up to the parents, but it kind of is. It's like, how can I get you know, my, my, my young adult into the right hands where they can teach not only them but the entire family? Cause, like I talked about earlier, it takes a community, it takes truly a household in order to maximize, you know, any growing athletes development and what's mom and dad you know buying at the grocery store. You know, if you're working with someone who's uh, you know, into nutrition, like the parents should be there at that meeting listening to what they the, that their, their son or daughter should be eating, because they're the one buying it and then they're the one grabbing stuff on the way home. If they're.
Speaker 2:You know it doesn't give us any good for me to tell someone, hey, you have to have, you know, this type of type of food, but then after every practice, mom's stopping at McDonald's to grab you know. Hey, what does everyone want? You know it doesn't work that way. So the best team environment that you can have and then for us, always networking with other coaches and trying to fill in the gaps anywhere that we can help, to say, hey, you know, we know you've got the programming stuff down.
Speaker 2:We know you know the sport really well. Anything that we can help with the strength and conditioning side of things, or how to maximize your mobility, post-training, pre-training, like something where we can just fill those gaps and that they may not know about, let us help. You know. And I think that's where the best teams are formed and that allows the entire community to rise. Because, like you asked earlier, what does it take for our high school to reach? You know, basketball is really good, football is really good, track's really good, like there's so many sports here that are unbelievable for a public school, and it truly takes the community to have all those different aspects.
Speaker 1:That allows everyone to thrive. Awesome, Jake. Now where can people reach out or follow you for some mobility tips or see how your training is going, or reach out to you for some consulting work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so clinically and more like the professional side, it's all at AlecPTP and that's the name of my clinic's, alec Pain to Performance. So that's going to be on Instagram there, or you can just straight up email me at jake Alec painted performancecom. Um, but everything that I do personally is going to be on my personal page of at Dr Dr Jake Alec. Um, you're going to see pictures of our dogs. You're going to see pictures of my wife. You see pictures of me running, cold plunging, just doing all the things. You're going to see a bunch of athletes, you know PR and their lifts and doing things. But like it's just like my POV, I call it when it comes to my personal page. So, in general, though, you reach out to me on Instagram. That's probably the best, because, whether it's a message or an email, I'm on both of those consistently.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So from eight yards to 26.2 miles, getting ready for Boston, doing so injury free. How could we distill this whole conversation? We've talked about so many different things, from going from strength training to nutrition, to supplementation, to types of training, programming, etc. If you had to give us an ounce of prevention, what would you say to athletes, coaches and providers for these endurance athletes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to say look, look at yourself, and I'm going to quote David Goggins here do the hard thing right. There's someone out there that's really, really, really good at getting their workouts in. There's someone out there that's really good at eating the right things but are awful at managing their sleep. There's someone that's really good at eating the right things but are awful at managing their sleep. There's someone that's really good at managing their sleep but, you know, just can't put together, you know stretching for a little bit before they go to bed. So, whatever your hard part is like we we talked about a lot of things that you know, whether it's all these different pillars that you know makes into a good runner, whether it's strength training, mileage, you know sleep or nutrition, whatever is hard to you. Take what we said and say how can I implement that today? And then continue to repeat it, right? So I'm not going to say that there's one big thing that I would tell myself as a as a growing athlete, but I would say, whatever my hardest thing that I wasn't doing or it's just a little bit resistant for me to do, I'm going to pick that one, because when you pick the hard thing, you're arguably getting way better because you're doing something that you're the least good at. Right Again, the example of David Goggins gave when he was out there he goes. Running isn't the hard thing for me it was initially, but I do it so often now. That's not hard. He goes. I read books now because I'm not the smartest person in the room and that's my hard thing.
Speaker 2:And for me, when we got the cold plunge I mean the cold plunge, I hated cold. When I was in college I was the guy that didn't last too long. When we did the cold therapy right after two days. And when I visited all these different colleges and all these colleges are creating their hot tubs into cold plunges now because they're just noticing the benefits that these athletes are getting and I just did the cold shower approach for a couple months and I was like holy cow, this is, it's miserable, but I want to get the benefit from it. And that was my hard. And then now, as I continue to repeat that the Boston training is my hard because it's miserable, every time I do this in these weeks and you know, once that training's done, I'll find something else to be hard to keep getting better each year at a time.
Speaker 1:Not only better as an athlete, but also as a person too. Right, right, better than before.
Speaker 2:That's, that's our name of the clinic, so we hope to keep that down, no matter what way we can.
Speaker 1:Amazing, jake. Well, we're definitely going to have you on for some more part threes or whatever your next hard thing is. We're going to learn how you tackled that as well, and thank you so much for donating this time to the art of prevention and to all my listeners here, and I really really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Thanks for having me, man, and whatever your hard thing is tomorrow Nick Hedges, maybe it's hitting on a 12 when you're playing blackjack, as Vegas would call us out for would do the hard thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hip mobility, that's my hard thing.
Speaker 2:There we go. Plenty of pages online. You can see that to get some pointers oh yeah, all right, buddy.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll be talking soon, ok, thanks, man. I hope that you enjoyed this episode of the Art of Prevention podcast. If you did enjoy and or benefit from some of the information in this podcast, please be sure to like, subscribe and share this podcast, or please give us a five-star review on any platform that you find podcasts. Our review on any platform that you find podcasts. One thing to note that this podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only. No patient is formed and if you are having any difficulty, pain, discomfort, etc. With any of the movements or ideas described within this podcast, please seek the help of a qualified and board-certified medical professional, such as your medical doctor or a sports chiropractor, physical therapist, etc.